"You’re abandoing us," my sister had said, her voice cold, hard, logical. “You think you’re going to save everyone, but you’re only running away.”
"Come with me," I said. "There’s room."
"And leave them?" She had shouted. "Leave them to this?"
Outside the windows of my workshop, the sky had been dark. Dark at noon. Ash and dust choked the sun, fell over everything like a sad, gray, toxic snow.
"There won’t be anything left," I said. "I have to bring them hope."
She had watched me set the last parameters, enter the final commands.
"I love you," she hugged me. The face masks of our radiation suits clicked. I felt her arms through the thick, stiff material. No warmth came through. "Good luck," she said.
"I love you too."
She stepped back. "Look me up when you get there," she joked. "I mean, maybe by then people will be living for over a hundred years."
I sealed myself in the pod. The countdown began. All the world’s knowledge and I, taking a one-way trip to the future.
And now I was here.
"What if no one listens to you?" My sister had said. Her words echoed in my mind as I turned the wheel to unseal the pod. "What if they think you’re a witch and smash everything you’ve brought them."
"Their problem, not mine," I had snapped back, tired of her arguments. At the time I didn’t care. Now I did. Now it mattered. I had to make this work.
Sunlight streamed into the pod. I hadn’t seen sunlight in months. At least the sun was still working a hundred years in the future. Green, I saw green. Plants. Life. We hadn’t managed to kill the whole planet. I laughed, tears streaming down my face, and doubled over with the agony of relief, one hand of my radiation suit clutched tight on the hatch opening.
Radiation levels normal. No toxins or known bio-weapon agents. All the readings were good. I took off my helmet and breathed the warm, sweet smell of a field of corn.
A huge field of corn, unbroken all the way to the mountains ahead of me. Distant, silent machines moved through the corn, harvesting maybe, I couldn't tell. I turned around and found myself facing an impossibly tall city. The buildings, cylindrical and metallic, rose high into the blue sky.
They hadn’t needed me at all. I could have stayed. I might have done more good if I had stayed.
Guilt gnawing at my chest, I sealed the pod and began making my way toward the city.
read the next part
Showing posts with label Futuristic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Futuristic. Show all posts
Friday, May 8, 2015
Thursday, April 30, 2015
#166 The Well
My ancestors came to this land from the East. With their own hands, they built this house. With their own hands they dug the well. Twenty feet down to fresh, pure water for them to drink.
I stand beside the well diggers and watch as the machinery grinds and whirrs, burrowing into the earth at a depth I can’t imagine. Three thousand feet down. Over half a mile. When I look out over the dusty fields, three thousand feet must be about all the way to the abandoned silo on the Miller’s place. All that distance, only straight down into the earth.
I remember when the river ran in the bottom, when we could draw water from it to irrigate. I remember when there were orchards in this valley as far as the eye could see. Now there’s a patchwork, only a few squares of green where folks had the money to dig for water.
Every minute the drill pushes farther, and every minute the cost grows higher. If we don’t find water, I’ll have no harvest this year, and no way to pay the debt to the diggers. The house my ancestors built with their own hands, the ancient window glass, bubbled and warped, that they placed in the panes, will be lost along with the land it stands on. Someone who cares nothing for it will knock it to the ground, or leave it to slowly rot in the sun and the dust.
If we don’t strike water soon, not even a good harvest this year, or the next ten years, will pay for this well.
“That’s it,” one of the workers says. “Water.” He says it as if he knew all along they’d find it, as if it wasn’t the shape of my life, my family’s life, all depending on this.
The first flow comes up, pumped from deep beneath the surface. Thick and red like blood, it spills onto the ground.
Then clear water follows, washes the stain away.
We have bought ourselves a little more time.
I stand beside the well diggers and watch as the machinery grinds and whirrs, burrowing into the earth at a depth I can’t imagine. Three thousand feet down. Over half a mile. When I look out over the dusty fields, three thousand feet must be about all the way to the abandoned silo on the Miller’s place. All that distance, only straight down into the earth.
I remember when the river ran in the bottom, when we could draw water from it to irrigate. I remember when there were orchards in this valley as far as the eye could see. Now there’s a patchwork, only a few squares of green where folks had the money to dig for water.
Every minute the drill pushes farther, and every minute the cost grows higher. If we don’t find water, I’ll have no harvest this year, and no way to pay the debt to the diggers. The house my ancestors built with their own hands, the ancient window glass, bubbled and warped, that they placed in the panes, will be lost along with the land it stands on. Someone who cares nothing for it will knock it to the ground, or leave it to slowly rot in the sun and the dust.
If we don’t strike water soon, not even a good harvest this year, or the next ten years, will pay for this well.
“That’s it,” one of the workers says. “Water.” He says it as if he knew all along they’d find it, as if it wasn’t the shape of my life, my family’s life, all depending on this.
The first flow comes up, pumped from deep beneath the surface. Thick and red like blood, it spills onto the ground.
Then clear water follows, washes the stain away.
We have bought ourselves a little more time.
Sunday, April 26, 2015
#162 Lone Robot
guest post by Colin Carlson
Bits of dust rain down from the copper colored sky. The dying star sets in the west, its red glow fading to black. The dust carries with it a deadly poison. Luckily, I cannot be poisoned. I am K.E.M, Keeper of Earth unit M. I was left on this dead world when the humans left. I was to keep alien races off the planet while they were away. But none came. And the humans didn’t come back. So I roam endlessly, wandering the planet, waiting and hoping for the humans to come back. It has been hundreds of years. Thousands. I honestly don’t know why anyone would want this world anymore. The water for the most part evaporated or became deadly. The plants and animals all but died out. Not even a cockroach survived.
Now the earth is as barren as our neighbor mars. Occasionally there are little traces that humans had lived here. A block of stone standing atop another, a hole dug 200 miles deep, and us. The humans left before things got really bad. The tectonic plates shattered. Each continent tearing into small pieces. The pieces shift along the surface. You can watch them if you have the time, which I do. The little shards of land grind together. You can feel it sometimes, and you can always hear it. Many of the bots have died. I don’t really know how many remain, but I will see the occasional dead shell of one of my own.
Earth cracks and crumbles beneath my metal plated feet. The dust is so thick here it just slides out from under you. I patrol the land, watching the skies for signs of life. Signs of anything more than a dusty surface lit by a dying sun. Dust storms fling the particles into the sky. I sit and wait out the torrent in a small alcove. My sensors indicate something a little more out of the ordinary deeper in the cave. I walk in further and find a small object. I feel its surface with the sensors in my hand, and risk turning on my one remaining eye-light to show the object.
A stone figure, etched into the shape of one of the creatures on my database. It amazes me that this stone object has not crumbled in the heat. As if reacting to my thoughts, the object crumbles to dust in my fingers. This dead world holds no life, and never can. I mourn, for I know that the humans shall never return, so I am fated to wander this dead planet endlessly, until I run down and become yet another of these dead relics of a dead world, to decay and crumble like the statue.
Bits of dust rain down from the copper colored sky. The dying star sets in the west, its red glow fading to black. The dust carries with it a deadly poison. Luckily, I cannot be poisoned. I am K.E.M, Keeper of Earth unit M. I was left on this dead world when the humans left. I was to keep alien races off the planet while they were away. But none came. And the humans didn’t come back. So I roam endlessly, wandering the planet, waiting and hoping for the humans to come back. It has been hundreds of years. Thousands. I honestly don’t know why anyone would want this world anymore. The water for the most part evaporated or became deadly. The plants and animals all but died out. Not even a cockroach survived.
Now the earth is as barren as our neighbor mars. Occasionally there are little traces that humans had lived here. A block of stone standing atop another, a hole dug 200 miles deep, and us. The humans left before things got really bad. The tectonic plates shattered. Each continent tearing into small pieces. The pieces shift along the surface. You can watch them if you have the time, which I do. The little shards of land grind together. You can feel it sometimes, and you can always hear it. Many of the bots have died. I don’t really know how many remain, but I will see the occasional dead shell of one of my own.
Earth cracks and crumbles beneath my metal plated feet. The dust is so thick here it just slides out from under you. I patrol the land, watching the skies for signs of life. Signs of anything more than a dusty surface lit by a dying sun. Dust storms fling the particles into the sky. I sit and wait out the torrent in a small alcove. My sensors indicate something a little more out of the ordinary deeper in the cave. I walk in further and find a small object. I feel its surface with the sensors in my hand, and risk turning on my one remaining eye-light to show the object.
A stone figure, etched into the shape of one of the creatures on my database. It amazes me that this stone object has not crumbled in the heat. As if reacting to my thoughts, the object crumbles to dust in my fingers. This dead world holds no life, and never can. I mourn, for I know that the humans shall never return, so I am fated to wander this dead planet endlessly, until I run down and become yet another of these dead relics of a dead world, to decay and crumble like the statue.
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
#160 Mothership 3
read the first part
“Come,” Mother said, her voice soft and mysterious. “Look here.” She pointed to a place in the wall where a panel was slowly rolling aside.
Dawn opened her eyes wide in the dim light, trying to make out what was back there in the dark. A soft red glow bathed something small and floating. It twitched, and Dawn jumped back with a little squeak. When she drew closer again, she could make out a round head, large eyes dark through translucent eyelids, arms, hands with tiny fingers, and even legs with feet and toes.
“It has legs and feet, just like mine!” Dawn said.
“She does,” Mother said. “I hope you will help me teach her how to use them.”
Dawn looked up into Mother’s smiling face. Mother didn’t have legs, she had always said she didn’t need them. Her place was in the home, Aiko did everything that had to be done outside. From the middle up, Dawn was like Mother, with arms and hands, a body, a head, a face, but where Mother was planted into the floor, like a tree, Dawn had legs to move around. She sometimes thought her legs weren’t as fast or as steady as Aiko’s wheels, or the drones’ whirring propellers that let them fly, but they were what she had. Her alone, out of everything else in the world.
But not anymore. Now there was someone else.
“This is your sister. What do you think we should call her?” Mother asked.
Dawn blinked, surprised. Mother never asked her to help name things that came out of the home. Things that came from the world outside, Dawn always got to name them. But the koi in the pond, which had come from the home, all the fruits and vegetables and flowers in the garden, they had come from the home, and Mother had taught Dawn their names. Now here was something that most definitely had come from the home, but Dawn was being asked to name it.
Dawn watched her sister’s tiny hand, the whole hand the size of one of Dawn’s finger tips, move up to the face as if to shield her eyes from the light. “Day,” Dawn said. “Because looking at her makes me feel like sunshine all over.”
“That sounds beautiful,” Mother said. “We will call her Day.”
“Come,” Mother said, her voice soft and mysterious. “Look here.” She pointed to a place in the wall where a panel was slowly rolling aside.
Dawn opened her eyes wide in the dim light, trying to make out what was back there in the dark. A soft red glow bathed something small and floating. It twitched, and Dawn jumped back with a little squeak. When she drew closer again, she could make out a round head, large eyes dark through translucent eyelids, arms, hands with tiny fingers, and even legs with feet and toes.
“It has legs and feet, just like mine!” Dawn said.
“She does,” Mother said. “I hope you will help me teach her how to use them.”
Dawn looked up into Mother’s smiling face. Mother didn’t have legs, she had always said she didn’t need them. Her place was in the home, Aiko did everything that had to be done outside. From the middle up, Dawn was like Mother, with arms and hands, a body, a head, a face, but where Mother was planted into the floor, like a tree, Dawn had legs to move around. She sometimes thought her legs weren’t as fast or as steady as Aiko’s wheels, or the drones’ whirring propellers that let them fly, but they were what she had. Her alone, out of everything else in the world.
But not anymore. Now there was someone else.
“This is your sister. What do you think we should call her?” Mother asked.
Dawn blinked, surprised. Mother never asked her to help name things that came out of the home. Things that came from the world outside, Dawn always got to name them. But the koi in the pond, which had come from the home, all the fruits and vegetables and flowers in the garden, they had come from the home, and Mother had taught Dawn their names. Now here was something that most definitely had come from the home, but Dawn was being asked to name it.
Dawn watched her sister’s tiny hand, the whole hand the size of one of Dawn’s finger tips, move up to the face as if to shield her eyes from the light. “Day,” Dawn said. “Because looking at her makes me feel like sunshine all over.”
“That sounds beautiful,” Mother said. “We will call her Day.”
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
#159 Mothership 2
read the first part
The plants of mother’s garden had always seemed weak and frail next to the thick, broad leaves, fat tree trunks, and heavy vines that covered most of the bottom of the crater. Dawn snapped a ripe green pea pod from the thin stem of a garden plant as she passed by and popped it into her mouth, enjoying the crisp taste and sweet juice. Here were things Mother had named for her, tomatoes, carrots, pumpkins, potatoes. Outside the garden were things for Dawn to name. She thought about what to call the round, yellowish fruit in her hand that she had brought with her from beneath the crater’s rim. Moon fruit, she decided, after the bright yellow moon. She hoped this fruit would be something she could eat. It smelled delicious.
The door slid open for Dawn as she came close to the round, white home she shared with Mother, Aiko, and the drones, Ganymede and Callisto. Callisto had been buzzing around overhead as she and Aiko had been out walking, but she wasn’t sure where Ganymede was. She could check his cam when she got inside.
“I found a new fruit, mother,” Dawn said. “Will you analyze it for me?”
“Put it in,” Mother’s voice said. “And come over here, I want you to see this.”
A panel in the wall slid out and Dawn dropped her fruit inside. The panel rolled shut again, and Dawn could hear the whir of her fruit being shredded up into tiny pieces for analysis.
Dawn ran to Mother’s place by the wall and gave her a hug, felt her warm, soft arms around her.
“I’m going to dim the lights,” Mother said.
The door rolled shut and the lights in the home grew soft and red.
read the next part
The plants of mother’s garden had always seemed weak and frail next to the thick, broad leaves, fat tree trunks, and heavy vines that covered most of the bottom of the crater. Dawn snapped a ripe green pea pod from the thin stem of a garden plant as she passed by and popped it into her mouth, enjoying the crisp taste and sweet juice. Here were things Mother had named for her, tomatoes, carrots, pumpkins, potatoes. Outside the garden were things for Dawn to name. She thought about what to call the round, yellowish fruit in her hand that she had brought with her from beneath the crater’s rim. Moon fruit, she decided, after the bright yellow moon. She hoped this fruit would be something she could eat. It smelled delicious.
The door slid open for Dawn as she came close to the round, white home she shared with Mother, Aiko, and the drones, Ganymede and Callisto. Callisto had been buzzing around overhead as she and Aiko had been out walking, but she wasn’t sure where Ganymede was. She could check his cam when she got inside.
“I found a new fruit, mother,” Dawn said. “Will you analyze it for me?”
“Put it in,” Mother’s voice said. “And come over here, I want you to see this.”
A panel in the wall slid out and Dawn dropped her fruit inside. The panel rolled shut again, and Dawn could hear the whir of her fruit being shredded up into tiny pieces for analysis.
Dawn ran to Mother’s place by the wall and gave her a hug, felt her warm, soft arms around her.
“I’m going to dim the lights,” Mother said.
The door rolled shut and the lights in the home grew soft and red.
read the next part
Monday, April 20, 2015
#158 Mothership
Dawn tipped her head back until she could see the bright blue of the sky over the rim of the crater high above her. She wrapped her fingers around one of the thick vines that climbed the rock wall and gave it a tug. It seemed strong enough to hold her.
“Aiko, if I climbed up there, could you follow me?”
The lens of Aiko’s one eye rotated, measuring the cliff face. “No,” Aiko said. His wheels turned, backing him down the slope. “Which is why you mustn’t climb it. Not until you’re older.”
Dawn sighed. “How much older?”
“Your mother will tell you when you’re ready,” Aiko said. “It is time to go home now. Your mother has something to show you.”
Dawn gave the top of the ridge one last long stare. She could climb it, she could climb it right now. She’d climbed trees that were higher. Why did she need to wait?
Aiko began rolling his way down the slope, his tires crushing the thick, deep green leaves of the vines. Dawn followed in his path, stopping to collect a fleshy yellow fruit she hadn’t seen before. Maybe this one would be something she could eat.
“Be careful with that,” Aiko said. “It hasn’t been analyzed yet.”
Dawn could no longer see the cliff face behind them. She passed a familiar tree, the clump of rocks where she liked to sit and watch the buzzers dip into the stream for a drink, sometimes to be caught by the snake plants that grew just beneath the surface, and then they came to the clearing where her home, low and round and white, stood surrounded by Mother’s garden.
read the next part
“Aiko, if I climbed up there, could you follow me?”
The lens of Aiko’s one eye rotated, measuring the cliff face. “No,” Aiko said. His wheels turned, backing him down the slope. “Which is why you mustn’t climb it. Not until you’re older.”
Dawn sighed. “How much older?”
“Your mother will tell you when you’re ready,” Aiko said. “It is time to go home now. Your mother has something to show you.”
Dawn gave the top of the ridge one last long stare. She could climb it, she could climb it right now. She’d climbed trees that were higher. Why did she need to wait?
Aiko began rolling his way down the slope, his tires crushing the thick, deep green leaves of the vines. Dawn followed in his path, stopping to collect a fleshy yellow fruit she hadn’t seen before. Maybe this one would be something she could eat.
“Be careful with that,” Aiko said. “It hasn’t been analyzed yet.”
Dawn could no longer see the cliff face behind them. She passed a familiar tree, the clump of rocks where she liked to sit and watch the buzzers dip into the stream for a drink, sometimes to be caught by the snake plants that grew just beneath the surface, and then they came to the clearing where her home, low and round and white, stood surrounded by Mother’s garden.
read the next part
Thursday, April 2, 2015
#146 Fire and Ice
The sun grew smaller every day.
I kicked aside a heat-shriveled plastic bottle at the top of the subway stairs, the aftermath of last summer’s holocaust. Yellowed newspapers crumbled under a coating of frost, their desperate headlines rendered irrelevant by the new reality. Earth had fallen from her orbit, disturbed by a passing black dwarf. Anything that had lived through our brush with the sun now had to face an unimaginable winter.
All that mattered now was this. Had something edible survived in the darkness of these subway tunnels?
The grip of the cold grew less as I descended and turned on my headlamp. It was dimming, just like the sun. I had to find some new batteries. I spotted a newsstand in an alcove, looted of food and drink, and batteries of course, but still with plenty of heat-crisped reading material. If I decided to stay down here instead of going back to the colony at least I wouldn’t die bored, so long as I was careful about turning the pages.
I smashed open an office door with my crowbar and rifled through all the drawers in the desk. I spotted a battery, but it had been burst open by heat, same as an old can of tuna that had left dried and shriveled flakes of fish meat coating a shelf. Solar fish jerky. I ate as much of it as I could scrape off.
It was the only thing I could find on the platform.
For longer than I should have, I debated whether to go down the subway tunnel. That untouched can of tuna, even though it was behind a locked door, made me think that this part of the subway system had remained uninhabited. What I wanted was to find a cache of supplies stashed away down deep, carried down into the tunnels where the deadly heat hadn't penetrated. Preferably abandoned, but if not, I could try and persuade the owners to join the colony.
If they didn't try to kill me first.
Keeping my crowbar ready, I slid off the platform and down onto the subway track.
I kicked aside a heat-shriveled plastic bottle at the top of the subway stairs, the aftermath of last summer’s holocaust. Yellowed newspapers crumbled under a coating of frost, their desperate headlines rendered irrelevant by the new reality. Earth had fallen from her orbit, disturbed by a passing black dwarf. Anything that had lived through our brush with the sun now had to face an unimaginable winter.
All that mattered now was this. Had something edible survived in the darkness of these subway tunnels?
The grip of the cold grew less as I descended and turned on my headlamp. It was dimming, just like the sun. I had to find some new batteries. I spotted a newsstand in an alcove, looted of food and drink, and batteries of course, but still with plenty of heat-crisped reading material. If I decided to stay down here instead of going back to the colony at least I wouldn’t die bored, so long as I was careful about turning the pages.
I smashed open an office door with my crowbar and rifled through all the drawers in the desk. I spotted a battery, but it had been burst open by heat, same as an old can of tuna that had left dried and shriveled flakes of fish meat coating a shelf. Solar fish jerky. I ate as much of it as I could scrape off.
It was the only thing I could find on the platform.
For longer than I should have, I debated whether to go down the subway tunnel. That untouched can of tuna, even though it was behind a locked door, made me think that this part of the subway system had remained uninhabited. What I wanted was to find a cache of supplies stashed away down deep, carried down into the tunnels where the deadly heat hadn't penetrated. Preferably abandoned, but if not, I could try and persuade the owners to join the colony.
If they didn't try to kill me first.
Keeping my crowbar ready, I slid off the platform and down onto the subway track.
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
#134 New Neighbors
By the time the second volcano erupted on Mars, everyone in the world knew about it.
Astronomy usually isn’t a hot topic in the news, but this was big, really big. People were pulling out their backyard telescopes from Australia to Africa to Alaska and squinting at the pale gray smear of active volcanic smoke across the orange canvas of Mars’ desolate surface. Rovers were converging on the spot, speeding across the terrain as fast as their solar panels could soak up sunlight. Orbiting probes were snapping pictures on every fly-by. Instead of peering into deep space, Hubble was now focused full time on photographing Mars. Scientific theories were being overturned left and right.
And then the third volcano erupted, and everything changed.
With a first and second volcano already spouting gasses into the near vacuum of Mars’ atmosphere, you might not think a third one would be a tremendous surprise. It wasn’t so much a third volcano that shocked us. It was the position of it.
The three volcanoes made a perfect isoscolese triangle. The first one at the top, the other two at either ends of the wide base. It wasn’t any old isoscolese triangle either. It was the one you get if you slice off the top triangle of a regular hexagon.
So maybe it shouldn’t have surprised us when a fourth volcano erupted, now forming a perfect equilateral triangle with the second and third, with the first one exactly in the center.
But it did. Up until then it might have been a wild coincidence. Human brains are wired to find patterns in things, and maybe this simple mathematical geometry was some kind of an accident.
Once that fourth volcano showed up, there was no more denying it.
On the surface of Mars the volcanoes were hundreds of miles apart, yet perfectly spaced to as accurate a measurement as we could make. There was no natural phenomenon we knew of that could cause such a thing.
I remember the first time I saw the fourth volcano, on my phone, the image forwarded by a friend, and realized with perfect certainty that we weren’t alone in the universe.
Heck, we weren’t even alone in the solar system anymore.
I had to get up there and see what was going on.
Astronomy usually isn’t a hot topic in the news, but this was big, really big. People were pulling out their backyard telescopes from Australia to Africa to Alaska and squinting at the pale gray smear of active volcanic smoke across the orange canvas of Mars’ desolate surface. Rovers were converging on the spot, speeding across the terrain as fast as their solar panels could soak up sunlight. Orbiting probes were snapping pictures on every fly-by. Instead of peering into deep space, Hubble was now focused full time on photographing Mars. Scientific theories were being overturned left and right.
And then the third volcano erupted, and everything changed.
With a first and second volcano already spouting gasses into the near vacuum of Mars’ atmosphere, you might not think a third one would be a tremendous surprise. It wasn’t so much a third volcano that shocked us. It was the position of it.
The three volcanoes made a perfect isoscolese triangle. The first one at the top, the other two at either ends of the wide base. It wasn’t any old isoscolese triangle either. It was the one you get if you slice off the top triangle of a regular hexagon.
So maybe it shouldn’t have surprised us when a fourth volcano erupted, now forming a perfect equilateral triangle with the second and third, with the first one exactly in the center.
But it did. Up until then it might have been a wild coincidence. Human brains are wired to find patterns in things, and maybe this simple mathematical geometry was some kind of an accident.
Once that fourth volcano showed up, there was no more denying it.
On the surface of Mars the volcanoes were hundreds of miles apart, yet perfectly spaced to as accurate a measurement as we could make. There was no natural phenomenon we knew of that could cause such a thing.
I remember the first time I saw the fourth volcano, on my phone, the image forwarded by a friend, and realized with perfect certainty that we weren’t alone in the universe.
Heck, we weren’t even alone in the solar system anymore.
I had to get up there and see what was going on.
Sunday, January 25, 2015
#91 They Might Be Us
It always made me feel like a little child to wander these ancient underground halls.
The ones who built them had been so much taller than us. I have to reach over my head to touch the smooth ceramic panel that will open the door. The heat from my hand powers it somehow, makes the massive stone slab glide to the side, even now, millions of years after it was first built.
I step into the great public hall. We don’t know what they used it for, but I imagine it something like a public park. There are stone sculptures, at least that’s the way I see them, columns that stretch up to the dark ceiling where the light I’m carrying won’t reach, and carvings on the walls. This one is a low-relief landscape, I recognize the profile of the ridges that can be seen from the top of the shaft, but what’s different is that smooth area that must have been a lake or a sea. Now it is dry, empty. I think there might be things that resemble plants, or at least fragile mineral structures that have been swept away after millennia of sand and wind.
The next panel looks more familiar to me. It’s more mountains, but they’re covered with trees. A forest. I reach up to brush at a dusty patch of pine needles with my gloved hand. There are creatures here, abstract but identifiable. Something very much like a deer, but with an elephant’s snout. Another one like a porcupine with a club tail. A bird that stands taller than me, like an ostrich with an eagle’s beak.
It’s Earth, millions of years ago.
The next panel shows our entire globe, carved from the red sandstone in perfect detail. Oceans, continents, mountains. It’s amazing. This isn’t the only place where we’ve found it. They had an obsession with Earth, these creatures, whatever they were.
But for some reason, with all the depictions they made of their neighboring planet and the creatures that lived on it, they never left any images of themselves.
I climb up onto what might have been some kind of bench, that is if these creatures sat down. They left no remains of themselves, no bones, nothing. Some think they were gelatinous blobs, or maybe they were living rocks and their remains are lying around as rubble all over their tunnels here deep beneath the surface.
There’s a carving of mars too, small, up and to the left of Earth, their own world a mere afterthought in the stone mural.
And then I notice something new, something I haven’t seen before in all my studies of this place. There’s something on the wall between the two spheres. So small I overlooked it. I shine my light on it and it disappears. I need shadows to see it well. When I aim my beam just above it I can see it. There’s a whole row of them, marching like a line of ants between Mars and Earth.
These creatures, what if the left no remains because they all went away, and took everything that was part of themselves along? What if they all traveled to Earth?
What if they… they might be us.
The ones who built them had been so much taller than us. I have to reach over my head to touch the smooth ceramic panel that will open the door. The heat from my hand powers it somehow, makes the massive stone slab glide to the side, even now, millions of years after it was first built.
I step into the great public hall. We don’t know what they used it for, but I imagine it something like a public park. There are stone sculptures, at least that’s the way I see them, columns that stretch up to the dark ceiling where the light I’m carrying won’t reach, and carvings on the walls. This one is a low-relief landscape, I recognize the profile of the ridges that can be seen from the top of the shaft, but what’s different is that smooth area that must have been a lake or a sea. Now it is dry, empty. I think there might be things that resemble plants, or at least fragile mineral structures that have been swept away after millennia of sand and wind.
The next panel looks more familiar to me. It’s more mountains, but they’re covered with trees. A forest. I reach up to brush at a dusty patch of pine needles with my gloved hand. There are creatures here, abstract but identifiable. Something very much like a deer, but with an elephant’s snout. Another one like a porcupine with a club tail. A bird that stands taller than me, like an ostrich with an eagle’s beak.
It’s Earth, millions of years ago.
The next panel shows our entire globe, carved from the red sandstone in perfect detail. Oceans, continents, mountains. It’s amazing. This isn’t the only place where we’ve found it. They had an obsession with Earth, these creatures, whatever they were.
But for some reason, with all the depictions they made of their neighboring planet and the creatures that lived on it, they never left any images of themselves.
I climb up onto what might have been some kind of bench, that is if these creatures sat down. They left no remains of themselves, no bones, nothing. Some think they were gelatinous blobs, or maybe they were living rocks and their remains are lying around as rubble all over their tunnels here deep beneath the surface.
There’s a carving of mars too, small, up and to the left of Earth, their own world a mere afterthought in the stone mural.
And then I notice something new, something I haven’t seen before in all my studies of this place. There’s something on the wall between the two spheres. So small I overlooked it. I shine my light on it and it disappears. I need shadows to see it well. When I aim my beam just above it I can see it. There’s a whole row of them, marching like a line of ants between Mars and Earth.
These creatures, what if the left no remains because they all went away, and took everything that was part of themselves along? What if they all traveled to Earth?
What if they… they might be us.
Monday, January 5, 2015
#74 Fair Trade
Today's story by the amazing Susan Kaye Quinn is set in the future world of her upcoming "Singularity" series. Visit her website, www.susankayequinn.com, for more about her and her bestselling books.
Risha hurried through the entrance of the market, grasping her satchel of paintbrushes in one hand and pushing aside the rough canvas flaps of the tent with the other. The thick smell of human-made foods and human-type stink reassured her. After her encounter on the tram, barely being saved from the virtual reality addict by a handsome boy several years older than her, it was good to be back where the dangers were more familiar. And less likely to end up with her dead.
Plus she was a whole chit richer than when she left!
She had no idea why the boy bought her gray-market brushes for a full chit— any fool could see they were worth less than half that. It left a weird feeling in her chest: kindnesses weren’t the kind of thing you traded in Seattle. The city was filled with bots and left-over humanity and the occasional ascender, with their super smart nanotech brains… humans were at the bottom of that pile, and you had to fight to even get a fair trade half the time. At least the gray market was better than the black, where a reasonable bit of bargaining could still get you dead, if you angered the wrong types.
But the boy had given her a kindness… and now she had a whole chit riding in her account. It was a full half-chit more than her uncle would expect back for the two brushes she’d sold. Risha wound her way past heaps of clay pots and woven throw rugs, her fingers crossed. Maybe Tuval would have one of his amazing chocolate pastries in his stall today. Why… for a half chit, maybe she could even bargain him for two! But she’d have to eat them quickly. Destroy the evidence, before her uncle found out.
“Hey Risha!” The voice stopped her dogged search for the smell of chocolate buried in human odors. It was Samuel the Orphan. His parents had been exiled by the ascenders. The bots took care of him now, but Risha only ever saw him at the market.
“Hey Samuel.” She gave him a tight smile, but her eyes were still hungry for Tuval’s stall.
“I found something perfect for you.” Samuel was her age, fourteen, but he acted like he’d been a grizzled trader all his life.
“I don’t have money for shells,” she said, absently, still peering through the bustling commerce for Tuval’s stall. Samuel haunted the beaches where the ascenders won’t go, scavenging seashells then trying to sell them. It’s not much of a business—although she’d seen a few of the girls use them to decorate their hair.
“Not for sale,” Samuel said as he dug through his bags. He had dozens of them, small and large, all carrying his worthless bounty from the sea. “This one’s special.”
Risha frowned. Not for sale? Was this some kind of new trade gimmick? Samuel’s face lit up as he found his prize: he pulled an unbroken shell the size of Risha’s thumb from his weathered paper bag. It caught the dim light of the market and gleamed blue.
He held it out to her. “It’s perfect. Not a scratch. And the pearling on it is blue. Very rare.”
She took it, just to be polite, and turned it over, admiring it. “It is pretty, Samuel. You should be able to find a buyer for this one.”
He looks disappointed. “No, it’s for you.”
She tried to hand it back to him. “I told you—I don’t have chits for shells.” Although a twinge in her chest nagged at her: she was dying to spend a half chit on a pastry that wouldn’t last the next five minutes. The boy on the tram hadn’t hesitated to help her when she needed it… and now she was hoarding her windfall like it belonged just to her.
Samuel took her hand but just folded her fingers over the shell. “And I told you—this one’s for you. I knew it as soon as I saw it. It’s pretty and different. Unique.” He dropped her hand, his gaze suddenly intense on the bags before him.
Risha’s face heated as she stared at her fingers closed around the shell. Another kindness. “Thank you.”
He nodded but kept his head down.
She wished she hadn’t been so adamant about not having chits for shells… but now it was too late for that. “Are you hungry?” she asked.
Samuel peeked up. His gaunt cheeks spoke of an ascender-allowance-only diet—the kind that barely kept you moving. She had never noticed it before. The heat in her cheeks grew stronger.
“Come on.” Risha held out her hand, the one not holding the shell.
Samuel shuffled around his barricade of sacks, and she towed him toward Tuval’s stall. If he was still open, she reckoned a kindness would taste even better than his famed chocolate pastry.
Risha hurried through the entrance of the market, grasping her satchel of paintbrushes in one hand and pushing aside the rough canvas flaps of the tent with the other. The thick smell of human-made foods and human-type stink reassured her. After her encounter on the tram, barely being saved from the virtual reality addict by a handsome boy several years older than her, it was good to be back where the dangers were more familiar. And less likely to end up with her dead.
Plus she was a whole chit richer than when she left!
She had no idea why the boy bought her gray-market brushes for a full chit— any fool could see they were worth less than half that. It left a weird feeling in her chest: kindnesses weren’t the kind of thing you traded in Seattle. The city was filled with bots and left-over humanity and the occasional ascender, with their super smart nanotech brains… humans were at the bottom of that pile, and you had to fight to even get a fair trade half the time. At least the gray market was better than the black, where a reasonable bit of bargaining could still get you dead, if you angered the wrong types.
But the boy had given her a kindness… and now she had a whole chit riding in her account. It was a full half-chit more than her uncle would expect back for the two brushes she’d sold. Risha wound her way past heaps of clay pots and woven throw rugs, her fingers crossed. Maybe Tuval would have one of his amazing chocolate pastries in his stall today. Why… for a half chit, maybe she could even bargain him for two! But she’d have to eat them quickly. Destroy the evidence, before her uncle found out.
“Hey Risha!” The voice stopped her dogged search for the smell of chocolate buried in human odors. It was Samuel the Orphan. His parents had been exiled by the ascenders. The bots took care of him now, but Risha only ever saw him at the market.
“Hey Samuel.” She gave him a tight smile, but her eyes were still hungry for Tuval’s stall.
“I found something perfect for you.” Samuel was her age, fourteen, but he acted like he’d been a grizzled trader all his life.
“I don’t have money for shells,” she said, absently, still peering through the bustling commerce for Tuval’s stall. Samuel haunted the beaches where the ascenders won’t go, scavenging seashells then trying to sell them. It’s not much of a business—although she’d seen a few of the girls use them to decorate their hair.
“Not for sale,” Samuel said as he dug through his bags. He had dozens of them, small and large, all carrying his worthless bounty from the sea. “This one’s special.”
Risha frowned. Not for sale? Was this some kind of new trade gimmick? Samuel’s face lit up as he found his prize: he pulled an unbroken shell the size of Risha’s thumb from his weathered paper bag. It caught the dim light of the market and gleamed blue.
He held it out to her. “It’s perfect. Not a scratch. And the pearling on it is blue. Very rare.”
She took it, just to be polite, and turned it over, admiring it. “It is pretty, Samuel. You should be able to find a buyer for this one.”
He looks disappointed. “No, it’s for you.”
She tried to hand it back to him. “I told you—I don’t have chits for shells.” Although a twinge in her chest nagged at her: she was dying to spend a half chit on a pastry that wouldn’t last the next five minutes. The boy on the tram hadn’t hesitated to help her when she needed it… and now she was hoarding her windfall like it belonged just to her.
Samuel took her hand but just folded her fingers over the shell. “And I told you—this one’s for you. I knew it as soon as I saw it. It’s pretty and different. Unique.” He dropped her hand, his gaze suddenly intense on the bags before him.
Risha’s face heated as she stared at her fingers closed around the shell. Another kindness. “Thank you.”
He nodded but kept his head down.
She wished she hadn’t been so adamant about not having chits for shells… but now it was too late for that. “Are you hungry?” she asked.
Samuel peeked up. His gaunt cheeks spoke of an ascender-allowance-only diet—the kind that barely kept you moving. She had never noticed it before. The heat in her cheeks grew stronger.
“Come on.” Risha held out her hand, the one not holding the shell.
Samuel shuffled around his barricade of sacks, and she towed him toward Tuval’s stall. If he was still open, she reckoned a kindness would taste even better than his famed chocolate pastry.
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
#69 Freeway Tunnel
I pressed myself against the cold tiles of the tunnel wall as another car sped past, and it occurred to me for the first time that this wasn’t going to be the best place to hold a secret meeting.
The headlights of the cars stared at me out of the dim, exhaust choked air as they roared by. They seemed like empty machines, their windows black, but I knew there were people in there. Drivers. With cell phones. Any one of them could call in, “There’s a skinny girl in a jean jacket walking the curb in the freeway tunnel.” I kept my head down, my eyes on the toes of my boots, and hoped that at least no one would be able to get an identifiable pic of me while they were driving by at eighty miles per hour.
By the time I reached the “Emergency Exit” door at the center of the tunnel I felt dizzy from breathing the sour air. All those car fumes, I was probably going to get cancer just from walking this tunnel. I didn’t change my pace, just leaned on the door. They’d said they would disable the alarm, but still I held my breath as the door opened and I slid through it. I was sure sirens were going to start blaring and the police would come whizzing around the corner.
A chilly, dark tunnel with a little water trickling down one side stretched away behind the door, lit by one old-fashioned lightbulb in a wire cage. I grinned, loving the sense of adventure. Look for the utility door on the left, Maddie had told me. I walked past a fat, rusted pipe, then found a metal door with no handle, only a keyhole. I tapped on it and it swung open.
The guy at the door was a total screen zombie, one of those people with absolutely no facial expression. I’d seen plenty of them, but it still gave me a turn, trying to figure out what he thought of me standing there. He stepped back and let me pass, so I went into the room beyond.
I wondered if I’d come to the wrong meeting. I don’t know what I was expecting, monks dressed as the Dalai Lama maybe, or hippies with long hair and little round John Lennon glasses, but this sure didn’t look like the peaceful resistance crowd. Didn’t matter, I was open-minded. Someone was standing on a platform at the middle of the room, trash-talking the government. “Well, yeah,” I thought, “We all know that, but what about organizing a flash protest or doing a text blast or something?”
The crowd was muttering angrily at the end of every few sentences from the speaker. This had to be the wrong meeting. I looked around for Maddie, but didn’t see her.
“What are you doing here?” said someone beside me. Keith Ange, the last person in the world I would have thought to find here. The tone of his voice, the disbelief, the disappointment in his eyes, put a twist of betrayal in my stomach. This absolutely was the wrong meeting. What had Maddie been thinking?
“What are you doing here?” I snapped back, trying to keep some of my pride as the terror of how deep in trouble I might be for being here came crashing down on me.
The headlights of the cars stared at me out of the dim, exhaust choked air as they roared by. They seemed like empty machines, their windows black, but I knew there were people in there. Drivers. With cell phones. Any one of them could call in, “There’s a skinny girl in a jean jacket walking the curb in the freeway tunnel.” I kept my head down, my eyes on the toes of my boots, and hoped that at least no one would be able to get an identifiable pic of me while they were driving by at eighty miles per hour.
By the time I reached the “Emergency Exit” door at the center of the tunnel I felt dizzy from breathing the sour air. All those car fumes, I was probably going to get cancer just from walking this tunnel. I didn’t change my pace, just leaned on the door. They’d said they would disable the alarm, but still I held my breath as the door opened and I slid through it. I was sure sirens were going to start blaring and the police would come whizzing around the corner.
A chilly, dark tunnel with a little water trickling down one side stretched away behind the door, lit by one old-fashioned lightbulb in a wire cage. I grinned, loving the sense of adventure. Look for the utility door on the left, Maddie had told me. I walked past a fat, rusted pipe, then found a metal door with no handle, only a keyhole. I tapped on it and it swung open.
The guy at the door was a total screen zombie, one of those people with absolutely no facial expression. I’d seen plenty of them, but it still gave me a turn, trying to figure out what he thought of me standing there. He stepped back and let me pass, so I went into the room beyond.
I wondered if I’d come to the wrong meeting. I don’t know what I was expecting, monks dressed as the Dalai Lama maybe, or hippies with long hair and little round John Lennon glasses, but this sure didn’t look like the peaceful resistance crowd. Didn’t matter, I was open-minded. Someone was standing on a platform at the middle of the room, trash-talking the government. “Well, yeah,” I thought, “We all know that, but what about organizing a flash protest or doing a text blast or something?”
The crowd was muttering angrily at the end of every few sentences from the speaker. This had to be the wrong meeting. I looked around for Maddie, but didn’t see her.
“What are you doing here?” said someone beside me. Keith Ange, the last person in the world I would have thought to find here. The tone of his voice, the disbelief, the disappointment in his eyes, put a twist of betrayal in my stomach. This absolutely was the wrong meeting. What had Maddie been thinking?
“What are you doing here?” I snapped back, trying to keep some of my pride as the terror of how deep in trouble I might be for being here came crashing down on me.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
#57 Pacific Gyre
This used to be a fishing boat, back when there were any fish.
I wondered if the boat thought it strange that we were hauling a net on board again. Torn, ragged, but still a fishing net. Did the boat remember what it was like to have a hold full of fish instead of old plastic?
The net was so big, my brothers began to laugh, exclaiming that we could head for home after this, back home with our catch of garbage, to be sold and melted down into fuel.
All around us, things drifted on the rust-red surface of the water. The ocean used to be as blue as the sky. I wondered what it had looked like. Here was an old plastic oil barrel, bumping up against the boat. There an empty bucket, cracked, drifting. I hauled the net into the boat, hand-over-hand, and wondered what giant fishing vessel had once dragged it behind. Our little fishing boat could never have pulled it. I wasn’t sure we’d be able to bring it all on board.
Something moved under the murky water, something huge. I stopped hauling to stare as it broke the surface. It was no piece of garbage. A smooth hide covered with dead barnacles, it was a whale!
My brothers shouted, cries of surprise. A whale! Maybe the last one alive. It wouldn’t be alive for long, though. A length of bright blue plastic rope was cinched around its body, so tight it dug into its hide. I could feel its pain, almost as if the rope were around my own shoulders. But there was nothing we could do.
Or was there? The whale had come close to our boat, so close I could almost reach out and touch it, almost as if it wanted help.
I jumped into the water.
My oldest brother shouted angrily for me to come back, but I struck out strongly and reached the side of the whale. I took my knife from my pocket and started to work on the rope. The swells pushed me against the whale’s side and the barnacles cut into my shoulder, but I kept working at the rope, tearing fiber by fiber.
Maybe the whale hadn’t really wanted help, or maybe it changed its mind, because it blew out its top hole, then dove. Determined to get the rope free, I took a deep breath and held on. I would not see this last whale sentenced to death by some careless ancestor’s cast away rope. I could feel the water rushing past me, the light got dimmer, but still I worked. It was almost free.
No use, I had to give up or I would drown. I tried to push myself upward against the whale, but it dove so fast as soon as I let go it was gone. Above me the sun shone an angry red through the algae. I kicked and stroked, dropping my knife, cursing my clothes that dragged at me. My vision darkened as the air inside me turned poison and burned my lungs. Even when I could no longer see, I groped through the thick water for the surface.
My head broke out into the air and I took a long, deep breath before stretching out on my back in the waves. I heard my brothers shouting, and the soft whine of the electric motor as the boat came to pick me up.
“Stay in the boat,” was all my older brother said to me by way of a scolding. I think he understood.
I wondered if the boat thought it strange that we were hauling a net on board again. Torn, ragged, but still a fishing net. Did the boat remember what it was like to have a hold full of fish instead of old plastic?
The net was so big, my brothers began to laugh, exclaiming that we could head for home after this, back home with our catch of garbage, to be sold and melted down into fuel.
All around us, things drifted on the rust-red surface of the water. The ocean used to be as blue as the sky. I wondered what it had looked like. Here was an old plastic oil barrel, bumping up against the boat. There an empty bucket, cracked, drifting. I hauled the net into the boat, hand-over-hand, and wondered what giant fishing vessel had once dragged it behind. Our little fishing boat could never have pulled it. I wasn’t sure we’d be able to bring it all on board.
Something moved under the murky water, something huge. I stopped hauling to stare as it broke the surface. It was no piece of garbage. A smooth hide covered with dead barnacles, it was a whale!
My brothers shouted, cries of surprise. A whale! Maybe the last one alive. It wouldn’t be alive for long, though. A length of bright blue plastic rope was cinched around its body, so tight it dug into its hide. I could feel its pain, almost as if the rope were around my own shoulders. But there was nothing we could do.
Or was there? The whale had come close to our boat, so close I could almost reach out and touch it, almost as if it wanted help.
I jumped into the water.
My oldest brother shouted angrily for me to come back, but I struck out strongly and reached the side of the whale. I took my knife from my pocket and started to work on the rope. The swells pushed me against the whale’s side and the barnacles cut into my shoulder, but I kept working at the rope, tearing fiber by fiber.
Maybe the whale hadn’t really wanted help, or maybe it changed its mind, because it blew out its top hole, then dove. Determined to get the rope free, I took a deep breath and held on. I would not see this last whale sentenced to death by some careless ancestor’s cast away rope. I could feel the water rushing past me, the light got dimmer, but still I worked. It was almost free.
No use, I had to give up or I would drown. I tried to push myself upward against the whale, but it dove so fast as soon as I let go it was gone. Above me the sun shone an angry red through the algae. I kicked and stroked, dropping my knife, cursing my clothes that dragged at me. My vision darkened as the air inside me turned poison and burned my lungs. Even when I could no longer see, I groped through the thick water for the surface.
My head broke out into the air and I took a long, deep breath before stretching out on my back in the waves. I heard my brothers shouting, and the soft whine of the electric motor as the boat came to pick me up.
“Stay in the boat,” was all my older brother said to me by way of a scolding. I think he understood.
Sunday, December 7, 2014
#49 Safer on the Moon
It was crazy, I knew, to feel safer on the moon.
I stepped off the shuttle into the metal tang of filtered air and took a deep breath of relief. There was something snug about the glass dome above me, something that made me feel more secure than the open skies of Earth.
Once you’ve lived on the moon, Earth never quite feels like home again.
I could see the earth low on the horizon, nearly full, the one spot of color in a black-and-white landscape, like a huge blue jewel against a scattering of diamond chips on a velvet night. It had been nice to be away for a while. I’d enjoyed being able to walk for miles without coming to a wall. Everything down there seemed so huge. It was a wonder to walk through a store and see how many things, how many different things I could buy, and for so cheap! I would laugh at the price of apples. I’d bought a whole bag of them for my daughter. She missed apples, living here on the moon.
I rolled my suitcases to the checkpoint. This was part of why I felt safe on the moon. All the luggage would be thoroughly scanned, no weapons allowed. Here on the moon there were only about five thousand people at any time, half of them tourists and half of them residents, and none of them would have a gun. Ever. Crime was almost unheard of. Getting to the moon was so expensive, there was no way to steal enough out here to make it worth it.
But that was not enough reason to really feel safe. I knew that the vaccum of death was right outside the walls, all the time. And if, for some reason, the supply ships stopped coming, we’d all starve pretty quick. Of course we grew some of our own food, but it was only on an experimental basis. Someday the colony might be self-sustaining, but for now it cost more for us to produce our own food than to ship it up. Habitable space was at a premium here on the moon, and we needed it for people, not for crops.
Still, I felt a sense of relief being here again, far more than any worry about the isolation. All around me I heard dozens of languages in the chatter. The faces of the people in all different colors and forms, like a garden of humanity. Men and women from all nations of the world came here, not just the tourists, but the scientists, the students, even the artists who came and lived here for the inspiration, for the unique perspective it gave them on the universe. The average IQ of residents on the moon was 130. It suited me.
I stepped into the scanning booth, and could see my husband and daughter waving at me from the other side. In just a moment I’d be with them, opening my suitcase to show them the treasures I’d brought from Earth below. Spices, picture books, new clothes for Abby, and of course the apples.
A buzzer sounded and a red light came on. The security guard in her blue gloves spoke over the intercom. “I’m sorry, Dr. Clay, your immune system is too high for me to let you through quarantine. You can either wait in isolation here until it resolves, or you can take the shuttle back to Earth.”
I knew that if it turned out to be something serious, there’d be far better medical care on Earth, but my family was here. The moon was my home. Even if, by some remote chance, I was going to die, I wanted it to be here.
Staring at the faces of my family, I said, “I’ll stay.”
I stepped off the shuttle into the metal tang of filtered air and took a deep breath of relief. There was something snug about the glass dome above me, something that made me feel more secure than the open skies of Earth.
Once you’ve lived on the moon, Earth never quite feels like home again.
I could see the earth low on the horizon, nearly full, the one spot of color in a black-and-white landscape, like a huge blue jewel against a scattering of diamond chips on a velvet night. It had been nice to be away for a while. I’d enjoyed being able to walk for miles without coming to a wall. Everything down there seemed so huge. It was a wonder to walk through a store and see how many things, how many different things I could buy, and for so cheap! I would laugh at the price of apples. I’d bought a whole bag of them for my daughter. She missed apples, living here on the moon.
I rolled my suitcases to the checkpoint. This was part of why I felt safe on the moon. All the luggage would be thoroughly scanned, no weapons allowed. Here on the moon there were only about five thousand people at any time, half of them tourists and half of them residents, and none of them would have a gun. Ever. Crime was almost unheard of. Getting to the moon was so expensive, there was no way to steal enough out here to make it worth it.
But that was not enough reason to really feel safe. I knew that the vaccum of death was right outside the walls, all the time. And if, for some reason, the supply ships stopped coming, we’d all starve pretty quick. Of course we grew some of our own food, but it was only on an experimental basis. Someday the colony might be self-sustaining, but for now it cost more for us to produce our own food than to ship it up. Habitable space was at a premium here on the moon, and we needed it for people, not for crops.
Still, I felt a sense of relief being here again, far more than any worry about the isolation. All around me I heard dozens of languages in the chatter. The faces of the people in all different colors and forms, like a garden of humanity. Men and women from all nations of the world came here, not just the tourists, but the scientists, the students, even the artists who came and lived here for the inspiration, for the unique perspective it gave them on the universe. The average IQ of residents on the moon was 130. It suited me.
I stepped into the scanning booth, and could see my husband and daughter waving at me from the other side. In just a moment I’d be with them, opening my suitcase to show them the treasures I’d brought from Earth below. Spices, picture books, new clothes for Abby, and of course the apples.
A buzzer sounded and a red light came on. The security guard in her blue gloves spoke over the intercom. “I’m sorry, Dr. Clay, your immune system is too high for me to let you through quarantine. You can either wait in isolation here until it resolves, or you can take the shuttle back to Earth.”
I knew that if it turned out to be something serious, there’d be far better medical care on Earth, but my family was here. The moon was my home. Even if, by some remote chance, I was going to die, I wanted it to be here.
Staring at the faces of my family, I said, “I’ll stay.”
Friday, November 28, 2014
#42 Cyopolis
They all thought I was going to die.
I gripped the straps of my backpack, trying to dry my sweaty hands, and stared at the gates in front of me. I wondered if there were more people here today for the ceremony than usual. I’d never been to one myself, so I didn’t know.
The massive gates stared down at us all.
A microphone crackled, and the city official at the podium began speaking. “Children of Cyopolis, who have come here today desiring to leave the walls of her safety, do you hereby relinquish all rights, responsibilities, and privileges of civilization and desire now to go back into the wilderness?”
My father was not in the crowd, but I knew my mother was here, watching. I wanted to look for her, but then again I did not. She would be crying, pleading with her eyes as she had with her words since I’d told them I was leaving.
I swallowed once and answered the official’s question. “Yes.” My voice hadn’t sounded as confident as I had hoped.
A murmur ran through the crowd, an angry sound like machinery starting up. I was no longer one of them.
“Then we release you,” the official said, stumbling over these words as if he had never read them before. He probably hadn’t. No one had left the city for as long as anyone could remember. Some of the elders could remember a time when every year, a few people came in from the wild, pledged to obey the laws of the city, and joined us. Exchanged their freedom for safety. But it had been a long time since that had happened.
Most people in Cyopolis thought that the wild ones were all dead.
I knew they weren’t. I’d seen one of them. Not quite a year ago, from the top of the wall. I’d seen a girl who had climbed a tree, as if to maybe get a look over the wall. She still had meters to go before she would have been high enough to see down into the city, but she stood at the top of the tree, staring up, wonderingly. I never knew if she saw me or not, but I had seen her, and it didn’t look as if she were alone. She was thin, but healthy, and wore clothes I didn’t think someone her age could have made on her own.
The gates creaked open. I watched them swing wide, and wondered at how long the tunnel was behind them. I had not known the wall was so thick at its base. The sound of the crowd rose as I stepped forward into the tunnel. My pack held everything that would keep me alive until I found the wild ones. I wondered if they would accept me, or if I would end up living on my own after all.
And then I saw her.
At the other end of the tunnel stood a girl. She was walking forward, staring in wonder at the lights on the tunnel ceiling. In her hands, a basket full of fruits, held out like an offering. Her clothes were made of… I couldn’t tell, but they were soft and natural and the dull colors of the earth. She watched me as we came toward each other in the middle of the tunnel, and I wondered if it was her.
It must have been her, the girl I saw in the tree.
She stared at me, questioning, and I stared back. She was coming into the city?
Did she understand that I was going out?
I passed her at the middle of the tunnel, then walked out to the far side. The trees out here grew right up to the wall, a tangle of undergrowth beneath them, no path that I could see anywhere.
I glanced once behind as the gates closed, and she was standing there, watching me from within the city, staring at me as if I was the only friend she might have had, and I had abandoned her.
The gates slammed shut.
I gripped the straps of my backpack, trying to dry my sweaty hands, and stared at the gates in front of me. I wondered if there were more people here today for the ceremony than usual. I’d never been to one myself, so I didn’t know.
The massive gates stared down at us all.
A microphone crackled, and the city official at the podium began speaking. “Children of Cyopolis, who have come here today desiring to leave the walls of her safety, do you hereby relinquish all rights, responsibilities, and privileges of civilization and desire now to go back into the wilderness?”
My father was not in the crowd, but I knew my mother was here, watching. I wanted to look for her, but then again I did not. She would be crying, pleading with her eyes as she had with her words since I’d told them I was leaving.
I swallowed once and answered the official’s question. “Yes.” My voice hadn’t sounded as confident as I had hoped.
A murmur ran through the crowd, an angry sound like machinery starting up. I was no longer one of them.
“Then we release you,” the official said, stumbling over these words as if he had never read them before. He probably hadn’t. No one had left the city for as long as anyone could remember. Some of the elders could remember a time when every year, a few people came in from the wild, pledged to obey the laws of the city, and joined us. Exchanged their freedom for safety. But it had been a long time since that had happened.
Most people in Cyopolis thought that the wild ones were all dead.
I knew they weren’t. I’d seen one of them. Not quite a year ago, from the top of the wall. I’d seen a girl who had climbed a tree, as if to maybe get a look over the wall. She still had meters to go before she would have been high enough to see down into the city, but she stood at the top of the tree, staring up, wonderingly. I never knew if she saw me or not, but I had seen her, and it didn’t look as if she were alone. She was thin, but healthy, and wore clothes I didn’t think someone her age could have made on her own.
The gates creaked open. I watched them swing wide, and wondered at how long the tunnel was behind them. I had not known the wall was so thick at its base. The sound of the crowd rose as I stepped forward into the tunnel. My pack held everything that would keep me alive until I found the wild ones. I wondered if they would accept me, or if I would end up living on my own after all.
And then I saw her.
At the other end of the tunnel stood a girl. She was walking forward, staring in wonder at the lights on the tunnel ceiling. In her hands, a basket full of fruits, held out like an offering. Her clothes were made of… I couldn’t tell, but they were soft and natural and the dull colors of the earth. She watched me as we came toward each other in the middle of the tunnel, and I wondered if it was her.
It must have been her, the girl I saw in the tree.
She stared at me, questioning, and I stared back. She was coming into the city?
Did she understand that I was going out?
I passed her at the middle of the tunnel, then walked out to the far side. The trees out here grew right up to the wall, a tangle of undergrowth beneath them, no path that I could see anywhere.
I glanced once behind as the gates closed, and she was standing there, watching me from within the city, staring at me as if I was the only friend she might have had, and I had abandoned her.
The gates slammed shut.
Monday, November 24, 2014
#38 Elective Treatment
The key turned so easily in the lock, it was obvious the bolt was already undone. Natalie’s brain dragged itself reluctantly back from the seismic data she’d been combing through to puzzle at this. Startled, afraid, she turned the door knob, wondering if the house had been unlocked all day.
The floor was clean. Oh, that’s right, Mom was here.
Natalie came inside and shut the door behind her, locking it out of habit. There in the front hall, Bryce’s backpack hung neatly on a hook, his shoes below lined up and ready to go for tomorrow.
How long had it taken Mom to get him to do that? Maybe Mom had done it herself.
“Hi Natalie,” Mom said from the kitchen. There were sounds of cooking. “How was your day.”
“Great,” Natalie said, excited. “There were three quakes on the pacific rim today, and we were able to give thirty minute warnings for all of them. There was only one near a population center, so they closed some bridges. Nothing went out, but it’s good they’re starting to take more precautions. It was a little tricky to work out the potential epicenters because…” Natalie launched into a long explanation of all the technical details. She realized she’d been talking for some time without checking to see if Mom was really interested. Natalie stopped and studied her mother’s face. Did she look like she was interested? Did she look like she even understood? Was she even listening? It was always so hard to tell.
“The school called again today,” Natalie’s mom said.
“Again?” Natalie’s heart sank. Bryce had been doing so well these past weeks, but then having his grandma visit had completely thrown his routine into a shambles.
“Bryce was singing in class, and he wouldn’t stop. Also, when it was time to do his seat work, he just stared at his tablet for a whole hour.”
“I told his teacher that tablets are too distracting for him. He can’t handle screens.”
“Natalie, I tried something today,” Mom said. “When I took Bryce to school, after the bell rang for him to go to class, I walked up to where he was playing on the playground. I was standing right next to him, and I told him it was time to go to class. He just kept playing. All the other kids left the playground, and he just kept playing. The second bell rang, I don’t think he even heard it.”
“You let him keep playing until the second bell?” Natalie couldn’t believe it. Mom had let Bryce be late for class.
“I wanted to give him a chance to notice on his own. You can’t always be there for him, Natalie. I wanted to see how long it would take him to realize that everyone else had left the playground. He never did. A teacher came along and got his attention and sent him to class.”
“Mom!” Natalie said.
“He doesn’t mean to be this way. I know he doesn’t. He just can’t function like other people.”
“I know,” Natalie said.
“Have you thought about getting him treated?”
“I’m not interested in that,” Natalie said, reeling. Had Mom just suggested I get Bryce a treatment?
“Have you even looked into it?”
“Of course I have!” Natalie said. “But it’s not an easy solution. The outcome is so unpredictable. I can predict earthquakes better than they can predict the outcome of a treatment.”
“You can give him a small treatment and see if it works. See if it does anything. Maybe it will help him.”
“Mom, Bryce’s brain is different. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I couldn’t do what I do if my brain was like everyone else’s.”
“Natalie, you were never this bad.”
“He doesn’t have to be normal to be happy.”
“He’s suffering, Natalie. And there may be something you can do to help. Have you even talked to your doctor about it, at all?”
“No,” Natalie said. “It’s not that simple. They’ll want to re evaluate him. It’ll take months. I’ll have to take a lot of time off work.”
“Bryce is more important than your work.”
“He’s making progress, Mom. He can learn to do better.”
“I’m just saying it’s an option,” Mom went back to stirring the pot.
Natalie went and sat down at her desk, fuming.
There was the doctor’s phone number up on the bulletin board. She could call. She could ask for an appointment. That didn’t mean she would have to go through with getting Bryce a treatment.
Natalie picked up the phone.
The floor was clean. Oh, that’s right, Mom was here.
Natalie came inside and shut the door behind her, locking it out of habit. There in the front hall, Bryce’s backpack hung neatly on a hook, his shoes below lined up and ready to go for tomorrow.
How long had it taken Mom to get him to do that? Maybe Mom had done it herself.
“Hi Natalie,” Mom said from the kitchen. There were sounds of cooking. “How was your day.”
“Great,” Natalie said, excited. “There were three quakes on the pacific rim today, and we were able to give thirty minute warnings for all of them. There was only one near a population center, so they closed some bridges. Nothing went out, but it’s good they’re starting to take more precautions. It was a little tricky to work out the potential epicenters because…” Natalie launched into a long explanation of all the technical details. She realized she’d been talking for some time without checking to see if Mom was really interested. Natalie stopped and studied her mother’s face. Did she look like she was interested? Did she look like she even understood? Was she even listening? It was always so hard to tell.
“The school called again today,” Natalie’s mom said.
“Again?” Natalie’s heart sank. Bryce had been doing so well these past weeks, but then having his grandma visit had completely thrown his routine into a shambles.
“Bryce was singing in class, and he wouldn’t stop. Also, when it was time to do his seat work, he just stared at his tablet for a whole hour.”
“I told his teacher that tablets are too distracting for him. He can’t handle screens.”
“Natalie, I tried something today,” Mom said. “When I took Bryce to school, after the bell rang for him to go to class, I walked up to where he was playing on the playground. I was standing right next to him, and I told him it was time to go to class. He just kept playing. All the other kids left the playground, and he just kept playing. The second bell rang, I don’t think he even heard it.”
“You let him keep playing until the second bell?” Natalie couldn’t believe it. Mom had let Bryce be late for class.
“I wanted to give him a chance to notice on his own. You can’t always be there for him, Natalie. I wanted to see how long it would take him to realize that everyone else had left the playground. He never did. A teacher came along and got his attention and sent him to class.”
“Mom!” Natalie said.
“He doesn’t mean to be this way. I know he doesn’t. He just can’t function like other people.”
“I know,” Natalie said.
“Have you thought about getting him treated?”
“I’m not interested in that,” Natalie said, reeling. Had Mom just suggested I get Bryce a treatment?
“Have you even looked into it?”
“Of course I have!” Natalie said. “But it’s not an easy solution. The outcome is so unpredictable. I can predict earthquakes better than they can predict the outcome of a treatment.”
“You can give him a small treatment and see if it works. See if it does anything. Maybe it will help him.”
“Mom, Bryce’s brain is different. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I couldn’t do what I do if my brain was like everyone else’s.”
“Natalie, you were never this bad.”
“He doesn’t have to be normal to be happy.”
“He’s suffering, Natalie. And there may be something you can do to help. Have you even talked to your doctor about it, at all?”
“No,” Natalie said. “It’s not that simple. They’ll want to re evaluate him. It’ll take months. I’ll have to take a lot of time off work.”
“Bryce is more important than your work.”
“He’s making progress, Mom. He can learn to do better.”
“I’m just saying it’s an option,” Mom went back to stirring the pot.
Natalie went and sat down at her desk, fuming.
There was the doctor’s phone number up on the bulletin board. She could call. She could ask for an appointment. That didn’t mean she would have to go through with getting Bryce a treatment.
Natalie picked up the phone.
Friday, November 21, 2014
#36 Emergency Room
Even at midnight, the emergency room was crowded. Mason followed his mom a long way from the desk before they found two seats together. While Mom sat down with the clip board in her lap and started writing with a pen she took out of her purse, Mason curled up in the chair next to her and tried to get his head comfortable on the plastic seat back.
“Oh, Mason, sweetie, don’t put your face on that,” Mom said. “We don’t know if its clean.” Mom tugged a corner of Mason’s blanket up to cover the back of the chair, then tucked the rest of it around him better.
Mason snuggled down in his blanket, shivering. He wished they didn’t keep this room so cold, or so bright. His head hurt, and with every rapid beat of his heart his knee throbbed like someone was whacking it with a baseball bat. All around him sat other people with empty, sad faces. He wondered if any of them were as sick as he was.
On the front door of the emergency room, Mason noticed a bronze panel decorated with two snakes twined around a pole. As he watched, the snakes seemed to twist and move. Their bronze eyes grew brighter, and they slithered round the pole in a slow dance, then came down from the door and moved toward him across the floor.
Mason gave a whimper and curled up tighter in his blanket.
“It’s okay, honey,” Mom said, still scribbling on the clipboard. “Everything’s going to be okay.” As if she couldn’t see the snakes sliding over the white tile floor.
“Don’t be afraid,” the snakes hissed. “Do not fear us. We will do you no harm.”
Mason blinked at them, then glanced at the door. There were still two snakes on the door, coiled around the pole, but here they were in front of him, too, weaving their heads back and forth like cobras.
“Welcome to our realm,” the snakes said. “Do not fear. You are safe in this place. Our servants have taken an oath. First do no harm.”
Mason drew his feet up, his knees tight against his chest, trying to get further away from those long, bronze bodies.
“Do not fear us,” the snakes slid up the legs of Mason’s chair. One of them put it’s metal nose near Mason’s face. It’s eyes flashed. “It is death you should fear.”
“Yes, fear death. Flee it. Come to us and we will save you,” The other snake coiled on the floor.
“But,” Mason said, “People die here.”
The snakes sighed. “Some come to us too late, some can not be saved. But many, many others, are well again. They buy more life, more days, more months, more years. They pay dearly for it, for death is to be greatly feared!”
Mason choked out the words in a whisper, “Am I going to die?”
“No, sweetheart, you’re going to be fine,” Mom said. “We’re here at the hospital now, the doctors will take care of you.”
Mason glanced at his Mom, her worried face staring down at the clipboard, then looked again for the snakes, but they had vanished.
“Oh, Mason, sweetie, don’t put your face on that,” Mom said. “We don’t know if its clean.” Mom tugged a corner of Mason’s blanket up to cover the back of the chair, then tucked the rest of it around him better.
Mason snuggled down in his blanket, shivering. He wished they didn’t keep this room so cold, or so bright. His head hurt, and with every rapid beat of his heart his knee throbbed like someone was whacking it with a baseball bat. All around him sat other people with empty, sad faces. He wondered if any of them were as sick as he was.
On the front door of the emergency room, Mason noticed a bronze panel decorated with two snakes twined around a pole. As he watched, the snakes seemed to twist and move. Their bronze eyes grew brighter, and they slithered round the pole in a slow dance, then came down from the door and moved toward him across the floor.
Mason gave a whimper and curled up tighter in his blanket.
“It’s okay, honey,” Mom said, still scribbling on the clipboard. “Everything’s going to be okay.” As if she couldn’t see the snakes sliding over the white tile floor.
“Don’t be afraid,” the snakes hissed. “Do not fear us. We will do you no harm.”
Mason blinked at them, then glanced at the door. There were still two snakes on the door, coiled around the pole, but here they were in front of him, too, weaving their heads back and forth like cobras.
“Welcome to our realm,” the snakes said. “Do not fear. You are safe in this place. Our servants have taken an oath. First do no harm.”
Mason drew his feet up, his knees tight against his chest, trying to get further away from those long, bronze bodies.
“Do not fear us,” the snakes slid up the legs of Mason’s chair. One of them put it’s metal nose near Mason’s face. It’s eyes flashed. “It is death you should fear.”
“Yes, fear death. Flee it. Come to us and we will save you,” The other snake coiled on the floor.
“But,” Mason said, “People die here.”
The snakes sighed. “Some come to us too late, some can not be saved. But many, many others, are well again. They buy more life, more days, more months, more years. They pay dearly for it, for death is to be greatly feared!”
Mason choked out the words in a whisper, “Am I going to die?”
“No, sweetheart, you’re going to be fine,” Mom said. “We’re here at the hospital now, the doctors will take care of you.”
Mason glanced at his Mom, her worried face staring down at the clipboard, then looked again for the snakes, but they had vanished.
Monday, November 3, 2014
#20 Mandatory Scan
The nurse said it like she was doing us a favor, “Based on your son’s brain scan, we’ve given him a diagnosis of potential sociopath.”
I glanced at Kerry, who sat on the floor, rolling a toy car over the white tiles. He was only five. All his life, now, he’d have this mark. His mandatory brain scan had showed him to be a potential sociopath.
The nurse continued blithely, “It means he’ll be eligible for special services. He can go to an intervention school. We have a wonderful program in our state, with very good success rates.”
Intervention school. The joke was that it was a place where they graduated you right to prison. I knew that wasn’t true, but how could Kerry ever be normal if he was going to school with all the kids whose brain scans showed they had tendencies to dangerous mental illnesses?
I stared at the report, the fuzzy grayscale printouts of Kerry’s brain, the sample “normal” brain images lined up next to his. I could barely see a difference. Through my mind ran all the little incidents, the things I had brushed aside. Kerry had always seemed indifferent to my feelings, to the feelings of other children, but that didn’t mean we had to put him in intervention school.
Could I afford a private school for him? There were still some private schools that didn’t require a brain scan. Maybe I could find one that wasn’t too expensive. A private internet school, so I could keep him at home, away from other children, so no one else would ever be able to guess. Maybe I could teach him, somehow, to understand that he had to act normal, even if he didn’t feel that way inside.
“Thank you,” I said blankly to the nurse, and pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper from my purse. There was the kindergarten enrollment checklist. Immunizations. Physical Exam. Eye Exam. Brain Scan. I crossed off the last item on the list.
That was it, we’d done everything on the list and now Kerry was ready to start school.
I glanced at Kerry, who sat on the floor, rolling a toy car over the white tiles. He was only five. All his life, now, he’d have this mark. His mandatory brain scan had showed him to be a potential sociopath.
The nurse continued blithely, “It means he’ll be eligible for special services. He can go to an intervention school. We have a wonderful program in our state, with very good success rates.”
Intervention school. The joke was that it was a place where they graduated you right to prison. I knew that wasn’t true, but how could Kerry ever be normal if he was going to school with all the kids whose brain scans showed they had tendencies to dangerous mental illnesses?
I stared at the report, the fuzzy grayscale printouts of Kerry’s brain, the sample “normal” brain images lined up next to his. I could barely see a difference. Through my mind ran all the little incidents, the things I had brushed aside. Kerry had always seemed indifferent to my feelings, to the feelings of other children, but that didn’t mean we had to put him in intervention school.
Could I afford a private school for him? There were still some private schools that didn’t require a brain scan. Maybe I could find one that wasn’t too expensive. A private internet school, so I could keep him at home, away from other children, so no one else would ever be able to guess. Maybe I could teach him, somehow, to understand that he had to act normal, even if he didn’t feel that way inside.
“Thank you,” I said blankly to the nurse, and pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper from my purse. There was the kindergarten enrollment checklist. Immunizations. Physical Exam. Eye Exam. Brain Scan. I crossed off the last item on the list.
That was it, we’d done everything on the list and now Kerry was ready to start school.
Monday, October 27, 2014
#14 Wings for Patience
I lifted the fragile, warm body in my hand. Patience tried to bite me through my glove, but I held her tight and gently slid the hypodermic needle into just the right place. “Sorry, girl,” I said gently. “I know you don’t want to do this again, but this time we’re going to make sure you can fly. Really fly.”
Patience stopped struggling and lay still. I set her down on the steel operating table and watched for a moment to make sure her breathing was still good. She was a marvel of genetic engineering, white fur perfectly matched to the pair of snowy wings that sprouted from her tiny shoulders. I’d decided to keep the mouse’s tail, but line it with a fan of white feathers. She’d come out pretty, but something had been wrong. Her wings weren’t strong enough to do any more than flutter to the ground.
I wanted her to be able to soar.
Carefully, I snipped into the skin beneath on the underside of her wings and pulled it away. There were the chest muscles that I had been building for the last few weeks by injections of steroids and other strengthening compounds. The muscles were there, but not all the fibers had been attached to the wings. That’s why the surgery was necessary. I delicately began to stitch the new chest muscles to the wing muscles. Then I closed the skin up again. My surgeons stitches were so tiny they were invisible even on the thin mouse pelt. I looked Patience over, seeking for some other thing I could do to help her fly. Those ears were probably in her way, so I trimmed them smaller, leaving a tiny ridge of bloody edge that I seared off with my heat iron. There, maybe that would be enough. No, that tail was too long and heavy. It had to be shortened.
At last the surgery was finished. I wrapped Patience up in a restraining binding so she wouldn’t hurt herself while she healed, then placed her back in her cage.
Over the next few weeks I carefully hand-fed her every meal. Her tiny pink eyes were blank, I couldn’t see if there was any pain. We waited together, and every day I promised she would soon find out what it was like to fly.
Then one morning when I took off the wrappings, everything had healed. I knew Patience would need time to learn to use her wings, but now we could begin. I took her outside the lab, into the building, and walked to the atrium with its trees and glass-covered roof. There was no one there, only Patience and me.
I opened my hand only a little ways from the tile floor and waited to see what Patience would do. She sat there, trembling, for a moment. Then she spread her wings and hopped out of my hand.
The bird instincts I had programmed into her DNA took over, and she soared across the room, spiraling higher and higher. I cheered for her, wheeling around the skylight, but then she suddenly crumpled in mid-air, as if she’d been hit. Her body tumbled down and I ran to catch her, my lab coat fluttering. Blood coated my hands as I caught her shattered form, the wings only half on, the ribs snapped and protruding through her thin skin. I dropped to my knees and wept like a child as she died in my hands.
Patience stopped struggling and lay still. I set her down on the steel operating table and watched for a moment to make sure her breathing was still good. She was a marvel of genetic engineering, white fur perfectly matched to the pair of snowy wings that sprouted from her tiny shoulders. I’d decided to keep the mouse’s tail, but line it with a fan of white feathers. She’d come out pretty, but something had been wrong. Her wings weren’t strong enough to do any more than flutter to the ground.
I wanted her to be able to soar.
Carefully, I snipped into the skin beneath on the underside of her wings and pulled it away. There were the chest muscles that I had been building for the last few weeks by injections of steroids and other strengthening compounds. The muscles were there, but not all the fibers had been attached to the wings. That’s why the surgery was necessary. I delicately began to stitch the new chest muscles to the wing muscles. Then I closed the skin up again. My surgeons stitches were so tiny they were invisible even on the thin mouse pelt. I looked Patience over, seeking for some other thing I could do to help her fly. Those ears were probably in her way, so I trimmed them smaller, leaving a tiny ridge of bloody edge that I seared off with my heat iron. There, maybe that would be enough. No, that tail was too long and heavy. It had to be shortened.
At last the surgery was finished. I wrapped Patience up in a restraining binding so she wouldn’t hurt herself while she healed, then placed her back in her cage.
Over the next few weeks I carefully hand-fed her every meal. Her tiny pink eyes were blank, I couldn’t see if there was any pain. We waited together, and every day I promised she would soon find out what it was like to fly.
Then one morning when I took off the wrappings, everything had healed. I knew Patience would need time to learn to use her wings, but now we could begin. I took her outside the lab, into the building, and walked to the atrium with its trees and glass-covered roof. There was no one there, only Patience and me.
I opened my hand only a little ways from the tile floor and waited to see what Patience would do. She sat there, trembling, for a moment. Then she spread her wings and hopped out of my hand.
The bird instincts I had programmed into her DNA took over, and she soared across the room, spiraling higher and higher. I cheered for her, wheeling around the skylight, but then she suddenly crumpled in mid-air, as if she’d been hit. Her body tumbled down and I ran to catch her, my lab coat fluttering. Blood coated my hands as I caught her shattered form, the wings only half on, the ribs snapped and protruding through her thin skin. I dropped to my knees and wept like a child as she died in my hands.
Sunday, October 26, 2014
#13 Germs
“Mommy, I need a band-aid.”
Lea tried to push down the sick feeling that rose in her stomach. It’s nothing, she told herself. He’ll be all right. He took his pill this morning. We all took it. We do it every day.
“Let me see,” Lea said. She went to the front door where Mason stood there, looking miserable, a red scrape on his knee, one thin line of blood running down between the thin, white hairs on his leg.
“What were you doing?” Lea tried to keep her voice from sounding too hard, but the fear was there, goading her.
“I was trying Tyson’s skateboard,” Mason said. “He let me try it.”
“Mason, you know you shouldn’t do anything like that without pads. Didn’t he loan you his pads?”
“He wasn’t wearing pads, Mom. No one does.”
Lea groaned. “Come on in the bathroom,” she said.
“Help me count,” Lea said, as she rubbed the antiseptic soap into Mason’s knee. He sat on the side of the bathtub, his little shoulders tense, hands clenched on the rim. “One, two, three,” they counted together. When they got to a hundred, Lea turned on the hot tap and rinsed Masons knee. She wondered if the pipes were clean, or if maybe the germs were there, in the water she used to clean the wound. Maybe she should have boiled it.
Don’t be silly, she thought. He took his pill.
“Am I going to get sick?” Mason asked.
“No, of course not,” Lea kissed him on the forehead. “You took your pill this morning, right?”
He hesitated, and in a flash Lea could see his face in a coffin, like little Connor across the street. She shoved the image away, but Connor’s remained, his face puffy, black and purple and red splotches that makeup could not entirely cover. The pastor had said as Lea went by, “They did a beautiful job with him.” Lea had just stared at the pastor, not knowing what to say. That poor baby in the box had been the most horrible thing she’d ever seen.
Connor had fallen off a chair and split his chin on the tile floor, and his parents had taken him to a clinic to get the cut closed up. Clinics were the worst. He might have been fine if they’d kept him at home.
Mason nodded. Lea had almost forgotten what the question was. The pill, yes, he’d taken his pill this morning. Lea rumpled his hair. “You’ll be fine then,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.”
With his knee bandaged, Mason went back outside to play, but he didn’t stay long. He came in and spent the rest of the morning quietly in his room with his toys. Lea worked at her computer, occasionally her mind forgot that Mason had scraped his knee on some filthy sidewalk, but the anger and fear would not forget. They paced around the edges of her mind, occasionally slinking into the light so that she would wonder what they were doing there, and then she’d remember.
At bed time, Mason was crying as Lea tried to tuck him in.
“Are you still scared about your knee?” Lea asked.
“I didn’t, Mom,” Mason choked out the words. He reached for her and she bent down so he could squeeze his arms around her tight and shaking.
“What’s the matter, baby,” Lea asked.
“I didn’t take it, Mom. I don’t like it, it gives me a stomach-ache.”
A flash of fury washed over Lea. She grabbed Masons shoulders and shook him, flopping his head against his pillow. “No,” she said in a strangled scream.
Mason’s face crumpled and he howled in terror, shame, and sorrow.
Lea turned away, stinging inside. If he dies, she thought, you’ll remember how you did that. You didn’t comfort him, you blamed him
“Mommy’s sorry,” Lea said. She put her hand to his forehead. Fever, maybe? She peeled the bandage away from his knee.
Lea tried to push down the sick feeling that rose in her stomach. It’s nothing, she told herself. He’ll be all right. He took his pill this morning. We all took it. We do it every day.
“Let me see,” Lea said. She went to the front door where Mason stood there, looking miserable, a red scrape on his knee, one thin line of blood running down between the thin, white hairs on his leg.
“What were you doing?” Lea tried to keep her voice from sounding too hard, but the fear was there, goading her.
“I was trying Tyson’s skateboard,” Mason said. “He let me try it.”
“Mason, you know you shouldn’t do anything like that without pads. Didn’t he loan you his pads?”
“He wasn’t wearing pads, Mom. No one does.”
Lea groaned. “Come on in the bathroom,” she said.
“Help me count,” Lea said, as she rubbed the antiseptic soap into Mason’s knee. He sat on the side of the bathtub, his little shoulders tense, hands clenched on the rim. “One, two, three,” they counted together. When they got to a hundred, Lea turned on the hot tap and rinsed Masons knee. She wondered if the pipes were clean, or if maybe the germs were there, in the water she used to clean the wound. Maybe she should have boiled it.
Don’t be silly, she thought. He took his pill.
“Am I going to get sick?” Mason asked.
“No, of course not,” Lea kissed him on the forehead. “You took your pill this morning, right?”
He hesitated, and in a flash Lea could see his face in a coffin, like little Connor across the street. She shoved the image away, but Connor’s remained, his face puffy, black and purple and red splotches that makeup could not entirely cover. The pastor had said as Lea went by, “They did a beautiful job with him.” Lea had just stared at the pastor, not knowing what to say. That poor baby in the box had been the most horrible thing she’d ever seen.
Connor had fallen off a chair and split his chin on the tile floor, and his parents had taken him to a clinic to get the cut closed up. Clinics were the worst. He might have been fine if they’d kept him at home.
Mason nodded. Lea had almost forgotten what the question was. The pill, yes, he’d taken his pill this morning. Lea rumpled his hair. “You’ll be fine then,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.”
With his knee bandaged, Mason went back outside to play, but he didn’t stay long. He came in and spent the rest of the morning quietly in his room with his toys. Lea worked at her computer, occasionally her mind forgot that Mason had scraped his knee on some filthy sidewalk, but the anger and fear would not forget. They paced around the edges of her mind, occasionally slinking into the light so that she would wonder what they were doing there, and then she’d remember.
At bed time, Mason was crying as Lea tried to tuck him in.
“Are you still scared about your knee?” Lea asked.
“I didn’t, Mom,” Mason choked out the words. He reached for her and she bent down so he could squeeze his arms around her tight and shaking.
“What’s the matter, baby,” Lea asked.
“I didn’t take it, Mom. I don’t like it, it gives me a stomach-ache.”
A flash of fury washed over Lea. She grabbed Masons shoulders and shook him, flopping his head against his pillow. “No,” she said in a strangled scream.
Mason’s face crumpled and he howled in terror, shame, and sorrow.
Lea turned away, stinging inside. If he dies, she thought, you’ll remember how you did that. You didn’t comfort him, you blamed him
“Mommy’s sorry,” Lea said. She put her hand to his forehead. Fever, maybe? She peeled the bandage away from his knee.
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