CHOSEN: A Paranormal, Sci-Fi, Dystopian Novel (8 page)

The
people were so full of life and the colors were vivid. Stella had taken nearly
a thousand pictures trying to somehow capture and take with her the warmth of
the people, the vibrant hues of the buildings and the trees, and anything else
that would remind her of Hankura.  

One
day he planned on returning to attend The Southern Liberty University’s West
Coast campus. It was one of the best universities in the world for science and
scientific research and it was where his parents had met, where they met Mave
and eventually Rupert.

Otherwise,
his room felt bare. Built-in dressers and a personal disposal unit for garbage
gave more floor space and his bed took up nearly half of it. The handle for the
PDU was near the door one and a half feet from the floor. The ARC’s system
collected all the waste in units such as that for recycling, composting, and
conversion into fuel.

Aside
from that the only other furnishings were his chair and desk with a projection
area where he could have his system read and organize his written notes. He
didn’t understand why his mother wouldn’t use hers. Instead she’d have all that
paper, everywhere. He sat down at his desk and launched the projection. He
scanned the report his father had run that morning and added it to the data
before projecting it to the wall.

For
hours he sat again with the information, re-running scenarios in his head and
recalculating probabilities, hoping to decrease the probability of occurrence
or increase the timeframe of it happening. He’d done something similar the
night before, but tonight he optimistically hoped to find something different.
He was searching for the answer to the burning question his mother had asked
and every other person in the room had thought. What could be done?

No
matter what scenario he ran, he kept coming to the same conclusion. It wouldn’t
matter what they did on their end if the International Association of
Corporations, known as UniCorps, didn’t act. They couldn’t act if they didn’t
know.

He
turned off the projection. There was nothing more he could do now, but he would
show Mave what he ran tomorrow.

Antarctic Research Center

As Stephen traversed
the pastel painted tunnels with sconces placed near the ceiling as well as
tracks of lights running along the top, the path to the science center felt
ridiculously cumbersome. A never-ending puzzle with twists and turns. 

The
genius of his father’s honeycomb to honeycomb design meant that it could easily
be closed off section by section if heating went out or if there was any other
type of emergency. It also meant getting anywhere on the ARC took twice as long
as it should.

When
he finally arrived at the door to the science center, he startled them. They
were huddled together talking quietly but it was quickly followed by a sudden
hush the moment he entered the doorway. Mave went for the coffee pot as was her
nervous habit. 

“Good
morning, Stephen,” Zura smiled. “Come on in. It looks like you’ve been up late
again.” 

Stephen
looked down at himself and realized he had woken up, grabbed the notebook and
his watch, and run out of his room. Navy blue cotton pajama pants and a
long-sleeved sleep shirt hung loosely off his slender frame. They weren’t his
usual clothes to start the day but it didn’t matter.

Stephen
had marched out of his room, anxious to show his parents, Rupert, and Mave what
he discovered in his number crunching the night before. He was convinced that
once they saw this, they would have to tell someone. There was no way they could
keep quiet at that point.

“Yes.
I was up late. I think you’ll want to see this. Yesterday, you said you needed
to get a closer look at the data. I took a closer look to see if there was
something that could be done that would make the outcomes better. I kept
changing the assumption and rerunning the models but kept getting the same or
very similar results. They were all bad., that is until I started changing some
of the other variables. Variables that we’ve continued to hold constant.”
Stephen picked up Zura’s tablet and copied his report to it before handing it
to her.

“What
are you saying Stephen?” Johan asked stepping over to take a closer look.

“I
don’t think we are going to be able solve this without looking at population,
location of population, the number of pump holes, location of pump holes, and
how much is being pumped.

“Those
are things that we don’t have any control over and honestly, they don’t give it
much support as far as research,” Zura responded.

“I
don’t see how anyone can ignore it. There are twenty billion people and there
is a lot of waste from production to support those twenty billion people.
Because people are spread out companies either produce in more areas to
minimize transportation or they have to ship to more areas and thus put more
load on fewer pump holes. Either way, we can’t keep pumping into the earth at
the levels we are without these tremors and earthquakes getting even worse.
Then there is even the issue of volcanoes. We are already seeing this happen. In
the short term, the only solution I see is to close the pumps.” Stephen stopped
speaking. 

He
didn’t want to go any further and looked at Zura, wanting his mother to take it
from there. He then looked at Johan.

“Here,”
Stephen said, handing the paper and the data chip to his dad and walked out. “I
need to get ready for the day.”

“What
the heck Stephen?!” An exasperated Zura yelled after Stephen as he walked out
of the room and back towards his room. Sometimes he drove her crazy. She could
never really figure him out. Stephen figured that this was their problem. Johan
put up his hand to Zura. After letting Stephen get a few yards ahead of Johan
followed.

Stephen
didn’t answer his mother. He didn’t want to talk to her or anyone else in that
room. He was still a kid and he wasn’t supposed to have to think about things
like that. He wanted off this forsaken sheet of ice. He wanted to tell someone
what was going on and maybe have someone who hadn’t already sold out look at
the data with him.

Exhaustion
hit Stephen hard as he crossed the threshold of the door to his bedroom. His
bed called to him, reminding him that he’d ignored it the night before. A light
knock on the door made Stephen roll over on his back to and strain to see who
was three through dreary eyes. 

“Hey
dad.”

“Hey
Stephen. How are you?” Johan asked and then sat down on the edge of Stephen’s
bed.

“Tired
and upset.”

“I
bet. You were working pretty late on this weren’t you?”

“Yes.
Very late.”

“And
you didn’t get quite the response you were hoping for did you?”

“No.
There should be only one response, dad. There is one simple answer. Stop
pumping emissions into the ground, move the people in the hot zones, then fix
the problem. You can even propose your solution again, right?”

“I
wish it were that easy Stephen, believe me. For every one person you see that
we answer to, there are two or three more that you don’t see. Unfortunately,
every single one has different interests. Maybe, just maybe, we are getting
somewhere with all this. Maybe we have enough data finally to make a case that
they can’t ignore. Then, maybe they’ll listen to what I’ve been suggesting for
years,” Johan smiled at his son.

He
hoped to lighten Stephen’s mood. It wasn’t fair for Stephen to have to be
involved like he was, but he was involved and he needed to be. Stephen was
right. What was happening affected all of them, Stephen included. He had a
stake in the outcome, perhaps more than even either he or Zura.

“Enough
of that. Anything else exciting happening?” Johan asked, trying to shift the
focus from work.

“No.
It’s supposed to be Spring break but it doesn’t seem like it, especially with
Stella gone. I’m tired dad and I need time to think,” Stephen said, rolling
onto his side.

Johan
stood up and avoided stepping on the paper Stephen had let drop to the floor.

“Well,
get some rest and then come back down and see us when you’re ready. Okay son?”

“Okay.
Can you close the door please?”

“Sure.
Talk to you soon.” Johan gently closed the door and Stephen collapsed onto the
bed, landing on his stomach.

His
eyelids were heavy and the dark circles underneath were now evident from the
multiple nights of lost sleep. His cheek lay against the bed and his hands fell
beside his head. The small light on his watch pulsed blue. He pushed himself up
just enough to reach it with his other hand.

Stella
had sent him a message. She’d gone exploring at camp and would tell him about
it when she got home in a couple of days. Stephen looked at the ocean life calendar
Mave had bought him. Only two days were left. Sleep beckoned him as he lay
sprawled across the bed. He would have given into it but he felt compelled to
continue working. His dad might be right - maybe they were close. He also felt
guilty after he’d rushed out of the science center the way he had.

Stephen
let himself tumble off the bed and stumble into the bathroom. He peeled off his
pajamas and stepped into the hygiene closet. He took a deep breath and put the
plugs into his ears and nose. No matter how many times he did it, he still
hated the feeling of the rubber nodules pressed against the skin inside his
nose and ears.

He
dragged his legs over the short wall and stepped inside the small closet,
letting the door close with a click before pressing the button to let the
sanitation begin. With his head leaning against the wall in front of him he rested
his hands on the sealed, smooth, concrete wall above him and spread his legs as
if preparing to stretch for the marathon that would be the next month of his
life. The hygienic wash and rinse would begin soon and with it, ninety seconds
of peace.

As
the pea gravel sized holes in the hygiene closet opened and began to squirt the
anti-bacterial foam onto the top of his tense neck and back and then down the
back of his legs, he forgot where he was for a moment. The foam would stay on
him for thirty seconds releasing the tiny beads that tingled against his skin,
revitalizing him. The infrared light shining from above his head, beside him
from the walls, and up from the floor killed other germs.

The
faint sound of a beep brought him back to where he was and he turned to face
the other way for another thirty seconds. He loved the rinse the most. He had
set the rinse power so it felt like standing out in the rain on a Spring day
back in Northern Allegiance.

The
final rinse removed all of the anti-bacterial solution and left him feeling
clean and refreshed. He always opted to turn off the heated drying element in
the hygiene closet. It was too warm and sucked the moisture from his skin,
especially when the moisture in the air was already so low. Besides, he
preferred the cooler air outside of the closet, and a thick towel.

He
grabbed his oversized navy blue and white striped towel from the hook just
outside the closet door and stepped out onto the cool white clay tile. Now that
he was feeling a little more alive maybe he wouldn’t be such a curmudgeon when
he went back to the science center. He was already feeling restless, knowing
there must be something else; something he was missing.

Mave
looked towards the doorway as Stephen appeared again. This time he was fully dressed
and looked as if he’d been in the hygiene closet.

“Hi,
Stephen. Welcome back.”

Stephen
walked in and sat down by Mave. 

“Hi
Aunt M,” he tried to say calmly. “Did you see what I brought earlier?”

“No,
Zura took it. She and Johan have it in there.” She pointed toward the door
leading down to the ROC room. “I wouldn’t go in there yet if I were you. I
don’t think they like what they are seeing and I don’t think they agree on the
next step.”

“So
what does that mean? What am I supposed to do?” asked Stephen confused.

“Right
now? Nothing. Wait. Things will work out. In the meantime, you can help me do
some of this prep work so we can get reports for when we are gone. Believe it
or not it’s almost time to leave this ice nest and it’s almost birthday time
for you and Stella. I’ll be a bat’s uncle, well aunt, if I’m in this place ever
again in Winter.” Stephen looked at her with a strange smile.

Sometimes
Mave said the craziest non-sense things. Since she’d starting working on not
swearing she said whatever other craziness popped in her head.

“You’ll
be sixteen this year and para-adults. It’s a big step and I have something
special for the two of you. However, my dear, it won’t happen on Antarctica.”

“What
is it?” Stephen asked.

“It
wouldn’t be much of a surprise if I told you, now would it? You’ll just have to
wait and find out, but don’t worry, it is out of this world!”

“Okay.
Fine. I’ll help you. You don’t have to make all kinds of promises, Aunt M. You
know I don’t like surprises. What do you need me to do?” Stephen said.

Mave
slid over with coffee in hand letting Stephen take command of the programming
station.

“Why
don’t you run the program to get data on the sea creatures first,” Mave
instructed.

Stephen
looked at her and protested, “But I want to work on the seismic activity
program.”

“I
know. That’s why you have to do the sea creatures first. I know if you start
with that seismic activity program I’ll have a hard time getting you to stop
and do anything else. By the way, make sure when do the seismic program you are
getting data from all of the regions. I don’t want us to miss anything,” Mave
smiled at Stephen who gave her a look of frustration before turning a corner of
his lip upward.

They
could work together for hours. Sometimes it would be in silence, yet whenever
he was around Mave, he always felt safe and connected to something bigger. He
knew what he was doing wasn’t for nothing.