I just sit on the surgical bench and fold my arms across my chest. “I’m not going.”
“What do you mean? Why not? That’s crazy!”
“This isn’t just about me,” I tell him. “You, and people like you, people you work with and for, are responsible for ruining the lives of dozens of second children. Not just me. They’ve captured kids. Little children, who are going to be strapped down like I just was and tormented.”
“It’s not like that,” my father insists. “They’re just going to take away their memories of being second children. Then they’ll integrate them back into society. The kids will be given to families. Couples who can’t have children of their own. No one is going to be tortured, I promise.”
“Well, isn’t that a pretty little lie.” I sneer at him. “Do you honestly believe that? You know what they did to me.”
“They gave you a new life,” he says earnestly. “A better life than I could. They gave you a chance.”
“They took away everything I am!” I scream at him. “They took away me!” Does he really not realize the enormity of what they did? “And I’m not going to run away and let them do that to other people. You want to set me free? You want to redeem yourself? Then find a way to help me free Lark and all of the second children!”
“But that’s not possible,” he says, scrunching up his eyes in consternation. Did he really think it would be so easy to win absolution? To feel like a good person again? “There are more than a hundred second children in the cells, and this is a highly secure facility. Every aspect of it is controlled by the EcoPan.” He gives a nervous chuckle. “The only hope you’d have to free everyone is to bring down the EcoPan!”
He says it like it is the most ridiculous notion in the world, but it makes me think. I remember when the Earth heaved, toppling the bean trees and hewing a huge crack in the ground that stretched from the perimeter of Eden toward the center. When the ground shook, suddenly every illusion was shattered. The ovens that artificially heated the man-made desert surrounding Eden failed, and the air went from 150 degrees to a balmy fall day. It had to have been because the EcoPan, the vast computer system that controls all of Eden, went down for a while.
Everything is hooked into the EcoPan: all of the energy and food systems, the water and air filters. The lenses . . .
The Center, the security systems. The earthquake shut that all down for a while. Not for long. And maybe not completely. I remember how the guards who captured me after I found the living forest didn’t seem to see it. Maybe the lenses keep working, or maybe the subtle programming, the manipulation of their brains that keeps people in Eden from seeing the obvious, keeps them from remembering wars and poverty, persists even when the EcoPan is down.
But the structures and systems. The mechanics and real-time programs all failed. Surely the Center security systems would be included.
“If I could shut down the EcoPan for a while, could you get the second children out?”
He stammers and protests. “That’s crazy,” he says.
“But if I could,” I insist. “Could you help them?”
“Alone? I could get some of them out. Maybe. Rowan, what are you thinking about?”
“The earthquake . . . ,” I begin.
“Earthquake?” He scrunches his eyebrows in confusion. Of course, he’s controlled like the rest. He can’t remember the earthquake.
Suddenly, a portion of my hate for him dissolves. I hated Pearl so much toward the end, until I realized that she, too, was a victim of this ghastly city’s manipulation. Every citizen of this place, except for the second children, has been controlled to at least some degree. Influenced, swayed . . . Is anyone their true self?
And if they’re not, how can I truly hate anyone for the choices they made? My father betrayed his family, did horrible things. But were the choices truly his? Was he made to believe certain things, trust that certain “facts” were true? Surely those beliefs, forced on him, influenced his actions. Could he have resisted? I did . . . but not always, and I had help. I had Lark and Lachlan, devoted to returning me to my true self. My father didn’t have anyone to tell him that Eden is a prison and our lives are mostly lies.
And so, to my utter surprise, I forgive him.
I feel a sudden lightness in my chest. A weight off my back. I look down at the Chief, still unconscious on the floor. Maybe she’s a victim, too.
Who is the villain, then?
Aaron Al-Baz? Yes, he was, but not anymore. He did unforgivable things, but he created another entity to carry on his work.
To take it a step further.
The EcoPanopticon.
We’re all victims of the EcoPan.
“Dad,” I say gently, and I see tears well in his flat brown eyes when he hears me use that word. “I think I can bring down EcoPan for a little while. If I do, will you do whatever you can to free the second children?”
I can tell he wants to. He wants my forgiveness. He wants to make up for the bad things he’s done. But he’s not sure.
“You tried to kill me, Dad,” I whisper. “You aimed a focused sound beam at me in the womb to save yourself the trouble of having twins, an illegal second child.”
He’s crying now. I might forgive him, but I still need him.
“Ash might still be alive. He’s really a second child, you know. I was born first. Yes, I know everything. Mom told me. You have to help the second children. They’re the only ones who can save Ash, if he’s alive. And you owe it to us, Dad. You owe it to all of the second children, to make up for the child you tried to destroy.”
“I’ll do it,” he sobs. “I know people here. They owe me favors. And . . . and outer circle people. I swear, I’ll do whatever I can!” He falls to his knees by the surgical table. “Just please forgive me, Rowan. Please. Your mother forgave me.”
I stiffen and jerk my hand away. “No, she didn’t. She hated you for what you did. She just stayed with you for our sake. For me, and for Ash.” His face drains to chalk white. I know he loved Mom so much. “You have to make up for that now, so her spirit can forgive you.” She’d never forgive him, I think, but I have to say whatever it takes to convince him.
“I’ll get them all out safely, I promise!” he says. “You take down the EcoPan, and I swear I’ll do it.”
I nod. “Then get me out of here, and get ready to act. I don’t know how long it will take. But if it can be done, the EcoPan is going down tonight.”
I bend over the Chief’s unconscious body and take my necklace from her pocket. When I slip it back over my head, I feel almost whole again.
MY FATHER’S WORD is good . . . so far. I make it out in my surgical scrubs disguise and a fake ID he gave me, looking like any one of the dozens of staff running around the place on busy errands. Busy taking away people’s lives to create a utopia that’s also a prison. Before I escape, I walk down that long corridor, surreptitiously checking each cell. I can’t linger too long. It would look suspicious. But I confirm that neither Lachlan nor Ash is there. Neither is Flint. I see Iris. And Adder, her snake tattoos the most vibrant thing about her as she sits dead-eyed in a corner.
And there is Lark. I allow myself to slow as I pass her cell. She has a vague smile on her face, but her eyes are just as empty as the others’. If my father does manage to rescue them when I bring down the EcoPan, will they even go? Or will they just mill in the hall like automatons, waiting for direction, for someone to send them a neural signal that tells them what to do, who to be?
I let my fingers trace along the window into Lark’s cell as I pass. A caress she cannot feel. “I’ll get you out of here,” I whisper. “I promise.” She gives me no sign.
I meet no resistance as I leave the Center. My father gave me a very specific path to follow. At every checkpoint, the guards seem to be conveniently elsewhere. Then I’m in the city at dusk, in the vividly g
orgeous inner circles just as the nightlife is about to get under way. In the apartments and houses people are getting ready in their evening finery. Delicious smells are emanating from the best restaurants as they prepare to welcome patrons. Already, bass beats are coming from the clubs.
Life is going on just as it always does here in Eden. I want to scream at them that they are all deluded fools. I see a happy couple walking arm in arm, leaning into each other to share some giggly joke. Don’t you know your brain is not your own? You’re being told what to think! How do you know your love is real, and not a command of the EcoPan, an implant from Chief Ellena?
I pass the Rain Forest Club, where I first met Lark. The sound of tropical birds flits from the door, and I glimpse synthetic trees in gaudy colors never found in nature, electric vines that pulse with unnatural hues. Why are you settling for this artificial world when there’s a real one just a few miles away? Why are you so content with your prison?
But of course I say nothing. I’m on a mission. Screaming at people does no good. Then I’d just be a madwoman. They’ll need proof. I saw the real forest, and I still scarcely believe it. There’s still some kind of programming in my brain that is making me fight reality, to believe what is easiest to believe. But I am stronger than my programming. Maybe other people can be, too.
If they have role models. If I can rescue the second children before they, too, get lens implants or are irreparably damaged.
I pass through the circles, heading outward. It’s too far to walk, so eventually I hop on an autoloop, and get out one station past my destination to throw off anyone who might be following. No one seems to be. I don’t even encounter any securitybots. Even the little cleanbots seem to be keeping out of my way. Once I round a corner and one of the mobile little domes skitters almost under my feet. If machines could do a double take! This one looks mechanically surprised, backs up hurriedly, and then zooms away. Did my father manage that, too? How?
I’m worried there will be guards at the slide entrance, but it is completely clear. I remember being told they were blasting through the cave walls in the confusing labyrinth. I’m willing to bet Pearl’s tracker showed them where she was, but not how to get there. Without a clue how to find the well-hidden entrance, they probably went through the sewer system, getting as close to her beacon as they could through the infrastructure, and then clumsily blasting their way ever closer.
I slide down, into the labyrinth. I’ve been through here a few times, and I think I know the way, but it is so confusing! I think, like Pearl, I might be doomed to wander down here forever until I come upon one of the Greenshirts’ blast holes. They took a direct route. So I just follow their trail of destruction . . . and the scent of smoke . . . and eventually come out at the upper portion of the crystal cavern.
Oh, great Earth! How could they have done it? How could the Greenshirts have torched that grand and beautiful queen of trees?
For the majestic camphor tree is hardly more than a charred stump.
All of the branches have been burned through. A few of the heavier ones cracked and fell as they burned, and lie shattered all around the cavern floor. Most were just incinerated. The trunk is black, and jagged at the top where the crown shattered in the scorching heat.
Slowly, I walk down each level of stairs. Many of them have been damaged in the fighting, and from subsequent small explosions. Three levels from the bottom, the stairs have collapsed, and I have to let myself down level by level, holding on to the edge and dropping down to the next landing.
I’m so disappointed in humanity. Where else can the blame be laid? Even if the EcoPan is at the heart of all this, who created the EcoPan? A human.
Despondent, almost hopeless, I wonder if we deserve to survive. Even in this small pocket that remains. Maybe this is Aaron Al-Baz’s final punishment for mankind’s stupidity. Keeping us locked in a prison, while machines and doctors try to turn us into something worthwhile. Never realizing that even goodness is wrong when it is forced on someone.
I try not to look at the tree. It is too horrible.
I try not to think that I’ll be joining it soon.
I go to the place that Rainbow showed me. The boom room.
I’m lucky. The entrance is almost covered by rubble, shattered chunks of the cave wall, stalactites, and equipment. A jagged rock the size of a boulder leans tipsily against the entrance, making the passage so narrow I can barely squeeze through. The rock shudders when I brush it, and I hold my breath. If I’m not careful, I’ll be trapped inside, or worse, crushed before I can activate the self-destruct sequence.
I don’t understand the mechanics of the explosive system. Luckily, I don’t have to. What is mysterious about a big red button?
Well, the timing for one thing. When I press it, is the explosion instant? No, there must be a time delay. The second children must have planned to use this as a last resort, if they were discovered and had to cover all trace of their existence. It would have been a last-ditch move of absolute desperation. They wouldn’t have destroyed their home, their tree, except as a final resort.
But now the tree is gone. The second children are gone. If my guess is right, triggering this massive underground explosion under the very heart of Eden will simulate an earthquake closely enough that it will shut down the EcoPan for a while. The second children will have a chance to escape. Maybe, if it stays down long enough, a few people will have a chance to see through the illusions of their prison walls. Maybe it will be a start. Maybe it will be enough.
With the tree already dead, there’s really nothing to lose.
Except, of course, my life.
I don’t let myself even think about it. It’s not a noble sacrifice—it’s a necessity. I have to save them. I slam my fist on the red button, squeezing my eyes shut just in case the explosion is instantaneous. What funny animals we are! I’ll be obliterated in an instant, turned into particles, and I still think closing my eyes against the inevitable will somehow preserve me.
But there is no obliteration. Instead, a countdown appears on the display below the button. Fifteen minutes.
Plenty of time for a fast volunteer to dash back up the stairs, through the labyrinth, out the alternate exit to the surface. He’d still be close enough to be shaken by the massive blast. Knocked down, maybe concussed. The sound of the blast might deafen him. Buildings would topple, maybe on top of him. The ground might split, swallowing him up. But he’d have a chance to get to safety. He’d have hope.
But as I look at the crumbled stairs I realize there’s no way I can get back up to the top in time. Oh, I can climb the walls, probably. I can see a few handholds and footholds already. But not enough. The walls are mostly smooth. I’d have to make a few forays before I found a workable route. Even then, I might need equipment. It might not even be possible. It certainly couldn’t be done in fifteen minutes.
I run to the place Rainbow was starting to show me when we were captured—the exit at ground level. But there is nothing but rubble there. Another blast crumbled the cavern wall, and there’s no getting around or through the hunks of rock that block that passageway. Even if I could, that route is sure to be as labyrinthine as the overhead one, twisting through an impossibly serpentine course. I’d never find my way out before the blast. I’d be obliterated.
I go back to the boom room. There’s a cancellation switch, of course. There would have to be, in case of mistakes. The timer ticks down. A bit more than nine minutes remain.
I can terminate the self-destruct sequence, and look for a route out. But it might take me a day to find one through the confusing passages. Or I might get lost and never find my way back to reactivate the self-destruct. I might take a few hours to figure out a way to climb the almost sheer walls of the cavern until I reach the remaining stairs. But what will happen in those few hours? Someone could discover that the Chief is missing, find her unconscious body. My fat
her’s plan could be compromised.
They might start cutting into the innocent, beautiful brains of Rainbow and Lark and the others . . .
Every moment I wait is another moment something terrible, irreversible, can happen.
My hand hovers over the self-destruct cancellation switch. Then I let it fall to my side. Carefully, I slither out through the crack and once on the other side I lean my weight against the big piece of rock. It tilts, then crashes against the wall, almost covering the doorway entirely. Even a child couldn’t fit through the space that remains. The explosion can no longer be stopped.
I walk back to the charred remains of the tree, and make a nook for myself among the blackened roots. Soot covers everything. I touch the trunk with my palm, and my hand comes away covered in the gritty black powder. I clap my hands together, and the soot explodes in a little poof.
I smile, and then chuckle at the fact that I’m smiling. Yes, we humans are strange creatures.
I’m about to die, and I feel happier than I have in a very long time.
No, “happy” isn’t the right word, of course. I don’t want to die. Part of me is frightened, of the pain, about what happens after death. Part of me is sad to be leaving this world, and with it any possibility of friendship or love or any of the good things that seem to remain despite the most grueling hardships.
But I feel at peace.
I’m making this choice. I’m controlling my life. This decision is all mine, not the result of an outside jolt to my brain or an implanted thought. This is me, Rowan, choosing to die so that my friends might have a chance to live a normal life. It might not work, but it’s the best I can do. I’m giving all I have to give.
I lay my hands on the burned roots, and I feel something unexpectedly soft and pliant. I look down, and to my amazement there, sprouting from the charred remains of the tree, is a tiny shoot. Just a little arrow of tender green, the incipient leaves still folded over themselves.
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