CRADLE

   The Dust Bowl - It's a term that was used hundreds of years ago to describe an area struck by a terrible drought. Today that same phrase describes the entire nation, maybe even the entire planet. 

    The land has reduced to a state of absolute desolation, the soil neither dust, nor sand. The deserts stretch on seemingly forever. Yet life still persists, clinging to pockets of the last remnants of fertile land in this barren wasteland. Farming villages scattered between towering dunes topped with violent storms, baked by an unrelenting sun. 

    In one such town, somewhere nameless in the middle of nowhere, late on a Wednesday afternoon, two men gather for their weekly poker session. They nestle underground in a dim basement, lit only by candle light. The heat is overwhelming as an overworked fan spins slowly from the ceiling. A few bottles of home-made beer lay scattered about among tools and shreds of long broken down machinery. From outside can be heard the whispers of a passing sand blast, rattling the metal door at the top of the stairway. 

    “I think I might call it a night.” Dwayne Scrug says with defeat, scratching at his stubble before wiping his brow of sweat.

    “What's the matter? You don't have anything left to gamble, Dwayne?” says Felix with a smile and a friendly laugh.

    “I’ve put enough of my wages into this game as is. Can’t blow away any more.” 

    “Tell you what, let's play one more hand.”

    “With what? It's not like you have anything for the pot anyway.”

    “That's where you're wrong. Let's have a game over this.” Felix says, pulling a surprising object from inside his shirt pocket - a slip of metallic paper, shining like golden foil, a barcode emblazoned on its face.

    “Is that what I think it is? There’s no way! Where did you even get that?”

    “Maybe I found it in a crashed ship, maybe I stole it off a city guard. But I can assure you it is real. The genuine article.”

    “You can't seriously expect us to wager on a golden ticket? Why would you give up something that valuable?”

    “I don't want it. I have no desire to go to The Cradle. My life here is just fine as is.” Felix retorts, taking a swig of his bitter and luke-warm moonshine. Dwayne mulls it over for a moment in his head. Felix can practically see the gears turning, hear the inaudible excuse his friend is making to justify such a risky move. 

    “I’m going all in!” says Dwayne suddenly, not to Felix's surprise, he’d expected just as much. Smaller and younger than his friends; Dwayne has always been the odd one out. Impulsive, reckless, terrible with money and so sure of himself. He was a good friend to hang out with, yes, but a nightmare to deal with when the consequences inevitably came knocking. 

    The air becomes tense as both men wordlessly shuffle the card deck and begin their last game of the evening. The temperature seems to be rising, the storm outside growing stronger, yet that doesn't deter them. Dwayne is set on winning that ticket, after all, it's his opportunity out of here once and for all. 

    It’s only a short game, only a few minutes, but to the men it felt much, much longer. The tension finally broke as Dwayne presented his final hand - victory. He’s won, and a haughty cheer of celebration explodes from the basement as he jumps to his feet in excitement, while Felix simply slouches back in his chair in resignation.

    “I did it! I won!” He shouts, hands raised in the air, almost clipping the spinning fan. 

    “I suppose you’ll be taking this then?” Felix says, handing over the shimmering ticket with a smile. “I know you’ve always wanted to get out of here. I’ll be honest, I was gonna give it to you anyway. Don't forget about us, old buddy. We’ll be looking up for ya.”

    Dwayne takes the paper in his shaking hands. It feels almost cold, it's surface bumpy with embossed lettering and design. People pay their life’s wages for a ticket like this. He’s heard of people dying over such a thing. He needs to be careful, but then… When has he ever been careful?

    The train ride to The Cradle was long and tiring. The carriage was a sweatbox of the unwashed masses. The stench of humanity crammed into a metal tube like sardines, back when they still tinned sardines that is. Dwayne hardly noticed however. He was too preoccupied keeping a hand latched firmly onto his travel pack. Buried within sits his valuable ticket, the only way he has to reach his destination. 

    His mind races with dreams and the stories he’s heard of The Cradle. There exist places with more myth to them than truth, and this is one of them. The last true bastion of high society living, possibly anywhere in the world. A space platform, held high in geostationary orbit - whatever that means, Dwayne’s not quite sure - suspended at the top of a towering elevator. It was here that the wealthy elite retreated decades ago, before the land dried up, before the forests burnt down. They built a sanctuary in the sky, a palace for the rich.

    High up above the clouds there is no such thing as want. It's a place where the air is clean and pure, where water flows free for all. Where the struggle of hard labour is a distant memory. But above all else, the thing Dwayne is excited for the most, is the parties. He’s heard they are legendary, endless orgies of drinking, dancing and music. This has been what Dwayne has always wanted ever since he was a child. The life of a dusty farmhand was not for him, his brain had not developed for it. No, he had been born to throw caution to the wind and party until he simply can't party no more. All of his recklessness until now has paid off, he thinks. The nightlife of The Cradle; it's a call too impossible to resist.

    Dwayne lays on an uncomfortably hard mattress, his feet and his arms, his back and his legs aching something truly fierce. His skin burns red from working out in the sun. It's been a few days now since the dejected young man arrived at The Cradle, or rather, at The Root, a town situated at the base of the immense elevator which vanishes into the cloud layer high above. Dwayne can hardly believe his situation as he stares up through the dirty skylight above him, trying to catch a glimpse of the station way up in the heavens. 

    When he arrived here and presented his golden ticket to the border guards some of them laughed in his face. Others had to explain to him how badly he’d been fooled. For months they had been turning people away with these so-called tickets. In truth there was never such a thing. The elite up in The Cradle would never allow the masses on the surface into their paradise. There has never been a way up there, the tickets, just a cruel scam. A scam Dwayne fell for so easily.

    He’s come too far to go home now though, there may be a chance, maybe, somehow for him to get up there he thinks. He had managed to find himself a place to live here in The Root, a small run down apartment near the Engine District. This town is immensely bigger than the scattering of shacks he grew up in back West, a sprawl of metal and concrete, where streets and alleyways wind and climb and fall into dense passages, walkways and tunnels. It's a maze of industry, where giant factories churn out the necessities of daily life - a water plant, a power station, a steel yard.

    Dwayne himself quickly found a job, apparently there is something of a worker shortage at the moment. Unfortunately it is even more back breaking than working the barren fields. He’s joined the scrapper team, heading out into the desert beyond the city walls to drag wrecks back to be broken down and recycled; cars, sections of buildings, the contents of ancient warehouses. The Root is practically built on scrap metal. It's a wonder anything here works.

    The window glass above the bed is designed to filter the sun's harmful rays, however Dwayne can still feel his retinas burning as he looks on desperately into the sky. How could he have been so foolish? Then suddenly he spots something; a shape or a shadow way up high. Is that it? Is that his goal? The Cradle? No… it's getting closer. In fact it's almost here!

    With a violent crash something smashes through Dwayne’s window, landing directly on top of the confused and panicked man. Luckily no shards of glass seem to have hit him, although a few large chunks do sit terrifyingly close to his head. Dwayne barely process what just happened, what hit him he wonders. As he looks down his questions grow ever more intense, for atop him, sprawled out, lies the unconscious body of a woman, a young girl, maybe in her twenties, almost nude. Her skin looks pure white, sparkling as if gems were embedded in her, and her hair likewise so clean, and porcelain white. She has a smell like something Dwayne has never experienced, a sweetness, and her touch feels icy cold.

    Dwayne doesn't move for a few moments, worried that she may be dead. In his confusion he doesn't notice her breathing, her fingers gripping tightly to the bedsheets. What on earth is going on? Dwayne sure hopes no one heard that crash and comes in to investigate. How would he ever explain this sight?