by Ramona Finn
“What is this? Kindergarten?” I snapped. “You have more privilege here than anyone on the planet below, and yet those of us in the Geos have better manners than this.” I wanted to say the Rejs did, too, but I knew better.
“Then go back to where you belong.”
“Stop trying to be someone you’ll never be.”
This was what they thought of us. Small, petty Elites who couldn’t even see how good they had it. As if our presence threatened their lavish lives. Unless it was jealousy, because I was dressed as a Farrow. If that was still on.
Well, if it was, I’d want to be the one to announce it. I’d relish the looks on their smug faces.
“Come on, Kev, let’s get out of here,” I said. “We can leave them to clean up my mess.”
I pulled on his arm. He looked genuinely upset, and that just made me madder.
“Wait,” he said. He ran over to the counters where there were piles of pre-synthesized foods wrapped in silver wrappers. He grabbed two handfuls and stuffed them into his pockets. “This stuff is better than what I get in my apartment.”
I tried not to run out of there, doing my best to keep my chin up. The Elites were no better than the worst of the people in the Geos. They had everything they would ever need, but they had no hearts.
Chapter Fourteen
“Do you need to change?” Kev looked at the stain on my pants leg.
“It’s just water,” I said, trying to calm my racing heart. Part of me didn’t want to stop being furious at those rude Elites.
“Then let me show you my favorite place,” he said. “Don’t worry—nobody goes there. We’ll be left alone.”
He led me to the end of the hallway, the opposite direction from where my apartment was. Here, the walls were still transparent, and the sky outside was turning a baby pink with gold edging. It surprised me how late in the day it was. I still wasn’t used to time being measured by the sun. In the Geos, we talked about how many shifts there were. Here, I had to adjust to mornings, afternoons, and evenings. I guessed it was now close to evening.
The elevator at the end of this hallway was similar to the Farrow’s. Here, the walls were transparent, and I felt like I was standing in a test tube. But the view was as spectacular as what I had in my own apartment. The land spread out under our feet, reaching so far it looked as if it joined with the sky. Everything out there seemed perfect—the dark green of the treetops, the craggy silver of the mountains, and the purity of the snow that capped them. But we all knew this perfection was deadly because the Virus existed in the air. I sighed. A few of us might have been able to survive out there, but that kind of freedom wasn’t worth it until everyone had the same opportunity to do so.
“Have you heard from your parents?” I turned to Kev as he pressed the button that had a tree on it.
The elevator began to move smoothly upward. We were headed to the dome at the top of the Greens, and I had a feeling we were heading for the farms.
Of course we were. Kev probably missed his farms back in the Geos even though that was one of the most difficult places to live.
“R.L. Farrow promised that I’d be able to speak to them soon,” he said, gawking at the view as I had done just moments earlier. “I’m still not used to how much light these elevators have.” In the Geos, the elevators were slow and dark. They were our least favorite way of getting around.
“I don’t know why it’s taking them so long to get our parents up here,” I said. “It’s not like there isn’t room for them.”
“Be patient,” Kev said. “I’m sure they’re doing their best.”
I didn’t know how Kev could be so positive about the Elites after the way they’d treated him. He had been tortured, questioned, and accused of cheating. Yet, that one message from R.L. seemed to have turned him around completely. I envied him for his ability to trust so easily.
The elevator came to a gentle stop, and the doors opened up to an earth-toned path laid out before us. Wooden railings with glass panels beneath framed the path and invited us to come in deeper. To the left and right of the railings was a deep blue pool of water. Large, man-sized rocks jutted out in random spots, possibly imitating real Earth lakes or lagoons, ones that I’d only seen from the view in my apartment. The walls projected more water, as if to demonstrate to the viewer what the oceans must be like down below—endless and open.
Kev led me on. He walked with purpose, as if he’d seen all this so often that it didn’t bring him that sense of awe which had just captured me. The end of the water brought us to a wall of layered rocks that were draped with greenery. It looked as if the rocks had long, green hair. We ducked under one rock that turned out to be a small tunnel.
“This is a shortcut,” Kev said. His pace picked up. I tried not to stare too much in order to keep up with him.
As we emerged from the tunnel, Kev stopped. He held his arms out in front of him and gave me the biggest grin I’d seen in a long time.
“There it is,” he said, presenting the Greens farm to me. He spoke with such pride, as if he’d been responsible for building it.
The Greens farm was the polar opposite of what we had in the Geos. We were standing at the edge of the largest farm I’d ever seen. Immediately in front of us were several rectangles of greenery, laid out so neatly as to be geometric in design.
“This is the section that grows green leafy vegetables,” Kev said. “Much like the section I was in charge of in the Geos—only way, way bigger in scale.”
He pointed to my left and right. The vegetable patches went on forever. I couldn’t see the end of the dome from where I stood. Beyond the rectangles closest to me, there were more sections filled with greens. After that, I could make out low trees, also planted in perfect rows. Every tree was almost identical to its neighbor. There were trees with wide, flat leaves the length of my body, and others with small, bushy canopies, but within each type, they were all uniform.
Whoever designed this farm had definitely been a mathematician.
“This way.” Kev headed in between two vegetable patches. I snuck a look and saw that they were growing cabbages, broccoli, and lettuce. My stomach grumbled.
“The paths!” I looked down at my feet. “They’re muddy.”
Kev laughed. In the Geos, the floor was the same everywhere—concrete and grey. Here, the ground was made of earth—mud and dirt. I reached down and scratched some of it into my palm. It even smelled like life.
“It actually rains in here,” Kev said with a grin. “It’s scheduled, so I’ll let you know when if you don’t want to get wet. But that’s why the paths get muddy.”
We walked on, the ground squelching beneath my shoes. The pathways dissected the rectangular sections, and every so often, scaffolding of latticed metal rose up to the dome ceiling. Golden sunlight streamed in through the panes of the dome, highlighting some patches and making them really glow a deep velvety green.
We approached the trees and wandered about between them. I was hit by a warmth that felt so much like home. The air smelled of the ground, mixed with a sweetness that could only be coming from the trees. On closer look, I noticed each tree was laden heavily with fruit.
“Apples?” I exclaimed, trying not to sound like a child on their first trip outside their own sector.
“Yeah, I couldn’t believe it myself,” Kev said. “When I first found this, I thought I could stay in this very spot and never leave, and die happy.”
Apples were a rarity in the Geos. Sometimes, if we were very lucky, we’d get the dried versions. The abundance of the fruit here in front of me almost made me cry.
“Can I…?” I looked at Kev with hope.
He shrugged. “Sure! I’ve made friends with a couple of farmers, and they say it’s fine as long as it’s not more than two or three at a time.”
I reached up and plucked a perfectly round, reddish pink apple, and sank my teeth into it. The juice ran down my chin as flavor burst in my mouth. It was like nothing I’d ever
experienced. I finished the apple in five bites, even gnawing on the core until barely anything was left.
“I can see why this is your favorite place,” I said, wiping a tear of joy from my face. To think of all the people in the Geos who couldn’t even imagine a place like this, with so much food. Our farmers worked tirelessly to grow what little they could in those terrible conditions. In their labs, where they worked on prototype vegetation, most of their seedlings would get sent up here to be planted to feed the Elites. Those ungrateful Elites who couldn’t even be nice to two newcomers. My stomach twisted. How many people in the Geos, or even among the Rejs, had had to live with so little while the Elites got fat on all this abundance?
“You haven’t seen anything yet.” There was an excitement in his voice that I hadn’t heard from him before. He jogged ahead and I followed. We ran through rows and rows of different types of trees. As expected, everything was geometrically laid out in perfectly straight, long lines that went on and on. We turned left at the end of a section of low trees whose flat leaves fanned outwards. Beneath some of them were combs of green, pointy fruit I’d never seen before.
“Bananas,” Kev called out as he continued to run past them. “Can’t eat them till they turn yellow.”
“I look forward to that day,” I said.
Kev stopped suddenly in the middle of a grid of another set of low trees with wide branches. Every branch was heavy with some kind of round, orangey-red fruit.
“Peaches,” Kev announced.
I’d never heard of these, either. How many kinds of fruit were there in the world?
In the Geos, we only had rehydrated and dried apples. Sometimes there was pear sauce, too. So far, in the Greens, I’d only been introduced to synthesized food. But here was the real thing.
I reached out to touch the fuzzy, round fruit. It came off the branch and into my hands. I pressed it up against my nose and inhaled the sweet, sweet smell. Kev laughed and did the same. He then put the peach he held to his mouth and bit into it, gesturing for me to imitate him. The sensation of biting into something mushy and juicy at the same time was completely new to me. I ate through the entire peach within seconds, only leaving the center that Kev told me was called a pit.
“Here, have another,” Kev said, handing me a second peach.
“Won’t we get in trouble?”
“I’ve never seen anyone this far in here,” he said, sliding down against a thick tree trunk and settling on the lush grass. “I’m sure if I’d eaten too many fruits, my new friends would’ve said something by now.”
I sat next to him, leaning against the rough bark of the tree trunk. I ran one hand through the blades of grass underneath me even while my other hand held what was left of the second peach. I was sure no Elite could ever appreciate this moment the way we from the Geos did. To sit under a tree in sunlight, on real grass, eating something naturally grown while not worrying about being eaten alive from the inside by a deadly virus, was the best feeling on the planet. I couldn’t stop giggling…until the image of Viv and my parents eating sludge in the Geos reappeared in my mind. Then, I just couldn’t eat anymore.
“This is the best place,” I said. Kev offered another peach. I clutched it to my chest, promising it to my mother. It would be the first thing she ate up here. I shoved it into my tunic pocket.
We sat in silence for a long time, just looking out beyond this last row of trees into the next section of crops. These sections could only be called fields because they seemed to go on forever, as well. The vegetation here was tall…taller than me. Each stalk stood up like EFs on parade, in perfect lines reaching up to the domed ceiling.
“That’s corn.” Kev pointed ahead. “There’s also wheat, and soy beans. This dome is so big, you can’t even imagine it.”
“I’m trying to,” I sighed. The abundance of it all was making me dizzy.
There was a rustling in the rows of corn. It started about a kilometer out and grew closer with each breath. I sat up, wiping the stickiness off my chin. Kev jumped to his feet, already squinting at the incoming movement. Were we about to get in trouble for stealing fruit?
From between two corn stalks popped two smallish people in silver outfits. Their bleached hair and red eyes glowed in the dying sunlight.
“It’s just two clones,” Kev said, sitting back down.
I looked harder. I knew those clones. Or at least I thought I did.
“Max? Dax?” I tried. It could’ve been other clones, but it didn’t hurt to try.
“You know them?” Kev asked, getting back to his feet.
The clones walked toward us. Maybe we’d eaten too much. I got to my feet, wiping my hands on my tunic.
“Tylia Coder,” the first clone said. His nametag said Max. This was one of the clones I knew.
“Hi, guys. What brings you here?”
“We’ve come to take you to R.L. Farrow,” they both said at exactly the same time. It was weird. They acted as if we’d never met. Maybe this was protocol for them.
Kev stared at them and then at me, trying to make sense of what was going on.
“Why does he want to see me?” I asked.
“We are not privileged to that information.”
I didn’t want to go. I was sure that Ben had probably talked to his father, changing his mind about partnering with me.
“You should go.” Kev nudged me from behind. “He’s not as bad as people think. You’ll see.”
I wished I could tell Kev I’d already met him and that I was supposed to become a Farrow. But this was probably for the best, having it happen this way. R.L. could ‘fire’ me, and then I’d be in the same position as Kev, a minor Elite who had horrid porridge from the synthesizer. Then, Kev would never have to know how I’d almost been engaged to Ben Farrow. My secret would be safe.
Chapter Fifteen
I followed the clones out of the farms, leaving a puzzled Kev to pick more peaches for later. On the way to R.L. Farrow’s office, I tried to engage Max and Dax in conversation, but it was like we’d never met before. For a second, I even wondered if there were more than one Max and Dax. The Elites might have just used a few names to refer to the clones since they weren’t considered actual people. That just made me madder at all of the spoiled Elites.
The clones and I exited the farm sector through the same path Kev and I had entered—past the blue water with the rocks and into the elevator. Instead of pressing a button on the elevator’s panel, the clones opened up what looked like a secret panel. I thought it was secret only because I hadn’t noticed the panel there before. Max tapped something into the keys behind the panel, and the elevator made a whirring sound, followed by a soft clunk.
The elevator began to move, but it was moving sideways.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
Max and Dax just gave me a half smile and said nothing. I looked out the transparent walls of the elevator and watched the farm getting smaller by the second. We were clearly headed somewhere on this same level. The transparent walls turned into opaque ones after about a minute or two of traveling. When its doors reopened, I recognized the décor of the corridor beyond. This area was similar to where Ben and my apartments were. I was beginning to realize that this was the Farrow family sector.
R.L.’s office quarters were at the farthest end from the farms, but also on the top floor of the Greens. It was also the only set of quarters on this floor. The clones escorted me to the very end, where we were greeted by a floor-to-ceiling-sized door. I was sure if all three of us stood on top of each other, we’d still make it through the door without bending our heads. Why anyone would need such an enormous door, I couldn’t begin to understand.
As we entered through the door, we found ourselves in a roomy lobby. The lighting was low and yellow, and the walls were dark, as was the plush carpeting. The air smelled of sweet spices that I couldn’t identify. EFs in special white uniforms with shiny black helmets stood at attention all the way down two sides of the entra
nce way. In the middle of this lobby, a large reception desk stood, with two clones sitting behind it. They were dressed in gold tunics, and their white hair was cut into perfectly identical bobs. They nodded at Max and Dax while barely acknowledging my existence. We walked past them without a word. Max and Dax led me deep into the back of this lobby, where we were met by another door. This one had carvings on the wood panels that were so intriguing, they could’ve kept me occupied for days. If I’d had the chance to study them. As it was, I could only make out that some of the carvings were of animals.
The room on the other side of the door was also filled with carvings of animals. These were panels of wood that were built into the side walls. The back wall, which I now faced, held a giant image of R.L. himself. It was at least three times the size of the man in real life. It was an enlarged version of the same portrait that hung in our Union Hall down in the Geos.
In front of the portrait was a wide, dark wood desk and a high-backed chair facing away from me. On the desk were laid out many statues made of various metals—gold, silver, and something coppery colored. More animals. R.L. must like animals.
“Come in, Tylia,” a voice I recognized as R.L. Farrow’s echoed from behind a large desk.
My feet squished deep into the plush carpet. It looked so soft, I almost wanted to lie down on it just to feel the luxury of it.
Max and Dax retreated from the room, closing the doors behind me. The quiet thud of them shutting me in made me claustrophobic. I was sure no one would be able to hear me scream through those thick doors. I was trapped with R.L. Farrow.
I took the last five steps to reach the desk, admiring the many statues and decorations on its shiny wooden surface. Up close, I saw pointy, pyramid-like things made of differently colored glass. There was a gold clock—the old-fashioned kind with Roman numerals and ornate black hands on its face. In the middle of the desk was a computer screen laid into the wood. As I approached, a three-dimensional image of a goat—the symbol of the Farrow family—popped up into view. It rotated slowly, showing me all sides of the computer-generated image. R.L. had a holographic projection computer. It was my dream machine. Imagine what problems could be solved remotely if we had the ability to study them right at our terminals.