The Eden Project: Humanity's Last Chance (2 page)

Doctor Becker smiled sympathetically. She looked stunning in a black evening gown. The doctors were having their own T-minus-one-year party on their side of the dome.

“Great dress,” Gen added trying to be civil in her impatience.

Doctor Becker leaned into the glass to study Gen’s piercing green eyes that eagerly waited for a solution. “Adam Thirdborn?”

“Yeah, I know. It’s infuriating.”

“And he’s not your intended,” Doctor Becker said, thinking out loud, stalling really.

“Don’t misunderstand me. I can’t stand the boy. He lacks refinement or any shred of grace. And he always has a stupid smirk on his face. I’d much rather punch his mouth than kiss his lips.” Gen sat back, defeated.

Doctor Becker covered her own mouth to conceal bemusement. “Forgive me, Genevieve. Does this sound like love to you?”

“It’s a purgatory. I always know where he’s at. Tonight he’s literally hovering above me like a vulture.” Gen stopped to consider Doctor Becker’s doubtful eyes. “I swear. He’s climbed up on the light support.”

Doctor Becker nodded, finally understanding. “Okay. You’re fifteen. This is a fascination. Nothing more.”

“Adam? Fascination?” Gen shook her head. “Quite the opposite. He’s the most obvious kid in the whole dome.”

“Well, I would not worry about it,” Doctor Becker tried again. “Your feelings will change. Evolve. Remember the protocol. You have a perfect match. Your progeny will be strong and flourish when you reach the new world.”

Gen sat listening, trying to agree, but her agitation persisted.

“Free will would risk the mission,” Doctor Becker reminded her. “Jealousy, rivalry, violence. These are born in such freedoms.”

Gen knew all of this. It’s in the protocol. She wanted to listen to some of Tuna’s old fashion music right now, rock-and-roll he called it. Lots of heavy drums to pound thought out of one’s head.

Come to think of it, Tuna was always carefree, far more than the average kid. Did his music help him escape all the lingering doubts and the uncontrollable thoughts of being fifteen? If it did, she was in, she needed to be in control and thoughts of the boy she most despised poisoned her otherwise controlled existence.

“Listen,” Doctor Becker urged, “I was fifteen once. I know what you’re going through. This might make you feel better. Almost no one in the old days, before the C1 virus, would end up with their first love. Quite the contrary, first loves, back then, usually just left a hole in our hearts.”

This interested Gen greatly. “Is there a hole in your heart?”

Doctor Becker smiled, but failed to cloak the nostalgia in her eyes. “In my heart there are holes. Yes. Of course.”

The nuisance of Gen’s teenage angst was suddenly so small next to this beautiful woman’s tragic secrets, secrets that were born out there in the failing world where the C1 virus was known as something else. Gen knew what they called it. The extinction virus. It infected not just human and animal alike, but it also infected plant life and it had killed many a human heart in ways far more profound than Adam Thirdborn could ever do.

“Thank you,” Gen said, trying to break the doctor free from her memories of the outside world. “I realize Zeke is the best of them and I am so excited to mate with him.”

This unfortunate slip of Gen’s tongue did the trick. Doctor Becker eyes flashed shock at Gen and the past faded away.

“Oh my god,” Gen stammered. “Not like that. Not mate. I mean to begin a life with. The science is behind it and I’m behind it.”

Doctor Becker smiled causing Gen great relief. At some point she began to care only about Doctor Becker’s well being and not her own.

“We have temptations and then we overcome them,” Doctor Becker reassured her. “This is how we achieve harmony and stay on course.”

Doctor Becker stood suddenly and twirled around to show Gen her elegant dress. Gen smiled. Doctor Becker blew her a kiss and walked away, disappearing slowly as the glass went black.

* * *

GEN REENTERED THE PARTY to find everyone, including Adam, dancing. The lights had been lowered and the music was something slow. This was the lover’s dance and everyone seemed content and properly mated with their intended.

Sylvia’s radiant blond hair glistened above all other things on the dance floor and her sky blue dress glimmered as she rested her head against Adam’s shoulder.

Zeke stepped to Gen and offered his hand. He really was effortlessly gallant in ways that no other boy in the dome could ever be. Her Zeke. She suddenly wanted to be out there dancing with her friends.

Hand-in-hand they glided onto the floor. The music was perfect and her friends were now fully harmonious. Even Adam’s smirk did not feel threatening. Gen smiled and put her head onto Zeke’s broad shoulder. All was right. All was protocol. Everything.

They could have been dancing on a cloud she thought and the thought lasted a while -- until Tuna spun Cassie recklessly close.

Tuna caught Cassie this time just as Zeke pulled Gen quickly out of their clumsy path. Tuna spun Cassie a second time. Adam laughed as it was his turn to pull Sylvia out of harm’s way.

Every last thing was as it should be.

Gen and Sylvia walked up the ramp to board the enormous Eden Sphere 3 (ES3), one of the four massive ships scheduled to launch them all into a new life in less than one year.

“Thank you so much, Gen,” Sylvia said. “I just can’t get ES3’s tomato crop to flourish like yours.”

Both girls were dressed in black tailored short jumpsuits with soft mint green trim. Gen’s uniform had a small ES1 sewn on the front and Sylvia’s had a small ES3 on hers signifying their respective ships.

“It’s not a bother, Sylvia,” Gen beamed. “I think I know just the trick to show you. I found it in an old horticulture text I discovered in the legacy files on my scrollpad.”

The girls walked through a depressurization chamber and then into an intensely metallic silver corridor. They smiled and nodded as they passed other kids in uniforms similar to theirs but with varying trim colors. The boys wore full body jumpsuits.

Sylvia turned to Gen as they walked, her smile intensifying suddenly. “So I noticed that Zeke finally pulled you onto the dance floor.”

Gen tried to hide a guilty grin when suddenly she spotted Adam and Tuna slipping suspiciously into a side room ahead. “That’s weird.”

“Weird?” Sylvia said, confused.

Gen slowed down to see what room they had entered. AUDIO RELAY SYSTEMS was written on the door. “Huh?” she said under her breath.

“Gen?” Sylvia questioned having not seen Adam and Tuna.

“Zeke?” Gen said, redirecting. “Yes, he was a perfect gentleman. How could I refuse?”

Sylvia smiled and the two girls walked on down the silver corridor.

* * *

TUNA STOOD IN FRONT of a giant wall of lights. There were four small computer screens embedded at eye level. Adam walked behind him excited by the possibilities of all those lights.

“I figured out what we heard last time,” Tuna nervously admitted.

Adam patted Tuna on the back. “I knew it had been eating at you. Okay, so tell me. What did we hear?”

Tuna scratched behind his ear and nodded. “We figured it was music, right? I recognized some specific instrumental peculiarity about the little bit we heard. I searched all last night after the party until I found a match.”

“Nice work, Tuna. That’s the spirit. Give it to me.”

“It was a counter culture anthem from 150 years ago. The musicians purposely wanted the music sounding rough and under produced. The title made no sense, but the subtext was that authority figures were all, how do I say it, to be ignored.”

“It was a rebel song,” Adam guessed.

“Yes. That’s it.” Tuna said, excitedly. “That’s a better way to put it, but just for teenagers against adults rather than a political statement.”

Adam thought about this a while. “And what about the man who started talking? Was he a part of the song?”

Tuna shook his head. “I don’t think so. Back then, on the radio when they played music, a person would introduce the songs. He was a DJ.”

Adam paced around as Tuna watched. “Wait a minute. You’re saying this was just something from the past, some kind of lingering echo.”

“No. I’m not saying that at all. That was live. That was a real person talking. I don’t know how or why, but that guy was broadcasting, probably all by himself. That was radio. A radio station.”

The two boys let those words hang in the air between them. Adam felt hope welling up within and for the first time in a long time there was a sense of wonder in his heart.

“Go ahead,” Adam urged. “Do it, Tuna. Do it again.”

Tuna turned to the wall of lights and paused in awe of what he was about to attempt. Adam noticed Tuna’s reluctance. He put his hand on his shoulder to nudge him forward.

All four computer screens were gray with a single flashing prompt in the center. Tuna stepped to the screens and cracked his knuckles. He turned with uncertainty to Adam.

“Exploration,” Adam whispered.

Tuna turned back to the computers, exhaled and then his fingers attacked the four touch screens, one after the other, punching out complex passwords in a flash. A unique shape appeared on each screen.

Tuna was able to touch the shapes, slide them off one screen and throw them onto the next and vice versa. It was a kind of picture code which Tuna sequenced in six confident moves. The screens went black.

Adam became anxious as the screens remained black. Tuna turned to his panicked friend, winked, then turned back to the screens. Slowly, orange code began to rain down onto each black screen.

“How do you do that?” Adam asked while the indecipherable numerical gibberish began to invade the black screens.

“Dude, I’ve been programming since I was three.” Even as Tuna spoke he was already typing two screens at a time with lightning precision. Adam watched his friend’s hands fly across the four touch screens like a skilled pianist.

A high-pitched beep announced Tuna’s victory over the chaos. The orange code had been gathered into small, single lines of code in the center of each screen. All characters in these lines of code were now zeros or ones.

“Binary breakthrough,” Tuna said indifferently. He punched a few more keys and three screens went gray. The forth screen was all black with just a single green frequency number on it.

“352.91,” Tuna said, reading the screen. “That’s us.”

Adam scrunched his face trying to understand.

Tuna realized he needed to explain again. “Just like last time, if we change this like so, we change the frequency.” Tuna pressed the corner of the screen. An up/down arrow appeared.

He pressed the up arrow and they watched the frequency rise to 353.4, then 354.88, then 356.52. Tuna tapped the up arrow twice very quickly and the number went up 100 to 456.52. He pressed the arrow again and rode it to 468.4 and finally 468.99. He stopped.

Tuna stepped back. “There.”

“I don’t hear anything,” Adam said, confused.

Tuna touched the other corner of the screen and a volume control appeared. He swallowed hard and then turned up the volume to a staticky melody. Adam’s eyes opened wide as he listened intently.

The song was sad and melodic without singing. The static gave it even more of a haunting, distant quality.

“The signal is weaker this time,” Tuna observed. “I think he’s moving.” For the first time Tuna appeared befuddled. “If he’s portable then his signal can’t be very strong to begin with.”

A moment of clarity erupted onto Adam’s face. “He’s close. Nearby. He must be broadcasting on a ship, right?”

Impressed, Tuna took the words under advisement. “Not bad, Thirdborn. I think you’re absolutely right.”

And then something happened that shocked both of them to their cores. The song ended abruptly. Haunting static filled up the room with distance and emptiness until, finally, they heard his voice.

“That one will always reach deep into your gut, listeners,” the DJ said. The boys stood with their mouths hanging open. “Or is it just listener without the S or maybe by now, I am broadcasting only to ghosts. Well then, boo to you ghosts. Boo Hoo. Ha-ha. I hope you enjoyed that haunting little aperitif before I drop six straight golden oldies.”

Static again. Adam held his hand on his cheek and Tuna stepped away from the touch screen as if it were alive.

“Six straight guitar gods are coming up while I go see about a few digestive issues that have ruined a perfectly good day at sea.”

Adam pointed quickly at the screen hearing the words “at sea”.

“Four months with nothing but canned beans will do that for you,” the DJ quipped, “but I’m still having a gas and I hope you are too.”

And on that comment, the music began, a single guitar playing what sounded very familiar. They bent their faces trying to make it out.

The boys startled suddenly as the door slid open from the corridor.

Gen stood in the doorway trying to understand why Adam and Tuna were inside the audio relay hub guiltily listening to guitar music. Tuna looked to Adam for a cue, but Adam just stared at Gen.