The Park Service: Book One of The Park Service Trilogy (2 page)

I hand the pipe back.

“Never too early to learn,” he says, clicking the lighter and bringing it to the pipe. He puffs it lit, the flame illuminating the butterflies, shadows creating the illusion of fluttering wings—monarchs moving up the bowl. When he removes the flame, a coil of smoke rises from the pipe as if the tiny winged creatures have finally escaped their fossil prison and at last taken flight.

He hands me back the lit pipe. Unsure, I take it and look at the red-glowing ember smoking in the bed of tobacco.

“The other end, boy,” he says, “the other end.”

“I know it.” I stick the stem between my teeth and breathe in, acrid tobacco smoke filling my lungs. Pulling the pipe away, I cough gray smoke across the table. “Ugh,” I say, holding out the pipe to him. “It tastes nothing like it smells.”

He laughs and peels the pipe from my hand. “I coughed, too,” he says. “You’ll get the hang of it when it’s time. Now run on up to bed and get rested. Tomorrow’s the big day.”

My room feels smaller than it ever has. As if I’m just now noticing that I’ve outgrown it. Tiny dollhouse drawers built into the wall. My study desk too short. My bed a child’s cot lying beneath the window.

I lean against the sill and look out on the Valley. The lights are dim, reducing the buildings to outline. It’s quiet, everyone in their quarters for curfew, the only sound from the ventilation fans humming unseen. The Valley is the largest cavern in Holocene II, but tonight it closes in on me.

I think about the levels beneath us, the levels above. If I score well on tomorrow’s test, I’ll stay here to work in the labs, or in engineering, maybe. If I’m lucky, I’ll even inherit these same living quarters when my dad retires. But if I don’t score well, they’ll send me down to manufacturing on Level 4, where I’ll operate machinery building the unmanned exploration craft we send to the surface. Or worse, maybe Level 5 to work crops, where productive hours are twice as long. And if I really fail, they’ll sterilize me and send me to Level 6, where I’ll spend my days working the recycling and sewage plants, and my father’s pipe will be left without an heir.

But I don’t really care. Because regardless of how I score tomorrow, I only have to make it another 20 years and then I can retire, too. And when I do, I’ll join my dad and meet my mom and spend an eternity in Eden. We know there’s no such thing as heaven, but Eden is close—the Foundation’s virtual world where anything can be had just for wishing—

Waterfront mansions for every family.

A blue-sky paradise filled with dreams.

All your friends, all your family, all your fantasies.

I imagine all of my ancestors gathered at a never-ending picnic, each of them 35, forever. I think of my father’s pipe, about all of their fingerprints worn there. Would they share it? No. I guess they’d each call up their own replica pipe as real as the original just by thinking it—the butterflies worn a little less to match the memories of its earlier owners.

I can almost see it now: everyone sitting around visiting with their ancestral peers, grandparents indistinguishable from grandchildren, the men all puffing great clouds of smoke into the afternoon sky. How weird it will feel to be there with them. To listen to the grandmothers and granddaughters, all with the same tenor belonging to women of 35, except my mother—my mother who left us at 20. At 20! The same day I was born. She was only five years older than I am now. Dad says they got her up there just in time. Up to Eden. I wonder what it will be like to meet her. I bet it will be weird.

I imagine evening dropping on that digital picnic paradise, an endless feast appearing perfect to everyone’s taste. I imagine stepping inside, looking into my mother’s eyes. What will they look like, her eyes? I’ll be fifteen years older than she is when I retire. A child grown meeting his mother still a child. It must be strange to be 20 in a place where everyone is always 35.

I feel the bottle of food dye pressing into my armpit. Red knows I’m testing tomorrow—he’s testing, too. And he and his buddies buried me in the sand wanting to shake my nerves.

I climb out my window and onto the ledge, easing toward the plumbing junction. Once there, I scurry up to the catwalk that runs between the units. I peer into windows, checking to make sure it’s clear before passing quickly, my steps short and careful. I spot an albino rat lumbering toward me, its white hair glowing in the low UV light. No room for both of us.

It’s funny that of all the species that were lost in the War, rats managed to survive. Rats and gulls at our electric beach, of course. But Dad says they’re just rats with wings. And I guess we do have some worms and insects working in agriculture on Level 5. Rumor is they used to house monkeys on much lower and forbidden floors, in the unmapped basements, but after so many generations they refused to reproduce down there. Maybe they’re smarter than us, the monkeys—hard to say.

Without slowing, the rat steps on my foot, slides between my legs, and carries on with its brainless, tail-dragging march. I carry on toward Red’s window. When I reach it, I remove the bottle of green food dye from my jacket and screw off the lid. The room is dark. Red must be downstairs, maybe getting his blood sample drawn by Mr. Zales. But I know he’ll be sneaking out soon enough to go play grab and grope with his girl.

I set the open bottle of dye on the sill and tip it toward the window, resting it against the frame. I wish I could hang out, just to see his face, but I have no intention of getting beat to a pulp tonight. Tomorrow, maybe, but not tonight.

When I climb back in my window, my room seems normal size again. I wonder what was wrong with me earlier.

I pull the covers back and slide into bed.

My eyes close, my body sinks into the sheets.

I try to relax and think of anything except tomorrow’s test. Anything. A rat sniffing its way through a never-ending maze in my brain. Blue benitoite hanging from the rocky sky of my skull. Warm sand, gentle waves. A single yellow butterfly, rising and falling and rising again, moves in a peaceful arc across a crimson sky. As I drift off, I inhale a sweet, familiar smell—rich and warm and safe.

My father’s fathers’ pipe.

CHAPTER 2
Good Thinking and Good Luck

It’s finally here.

The day I’ve been dreading.

I throw open my window and look out on morning in the Valley. The benitoite no longer glows, the bright LED lights washing out the blue. The quiet rest-hour whir of fans is now overrun by the buzz of productive-hour conversation. Metal doors open and clang shut. Groups of giggling children wobble along toward their waiting classrooms, lunch rations and lesson slates tucked beneath their little arms. A pathway polisher halts his machine to let two women pass, tilting his head and raising his hand as if saluting, or tipping an invisible hat.

It’s busy and bustling, and in a way funny, because everyone hurries through the same routine every day only to end up right back where they started. We’re all just pacing well-worn paths in an underground cage. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if the ceiling were to disappear one day, if the walls just fell away, would everyone really rejoice, or would they go through the same old motions anyway?

My dad says I think too much; he’s probably right.

I drop and force out 27 pushups—two more than yesterday. I roll over and do crunches until my stomach burns. I open my closet and curl my water jugs—each seven liters and seven kilograms—left and right, until I can’t lift them anymore. Stripping off my shirt, I look at myself in the mirror. I hate what I see. I’m pale and thin, my chest sunken, my legs spindly, my bony arms dangling at my side. After forty plus generations of international scientists mixing their DNA down here, most people look about the same: average height, dark hair, dark eyes. But not me. I’m a misfit in the mix. Red calls me a little freak, although I’ve pointed out more than once that he looks more different than I do.

Downstairs, my father waits at the table, his eyes on his work slate propped in his lap, our cereal rations measured and waiting. I know he sees me but he doesn’t look up when I slide the chair out and sit. I pour soymilk over my cereal and devour it without thinking, the taste as familiar as my own breath.

When I finish, he pushes his untouched bowl across the table to me. I push it back, but he slides it across again, so I pour more soymilk and eat his cereal, too.

With an expanding bellyful of soymilk and algaecrisps, I stand from the table and look down at my dad. He sets his slate on his lap and looks up at me. I think maybe there is more to say after our talk last night—about today’s test, about us, about anything. I want to tell him how nervous I am, I want to hear him say everything will be alright. I want to hug him, to be little again and feel his arms embracing me.

He nods, I nod, but we say nothing. When he picks up his reader again from his lap, I grab my own lesson slate from its charger and head for the door without a word.

The metal door bangs shut behind me, and my ears are instantly bombarded with productive clatter as I pass through the Valley, following the same path I’ve taken every day for the decade I’ve been in school, heading for the last time to the gray, windowless Foundation education annex building.

Today, the elevator passes my usual stop and lifts me five stories to the testing room floor. The elevator door slides open and mean Mrs. Hightower stands before me guarding a plastic collection bin filled with the abandoned lesson slates recently belonging to the boys and girls already seated for the test.

She tilts her head toward the bin. I look at the slate in my hand. I’ve had it since I was five. Ten years, the same device. I remember the morning my first lesson blinked on the screen—a reading challenge titled Hear Tommy Talk. The lessons came fast then, a new lesson with each one completed. I graduated from reading and writing to linguistics. Then to social sciences, anthropology, even some pre-Holocene II history. The natural and applied science lessons came next—math, logic, chemistry, physics, geology, biology, engineering—all leading to lessons on the complex systems that support and maintain our life down here in Holocene II.

But it wasn’t all work.

I read in my free time, too.

Poetry, novels, plays. Everything I could download about the old world above. By the time my last lesson blinked off the screen three days ago, I had nearly finished every title in the Foundation library. My dad says all that reading just makes me wish for things that no longer exist, but I cherish those hours spent dreaming. This slate has been my constant companion, my window into new worlds, my only escape.

I place it in the bin, where it joins the others, becoming just another indistinguishable LCD screen framed in stainless steel. Some kid had it before me—some kid will have it after.

Everyone’s eyes are on me as I walk to an empty test chair. When I sit, their heads swivel again to stare at the blank screen at the front of the testing room. I recognize them all, even from the back of their heads, but I can’t call any of them my friends. I just never fit into any of their cliques. Today I’m glad for that, though, because after this test, most will be staying here, but those who don’t score well will be going down to new levels.

The mood is edgy. Everyone knows how serious today is. Not only is it a family disgrace to move down, but we’re not allowed to visit other levels.

The elevator door slides open. I turn with everyone else to watch the latecomer enter. Red steps off, steaming. His chest is heaving, his fist clutching his slate, his face and neck stained a bright and shocking green. His eyes scan the room and bore straight into me. I don’t know what to do, so I just smile. He chucks his slate into the bin and stomps to the only empty seat, one right behind me. I can feel his hot breath on my neck, hear his heart thumping. Recalling my father’s advice, I breathe good energy in, breathe bad energy out, and force myself to forget Red for now and focus on the task ahead.

The lights dim. The screen fades from black to gray and the Foundation crest comes on: a shield of three interlocking triangles, a valknut of bound belief, a holy trinity of science representing nature above knowledge and humankind. It was one of my very first lessons, of course.

The crest fades and is replaced by our founder’s face. The one, the only Dr. Radcliffe. His expression is stern but kind, his jaw well defined below a pointed nose, his bright blue eyes, his head of gray hair cut close and combed to the side. Of course, he’s dead now. Or in Eden, I should say. I think he was around 60 when he retired. How long ago now? Forty-five generations, maybe. Almost 900 years. My dad says he could have served the Foundation better by staying on until he died naturally, but the lessons say he didn’t think it was fair to ask the other men to go to Eden unless he was willing to go first himself.

“Good morning, future citizens,” he says. “I’m Doctor Robert Radcliffe, your Foundation President when this was recorded; your President Emeritus living on in Eden today.”

He blinks three times and pauses. Even though I know I’m watching a recording from almost a millennium ago, something in his voice makes me sit up straight in my chair.

“If you’re seeing this, you’ve achieved a great and noble accomplishment already by reaching near human adulthood. Let me sincerely wish you a happy belated fifteenth birthday, and, for today’s undertaking, good thinking and good luck.”

Blink, blink, blink—his blinking must be a tic.

He continues talking and blinking:

“We all must make sacrifices to keep our species alive and thriving here in Holocene II. With only so much space for us to live and yet so very much for us to do, we offer our productive years to the community in exchange for an eternity of bliss. And I’m proud to be the first of us to offer my space, as I am recording this message on the eve of my own retirement. The first to go to Eden. I want to assure you, there is nothing in biology that indicates the inevitability of our death beyond the limitations of these bodies that carry our brains.”

He lifts a glass of water and sips before going on.

“I’m sure by the time you see this, you will all know what Eden is. Eden is a virtual heaven on Earth, an invented reality based on our once lush planet. Only it is better because nothing is ever used up in Eden. And not only does Eden provide us with an eternal human experience, it frees precious resources for Holocene II by reducing costly later-life medical treatments and consumption during non-productive years. You now need never die because when you each reach 35, you’ll be rendered into retirement and live on in Eden, a thinking, lucid-dreaming consciousness forever. Your brain living beyond your flesh.”

Blink, blink, blink.

“And it is this pact we make with one another here today, this dedication of our productive years to the community good before moving on, that ensures the survival of this great and enduring species we call humankind. We work for our ancestors as they have worked for us. We work for posterity as posterity will work for us. And so, this morning, you and your fellow fifteens will take the test you’ve been preparing for. Your blood has been drawn and tested, your genomes sequenced, your health and natural ability determined. And combined with the results of today’s knowledge and aptitude assessments, this data will help us assign you to your most appropriate career.

“Many of you will engineer our foods; others will maintain our mechanical systems; some, with special skills, will be called on to design parts for the latest exploration drones. And, on rare occasions, a few exceptionally gifted among you may even be called up to a career at the Foundation here on Level 1.”

He pauses to blink three times.

I watch the heads of my peers turning from side to side, calculating, predicting, wondering if they or any other will be called up to Level 1—something that hasn’t happened, ever.

“Of course,” he goes on, “we continue to build unmanned exploration crafts and send them topside with the hope of discovering habitable changes on the Earth’s surface. And if we do discover a new home, our founding documents provide that every retired citizen will be reassigned a physical form.”

Dr. Radcliffe pauses, consulting his notes. I look around at my test mates, their heads now frozen straight ahead, their eyes entranced. I wonder, as they must be wondering, what physical form each would receive if we ever discover a habitable zone. Mechanical hosts? Cloned bodies? Maybe I will be two meters tall and made of pure muscle, while Red, behind me and surely still seething, will be placed in the body of a pygmy. Why not?

“Here we are then,” Dr. Radcliffe continues, with a flurry of fresh blinks, “embarking on the next phase of this puzzling life together. Please know that myself and many other men and women, generations of us by now, have gone before you and there is nothing at all to fear, not even fear itself. So, heads down, and do your very best for your sake, and for the sake of science.” A subtle hint of a frown plays with the corners of his mouth, as if he’s already seen our results and knows the score. “Thank you, and I’ll see you all someday soon in Eden.”

He disappears; the screen fades to black. The lights snap on and our desks slide open, exposing personal touchscreens glowing with the Foundation crest. Then Mrs. Hightower steps to the front of the class, sets a timer on the table, and says:

“You have eight hours to answer as many questions as you can. You must attempt an answer for each question to move on to the next. The system will not allow you to skip forward or go back. Don’t even worry about finishing; no fifteen ever does. You may take up to four five-minute bathroom breaks and twenty minutes for lunch.” She presses the timer, and the bright-red clock begins counting down. “You may begin.”

I look down at my desk.

The Foundation crest disappears from my touchscreen and an outline of a hand appears. I lay my palm on the cool glass.

NOW TESTING, AUBREY VAN HOUTEN scrolls across the screen and then the questions begin ...

They come easy at first, almost in the same order as my early slate lessons. Simple, fill-in-the-blank language questions. Word definitions. Sentence comprehension. Short essays. Then moving on to history. The Big Bang. Humankind’s rise. Our ever increasing population. Our overconsumption of resources, our rape of the rain forests. The agricultural revolution. The industrial revolution. The military revolution. War.

My eyes ache, and I pause to close them for a minute ...

Images flash in my mind—explosions, fire, destruction. I see earth crumbling, passageways sealing never to be opened again. I rub the images away, open my eyes and power on.

Questions moving quickly now into science, the field where I’m most comfortable. Medical science. Germ theory. Bacteria and antibiotics. Mapping the genome. Understanding the brain. Algebra, calculus, trigonometry. A multitude of math equations with a graphing calculator on the screen—so easy. Incomplete chemistry formulas—multiple choice, simple.

Then the hard subjects begin to come. Screen after screen of geophysics questions. Difficult questions about our planet’s internal systems, plate tectonics, atmosphere. Questions about the interrupted hydro cycles, about our frozen oceans, about the mile of radioactive ice choking our old surface home.

Faster now, more questions—

Trick questions about the Earth’s electromagnetic waves that we harness for power. Timed multiple choice—pick the right growing soil produced from carbon extracted from oil. Surprise quizzes about the subsurface flow of water—how do we trap it, how do we treat it for potable use?

I move through them fast, almost without pause. Lessons learned and long forgotten now present themselves in my mind with vivid recall and perfect timing. I tap out a blur of answers, calculate enumerable equations, type a string of long essays, and then a strange question comes up and stops me cold. Not a science question, not language, not math—an ethical question, a moral dilemma. I read the hypothetical question again:

You’ve been placed in command of Holocene II and entrusted with protecting it. The basement level bio-testing lab has uncovered an airborne parasitic pathogen that kills almost every person it infects, and all or most of its citizens are infected. There is currently no cure for this infectious agent and you face an impossible choice—you can seal off the level, imprisoning its people to a terrible fate but saving the other levels from infection, or, you can continue to support the infected level in hopes that a cure might be discovered before it spreads into a pandemic that will destroy all of Holocene II and with it, our species. Please select your answer below.