Fulcra: The Witness

By Cix Zander

There's only one year left before Nix Zander can leave the rat race behind and travel the world like he's always wanted. He's disciplined. He's focused. He's almost late for work again.

However, an upset boss and delayed travel plans are about to be the least of his problems. Something's brewing, both near and far. Something big. Will there be any

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christopher L Proctor
• Release date: Jul 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781735203430

Book preview

Chapter 0 : Who is the Witness?

Hello world. Cix Zander is my name. Nix Zander is a good friend of mine. He and I share a soul, so to speak. We both sing lines of the same song and sing in the same chorus, but members of this type of chorus can’t usually hear each other. We’re all a bit of a special case in that way, because we can hear each other and very often do. There’s twenty-six of us in all, but I’m the only one who knows that at the moment. I’m standing at the back of the group. The rest are going to have to wait for a while as I try to turn their heads with my words.

Nix was a scientist at the beginning of this story. His work was important, albeit somewhat random. Although it didn’t start that way. His work used to be quite specific and totally pointless.

Before the beginning of this story, he had been a scientific researcher for the military. During that stint he picked up a special duty, becoming a war planner. Nix was quite young compared to others in the field. He only lasted long enough in that job to fulfill his contract, prove his trustworthiness, and discover that his attitude towards conflict was inconsistent with strategic goals.

Somewhere between the end of that job and the beginning of this story, he was hired as a consultant at a private research company called Perpetual Dynamics. Their decision was based on the fact that there were virtually no details about his projects in his career vitae. Almost everything had been blacked-out for security purposes. They figured that those projects must have been very important if they weren't allowed to know about them. So, they were thoroughly impressed by what they couldn't see.

Perpetual Dynamics injected Nix straight into their greatest project. A void blimp. That’s what they called it. It was a new kind of blimp that would be built in space. It would have a thin, foil membrane and be left completely empty inside. The shape would be held rigid by a lightweight interior carbon frame with a special aerogel between the frame and the foil for pressure distribution. The void blimp would then sit effortlessly in the upper atmosphere.

His job was to generate different configurations of skeleton frames, made of different discrete materials, which would all be tested once the facilities were made ready. The facilities were a series of giant vacuum chambers capable of recreating the full environment of empty space, followed by the Earth’s upper atmosphere. However, their construction ended up being well beyond the projections of the company’s budget committee.

So, after the planning fell through on the grand project, Nix was reassigned as a general consultant for whatever project happened to be at the top of the funding ladder. Pretty soon, he was answering questions for whoever tossed the most money into the pot. Private investors managed to gain control of one of the world’s most important souls, whether anyone knew that at the time or not. Although, they almost certainly did not.

The laboratory complex where Nix worked was located in the middle of a large American city on the east coast. He was a bit vague about which city it was when he told me this story. In fact he mumbled through most of his life before the real action began; but, I insisted that his whole story be told. Of course, to be honest, Nix was very boring before the apocalypse; or rather, an apocalypse. I might say that it was his apocalypse, but he ended up getting out of it.

By now I’m sure you’ve figured out who the witness is, so there’s no point in being coy about it. I call Nix The Witness because he always seems to be in the worst place at the perfect time, and to be there physically but not actually be involved in what’s going on. He disagrees on that specific point but I'm ready to prove it. In fact, half the reason I'm writing this story is to settle our argument once and for all. Also, I must use the term physically loosely here.

Anyway, back to the story. The city where he worked and lived was a pretty standard place as far as cities on Earth go, at least in my field of reality. There were lots of cars on the streets every day of every week, more cars than anyone could drive among at a reasonable rate. Any reasonable person would simply walk, bike, or scoot to where they were going. Needless to say, those unreasonable many who did drive did everything in their power to make things worse for other drivers, which invariably ended up including themselves.

Those were the factions, the drivers and the walkers. They disliked each other because they disliked themselves and they were jealous of the things the other had. Drivers wanted the freedom of the walkers and walkers wanted the status of the drivers. You know, a city.

The true purpose of driving a car in this city was to flaunt wealth. Sitting in a car, storing calories and getting irritated at the convenience, was a status symbol. Beyond the insanity of the everyday traffic, there was also the insanity of the everyday shops. Street vendors and food carts made an honest trade, but only with the people reasonable enough to not be driving past them. The drivers, instead, were restricted to high-priced cafes and stores that could steal enough of a profit from their bulk-discounted purchases sold to unwitting, hypnotized consumers in order to afford retail space adjacent to suitable parking.

The occupants of the parking lots, career offices, and gouge shops all resided as far from the pedestrians as possible, preferring higher altitudes from which they could look down and feel taller. They rose up gradually like a shining pimple from the surrounding suburbs. Buildings in the center of the city were all skyscrapers. The ground levels were all taken up by pretentious entryways and a few simple diners scattered next to the streets. You wouldn’t know the diners were even there at a glance. Oversized signs for the overpriced, upstairs alternatives practically obstructed any visible trace of their would-be competitors.

Bright colors, shiny surfaces, and flashing lights played to the senses, keeping the people of the city distracted from their own needs just enough to trap them all in survival mode. They fell back on their instincts for preservation of self, effectively eliminating their capacity to act on their instincts for preservation of others. In the city, humanity’s greatest adaptations for survival became its greatest vulnerabilities for self-destruction.

It was a harsh lesson to grow up learning that having status is required in order to feel loved. Of course everyone knew that status was never required to be loved, but without having a desirable status, the city dwellers always judged themselves to be unworthy. So even if someone judged them to be lovable, they couldn’t feel loved if they didn’t think they deserved it. As a result, they were also incapable of properly reciprocating the love that they could never feel. The ultimate goal of the drivers became to continuously impress themselves, all the while thinking that they were trying to impress someone else. The ultimate goal of the walkers was to become drivers.

Nix only learned how to be a walker after his time with the military. Though he grew to disagree with his commitment to the service, he did appreciate the perspectives it granted him. It didn’t take long for him to see through the conditioning and its purposes to the bigger picture.

He always had a knack for keeping an excellent record of what he saw and heard. It was all filed away neatly in the back of his mind. All he had to do was ask a question and an answer would come to him.

He also always had a knack for seeing affordable diners behind the flashing signs. While his peers were thoroughly distracted by the training and conditioning, Nix connected the dots. All of the shiniest boots and brightest medals were worn by the ones who had inconsistencies in the records he kept of them.

The manipulators, the controllers, the liars… they were the ones who gained power, the ones who could convince their superiors that they were desirable. They were the ones who managed to convince themselves well enough of their own personal lie to write an impressive promotion package. They were the ones who spent so much time and energy looking good that they never had time to do the honest work. The honest work still got done, but by people whose time was free enough from taking credit in the face of leadership to actually improve their skills and make the unit as a whole look competent.

Of course, since the liars got promoted, they ended up being the ones to select other liars for promotion. Since they used the kind of language and communication that they thought was so impressive, they were just as impressed by the same language being used by their inferiors. Picking the same impressive words that they used themselves is just another way for them to impress themselves all over again. The status complex was displayed, full-spiral.

Once Nix returned to the city and found his job, he quickly spotted the same patterns all around. So he walked, by choice, because he was impatient and honest about it. He wasn’t about to spend his days waiting for the brass to use the gas pedal.

Nix had also become honest with himself. He understood that his resources and his lifetime were finite. He knew that spending his time and efforts on gaining status to fuel his own lies about himself would be irredeemably wasteful. His priorities became clearer as he learned about power. Nix wanted to become powerless, because he saw that he understood other people about as much as they seemed to understand him — which is to say he didn’t. He saw no point in trying to control people he couldn’t understand.

Instead, he saw a point in learning languages. He wanted to learn different languages because he saw that communication was the only valid end to conflict. Also, he wanted to travel, because he really didn’t get along with people in the city.

He hoped that if he could learn others’ languages, then maybe he would find people who he could understand. At least then he would have a chance of being understood, as well.

As far as he could tell, everyone living outside of the city wanted to emulate the ones living in the city. So simply moving out wouldn’t work. He had to leave it all behind.

To help this goal along, he lived as a minimalist, biding his time and collecting resources until he could retire across the world. His apartment was kept blank of decorations and he used the loaner furniture that came with it. The only exception was a peace lily who occupied a corner next to the only window, kept out of the direct sunlight of course.

He had picked a corner unit with a studio layout in the shortest building within walking distance to his job. The door to his apartment opened into a corner of the room with the kitchenette to the right and the window straight ahead. Another narrow door in the far-right corner opened into a bathroom with a toilet and a tiny shower. He kept that door open so he didn’t have to touch the doorknob before washing his hands at the kitchen sink — and because of that, he kept his window shade drawn. It was the kind of place that only existed to take up extra space between the better-planned apartments.

The bed that came with the apartment was a fold-up cot on wheels. He rolled it to a new position every few weeks to keep things interesting. There were two sets of sheets he alternated between cleaning, white and gray.

His clothes were all kept clean and folded in a small pile of suitcases, ready to go at any time. They were all business casual and lab coats. Any old uniforms or unnecessary clothes had either been donated to charities or handed to someone in need as he passed them by.

For entertainment, he had a laptop which he kept by the bed and a ceiling light that hung in the center of the room. The laptop was used mostly for searching and finding a multitude of programs on the internet for learning new languages. Actually learning new languages, he determined at length, was probably best done once he was able to submerge himself in that language’s culture and environment. Naturally, he also used the laptop to play music and to keep up with the tenuous few contacts he had made who didn’t want to pump him for profit.

The ceiling light was used for reading the books he would check out from the local library. Well, he called it a library but it was actually just a book shop with a decent trade-in policy, which he shamelessly exploited. He bought a few books the first time he visited and then saw the policy sign. Ever since then, he’d been rotating the same three trade credits through every book in the shop that cost nine ninety-nine or less. He staved off any resentment from the shop owners by always making sure he had extra pastries or coffee handy when he popped in. There were a few fat and fluffy couches for patrons to sit in and read in the front of the shop, along with some coffee tables.

To read back in the apartment, he used some silk neckties as ropes to tie one half of the foldable cot frame to the other end and hold it at a comfortable angle. Don’t cringe too hard, they were all stained paisley or plaid print ties received as gifts from people who considered their own sense of style superior to his personal preferences. That, or maybe they just didn’t have the capacity to care.

Foregoing the internet media, he got his news strictly from the paper stands on his walks to and from work. This was because he insisted on being able to rip up sensationalist articles, bad advertisements, and capitalist propaganda. That way he could immediately release the frustration instead of being forced to keep it inside. It was much better than reading it on the laptop and risking having to buy a new one.

Nix had enough money to improve his comfort and style, but he simply kept himself satisfied instead. The promise he made to himself of future exploration and travel was enough to keep him going. The motivations towards that promise gleamed into his eyes and honked into his ears every day.

He kept track of average living expenses in the different places he wanted to go, as well as world events that might affect his plans. So far, nothing was getting in his way. Everything was coming together.

With all of his lifestyle disciplines, he was only about a year away from being able to live out of a backpack for the rest of his life. He had grown up in a land full of drivers and walkers who were driven to steal as much as they could from everyone else, and then sell it back to them as freedom for all. He had signed a contract to legally die protecting that freedom and those who profit from it by oppressing others. He had seen through the self-perpetuating illusions of status, office, and rank. And finally, Nix Zander was in the homestretch towards liberation from freedom… in more ways than he could know.

Chapter 0+1 : The Last Day

It started just like any other day, almost late for work. Nix skipped what would have been called a morning routine, if he had managed to do it more than two days a week. He got dressed for the forecasted rain and started sweating in the unseasonably bright sun as soon as he stepped outside. Something seemed a bit off from the usual absurdity of his world, but he was in too much of a hurry to pay any attention to his senses.

There were three steps leading to the sidewalk from his apartment building’s front door. On this particular morning, the bottom two were occupied by a teenage girl who typically occupied the top two while waiting for a bus. She was a familiar sight, one of his neighbors. He spotted the inconsistency in her positioning and braced himself for social interaction.

Hey, she said casually as he passed.

Hey, Nix returned without stopping.

Hey wait, she insisted.

Nix stopped and turned to see what she wanted. He didn’t say anything for fear of how it might be taken by any onlookers. Eyes of judgement were always peering at you in this city and he didn’t want to appear as though he was the one trying to talk to a minor.

How come you never talk to me? she asked, Or anyone?

He could feel a speech brewing in his mind.

"Because I don’t want to go to prison. And because I don’t want you to be abducted. In this world it is best that you remain fearful of strangers and that you do not let others become non-strangers. I am judged, even now, as a predator for speaking to you because of how you look and how I look. And that is how it should be. Because real predators look just like me. They are right to judge me. It’s safest to just throw me in prison right away until I can prove that I’m not a criminal.

"Parents overreact when their children face problems because they subconsciously return to a partial mind-state of a time when they were the age that their child is at any given moment, and then respond according to how their own parents would have responded when they were at that age. If your mother’s mother didn’t let her talk to strangers or if she had to handle a specific issue with strangers causing problems when she was your age, then your mother will react as though those same problems were re-occurring right now and will take that frustration out on me whether I’m legitimately causing a problem or not.

"I would love to help you. I would love to pass on my wisdom. I would love nothing more than to answer every last question you have. But if I did all of that, and you and I became familiar, then I would become a threat.

Your mother, who I know is watching us right now, will call the cops and the cops will take me away and I will never get to travel the world. You’re not old enough to speak in court so your mother will claim that I was doing something wrong and her word will be taken as the truth. And that’s how it should be because people who look like me are legitimately dangerous and they do sometimes cause some very, very, serious problems. So please leave me alone and stop endangering my sanity.

At least that’s what he wanted to say. By the time he had thought of such an epic declaration he had already shrugged, turned, and walked halfway to work. During that time however, he did hear the girl’s mother open their window and scold her for talking to a stranger. He caught snippets of the conversation over the woosh and roar of traffic.

Why are you bothering him? her mother asked, forcefully.

I’m just trying to have a conversation with someone other than you! the girl replied in frustration.

You can have conversations… school! the mother’s speech was getting cut off by noise as Nix got further away.

I don… along with… ool! The girl was getting louder. How am I… osed to… adults if I can’t…

You’ll be… adul… are one! the mother clearly wasn’t giving any consideration to her daughter’s feelings.

The girl’s bus pulled up in front of the apartment building. Nix assumed that would be the end of it but the girl had one more burst of passion left. He could hear her over the traffic and the rumbling bus between them.

This world sucks! Why was I even born if I can’t even be a part of it?! she shouted at the top of her lungs, immediately before the bus accelerated away.

She has a point, Nix thought as he looked back to check if she made it onto the bus.

She did, and he watched as her mother slammed their window shut. Nix felt like his point was proven just as well by his nonaction as it would have been if he had said all of those things. Or perhaps, at least, the goal of his point was accomplished — which was to get her to stop trying to talk to him. He still had to survive for another year there.

He had a fifteen-block walk to the lab. Hurrying along the sidewalk in his sweaty trench coat, he dodged the crowd like a kid in a theme park. About two-thirds of the way there, a hotdog was dangling in front of him. Nix grabbed it gingerly from the extended hand without missing a step and thanked the woman on the other side of the cart, reminding her to add it to his weekly tab.

Nobody else had a weekly tab with the dog cart lady but she knew he always made good on it. Consistency had its privileges. Strict discipline left him with room for error when his stress levels rose.

Nix never took the time to look up and see just how high most of the buildings were, all he knew was how hard the wind blew between them as it forced its way through the city. The wind always got stronger as he got closer to the skyscraper his lab was built under. On this day, however, there was no wind to tell him how dense the city was getting. It was making him uncomfortable. So, he finally stopped to look up and investigate.

The sky was gray. He couldn’t make out any clouds that might be causing the grayness. He couldn’t even tell where the sun was. It just looked like a blank newspaper behind the soaring tops of the buildings. A feeling of vertigo started to sink in as he gazed into the strange sky. It began to feel like he was looking down at something up-above him. He looked back at the ground to regain his composure, then continued walking.

Must be some weird overcast mixed with fog or something, he assumed.

He quickened his pace to make up for the lost moments, dismissing the whole thing from his mind as being a result of some weird global warming phenomenon. Naturally he had ideas growing in the back of his head about what could cause it. His curiosity kept pushing questions into his mind. Why was the light so even? Where were the shadows? If the wind stopped, maybe the local heat caused a foggy haze, but then why would the wind not be kicked up again by that same heat mixed with the heat of the Sun hitting the buildings? Where is the Sun?

However, more important questions kept him focused. Will solving the wind mystery get me closer to traveling? Is someone going to pay me to figure all this out? Could Perpetual Dynamics make a profit from another pointless project related to this? How am I going to get away with showing up late again if I can’t make up the lost time?

Nix kept his head down and carried on.

Morning Zander, Emeka, the security guard, greeted Nix as he placed his ID badge on the counter of the guard post to check in.

Morning Hanson, Nix greeted back.

My name’s not Hanson, Emeka corrected.

Yes it is. Hanson’s my favorite guard. And right now you’re my favorite guard, Nix explained.

I can’t tell if you’re being sweet or creepy. Emeka’s tone was plain, as he was used to Nix’s strangeness.

Yes. Nix answered.

Was that ‘yes’ a celebration for confusing me or an obscure confirmation of both conditions? Emeka inquired.

Yes. Nix repeated in monotone.

Nix had a knack for getting people to think and react the way he wanted them to. He wanted to keep his noble laboratory guardian on his toes, questioning everything. Although his indirect approach usually just left people a little confused and quite a bit annoyed.

All three then. Got it. Emeka confirmed. Have a nice day Mr. Zander.

You too, Nix replied as he retrieved his ID and headed into work.

To reach his lab, Nix had to go down three hallways and two elevators. The first hallway led to the second hallway and they were both well-lit and lined with decorative artwork and motivational posters. The second hallway led to the first elevator which was also well-lit and backed by a clean mirror. The first elevator led down to the third hallway which was dimly lit and had bare concrete walls. The third hallway led to the second elevator which looked more like an old service lift from an abandoned mine with an electronic security system. The second elevator was under restricted access and it led directly down into the failed void blimp facilities.

Nix’s ID let him access any room he wanted, mostly because he was the type who didn’t really want to. He especially didn’t want to be in a giant, failed vacuum chamber that was never intended to have people working in it full-time. However, that’s where his current project was hidden. It was dark and cold but very well ventilated. The walls and floor were flat concrete; they stretched higher than the lights would reach and farther than anyone cared to venture.

There was a small camp of workstations and computers with floodlighting adjacent. He felt like he was signing in to a sci-fi space prison every time he went down there. Within the halo of lights was a series of clotheslines for hanging up samples of his current project.

Five minutes. Urania, his current supervisor, greeted Nix in her standard way as he sat down, inserted his ID into his workstation, and placed his thumb on the print-reader in