Beneath A Domed Sky

Lion's Gate recalls a mysterious old woman, surrounded by chimes and the aroma of flowers, who walked the world on Lion's Gate to collect those who would follow.

You don't go to the Processing Center? They will find you and you will end up being parts for Synths or the black market. If you hit Meta early, you're either in the lab or on the slab. That's all we got as kids. Some dummies think going to space is their ticket out, but I know better. The pay is bullshit no matter who you work for because kids are dispensable.

Maybe the Good Book is a start. Don't believe in it. Hell, you can't believe in it if you know what I know and watched tragedy just change clothes in response to the timeline...but the people, the robots...the people who may, or may not be robots, need some place to sit, to rest, to pray. I will give them that. At least as much as I can.

I will not save them, though I could.

Tiana Steibenz. Precocious. A little girl with her Father's wild red hair, her mother's ice blue eyes and a quiet gift that no one knows. She sees the threads of life. Her best friend is a dead little boy... Tiana can't tell the adults what she sees. She thinks it's better that way. Yet every night, she speaks to the Spider Lady about time...even in a dead world, and listens to things bigger than the multiverse itself.

I take my time, light the cigar and blow creamy rings above me. Mild mannered The Grant, Marketing God, Media Darling...human. Naked and scarred like all men of power. The night creeps behind its veil, the dome shifting from crimson and gold to bruised greens and violets. The cigar and finish and I must cleanse.