CHOSEN: A Paranormal, Sci-Fi, Dystopian Novel (7 page)

Stephen
didn’t move for a moment, his face seemingly blank. He loved Mave. She always
made him feel special, wanted, and needed. He couldn’t remember a time when
Mave wasn’t around.

Stephen
walked casually over to where Mave stood near the coffee machine, fumbling with
a pouch of coffee and a large container sitting underneath the machine.

Despite
the fact that they were not of the same blood, Mave was closer than any other
family, outside of those on the ARC, and she had no children, nieces, or
nephews. She found a quiet satisfaction in being called Aunt M.

“I
spoke to Stella today. She’s enjoying herself. She’s met more people like her.
She is the only person she’s met there who has been to Antarctica.” Stephen
paused as he glanced around the room. “Where are mom and dad?”

“They
are in the lab doing some testing. Do you need them?” she asked.

“Yes,
I have to pass on messages from Stella and I need to help them today.” he
added.

“Oh,
that’s too bad. I was hoping you’d work with me today. I’m waiting on some test
results but they’ll be finished soon, and then there will be plenty of work to
do.” Mave stopped to check the time on the wall behind her and walked back to
her desk. “Tell them I made more coffee.”

“Okay.
I will help you later if I finish up with them in time.”

Stephen
walked through a door, down winding steps to the small room with control panels
measuring the temperatures, pressures, and oxygen levels. He slipped off his
shoes, put little booties on, and then he went into the small white decontamination
chamber.

The
fluorescent bulbs were engineered to kill bacteria that might be harmful in the
lab. The small chamber had a second luminescent bacterial disinfectant that scanned
the entire person and any objects being carried.

Once
both doors were closed Stephen stretched his arms out and he waited for the
three beeps that would tell him the scanning was about to begin. He closed his
eyes, took a deep breath and held it, counting to ten in his head.
One. Two.
Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.

Everyone
told him he didn’t need to hold his breath, but he couldn’t help it. Three more
beeps signaled that the scan was complete. Stephen exhaled and then pressed the
button for the door leading into the sterile lab. This was Rupert’s main domain
when he wasn’t in the larger science workroom with Mave. Windows at the top of
the lab let light in from the ROC room.

Going
through the lab he found his way to the door that opened into the ROC room. It
was covered with windows on the outward facing side that started at two feet
from the ground and rose to the ceiling. From here they had a full view of the
ocean.

Along
the bottom of the walls were three tunnels leading into the ocean for further
observation and sample collection. His father had designed it that way to ensure
they could continuously collect and monitor water samples, measure water
vibrations, ocean floor vibrations, water levels, and monitor ocean life.

When
it wasn’t being used for work it was where Stephen and Stella had spent
countless hours when they were young. The twins would sit and lay in the
tunnels that led out into the ocean and watch the ocean life.

Both
of his parents were in the room, focused, and barely noticed him enter. Johan leaned
over his desk, looking at several reports spread out on paper, on tablets and
even projected on the desk. His fingers kept tapping on the projection, going
to different parts of the data he was studying. The data contained information
on the changes within the past few months. His mom was intensely studying two
reports while she paced nervously back and forth in front of the large windows.

“Mom?”
Stephen said, getting her attention. Zura stopped looking at the paper in one
hand and tablet in the other.

“Stephen?
When you gave me that data yesterday what date did it come from?” she jumped
right in.

“One
week ago today, just like you asked. Did I do something wrong?” he asked with a
look of self-doubt coming over his face. 

“No.
No. That’s what I asked for. It just doesn’t make much sense. The change
between last week and the prior two months doesn’t seem to be right. It’s too
big of a change.” She put the reports down and nodded to Johan curiously. “What
are you seeing over there Johan?”

His
dad stood up slowly. He shook his head and wiped his thick brow. “Zura, I don’t
know what I’m seeing. Actually, I know what I’m seeing but I don’t know if I
believe it. I think we need to get Rupert and Mave in here.”

“Wait,
Mom. I spoke to Stella this morning and,” he was cut off mid-sentence.

“What?
You spoke to Stella and didn’t come get us?” Zura shook her head as if to say,
“teenagers”. 

“Yes,
I spoke to Stella and she’s doing fine. She needs forty lubles for snacks and a
gift. Her aircraft arrives on Saturday morning at 9:16 a.m. sharp. I’ll remind
you again but she asked me to remind you now. She wants both of you to meet her
at the hangar with me. If not both of you, then at least one of you.”

“Forty
lubles? After all we spent to send her to this camp; she needs forty more
lubles for snacks and a gift! That girl.” Zura took a few moments to open her
banking application on her watch and entered her password to transfer money to
her daughter. “Done. She can ask for money, but she can’t pick up her hand and
call me.”

“Stephen,
I’ll go with you to meet her when she gets back. Your mom will have her hands
completely full.” Johan said cautiously glancing at his wife.

“Thanks
Johan. You know you’ll still be busy too but it’d be good if you could go with
Stephen.” Zura said turning back to the reports.

“I’ll
go get Rupert and Mave. Oh and Mave made some more coffee.” Stephen quietly
left the room.

He
walked back through the decontamination chamber, the control room, and into the
workroom where Mave was standing closely to Rupert talking in a hushed voice. Rupert
stood with a smile on his face and the last of the coffee in his black mug that
read
Solution Exists
.

“Hello
Rupert,” Stephen said. He always tried to be courteous and greet them when he
saw them. 

“Good
morning, my man.” Rupert responded with a nod, graciously sharing his smile
with Stephen. 

“They
need both of you to look at some data. It seems to be bothering mom. I’ll make
another pot of coffee.”

Rupert
was the smartest man he knew when it came to looking at data and noticing
details others missed. He was full of brains, having graduated second in his
class to the woman he now stood beside. Even as smart as he was he managed to
hold on to his relaxed and easy nature. His long locks were filled with salt
and his beard was long. He would let it grow for weeks without trimming,
especially during the cold months they spent here.

Rupert
walked with a slight limp due to his right leg being a prosthetic. He’d lost it
in an accident during a beach trip while in University soon after he turned
eighteen. He’d been swimming out in the ocean, pushing past where the
lifeguards said it was safe. A shark was swimming closer in than usual,
searching for food and he’d gotten within striking distance. As his legs moved
beneath the waves they must have looked like swimming fish to the hungry shark.

It
had taken months for him to heal and walk again and that caused him to fall a
year behind in school. Looking back, he realized that losing part of his leg
and then that year eventually allowed him to meet Mave and led him to the ARC.
He didn’t forget to tease Mave that they would’ve both been number one in their
classes if he hadn’t had to make up that year. He would also joke that he’d
given his right leg to meet her. The prosthetic barely seemed to slow him down.

Rupert’s
skin was like powdered cocoa but unlike his mother, he’d come from the
beautiful islands off the northeast coast of the continent of Southern
Allegiance. Zura had been born in Southern Liberty. Before the government of the
World Consensus was formed, it had been called Africa.

Many
of the old places had been renamed to loosen people’s obsession with the
divisions that had been associated with them, but since no one seemed too
concerned with claiming the wasteland he was on, it remained as Antarctica.

And
it was here, where no one wanted to be, that the questions that no one could
ignore, would originate.

Antarctic Research Center

Curiosity filled Rupert
and Mave’s eyes as they looked at each other.

“What
do you think
this
meeting will be about?” Rupert asked Mave, already
suspecting they both knew.

“More
of the same probably. Of course Zura has the knack for seeing the bigger
picture and the longer trends that we might have missed. Maybe she has something
new for us.”

“New
would be good. Especially since we’ve been dealing with delivering them reports
that no one likes for months and nothing has changed. I know they’ve invested
billions of lubles into the infrastructure and the companies that maintain them
but, at some point they have to hear reason, right?” Rupert asked Mave.

“You’d
think that, but reason didn’t stop them from using these emission pump holes to
begin with. They pushed it through because we were in a pollution crisis and
needed something quick.”

“You’re
right. Anyone who tried to get real solid research done was considered a
threat, disloyal, and discredited in some way or another,” Rupert said,
remembering some of his former colleagues.

“Now,
they’ve got more reasons to keep doing what they are doing than to stop. At
least, they have until now. I am hopeful it’ll be different this time. I feel
pretty good about Zura making the case,” Mave said, nodding her head.

Zura
had a keen eye and mind for seeing what was coming with just a few pieces of
information. She must have passed that gift on to Stephen. His mind was almost
like a computer when it came to patterns and probabilities. They were lucky to
have him, even if he was just fifteen.

“I
guess we better go then. She doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” Rupert said as
the two made their way down the stairs and through the short tunnel to the control
room.

They
went through the same process as Stephen. Each removed their shoes, exchanging
them for the white booties before taking turns in the chamber. Mave went first,
taking the minute to collect her thoughts again before facing Zura. 

When
Rupert followed her, she knew he’d taken advantage of those quiet seconds as
well. The two gave a knowing nod as they walked through the lab and into the ROC
room. Rupert had barely exited the lab when Zura was showing a barely stacked
pile of papers into their hands. 

“Hey
you two, take a look at this. I keep staring at it and it seems right but it
just doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t seem to be possible. Tell me if you are
seeing what I’m seeing.” Zura projected the data that had held her captivated
onto the center table and started walking around it in circles, as if she were on
the hunt.

Mave
glanced at Rupert and then said, “Zura, can we take it down just a half a notch.
Let’s sit and look at it. Remember, we haven’t seen all the data together, only
our pieces of the puzzle. It looks like you’ve put the puzzle together, so to
speak. Give us a few minutes to look it over and then we can all talk about what
we see. How’s that sound?” she asked. Mave was always the voice of reason and
calm.

“Good
idea, Mave. Five minutes,” Zura said as she got ready to tap a button on her
wrist. “Start…now.” Zura couldn’t help but time it. She was particular that
way.

Mave
was the main reason Zura had made it through the first two years with the
twins. It had been Mave and Zura’s parents moving to Northern Allegiance for a
few years to help that were her salvation. They told her when she was pregnant that
they weren’t going to miss their only grandchildren even if they were half way
around the world.

However,
it was Mave who kept Zura sane in the long cold months when she had to leave
them in Northern Allegiance to come back to the ARC. She’d never felt she had
enough time with them when they were young, but they still turned out to be
good kids.

A
few minutes later, Johan walked in holding a cup of coffee still steaming over
the green brim. Stephen followed him, carrying a hot cup of coffee in each
hand, delicately balancing them so that they didn’t spill on him or on the
clean floors of the ROC room. He didn’t feel like getting on his knees to scrub
the floors today, especially since he was so freshly clean.

“Sorry
I’m late. I wanted to pull a few more data points from today before chiming in
myself on this. Have you all had a chance to look at the reports Zura made?”

Johan’s
deep eyes moved between Mave and Rupert, before settling on Zura. She still lit
up his world. He handed her the coffee he was holding, took one from Stephen,
and sat beside her. Stephen, holding one last cup sat down in the last empty
seat. With everyone being so preoccupied, they might not notice he was drinking
coffee too.

Zura
slid a report over to Stephen and took the data from Johan. She then began
looking back and forth at the different reports. She stood up and restarted the
data load into the center of the table through the holograph system that turned
it into a three dimensional image. She knew where she wanted to start.

“Okay,
let’s go. Rupert, what are your thoughts?”

Rupert
cleared his throat before beginning. “You see this data point here?” he asked
pointing to what seemed like a random dot on the graph. “It seems like a minor
anomaly at first, until you notice that it is repeated here, and here, and
here, by proportion. So it becomes less of an anomaly but rather a periodic
spike,” he said as he slid his finger to move it along to what Johan had been
studying.

“I
think this goes along with Johan’s findings. The spikes we see here are because
the entire earth mantle is connected. What happens over here in the North and
South Allegiances or over in the Eastern Way affects us down here.”

“And,”
Mave added, “keep in mind they’ve been adding new drilling holes over the past
decade where we’d previously had none. So rather than having these gases pumped
into the ground in just a dozen areas, we are now up by nearly 100%, even with
the three that are closed. No one is talking about long-term solutions.”

“What
I’m seeing,” said Johan “is compressed gases being pushed into the surface and
then expanding once they are below ground, pushing the earth apart underneath. It
is literally destabilizing the layer that we live on and that the ocean sits
on. It’s, of course, worse where the holes have been drilled but, like Rupert
said, it’s affecting everywhere.”

Zura
nodded her head thoughtfully. She was restless and stood up to begin walking in
circles again. It was what she’d suspected but needed to hear it from the
people she trusted most. “So what can we do?” Zura asked. “And more
importantly, how long do we have before these gases push against a tectonic
plate or close enough to a volcano to erupt it?”

“It’s
already happening in some places. We’ve seen more volcanic activity even
without full scale eruptions. There have been more tremors reported by the
Science Institute and we’ve measured more here too, including on the ocean
floor. The earthquake in Southern Allegiance was pretty bad, but that was just
one of several incidents,” Rupert answered.

“Based
on the data collected over the past seventeen months, the probability of
smaller events in the next six months however, is over .7 if conditions do not
change.” Stephen said in his nearly monotone voice.

“When
did you work that out Stephen?” Johan asked.

“Last
night, before bed. I hope you don’t mind, mom. I borrowed copies of the reports,”
Stephen said to a smiling Zura.

“I
don’t mind at all. Thank you.” She couldn’t help but think, her son was a
genius. Turning her attention back to the information projected and her
teammates, Zura continued. “Based on that, what can we do to turn this around
so that the conditions change and we avoid the next event in a series of events
that will destabilize our world?”

Mave
paused for a moment, running her hands through her long hair. She hadn’t
bothered to put it up that morning since she knew she’d just be around friends.
She pushed her coffee mug back and leaned forward on the table. 

“Zura,
the first thing is to confirm what Stephen said. The second thing is to tell
UniCorps and we need to tell our contacts at the World Consensus Science
Division too,” Mave continued to lean in, her eyes on Zura.

There
was silence around the room, with the exception of Stephen’s perfectly timed
sipping of his coffee and subsequent gagging as he burnt his tongue. Zura
looked at him and then decided to let it go. He’d been up working on this like
the rest of them. He’d earned his grown up wake up. Stephen looked around the
room at the faces of the people who had become of his family. He didn’t get
what the big deal was about telling their funders.

Quietly,
his mother spoke, “And then what? We can’t just go in and drop a bomb like this
without having a practical and workable solution. I’m not ready to tell the
science divisions of either UniCorps or the World Consensus. The World
Consensus doesn’t like bad news, never has. UniCorps doesn’t like anything that
may negatively affect their productivity or profits. Along with that, anything
at all that might scare the public generally gets buried by everyone.”

“We
can’t let this stuff happen and just be quiet about it. That isn’t fair. It
isn’t right,” Stephen said, disturbed at the suggestion.

“It’s
okay, Stephen. We’ll tell them when the time is right. When we have answers for
the questions. Right now, we don’t have answers and we don’t have a solution,”
Zura said trying in vain to calm her son.

“No,
mom, it’s not okay. I’m fifteen years old. If we let this situation continue,
the probability of there being a world that is habitable when I’m as old as
you, is pretty much zero. Actually to be more precise it is .12 to .15 but that
is close enough to nothing.” Stephen stood up with his coffee and left the lab.

Stephen
reversed his steps to exit the science center. As he walked through the tunnels
that led to their unit, trying to keep his coffee from spilling, he could feel
himself becoming more frustrated. He didn’t understand them. They’d rushed to
put in the pump system to solve a problem that they’d created. At the time, it
was the easier fix and much faster given they could reuse some of the existing
infrastructure. Now no one wanted to be responsible for it or what it was doing
to the planet.

He
entered their unit and walked past the aging furniture Zura had personally
picked out before they were born.

She’d
changed the art and knick-knacks out once when they were about ten years old
but no one had done much since. Right now, he didn’t see any of that as he
walked past it and into his room, shutting the door hard behind him.

He
felt silly for wanting his sister home, but he did. He needed someone to talk
to. Someone who would understand.

Stephen
banged his head on the wall a few times and then rubbed the red spot on his
forehead.
That does hurt
. He then remembered Stella asked him not to do
that since it gave her headaches. Spent of any other ideas of what to do,
Stephen turned and flopped onto his bed.

Touching
the small shiny black band around his wrist he projected it to the wall. Within
a few seconds a half awake face with a hand over an eye trying to get the sleep
out, appeared in front of him. The young man had serious bed head from falling
asleep at his desk. Stephen was annoyed that Marco could pretty much look like
that when he woke up. He could spend all day grooming himself and still just
look completely average.

“Hey
Marco, how are you? I need to ask you about something,” Stephen said rushing in
without even letting Marco answer. Marco rubbed his eyes. 

“Hi
Stephen. What’s going on?”

Stephen
paused and stared at the screen. He realized he needed to talk to someone but
hadn’t thought it through. Telling Marco what was going on wasn’t something he
could really do. Neither was it possible to ask him for advice, even
hypothetically. He couldn’t talk to anyone else about this at all, except
Stella and he’d have to wait for her to get back.

“I’m
sorry Marco. I made a mistake. I’ll talk to you later.”

Marco
swore under his breath and rolled his eyes as Stephen hung up. He’d fallen
asleep at his desk doing some research of his own, when Stephen had come
through. Marco had his own work he needed to finish if he wanted an edge on his
competition.

The
walls stared back at Stephen. He had never decorated them like Stella. They’d
been painted a bluish grey color when he was a little kid and he’d left it that
way for more than eight years. The maintenance staff touched it up every year
with the same color and for the past three years had asked if he wanted a new
color. The blue still comforted him and there was no need to change it despite
everyone else’s suggestions.

The
only picture displayed on the wall was of his family on a vacation back in his
mom’s native home, Hankura, on the western coast of Southern Liberty. They went
back to visit her home with their grandparents nearly half his lifetime ago. It
had been taken the same year his room was first painted. Since that time he’d
only been back once, but he could still remember how beautiful it was.