Greenhaus:Storm

by Reckelhoff, Bryan

  With Stranger back, Ella finally had something to occupy her time. As she spied him from her position in the hills, he appeared suspicious of eyes on him, always looking around, but what he was checking for she had no idea. The glass walls were clear, but lacked substance to create visual depth. From her distance, only the things in the forefront were visible. Clutter obstructed anything deeper within the rooms as the sections all ran together, and the distance played tricks on her eyes.

  Stranger’s first day back flew by. At the end of the day, after all the other workers departed the work site into the small white-walled room as per normal routine, Stranger Friend returned to the area where the workers had eaten their midday meal. He rummaged around, stuffed a few things into a canvas bag, and returned to the work area. A brisk pace carried him across the open space, past the central workstation where all the tools were housed.

  Bag in hand, his tempo picked up to a light jog as he passed the line of cranes. He stopped near the tunnel, where stacks of supplies hid his movements. Ella searched and finally found him squeezing between two stacks of metal beams. He came out on the other end not far from where they met.

  He stared out into Ella’s world, looking nervous. Something flat and black rested in his hands. She wanted to rush back there, to look into his eyes and find that safe place she longed for. Suddenly, Stranger offered a wave to the emptiness.

  That had to be for me, she thought as her heart fluttered. Though Ella knew that he couldn’t see her, she reciprocated the gesture nonetheless. His wave, as simple as it may have been, excited her greatly. Ella’s face felt hot. Her stomach had that floating feeling once again. She had never experienced anything like it until their meeting through the glass. Whenever she replayed the events of that day in her head, the feeling returned. Seeing him again in the flesh made these feelings more intense.

  Stranger Friend walked into the tunnel, out of her sight. From her investigation, Ella knew the tunnel would lead him to the Outside, so she panned to the end and waited for him to exit. He laid the container down, but never completely left the tunnel. Ella briefly saw Stranger’s hands and arms and part of his head, but nothing else. Soon he was back at the glass, looking out once again, staring out at the dead Earth. Then, while feigning holding something up with his right hand, Stranger Friend made a circular movement with his left hand, a motion to mimic someone eating in the manner of those on the Inside.

  Ella guessed he was leaving her food, but would have to wait until dark to investigate. Ella often pondered what the Insiders ate from their trays. It had to be better than the roots or insects Outsiders consumed.

  The darkness crept in slowly, or so it seemed to Ella. Anxious to return to the glass and check what Stranger left for her, Ella exited the bunker. Her pace was slow and steady as she belly crawled toward Glass City. She kept her head up to watch for those who would be watching for her. Every stroke of her arm brought a puff of dust into her vision, but also dragged her closer. Part of Ella worried Stranger may have been setting a trap, but certainty that he felt the same connection that she did eased her concern.

  The container sat in the darkness just outside the tunnel. Ella examined the flat, rectangular container. A clear film stretched over the top and Ella poked it, but it was tight and did not allow much play. Nervous about being discovered, she put it in her backpack and returned to the hills. Within the cozy confines of her bunker, she carefully analyzed its contents before opening it. Ella pulled back the clear film and, after tossing her mask aside, gave it a quick sniff.

  Smells funny, she thought as she examined the strange tray in front of her. Three separate compartments each contained a different colored substance in it. The first was an orange paste, creamy and smooth. Ella took a finger and swiped it through the thick paste. The flavor was new and different. It was sweet and made her mouth come alive. Next she tasted the brownish mush in the compartment next to the orange. It was not sweet, but savory, and had no less effect when it touched her tongue. These intense flavors did not exist on the Outside. The final compartment held a white substance, not a paste like the other two, but fluffier and light. She tasted it, and savored its blend of different flavors. There was a hint of sweetness and some salt, and another flavor she could not identify that caused her to pucker up a little bit.

  After tasting the small sample of each, she sniffed at it some more. Although she had started a personal metamorphosis, a piece of her would always be skeptical of the Insiders. In the end, hunger won out over her doubts, the flavors too tempting to put down. Using her fingers, she dug out every little bit that she could before licking the platter clean. To catch all the remnants left behind, Ella flicked her tongue into the corners and edges. A stomach full of new and exciting flavors caused drowsiness.

  By the time she awoke, the workers were already at it. She spent the day watching Stranger again, her favorite pastime. At the end of the day, he did the same routine as the day before. Come to the glass, wave into the wasteland, then enter the tunnel and leave a container of tasty treats before returning to the glass. Less fearful now and feeling a strange craving, she elected to eat this meal in the tunnel.

  Stranger Friend repeated the process a third time, the last night before she returned to the fortress. For the third consecutive night, Ella left her bunker. Slowly and carefully, she crawled to the dark corner of Glass City. At the end of the tunnel was not a single tray of food, as in the previous two nights. Instead, a stack of them waited for her. Ella quickly grabbed the stack and forcefully shoved it into her backpack.

  Three days of crawling left layers upon layers of dirt caked on her clothes. The already dingy gray zip-up coveralls were further stained a light brown from her nightly crawls to retrieve the gifts left by Stranger. Ella didn’t stop until she reached the bunker, where she counted twelve trays of food, far more than she could eat by herself.

  Ella packed up, then used the butt of her rifle to drive the stakes into the ground, securing her exterior cover to the lookout, before setting out for the fortress to share her bounty.

  She summoned those she wanted as her inner circle, since she didn’t have enough for the entire camp. Niles, Jordan, Ren, Zac, and Jeremiah each received an offering from their Elder. The rest were given to the guards on duty. As they were handed out, the contents were studied intensely by all except Niles and Jordan, who both, without delay or hesitation, pulled the clear thin covering off the top and dove right into the meal. Niles and Jordan, just like Ella, had no problem with the food settling in their stomach, though most of the others were not so lucky. The richness of the food was too much. It tasted much different than anything they had on the Outside. The pasty mixtures would take some adjustment for some, but Ella enjoyed the new flavors that danced on her tongue.

  The Inside may not be such a bad idea after all.

  Her decision was made days ago. How to announce that decision was not. Stranger Friend’s generosity only added another reason to her growing list of why the Masked would not attack Glass City, at least not her Storm Camp, anyway. Making the decision, however hard it seemed when she fought her internal struggle, turned out to be the easy part. The hard part would be figuring out a way to keep the camp together after breaking the news to everyone else in the morning.

  Chapter 29 (Jacob Niles)

  Jacob knew leaving so many containers at the edge of the tunnel would cost him gredits. He didn’t care anymore. The last dozen of the trays he had squirreled away by reducing his consumption were gone. If he died having never risen above Zone 5, he was OK with that. Worries now centered on getting caught sneaking food to the Outside and being made to wipe glass as a punishment. Or worse. To be safe, he waited for the rest of the crew to enter Decon before he made his move. Jacob pretended to tighten straps, or he double-checked locking cabinets before he entered the tunnel.

  His thirst for a rise through the zones had been quenched and replaced by a quest for knowledge, for truth and clarity of mind that few achiev
ed. He used to question his father’s contentment, living in Zone 3, but now he understood. Now he, like his father, had other goals. The higher zones seemingly provided goals for citizens to shoot for, but Jacob understood its true purpose. The gredit system was a way to keep the masses looking up in the figurative sense, while they went about their days with their heads down, too focused on working and living to notice anything hidden below the surface of their everyday lives.

  Jacob reasoned that his father had kept their apartment in Zone 3 above the Gardens to keep him and his mother distracted from his dealings with the Whisperers. Their apartment had neighbors above them, on one side, and across the hall, but the prized corner unit was open air everywhere else. The Gardens below contained so much color and life, Jacob had watched the activity there for hours on end in his youth. The plants, insects, and animals made losing focus easy. Many had never developed any real focus in the first place, a problem that until recently had plagued Jacob everywhere except on the beams.

  Before his enlightenment, he’d waste time watching water flow through the carefully constructed concrete stream beds and ponds before it dumped into the main reservoir or was pumped to the higher levels for usage there. His old self spent days watching the water, and the rabbits, butterflies, and squirrels living their lives below him, caught up in finding food or avoiding predators.

  Old Jacob mirrored the animals he observed. Trapped in glass. Too focused on day-to-day living to actually be alive. Unaware others watched him, and that he too, had hidden predators, just like the furry creatures. Too busy letting both instinctive and learned behavior guide his life to notice anything was happening around him, like the unsuspecting fly just before it’s snatched mid-flight by the sticky-tongued frog.

  All of it was a ruse. New Jacob would no longer walk to work to be thrifty, with his lust for the higher zones gone. He would take the quickest method of transportation to his destinations, spending gredits to save the one resource that can’t be recycled, time. Other gredits would be spent on traveling and investigating, just as Uncle Jasper had done. There is so much to see if one just knows where to look.

  Jacob thought of his father’s legacy and how it was hidden from him all these years. Jacob planned to further his father’s work, to crack the code that evaded so many others. He wasn’t sure if he was on the side of the righteous or not, but it didn’t matter. He was a Whisperer now, the contract sealed in blood. In his heart of hearts, he had always been a constitutional purist, partly because he didn’t even know another way existed. Thinking that everyone felt the same way he did made joining up easier.

  Today, Jacob was excited to attend his first cross-departmental meeting as Jasper’s replacement. The monthly meeting was held with members of all departments to discuss the state of affairs within the ‘Haus. This meeting was held specifically to give updates on Annex 23.

  After dressing in his orange Nu-Skin, Jacob pulled the hood over his messed hair. Then he stuffed a pair of Second Hands and an over shirt in his duffel. He hopped a pod to the Department of Engineering HQ, with no idea what to expect when he reached his destination.

  Arriving early, Jacob stopped to check his reflection in the polished steel exterior. He removed his hood and styled his hair the best he could. HQ was contained in the first four zones of Annex 11, the most northeastern annex of the entire colony. It was by far the largest single structure in New St. Louis, and along with the other department headquarters and the Decon chambers, the only structures with exteriors not made of glass. Above the entrance, hung the shield of his department, a lowercase ‘e’ with a wrench through it.

  Whoosh. The door opened. The rubber soles of his Second Feet squished and squeaked as he walked across the glass floor of the lobby to the front desk. “I’m here to see Doyle, for the departmental meeting,” Jacob informed the desk clerk, an older, busty, bronze-skinned woman in a black Nu-Skin, with red stripes down the side and a name tag that read Veronica Sale.

  In a warm, friendly voice the woman directed Jacob to his desired destination. “He is expecting you. There is a group in Room 300, third floor, the conference room at the far end,” she said as she stood and pointed to the room, visible through the atrium.

  Typical, Jacob thought after passing the fountain in the center of the open air atrium. Such a waste of power and water, and for what? Things that he hadn’t noticed before now irked him.

  An elevator zipped him to the third floor. Jacob arrived in a room full of people. “And here he is now. Jacob Niles, everyone,” Doyle introduced him. An unexpected round of applause caused him to blush. Doyle walked toward Jacob and shook his hand, then showed him his seat. Jacob noticed a sign. Doyle rubbed his neck gently as if massaging some unseen pain. As he did, his middle and index fingers split into a ‘V’ and in a scissor-like motion ‘cut’ his ear, a warning that Jacob’s spoken words should be chosen carefully.

  Jacob knew to keep quiet about all affairs concerning the Whisperers, and he planned to say little during the meeting. The applause died down. Doyle made eye contact with Jacob to be sure he received the sign before announcing, “Jacob has come here today in place of Jasper to take questions about the progress in Annex 23.”

  So much for that plan. Jacob had arrived unprepared, expecting to soak up as much as he could. He had no plans to take questions today, and though a finish date had been set, he could only guess as to when the dome would actually be finished. There could be delays for any number of reasons: material shortage, intruder alarms, or the rare manpower shortages created by worker deaths, like Jasper’s. So he faked it, joining Doyle at the front of the room and saying, “The shell of Annex 23 is complete, everything except for the dome, and of course a new glass floor will have to be reinstalled at ground level,” he explained to the group, as he eyed each and every one of them as a possible suspect. “Provided that supply remains constant from Recycling and everything is measured correctly by our engineers, the dome should be finished in less than sixty days, assuming of course there are no further delays.”

  A man in a cream-colored Nu-Skin with navy blue trim, sitting at the far end of the long oval glass conference table, stood up and introduced himself. “Hello Jacob, I am Wilson Chambers, a planner with R & D, here to get some specs on the new annex,” he started. “Once finished, it will hold the same volume as the other twenty-two, correct?”

  “Yes, Annex 23 was constructed with no variance from the master plan,” Jacob stated. “The terrain allowed full compliance with the setup of its shell. A full nine zones tall, not including the unfinished dome. Each side of the hexagonal shell measures 600 feet in length, and all interior angles are precisely 120 degrees.”

  Wilson scribbled some notes before asking another question. “I know this is not your area of expertise, but is further expansion in this area possible, in your opinion?”

  “Not if the honeycomb pattern is to be continued, unless there is some sort of terrain alteration. Annex 23 consumed the rest of the flat ground near the gradual incline. Earth would have to be moved for further expansion on that side of the ‘Haus.” After thanking Jacob, Wilson sat down and continued making notes on his tablet.

  Another man, decked out in a light, almost pale, orange Nu-Skin, indicating he was from a higher level of Engineering, stood and asked a round of his own questions. “Hello Jacob, I’m Telly Pierce, with Systems. We need to schedule a crew to begin a systems installation in the nook; electrical, running ducts for filtration and return air, tubes for the pneumatic maze, et cetera, et cetera. Right now, we only need access to the north and west walls, to mark entry points, but we don’t want to interfere with the glassys or the toppers. When is a good time to start?”

  “Immediately,” responded Jacob to the man who looked eerily similar to, but was taller than, the other gray-haired gentleman. “Storage is along the south wall, and access to the nooks and all other walls is clear, except where the scaffolding is suctioned to the glass.”

  As foreman, Jasper
had made sure to always utilize the space in each annex. ‘Always stack supplies on the wall closest to the perimeter near the tunnel. It will prevent interference with other departments. Make the cranes do the work,’ he would say.

  These are odd questions, and they should already know the answers. Jacob wasn’t used to Jasper being gone, and realized what big shoes he had to fill. These meetings were the duty of the foreman, one of the many things now falling in Jacob’s lap.

  The question and answer session continued for an hour, with each department giving its own interrogation. After it was finished, the group stood up and mingled for a bit before the room partially cleared out. “Great job today, Jacob,” said Doyle, as he slid his glasses up his nose.

  Doyle pretended to pick at something behind his ear, and then flicked it three times with his middle finger to indicate that the intruder was gone.

  “Thank you sir, but I wasn’t expecting any of that or I would have been better prepared, with more accurate answers…”

  “Nonsense, you did fine. Besides, that was all for show,” Doyle said as he patted him on the back. “We have some other things to discuss before you head off to your shift.”

  “Such as?” Jacob wondered aloud.

  “Such as your upcoming work schedule, Jacob,” he said. “Once this dome is finished, you are scheduled to dome an annex in New Chicago, since future terrain alterations will slow expansion here, but I’ve changed that. Now that you’re one of us, you will enjoy some of the perks. You can do much more for us in Newer Orleans and I think you will find the working, um, conditions, to be more to your liking. Plus we have more of a presence there to help you.”

  Jacob remained quiet. He wasn’t sure how to respond. Us? We? As in Engineering, or as in the Whisperers? The questions floated around in his head while he thought of something to say. He pretended to cough, but only used his hand to hide what he was saying, “Doyle, who is us and how can I help in Newer Orleans?”