nightly feet beat the hard concrete, their desire paths incomplete - SCP Foundation

Absent the sun, capsule hotels are a valuable piece of real estate. Guests don’t miss out on anything when the view through any given porthole is pitch blackness, or for a lucky few, the fleeting flash of the curfew copter searchlight. LED headlights, eat your heart out. The Pillbug Hotel in downtown Neo-Portland had clairvoyant foresight when they installed ultraviolet lights in their ‘rooms’ a few weeks before the Great Switch had been flipped. A little bit of sun in every room and all. Now they were raking in the big bucks. Rebecca Vance had been lucky to scrape together the last of her savings for a week’s worth of sleep time. It was the cheapest option available, had taken all the money she had left, and now there was a week to figure out how to avoid homelessness. No problem here.

At least Rebecca wasn’t the only one forlornly gazing into the abyss. Even punky transfemme computer programmers were struggling to make ends meet. She’d been reconnecting with an old friend from college Ophelia Venturo. Back when the stars were in proper alignment they’d gone to the same college before taking highly divergent life paths. Ophie went into computer science and made enough money to be sitting pretty on California Island. Meanwhile, Rebecca had moved into a world where giant pulsating eyeballs roamed the streets to avoid student debt collectors. So there was a part of her which relished seeing someone who had flown to such highs brought down to her level. But, that wasn’t really something she brought up when they talked.

Staring at her cracked phone screen, Rebecca shifted her weight in the capsule. It was just barely large enough to accommodate her body and the suitcase she used as a combination pillow/dresser/nightstand/emergency flotation device. She spoke in a light whisper, anything heavier would bounce around the ‘room’ making everything else inaudible.

“So are the 2020’s just going to be the most busted decade on record, or do you think there’s anything that can come along to salvage it?”

Rebecca’s phone screen lit up, adjusting its brightness and broadcasting in unison as a faint monotone voice replied “Who the hell knows, Beccs. There’s enough time to make things better. But there is an equal amount of time for more things to go badly. Given that we’ve had a global pandemic, all the rain ran red, and now the sun’s gone missing, we seem to be getting a new-age remix of the old ten plagues of Egypt.”

“I’m just mostly afraid because nothing’s been bad enough to make things really… fall apart. Like, I can still get another job. Most places are more or less still open. They didn’t even make the bus free if you’re going downtown on weekdays. But there’s more shoes that could drop, you know? What’s gonna be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, if knocking out the sun isn’t going to be the coup de grâce?”

“Yeah. Equal time to get better or worse. Using the past as a predictor at this point feels naive.”

Rebecca scoffed. “Unless you’re betting on things somehow getting even worse. You’ll make your money back every time on that one.”

There was a sigh, conjuring the image of the veins on the underside of Ophelia's eyeballs. “If we’re playing oddsmaker bookie bingo, you’d always get the crap odds there. It’s like betting on Serena winning at Wimbledon or the Shackletons losing the Under-World Series.”

Rolling over to her belly, Rebecca leaned her head over her phone to trap it between her ear and shoulder. “Hey. A wise jerk once said, past is fucking prologue. This has to be when the veil finally unravels right? How the hell are they going to keep people from noticing the damned sun not rising?”

She could hear the sound of chewing from the other end of the phone. It made every muscle in her body tense but she didn’t say anything. Last time she’d said something Ophelia had gotten huffy and it had been a Whole Thing. If she was in a good mood tonight, Rebecca knew better than to spoil it.

“You know…crunch, crunch… I thought I would get more out of knowing what’s real. Being behind the veil. But I’d be happier if I were still plodding along ignorantly, there’s some artificial satellite sun keeping the normies in the metaphorical dark. If they don’t figure it out soon, and I’m sure the astronomers already know something’s fucked, everyone’s gonna have a lot more broken bones and dead plants in the future.” There was a faint swallowing. “Bought them some time, at least.”

“Good for them. They can honestly do whatever they want. In a few months or years I’ll start worrying about my vitamin D, if any of us manage to survive this long-term, but for now I need a damn job. You wouldn’t happen to have any leads on that wouldja?”

“I don’t think anything I could show would be anything you’re qualified for. I mean, no offense, but you’re not even a script kiddie. If someone asked you about chips you’d probably think they were talking about doritos. But…”

“Yes, I too listen to Weird Al.”

“Shut up. Do you want my help or not? I’ve got one thing that might be up your alley. I know you’re not usually in the business of being an errand boy, but-”

“I’m not interested in being a boy, period.”

“Shut the fuck, shut up, shut the fuck up. Respectfully. I got offered a courier gig about a week after the big switch in the sky got flipped. I don’t like to go anywhere to do things but if you’re really desperate, it’s something.”

“I hate myself for saying this, but you think you could text me the deets?”

“For a dollar.”

“Ophie, I thought we weren’t fucking around?”

“You started it. I think I’m gonna wrap myself in blankets and watch YouTube while telling myself that I’m trying to sleep, but I’ll text it to you.”

“If you see any of those good good axolotl videos I like, send those too?”

“If you want.”

The phone screen dimmed as the call ended. Resting it on her chest, Rebecca sighed. Courier work was meant for zoomers on hoverboards hurling harpoons into hapless passing vehicles. She couldn’t even afford a board, let alone the metal. Still, it was probably her best lead since she’d promoted herself to customer. What a bad day. What an awful mess all of this was. Ever since, her resting heartbeat had been stressed.

The phone buzzed, sliding off her chest. Fumbling in the dark for her phone before clicking it on, Rebecca began reading Ophelia’s text.

Warehouse at Park and Uderzo. Go there tonight if you’re interested, ask for Checkers.

Checkers? Rebecca let the name roll through her head as she gathered her things and poured out of her sleeping tube. Sounded too wholesome for a shady delivery job. Maybe that made more sense that way. After all, who were the pigs going to chase after first, someone with a nickname like Slippin’ Timmy or the regular guy going by Checkers? One can only imagine how deep the nickname presumption arms race could go. Rebecca would not be imagining it.

Stepping out of the hotel, cold night air flowing through her dress and hair, Rebecca began fiddling with her phone and headphones to play some music while she walked. Settling on some goth pop, she started her walk down the block. The big orange streetlights hummed overhead, illuminating the large open plaza in front of the nearby Government House. Old-fashioned lights, always a step behind where the world in front of the veil was. Infrastructural hand-me-downs.

Behind Government House was a graveyard, which Rebecca had always found fitting. The building had originally been a church, with raised ceilings inside and some kind of neo-gothic architectural shtick going on while the outside was your everyday brutalist concrete building. The graveyard was a shortcut to Park street, so Rebecca walked through the wrought-iron gates inside.

It was always a pleasant place to be. Few others enjoyed the space so it was almost always deserted. Ironically the last place you’d expect to run into a deranged mugger or some desperate sap in an orange jumpsuit. Most of the graves were older, covered with moss and overgrown by vines. But there were still a few visible, mostly on more recent fare. Passing one by, Rebecca could make out a short inscription: Mark Darling, He Always Said His Head Was Killing Him.

Rebecca hummed a few bars of Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life before carrying on. The other side of the cemetery was busy Park Street, bustling with commuters and students and ne’er do wells. It was weird to see so many people on the street in the dark. She still wasn’t used to it. On the street corner, a disheveled man was screaming something about repentance and waving a pile of crumpled paper pamphlets. She’d seen his stuff before, just some cheaply mimeographed tracts extolling the virtues of brass cogs instead of tendons. Hogwash and nonsense, hard enough to take care of a flesh body without complicating it with brass bullshit.

The brick exteriors of nearby buildings were all coated in fading posters, advertising local shows, social work, some missing pets and people too. Rebecca tried not looking at them and to keep walking. There were some days where it was nice to stop and sniff the flowers, but today was not one of them. Rounding a corner, she was overwhelmed by the smell of ammonia. Looking away, she saw a poster advertising Delta-8 gummies. An image of someone dressed like a soldier or some kind of secret agent with a green Delta on their chest giving the viewer a big thumbs-up.

Not every part of town had walls covered in paper trash. Every once in a while there’d be some hipster pub or upscale establishment that could afford to have them torn off. A few of them could even splurge for some painted facades. Places with names like Hop Shelf Brewing or Marshall, Carter & Dork. Rebecca had no time for that bougie nonsense.

There was, in fact, a warehouse at Park and Uderzo. Almost looked like an aircraft hanger, apart from the lack of runways. It was surrounded by a chain-link fence topped intermittently with barbed wire. The only break was a small windowless yellow booth, adjacent to a gate. Approaching it, Rebecca spotted an intercom. She poked it.

A muffled, metallic voice growled through. “State your business.”

“Uh, here to see Checkers?”

“Stand by.”

A few moments passed. Rebecca shivered. The gate buzzed, and slid open. Standing in place, she peeked past it and towards the warehouse.

“We don’t got all day, missy.”

“Fine, fine, jeez. I’m going.” Passing through, Rebecca began walking towards the warehouse. The gate behind her rattled shut. Ophie better not have sent me somewhere to die. She’d do the background for something like this thought. Wouldn’t send me into the lion’s den. Probably.”

A door opened, with light on the other side.

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