Eye of the Storm (5 page)

“Now let's all keep an Eye on Tomorrow.” The holo-sim winks. “And always do your best, because we'll have our eye on you.” Then it vanishes from the top of Dad's head down to the last shiny black toe of his shoe, as if someone took an eraser to the air and rubbed him out, atom by atom.

Van steps forward. “Ready to take a walk?”

Alex taps my shoulder. “So are you requesting meteorology for a focus area? Some people work in teams.”

Is he asking if I want to work with him? This is the same kid who didn't like my last name yesterday. “Haven't really thought about it yet.”

“Well sure, there's no rush,” he says, and looks down at his hands resting on the seat in front of us.

“You coming?” Risha calls from the door, and I realize we're holding up the line.

I leave Alex's not-quite-an-invitation alone for now and hurry to the door. When we step outside, sunlight burns my eyes, and warm, wet outdoor air wraps around me. Risha and Tomas have gone ahead, so I walk with Alex.

“This way.” Van points us toward the next building over, the one with the white dome, a giant golf ball perched on top of a short, thick column of glass. “Might as well start with the best we have to offer.”

The best the camp has to offer? I look over, and Alex answers the question before I even ask it out loud.

“Storm Sim Dome.”

“What's in there?”

“Computers,” he says as we step up to the huge building, waiting for Van to scan his fingerprint and open the door. “Turbo-fans. Storm simulators. Storm pool and plumbing.”

I stare up at the dome, processing what he's just said. “Are you telling me there's real wind and rain and everything in there?” It's shiny, almost too big and bright to look at up close.

Van holds the door open. “File in.” The air inside is cold and clean, and the main chamber of the dome is cavernous. It reminds me of the story Aunt Linda told me once about her family's trip to that old amusement park, Epcot Center, when she was little. It's gone now, wiped out years ago in one of the first inland hurricanes like the rest of Disney's Florida empire, but Aunt Linda said it was magical, like being inside a giant globe, the heart of the whole world.

My eyes drift down from the dome's ceiling, and I see what looks like the heart of this building—an enclosed safety-glass box housing the mainframe computer system that must control everything.

A model city surrounds the console. It looks like Oklahoma City used to look forty years ago, full of offices and shopping areas, parks and schools, homes, and barns on the outskirts, all built to scale. About half the city is in perfect condition; the rest of the buildings are as battered as the ones
outside
Placid Meadows are now.

The cement floor is still damp. Van gestures down at it. “Watch the puddles; we had a test run earlier.”

I look around, wondering how it all works. The precipitation must come from the water heads mounted on the ceiling and the hoses that snake out from the walls every few meters. It even smells like a storm in here. Does that rain-ruined smell just happen, or is it pumped in with the wind, through the enormous fans that hang from the ceiling and walls?

“Why do they do all this?” I whisper to Alex. “Wouldn't computer simulations be easier?”

“They used to do that, but there were too many variables. Van says you need real buildings, real towns, to see what a real storm can do.”

The last few campers file in. It's quiet, but then a motor clicks on, and the fans begin to hum quietly, almost as if they're whispering promises about what they can do.

Tomas is the first to speak up. “You gonna run this thing for us?”

Van shakes his head. “Later in the week, maybe. It doesn't mean much if you don't understand what you're seeing, but this is where our meteorology program is based. It's all exclusive, patented technology—one of a kind. Well, three of a kind, actually. There's one up at the StormSafe complex and one at the company's property in Russia. Just wanted you to have a look at it for today.”

He walks us out of the dome, back into the bright light and sunshine air.

The rest of the morning is a parade of in and outs, more rooms filled with elaborate equipment. This is what I imagined Dad's
StormSafe headquarters might look like. If they provide this stuff at a camp for teenagers, what must he have at work?

After lunch, we're back in the orientation center to talk about areas of study.

This time, there's no holo-sim of Dad. Instead, a three-dimensional globe of light drops from the ceiling as classical music starts to play.

Alex leans over. “Mozart,” he whispers. “They did some study that shows classical music helps to develop synapses between the hemispheres of the brain and makes us better problem solvers.”

It's also Dad's favorite, but I don't mention that. Alex probably wouldn't like Mozart anymore.

Dad's voice rises over the violins. “Welcome back, Eye on Tomorrow campers. This afternoon, we'll take a look at the problems our world is facing today . . . and tomorrow. And we'll ask you to make a commitment to one of those challenges for the summer.”

The globe at the center of the room spins and then explodes into a million bits of light that shoot out toward the walls, and in its place now is a spinning cloud. It's just light, just a holo-image, but somehow the air feels wetter, heavier than it did a few seconds ago. Dad's voice describes the first challenge, the one we all know about already—the storms.

“Warmer global temperatures have led to increased instances of tornadic storms, not only in the traditional storm belt, but worldwide. Through the careful planning and vigilance of the
International Climate Committee, we've managed to reverse the planetary warming trend. However, as you know, campers, it will be two more years before greenhouse gases are reduced to a level that will have a positive impact on weather patterns. Our goal at StormSafe and here at Eye on Tomorrow is to bridge the gap—to find solutions that will keep people safe until then.”

It's not only the tornadoes, Dad says, but also hurricanes of greater intensity and size, tropical cyclones around the globe, droughts and heat waves, that need to be controlled. “When we master our climate,” Dad's voice promises, “we'll be the masters of our planet.”

He goes on to describe three more challenges: the bio-botanicals program that he promises will revolutionize the world's food supply and end hunger through an expansion of DNA-ture bioengineering and factory-grown food practices; the robotics research that will automate the world's industries and services, from motorcycles to medicine, within thirty years; and the cellular generation and human cloning center, where scholars have already begun developing successful technology to create, through DNA-based cloning, any part of the human body for transplant or other use.

When the human figure representing the last area of study fades and sinks into the floor, the lights come on and Van is back in front of us, bouncing on his sneakers. “Ready to solve the world's problems? We'll see you back here, first thing in the morning, to get started.”

The rest of the week flies past in a blur of computer screens, robotics, radar and satellite panels, stainless steel counters, test tubes, and greenhouses with more monitoring equipment than I could have imagined. Each day, Van leads us through a different research center on campus. Sometimes we do lab experiments and try out equipment. Van asks us questions along the way to see who might be best suited to each area of study.

I figured kids who have spent two and three summers here would be way ahead of me, but I can actually answer most of Van's questions. Especially when it comes to meteorology.

“You're doing great,” Risha whispers to me as we walk between buildings.

“Thanks. I'm surprised I'm not further behind everybody who's been here before.”

“You're not behind at all,” Risha says, pulling open the door to the bio-botanicals building. “The program this year is way more intense than what we did last summer.”

Even so, Risha knows the answer to almost every question in the bio-botanicals lab, where she spent last summer.

“Are you sure you want to switch to cloning?” I whisper.

She glances sideways at Tomas, smiles and shrugs at me, and answers another question. Her bracelets clink together whenever she raises her hand, and finally, when Van turns to explain some new kind of lower-carb sweet corn, I reach for her wrist. “What are the numbers supposed to be?”

She slips a bracelet off her hand and passes it to me. “It's binary code, the sequence of ones and zeros they used to represent processing instructions for a computer.”

I run my finger along waves of numbers etched in the gold. “So what will this tell a computer to do?”

“Nothing.” She wiggles the other two off her wrist. “This is just regular text.” She points to the first line of numbers on one bracelet. “See this sequence?”

I read it aloud. “01011001.”

“That's
y
.”

“That's all one letter?”

“And then here . . .” She points to the second set of eight numbers, 01101111. “. . . is an
o
. It spells out, ‘You must be the change you wish to see in the world.' It's a saying from some old Indian guy, Gandhi. My grandmother's always quoting him and trying to get me to read about him.” She waves at the air with her green-and-black-striped fingernails. “She figured if she translated it into in a language I like, I might actually pay attention, so she had these made for me.”

“Your grandmother sounds awesome.” I try to imagine what Grandma Athena would be like if she were alive. What would she talk to me about? Risha slides the bracelets back onto her wrist as Van leads us down a hall toward the next lab.

“Is the code on your notebook a quote from the same guy?” I ask Risha.

“No . . .” She pulls me off to the side, tips her head toward Tomas, and whispers, “It's his name. In binary code.”

That makes me laugh. I should have guessed. “Now I understand why you like it, even if it isn't really used anymore.”

She shrugs. “Not everything has to be useful.”

I think about the book of poems in my nightstand. “Don't let my dad hear you say that. You'll be tossed out of this place faster than you can blink.”

She laughs and pulls me along to catch up with the boys.

On our second visit to the Storm Sim Dome, Van skips the quiz and sits us down on a row of long benches along one wall. “Instead of asking you questions here to check on your knowledge, we're going to try something else.”

He pulls a box of DataSlates from under the bench and starts passing them out. “These are preloaded with the same software we have on the core system in the dome. You've all been asking me when you'll get to see the Sim Dome in action, and the answer is now. Show me what you'd do if I turned this entire dome over to you for one simulation.” He hands the last DataSlate to Tomas.

“What are we doing with these?” Risha asks.

“You're formulating a theory about the effect that a given variable has on storm formation. Then I'd like you to design a simulation to test it.”

Tess Beekman squints at him. “I don't get it.”

Van sighs. “There's a simulation program loaded on each of these DataSlates. It will ask you for a theory. You need an if-then statement. For example, if you think that raising the temperature in the atmosphere will cause a storm to move more quickly, you select that theory.
If
the temperature is raised x degrees,
then
this will happen. Then you design a simulation. Don't worry—the software will walk you through the steps. Essentially, you'll be telling the Sim Dome what conditions to create in the atmosphere above our model town, and then you'll see what effect that has on the storms.” He looks around. “At least some of you will. We're only going to run the most promising simulations in the dome.” He looks back at Tess. “Understand now?”

She shrugs. “Kind of.”

“Okay then. Get to it.” He looks at his watch. “You have one hour.” He heads for the staff computer in the corner of the room.

The DataSlate suddenly feels heavy in my hands. This isn't a quick question I can raise my hand to answer or a click-the-right-response exam. It's an actual problem with no solution in sight, and I'm supposed to come up with one.

Risha sits next to me on the bench, her fingers already flying over her DataSlate, words pouring onto her screen. I look down the row of DataSlates in laps. Everyone else is inputting text.

My heart feels like it's thumping out that frantic stream of numbers from Risha's bracelets, but I open the Sim Dome software and stare at the blank text box with “Theory” written at the top.

The only sound is the hum of fans and the tapping of fingers, reminding me that Eye on Tomorrow is in a different league. This is a place for people with theories.

I stare at the empty box and panic. I may have a head full of ideas, but none of them are my own. My parents are the scientists; I'm the kid who loves to read, who can always get a hundred on the test when the answers are supplied ahead of time. But here, we are starting from nothing.

I look down the row. The anxious boy with the brush cut types a few words. Looks at his watch. Types a few more. Rubs his finger under his lower lip. Looks at his watch again. Just being near him makes me nervous.

There must be something. Some theory I can test.

If. Then.

If. Then.

If something, then . . . what?

I close my eyes and imagine the storm from my first night here. The one that never touched Placid Meadows.

If a housing contract promises storm-free living, then the tornadoes stay away.

If a company builds a magic fence around a neighborhood, then the residents live happily ever after.