Fires of Invention

by J. Scott Savage

  There had to be some mistake.

  “Move along,” the chancellor said. “You’re holding up the line.”

  As Trenton stumbled down the steps, he looked toward the door. Kallista was gone.

  12

  I’m not going,” Trenton said when his father came to his room to check on him. In the past week, he’d done everything he could to get moved into mechanic training. All he’d been able to accomplish was to put in an official request for transfer. Why wasn’t it obvious to everyone else that he’d been placed at the wrong school?

  His father stood in the doorway of Trenton’s room, face grim. “Do you think that not showing up for your first day of training will increase the chances of your transfer getting approved?”

  Trenton grimaced. “I’m not a farmer. I don’t know anything about plants or cattle or—or fish.”

  “You’re a smart boy,” his father said. “You can learn whatever you set your mind to.”

  “But I don’t want to set my mind to food production. I’m a mechanic. It’s all I’ve ever dreamed of.” Why couldn’t anyone understand that?

  “We don’t always get to do what we want,” his father said. “What if everyone wanted to be a medic or work in a shop? What would happen if everyone in the city decided to be chancellor?”

  Trenton sighed. His father didn’t understand. He didn’t want to be a medic, or a shopkeeper, or even chancellor. All he wanted to do was fix and build things. He wasn’t going to win the argument, though, and if he didn’t leave now, he’d miss the elevator. “Do you think there’s a chance my transfer will be approved?”

  His father shrugged. “I honestly don’t know.”

  In the living room, Trenton’s mother looked up from her wheeled chair and took in his overalls and short, gray apron. “You look so handsome,” she said with a smile.

  “I look stupid,” Trenton muttered.

  She ignored his obvious unhappiness. “Bring back some fresh onions.”

  Trenton knew nothing about food production, but even he knew he wouldn’t be allowed to bring city resources home from his job.

  His father walked him to the door. “My father gave me some advice on my first day of job training that I’m going to share with you now: It doesn’t matter whether you sweep streets or become the chancellor himself. Do your job to the best of your ability and take pride in your work.”

  Trenton reluctantly nodded. “When you were assigned, did you want to be a miner?”

  “We’ll talk about that some other time. Right now you have to get to work.” He noticed Trenton’s tool belt beneath his apron. “You don’t need that.”

  “Wherever I go, my tools go.”

  He expected an argument, but his father simply nodded. “Go on, or you’ll be late.”

  Trenton ran all the way to the South East elevator. By the time he got there, he was out of breath, and all of the other trainees were waiting. The security officer outside the gate checked his identification and waved him inside. The officer closed the gate, pulled a lever, and the elevator car began rattling upward.

  “I wondered if you were going to come,” Simoni said, squeezing past a couple of other trainees inside the car.

  “I didn’t want to,” Trenton said.

  She smiled and punched him softly on the shoulder. “It won’t be so bad.”

  He tried to convince himself of that, but all he could think about was the fact that somewhere else in the city, boys and girls were gathering to begin their training as mechanics. As the metal cage clanked to a halt at the first level, he remembered the last time he’d been on an elevator and how Mr. Sheets, head of maintenance, had said something about other levels. But when Trenton looked through the top of the elevator cage, all he saw above him was solid rock.

  The door slid open, and all the students stepped out into more open space than Trenton had ever seen, everything illuminated by banks of lights so bright they made him squint. Even in the middle of the day, the city wasn’t half this bright.

  Thousands of racks were filled with shelf after shelf of plants. In the distance, he could make out rows of trees and what looked like a barn.

  “Doesn’t it smell wonderful?” Simoni said, taking a deep breath.

  Trenton winkled his nose. “It smells like dirt.”

  “That is the one thing it doesn’t smell like,” said an extremely tall man with brown, wrinkled skin. “You may find soil in the city parks, but you won’t find it here.” He held out a hand. “Sid Blanchard.”

  Trenton didn’t have any choice but to shake his hand. “I’m Trenton Coleman.”

  The tall man gave him a knowing grin. “The boy who doesn’t want to be here.”

  Trenton scowled, his face growing hot.

  Mr. Blanchard looked over the group of kids gathered in front of him. “I’m sure a few of you wanted to go into something more interesting than food production—something more exciting. Maybe you’ve heard that here at the farms you have to work hard. Maybe you’ve heard you get messy. Maybe you’ve heard you’ll get blisters.” He displayed his heavily calloused palms and fingers for all to see. “If so, you heard right.”

  Moans and groans came from the students.

  Mr. Blanchard nodded as though he’d heard it before. “What you might not have heard is that you’ll never find a more fulfilling job. You will watch seeds grow into plants because of your care. You’ll experience the wonders of life and death every day.” He stomped a boot on the ground. “Every person living in the city below is alive because of what we do. Not to mention,” he added with a wink, “that nobody eats better than the people who grow the food.”

  Trenton tried to feel some enthusiasm. The man clearly cared about his job, and he seemed likeable enough. But the thought of a lifetime spent without working on machines made him sick.

  Simoni raised her hand. “If there isn’t any soil here, how do you grow plants?”

  “Excellent question,” Mr. Blanchard said. “Come with me, and I’ll show you.” He reached into his apron and took out a pair of worn gloves. “The first rule of food production: when you step off the elevator, you put on your gloves. We come here to work.”

  Although he still didn’t want to be there, Trenton found himself intrigued by how the farms operated. Mr. Blanchard was serious about there not being any dirt. All of the plants, from alfalfa to fruit trees, grew in solutions of nutrient-rich water. Some of the grasses grew on mats, other plants sprouted in gravel, and some were suspended in nothing but liquid.

  Mr. Blanchard led them through an orchard of apple, pear, and cherry trees. “Unfortunately, our founders weren’t able to keep bees. They don’t do well underground. And because many of the things we grow here require pollination that bees do naturally, part of your job will be transferring pollen from the stamens of one blossom to the stigmas of other blossoms. Think of yourselves as the city’s worker bees.”

  Simoni laughed delightedly. “Isn’t this beautiful?”

  “Huh?” Trenton looked at her. “Oh, sure.” He’d been studying the iron water pipes that ran across the entire building. Pipes meant pumps, filters, and regulators. Maybe he could find a way to work on machines after all.

  They left the orchard and moved to rows of round metal tanks that were four or five feet high and twenty to thirty feet across.

  “These are where we raise fish and shrimp,” Mr. Blanchard said. “Have a look.”

  Everyone leaned over the tops to gaze at the fish swimming in the pools. “The drain in the center automatically filters out the waste, which we then use to fertilize many of our plants. In turn, the plants remove the nitrogen from the water, so we can send it back to the fish.”

  “What’s that disgusting green stuff in the square tanks?” a girl asked.

  “That is plankton,” Mr. Blanchard said. “We feed it to the fish, and it’s also used in some of the processed food products. The rectangular tanks at the end are called raceways. They give us more useable space and fa
ster water flow for the fish that need it.”

  Trenton looked at the big metal boxes on the side of each pool, then raised his hand. “Who keeps the equipment running?”

  Mr. Blanchard smiled. “Still hoping to be a mechanic, I see. The machinery is serviced by city maintenance crews. But don’t you worry. In no time at all, you’ll come to realize that our farms are the most complex and efficient machines of all.”

  Trenton sighed. He had to find a way to get out of here. He had to.

  After a lunch of fresh vegetables, cheese, and fruit—even Trenton had to admit the food was pretty delicious—they toured the side of the level where cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, birds, and other animals were raised.

  At the end of the day, Mr. Blanchard gathered the students in the headquarters building to talk about what they would be learning in the coming weeks and what they’d be expected to study at night. It turned out that even working on the farm they would have homework.

  Using a large wall map showing orchards, tanks, and pens, he assigned each student to specific farming areas and gave them the names of the teachers they’d be working with.

  As each student was told where to report, he released them for the day, but he held Trenton for last. When the other kids were out of hearing distance, he said, “I notice you brought your tools.”

  Trenton tensed, his hand going to his belt. “I take them with me everywhere.”

  “That’s fine. I’m sure there are times when they could come in handy here, too, fixing a loose shovel blade or a fish net handle. But I must remind you that you are not a mechanic here. The machinery is off-limits.”

  “I’m trying to get transferred out,” Trenton said.

  The teacher nodded. “I know that, too. And if you do, that’s fine. But as long as you work for me, you obey my rules. Maintenance crews handle the heavy equipment, and we take care of the plants and animals. Everyone does their job. It works best that way. We’re all—”

  “Gears and cogs,” Trenton said, glaring at the map on the wall. How could he bear to spend the rest of his life feeding tilapia or pollinating cherry trees? He might be a gear. But he had no doubt that he’d been put into the wrong machine.

  Mr. Blanchard tapped a finger on the map by a row of fish tanks. “You’ll be working here tomorrow, on the plankton tanks, fish pools, and raceway.”

  “Fine.” Trenton started to turn away, then looked back at his assigned area. Two plankton tanks, two fish pools, two more plankton tanks, and a raceway.

  Two squares, two circles, two squares, and a rectangle.

  It was the pattern on Kallista’s device.

  13

  When Trenton came back from work, his mother was waiting for him. “You look more like a farmer already,” she said, touching a green alfalfa stain on his apron.

  He poured himself a glass of water and sat at the table, where she peeled potatoes.

  “You know that I’ve requested a transfer to mechanic training,” he said.

  She pressed her lips together and peeled harder.

  “It’s not that I don’t like farming. It’s actually pretty impressive up there. You should have seen the orchards. There must have been two hundred apple trees alone.”

  Her lips relaxed a little, and her peeling slowed, so he quickly went on. “They have shelves and shelves of broccoli, tomatoes, and peas. And the fish tanks. There must have been five hundred catfish wriggling their whiskers.” He jiggled his fingers in front of his face, which made his mother laugh. He almost never saw her this happy.

  “Plants and animals are a good place for a boy,” she said. “Sometimes I wonder if this mountain is turning us all into . . . something not quite human.” Setting aside the peeler, she leaned forward. “Down in the mines, I started to feel like I was becoming a bug or a . . . a machine. Humans weren’t built to spend their lives in the dark. We need fresh air, open space.”

  She put the potatoes into a pot of water and placed her damp hands over Trenton’s. “I know you think that technology is exciting. Young boys love powerful, noisy things. But machines are what forced us to burrow here in the first place. I won’t have you digging like a bug or spending all your time with cold metal.”

  “Machines are what make it so we can live here at all,” Trenton said. “You talk about fresh air. Where do you think we get that from? Exchangers suck it in from outside, filters clean it, and pumps send the used air back out.”

  “Don’t talk to your mother that way,” she said, pulling her hands back. “It’s because of machines that I can barely walk.”

  “No,” he said, wishing he could make her understand. “You were injured because the machines weren’t good enough. Because they weren’t maintained. If I’d been in charge of the mining equipment, the accident never would have happened.” He tried to take her hands, but she yanked them back. Why was she being so stubborn about this? “Don’t you see that I have a talent? I can look at things and see how they work. I may not be the smartest or the fastest, but I know I can make the machines in this city safer. I can protect people like you.”

  She turned away, her face set.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  She shook her head. “Go to your room.”

  • • •

  Trenton fell asleep without eating and spent the night dreaming that he was being chased through the city streets by giant mechanical bugs. One by one, the lights went out, and the air exchangers shut down. Soon he couldn’t see anything and was gasping for breath. The only sound was the steady clink-clank of the bugs closing in on him.

  He woke up the next morning tired and cranky. He ate a quick breakfast—refusing to talk to either of his parents—and left as fast as he could. He was the first one into the elevator and had to wait for the other kids.

  Simoni stopped halfway into the cage when she saw him. “Shooting for teacher’s pet now?”

  Trenton curled his lip. “Not likely.” He looked up through the grate to the fifty feet of solid rock and light shining above them. “Do you think it’s wrong that I want to work on machines?”

  Simoni fiddled with her gloves. “I remember looking at your swing—at the gears and pulleys—and thinking I could never put something like that together in a hundred years.”

  “I wasn’t trying to create something new,” Trenton said.

  “I know. And I wouldn’t want you to do it again. But I realized then that your mind works differently from the way mine does. I look at a lamp, and I’m grateful for the light. But you look at it, and you know what makes it work, where the power comes from, and how to fix it if it breaks.”

  Trenton nodded. “Machines are easier to understand than people most of the time.”

  Simoni brushed her hair over one shoulder. “You’re saying you’d rather spend your time with a machine than with me? Is that why you left the graduation party early? So you could secretly hang out with a power plant?”

  “I—no. I mean—” Trenton stammered, and she laughed.

  “Angus is jealous that we work together.”

  Trenton straightened his shoulders. “He is?” He didn’t think Angus had ever been jealous of anything about him.

  Simoni giggled. “You should have seen his face when I told him that you fed me melon at lunch yesterday.”

  Trenton put a hand to his chest. “But I didn’t.”

  Simoni grinned. “Maybe you will today.”

  • • •

  Trenton’s job that morning was cleaning dead tilapia out of the pools and netting the fully grown fish to be cleaned and processed. He worked with another trainee named Clyde, who had all the grace of the dead fish they were pulling from the tank and the intelligence of a shrimp. Half the time, he missed the fish he was reaching for, and when he did capture one, he ended up dripping water on himself and Trenton. Soon both of them were soaked and smelled like fish. Trenton didn’t think Simoni would want him feeding her anything today.

  Their teac
her, Mr. Lu, seemed nice enough, though. “You’re lucky to start your training here,” he told the boys. “These fish tanks are special.”

  Trenton didn’t see anything special about a tank full of smelly fish.

  “It looks old,” Clyde said.

  Mr. Lu grinned and tapped his nose. “Right on the nose.” He pointed to the numbers 02 stamped on the side of the tank. “This is where our city’s founders first began raising food for our people. The number two tells you that this fish tank was manufactured the second year after the city was built. The next tank down is numbered 01.”

  Trenton had to admit to being impressed. It was kind of cool to think that he was standing where the city founders had been a hundred and fifty years earlier. He studied the series of pipes and pumps sending water jetting into the pool. “Is this the same equipment they used too?”

  “Some of it,” Mr. Lu said. “Some has been changed out over time.” He pointed to several pipes inside the tank. “See how the input pipes shoot water along the edge of the pool in one direction? That’s to keep the water circling in the pool. The current carries food to the fish while also sweeping the debris to the center of the pool.”

  Trenton could see how it worked. Instead of the bottom of the tank getting covered with muck, it was all carried to a drain in the center. “It looks like the flow can be reversed.”

  “Good eye. By changing the direction of the flow now and then, you make it so the lead fish aren’t always getting to the food first.”

  As he worked, Trenton studied the second of the two pools. If he was right about the markings from the tube, then this was the spot Kallista’s father had indicated in the code. Working his way from one side of the pool to the other, he looked for any shapes or writing her father might have left. There was nothing that he could see.

  He stared through the water. It was difficult to tell if there was anything written on the inside of the tank, and he wasn’t about to go for a swim with the tilapia to find out.