The Park Service: Book One of The Park Service Trilogy (4 page)

CHAPTER 5
I’ve Died and Gone to Eden

Closed inside, the elevator is quiet.

Too quiet.

I’m used to the constant hum of Level 3 ventilation fans. My ears search for something to ground me, to set my balance. Any sound. Nope—complete silence. With nothing to listen to, my ear goes inward and I hear my heart beating, my pulse throbbing in my head, and the echo of my father’s last words—

“I love you, son.”

I wish I’d had time to say it back.

Wiping my eyes with my sleeve, I slip my father’s pipe in my pocket and stand in the center of the elevator and brace for the ride. My stomach drops and I know the ascent has begun. After my guts settle, the silent elevator moves without vibration or sound and there is no way to gauge how quickly I’m rising or how far. A minute goes by. Two, maybe three. And just when I’m sure the I’m not moving after all, my stomach bounces and settles again—the elevator has stopped.

I wait for the door to open. Nothing happens. Maybe it’s stuck? There’s no call button, no floor indicator.

Hearing a metallic sound, I look up. A ceiling vent slides open and a cloud of gas blasts into the elevator. I drop to the floor and crawl away from the gas, crouching in the corner and managing one last clear breath as the gas covers the floor and covers me. Why are they doing this, I wonder, my breath held, my heart racing. Why? I panic and crawl to the door, pounding against the metal, but nothing gives. Air. Please. Now. I gasp out my expired breath and suck the gas into my lungs ...

The door slides open and I fall out onto the ground.

“Sorry about that,” a deep voice says above me, its owner hidden in the cloud of gas billowing from the open elevator. “First time’s never fun.”

The gas clears and I see his face. Thick dark hair, blue eyes, maybe 30. He reaches out a hand to help me up. I take it and scramble to my feet, coughing to clear my lungs.

“We do it too, if it helps to hear,” he says. “Disinfect, I mean. Every time we move between levels. Clothes, skin ... lungs, too. Hope I didn’t scare you too bad. Gotta make sure you take a breath. Average man panics his first time—holds it about 55 seconds. Second time they hold it longer. Us pros, we just suck it right in and take our medicine. I’m Dorian.”

Dorian waves his electronic clipboard, indicating for me to follow, and then he heads off into the Transfer Station.

It’s a large warehouse with concrete ceilings supported by steel girders, and we weave our way through stacks of metal crates, dodging busy electric lifts carrying supplies.

Dorian walks through the machines as if anticipating their movement, following a path visible only to him. I stay close on his heels and out of harm’s way. As he walks, he marks things off on his clipboard and talks, half to himself: “Finally, some iron ore. You’d think those damn tunnel rats could dig a little quicker. Don’t see my soybeans yet. Haveta send another ton of damn algaecrisps.” Then he points his clipboard in the air, raising his voice. “You know what that is there, young man? That’s a brand new fuselage for a PZ-51 Ranger drone. I’d give my retirement to see one actually fly.”

I do recognize the drone body because they’re designed by our engineers on Level 3, but they’re built on Level 4, so it’s amazing to see one in person. Long and black and angled, its wings detached, the Foundation’s interlocking Valknut shield on its nose as it hangs from a crane being loaded on the back of a waiting train ... train?

“I didn’t know we had a rail system,” I say, surprised.

Dorian laughs. “No rails, youngster. This sexy beast here slides along on magnetic fields,” he says with a level of pride as if he’d built it himself.

“Well, where does it go?”

“Mostly services the deep mines down south. But don’t worry,” he adds, seeing my confused look, “we don’t send fifteens there. Tunnel rats is tunnel rats and they always will be. You see, Levels 2 through 6 are stacked like one big algaecrisp layer cake, but the mines are spread out south. Anyway, today she’s going up, up, up. And so, my young man, are you.”

Having arrived at the end of the train, he stops beside a steel-walled windowless passenger car.

“I’m getting on the train?”

“Unless you want to stay here and load supplies with me.”

“But isn’t Level 1 above us?” I ask.

“Above us? And here I thought you scientists down there knew everything. Level 1’s closer to the surface, sure. But it’s north, young man, north. Sweet, sweet north.”

“I’m going north?”

“Sure are. And every man in Holocene II would give his left nut to be getting on this train today and going north. Eden, my man. Eden! Of course, in a way, you’re being taunted more than treated. You’ll be near enough to taste it, I tell you. Sweet Eden. Those lucky folks there get to go.”

He nods toward another car hitched several ahead where a guide who could be Dorian’s twin, with a matching clipboard too, ushers two smiling women and one anxious man through the open car door. Before stepping in, one of the retiring women looks back, and for a moment we lock eyes. Then the door shuts and seals and the guide walks off with his clipboard.

“In you go,” Dorian says, sliding the door open.

I hesitate, remembering the elevator. “No windows?”

He shakes his head. “Nothing to see.”

Grabbing the handrail, I step up into the car.

I turn, but before I can thank him, he shuts the door.

The car is dim, a rail of pale LED lights running along the ceiling. Down the center, an aisle cuts through rows of metal seats facing forward and pointing toward a projector screen at the front of the car. Sitting on a seat in the front row is a water and lunch ration. I scoop them up and sit. It’s quiet, but at least I can hear a soft clanging as the lifts do their work outside.

I glance around nervously, looking for more gas vents. The empty car makes me uneasy, so I keep looking behind me at the vacant seats. Finally, I get up and carry my lunch ration down the aisle and plunk into the farthest seat in the last row.

I’m bored so I open my lunch—soy crackers, tofu paste, and, of course, algaecrisps. I open the crackers and snack on a few. Taking a sip of water, I realize I have to pee already. I go to the door to ask about a bathroom, but the door’s locked. No handle on the inside, no call button.

“Great,” I mutter. “Guess I have to hold it.”

The train jerks forward and stops. I catch my balance and head back to my seat in the rear. Another jerk, another stop. Then a steady acceleration that pushes me hard into the seat before leveling off and gliding along silent and smooth.

Almost immediately the lights cut out, leaving the car in total blackness. The projection screen glows. A sepia flicker, a run of antique film counting down, 10 to 1. Then I’m barreling down an old iron track with snow-covered trees rushing past and a glorious alpenglow peak rising ahead as the train charges full steam into a mountain pass.

This is a nice touch. It must be old film from a camera mounted on the front of an actual train. I’ve seen educationals showing footage from planes, and even satellites, but never anything this old. It must be really ancient footage, from before roads and cars and freeways replaced the trains, from before fighter jets and drones cruised through our polluted skies, from long, long before the War.

I settle into my seat and pretend I’m the engineer guiding the silent train as it winds its way up, plowing through drifts of snow, snaking around bends in the tracks, crossing a trestle over a deep and rocky gorge, up, up, up—

A single lighted headlamp boring into the past like an eye, sweeping across the landscape, the trees, the fast approaching night, following the tracks toward the bright northern star.

The seat is cold and hard when I wake, its edges cutting into my thighs—certainly not designed by our engineers. The screen is dead now, the dim lights back on. I stand and stretch, walking to the front and checking the door again. I consider peeing on the floor, just to ease the pressure on my bladder, but decide instead to sit and wait. I feel the force of the train arcing left, and I stare at the blank screen and try to imagine the cars ahead, sliding along the tunnel, rushing like a giant worm deep underground.

It happens so fast there’s no time to prepare—

A vibration running along the metal floor and tickling my feet, a metallic warble followed by a screech, the sound of steel tearing open. And then I’m weightless for one quiet, suspended moment before my head slams against the metal seatback in front of me and the lights go out ...

... I come to in pitch-black confusion.

What just happened? The cold metal floor presses against my cheek; something hard is crushing my hip. My fingers move, searching—my face, my chest, my legs. Wet pants. Is it blood? No, it’s urine. I’ve wet myself. I wiggle my toes, bend my knee. Throbbing pain. My hands find a lump on my forehead, but no blood. My foot finds a surface, I push my hip free from where it’s wedged. When I sit up, the entire blind Earth seems to spin fast and in the wrong direction.

Hearing a soft whistle coming from the front of the dark car, I shimmy free and crawl toward it. The car must be on its side because the seat backs now hang from the side wall, and I grab them one by one and pull myself along. The whistle grows louder as I move forward, and I feel a cold blast of air against my face. Must be a ventilation fan. I grab for another seatback and my hand lands on stone. Hard, cold stone. I turn my face toward the rush of air and see a gash in the car illuminated by sparkling benitoite outside. Must be a cavern out there.

I scramble to my feet and use the seatbacks to climb the wall toward the opening. Easing my head out, I look out on an immense darkness, cold and crisp, the blue-jewel cavern ceiling glinting on the metal surface of the tipped train.

“Hello!”

Hello, hello, hello ... my voice comes echoing back.

Carefully, I hoist myself from the crippled car and stand outside. A cold blast hits my face, and I look away, blinking to clear my watering eyes. When I look back, I see the shadowed cavern spread out before me.

It’s gorgeous! Like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I can feel the size of it. The emptiness, the space. The ceiling is high, its blackness punctuated by a million luminescent jewels. It’s cold here. And it smells funny, too. Or maybe it just seems like it because it doesn’t smell—at least not like conditioned air.

From somewhere out of the blackness below, a strange but beautiful song erupts. A high and tiny warbled kind of birdsong like I’ve heard in educationals. Another joins in. And another. A whole chorus now of pitch-perfect birds singing in the dark below. Then, as if responding to the singing, an orange glow fades slowly brighter on my right. A light unlike any light I’ve ever seen. Not the dead white glare of light-emitting diodes, not the blue-black flicker of ultraviolet, but a soft golden glow.

The birdsong rises, and the orange glow comes on fast, the fading sky-hung jewels shrinking from the advancing orange into a deep, deep blue, a blue like I’ve never dreamed.

Then, from between two jagged peaks in the wall, a yellow fireball climbs into view, blinding me. I turn away and face the fresh breeze, looking out on the twinkling stars of forgotten constellations sinking in the deep-blue horizon, sent back into the blackness of space by the sun rising over the world.

I’ve died and gone to Eden.

Part Two
 

CHAPTER 6
What in the World Happened?

Sunlight on my face ...

For the first time ever in my life.

I’m standing on top of the wrecked train car, its front half pinned beneath a rockslide at the entrance of a tunnel, its back half lying free on a steel trestle spanning a deep canyon.

The trestle connects two mountainside tunnels, the one caved in ahead, and one lower behind. I feel bad for those few retirees ahead of me, crushed beneath the stones, but I feel lucky that I moved seats and survived.

I look out and devour the view—

The canyon leads down to a pine forest. A real forest, just like my name—Van Houten. The sky is full blue now and the singing birds have ceased, the only sound that of the wind whipping up the mountain slope. Cool wind on my cheeks, warm sun on my neck—so unlike anything I ever imagined.

I’m seeing everything I’ve read about for the first time. A distant bird circling above the trees, its flapless wings riding an invisible current. A green valley below the forest, a silver river snaking through its center. And beyond the valley, far beyond, I can just make out white lines of surf on the blue ocean.

For a moment, I fear it’s another virtual reality scene like our beach. But I search the sky for any sign of a screen and can’t find one. It’s real! The world is real. All those lessons, all those educationals, all teaching me that there was nothing on the surface—but here it is, in living color.

Does no one know?

I don’t understand: the surface is uninhabitable, has been for almost a thousand years, they told us. Lingering radiation, disappearing atmosphere, walls of advancing ice.

Where am I and how did I get here?

Then I see a column of smoke against the distant horizon, near the ocean shore, black and straight in windless skies until it catches a high draft and is whisked away in a hazy smear.

If there are fires, there are people.

Something near catches my eye—a small white butterfly rising in the gusts and then falling again as it flits blindly across my view in wild little arcs. A real live butterfly! My hand jumps to my pocket and I breathe with relief when I feel my father’s pipe. I pull it out and look at it in the sunlight. It looks smaller, more ancient somehow. As if it were an artifact sifted from the ground, a mined relic remained long after its entombed owner had gone to dust. I remember my father rushing to the elevator, and thrusting the pipe into my hand, and I can hear his parting words again as the door sealed shut:

“I love you, son.”

I wish he were here to see this.

A great rumbling stirs somewhere above, followed by a crunch of stone, a peel of metal. I turn and see rocks tumbling down the slope and slamming into the overturned car and have to dodge left to avoid being brained by one.

Stuffing the pipe back in my pocket, I lower myself onto the trestle, hustling along the tracks away from the falling rocks. When I reach the steel doors standing open on massive hinges, I peer down into the tunnel descending into the mountain like some throat thirsty to swallow me again.

No way am I going back in there. I’ll take my chances out here with whoever’s fire that was I saw.

I shimmy away from the tunnel and step from the trestle onto a ledge in the canyon wall. It looks impossible to climb at first, but I find handholds in the stone, and every few meters there are trestle braces to use as steps on my slow climb down.

No sooner do my feet touch the ground when a hollow, mechanical knocking comes rattling out from the tunnel above. Clack, clack, clack—some persistent machine working, maybe some tunnel rat crew coming to repair the tracks. Not wanting to find out, I race, slipping and sliding, down the canyon slope.

I’m not sure what I’m running from, but I run for my life anyway. I run toward the trees, the forest, my only chance. Free now of my underground prison, I won’t go back. Ever! My toe catches a stone, sending me flying headfirst down the slope and the only thing that saves my face are my hands. The rock grates the skin off my palms, chips of rock wedged in the meat. I wipe my bloody hands on my jumpsuit, and keep moving.

Down, down, down.

The trees grow tall, blocking out the view beyond, and I run for them even faster now. A bee buzzes by, grazing my ear. I leap over shrubs, clearing them easily with the slope on my side, and with one last push, I’m safe in the shade of the trees.

Spent, I throw my arms around a mossy tree and hug it as I catch my breath—my chest heaving, my heart pounding, my neck dripping with sweat. But I feel alive.

I look back up the canyon at the trestle and I’m shocked at how far I just ran. I shiver at the thought of how close I was to missing all of this. Had it not been for a chance rockslide, the windowless train might have slipped through these mountains with me sealed inside. Going where, I wonder. But who knows? Who cares? I’m here now—I’m here and I’m free.

It’s magical. The colors, the smells. All the things I’ve read about but thought I’d never see are animated around me.

As I start into the forest, the trees grow thicker with every step, sunlight filtering down through the pine canopy, dropping in freckled shafts at my feet. I scoop up pine needles in my raw hands and hold them to my nose. Something furry scurries up a tree, stopping halfway and turning to peek down on me before chittering and continuing to the safety of the bows. A squirrel, maybe. The forest is quiet. But it’s an alive kind of quiet, as if you could sit and listen all day and hear the trees grow.

I drop to my knees and inspect a caterpillar crawling across my path. These are supposed to be extinct, too. But here it is, a real would-be moth living in a real forest. When I pet its fuzzy back, the caterpillar drops on its side and curls into a ball. I scoop it up and inspect its black and orange stripes.

“I won’t hurt you,” I promise, poking it in my hand.

It rolls itself tighter in response.

“Okay, fine,” I say, slipping the caterpillar into my breast pocket. “We’ll talk later.” A pinecone drops, landing beside me. I look up and see a gray bird perched on a limb, taking me in as if I’m as foreign to it as this new world is to me. “You see,” I say to my pocket as I get up to walk on again, “I probably just saved you from being that bird’s lunch.”

The bird flits from tree to tree following me, its curious head twisting as if listening to hear some whisper on the wind. And the wind does whisper, too. High in the treetops it passes in swooshing waves, rustling the canopy and then disappearing.

When you listen, the forest is far from quiet.

Coming to a fallen tree across my path, I sit down to rest and take stock of my situation.

Basically, I’m a mess. My jumpsuit is torn and dirt-covered from my fall, bloody handprints smeared on its legs. My hands are caked with drying blood, and when I wiggle my fingers they crack open and ooze again. Other than the clothes on my back, I have nothing. No water, no food—just my father’s pipe. I remember my uneaten lunch ration on the train, but it’s way up there and I wouldn’t go back for it even if I could.

My mind races with questions that need answers:

Who lives up here?

Why have we’ve been lied to?

What in the world happened?

Still, as bad as things appear, and despite these questions running through my head, nothing can dampen my mood. I’m here in the open air, no longer trapped underground. And if I find that fire, I’ll bet I find people too. Maybe they’ll have some answers. But I know it’s water I’ll need first.

Remembering the river I saw in the valley below the forest, I set off moving again toward lower elevations.

First water, then the fire.