We know so little about God’s city, and that’s a travesty, considering how the vast majority of the colony is made up of scientists. I find it hard to believe that I’m the only one who sneaks in there—surely my curiosity burns just as much as the next person’s. Somehow Mack’s manipulation, right from Planetfall, has managed to keep the colony’s curiosity in check. He’s managed to find a way to keep people reverent enough to stay out of that place without tipping them over into religious dogma—at least he had until Sung-Soo arrived. Still, it’s not like his arrival is pushing people to demand access to the city. They’ve bought into the circus so entirely, so deeply, they’re not even questioning it anymore. But I know the truth. I’m immune.

  Even so, I still don’t understand God’s city, and I agree with his desire to keep people out. It’s dangerous, in more ways than one. It looms over the colony and remains just as mysterious as the first day I saw it. I may know what is at the top of it, and I may know what the interior is like in places, but I can’t say I understand it. Everyone else seems happy to wait for Suh to return and deliver an explanation to them on a platter. Perhaps it’s easier to do that than to face the fear of what they could find in there. Perhaps Mack is too good at what he does.

  The base of the city is only twenty meters or so from the colony boundary and I cross the distance quickly. My heart is pumping faster now, my body filled with the thrill of the illicit. Soon any thoughts of possible punishment are crowded out by the anticipation of what I’ll find within. I’m already feeling better, more focused and less anxious. Now it’s all about finding the particular bunch of three tendrils twisted and looped slightly farther out than most.

  I find it by touch as much as by sight. My hands know the bumps and gnarls as well as I know the colony and soon I’m standing in front of the giant loop that pushes out from the mass like an arched flying buttress. I don’t know if it was designed to do that or if it’s a flaw. Either way it helps me to find a way into the tangle.

  Contorting myself to slip between the gap made by the arch and the rest of the base isn’t a problem. There’s a hollow large enough for me to stand, albeit a little stooped. I’m not looking forward to the next part and have to ready myself for the inevitable claustrophobia as I feel for the circular shape and its central depression.

  I happened across it by chance only a week or so after Planetfall. We were all scouting and working out the best location for a permanent colony rather than the temporary camp formed by the pods we’d landed in. Mercifully I’d been by myself; otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to keep it a secret. When I was asked if I’d found anything of note, I said no. I was already withdrawing then, so worried about letting anything slip out that I just kept everything to myself.

  That was the second major lie I told that week. It gets easier, in some ways; now I lie without expending any effort. But I think each one has its own weight. One alone may barely register, like a grain of sand in the palm of one’s hand. But soon enough there’s more than can be held and they start to slip through our grasp if we’re not careful.

  I’m always careful.

  Once I’ve found the large dimple I’m looking for, it’s simply a matter of taking off my glove and pressing my hand against its center. It opens, the dimple revealing itself as the point of closure for a ring of muscle-like mechanisms that open on contact.

  The tube beyond isn’t lit until I touch its edge. The same ethereal glow that radiates from some of the nodules above appears at intervals, revealing the interior. It pulsates slightly and is covered in a thin coating of a clear, mucus-like substance. It reminds me of an esophagus, only curving upward instead of down.

  As I put my glove back on I take a deep breath and then roll the edge of my hat down until the thin fabric covers my face and all my hair. I cover the gap in the fabric for my eyes with a pair of goggles and make sure the seal is tight against my skin. I pull the respirator from the clip on my belt and put that on over the fabric covering my mouth and nose. It sends a ping confirming the air filtration mechanism is functioning correctly. But even though I know I’m protected and that the climbing ropes will still be there once I get inside, I pause. I shouldn’t be doing this.

  “This is wrong, Renata.”

  My father’s voice had dropped to a lower register, one within the vocal domain of disappointment. Even though I was in my late twenties I still felt the same twinge in my chest that his disapproval elicited when I was much younger. It irritated me. When would I stop being a child?

  “Wrong? That’s a bit judgmental, isn’t it? You make it sound immoral.”

  He sat down on the one good chair in the apartment, the only one that wasn’t patched or being held together with gaffer tape. Furniture manufacturing was still embedded in the mass production factory model then and we couldn’t afford any replacements after pouring every last penny into the project.

  The seat was too low for his long legs, bringing his knees up high. He rested his elbows on them, looking like he could spring up any moment, far from relaxed. “I think it is.” As I took a breath to argue, he added: “Not the project. Whatever fools want to do with their money is up to them, and I know a lot of new advances are being made as a result of Atlas. I’ve seen the propaganda that Cillian Mackenzie is piping out. I’m talking about you going with them.”

  I wasn’t expecting that. We hadn’t really talked about it in the early days. He was so busy, traveling from country to country, always embroiled in tense political negotiations between governments fighting over dwindling water supplies and failing to plan for the end of fossil fuels. I never understood how he could deal with the uncertainty of it all.

  He’d come to the apartment when I told him I was planning to leave once Atlas was ready. I’d been dreading telling him and yet the words just came out right in the middle of a conversation about algae, of all things. He dropped everything and came over right away. He didn’t even do that when I graduated.

  “Why would it be wrong?”

  “Because you’re needed.”

  “Mum doesn’t need me. She only cried because one of her vacuous friends was there and she wanted the attention. You don’t need me. I know you’ll miss me; I’ll miss you.” I had to stop then, choked by the thought of it.

  “I’m not talking about us. I’m talking about the world. Bad enough that you left WHO for this, but to leave completely?”

  I think I groaned then. “Dad, I’m not the only visengineer in the world, you know.”

  “No, but you’re one of the best. You’ve single-handedly removed the need to depend on gene therapy and organ donation—”

  “Don’t exaggerate.” I sat down, automatically keeping my weight off the back left leg of the chair that had already broken once. “I stood on the shoulders of a lot of people. Nobody does anything single-handedly anymore.”

  “You’re underestimating yourself. You were the one who brought disciplines together in that particular combination. I would be dead and hundreds of other people would be dead now if it wasn’t for you. If you leave before you reach your prime, this generation loses one of its best. What you do could have such an impact on so many people, Renata. I would rather it benefit millions, rather than a cult of a thousand.”

  I couldn’t sit still. “It’s not a cult!” I said as I jumped to my feet and wrapped my arms about myself. “You’ve met Suh—she’s not like that!”

  “Cults come in all shapes and sizes.”

  “It is not a cult.”

  He didn’t pursue it. “Answer this, then: why do you want to go?”

  “To see what’s there.”

  “That’s selfish. And irresponsible. I’d like to go snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef, but I probably won’t get a chance because there’s too much to do.”

  I started to pace. “I’m not going to let your martyr complex dictate my choices! There’s evidence to suggest that this trip is what we were made for—what our evolution has been leading us toward all this time and—”

  “Evidence?” He shook his head. “I can’t believe you’d let yourself be sucked in like that. There have been cults saying we come from an alien planet for over a hundred years! Are you sure Atlas is actually being built up there? There was a cult in Spain that sucked millions from its members to build a spaceship and all that bastard was building was a luxury mansion on a private island!”

  “Of course I’m sure! I’m part of the team. We get reports every week. And they’re not faked.”

  He pulled back and stood by the window, staring out at the stone wall opposite as if it were a view of the Eiffel Tower. “Have you asked yourself if there are other reasons you want to go?”

  It was the first time we’d ever really argued, and I felt sick. “There are lots of reasons.”

  “Have you considered that you might be running away?” He turned and pointed at the bronze cast. “There’s nothing better to distract ourselves from grief than a new project big enough to consume every moment. Have you stopped since she died? Have you let yourself—”

  “That’s got nothing to do with this. Have you thought that your being so upset about this might have everything to do with your choice instead of mine? Now that we’ve only got a year or so, are you regretting all the years you put everything else before me?”

  I expected him to be angry and defensive or to cut the conversation dead and leave. Instead, he just stood there, looking so much older than I’d appreciated before. “I do regret that. But I don’t regret what I’ve done with my life, Renata. If Atlas is real, if you go with those people, will you be able to say the same?”

  10

  THE COMPRESSION OF the esophageal entrance is enough to ground me in my body again. I keep my eyes closed like a child who’s been told to, on pain of having a surprise present spoiled—desperate to look but obeying the rule. I’m not only prolonging the moment of purest anticipation; I’m also preparing myself for transition between the outside and the citadel interior. I’ve found that if I take this part slowly, I tend not to vomit. At least, not immediately.

  I fumble for the climbing rope and grip it tightly. Its surface is roughened and I’m certain now that the interior is attacking the fibers. Now I want to open my eyes even more; I want to see if my experiment has yielded any results.

  Only after counting to sixty (and then ten more to be certain) do I slowly open my eyes. The tunnel is a dark reddish brown, larger than the one I’ve just been sucked through, and the mucus covers everything here too. The valve is trying to close on one of my ankles and I hurriedly pull it free, even though I know it would just open again as soon as it detected an obstruction.

  The glowing light that was pulsating up the tube I’ve just been spat out of is rippling up and down the tunnel. One moment the movement makes it look like the space is contracting, and then it changes, tricking my brain into thinking it’s twisting counterclockwise. I kneel down with closed eyes and squeeze the rope between my knees. After a swift voice command, the goggles filter out the particular part of the spectrum that the phosphorescence inhabits and trick my eyes into thinking the tunnel is uniformly lit. It takes a few seconds for the software to smooth out the image, but it works well enough. If only we’d known to do that the first time we came here.

  Once it’s done, I look around for my experiment. I last came here about two months ago and it was the first time I left something behind. I didn’t leave the experiment in plain sight, in case someone else in the colony is doing the same as me, so it takes a minute or so to locate the fold of membrane I chose as a marker. Once I see it, I pull myself along on the rope, still on my knees, feeling like I’m moving up a slope of about fifteen degrees or so. I know that can change in an instant though, so even though I don’t really need the rope to progress, I keep my grip strong.

  I hear the first of the noises as I reach the pellets and it takes me a moment to steady myself. It begins as a low moan and in seconds develops into a high pitch like an eagle’s cry. So many times I’ve panicked, thinking that an inhabitant has found me and is alerting others to my intrusion, but no one ever comes. No one lives here. At least, I don’t think they do.

  There are only two of the four pellets left, the ones made of stainless steel and glass. They seem unchanged. The two others I left with them were made of bone carved from a creature I’d found dead and the other a ball of dried mud. I spend a little while hunting for them, thinking they might have rolled somewhere else, but I can’t find them. Have they dissolved? Has this place digested them?

  Another screech makes me shudder. Is it trying to tell me I shouldn’t be here or am I simply trying to assign some kind of meaning to a random sound? When I listen intently, I can hear distant rumbles like my empty stomach. Nothing that sounds synthetic—or rather . . . manufactured. They seem just as organic as this slightly sticky intestine-like interior.

  I leave the pellets where they are, curious to see what happens over time. Even though there’s a part of me that wants to leave and go home to curl up and try to forget the day, I can’t leave until I’ve found something to take with me. So I pull myself onward, getting occasional flashes from the tunnel as the frequency of the light shifts and the goggles have to adjust the incoming data processing to keep the image smooth and protect the visual centers in my brain. Without them I’d be in the throes of a migraine by now.

  After the second time I came here, I didn’t return for a few years. I had to focus on the colony. No, that’s what I told myself, but it was as much about not focusing on what happened at the top of this city. For a long time I couldn’t even look at the place without feeling distressed. Walking around the colony without looking up when facing certain directions became normal. At least I can look at it now—and enter it—without being afraid I’ll give something away.

  I can’t remember why I came back. Perhaps it was simply a matter of having formed enough emotional scar tissue to cope. Perhaps my curiosity steadily built up its own pressure until it became more powerful than the avoidance.

  The first few times I tried to map it out, first with memory alone, then with the help of my chip when I lost faith in my ability to understand the place. All the chip did was confirm that, once I move away from the initial tunnel attached to the valve I came in through, everything changes. I don’t know if there’s a pattern; I can’t make it here regularly enough within controlled parameters to measure that, but either way, I never know where I’m going to end up. The only thing I can be certain of is that I won’t be able to reach the top room again.

  Only this rope and this part of the tunnel seem to be a constant. I’ve followed it as far as I can to a place where the rope disappears into a slimy wall, as if a new one has grown around it, trapping the rope in place but not severing it. Eventually it will rot, and would have already, had it not been made of the most resilient artificial fibers and coated to resist extreme conditions.

  Being inside God’s city feels like walking through the intestines of a gigantic creature, the way the tunnel twists and turns like a section of digestive tract and the mucus too, all creating a sense of being inside something alive. Even though our homes are grown from organic materials, this place feels closer to the interior of a living thing, a creature perhaps, something that straddles both plant and animal and impossible to classify in any Earth-based system of knowledge.

  Not for the first time, I imagine God’s city as an animal, squatted deep in the Earth, unconcerned by lowly creatures like me crawling through it occasionally. I’ve seen nothing to suggest it’s anything but organic and suspect it’s simply a wonder of synthetic biological construction, like our homes but on a bigger scale and designed by an alien mind.

  The tunnel suddenly tilts in the opposite direction, as if an invisible hand has grasped the section of intestine I’m clambering about in and lifted it into the air. My knees go out from under me and I’m on my stomach, pressed against the rope that I’m now gripping with both hands. All I can do is hang on and try to get some purchase with my boots, but the floor that is now wall is too slippery and spongy. The pellets roll past me and I doubt I’ll ever see them again. There’s nothing to stand on, nothing to dig into, and I know I’ll fall soon.

  It’s never changed orientation so sharply before and I try to keep my breathing steady. The closed valve that forms the way back out again is now a meter away, set into the wall above my head. I’m not strong enough to pull myself up by the strength of my arms alone. I try anyway. I manage to pull my chin a few centimeters up the rope, knowing that if I let go with one hand to move it to a higher hold, I’ll lose my grip. I try to wrap my legs around the rope, but can’t feel where it is through my protective clothing. If I can just hang on until it changes back, I won’t be trapped inside.

  The muscles in my hands start to burn and I have time to swear before they give out completely and I half slide, half fall downward. My fingers gouge tracks into the tunnel, the gloopy residue collecting beneath my fingertips, and the goggles are soon coated with the stuff too. A warning flashes up from the air filter mask’s software; it’s getting clogged and I’m not carrying an air supply. It can’t filter through such a thick layer of mucus and I panic, abandon the useless attempt to stop my slide with my hands, and instead try to wipe off the gunk covering the mouthpiece with frantic inefficiency. I twist as I do so, managing to get the tunnel against my back so nothing more accumulates over my headgear.

  My feet hit something and the impact jars through my body, making my knees buckle. As I pitch forward, somehow one of my hands finds the rope again and I cling on to it, my panicked breaths making the filter mask pull in tighter with each intake. Whatever broke my fall is solid beneath my boots and seems stable enough to support me as I shiver and struggle to put the mess of primal reactions back in their place.

  Once the worst is over, I try to wipe a glove on a patch below my left armpit that is relatively free of the slime and then clean off the goggles, leaving a thin smear the coated plasglass can cope with. Soon they are clear and I get the filter mask functioning well enough for me to take stock and work out what to do next.