khepri

Main Character: Khepri
Brother: Horus
Father: Osiris
Mother: Isis

other character names:
scribe: Seshat (female)
crafter: Ptah
I don't know why, I just like the cat-like sound of egyptian gods.




Duat

His eyes flickered open in the darkness of his bed. He slowly lifted one finger to the instrument panel above him and pressed a button. A deep blue light flashed and flickered. 11.89, it said to him. “I hate waking up right before the alarm.” He waited in the silence, unable to fall asleep, unwilling to wake up and start his day. The deep blue faded, and he was left in darkness. He lay perfectly still, and he could feel the blood slowly melting through his limbs. He reached up and pressed the button again. 11.97. Inevitability crushed him. The deep blue faded, and he tried to hold his breath for as long as possible. Deep breath and hold: he finally released, panting in the blackness. He reached up to press the button. 11.99. He caught his breath and stared at the light above his head. 12.00 and the alarm's noise crashed into him. He twitched and hit his head. Cursing, he slapped the handle, and the lid of his cylinder slid back, blinding him. He flipped his legs over the edge of the cylinder and sat there, unwilling to move.

He eventually got dressed in his outer and walked out of his room. His father was already at the table, bearded and bristling. “You disappoint me sometimes, Khepri. Your brother is already gone to work, and look at you.” Khepri stopped moving and just stared through hooded eyes, dispassion and apathy written across his face. He slumped into a chair and sighed. “Sometimes, I wish you were more like your brother.” Khepri squeezed some Orangola paste onto his plate and stared at it. Nutrients and food coloring. He took his spoon and mashed the paste until it was a round disk on his plate. He scraped the paste into his mouth and swallowed without chewing. He didn't like paste. Teeth must have been made for something.

His father was waiting at the door for him. “Why don't you go?” he asked. “I know where I'm going, and it's not like--”

His father just raised one eyebrow and opened the door. Khepri sighed.

They walked through the pod, and his father nodded gravely to everything they passed. Stupid politician. Khepri tried to be nonchalant, and walked four feet behind his father, looking at everywhere else, as if he was unaware that he was following someone. He stared at the roof of the pod high above, inky and undefined by the bright blue lights below. The floor was illuminated brightly, but even the glowpanels weren't enough to reach the dome above. The father and son walked slowly over the light, crushing photons with every step. Everyone knew Khepri's father, so it was hard not to be noticed. Khepri did his best anyway. People just kept showing up, being nosy. “Osiris, why is your son not in school today?”
His father just flashed them his largest smile and said “Khepri is a man today.”

Today, Khepri turned twelve. Today was the day that he began working for the pod. Every child at the age of twelve was fitted to a task for the betterment of humankind. They received a new outer, colored according to their task: Orange for Orangola pasters, red for factory workers, green for waste reclaimers, purple for infrastructure workers, so on and so forth. Then, the poor unlucky fools were sent to hell, forced to work for the rest of their lives, whether they liked their task or not. Khepri was not excited about his prospects. His aptitude tests showed that he was good with manual dexterity, which pointed straight at factory worker. Those who worked in the factory rarely survived to see their mandatory retirement date. There was a reason why the outers for factory workers were red: cloth is precious and stains are hard to remove.

Khepri and his father approached Seshat's desk. She looked down at him and smiled. “Today's the day you lose your grey, isn't it? Let's see where you test.” She flipped through the files and found him. “Okay, kid. You got . . .” she paused as she read. Khepri hyperventilated a little. “You got red!” He deflated a little. Sheshat turned and yelled into the back. “Tefnut! Get me a red outer!”

*

Purpose

Osiris knelt and looked at Khepri in the eye. “This is a good opportunity for you! Maybe you'll even get to work in the factory!” Khepri swallowed. “You know that your brother works in the factory – he's even a foreman now. Maybe they'll put you under him. Just think, you could be working for your brother!” The corner of Khepri's mouth curled upward in revulsion. He didn't like his brother. Too perfect. Too clean. Too popular. His brother always acted like he was the hero in his own story, and Khepri hated it. Osiris just didn't see it. “Maybe you'll be a foreman too, someday!” Osiris was still trying to cheer Khepri. It wasn't working.

Khepri just kept nodding and saying “Uh huh” and eventually Osiris left. Seshat finally looked down at him. “Are you ready, kid?” They walked together to the back of the pod, towards the factory. Khepri stopped listening to Seshat as she droned on and on about the glories of working for the pod and contributing to society. He didn't care. The glowpanels burned blue, turning her purple outer into a softer shade. Her cheekbones were accented by the harsh light from below. Soon, they reached the maintenance hopper attached to the outside of the pod. Grimy men were sliding tools across workbenches and pouring liquids into machines. Khepri was revolted; compared to the sterile environment of the rest of the pod, the men here were disgusting. Even the light here was different: a low red-orange, pulsing from the ceiling. His eyes tried to adjust after the cool shades of the rest of the pod. It seemed menacing. Seshat kept droning about responsibility and livelihoods. She finally turned to him and asked “Are you ready?” His frantic “no” was lost as she pushed him into the grim interior.

Khepri's bright red outer contrasted sharply with the faded hues worn by the frayed men in the maintenance hopper. Constant horns from the machines decayed as they reverberated off of the walls. Khepri wandered through the hopper. Two men were using a giant saw to remove the leg of a utility tripod. A young man ran past with a toolbox. Khepri was lost in the chaos. He felt alone, anonymous, completely devoid of any identity. No one looked at him. No one noticed that he was there. He blended with the background. He was unimportant.

Khepri found the supervisor, a man who seemed more ancient than Osiris, even. The wrinkles in his face matched maps that Khepri had seen in school: scarred and desiccated. The foreman looked like the surface itself. He assigned Khepri to work Outside, on the solar panels. “Do you understand what I mean?” Khepri just looked at him. He wasn't a child anymore. He knew what the words “outside the pod” meant. He also knew that only a few people ever went Out. He also knew that Outside, no matter how distasteful, was his salvation. He didn't have to work with Horus in the factory. He could escape from his brother and his father, even if he had to sink down into insignificance once he made it back to the Pod.

The foreman took Khepri to get him fitted for a suit. “You won't fit it long, so as soon as it gets tight, tell us and we'll get you another one. I'm sorry that we couldn't do better. I just wish I had a newer suit for Osiris' son.” Khepri groaned. He was just Khepri, not Osiris' son. He was tired of being treated differently just for belonging to Osiris. He was glad that the suit was used. He wasn't different because of his father. It had probably been the property of every twelve year old to work Outside since the pod was formed. Still, Khepri hoped it was airtight.

Khepri returned to the cylinder. He got back late: his brother and father were already home. He walked past them and shrugged off their congratulations. He dropped his suit on the floor of his room and rummaged around in his closet. He found a box from school, and pulled out a red wax pencil. Standing on the top of his cylinder bed, he reached up as high as he could on the wall and marked a single tally. One day of hell: down. Innumerable left to go.

*

Atum

Khepri woke and mouthed some paste, put on his suit and walked to the lock. He left alone: earlier than his father and later than his brother. Completely anonymous. Completely devoid of any identity separate from them. He walked past people he knew, but they didn't look up. He tried to remember the last time that someone other than his father or brother called him by his own name. He couldn't remember. It was too long ago.

Someone tall walked up to him. “Hey, kid! Hey, you're Horus brother, right! Slow down!”

Khepri kept walking.

“Hey, brainguy, I'm talking to you.” A hand grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. “When I'm talking, you listen.” The teenager towered over Khepri. He shoved him into a corner, away from the walk, off of the glowpanels. Everything fell into darkness. “I want you to tell your brother something for me.”

Khepri's eyes darted around the hulk, looking for a way out. No one was walking by. He tried to yell, but just then a monstrous fist slammed itself into his stomach and knocked out all his air. He tried to drag in more air but his body rebelled from the pain. His knees hit the ground and he doubled over wheezing. A monstrous foot placed itself gingerly on his shoulder and gave a shove. He rolled clumsily into a corner.

He slowly stood up, tears filling his eyes, and looked up. The teenager was still standing there, leering at him. Khepri clenched his fists and tried to roll his courage into a workable ball to fling at the bully. Then he saw another form, dark against the glowpanels behind it. It was his brother.

Horus moved like a beam of light: long and smooth. He pounced on the back of the bully and rode him to the ground. The bully bounced, with Horus on top of him. Khepri just stood and watched as the two men rolled around on the floor. Khepri wanted to run away, but he wouldn't be able to face Horus again if he ran away from a fight that wasn't even his. So he stood and watched the titanic bulk try to outmaneuver his brother, but his brother moved like a beam of light: imperceptibly fast. Whenever the bully tried to punch, Horus slapped his hand away and countered. Horus swept his foot and knocked the teenager to the ground. He wrapped himself around the other teenager and folded his arm around the other's neck. The bully struggled to get free, but couldn't. His eyes grew wide with fear, and he made little grunting sounds, slapping Horus on the side and neck with his free arm. Horus finally let go and stood up.

Horus walked over to Khepri and just stood there as his conquered foe slowly peeled himself off the ground and crawled away. “You alright? You're lucky I was walking to work just then.”

Khepri's eyes narrowed to slits. “I could have dealt with him myself.”

“I'm not saying you couldn't. I'm sure you could. I'm sure.” His brother was all concern and worry. Khepri rolled his eyes. “Hey, I've got to go to work, but if you want me to, I can walk with you to maintenance. It's not that far . . .”

“No. I'll be fine.” Horus walked away to the factory, looking over his shoulder. Khepri just stood in the shadows and stared at the darkened ground. Horus' fight had come to him, and he couldn't do anything. Horus had found his fight and finished it decisively. Khepri felt puny and insignificant. He couldn't fight or win.

Somewhere deep inside, Khepri wished that he was like Horus and was good enough to make people hate him for it.

He ran to work so he wouldn't be late. He found the precursor chamber and found the suitup checklist. The supervisor had taught him how to suit up. He geared up and then sealed his helmet tight. He pressed a button in his glove and lit the display on the inside of the helmet. In .04 the airlock would open and he would head out on his first job Outside. He took a deep breath and held it for as long as possible. The air tasted used and stale, but he held it. In .03, the airlock would open. He flexed his gloves and felt the cumbersome size of his new fingers. He wiggled his toes in the massive boots, and then stretched his arms as far as he could go, finding his range of movement. In .02, the airlock would open. He turned and faced the giant lock and just waited. Lights and alarms shook the lock, but they were muffled and dim beyond his helmet. Men in red jumpers scurried out of the room, and the door was closed on the fourteen left in the lock. Massive suction kicked in and ripped all of the good air out of the room. In .01, the lock would open. The air got thinner and thinner, until he couldn't hear the alarm at all, only feel it in the floor as a vibration. He became aware of the fourteen other people breathing into their com mics.

The lock opened. Khepri didn't think there was anything left for the Outside to suck out of the room, because they had pumped all of the air out already. But when the lock opened, it felt like he had been punched in the gut for a second time that day, like a barrier had been ripped away, and now cold mortality was gripping his very soul. He could die if his suit broke. He could die if a meteor hit. He could die a million different ways, and he no longer had the pod to cover him. He knew intellectually that there were failsafes and that few people died Outside, but the thought of going outside the massive outer shell still gave him tingles of fear in his fingertips and toes.

He glanced up and saw the sky for the first time in his entire life, and eternity came crashing down on him with a completely new meaning. How far away were the twinkling lights? Certainly farther up than the roof of the pod, which was already an unattainable distance away. He looked back down and found himself standing in the lock. One person was standing in front of him with their gloves on their hips. His speaker system crackled. “Are you coming, kid, or aren't you?”

Khepri whispered “Khepri. I'm Khepri, not 'kid,'” so quietly that the man didn't hear. He took one last look up at the lights in the sky: the first lights he had seen that weren't made by glowpanels. He walked out of the lock.

“My name's Atum. I know your Dad from way back. We turned twelve together and became men at the same time. Did you know that?” Khepri neither knew nor cared. Right now, his father and brother were a sore subject, as his bruises could attest.

They started the long climb to the roof, the man in front of him explaining the whole time. “We have to come up here every fifteen cycles or so to either put the panels up or take them down. When they're up, we have to come up here and find out if they've been damaged. This particular Pod doesn't get too many meteor showers, but it's always safe to check.” Khepri didn't really know why the man thought this was so interesting. They got to the peak of the dome, and Khepri looked out across the landscape. It was dark and grey. The only light came from the four exterior lights on the pod that flooded the vicinity in a sterile white. Beyond the Pod, the ground was black. The only way to tell the difference between the horizon and the sky was that at a certain point, there stopped being any stars. Khepri assumed that was the edge.

They worked constantly. Khepri carried panels from storage to their installation point, where Atum would then ratchet them on while Khepri held them still. Then they would repeat the process again, and again, and again, and again, until Khepri wondered that there was any space on the whole dome that wasn't already covered with panels. He never asked, but he wanted to know if the sun was any brighter than the rest of the stars. They seemed so weak and ineffectual. They couldn't even light the ground: how could they power a whole Pod, even with as many panels as they put up? The end of the shift neared, and Khepri and Atum climbed back down again. They reached the lock .02 before it opened – barely in time. They joined the crowd of men milling around, anxious to get back inside the dome of the Pod. He felt alone in the crowd. He was anonymous, devoid of any identity. Just another worker going home.

Khepri walked back to the cylinder. He ate in silence. Horus explained the fight to Osiris. Osiris bellowed approval and slapped his son on the back. “That's my son!” Khepri almost choked on his paste. That was a phrase that Osiris had never said to him. No pride for Khepri. Only concern. “Khepri, are you alright? Did you get hurt?” Khepri tried not to glower. Heavens preserve us if Horus didn't save you in time.

“Yeah, I'm fine.” Chalk one up to Horus. He's so fast that he even saved his brother from harm. He's a real conquering hero.

He walked to his room. Pulling out his wax pencil, he reached up and put a second tally next to the first. As he fell asleep, he tried to breathe as deeply as he could, to get the taste of Outside out of his lungs.

*

Defeating Apep

Khepri woke up and still tasted Outside. He got dressed, ate, waited for the lock, climbed the dome, and continued carrying panels to Atum. Halfway through their shift, he carried a panel back to Atum and found him standing there. “Hey, kid. Just set that down. I want you to see something.”

“Khepri. My name is Khepri.”

Atum looked at him. “Just wait.”

Khepri waited. He was good at waiting. He held his breath for as long as he could. He let it out slowly, and did it again. And again. He got bored of holding his breath and actually thought. He usually filled his empty time with emptiness. Today, however, he tried to change. He was twelve. He tried to fathom what that meant. He was thrown in at the deep end of the life he would live. He was given one shift to learn how not to die, and then set loose to ravage his future as he saw fit. Growth and maturity and being twelve were all rolled into one. He just wished that his brother and father and everyone else could see that he wasn't little Khepri anymore. He was a man. He was doing a man's job in a place where only a man would dare to go.

He stopped and tasted the air. It was stale.

Horus was better than him in every conceivable way, and Osiris was better than Horus. What was Khepri? “What am I, but the single failure in a family of success? Of course no one knows my name. I'm the one who gets beat up by my brother's enemies because I'm too weak to make my own.” He wanted to bite something. He wanted to sink his useless teeth into something and release all of his excess aggression.

But more than anything, he wanted someone to recognize him as Khepri. Not as Osiris' son. Not as Horus' brother. Not as anything but Khepri. He was a man. Why couldn't people treat him like one?

Eventually, .15 passed. It was a long time to wait. He looked at Atum, then back at the blackness, then back at Atum. There was nothing at the horizon, just like yesterday. And the day before. It was probably the same nothing that had been there forever. Stars and sun and galaxies – all useless pinpricks of light.

With terrible suddenness, a light brighter than anything Khepri had ever seen broke the horizon. Even his helmet's heavy reflective layer was almost overpowered by the passionate white light. He closed his eyes and stood for a long time. He waited without holding his breath or thinking or filling the time with anything but light. His eyes were closed, but they burned with the light. He could see it beyond his eyelids, searing right through with a dense red thunderous light that pushed with physical force against his brain. He had never been in the presence of so much light. He realized now that the lights in the pod were weak and laughable in comparison to this. His entire life had been spent in darkness.

He turned around finally, and opened his eyes. He could finally see the landscape around the Pod, lit as it was by the power behind him. The land was bright white and stretched for an eternity, pitted and cratered more convincingly than in the maps he had studied in school. This felt real. Maps had felt like someone describing an emotion. The light from the sun was horizontal, and the Pod's shadow extended all the way to the other horizon, cutting through the land like a knife of darkness, and Khepri stood on the edge. Atum turned, and with the sun behind him, said “Well, Khepri. This is dawn. You and me? We're the only ones who see it like this. You feel lucky to be Outside?”

Khepri felt lucky. He felt lucky that he got to see the searing light that kept the Pod alive. He felt lucky that he had a job that was necessary for everyone in the whole pod to survive. But mostly, he felt lucky that Atum used his name. He felt like somebody. He felt like he had an identity.

Not Osiris' son. Not Horus' brother.

Khepri.