by Edge, T. C.
“A bit. I don't know what to expect really.”
Suddenly I feel the hoverbus move. It glides silently through the town square, slipping past people as they set about their duties for the day. I can see, in the distance, the orchards and picking fields where I've spent so much time. By now they'll be taking a break under the trees, dousing themselves in water to stay cool under the intense sun.
We reach the boundary of the town and start cruising down an open road, picking up pace. If I wasn't looking outside I'd hardly know we were moving, it's so smooth. The bus I take to the orchards is the opposite, bumping over rocks and kicking up dirt and dust behind it. In there you feel everything, but on this thing I might as well be sitting on a cloud.
“It's amazing isn't it? This bus. Shame I'm only on it for a bit.”
“Oh, yeah, you're going to Oakmont aren't you? That's good. You'll be close to home and your dad.”
Her grin widens as she nods her head. I know now that she can't have heard about my mother. She'd have mentioned it by now. I'm glad. I don't want to talk about it.
“Yeah, I'll see him sometimes which is good. I'm just happy to be a Teacher. It's what I've always wanted.”
“And you'll be great Amy, you really will. No one's better suited to anything.”
She hugs me again as the bus reaches an intersection, linking onto a massive wide highway that stretches from north to south. I can see other vehicles cruising along it, mainly old solar powered buses and cars like we have in Arbor. There are other vehicles, though. Hoverbikes and cars and massive carriers transporting goods from the various regions.
I stare open eyed out of the window. I've never seen a road like this. In fact, this is about as far as I've ever got from Arbor. Already it feels alien to me, and I'm still in Agricola. I look up the bus and see that every pair of eyes is glued to the window. Every child staring as vehicles they've never seen before storm up and down the road.
“Right everyone,” I hear the driver say. “Make sure you're all strapped into your seats.”
I look over at Amy, who's quickly pulling two belts down from behind her. They criss-cross over her chest and fix tightly into locks either side of her hips. I begin fiddling behind me in an attempt to copy her until she helps me and fixes my belts in place.
Then I look up to see Leeta moving up the bus, checking we're all locked in. She nods at each of us before returning to her seat and putting on her own safety belt.
It's something of an anticlimax when we continue to glide gently out onto the wide road and join the vehicles speeding up and down. Perhaps it's the law to wear these harnesses when on the major highways cutting up, down, and across the nation?
A moment later, my thoughts are quickly interrupted by a loud growling beneath my feet as a rumble runs up through from the base of the bus. It grows for a few seconds before, suddenly, the bus bursts into life, shooting quickly down the road at several times the speed as before. I feel myself pinned back into my seat as I glance out the window and see the world flying by in a blur.
“It's the Fast Track,” Amy says, looking over at me. “My father told me about it. It's intended for the fast vehicles so they're not caught behind the slow ones.”
“I guess we'll be getting to Oakmont quickly then,” I say.
She nods and her perennial smile fades a touch. “I'll miss you, Cyra. I'm sure you'll do amazingly on Eden, whatever you do. If you ever come back to Agricola, drop in and see me, will you?”
“Of course,” I say, without any real belief that I'll be coming back.
After only a few minutes the bus begins to slow once more, before pulling off down a smaller track. “This is it, I think,” says Amy. “My new home.”
Around us I see large areas of woodland and massive pens filled with animals off in the distance. It's more scenic here than in Arbor, yet the land is still flat and expansive, stretching off for miles into the distance but peppered with thickets of trees and shrubbery.
Soon the bus pulls up into a town square and Amy gives me a final hug and words of encouragement, as is her way, before disembarking with several others. Outside, several men and women stand waiting for them. Most likely Leaders for their given duties. I watch as a woman, probably the school Principal, greets Amy with a warm handshake before leading her off away from the bus.
So, there's another person I care about who I'll probably never see again.
The next hours pass without great incident, leaving me with time to dwell on my mother. In a way, this journey into the unknown is the best thing for me right now. If I was just out there today, picking fruit with everyone's consoling eyes constantly lingering on me, I'd feel even worse. I'd get words of support and grief at every break. For days, weeks even, people would treat me differently, tiptoe around me as if a harsh word would break me.
At least out here, no one knows me. There's nothing to remind me of what I've lost. A clean break from my previous life. My journey to adulthood across a vast ocean I've never even seen. Every day will bring something new. A new challenge. A new sight or sound or person entering into my life. Everything will be a distraction from my grief, a mask for me to hide behind. Then, as time goes by, maybe I'll truly heal.
My thoughts churn around in my head as I fall into a troubled sleep. My dreams are once again more vivid than I can ever remember them being. I see a clear sight of towers reaching above the sea, connected by a series of tunnels. I see a huge ship, rising many stories above the tiny waves below, drifting gracefully out into the ocean. I see that familiar platform in the distance, a colossal structure locked to the ocean floor with columns hundreds of feet wide.
I'm awoken by the sound of my name, as if brought to me by the wind. When my eyes open, I see Leeta standing up beside me, lightly shaking my shoulder.
“Cyra, are you OK?”
I blink the haze from my eyes and cough. “I'm fine.”
Once more I see that curious look on her face, the same one she gave me during the genetics test, the same one I saw across the room during the Duty Call.
“Right,” she says. “Bad dreams?”
“I don't remember,” I lie, turning my eyes to look out of the window. By now the landscape has grown more industrial. Large swathes of smoke cough up from huge factories in the distance, painting the sky a heavy shade of grey. The sun has made way for fierce looking clouds, black with rain and ready to spill. I see no trees, no natural beauty of any kind. Just massive buildings as far as the eye can see; people milling like ants around them.
I turn back to Leeta, who's followed my gaze out of the window, her eyes more sunken than I've seen before.
“What is this place?” I ask.
She continues to stare beyond me as she speaks, her voice lacking its usual grating enthusiasm.
“It's the region of Arma,” she says. “It's the industrial region.”
“What do they make here?”
“Everything. Whatever the country needs, they provide.”
I turn back to look out at the view. The buildings here dwarf the sorting and packing warehouses we have in Agricola. I thought they were large, but these are several times as tall and wide. They tower into the dark sky, looming high over the thousands of people moving around outside of them.
Massive vehicles rumble past on concrete roads, trucks filled with materials of various kinds. Other smaller ones zip past them, carrying people between stations. It's a true hive of activity like I've never seen before. Suddenly I feel so grateful to have grown up in Agricola. If it's meant to be, it will be. And these guys got the rough end of the stick.
I turn back to Leeta, who's still staring at the factories as they pass.
“Is it only men who work here?” I ask. They're all I can see, although from this distance I can't be sure.
“No,” she answers. “Men do the rougher jobs, but there are women here too. They'll be inside the factories and doing various other roles around the region. These men need to be paired with someone
.”
Of course. Paired so that their children can also grow up to live in this land filled with smoke fumes and hard, endless, labour. I remember hearing that the average lifespan here is several years shorter than elsewhere. No wonder really.
“I've never liked this place,” says Leeta, somewhat out of the blue. “It's lifeless. Has no colour.”
I find that an odd thing for her to dislike. I've only ever seen her wearing grey. Even her lipstick is grey to match her pallid skin tone and dark black hair.
“You know, Cyra, you have no idea what a privilege it is being sent to Eden. You shouldn't feel guilty for being sent from your home. It's a great honour.”
“Right. Great for me. Great for my children and my children's children,” I say sarcastically.
Leeta's eyes drop to her lap briefly. “Not always.”
“How do you mean?”
“My son. He was sent here. He's out there working, right now.”
“Your son. But, you're from Eden. I didn't think anyone could be send somewhere like this from there?”
“Some people can,” she says, “if they have nothing to offer on Eden. My son...had learning difficulties. This was the best place to utilise his assets.”
Suddenly I feel a heavy pang of pity for this woman, and understand why she hates coming here so much. To cruise by inside a luxurious hoverbus, knowing her son is out there in the heat and smoke and dirt. It must be hard.
“I'm sorry,” I say, with genuine sympathy.
She shakes her head and plants a forced smile back onto her face.
“Don't be, Cyra. We all have our place in the world. This is my son's place. Eden is mine, and will be yours.”
“You believe that?” I ask.
“Of course I do. It's my role to believe it. That's my duty, and I wouldn't be very good at it if I didn't.”
She smiles briefly at me again before changing the subject. Somehow I get the feeling she doesn't completely believe what's she's saying. With a son out here, how could she?
“Anyway, Cyra. We have things to discuss.”
For the next hour or so she begins telling me about Eden protocols. About how people dress and behave, about the structure and its history. About its importance in our nation and the great strife we've suffered.
It was initially built to cater to the growing population when they could no longer be sustained on land, she tells me. The earth grew warmer, and the seas began to grow higher, gradually reducing the landmass of what used to be the USA. With less land for people to live on, and fewer areas where crops and food could be cultivated, the sea cities were built to house people so that the land could be used more efficiently.
Eden became the centre of it all, the centre of the new movement as the structure of the nation changed. Civil wars were fought, cities lost to the fighting, and eventually the nation of Arcadia was born, with Eden as its capital.
A dividing wall was built, cutting Arcadia off from the barren and scorched earth beyond its boundaries where rebels remained a potent force. The place known as the Deadlands. The wall stretched South from what used to be the bottom of Lake Michigan, all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. Beyond lay a wasteland where crops could no longer exist on the barren landscape, and where rebel factions continued to live, attacking the border and seeking to loot and pillage stores of food and weapons.
Then the virus hit. It killed in the millions, especially beyond the Divide where they had no means of devising a cure. On the mainland of Arcadia the population were less affected, although many still lost their lives before a cure was spread throughout the population.
But it didn't work for everyone. For years people who had been given immunity against it kept falling ill and dying as the virus grew more aggressive. More powerful cures were created to combat it, but they weren't handed out as before. Before, it was an epidemic, threatening to destroy the population. Now it was only killing a few people, and they had to pay for the privilege of keeping their lives.
My mother was one of those people. The medication we could afford only kept her going. It was a band aid on a serious wound, a quick fix that was never going to cure her for good. She lost her life, like so many others before her, because she didn't have enough money to pay for the cure. Her life wasn't deemed important enough to save. Just a lowly Picker in Arbor. So much for every person, every duty, being as important as the next.
As Leeta recites the history of Arcadia and Eden, the landscape outside continues to morph into things I've never seen. Gone are the giant factories and smoky skies, the huge vehicles and flat, expansive concrete lands. Instead, I see mountains and hills for the first time. Mounds of earth rising towards the heavens, fog and cloud and mist floating between them in deep valleys. Forests pepper the slopes, dark green trees scattered over the earth as far as the eye can see.
There are settlements and towns too, hidden in small clearings among the trees and down in the valleys. Smoke rises in places, and everywhere are patches of felled trees, only their stumps still stuck in the ground.
“These used to be called the Appalachian Mountains,” says Leeta, noticing I've grown bored of her history lecture. “That was hundreds of years ago, though. Now this region is known as Lignum. It's an ancient word for wood.”
“So what do they do here?”
“They're mainly Choppers and Planters. Trees are important, Cyra, for many things. Over the last few centuries a lot of the woodland here has been cleared to make way for taller forests and trees. It's a constant cycle of chopping them down and letting them grow back.”
“Well, how long does that take? For them to grow? Isn't it years?”
“It used to be years, even decades, to reach maturity. The seeds we plant have been genetically enhanced on Eden to grow more quickly. Now they only take months.”
“So why don't they do that with our crops and fruits and vegetables? Grow them quicker or bigger or something?”
“Ah, you are perceptive. Actually, that's something they're currently working on. There's a lot of things happening on Eden that are very exciting.”
I turn back to the window as we climb over a hill. The sky is beginning to darken now, the sun blotted out by heavy clouds that linger overhead. It's so different here to home. There it's all flat lands filled with fields. Oranges and yellows and reds fill the landscape. Colours that match the searing heat. Maybe it's just being inside this cold bus, but outside it just looks cooler and wetter here. Shades of green and brown paint the land, giving it a more earthy and rustic tone. I can imagine, looking out over the hills, that living here wouldn't be so bad.
The night is steadily advancing when the rain begins and Leeta moves back to her seat at the front. I see her talking with the driver, perhaps working out the logistics of our next stop off point. For the entire day we've been stopping periodically, dropping off people and picking them up. It's a strange sight, seeing someone, completely alone, walk off the bus to start their life in a new town or region. And just at the same time, someone steps on, leaving the town they know, their family and friends, to start a life elsewhere.
By now, no one who was originally on the bus when I got on is still with me. It's changed its entire cargo several times over. All except me. All except the special girl bound for Eden.
The people I knew from school left long ago. Four of them were dropped in a nearby town, not long after Amy said goodbye. A couple of others went a bit further, but that was it. Since then it's been new faces and few smiles. Most climb on, their eyes ripe with fear and nerves, and drop into a seat. I feel sorry for just about every person I see.
When we reach a small town in a misty valley between two hills, Leeta stands and announces that this will be our last stop for today. Two boys step off and are greeted by a tall and muscular man outside. No doubt they're to become Choppers.
A timid looking girl climbs on and sheepishly searches for a spare seat. There are plenty by now, roughly half the bus now sitting empty. She shuff
les towards the back with a small bag over her shoulder and takes the two spare seats across from me.
She looks young, younger than 16. There's a freshness to her face that perhaps I don't have. Spending so much time under the sun will do that to a person. Her skin is unblemished and pale, although not quite to the same extent as Leeta. As she sits down I see a flash of green in her eyes. It matches beautifully with her hazel brown hair. Green and brown. Just like the trees and the earth around here. She must, I suppose, come from a family of Planters. Most likely that will be her duty, perhaps in a nearby town where there's greater need for her.
Just as she's stowing her bag, Leeta climbs back onto the bus and addresses its remaining occupants. She claps briefly, demanding our attention, before smiling and putting on that irritating softly spoken voice that she only seems to offer in public.
“Now everyone. This is our last stop for this evening. The Supervisor here has kindly allowed us to park here for the night. Please, step off the bus so we can prepare it for sleeping.”
We all wearily clamber off the bus, no one quite knowing what Leeta is talking about. “It's going to transform,” I hear someone whisper. “I've seen it before.”
A loud whirring sounds from inside the bus as several legs extend out of the bottom, propping it up in the earth. Moments later, the blazing blue lights beneath it go out. Suddenly, the windows fade to black, and various hisses and clanks and electronic buzzes fill the night air. This goes on for a few moments as each of us share looks of confusion.
“Right, all done,” says Leeta, just as the clicking and clanging stops.
The door opens once more and she steps on, taking a look inside. “Perfect. Right everyone, back on the bus.”
When I step back on it's like I'm in a completely different place. I can't quite believe that I've just spent the entire day inside this thing. The seats are all gone, replaced or morphed into bunk beds. They line up along either side of the bus, which looks so much more like a building now.
“Choose a bed please.”
I move immediately to the back where I was sitting before. Everyone else does the same, returning to roughly the same spot they previously occupied.