DeConick A.D

K
CHAPTER FIVE
John and the Dark Cosmos
John Murdoch
John Murdoch lives in a dark and murky world, where midnight is also
noon. He is unsure where he is, as are all the other residents of Dark City,
an urban bricolage created from stolen human memories of cities spanning
time and space. Whereas the other residents go about their business
unaware of the strangeness of their world, Murdoch begins to suspect that
all is not as it seems. Something ominous is going on and he is driven to
discover the truth (figure 5.1).
He wonders how it can be night already, when it was never day. When
he is caught and interrogated by Inspector Bumstead, Murdoch asks the
inspector to confirm his doubts. “When was the last time you did anything
during the day?” Murdoch asks. “Daylight. When was the last time
you remember seeing it? I’m not talking about a distant, half-forgotten
childhood memory. I mean like yesterday.” Pressing on, he says, “I don’t
think the sun even exists in this place. ’Cause I’ve been up for hours and
hours and hours, and night never ends.”
In each advancing scene of Alex Proyas’s 1998 film Dark City , Murdoch
hides in shadowy rooms and races down dark streets, pursued by police
and bald, ashen men clad in long, dark robes, the Strangers. The Strangers
are powerful beings, aliens from another world who have psychokinetic
powers. They have mastered the ultimate technology: they have the ability
to alter physical reality by will alone, a technology they call “tuning.”