by Chris Ayala
"It doesn't matter which story was true! It was still a life! And you just ended it!" Nelson felt a hard thud from someone's elbow into his back. He fell to his knees.
The captain removed the map, the map Nelson shouldn't have brought, from his back pocket. "See that red X, boys? That's where the People of Bliss are." He glanced at Nelson. "You know what's the difference between everyone under the X and the rest of the world…you care about lives. Was she Jessica or Margie? Or both? No matter what their story is, you didn't know. Maybe that bitch deserved to be thrown off a naval ship to her death, maybe she didn't. Did it matter? This is what made you a mundane leader, you cared about human life. Like one of them peace loving liberal hippies." Shaking his head, the captain said disappointedly, "You are not the President I voted for." Looking to his men, he ordered, "Get him out of my face."
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Babies needed sunshine. At least, that's what a baby magazine at the grocery store line had said. That was many moons ago, when Janice had decided not to be a mother but still found herself leafing through the magazine. It was a different time then; when deciding to be a mother had been a choice, being at a grocery store had been a choice, and even getting some sunshine had been a choice. Every day, a group of people from the silo would travel outdoors for what they called fresh air. Fresh air still poisoned by ash and filth. No one ever said it, but most missed the sunlight. The last news, Janice heard on the radio, was that ideas floated around for how to clean the clouds. Turbines attached to planes, add chemicals to weigh down the filthy particles, seed the clouds more so that it rains. Bu they were just that…ideas. Marcel's new government still took years to make a decision. Not much different than the old government.
Until the sunshine came back, her child would have to get Vitamin D from another source. Madley's concoctions of vitamins and minerals from plants worked. For now, anyways.
They had been outside all afternoon, walking around the scarred forest, before the rain started up again. Nothing more disgusting than smokey colored drops from the air. She brought the baby inside, noticing how much stronger her right arm had become since getting used to holding him there. The People of Bliss supplied her with a baby carriage (with a wobbly leg) and baby sack (which hurt her back); yet, Janice preferred holding Colin. He still weighed less than ten pounds, which mothers here had promised her was an ideal weight for a twelve week old baby.
Inside, she still felt like Colin needed more exploring time. At this age, his eyes darted everywhere as his little mind took in his surroundings. It wouldn't be apt to place him in his boring crib and room again. Besides, Janice liked the idea of exploring together. She wondered what went through his head. If he found a missile silo so amazing, imagine how he would've reacted to the cities before nuclear weapons demolished them. The Saint Louis Arch. The Freedom Tower. Disney World. Colin would've loved them.
So instead of a walk to their bedroom, she decided to go a few floors down. It hadn't occurred to her that much of the silo was still unexplored to her too. The elevator, shaky yet safe, took them down to far underground levels. Hundreds of rooms had been made into bedrooms, but down in the lower levels they had remained mostly unchanged. These larger rooms must've been where state officials met to discus war strategies. Little did they know that World War II had been a pebble in the water compared to events of the last year.
Up until this point, Janice enjoyed being barefoot as everyone else did. But the steel mesh on the walkway made her feet sore. Tempted to leave, her eyes were drawn to a room all the way down the walkway.
It pulsed. Something pulsed behind the door. At first, she thought it was her lack of sleep playing tricks on her mind, but even baby Colin's eyes stared at it. He even stopped nibbling on the pacifier for the first time in awhile.
"What's that?" Janice said in that high-pitched mommy voice she had perfected. "Looks like pretty lights, huh?"
Then again, perhaps it could be something dangerous. The silo had been tested for nuclear fallout and searched for weapons already. It was safe. According to Adam, anyways. The more time she spent with him, the more shattered she realized his mind had become since Doomsday. But who's brain hadn't?
The pulse stopped behind the door followed by an applause. An applause? There were other people down here? Now, Janice couldn't withhold her curiosity. Colin gave an endorsing coo sound. She walked them towards the door and leaned her ear against it, remembering when she used to do this same thing growing up at the Baltimore Adoption Agency. Perspective parents would chat with the headmaster about how boring and nerdy Janice was, not a fit for their active lifestyles.
People chattered for a moment behind the door, but the muffled dialogue made no sense. Quiet came and then, the glowing began. At first, a long pulse lasted nearly a minute then faded down. Another pulse started, lasting even longer. What was going on?
Maybe she could sneak in without anyone noticing. Or even just open the door a peep. Colin agreed, giving a pitch that sounded almost like a cackle. Janice pushed slowly on the door, but it swung open more than she intended.
What she saw had no words.
Sitting on mats in meditation poses with legs locked and hands resting on knees, thirteen men, women, and children faced a leader. The leader was Pierre. He too sat in the dark room with his eyes closed. And every person in this room glowed. Glowed! Janice's mouth dropped. It looked like they sat on significantly high-powered light bulbs. Something inside them shined outwards, showcasing their cardiovascular, nervous, and skeletal systems. Janice had studied these in biology classes but never like this. How was this possible?
The glowing stopped. Janice had been in such shock that she hadn't heard Colin's cries. Since everyone turned to face them, apparently the group had. Instead of being angered or flustered, the people seemed completely calm like waking up from a long nap.
How did they glow like that? Reaction to nuclear waste in the water? No, that would only happen in Adam's silly comic books. Contrast liquids, or dyes, can be used during MRI's to glow, but that was under a computer screen and not visible to a naked eye. She'd heard of tattoo dyes that could be seen under fluorescent lights. But none of this explained this phenomenon.
"Would you like one of us to hold him?" Pierre asked politely.
"Hmm?" Janice said. Then realized Colin was still upset. She didn't blame him. If she wasn't an adult, she would've been crying at the sight of glowing people too.
"Do you want to join us?" Pierre smiled. "I can teach you how to do it."
Memories of previous foster parents surfaced; none as kind as the Celests.
Would you like to try a drink, little girl? What's your name again? Janice? When do I get my check for fostering you? Know how to cut up coke? I can teach you how to do it.
Panicked, Janice turned and hurried out the door, feeling her heart pound as she made it to the elevator.
As in every situation, whether the outcome could be productive or non-productive, Janice figured it was worth researching further. Colin had finally calmed down, falling asleep in her arms. She wished she could fall asleep like that, without the need for pills, herbs, alcohol, or all the above.
In Popular Science magazine, she remembered an article explaining the phenomenon of the body creating light. Every species, big or small, emitted small amounts of bioluminescence as a result of chemical reactions in the body, there was no debate over that. But what she just saw could be considered extreme. Most light emissions were invisible to the naked eye, except of course deep sea creatures that have evolved to utilize this for survival. Lipid and proteins collided with fluorophores to radiate light. But those people, somehow, intensified the reaction. The scientist in her, an MSc graduate in Biology, had to know more and Colin needed his nap.
When she got to the room, the door was completely shut. Odd, considering Adam hated a stuffy room and often left the door ajar or entirely open. She thought of knocking, but it was her room too, and she couldn't help the audacity
he had sometimes. Swinging the door open, she found Adam, as usual, huddled in the corner of the room sitting on a crate with the computer on a dinner stand-up tray ahead of him.
He rapidly switched screens when she interrupted, but she got a long enough glance. Whatever he was working on took some intense programming language, she could make out three columns. Though most of the coding she couldn't decipher, Janice could definitely see a ledger of names. Possibly thousands of names since the scroll bar next to it was minuscule. There's only one list she could imagine to be that long…The People of Bliss. What was he doing with that?
Immediately after the changed screens, he closed a small tin Altoids can that rattled with small chips. Very small chips. In the months they'd lived together, Janice had never seen that canister, but he sure was in a hurry to protect it as he stuffed in his pocket. "Hey, Janice." He hardly ever called her baby, hon, or sweetie. And that bothered her.
Already knowing he wouldn't answer, she asked anyway. "What are you working on?"
"Nothing. Just a computer game," he murmured.
With a snort, Janice went to the baby's crib and laid Colin down softly like a sack of potatoes ready to break through the bag. "You mumble when you lie," she commented.
"No, I don't." He mumbled.
Trying to hurry before the group of glowers left, she hurried through a set of simple instructions. "He needs to be fed soon, my breast milk is in refrigerator." Janice popped open the small refrigerator, a most generous offer from scouts since she had a child to care for. Inside the appliance, she found four bottles of her breast milk. "Only one bottle and…Seriously, Adam? Why do you put cereal in here? Who does that?" She demanded, holding up a box of the morning breakfast. "And you're a grown man eating Lucky Charms?" Not only that, but the leader of an opposition; she didn't bother bringing that up.
"The sugar helps me think," he shrugged.
Feeling a headache emerging in her temples, Janice decided she had enough. "I'm taking a walk. If Colin wakes up, don't ignore him."
She stomped out of the room and purposely left the door open. Sure enough, he called out, "Hey, can you close the door?" But she didn't.
He's up to something secretive.
Losing count now of how many conversations with Adam had left her dumbfounded, Janice decided to investigate this glowing phenomenon further. Free from the confinement of motherhood felt simply odd. Carrying Colin on her hip most of the day, she'd grown accustomed to the weight and now seemed off-balance.
She made her way back down the elevator to the classroom, only to find the area empty and the door left open. Either the people vanished into thin air (which didn't seem so implausible nowadays) or they had left the premises (which seemed plausible). With no idea of where they could've gone, Janice was relieved to run into a familiar face roaming the hallways.
"Matley, hey," she said.
The crazed woman had jellybeans wrapped into her dreadlocks, presumably allowing the children to play with her again today. Matley grabbed Janice's hand and held it, like she was reading a fortune. "What you doing down here, child?"
"I just saw a sort of…class going on here. Like a meditation, of sorts."
"Oh yes, it is phenomenal."
"Where did they go?"
Matley looked to the sky, as though she had x-ray vision and could see through the walls. Holding her wrinkly hand for this long went from polite to eccentric. "I believe they must be doing the ritual, child, for our newcomers."
Slowly releasing her hand, Janice squinted. "Ritual? As in sacrifice?"
"No, my no," she answered, giggling. "They be dunking them in the oasis."
In the several months since Janice arrived here, she couldn't recall ever hearing of something called the oasis. Putting two and two together, she assumed Matley must be referring to the lake, a few hundred yards outside the silo. Peculiar stories had been told about the effects of that water. "Is that how they got the ability to glow?"
Like Janice had been the only student with the correct answer in class, Matley clasped her palms together triumphantly. "Yes! Lloyd and Nina blessed the waters before they departed this world. The Frenchman discovered its true power. We can conjure the glow without the aide of our angelic leaders."
Janice had seen it with her own eyes, so she couldn't be skeptical, Lloyd and Nina's corpses had erupted into specks of lights before drizzling back into the lake. Ever since then, she hesitated to even take a swim. It would be like climbing the tree her mother Victoria had been buried with. Most traditions were silly notions built from generations, but she couldn't help her constant respect for the dead.
Matley's hand gently touched her and they walked toward the elevator. "You must bathe in the light, child. Please. Go see. It will change you."
Once inside the elevator, the botanist fanatic closed the gate and Janice ascended the rickety shaft. It will change you. What was she about to see?
Outside, there were a couple dozen people standing about, not usual since Union Keepers' often flew in choppers over these forests and always kept the People of Bliss hidden inside like gophers. Janice knew a lot of these faces, but never knew how to speak to them. That shy woman inside, often mistaken for being prude, always came out of her in crowds.
After a brief walk through the bland woods of brown cracked tree stumps, Janice noticed a few dozen more people had joined this ritual around the lake. She watched from a distance as a tall and wide man stood at the shore. It must be Bruno, the German Adam spoke highly of, that had to duck through every door of the silo. The conversations were so low and so far, Janice struggled to hear.
"But Bruno no swim," she heard him say.
Pierre grasped onto a cane, looking at the German's mouth instead of his eyes which blind people often did. With that pencil thin mustache and long face, Pierre looked more like a man ready to steal Dudley Do-Right's girl rather than a blind man seeking tranquility. "You will be fine, my friend. It's a little over a meter deep."
Hesitantly, Bruno stripped off his clothes and removed even his underwear. Janice watched uncomfortably while others gazed on; forgetting Europeans disregarded nudity much more than Americans.
Jumping up and down desperately, Janice noticed the burn-scarred Victor that Adam warned her about. He spoke so fast that she couldn't hear or understand him as he begged Pierre for something. Finally, the Frenchman answered. "Yes, you can, but do not use too much kerosene again, my friend." Victor rushed to light up the already darkening afternoon, staring at each tiki torch as if it was a gold brick being presented to the gods.
Absolutely terrified of the temperature of the water, or the water itself, Bruno held onto two men as they entered the lake. Once inside, they stopped and he dunked his head into the crystal clear waters and emerged gasping for air like he'd been under for three minutes and not three seconds. Everyone applauded. Janice had seen baptisms and found them utterly confusing and ridiculous, but found herself joining the applause. After the clapping ending, everyone bowed heads like it was supper time, including Bruno.
Frankly positive she was losing her mind, Janice watched incredulously as everyone at the shore began to glow. The energy of it all made her back away and clutch her chest. Sweat began to slide off her forehead from the striking warmth and bewilderment. Seeing even the skulls and brain tissues, this phenomenon could only be explained as the soul igniting. A soul that no scientist had ever proven. She wished her group of colleagues at the University could see this now and explain, because she had none.
The glowing teetered off and the day returned to the normal dull sun-less sky. Internally giddy, Janice wanted to see it again like that time in college her professor made marbles in his hands with gallium metal. Next to her, another person she knew so little about spoke. "Never seen it before, have you?" Willie asked. Besides the occasional passing by in the hallways, this was the most words she'd heard out of his mouth.
"No. How do they…"
He slid his winter's cap off, obvious
ly feeling the hot flash she'd experienced. "Happy thoughts."
"You mean like…Peter Pan?"
"Yeah," he exhaled, "sorta like that. I did it once, months ago, but can't seem to do it again. They make it look so easy, am I right?"
Teaching classes about evolvability, biological engineering, and evolutionary algorithms, Janice still felt stumped like one of her students. They did make it look so easy. But how? Happy thoughts? She tried to reflect back on her happiest moments. "Right after nuclear strikes everywhere, I pondered my existence. What had saved me that day? Luck or…something else. Me and my husband were brought to a medical tent, where I was the least of their worries with just a simple cracked rib and minor stitches needed. While I waited, I wandered the tent watching all the injured. Men with severed arms, some with partially severed arms still dangling by the tendon, children with debris slicing through their bodies, and…well, you get the idea. In my half-drunken state, I wanted nothing more than another drink so I could convince myself it was all just some hallucination." She paused and could see Willie staring at the ground, as though he experienced such trepidations, but didn't interrupt. "Anyways, I stumbled upon a medicine cabinet and applied bandages myself. In there, I found one of those quick blood-prick pregnancy tests used before population control mandated the removal of them. Just out of boredom or…something else, I decided to open the case. After a swift needle and single drop of blood, the pregnancy read-out only took about twenty seconds to confirm my pregnancy."
"Is that your happiest moment?"
She shook her head, watching as Bruno practiced glowing. Little sputters of light formed inside him, still wet from the water. Pierre spoke to him. "No. I was positively frightened. How could I bring a child into this world? How could I keep it safe? But now, I watch him intuitively. So thrilled I brought him into this world."