Tesseracts Seventeen

by Colleen Anderson

  M.E.L. felt lucky to have V.N.F. for company in her free hours. They liked to do the same things, and neither of them signed up for sports or arts. Sometimes they swam in the big artificial lake, but their favorite place to go was the slide slope. The smooth polymer surface of P.P.A. had been slightly mounded at designated recreation locations, and fifteen steps took one to the highest point. There, one could run for five meters before meeting the slope, which had been treated with a tractionless coating. What joy, thought M.E.L. to play at the edge of control!

  Control was the highest value in P.P. culture. That’s why the peaks and valleys of the underworld had been covered and filled in with perfect plastic and why, beneath the carefully designed and uncluttered surface, were hidden the vast air and water filtration systems, the essential supplies construction zones, and the nutrient manufacturing plants. That’s also why egg donors and sperm donors were paired scientifically ensuring the viability and variability of the gene pool. That’s why clothing and foot coverings were standardized and could be traded for new sizes to account for growth in young people and weight redistribution in adults.

  Clothing and foot coverings were only removed in the evening for sanitation procedures after which one walked directly to one’s sleeping berth. M.E.L. had never heard anyone comment on the sensation of that short barefooted walk. But every night, she lay awake listening to the breathing of other M children shift into sleep mode while she savored the tingling aliveness of the soles of her feet.

  One day, when M.E.L. and V.N.F. played on the slide slope, M.E.L. took off her foot coverings and said, “V.N.F., watch this!” She ran the few steps and launched herself onto the tractionless surface. Her arms flailed and she fought for balance as she sped down the mound and glided twice as far as she ever had before. She expected V.N.F. to cheer, but her friend stared at her with horror.

  “M.E.L., get up here,” she hissed. “Do you want people to call you Mixed-up Eccentric Loony?” She turned her back until she heard M.E.L.’s foot coverings snap back around her ankles. V.N.F. faced her with a twisted scowl. “What on P.P.A. made you do that?”

  M.E.L. looked down at her feet. “I don’t know. I didn’t think.” She shrugged. “It was more like my feet made me.” V.N.F. was already walking down the steps when M.E.L. added in a whisper, “It was fun.”

  The incident wasn’t mentioned again, but M.E.L. realized that her friend didn’t address her with friendly call letter creations anymore. She noticed that V.N.F. cast suspicious glances her way as they walked and played. M.E.L. was surprised at the lack of hurt she felt. In fact, some days, she could hardly wait to get away from her friend a few minutes early. When she was out of sight of V.N.F. and others, she scurried off the trail that led to M house, took off her foot coverings and ran among the silk and silicone trees. At first, she was scared she might be spotted. She could just hear the teasing— Mutinous Evil Lay-about and Monstrous Egotistical Loser. But she soon realized that nobody else ever left the designated pathways. This somehow made her so happy she wished H was one of her call letters.

  She found the non-linear off-areas very calming. Shadows crossed and criss-crossed at odd angles. Fallen imperfect foliage bits littered the ground. M.E.L. loved to step on them, discovering the sensation of not-perfect through her feet.

  She cut her time after school with V.N.F. shorter and shorter saying she hadn’t slept well and needed a rest period or that, because her stomach had been upset at nutrition intake time, she was now hungry. V.N.F. said, “Oh, E is for Excuses, I see,” and stamped off.

  M.E.L. walked farther and farther from designated trails on her bare feet but kept an eye on her wrist computer for compass bearings and the time. One could not be late for afternoon arrival at First Letter Houses. All children had nightmares about forces beyond their control that prevented a timely return. It wasn’t potential consequences that made those dreams so frightening. It was the possibility of beyond-controlness, an evil so dark it was never discussed, just as witches and other underworld imperfections were made unreal and impossible by being ignored.

  So M.E.L. triangulated her position and figured her return times with precision. She made sure to put on her foot coverings and step back onto the main trail out of sight of M House. It would arouse suspicion if she appeared from a non-usual direction.

  But one day, she didn’t look at her wrist calculator, didn’t do her time and distance calculations. She’d seen a shimmering in the silk trees ahead and had run toward it as toward a long-awaited gift. She stood at the edge of a grove where leaves fluttered gold in the late afternoon light. M.E.L.’s learning materials had referred to air movement as wind, but that just seemed like another meaningless W word since it only occurred around ventilators from under-surface heating and cooling systems.

  There were no ventilation units in sight, so she stepped hesitantly among the trees. “Huh?” she exclaimed. Then she laughed, wiggled her toes and dropped to place her hands on the polymer surface. It was warm, and from this angle she could see waves of air rising slowly, prodding the undersides of leaves, telling secrets.

  M.E.L. crawled to the middle of the grove and stretched out on her back. She had never felt such perfect warmth, not even in her sleeping berth at night. Never had she had a dream as lovely as the dance of light and matter above her.

  Later she woke in the dark and realized, within seconds, that she was so far outside the boundaries of the Perfection Proscriptions that she had no idea how to return to the life she’d lived for the thirteen years since her creation. There were no rules or guidelines about atoning for such mistakes, because mistakes of this magnitude were not conceivable.

  M.E.L. scrambled up from the warm surface, checked her bearings and raced out of the grove. She stopped to put on her foot coverings as though that would lessen her crime. Then she set a course directly for M House knowing that her approach would not be seen.

  No one went out at night. She now saw the moon for the first time without having to press her hands to the sides of her face and then against the glass to block interior reflections. The light was cooler than she thought it would be. Moon shadows appeared sharper, bluer, denser than day shadows. She sniffed the night air — different than day air — more tickly. Her senses wanted more of this.

  Then suddenly, she stood before M House. The dormitory windows were dark. A single light came from the Mothers’ Lounge on the first floor, and M.E.L. peered in.

  The only mother there was M.L.P., the one M.E.L. had chosen because she smiled often and her eyes moved more than those of other mothers. Sometimes, she even touched.

  The mother reached to shut down her entertainment unit and rose to leave the lounge. M.E.L. held her breath and tapped on the window. M.L.P. looked around confused. M.E.L. tapped again and put her face close to the glass.

  The mother’s face looked frightened, and she pressed a hand to her chest. M.E.L. could read her lips. “What on P.P.A.? What on P.P.A.?” They stared at each other for minutes before the mother moved.

  Finally she approached the window, deactivated the emergency sensors and pressed the opening device. She seemed unsure of her actions, nervous in case an alarm should sound. But the quiet remained unbroken, and the mother held out a trembling hand which M.E.L. grabbed and spontaneously kissed. She pulled herself up and through the narrow opening. M.L.P. reversed the activation procedures and without looking at M.E.L., squeamishly rubbed the back of her hand against her uniform and said, “I will escort you to the sick room.”

  She pointed M.E.L. to a pure white sleeping berth. The girl perched there and held herself as though she might otherwise explode. She watched as the mother logged in “M.E.L. 5:00 pm. Mild sedative to dispel upset and confusion. No further treatment deemed necessary at…” and she checked her wrist computer, “11:45 pm.” She handed M.E.L. a yellow tablet to suck on, pointed to the log-in notes, said, “That’s what happene
d,” then left the room. M.E.L. lay back stiffly, worked the tablet with her tongue, and by the time it had dissolved, she was asleep.

  Because the yellow pills resulted in ten hours of uninterrupted sleep, M.E.L. woke the next morning already over an hour late for school. M.L.P. entered the sick room and said, “You will go to school, and there will be consequences.” She did not smile or touch. Her eyes were hard.

  M.E.L. trudged the trail and took the speed tube alone. Her pulse thumped in her ears. It was nutrition intake time when she crossed the building’s threshold, and she saw V.N.F. with a group of chattering girls, leaning in avidly. She walked the aisle to the nutrition portion storage unit and heard whispers of “Mysteriously Eerily Late” and “Muddy Eely Lazybones.” She pulled out a nutrition package and held it in view of her classmates, but as she turned, her other hand slipped a second package into her pocket.

  From that time on, the whispers never ceased. M.E.L. figured that V.N.F. had told everyone about her early departures from the recreation area. Other M children could accurately report that she was not seen along the designated trail, or at M House, until minutes before arrival time. V.N.F.’s teasing was the worst. She created a new kind of taunt, and the others screeched with laughter when she shouted, “Mel-ignant, Mel-evolent, Mel-odorous!”

  M.E.L. started removing her clothing and toiletries from the personal storage locker at the foot of her sleeping berth and hiding them in her pillowcase or under corners of her mattress. At every opportunity, she tucked supplementary nutrition packages into her pockets and, at the end of each day, placed them layer upon layer into the trunk. During kitchen duty between arrival time and the evening meal, she stole sharp or abrasive objects, although children were not permitted to touch such implements. She slid them along the front edge of her locker box. Each night, as she trod the short and straight pathway from the sanitation station to her sleeping berth, she imagined those few sweet barefoot steps taking her closer and closer to the warm grove.

  The day came when her storage trunk was full. She woke early and rubbed her face, ears and collarbone until they were red and hot. When morning chimes sounded, instead of rising with the others, she curled into a tense ball. The mother on duty found her thus, helped her into her clothes, escorted her to the sick room and said she’d be back once the others had departed for school. M.E.L. rubbed her head and neck even harder, pressed her fist into her stomach to remind herself to stay slouched.

  When the mother returned, she logged in, noted her observations and listed treatments— a poultice for irritated skin and feverishness and a yellow sedative tablet for general upset and stomach ache. “In ten hours’ time, you should be fine,” the mother said, placing the poultice on M.E.L.’s forehead and the tablet on her tongue.

  As soon as the mother turned her back, M.E.L. flicked the yellow pill from her mouth. When the door had closed, the girl jumped up, laid two pillows lengthwise under the white blanket and placed the poultice at the top end of the mound. She slid open the supplies cupboard and grabbed the largest bag of hydration capsules. Then, hardly breathing, she released the door mechanism and listened until all sounds of staff heading to their quarters, to task centers, or to the lounge had ceased.

  M.E.L. crept silently through deserted corridors. Back in the dormitory, she activated the air casters on her storage trunk and guided it to the main entryway, guaranteed to be empty at this time of day.

  As she exited the building, she whispered, “M.E.L. logging out,” and she didn’t look back. M.E.L. now understood there would be no action taken. There were no guidelines for counteracting such imperfection unless… and it occurred to M.E.L. that this might be the purpose of the new D planet.

  She strode into the silk and silicone forest that surrounded M House. When she reached the warm grove of chattering trees, she spoke firmly. “I am M.E.L. which stands for My Experimental Life.” The leaves applauded and she bowed.

  She deactivated the air casters on her trunk and took out the tools she had stolen from the kitchen. She chose a spot within a cluster of five trees as her digging site. The sharpest knife was needed to cut through the impermeable, opposite of wormy, surface layer, but once M.E.L. had peeled aside a sleeping berth-sized rectangle of the planet’s plastic hide, the material below was more spongy and scoopable.

  She worked through the day until her arms shook with fatigue and she had enough room for her storage box and herself under-surface. She ate, swallowed a hydration capsule and lay on her back in her warm nest, looking up at the sky. She made up names for the stars, like Simple Shining Spark and Only Orange Orb until she fell asleep.

  In the coming days, M.E.L. continued to cut away at the flesh of P.P.A., creating a diagonally descending tunnel. She removed each day’s scraps and chunks to the cavities where she had tucked her trunk, or her tired self, the night before. At one point, she realized the warmth she associated with the grove was becoming an intense heat, emanating from somewhere to her right. She could see a red glow through the polymer. “The underworld has fire,” she said to herself in awe. So she angled her tunnel to the left and dug deeper.

  Her hands and arms grew muscled, and she could tell she was making greater progress as time went on. Progress toward what she could not say. Sometimes she imagined herself emerging through the surface on the opposite side of P.P.A. More often, she assumed she would come to the underworld. But although she knew underworld words like dirt and garbage can and bug, she didn’t know what those things might look like, didn’t know if she should be afraid.

  Then one day, the filtered light and the blue-silver hue of her tunnelled surroundings changed. She saw darker color below and a scritchy-scratchy texture unlike anything perfectly manufactured. She had to get the sharp knife back out of her trunk to cut through another impermeable layer. And there it was. “Dirt,” she said without knowing how she knew.

  The light in the space between the polymer and the surface of the underworld was like what she’d seen while swimming underwater in the artificial lake. The plastic ceiling paralleled the contours of the ground bringing to mind the shapes of the waves she’d splashed in. M.E.L. wriggled and said, “Wormy,” as she drew curved lines with her fingers in the soil.

  Then she heard a sound that, with its dancing rhythms, reminded her of the silk leaves above in the warm grove. She scuttled toward it as eagerly and fearlessly as she had first approached the quivering trees. It was a spring, bubbling up through a bowl of stones. In response, water sprang and flowed from her eyes and dripped down her nose and jaw into the pool as she considered this miracle. She lowered her head and drank and drank.

  The surface of the underworld was cooler than the polymer above, and M.E.L. started to shiver. She cut an opening in the impermeable layer over her head and peeled it back as she had done on P.P.A.’s surface so long, it seemed, ago. She carved out a sleeping berth and, in this way, also had a space in which to sit and stand and stretch. She decided to leave her storage unit at the base of the tunnel, sitting on the underworld’s surface. No, she told herself. She would no longer call it underworld, with all of that word’s nasty associations. From now on, she would just call it world.

  When she woke the next morning, she felt cramping in her gut and wondered if the liquid hydration had made her ill after the weeks of taking hydration tablets. Then she noticed stickiness between her legs and saw blood and realized, with a start, that her life on P.P.A. would have changed on this very day. She would have been moved out of M House, handed a school graduation certificate and, for the next twenty-six years, been an egg donor and an invisible worker below-surface. She and V.N.F. had spoken of this day with dread. Today, in her new home, she saw her body as creative and powerful.

  She thought her eggs might be in the blood so she squatted on the world and mixed her flow with the dirt to plant some new life. She transferred the remaining hydration tablets into one of her foot coverings
with the top folded over and tied. Then she filled the large tablet bag with water so that, away from the spring, she could clean the stickiness and grittiness from her skin. She enjoyed the squishy feeling of the mud she made and had to wash again.

  Five days later the bleeding stopped, and M.E.L. set out on hands and knees to explore. She found spring after spring along the base of what seemed like a never-ending sliding slope— a slope she pictured as topped with fire. The springs were different temperatures and had different smells, and in one she discovered delicate green leaves, not of silk or silicone. Her thumbnail squeezed right through the tender stem of one, and she smelled it and placed it in her mouth. It was the best thing she’d ever tasted.

  She returned to her storage unit each evening, until she felt ready to move farther from her tunnel. The trunk stood too high to manoeuvre through the narrow space above the world’s surface, so she pried apart the hinges and lifted off the lid. She laid it upside-down on the dirt and placed what remained of her belongings and supplies into it. She put on her second foot covering and tied the laces to its latch so she could pull her things behind her as she crawled. She left her wrist calculator in the locker box. She could find her way by following the edge of the huge slide slope and the sound of water in the springs and her own tracks in the dirt— how beautiful they were! Nothing so perfect existed on the surface of P.P.A.

  M.E.L. carved out overhead sleeping berths near springs as she journeyed, and when she bled each month, she mixed her blood into the soil. She lay down tired each night and admired the wonders on the ground below her and named what she saw— Red Rough Rock, Violet Vital Vein, Glittering Glassy Grains. During her waking hours, she ate more leaves and fewer nutrition packages.