Source: To Stand With Friends

It is an overcast cool day by the docks, with distant sunbeams slanting down at the horizon. Tanneau walks slowly amidst the ruins of the once great machines, his eyes hooded. Occasionally he looks up, following the lines of metal against the sky, but his gaze always ends with the sight of ragged paint, corrosion, or a frayed cable.

He stops by the water's edge, and pulls his cloak around him against the faintly cold wind.

"I'm here, Marcel," comes the voice from the tangle of machines behind him. Tanneau smiles, remembering. Then he turns and walks toward the waiting figure.

"Hello, Pierre." His voice is quiet, kind.

"Hadn't thought I'd see you again. You'd retired. I was glad."

"It seems you've retired, too." He gestures at the equipment. But Pierre's mouth twists with anger.

"I wasn't given a choice. It was needed." Pierre's voice is harsh with repressed emotion.

"But you weren't." Tanneau makes it a statement.

"No, but it wouldn't have mattered. " Pierre swipes briefly at the wind stirring his fringe of hair. "Are you working for them again?"

"Not exactly, though that's something between us."

"Marcel, I'm not going to help them anymore."

"I know."

"I shouldn't have helped you... before."

Tanneau's iron face shifts into a hard, distant smile. "No?"

"No. I don't know why I came."

"Because we were friends once."

Pierre looks up at him, inspecting what the backlight tries to hide. "Once."

Tanneau consults the monitors on the edges of his sight. There is nothing suspicious within a hundred yards.

"Pierre, I can only tell you that I have been doing my best. I've helped a lot of good people, and the only reason I'm back is to do the same."

Pierre walks to one side so that the faint light shifts to only half shadow Tanneau's face. His head is cocked, and his eyes move between watching Tanneau's lips and eyes. Finally, he relents, "Maybe so. I can't say I ever understood you. Not really. But what they did to me, they did after you were gone."

Tanneau's eyes rove across the field of derelicts. "I'm sorry. They're destroying themselves, you know."

"I know, but we're paying the price - right now." He puts a had briefly on the leg of the crane beside them, looking up its length to the distant operator cabin above. "Fifteen years ago, this was my fourth unloader. I was saving everything I had. I sold my house, and finally gave up my apartment. I slept... anywhere - my office, an idle crane... I needed the fourth one so I could unload enough to break even. Without it, I was going to have to give up the business in a year. I could see it coming, that clearly. It was just a question of whether my savings would creep up faster than the profit inched down.

"When I had the money, I still had to wait. Steel shortages and work stoppages. But finally... You know, the first night it was built, I climbed up that ladder to the cabin. I sat there, looking over the harbor. Things were still pretty busy then, and you could see the ships coming in, and the trucks moving on the shore, and the city past it... I thought about all the cargo I'd be moving. I fell asleep up there. I'd been up for a day and a half. Didn't even realize I was dropping off. Seems almost like right after I woke up that the Leadership Council passed the Wharf Mandate. I had to sell a third of my space." He looks back at Tanneau and sighs. "I hope you haven't come to try to convince me that things are changing."

Tanneau shakes his head, and pulls his cloak more tightly around himself. "They're the same as always. Maybe worse. Word is, they're working on a criminal penalty for failure to produce. They think that's an incentive." His mouth twists as if with a bitter taste.

A harsh laugh barks suddenly from Pierre. "Yes, there's a surprise. So they're panicking."

"Yes."

A ray of sun from across the ocean illuminates them, casting harsh shadows across the dried oil stains, broken concrete, rusting metal hulks and the lines on Tanneau's face. Tanneau looks into it, as if it is a wind that his face stands against. He looks back to Pierre. "It's close to the end. In under five years there will be chaos. The riots are starting, but they have no purpose. They are screaming for more and worse of the same - they don't know it will kill them. But it doesn't have to kill everyone."

Pierre pushes himself up to sit on the cold ledge of an old generator. "What are you saying?"

"That there's a way out. That I can help you, and a few others, to use it."

"Out? Out where?"

"I can't tell you. You know this has to be secret. But I need you to consider the idea of leaving. It will be a month or so before I can make the first arrangements."

"I see."

"Pierre, there's one other thing." He steps closer.

"Oh?"

"Yes. I know you've been helping people... move on... I'm glad. But there's one I'm going to need to find. He was a Council prisoner, and he escaped."

"What's this?" Pierre snarls, "the price?"

"No, it's not a price," Tanneau replies impatiently. "I'm not asking because I want to turn him over to the patrol or Internal Intelligence. I want to get him out, like I want to get you out. He was separated from his wife when he was arrested. She helped me not long ago, and I owe her a debt for that. I want to get them back together." Almost habitually, he takes in the monitor scan - someone is moving on the fringe of the range, and he looks down to make a gesture that expands the coverage. The potential intruder is moving away, and another gesture shows it to be a mother walking her child's stroller. He gestures a finger motion again and looks back to Pierre, who is watching him quizically. Tanneu reaches into his cloak and withdraws a card, which he shows to Pierre. The image is new and crisp, though the surface has been faux aged. It almost seems to have depth, though to Pierre that would be impossible. From it, a young blond man, beardless and with clear eyes, looks outward, and Pierre feels the shudder of recognition.

Tanneau steps closer, putting the image back in his pocket. "You've seen him, I can tell." His voice is low, and thrills with restrained excitement.

"Why should I help you with anything?"

Tanneau sighs. "Because I want to help you, and him, and anyone else I can while there's still time. But I can't wait. I won't ask you to take me on faith, but what I'm about to show you must remain a complete secret between us."

Pierre shrugs. "Who am I going to tell? The blacksuits?"

From another pocket, Tanneau produces a pair of sunglasses. "Put these on."

"Yes, so?"Pierre looks out at the reddening sun.

"This," Tanneau replies, gesturing where the glasses can see.

Suddenly, Pierre is falling through the night and, involuntarily he grasps the ledge so tightly as to hear the sound of his fingernails on the metal. Tanneau whispers... "watch..."

There is something black against the stars and the distant star crusted dust lanes. Suddenly, a self-lit object - a space vehicle - flashes past below, heading for that darkness. And, as he grows closer, and his eyes adjust, he can see that the surface is not totally dark, that there are tiny lights irregularly arrayed and moving, some illuminating a rocky surface of immense size. It is only a moment that he is given to realize with a shock the immensity of the surface and the machines which seem to prowl it. And beyond it, other, similar shapes, apparently linked. Then he has plummeted into a hole, past windows so large that they seem to open on the interiors of vast multistory buildings and industrial complexes. He feels bile rise in his throat as the motion reacts with his physical stillness. Then he is within a space so large that the haze of atmosphere blues the ranks of space vehicles that step like skyscrapers into the distance. Finally he is within a vehicle - a personal vehicle, he thinks, driving through a beautiful countryside, a countryside apparently in an enormous artifact. He sweeps through a city of buildings which barely look possible, streets thronged with private vehicles, people, and... other creatures, all attired in a stunning and raucous variety of clothing and colors. Past huge store windows, crowded with the exotic and the mundane, all shifting too quickly. The view pauses at a park, where a beautiful metal statue of a perfectly muscled man stands tall, ripping his manacles from their anchors in the stone... then it is gone, and he is looking into the sunset again.

He gasps, and rips the sunglasses from his face, staring at them. "What... what was that?"

Tanneau smiles and takes the glasses. "Prometheus."

"I... don't understand. It's a myth."

Tanneau nods. "I know that's what people think."

"It's incredible. And those glasses." An odd smile lights his face. "There's a lot of money to made there."

"I knew you'd fit right in." Tanneau smiles fondly. "But I need to know where that man is."

Pierre shakes his head. "I don't know. He went south. Omisteau was what they told us. Once they go out, we don't know whether they keep to the original destination, or where they go from there. Security."

"See what you can find out. I know it's difficult, but his wife..."

"I understand."

Tanneau's smile turns harsh and regretful. "I have to go."

"One question, old friend."

Tanneau turns back. "Oh?"

"How did you know about my... hobby."

Tanneau's face splits with a sun-bathed smile. "I keep in touch. And...you saw the glasses."

Pierre sighs. "Of course." Tanneau waves a small adeiu and walks away, the red sunset painting his shadow across the dock as the light slips into its final cloud.