by Lucy Hawking
“Where are we?” George asked her, scrambling back into his seat.
“We’ve arrived!” Hero said. “At the Bubble. We’re just waiting for the bus to be scanned for entry.”
“So this is it,” said George. “Foxbridge of the future. I’m in the right place—but at the wrong time.”
Chapter Five
As the bus drove into the Bubble, George’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. If outside was desert, inside was paradise. It was beautiful: colorful flowers, palm trees, exotic birds, and huge butterflies were everywhere. Lush greenery surrounded them as they drove through a humid atmosphere with clouds collecting above them and moisture beading on the outside of the bus.
“Are they real?” He pointed to a flock of gorgeous black-and-red butterflies flying past the window of the bus, which was now moving along slowly and carefully.
“Of course they’re real!” said Hero. “Didn’t you know? The Bubble is a model environment—it’s an experiment to see if all cities could be like it. It’s the most beautiful in the whole world!”
George pressed his nose against the window of the bus, hoping to see something he recognized. But it was a totally different place from the Foxbridge he had left behind. There was nothing here of the place he remembered, the old-style university town in which he had been born.
“It’s very warm in here,” he said. “Is that part of the experiment?”
“No,” said Hero, looking perplexed. “It’s not usually this hot. I don’t understand. The biosphere is meant to react automatically when temperatures rise, and cool it down.”
“When did this experiment start?” George asked Hero.
“Before I was alive,” she said. “After the Great Disruption. Old Foxbridge was destroyed and it was rebuilt like this!”
“Destroyed?” said George, although it was already obvious to him. “In the war?”
“Not really,” said Hero solemnly. “Old Foxbridge was the center of rebel fighting just before the time of the Great Disruption and so it was demolished. Afterward our leader had it made into the most beautiful place in the world, but only kids are allowed to live here.”
Rebel fighting? “Who were these rebels?” asked George. A horrible sick feeling was building in his stomach.
“People with funny ideas about things,” said Hero mysteriously.
“What things?” said George. People with funny ideas sounded just like his mom and dad, along with his next-door neighbors, scientist Eric and his daughter, Annie. Unfortunately he could just imagine them as rebel fighters. What Hero said next only made it worse.
“Like fake news about climate change,” said Hero. “And fake-news science. Trellis Dump (may he live forever) had to change all that, make sure the people could be free instead of being bossed around and told what to do by experts and scientists.”
“But there was a problem with the climate!” protested George. His parents were dedicated eco-warriors, and scientist Eric never missed an opportunity to give an impromptu lecture about the future of Planet Earth. When Eric and George’s parents had first met, it seemed like they were on different sides—George’s parents blamed science and technology for the problems on Earth, and Eric loved science above all things and firmly believed it would save the human race. Eventually, though, they had come to consider themselves as having different views but all being on the same side. The two friends, Annie and George, had made their parents see that everyone needed to work together to tackle global challenges, even if they didn’t agree on absolutely everything.
“ ’Scuse me, there wasn’t!” exclaimed Hero. “The Great Disruption caused some problems, but that’s been put right now. Anyway, that’s what we learned in our weather module.”
George gaped at her. They had just entered a biosphere within a desert, and Hero thought climate change wasn’t real. He gazed out of the window again. The bus was now chugging along small streets of funny spherical houses with palm trees and brightly colored flowering shrubs in their front yards. It looked nothing like the Foxbridge George had known.
“Why are the houses round?” he asked Hero.
“They’re inflatable, of course,” she said. “A bit like balloons. It makes them really easy to move. You just deflate the house and take it to a new location. My guardian says that in the past houses had to stay in one place!” She went off into peals of laughter.
In the past, thought George. The past . . .
Just then a delegation of smaller children came up to Hero. She seemed to be some kind of head prefect. The little kids whispered to her and scampered back to their seats.
She turned to George. “The kids say you’re being really unfriendly,” she said.
“What? How?” said George.
“They can’t access your thought stream,” said Hero. “So they think you don’t like them.”
“My what?” said George. “My thought stream? Why would I give someone access to my thoughts?”
“It’s what we do here,” said Hero gently. “I expect it’s different on Other Side. But here, when you’re among friends or in a group, you have to make your thought stream accessible or people think you’re really rude. And you’re not. So don’t make the kids think you are.”
“Ah,” said George. He looked around at Boltzmann, who just shrugged. He improvised. “Can you tell the kids that my thought stream isn’t compatible with theirs at the moment as I’m from Other Side. Once I have it up and running, I’ll be thrilled to thought-stream with them.”
“Oh!” said Hero. “Of course! I’ll thought them.” Sure enough, a few minutes later, the little kids ran back up to Hero, all beaming smiles. They patted George as if he was a poor old dog they felt sorry for, then jumped back into their seats.
“They’re very quiet!” George said to Hero. He remembered his own little sisters, who between them made enough noise to fill a stadium.
“They are so not!” exclaimed Hero.
“They don’t make a sound,” said George.
“Duh!” said Hero. “You don’t get their thought streams! Probably a good idea—you’d never have a moment’s peace again.”
“How do you receive these thought streams?” said George curiously.
“Through your in-head computer chip, of course!” said Hero.
Boltzmann tactfully interrupted with a cough. “Where are we actually going?” the rusty old robot asked. “What is our destination?”
“We,” said Hero, gesturing to herself and the other kids, “are going to our homes. Don’t you have a home to go to?”
“I had one in Old Foxbridge,” said George sadly, wondering if he would ever see it or his family again.
Hero looked confused. “Why do you keep talking about Old Foxbridge? Why don’t you talk about Other Side? What are you going to do now?”
“We don’t know. Any suggestions?” said Boltzmann brightly. “At the moment, we are one homeless robot and a boy.”
Empyrean spoke up. “I have just had an update from your guardian!” he announced. “George and his robot are to come to our home for now until other accommodation can be found for you both.” The robot nodded at George.
Hero looked surprised but pleased. “Oh!” she said. “Empy! I’ve never had a friend over to my house before!”
“What, never?” said George. He and his best friend Annie had lived in and out of each other’s houses for the whole time they had known each other.
“That’s not how friendships work in Eden,” Hero’s robot intervened tactfully. “But Hero’s guardian instructs me to tell you that you are both most welcome.”
“Thank you,” said Boltzmann. George was silent until Boltzmann poked him.
“Oh! Thank you,” said George. But he couldn’t help adding, somewhat suspiciously, “Who is this guardian?”
“My guardian is my unit person,” said Hero clearly.
“You mean—your mom or your dad?” said George.
“What’s a mom or dad?” puzzled Her
o. Quick as a flash, she added, “And that wasn’t a question!”
“Well, they’re your parents,” said George.
Hero still looked completely blank.
“The people you were . . . um, born from . . .” said George, not knowing how else to put it.
“Um, born?” said Hero.
“Children in Eden are hatched from approved genetic material,” said Empyrean. “The guardian is one of the genetic contributors. Highly favored genetic material is then raised within the Bubble environment in the ideal situation with constant robotic supervision to exclude any of the flaws of human rearing. For example, Hero was hatched nine Dumps of the sun ago.”
George thought of his parents, his lovely, funny, more than slightly mad mom and dad. He thought he’d rather have their flaws than a robot nanny any day!
“Is it the same for all children?” he asked.
“No,” said Empyrean. “Children can still be produced in the old style, but Eden is keen to outlaw this method of reproduction. It’s too unreliable.” He coughed, as if slightly embarrassed. “Those raised inside the Bubble, like Hero, are not taught about this.”
George decided to change the subject. “What does your guardian do?” he asked Hero.
“Oh, guardians are a bit boring, like they tell you off,” she admitted. “They always talk about nutrition and marks and they get records of all your school results so they know if you’re going to get into Wonder Academy. They’re a bit stressful, really.”
“Are you?” asked George. “Going to get in?”
“Oh yes!” said Hero, but she sounded nervous. “I know I’m going to make it this time. It’s the last few days now before all the marks are counted up and everyone finds out whether they’ve got a place or not. I don’t know why I didn’t get a place before, but I’ve worked really hard this Dump of the sun. And I have to pass this time . . .” She looked worried for a moment, but then brightened up. “Empy says my marks are so good now that I will definitely be going to Wonder.”
“And you find out via your thought stream, I imagine?” asked George.
“Duh!” said Hero. “Your guardian finds out first. They need to know so they can arrange for you to transition to Wonder. It’s the most amazing place. It’s so cool. And, by the way, don’t say ‘imagine’ here. It’s not okay to imagine things.”
“What’s wrong with imagination?” asked Boltzmann. “I thought it was a key feature of the human brain and one of the reasons we robots would never be able to match natural human abilities!”
“Just don’t,” said Hero. “Imagining isn’t an Eden thing. It’s not what we do.”
“Where is Wonder Academy?” asked George, to change the subject.
“It’s hundreds of Dumpometers away from Eden,” said Hero. “It’s a secret until you actually get in.”
“Do the kids who leave the Bubble come home? Like for holidays?”
“Um, no,” said Hero sadly. “They don’t. I really liked the Bubble kids who went to Wonder. They were my besties. We were always on our thought streams! And then they all had to go and I was left with just the little kids.” She sighed. “I don’t know why I had to stay in the Bubble right up until I’m a whole nine Dumps of the sun—but it might be because I can’t always stop myself asking questions. That’s what my guardian says.”
George now had a question of his own. “Can’t you thought-stream your Bubble friends in Wonder?”
“No, it’s not allowed,” said Hero. “Bubble kids can’t talk to Wonder students. It’s so that Wonder is a proper surprise when you get there. It would spoil it if we knew before.”
George wasn’t at all convinced by this. Something wasn’t right about this Wonder place, but, in a world where nothing seemed right, he couldn’t work out what was more wrong about Wonder Academy than anything else he was experiencing.
“What comes after Wonder Academy?”
Hero looked at him in astonishment. “Well, you have to pay off your debt!” she said. “Mine is quite big already because I’ve done so much studying. That’s why I hope I get really good marks. Then I can pay down my debt more quickly.”
“What debt?” said George. “You’re nine years old! What debts do you have?”
“You know,” sighed Hero. “I have to pay for all the air I’ve breathed and the water I’ve drunk. And then there’s my education, my inflatable house, all the energy it takes to operate my thought stream . . .”
“Whaaaat?” said George. “Why do you have to pay for all those things?”
“Because I use resources that belong to Eden,” said Hero clearly. “And so I have to repay Eden by working hard.”
“How long for?” said George.
“The rest of my life!” said Hero, as though this was blindingly obvious. “The thing is, I can’t ever really pay it off because, even while I’m working, I’ll still be using air and water and stuff so I’ll always be in debt to Eden, no matter what I do . . .”
“What do you pay them with?” asked George.
“Duh!” said Hero. “Dumplings, of course!”
“Dumplings?” said George.
“A unit of digital currency,” said Empyrean, “that you earn and spend. Once a year, on the Day of Reckoning, consumers find out how much they earned and how much they spent and how much they owe to Eden in taxes.”
“So, the more Dumplings you earn, the more tax you pay?” asked George, trying to figure out the system.
“Not quite,” said Empyrean. “The more Dumplings you earn, the less tax you pay.”
“What?” said George in amazement. “How is that fair?”
“It’s the best of all possible worlds,” said the robot. “But no one said it was the fairest. We must stop this conversation now.”
“Why?” asked George, wondering if he had stumbled on an illegal topic.
“Because,” replied Empyrean simply, “we have arrived.”
Chapter Six
Hero’s house was just the same as all the others, a little dome in a row of little domes. George walked in gingerly—he had been in lots of odd places before, but an igloo-shaped inflatable home was something else. It wasn’t much cooler inside the house. Perhaps now that the whole world was warmer, nowhere could now cool down enough to feel normal.
Hero floated along ahead of him, throwing down her school backpack, kicking off her boots, and discarding her jacket. Empyrean looked on disapprovingly.
“I’m not picking up your things,” he said.
Hero sighed. “Why do I have the only robot who doesn’t want to do my chores for me?” she said, going back to collect all her bits and pieces and piling them up in her arms. She disappeared into a room off the central circular sitting room and came back empty-handed. “Everyone else’s robot is happy to do tasks for their person,” she said.
“Mine isn’t,” said George. He had decided that for now he just had to go with the flow until he could work out what to do next.
Boltzmann nodded happily. “I wouldn’t pick anything up off the floor for him,” he confided, before sitting himself down rather heavily on a sofa. The sofa, which was inflatable too, squeaked under Boltzmann’s weight but managed not to pop.
“You can’t have everything,” said Hero’s robot snootily. “I’m the most intelligent and most powerful robot known to humankind.” A faint bell rang in George’s mind. He had once known a superintelligence who spoke exactly like that.
“Yes, yes, I know,” said Hero. “Blah-blah-blah! All the kids in the Bubble are special, so we have to have special robots assigned to us by Eden. But, honestly, I know my guardian found you in a recycling facility and repurposed you instead of getting me a nice new, shiny, helpful bot like the others.”
“Special?” said George. “Are all the kids in the Bubble special?” His friend Annie had been the smartest kid he had ever met. Was Hero as clever as Annie? If Hero was so special, how come she couldn’t see the gaps between what she said and the reality around her?
“Why do you have to be so old?” said George.
“These children are the flowers of Eden,” said Empyrean in a very neutral voice. “Hence they must be tended by the very best of the robotic population. It takes time to grow an oak tree,” reminisced the robot cryptically. “Up to nine Dumps of the sun, in fact. Then they must leave the Bubble, as all our Future Leaders go on to Wonder for further study. It is very important to nurture our future.”
Hero wasn’t listening. “I’d rather you did my tidying up than going on about nurturing or whatevs,” she grumbled.
She threw herself down on a sofa opposite George, who noticed that, as she did so, the sofa changed color to become a beautiful sea-green turquoise. Above her the wall suddenly showed a gorgeous view of waves breaking on a beach while the room filled with soft music.
“That’s pretty!” exclaimed Boltzmann. George was momentarily surprised that the enormous ugly robot knew what “pretty” was.
“How did you do that?” asked George, looking at his sofa, which had stayed an unremarkable shade of gray.
“Do what?” said Hero, who didn’t even seem to have noticed.
“Your sofa changed color!” said George. “And the music! And the picture.”
“Oh, that!” said Hero. “It’s a smart house with smart furniture so it reads my mood and changes the environment around me.”
“It’s not changing anything to my preferences,” complained Boltzmann. George thought this was probably a good thing—he had no idea what a house decorated to Boltzmann’s preferences would look like, and at this stage he didn’t really want to know.
“Gets kind of annoying quite quickly,” admitted Hero. “Sometimes I wish the house would stop playing me music and showing me pictures. It never really gets it right. I mean, do I look like a breaking wave to you?”