“Can you sneak out tomorrow?” she blurts out.
“Of course,” I say without thinking. Will it be possible? After tonight’s escapade I doubt I can elude my parents again. Would I be brave enough? I look into Lark’s earnest eyes. Yes, I think I will be.
“Good,” Lark says. “I’ll meet you here tomorrow. Just after dark. Don’t worry, I won’t tell Ash what you’ve been up to.” I asked her not to earlier. I’m still undecided about whether I want to tell Ash about sneaking out and meeting Lark. On balance, I don’t think I will. At least, not yet. I want this to stay mine. I don’t want to share.
She tilts her head to peer up at the wall around my courtyard. Her wisps of lilac hair fall away from her face. “Can you really climb that?” she asks, amazed.
Remembering how I had to fall the last few feet, I have my doubts. Nervously, I find a tiny handhold and grip, tensing my muscles to pull myself up.
“Hold on, silly,” Lark says as she catches my shoulder and gently wheels me around. “Aren’t you even going to say good-bye?”
Just say the word, I tell myself. But I can’t. She’s looking at me with a quirky smile, curled up at one side, down at the other. Good-bye feels tragic.
“Until tomorrow,” I say instead, and she laughs and hugs me.
“Until tomorrow,” she repeats, as if it is a magic spell.
Suddenly I want to impress Lark. She’s been the strong one, guiding me through the city, soothing my worries. Now I want to look strong and capable. While she’s watching, I leap onto the wall and with nothing but instinct find the perfect holds. Though they’re hardly more than hairline cracks, my fingertips and toes seem glued to the wall. Smoothly, hiding the effort under a veneer of pure grace, I ascend halfway up, then throw my head back to look down at her. It’s a reckless move, almost pitching me off balance . . . but isn’t that what this night is about? Throwing caution to the wind?
I’m gratified to see her look at me in open-mouthed amazement. Her lilac hair is almost glowing, a bright spot against the gray of my house. “Rowan, you’re . . . quite a surprise,” she says, almost too softly for me to hear.
Elated, I scale the rest of the wall without a single mishap. At the top I pause and look at her for a long moment. Then I swing my legs over the wall to continue the last few days of my prison sentence.
I’m prepared for anything. Mom weeping. Dad shouting. Everyone gone, searching for me. But to my surprise the house is quiet and dark. I creep inside, slip off my shoes, and pad silently to Mom and Dad’s bedroom. The door is slightly ajar. Peeking in, I can see their shapes as they sleep: Dad on his back on one side of the bed, Mom curled away from him at the far corner. Did they really not know I left, or did they just give up?
Mom, always sensitive, surely decided I needed time alone and left me in the courtyard, apparently mulling over my fate. I close their bedroom door and head to my tiny bedroom.
I pass by Ash’s bedroom and pause by the door.
He’s sleeping, too, his breath steady but slightly raspy. For a long moment I look at his face. My face, almost. The resentment surges again. Why does he get everything, while I—a healthier version of him, rightfully first—get nothing.
Then his breath catches and stops for a long moment. This happens a lot when he sleeps. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve waited, my own breath held, for his breathing to start up again. So far it always has. Someday, I fear, it won’t.
I count, seven . . . eight . . . nine . . . Finally he sucks in a ragged breath, and begins to snore gently. On one hand the sound is annoying, but on the other it is reassuring. The snores are a constant gentle reminder that he’s still breathing, still alive.
I creep closer and look at his face, calm and restful in sleep. He looks young, much younger than I myself feel tonight. But then, I remember wryly, I’m technically older than him.
How could I have harbored a jealous thought about him? Suddenly I understand why Mom had to strip me of my first child privilege and let the world believe Ash is the one and only. She must have known even then that I could endure whatever suffering came my way. Ash—sick, sensitive—never could have.
I look back at the endless weeks, months, years of solitude, hidden away in this house. Somehow, I managed to find a measure of happiness for myself all that time. Or if not happiness, contentment. Sure, sometimes I cried. Other times I raged. But I got through it. And as ripped apart as I might be about having to leave home now, a part of me knows that I can deal with it. It will be hard, but I can do it.
A sense of peace washes over me. My anger is gone. Did meeting Lark do all that? Or did it just come from inside, the same acceptance that helped me get through all these years?
I’m so tired. So tired and so happy. Mom’s right—every child leaves home. I’m just doing it a little earlier than most, and under stranger conditions. But whoever’s identity I assume, I’ll still get to see my family, I’m sure of that. Mom wouldn’t allow it to be any other way. And now I have Lark. Wherever I am in Eden, I’ll have Lark.
I’m almost to my room when I hear Ash stir behind me. “Rowan?” he asks. I know he’s only half-awake, that I could make it to my room and be alone with my thoughts of freedom and Lark and friendship if only I keep going. But I turn and sit at his bedside.
His eyes open a bit when he feels the compression of the bed. “Where were you?” he asks sleepily.
“In the courtyard,” I reply.
“No you weren’t.”
“I . . . I was. You just didn’t see me. Or maybe I was inside when you were looking for me.”
He smiles, then the grin breaks in a yawn. “It’s a big house, but it’s not that big. Where did you go? I checked all your hiding spots.”
I don’t say anything.
“You went out, didn’t you.” It’s a statement, not a question.
My chin juts out defiantly. “Maybe.”
He covers his eyes with his hand, rubbing them hard. “What were you thinking, Rowan? You could have gotten caught, or killed!”
I feel an urge to say I’m sorry. But I’m not, not at all. “I was just fine,” I say instead. “W—” I catch myself. I almost said we, but I’ve decided not to tell Ash about Lark. Not yet. Sometimes a thing is too precious to bring out into the light. Somehow, talking about it might make the magic of the night evaporate. “I didn’t have any problems. No one looked at me twice.”
He’s still angry, or scared. “How could you do something so stupid?” he asks. “Never mind what would happen to our family if you got caught.” I flush and hang my head. I’ve hardly thought about that possible consequence of my adventure. “You know what the authorities would do to you if they found out you existed.”
I don’t, not really. I’ve never been told exactly, but the consequences hinted at ranged from torture to prison to slavery to death. But oh, great Earth, it was worth it just to escape for one night! I try to explain this to Ash, telling him about the joy—and fear—of seeing the people, the lights, hearing the blare of music and the babble of hundreds of people at once.
He nods, understanding the depth of my loneliness, my need for more. In a conciliatory voice he says, “Mom said you’re going to get your lenses soon.”
The way he says this makes me think Mom hasn’t told him I only have a few days left with my family.
“I’m so happy for you!” He puts a hand over mine. “Are you scared?” Before I can answer he adds, “Of course you’re not. You’re not scared of anything.”
I give a small, rueful laugh. “There’s not much to be afraid of when you never leave the house.”
“No, that’s not true,” he says. There’s a new depth to him, and he seems to be looking inside himself as he talks to me. “Just being alive can make people afraid. To have something so precious as life, that can be taken away at any moment . . .” He swallows hard and licks his dry lips. “Not you, though. I’ve never seen you afraid.”
I make a small confession. “I w
as afraid when I was outside the house tonight. For a while, anyway.”
Ash shakes his head slowly. “Nah, I don’t believe you. Nerves, maybe. Anxiety, uncertainty. But never fear. I know you, Rowan. You’re completely brave. Even if all you’ve ever had to face is boredom and loneliness, you’ve always faced them bravely. I know exactly how you’ll be when you get out into the world at last. You’ll eclipse me entirely.” He sighs. “Every time I fail, I think of you, what you would do in my place. When I turn away from a group of people laughing and think they’re laughing at me. When I try to tell Lark how I feel . . .”
I remember when Lark thought I was Ash, with some subtle difference. When her lips came near to mine. I flush in the darkness, and say nothing.
“I’m basically a coward, Rowan,” my brother confesses. Then he adds something that brings tears to my eyes. “You should have been the firstborn. You would have been a benefit to Eden. More than me, anyway.”
What can I say? I reassure him that he is a wonderful person, an asset to the community, that he has no failings, only quirks, that he is loved.
That I, in particular, love him, my other self.
I wonder what I’ll do without him.
I wonder what he’ll do without me.
“Go back to sleep, Ash. We can talk more in the morning.”
There is a melancholy edge to my thoughts, like the grim desert wasteland around Eden. But like the city itself, the center of my thoughts is bright as I drift off to sleep.
I sleep late in my tiny bare chamber. When I wake, Ash is at school and Mom is at work. I feel a twinge of resentment. Shouldn’t they be home with me for my last few days in the family? Who knows when I’ll be able to see them again. I might even live in an entirely different circle, and just be able to see them once a month for fauxchai and chapatis in public.
I hear a noise in the kitchen. My dad is home. I feel my jaw tighten right away, but make myself go in to say good morning. He’s making an algae smoothie—straight algae and water, no synth flavors. Ew.
He doesn’t hear me while the blender’s whirring, but after he pours his green concoction into a tall frosted glass he turns and flinches slightly upon seeing me. As if I shouldn’t be there. A dribble of viscous green slush runs over the edge of his glass, pooling in the webbing between his thumb and forefinger.
“You’re up,” he says. I don’t know enough about people to determine if this stating of the obvious is a common conversational opener, but my dad does it all the time.
I grab a sweet roll from a basket and take a big bite. “Congratulations on your appointment as vice chancellor,” I say.
“It isn’t official yet.”
“Don’t worry,” I say wryly, unable to resist the jibe. “I won’t tell anyone.” Who could I tell, for the next few days anyway? Except Lark. I decide to tell her tonight, an act of defiance.
“I need to have you squared away before anything is publicly announced.” He wipes the green drips with a pristine white cloth, then tosses the cloth into the reclamation chute.
“Squared away? Is that all I am to you? An issue to be dealt with, a mess to be made neat?” Does my father hate me? I wonder. It’s a question I’ve been shaping in my mind ever since I was old enough to pay attention to the world around me.
“It’s not as simple as that, Rowan,” he says. “You create—difficulties—by your very existence.”
I feel my lip twitch. I want to delve into it more, but I only say bitterly, “You’ll be rid of me in a little while. That will be a relief, I guess.”
He takes another sip of his drink, scowling a bit as if he just realized how disgusting it is. “In a way,” he says evasively.
I look at him evenly. My feelings are mixed, but as before, anger trumps sadness. It’s starting to be a trend with me, I think. “And you and Mom can move on with the perfect life I interrupted sixteen years ago. Pretty soon it will be like I never even existed at all.”
He doesn’t answer, only downs the remainder of his drink and heads out the door.
IT IS A day like any other—almost. Like every day for the past sixteen years of my life, I spend a good portion of the daylight home alone. I have my routines to keep me sane: studying, drawing, running, and exercising until my body is exhausted and my mind is calm.
But today there is a lilac tinge on everything I do.
When I draw, I find myself sketching Lark’s face.
When I run, it’s her I’m running to.
When I pull out my datablocks and vids to study, I turn immediately to all of the things Lark and I talked about. I search for information on the Dominion, but there is precious little. That makes sense, I think, with a new touch of cynicism painted onto my personality by Lark. The people in charge don’t want people to know about that evil cult, even disparaging things. Any information might lure new converts.
So I search for other topics, expanding my knowledge so I’ll have more to talk about with Lark. The thing that interests me most is the earliest days of Eden. I want to find out more concerning what Lark said about the original population of Eden. How were the first residents chosen? Were they just the last straggling survivors of humanity, or were they specially selected? I need a clue about why our population started out so large, only to be trimmed down now. As one of the trimmed, I take it personally.
But there’s almost nothing beyond what I already know. In fact, every source says almost exactly the same thing, in almost identical words, like a mantra or a prayer. The remnants of the human species gathered in Eden, to wait until the Earth was renewed. That’s all, as if people were some migrating animals who coalesced by instinct, going into hibernation to wait out a long winter. I never noticed before how few details there are on our own history. I didn’t question very much until now. I just swallowed down whatever I was fed.
I turn instead to our founding father, Aaron Al-Baz. There’s a ton of information on him, all of it laudatory. It reads more like a legend than pure history. Like every child in Eden I learned this all before, but now that I know I’m living in the great man’s house, it seems closer, more vital.
I read how Al-Baz was mocked as a young man for his radical beliefs in the coming end of the world. Still he attracted many followers, even as others condemned him and found fault in his science. He suffered deep humiliation as he was ostracized from the scientific community, his theories about man’s doomed interaction with the Earth torn to shreds.
Breathless, I read about his self-imposed exile as he heroically dedicated his life to saving the planet. He was so secretive during that time that there are few facts, only anecdotes. He was trying to stop world governments from approving policies that were killing the environment—and from what I can gather, his methods were not 100 percent above the law. When the heads of nations wouldn’t listen, he forced them to listen. In that newly burgeoning digital age when everything on the planet was already well on its way to being linked, a skilled computer scientist could force governments to pay attention.
They called his methods hacking, techno-terrorism, cyber-guerrilla warfare. But he never harmed a soul, not a person or beast or plant. Unlike the world governments and the destructive weapons and technology they controlled. Al-Baz only took over systems to prove his point, to make people see that they were on a path to destruction—and offer them an alternative. For his pains, he was questioned multiple times and placed under house arrest, his assets frozen.
Somehow he escaped prison for many years. Then came the Ecofail.
According to the history I am reading, the world governments were about to launch their mission to alter the atmosphere to fight global warming. A laudable ambition, though Al-Baz told them it wouldn’t work. He tried to stop them, attacking the system that would launch the particles into the atmosphere. But he failed, and was thrown in prison, and while he was captive the Earth died. By the time his followers broke him out, there was barely time to implement his long-term plan, the work of his lifetime: Ede
n. He activated the program that turned all of the world’s technology toward two linked goals—reviving the planet and saving mankind.
In an act of great nobility he saved the people who betrayed him and the Earth—or as many as he could. He preserved the humans who had been unable to care for their own planet. Al-Baz gave us all a second chance, an opportunity to do penance for our selfishness, our stupidity.
And I’ve lived in his house all my life, and never knew it.
As soon as Mom comes home—before either Ash or Dad—I pounce with questions. “How did we end up living in Aaron Al-Baz’s house?”
“Can we talk about it later?” she asks. There are dark circles under her eyes, and her hair is uncharacteristically messy, with strands flying crazily out of her usually tight twist. “We have a lot of other things to discuss.”
“No, this is important,” I say. “How could I not know?”
She shrugs. “It isn’t a big deal. We’re distant relations, through his sister, I think. But it was a long time ago. How did you find out?”
I didn’t quite think that one through, but she doesn’t seem to notice the long pause before I say, “I came across a mention in an old history of Eden. Is there anything here that belonged to him?”
“Oh, no,” she says quickly. “It was so long ago.”
“Not really. Two hundred years isn’t that many generations.”
She won’t tell me any more, and immediately changes the subject.
“Your lenses are ready to be implanted.”
I hurl myself into her arms. She’s a little taken aback, and I realize she’s expecting me to still be upset at leaving home. I am, of course, but to my chagrin the first thing I think of is that I’ll be more easily able to walk the streets safely when I sneak out tonight to see Lark. With my eyes looking flat like everyone else’s, and what’s more keyed to someone else’s identity, I can walk past any Greenshirt without a qualm.
“When do we leave?” I ask.
“Oh, they’re ready, but your surgery won’t be for a little while. Another couple of days at least.”
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