A thousand miles under earth’s surface, and right on schedule, Donovan waited for his world to end.

Apart from the gentle rhythm of her breathing, mother lay unmoving. Donovan’s bloodshot eyes stood out in stark contrast to the soft blue light suffusing the room and painting his features. His pale face seemed to glow with the dim light, throwing the deepening furrows between his brows into sharp relief. His stomach was a steel vice, slowly ratcheting tighter as he waited for … well, anything except what he knew would come in the next few minutes. Mother’s chest began it’s rhythmic descent once again but this time it didn’t stop. It seemed like her lungs were emptying completely and her body sank deeper into her bed even as her chest deflated. It was as if some part of her which was lighter than air had finally broken free and drifted away.

As her chest shrank Donovan's eyes grew. The thought “No, She can’t go, It’s not time yet” ran panicked and screaming through Donovan's head.

“Mom!” Donovan choked on the word while lurching clumsily across the cramped room to his Mother’s side.

She didn’t turn her head. Her eyes still pointed towards the display stretching across the entire back wall but her chest heaved fractionally higher than he had seen it reach today and deflated again with an exasperated sigh.

“Be quiet child” Her voice carried the breathy, peaceful quality of someone who hardly has any energy left to devote to earthly concerns “I’ve worked towards this moment my whole life. I’ve still got three minutes and twenty-seven seconds left. I have given you twenty years. Let me spend these last minutes in peace.”

The finality of her words pierced his gut like jagged steel. The pressure behind his eyes finally spilled over and burning tears began to tumble down his glowing face. They traced the newly formed creases from either side of his nose around his mouth. The hot, salty water paused for a moment, trembling at the end of his chin before falling like shining blue stars. His tears met the floor with a soft tapping, hardly distinguishable over the everpresent, comforting hum of mothers pod before they were be quickly absorbed and recycled. “I don’t-”

“The core doesn’t care what you don’t want or don’t like. I deserve this and it’s time for you to grow up. Let me pass on with some dignity.” Her chest was rising and falling more rapidly now but the rest of her body remained slack as she continued her vigil over the chronometer which dominated her screen wall.

Donovan’s eyes were drawn to the personal chronometer embedded in his forearm, watching the suddenly blurry numbers march downwards in lock step with his mother's for a few beats. His readout was an exact replica of Mother’s except for one significant difference. Mother’s chronometer displayed a large digital zero for decades of service remaining. On Donovan's chronometer, a small line bisecting that same zero indicated a separation of eighty years. A feeling of helpless inevitability washed over Donovan like runny cement mix. Something cold scooped something warm out of his chest leaving an empty hollow for him to crumple into under this new pressure.

“I don’t want you to go” was what he meant to say but it came out as “I domp an u ta go” and was followed by a wet and undignified noise. Mother looked directly at Donovan for the first time in years. It wasn’t the kind regard Donovan had been hoping for when he made the trip to her pod.

“Well it’s not up to you.” Mother snapped “The core is going to transfer me in another two minutes and 58 seconds and it does not require the permission of some hysterical child.” Donovan shriveled under the heat in her voice. He felt suddenly brittle. His hand twitched with the repressed urge to seek comfort in physical contact. Nearly a decade had passed since the last time Mother met his touch with anything short of reproach. She was right, it’s time for him to grow up. Coming here was a mistake, something a child would do.

Donovan, unable to meet Mother’s scorching look missed the moment when her eyes, wide with shock and anger wavered for a moment before she snapped her head back around to face the display. Her formerly relaxed posture was replaced by one of rigid tension. Her knuckles lost what little color they had as she clutched at the ends of her armrests.

As Donovan was busy compacting his soul into a tiny ball and burying it deep underground where it might survive the coming shockwave, Mother continued her lecture. “Just keep your head down, put in your years and you will join me before you know it” Her tense muscles began to relax as she found the familiar words. “I’ve done my eighty years of service and now it’s time to claim my eternal reward alongside our ancestors.”

She was weeping now but Donovan knew her tears didn’t stem from any kind of regret. Her eyes were brimming with the tears of a zealot who has finally reached the gates of her promised land after a lifetime of struggling through harsh wilderness. “Soon I can do my final service, leaving this body’s resources to the city as I achieve transcendence.”

She took a deep shuddering breath, reclaiming some of her composure before reciting our clan’s affirmation.

We who are born of the city

We who tend to its needs

once we serve short mortal years

shall be released from mortal fears

After her recitation, we lapsed into silence contemplating the poem which adorns the Shepard clans coat of arms. She was no doubt exultant at the prospect of finally taking her place among our ancestors. Donovan, however, did not take comfort in the cycle. He resented it. He resented the idea that Mother’s first priority was to the city. He wanted to be important to his mother but she only saw him as a replacement, nothing more than hardware commissioned for the sole purpose of carrying on the duties she will leave behind. Donovan would have to prove himself through a lifetime of service before he could hope to see her again.

During the silence Mother’s timer finally reached two minutes. The light strips illuminating her room shifted deeper into the spectrum passing through orange hues and settling on a golden light that seemed to gather in the air like a physical thing. The City Anthem began to play. Donovan forgot his surroundings as he was swept up in rapture. Though it was his first time hearing the legendary song there was no mistaking it. The flowing melody was completely different from the standard marches designed to improve productivity and focus. The anthem is only played twice in a citizen's life. Once when they gain citizenship and again when they transcend. This lends it an incredible weight which pinned Donovan to the floor even though a small fragment of himself insisted that he should not linger for this part. Goosebumps sprouted from Donovan as tingling electricity ran up his spine and itched at his scalp in an overwhelmingly pleasant way.

In front of Mother, golden filaments flowed inward from the borders of the wall and began swirling. The lines thickened and resolved themselves into the form of an enchantingly beautiful woman spinning in time with the anthem, a golden dress flaring about her as the last of the filaments took their place in her hem. She spun for several more measures before coming to rest facing us. Her dress continued to sway as she favored Mother with a smile so luminous it could have melted the core.

“Hello Martha. I would like to be the first to thank you for your dedicated service to our noble city. You are an exemplary citizen. Congratulations, your transcendence is fast approaching.”

A shrieking klaxxon exploded in donovan's ear, snapping him painfully out of his awe induced stupor. He winced away from the offending noise and clapped his hand over his ear. This didn’t help of course. The siren was coming from an implant deep in his ear canal. The alarm cut out abruptly, replaced by the instantly recognizable voice of authority in the city. A priest was calling.

“Child SH-836, report to your workstation at once. Failure to present yourself will result in summary resource divestment.”

Hearing the unmistakable authority in the creamy baritone shared by all priests, Donovan's training kicked in, turning him around and carrying him halfway out the portal before he remembered what was happening behind him. With one hand gripping the rungs circling the entrance to mothers capsule and the other on the ladder outside, he looked back over his shoulder.

Mother was reaching out towards the apparition in gold, tears streaking freely down her face. Donovan opened his mouth to say a final goodbye. The words got stuck behind a lump in his throat. Another painful chirp in his ear reminded him of the summons so he closed his mouth without saying anything.

Fresh tears welled in his eyes as he turned back to the ladder. He found the other handle through his tears by it’s flashing yellow led’s. As soon as his feet found their place on the steel grate the lights turned green. He twisted the handles and the ladder shot downward in freefall.

It only took a couple of seconds of air whistling past him in the close confines of the access shaft before an angry red light strobing from the inside of his pod came into view. his stomach twisted in a way that had nothing to do with his mother or his rapid descent. Donovan throttled back on the ladder slowing his descent while using the motion to check his chronometer. He was late but not irredeemably so.

He reached out for the handles ringing the hatch to his capsule intending to swing neatly onto his recliner as he had done a hundred times before. His body betrayed him. The tears blurring his vision caused him to half miss one of the handles. His hands were oddly weak and Donovan was sent spinning in an unexpected direction. He landed in a painful heap on top of a bank of controls with an undignified grunt. At least he would have a good excuse for his tears. Donovan clawed his way upright and got onto his recliner, all under the scrutiny of a thoroughly unamused priest.

The face on the screen could have belonged to any of the order of keepers. A polished iron shell encased the majority of its head and wrapped around its neck in an unbending collar. The dark iron was particularly imposing when compared to the delicate lips and chin which peeked out from under its rim. The normally pale lips were robbed of all color as they pressed into a thin disapproving line. A spray of wires radiated from the back of its helmet. Donovan knew from his education that this departure from biological imperfection and the attempts to become one with the city were a point of pride for the keepers. Unfortunately, the more donovan learned about this clan which wields ultimate authority in the city, the less he could stand to be in their presence. The alterations allowing keepers to interface with the city and the extensive amputations meant to lower the organic resources they require never failed to make Donovan shiver involuntarily. The recyclers kicked on as Donovan began to sweat profusely. It didn’t help that Donovan knew the exact contents of his recycling stream were being reviewed by the priest looming over him.

“P-Praise be unto the city which provides the gifts of life, sustenance, and purpose. Thanks be unto the keepers who serve most devoutly in this life so we may enjoy the next. Blessings upon the citizens, so they may complete their service dutifully. I, the child now take up the burdens of my forebears so they may transcend with peace of mind.”

Donovan was worried the lump in his throat would keep him from completing the ritual of transference but after an initial stutter, the words came as naturally as they did in his practice. The keeper’s lips relaxed fractionally and the strobing alarm light switched off.

“You, the child, are late. Luckily for you, your sins” The keeper made a pause of several seconds “as extensive as they may be, will not follow you into citizenship.”

Donovan bowed his head. He didn’t trust his voice and it was always safer to let the keepers assume what they want. It was all too easy to say the wrong thing and Donovan took the keepers words as the warning they were. Citizens are held to a much higher standard than children and blaspheming in front of a keeper is a good way to earn a one-way ticket to the recycling level.

The priest’s lips twisted into an unsettling approximation of a smile. This keeper seemed like one who has read a manual on smiles because his job requires their use but has never seen a natural one before. “Do your best to uphold the honor of clan Shepard as you take up your civic duties. Don the mantle of citizen with pride and serve the city well Citizen SH-836.”

With that, the screenwall switched to a view of the city emblem. A simple shining point at the center of a trio of grey concentric circles. After a few seconds, The inner ring flashed and the city anthem began for what should have been the first time in Donovan's life.

A sudden jolt ran through Donovan as the song which held him pinned just minutes ago reminded him of Mother. He looked to his chronometer and his insides fell away. The chronometer read out 7 decades, 9 years, 364 days, 23 hours and 57 minutes. Mother was gone.

All of the tension and fear of the last five minutes left him feeling wrung out. He knew this day was coming for years but deep down, he believed Mother was the one constant he could rely on, the one person who cared about him. The rest of the anthem fell on deaf ears as Donovan curled up and sobbed, all alone. After a time the music faded and the only noises were the recyclers trying to handle the unexpected spill and Donovan's quiet attempts to breathe normally.