“Okay.”
Tinsley stuck out her tongue. Everyone had to have a filter mask handy in case of emergency, but no one liked wearing them, especially the kids. Raven smiled at her daughter’s reaction. That had been her at the same age.
“Doc, will you please let me know what the air’s like after you test it?” asked Raven.
“I… suppose. Normally, I’d take that to Noah or Ben.”
“I’m on Ben’s team, keeping things running, ya know.” She smiled. “If we need to do something about the air quality, I’m going to be involved.”
“Fair enough. Sure. I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks.”
Preston faced Tinsley. “How bad is your headache? Is it annoying or do you want to go to sleep so it stops hurting?”
Tinsley made a face of contemplation. “Umm. It’s annoying, but not as annoying as Josh.”
“All right, then I don’t think it’s too much of a concern. If it worsens, or if she has a bout of nausea or any other unusual symptoms, please bring her back.” Preston patted Tinsley on the head.
“Thanks, Doc.”
Raven plucked her daughter off the exam table, set her on her feet, and led her back to their quarters. She plucked Tinsley’s little filter mask from the top of the dresser and put it on the girl. Sand-colored material covered the child’s mouth and nose, a shade or two lighter than her skin. Tinsley flattened her eyebrows, her amber eyes radiating strong discontent.
“I know you don’t like having to wear this, but you need to for a few days, okay? I don’t want you to get sick.”
“I’m already sick,” said Tinsley, her voice muted.
“Well, really sick.” Raven ruffled her daughter’s hair. “C’mon. Time for school.”
Tinsley grumbled, the mask reducing whatever she said to an indecipherable murmur.
It’s not like her to want to avoid school. She momentarily considered letting her skip, but a six-year-old couldn’t be left alone in their quarters, nor could she take her down the wire conduit. Better to have Sienna watch her.
“I know you’re not feeling well. I’ll ask Sienna to give you a break today, all right?”
“’Kay,” mumbled Tinsley.
4
Short Straw
There are three kinds of people. Reckless fools who don’t care how dangerous something is, those who understand the risk and stare death in the eye, and those who spend their whole life hiding under their beds. – Ellis Wilder.
Raven led Tinsley down the hall to the cafeteria where they both had a quick breakfast of muffins, more or less the same thing she ate at the start of every wake. It might have been bran or molasses or pumpkin flavored. After so many, the brown, vaguely sweet, vaguely spicy pastry simply tasted like the start of another long period of work. Every so often when the people in hydroponics gave some tank space to berries, the cafeteria offered berry muffins as an alternative for a while.
It relieved her that Tinsley didn’t hesitate to eat, a sign she took to mean her daughter didn’t feel too bad. They ate fast, then headed into the south corridor. Sienna’s voice drifted out from the classroom door up ahead, in the midst of a lesson on English vocabulary.
At their arrival, Sienna paused. Four other children, two boys and two girls, sat along the front row of desks in a room set up for thirty students. The kids, all in the same basic outfits—oversized ponchos and tread-socks—turned to look back at her.
“You’re late,” said Ariana, the next closest in age to Tinsley at nine. Her tone held no mockery or amusement, merely a statement of fact. The girl’s parents, Donnie Chen and Elena Vasquez, didn’t really know—or even like—each other, and handed her off at birth.
Ariana considered Sienna her mother.
“Why’s she got a mask on?” Josh, the eldest at twelve, cocked his head at her, then at Raven. “Someone fart?”
The other kids laughed.
Raven stopped herself from making a snide comment. The pale boy with mouse brown hair reminded her of a younger Chase, minus the attitude. He didn’t deserve nastiness because of how Tinsley’s father was. They really only had the color of their hair and their whiteness in common. Where Chase acted like the king of his own little world, Josh tended to be a bit shy and overly friendly. Also, their faces looked nothing alike, clearly no familial connection at all. Unlike the other kids, Josh’s parents both loved and wanted him, even if they’d only conceived him upon a request from the boss. Sadly, his father died two years ago when a pipe in the waterworks explosively burst too close to his face. His mother had passed away to a mysterious illness a couple years before that.
Xan, a scrawny eleven-year-old with unusually dark skin, laughed himself to coughing at the fart comment. Like Ariana, his biological parents didn’t have the patience or interest to raise a kid. The boy had an unusually mature personality, being thoughtful and perhaps too brave for his age. He’d been caught exploring the mostly abandoned level six several times.
The second girl, another eleven-year-old named Cheyenne, had to be the sweetest, most adorable person in the entire Arc, if somewhat shy and timid. Her mother Savannah had been the same way, adored by everyone for her kindness. Sadly, she died during childbirth. The girl’s father, a loner everyone merely called Sanchez, had never been particularly friendly and became even worse after she died. He, too, worked in the water system, and rarely talked to anyone else unless forced to. Sienna once mentioned that despite his grumpy exterior, he had truly loved Savannah and blamed Cheyenne for her death to the point he didn’t even want to look at the baby, thinking she’d curse him.
It’s amazing that girl is so nice considering how much of a jackass her father is. Even worse than Chase.
“What’s up?” Sienna moved out from behind the teacher’s desk and walked up to them. “Everything okay?”
“Think so. She’s feeling a little off today. Think you could let her rest a bit?”
“Sure. What’s with the mask?” Sienna patted Tinsley on the head.
“Doc thinks it might help her feel better. Dust in the air getting to her.” Raven hugged her daughter. “Sorry about the lateness, was at the clinic.”
“Oh, it’s fine.” Sienna nudged the girl toward the desks.
The other kids exchanged looks. Cheyenne appeared worried, Xan blasé. Ariana gasped, which made her cough. She covered her mouth with both hands, eyes fearful. Tinsley sat in the desk beside Ariana and the two girls promptly began talking.
“Great. I need to head down the hall before Ben loses his mind.” Raven jogged to the door.
“Anything to worry about?” asked Sienna.
“Dunno yet.” Raven bit her lip. “Talk later?”
“Okay. All right, back to where we were.” Sienna waved and headed to the front of the room. “Xan, please read the fifth word and tell us what it means.”
Raven went out into the hall, oddly aware of every discoloration, crack, or rust smudge on the walls. Dozens of lighter spots dotted the corridor, wherever the concrete had been patched throughout the years. She stared into the square lights on the ceiling, spaced every twenty feet. One in three worked. The others could be fixed, but they decided not to, saving parts. Better to have dim light for a longer time than burn all the LED bricks out and end up in complete darkness.
Thoughts of bulbs haunted her on the way to the engineering room. Her father believed the people who made the Arc intended it to be fully self-sustaining. Running out of vital parts, clothes, medicines, and such shouldn’t have happened. They had everything they needed to keep going… but something went wrong. How no one else appeared worried about this baffled her. Surely, the doc had to be smart enough to see reality. Ben, too. Maybe even Noah… but why would they all act as though things were just peachy? Could she be freaking out too much, or did the others truly remain oblivious to the situation? Or worse, had they resigned themselves to extinction?
She stopped short in the doorway, whirled around, and jogged back to the
doc’s office. Elena Vasquez sat on the exam table while the doc wrapped her left arm in bandages. The stink of chemicals and feces hung in the air. Considering how the woman treated her daughter, the stench felt appropriate, but it came from the hydroponic room in which she worked. Elena, being something like twelve years older, didn’t have much contact with Raven and probably had no idea how she felt about her. Even if a pregnancy happened as a result of the big boss asking a woman to sustain the population, Raven felt that a mother shouldn’t abandon their child.
She waited near the doorway for the doc to finish treating Elena’s injury. Eventually, the woman made her way out, offering a brief nod of acknowledgement as she passed. Raven resisted the urge to scowl at her, returning a neutral nod, then walked inside.
“Back so soon?” asked Doc. “Did something else happen?”
“No. I just wanted to ask you about the filter mask. If oxygen is too low, what’s the point of asking her to wear it? Do you really think it’s dust?”
He gestured at the door. “Couple wakes ago, Brian from hydro came in with a busted elbow. He’d slipped in a puddle of growth medium. Told me he’d accidentally discovered a sizable leak in one of the wheat tanks. The chemicals in that fluid can make people sick if aspirated. As I’m sure you know, the farm is a vital part of our ventilation system. Air is forced through that chamber constantly, so it would pick up any vapors. My concern is that our ventilation system may be spreading these chemicals around the Arc.”
The hydroponic tanks should be sealed, the plants embedded in clear plastic beds with only small holes that let the roots dangle in the fluid. That syrupy muck shouldn’t be free to evaporate into the air. “Wouldn’t we smell crap everywhere, then?”
“If the concentration was high enough, yes. Everyone down here is used to that smell, though. Constant exposure to a stimulus desensitizes the nose to it. A long enough period absent that stimulus would be required before we’d notice it again. You can’t run a hydroponic farm in a closed system without the odor being everywhere already. People probably wouldn’t notice a slight intensification of the stench.”
Raven wiped at her nose. “Oh. There’s another problem, and Ben isn’t taking it seriously.”
Doc raised an eyebrow.
She explained the air scrubber shutdown and how they almost didn’t come back online. “The Arc was made to support like 2,000 people. Eight CO2 scrubbers should not have any difficulty handling 183 people. I think they’ve been running so long that the gas exchangers are pretty much shot. My estimate, they’re running at less than ten percent efficiency. It’s unlikely we’re going to be able to do anything about that, so we’ve got two choices. Either we test the possibility of drawing in outside air or—”
“You’re serious?” He stared at her as though she’d suggested culling half the population to save oxygen. “Outside?”
“Doc, you know my father went out there. He—”
“Was incredibly lucky.”
Raven sighed, then hesitated. He didn’t accuse him of lying. Doc’s acting like it’s true.
“It’s not so simple.” Preston waved dismissively. “I’m not equipped to treat people for exposure to all the toxins circulating out there. Besides, he’d likely gone out during winter when the temperature was only 109 degrees or thereabouts. What’s your other suggestion?”
“The only other option would be for the hydroponics team to grow a significant amount of plants with high CO2 absorption. They’re only using about eleven percent of the available tank space, I assume to make the growth medium last longer. We’d need to bump that up to at least thirty percent. Plants won’t wear out and break like machines. We have to wean off the scrubbers or we’re going to asphyxiate. I get that 2,000 people living underground would be too much for the farm alone to support, but that’s not a problem anymore.”
“Hmm. The combination of hydroponic chemicals getting into the vents, dust, and the CO2 situation together are worrisome.” He tapped his foot, fidgeting… but still didn’t seem as worried about that as he’d been at her suggestion regarding outside air. “I’ll talk it over with Noah, see what he thinks.”
“Okay. Thanks.” She exhaled. Maybe we should all be wearing the masks inside. “I gotta go. Already late enough.”
Preston managed a smile, clearly looking forward to being alone again. “All right. Stay safe.”
Her mind swimming with dread, Raven hurried to the engineering room, six doors down from the classroom in the south hall. She lived and worked in the heart of the Arc, on the third level. The second floor contained mostly living quarters and storage rooms, all largely abandoned. Something bad happened on level one years ago that caused several deaths. At least ten different versions of the story floated around as rumor, from chemical leak to radiation to disease to someone going psycho. Whatever the cause, it had been serious enough that the boss of the time declared the entire level off limits. As far as Raven knew, no one had been up to the topmost level in at least fifty years, maybe even longer.
At least, no one who admitted to it.
She suspected Chase and his friends might have gone up there as kids. Nothing particularly made her think that. It came mostly from his reckless attitude. Defying a lockdown just sounded like the sort of thing a thirteen-year-old version of him would do.
As soon as she entered the engineering room, Ben—who’d been waiting at her workstation—shot her a look filled with guilt and dread. He couldn’t quite make eye contact, kept his hands in his pockets, and continuously shifted his weight from leg to leg. She half expected him to ask her if she’d be willing to let the Plutions take Tinsley in exchange for new air scrubbers.
Of course, she didn’t seriously think he’d ask anything of the sort, but the level of hesitation in his demeanor worried her. Most likely, he tried to summon the nerve to ask her to do something that had a good chance of killing her.
She slowed from a jog to a creeping walk, narrowing her eyes at him as she rounded the end of the work table to stop beside him. “Yeah, I know. You want me to check the seal. Sorry I’m late. Tins got a little sick. Had to take her to the doc.”
“She okay?”
“Think so. Whatever she has is pretty mild. I think it’s due to the scrubber shutdown yesterday. Doc said she had symptoms of mild oxygen deprivation.”
Lark looked up from her work soldering inside a water pump motor. “That’s not good.”
“Don’t worry about the late thing. Gotta take care of your kid.” Ben smiled at her, still unable to make eye contact. “She’s lucky to have a mom who wants her.”
“Yeah, well… maybe they should stop forcing people to have babies.” Lark smirked.
On some level, Raven agreed with that sentiment. But, intellectually, she knew they had no choice. Between genetic diversity and a rapidly dwindling population, the continued existence of humanity depended on them. If the Arc survivors all died out, the Plutions would win. No humans would remain on Earth. Besides, they didn’t really ‘force’ anyone to have babies, more guilted them into it.
“It’s not ideal, but it’s better than going extinct,” muttered Raven while grabbing her tool satchel. “I’ll go check the seal now.”
“Wait.” Ben lightly grasped her arm. “There’s another issue.”
“Why do you look like you’re about to ask me to do something stupid?”
He exhaled.
“Because he’s probably about to ask you to do something stupid.” Lark laughed.
“Look, Raven…” Ben exhaled. “I realize you’ve got a daughter and you’re only twenty-two. But… I’ve already run it by the others and they’ve all said no.”
Lark swiveled her chair around to face him. “You didn’t ask me.”
“Because I know exactly how you’d react.” Ben scratched at his head. “I didn’t fancy having a wrench flying at my face.”
“Out with it,” said Raven. “And what happens if I say no?”
“Everyone dies.”
Lark started to laugh, but the humor drained out of her in seconds. “Wait. You’re serious?”
“Mostly.” He stuffed his hand back in his pocket.
“Shall I assume that this something is so dangerous you’re not interested in doing it, either?” Raven flashed an impish grin.
Ben chuckled. “I’d rather not. Still have too much to teach all of you guys before I die.”
“How valiant of you.” Lark poked him. “Send the little girl to do something you’re afraid to.”
“I’m not a little girl.” Raven playfully swatted at her.
“Compared to me, you are. Little don’t necessarily mean a child.” Lark winked.
Raven gazed at the grimy ceiling. “I am not unusually short. I’m normal.”
“You’re a little shorter than average, but I wouldn’t call you short.” Lark stood taller, her chin about at Raven’s nose level.
“Okay, so what’s the thing everyone’s scared shitless of?” Raven folded her arms.
“Remember how you fixed 14B yesterday?” asked Ben.
“My memory’s not that bad. Only did that like twenty hours ago.”
“Right, well… it’s dead again. But, this time, the problem isn’t a fault in the wire.” He cringed as if about to tell her someone she loved died. “The turbine failed. I need someone with the balls to go topside and check it out.”
“Oh, F that.” Lark shook her head and spun her chair back to face the desk. “No effing way. Nooope. I’m no Saint.”
Ben gestured at her. “This is why I didn’t ask her.”
Fear and excitement burst deep in Raven’s gut. She clenched her hands into fists and looked again at the ceiling. The Arc was home to 183 people. 182 of them believed that a person would die within ten seconds of exposure to topside air, even after her father made multiple trips out and back. Most of the people also believed that Plutions roamed the surface and would attack any humans they saw. The toxicity didn’t bother them. They brought it here. Raven didn’t fear the air as much as everyone else. Doc’s completely straight response to her mentioning Dad going outside had to mean he knew it to be true. The air couldn’t be as deadly as everyone claimed, but those aliens might be a problem.
The Girl Who Found the Sun Page 4