Fetor Winds

The music tumbled out of the speakers, a soft melody that had an aura of despair but somehow also carried a feeling of hope. Flowing through the room, sinking into the corners and then bouncing back into the center, Skylar was watching it all happen. Or rather, he was feeling it. He actually hated this kind of music, the stuff the Fathers played at these social gatherings. But there he was, sitting anxiously while drinking his glass of wine that cost more than his dad had ever made in an entire year. Watching the music spill around him. Though he went to medical school, his father preferred the peaceful life of a preacher. Skylar rarely thought about his dad these days.

“Skylar, com-m-me on m-m-man, you’re up!”

Noah. His best friend and far more intelligent than him, but he didn’t really ever figure out how to use that big brain of his. Coming from one of the most influential families in the community, Noah had been at his side since they first met at their separation party. They had gone through reprogramming together and had received an assignment with the expansion department after graduation. Now they were working on a solution to the fetor winds that were whipping across the plains, leaving behind nothing but death. Noah was really the brains behind the operation but he always struggled to explain himself. Though Skylar wasn’t useless, they really kept him aboard because nobody understood Noah like he did. All that intelligence would be going to waste if it wasn’t for Skylar’s ability to interpret Noah’s thoughts.

Skylar was supposed to be giving a presentation on a recent breakthrough in their research into the fetor winds. Pulling some strings with Noah’s dad, he was able to get the presentation broadcasted live, insisting that this breakthrough should be heard by the entire community. As Skylar rose to walk up to the stage there was one thing on his mind. He was about to rock their world.

The fetor winds had been a problem for over a hundred years, originating from the oceans; from red tide specifically. The red tides had been left unresolved for hundreds of years and eventually turned every ocean on earth into a complete dead-zone. The vastness of the dead-zones allowed for unprecedented storms the size of entire continents, with winds that easily registered in the hundreds of miles per hour. These winds, combined with the enormous reach of the storms, assisted in turning the red tide airborne and sending it inland. These winds became known as fetor winds for the horrible smell that accompanied them everywhere they went. According to those who survived to tell about it anyways. The cases were few. The winds had slowly forced the population further inland until there wasn’t enough room for everybody to survive. At first the solution was to institute an increasingly cruel and merciless code of laws that essentially meant any crime, no matter how petty, was punishable by death. But this new system would only work for so long, as the winds continued to force the population inland. Eventually the rich and powerful collaborated to begin construction of a giant, self-sufficient community within a geodesic dome. Selection into the community was extremely limited and the rest of the population eventually disappeared; swallowed up by the fetor winds.

Construction of the community was finished just 15 years ago. Skylar had been selected for entrance because of his exceptional brilliance in primary school but the rest of his family was to be left behind. He was just 6 years old then, so he remembered very little about his actual family. He had been raised by a community caretaker most of his life, alongside the other children who had been selected based on their high level of intelligence and separated from their families. Although Noah’s IQ would have been sufficient to grant him entrance, his whole family had been selected because they had financed a large portion of the community’s construction. As a result, Noah’s dad now served as one of the ruling Fathers, the only one whom Skylar wasn’t completely repulsed by.

Once Skylar began working on the fetor winds project, he learned a little more about what was actually happening outside the dome. He learned about the radio room, where a crew worked around the clock, transmitting signals and listening for a response. It was common knowledge that there hadn’t been outside communication for over a decade and as far as anybody knew, they were the last people alive on the planet. He also learned about ‘Safeguard C’, an advanced emergency contingency plan that was supposed to immediately identify and fix any air leak in the geodesic dome as well as increase the capacity of the air scrubbers until toxic PPM was back to safe levels. But the most surprising thing Skylar discovered, although completely by accident, was a very peculiar file folder.

Skylar and Noah had been working late one night, studying a sample of soil brought in by ERGED, the Exterior Research Group of the Expansion Department. To continue with their research, they needed a certain file with data on the outside temperatures. Normally they had to put in a request and the file would be brought to them but it was after hours and Noah was working excitedly, saying he might be onto something. Their superior, Dr. Brennan, had given Skylar his key-card that night, warning him to only use it to get in and out of the lab and to return it first thing in the morning. But Skylar was eager for a breakthrough and went ahead to the document room using the key-card to gain access. He wanted to be in and out quickly and was hurriedly searching for the file labeled “Exterior Temperature Data: Jan- June” when another label caught his eye: “Exterior Presence and Resistance”. Skylar quickly flipped it open and saw still images of the cavernous face of a mountain. He knew that mountain, on exceptionally clear days he could make out its jagged outline against the setting sun. But these pictures were taken from much closer and some of them zoomed in to where you could see openings into the mountain. Looking closer, Skylar could make out a person in one of the pictures.

“What the hell?” Skylar muttered to himself “This is impossible!”

He pulled the camera used to record experiments from his pocket, took pictures of everything in the file, quickly threw it back in the drawer and nearly sprinted to the exit. Right before he opened the door he had a thought, turned back to the file cabinet, reached in and pulled out “Exterior Temperature Data: Jan- June”. It wasn’t important to him anymore and he wasn’t even going to open it up, he had bigger things to think about now. But if the security agent watching the cameras saw him walk out empty handed, a red flag would go off and some tough questions were bound to be asked.

Skylar’s mind was racing and it took everything he had to keep from sprinting back to the lab. Once inside, he made sure to lock the doors and slammed the file on the table in front of Noah, displacing the pile of dirt he was observing through a microscope.

“W-w-what the hell, m-m-man!” Noah stuttered angrily.

“Dude, you need to look at this right now. You aren’t going to believe it.” Skylar replied “There’s other people out there! We aren’t the only ones!”

“W-w-what are you talking ab-b-bout, that’s im-m-mpossible. N-n-nobody can live out there. Not unless they’ve b-b-built another dome and if that w-w-were the case then w-w-we would have known about it w-w-well before now.”

Noah was still feigning agitation but Skylar could see the excitement mounting behind his eyes.

“They aren’t in a dome, they live in the mountains! Look at these pictures!”

Noah was now sifting through the files as Skylar laid out his discovery.

“These documents explain everything, apparently they tried to barter with the community years ago, mostly for basic medicines, and the Fathers refused to work with them. They continued to attempt negotiations but the fathers have ordered ERGED to kill on sight anybody found within 50 miles of the dome.”

Noah looked up, confused and disappointed but also inspired.

“W-w-we need to do some-something about this. W-w-we need to tell p-people.”

“I know exactly what we’re going to do. And you’re going to help me do it.” Skylar said as a plan began forming in his head.

“Skylar, com-m-me on m-m-man, you’re up!”

Skylar walked up the stage. Slowly, he laid out his papers on the pulpit, wrapped his fingers around the edges and leaned into the mic.

“Ladies and gentlemen” he began, “I’m here to announce a major breakthrough in our research into the fetor winds. I would like to present irrefutable evidence that unprotected humans can and do still live outside!”

The crowd was instantly buzzing with excited chatter. From the back of the room, one of the Fathers demanded that the live feed be cut. Skylar just smiled down at Noah. He had already hacked into the video system and locked the operator out.

“Ladies and gentlemen” he started again, “please prepare to rethink the world around you!”

Once he finished, the air vents in the walls began spewing out a red smog, quickly followed by the ghastly smell of death. Safeguard C had been dismantled and every vent inside the community was now pumping the foul air at max capacity. This went on for several minutes before Noah was finally overridden and kicked out of the system. Safeguard C was rebooted and the air was quickly cleared but it was too late.

Noah was one of the first to go after nearly 8 hours of agonizing pain, convulsing and coughing up blood, eventually drowning in it. The majority of the community was dead within 3 days. Skylar was among those who struggled the longest, surviving just long enough to see the outsiders finally break into the dome. By living in the high altitude of the mountains, Skylar learned the outsiders had been able to endure the original onslaught of the winds and eventually built up an immunity to it. They did their best to save Skylar and the other surviving community members but it quickly became a futile attempt to simply ease their suffering. As Skylar’s struggle came to an end, he finally succumbed while holding the hand of the outsiders Doctor. Neither one recognized the other but Skylar died in his fathers arms.