The Sky Inside

by Clare B. Dunkle

  “Pretty soon, I won’t be able to come here anymore. This park is gonna be full of little bot brats, all circuits and gel. Dad’ll buy Mom one even if she doesn’t want it, and pretty soon she’ll be cooing and singing. And all Cassie’s pictures will disappear out of the photo modules.” The lump in his throat choked him off.

  The truth about his future sank down on him like a steel plate, crushing the life out of him. Boring school. Boring television. A home that wasn’t home anymore. “I hate this!” he cried out. “I’m going crazy here. I can’t live anymore in a place that—” But then he saw the sequin. White and glassy, it shone like a tiny flashbulb against the cherry-colored panel. Even in the park, the walls had ears.

  “Oh, forget it. I’m going to sleep,” he muttered, turning his face away from the sequin. “That’s all I can do for the rest of my life, just sleep.” Chip’s fuzzy coat tickled his nose, but the rise and fall of the dog’s breath was soothing. Now, why would they make bots breathe? Martin wondered as he dozed off.

  At first, his dreams were a tangle of nonsense, mirroring the chaos in his thoughts. Then he became aware that he was walking through a golden haze. This is what blowing sand looks like, he thought. I’m outside, and that’s what’s outside—nothing but blowing sand.

  Then the golden vapor changed hues to lavender and silver. Bright particles clung to his clothes. Chip came up beside him, his fur coated with the stuff, all creamy lilac and white, like whipped cake frosting.

  “Hey, Chip, this isn’t sand,” he said. “It’s body glitter! I think it’s fun to be out here.” But even in his sleep, he knew this couldn’t be right. Why put windows in a packet that rolled through glitter?

  The glitter swirled away like steam off coffee, and an extraordinary landscape emerged. Great tumbled translucent cubes of gel in every conceivable color stretched as far as the eye could see. He was standing on a broad soft cherry-colored slab that bounced like a trampoline. It’s Jell-O! he thought. Now I finally know what’s outside! Light shone deep into the gel, so that his slab looked like a crimson pool, and the stacks of multi-colored cubes glowed like stained glass.

  Children were running and climbing on the slabs, jumping off the stacks and bouncing back up like superballs. But the children weren’t gel, they were real. The Wonder Babies were shouting and playing, having fun now that they were outside.

  “I’ve gotta find Cassie,” he told his lavender dog. “Cassie must be here. She saw all of this. She sat by the window.” He ran toward the Wonder Babies, bouncing higher and higher, whirring through the air like Granny’s birds. There was no limit to how high he could go. There was nothing out here to stop him.

  Someone scrubbed his face with a wet rag, and he opened his eyes. Chip was there, licking his cheek, plain brown and black again. Beyond Chip, the steel dome closed over the suburb like a lid, cutting him off from the outside. But he could feel it out there waiting for him: a colorful wonderland where dreams came true.

  “Hey, Chip,” he said, sitting up. “I’ve got the craziest idea.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  That afternoon, the transmitter crawled laboriously down the wall of the loading bay and left on the back of a flatbed packet to Central. Weary with relief, the packet chief watched it leave. Then he went from block to block to spread the word that the inspection was over. Soon the streets were full of suburbanites gossiping with neighbors, working on their lawns, or playing H-O-R-S-E around the basketball hoops. Mr. Ramsey called an end to the baseball tournament in the sixth inning and went home to catch up on his rest.

  Matt and David showed up on Martin’s doorstep. “Listen, we have a problem,” David said. “The ImCity cartridge won’t play. Well, it will, but the screen’s black, and you can hear stuff moving around and making weird noises, but you can’t see anything.”

  “Maybe it’s nighttime in the game, and they’ve knocked out the lights,” suggested Martin.

  David shook his head. “I changed the clock.”

  “Then it sounds like the monsters have taken control and set the game palette to six straight zeros,” said Martin. “I think you’ll have to throw that cartridge away.”

  “Six whats?” Matt asked.

  “Crap!” David said. “That was the best game yet. So, what are you doing? Wanna hang out?”

  “Can’t,” Martin answered. “I’m busy.”

  “Doing what?” Matt asked. David punched him on the arm. “Hey, you wanna know too!”

  “We’ll help you,” David said. “Come on, Matt.” And they started to step inside.

  Martin put out an arm to bar their way. “Let’s see the bugs first.” They pulled purple chips from various pockets, and Martin led them back to his room.

  “Whatcha working on?” demanded David, looking around. “Your cartridges aren’t even on.”

  “This isn’t a game. It’s real,” Martin said. “Let’s say you’re going somewhere, a place where there aren’t any cookers or fridges. And you’re going to be gone—I don’t know—maybe a few days. What do you bring?”

  “Oh, that’s boring,” David said, throwing himself onto the bed. “That’s a little kid’s game. Where’s to go?”

  “No, I’m serious,” Martin said. “It’s a drill, like in the Survivor module of House-to-House. What if our suburb got invaded and we all had to escape in packets? It could happen.” He piled up school supplies on his desk. “Okay, here’s my backpack, all cleaned out. What do I need?”

  “A toothbrush?” Matt suggested. David groaned.

  “No, that’s good,” Martin said, and he retrieved it. His friends looked shocked.

  “Your dad hasn’t heard something, has he?” David asked. “Like, they’re closing off our air vents or something?”

  Martin shrugged. “I just want to be ready.”

  By dinnertime, they had loaded his Hi-beam, a bar of soap (over David’s strenuous protests), a tube of antibacterial cream (“in case someone gets shot”), his toothbrush, three rolls of toilet paper, and a jumbo pack of double-pop gum, the last because they all really liked it. They scrounged through the pantry, sampling as they went, in search of energy bars that didn’t also happen to taste horrible. Mom stocked energy bars by the dozens. They filled the backpack with acceptable varieties until it was bulging.

  “Something to drink’s more important than food,” David opined. “Our bodies are mostly water. You can eat all the garbage you want and still keel over in a couple of days.”

  “Yeah, you slosh when you walk,” Matt jeered.

  “Oh yeah? You stink when you fart,” David snickered.

  “No, David’s right,” Martin said. “I need to think about water.” Once again, his friends stared at him in awe.

  “Are they sending, like, commandos or something?” David asked humbly.

  “The walls have ears,” Martin said, looking grave.

  They raided the pantry again, this time returning to Martin’s room with six gallon-size juice bottles held together by webbing at their caps. It took two of them to hoist the load.

  “Put it on the dog,” David said. “He’s tough.” So they called over Chip, who had been keeping a cautious distance from Martin’s friends. They laid a velour couch blanket across Chip’s back to act as padding and slung the connected juice bottles over that, three bottles on each side. Martin found one of Cassie’s kneesocks and an old cloth belt to tie the bottles in place.

  “If your life depends on an Alldog,” David remarked, “you better bring his reset chip, too. Those modules can freeze up, you know. Cinder did once, and I didn’t know about it. I just thought she was sleeping for a week.”

  “She froze because you stuck a joy buzzer on her,” Matt said.

  “Yeah, but I still thought she was sleeping.”

  Martin dug the reset chip out of the box under his bed and put it into his backpack. He hefted it in satisfaction, thinking of the bright Jell-O fields. Then he unhitched Chip and let the bottles slide to the floor. He was ready for an
ything now.

  “You’ll tell us if they’re coming to get us, right?” Matt asked.

  “Yeah,” David said. “Promise you’ll tell us what’s going on. We’re your best friends.”

  “Sure,” Martin said, and he decided that he would. First, he would go outside and see if it was safe. Then maybe he would bring them something he found. And if he decided he was leaving for good, he would say good-bye. They wouldn’t believe him, of course. They’d probably laugh. But later, they could tell all the others.

  Martin couldn’t sleep that night for excitement. At four o’clock in the morning, he crept out of the house and ran to the loading bay, ready to begin his research. The big freight bots crowded around as if he were going to issue them orders. They didn’t seem to comprehend the idea of day or night, weekday or weekend.

  “Okay, here’s the deal,” he told Chip, ignoring them. “I know it’s still dark out there, but I want you to go check it out. Find out if I can live outside this dome, if the air and stuff are okay. When you’ve made up your mind, taken readings or whatever, then bring me back something that means yes or no. If it’s a mouthful of sand, well, then I’ll know I can’t live. Or a rock. That’s bad news. But if you bring me . . .” Here, his mind went blank. “I don’t know what you should bring me. Just be sure I know it when I see it.”

  Ears pricked, Chip surveyed him steadily, and Martin gave his thick ruff a grateful pat. Even if he couldn’t explain things very well, this was a dog who knew what to do.

  Martin didn’t watch the bizarre transformation of German shepherd into packet car. Ever since Chip’s last change, he had had nightmares in which his dog dripped and ran like melting ice cream. Instead, he wandered over to his father’s console and tapped a key to bring up the screen.

  SUBURB HM1 ONLINE, he typed in just for fun. After a few seconds, the line moved up as an answer came in.

  SUBURB BNBRX ONLINE GOOD MORNING WALTER

  Martin was elated. Man, this guy never sleeps! he thought.

  SUBURB HM1 ONLINE HI FRED HOPE YOUR WIFE DIDNT DIE IN THE NIGHT

  The line blinked at him for a moment. Then it moved up.

  SUBURB BNBRX ONLINE I PREFER TO KEEP OUR EXCHANGE PROFESSIONAL

  Martin hooted with delight.

  Alarm bells rang. Chip came rolling through the big gates, looking terribly strange, and Martin quickly looked away. After a few seconds, the shepherd came up to him, normal again.

  Martin dropped to his knees to stroke the dog’s ears. “Well? What did you find out?”

  Chip laid something limp on the concrete in front of him, and Martin picked it up warily. It was a few inches long, with narrow green leaves, like a very thin, jagged head of lettuce. One end was a round starburst of soft yellow spikes. Martin turned it upright and recognized it.

  “A flower! Just like the daffodils on Mr. LaRue’s window!”

  A little round creature climbed down from the yellow flower and crawled onto his hand. It was bright red, with a black head and black spots, and it had the tiniest black feet Martin had ever seen. “A bug!” he breathed. “A real bug!” It was beautiful.

  Unexpectedly, the bug’s back split into two sections, and it took off in a gentle whir. It could fly, just like a toy airplane. Martin watched it with shining eyes.

  “I’m going out there, Chip,” he said excitedly. “Right now! I don’t care if it’s still dark.” But he didn’t. Instead, he scurried for cover behind a stack of cardboard boxes. “Chip, hide!” he whispered to his puzzled dog, and in another second, the bot was by his side.

  Someone had called the elevator.

  Martin heard it grind slowly up its shaft and halt at the suburb level. After a short pause, its wheels began turning, and it came humming down. Dad walked out into the loading bay. He was wearing his black suit with a white shirt and thin black tie. It was the outfit he wore to funerals, and seeing it unnerved Martin. Had someone in the suburb died?

  Dad could have been the body. His face was dead white and waxy, and his gray eyes looked black. Martin was worried that he might find the joking comment on his console, but he didn’t walk over to check. Instead, he stood in the middle of the loading bay, hands clasped, staring straight ahead of him at nothing.

  A minute or two later, the alarm bells sounded again, and a packet car rolled in. It, too, was somber black, but it was much larger than a funeral packet. No windows interrupted the simplicity of its sleek lines, but a door at the back slid open. Dad walked up the steps and went inside.

  A man’s voice rang out, hearty and welcoming. “Mr. Glass!

  I’m sorry to have interrupted your night’s sleep. Please, take this comfortable chair across from Truth, and we’ll get started.”

  Martin heard his father speak, but he couldn’t make out the words. Drawn by curiosity, he found a hiding place closer to the packet.

  “We were quite pleased,” the man was saying, “with the results of the inspection. Overall, you’ve got a very nice suburb. A few anomalies here and there, but nothing we can’t cope with.”

  “Extend your hands,” interrupted a woman’s voice. It sounded flat and toneless. Martin heard his father give a cry of pain.

  “Now, now, Glass,” the man said with a chuckle. “Truth just wants to hold hands! The stinging will stop once the probes find their places. Truth, how are things going?”

  “Ready to begin,” the woman said.

  “Good,” said the man. “As I was saying, this is a fine suburb. One of my best. People aren’t spending all of their income just at the moment, but I can always count on them to support new product lines. There’s just one problem from the inspection that we need your help with, Mr. Glass. Where did you hide those children?”

  “The—the children?” stammered Martin’s father, his voice high with fear. “They were in school. That’s what I heard. Every one. Zero absentees.”

  “True,” declared Truth.

  “That’s not what I’m talking about,” the man cut in. “I mean, where are the other children? The Wonder Baby product line. You put them where the sensors couldn’t pick them up, and that’s a serious offense.”

  “No, no!” Dad protested. “No, they were collected. You sent a packet for them last Rest Day.”

  “True,” the woman said.

  “Collected?” The man sounded suspicious. “Tell me how this happened.”

  “A special car came, with a collector adjusted to deal with children,” said Dad’s trembling voice. “He talked about the inspection and invoked the Wonder Baby recall. I knew we had to get rid of the product, so I cooperated completely.”

  “True,” agreed Truth.

  Martin didn’t wait to hear the rest. It all made too much sense. His father’s odd absences in the evening: Dad couldn’t bring himself to look Cassie in the face. Motley’s stern warning: I expect your full support. The collector bot had come, and Dad had pretended everything was fine.

  Martin abandoned his hiding place and took the elevator out of the bay. He didn’t care whether they heard him or not. He didn’t care about anything. He walked home through the shadowy streets as the first gray hint of dawn lit the skylights. He didn’t run this time. There was nowhere to run. The truth lodged inside him like a red-hot blade, and it would be there for the rest of his life. His little sister had been sent away to die. There was no special school, and Dad had known it.

  He turned on all the lights in the house, looking for his mother, and found her asleep in Cassie’s bed. “Mom,” he whispered, kneeling by her side. She rolled over and opened her bloodshot eyes, and her puffy face was blotched and stained with grief.

  “Mom, I get it,” he said. “I know why you watch the game shows.”

  She sat up and hugged him fiercely, and he felt her tears falling onto his neck, but he couldn’t run away from this, either. “You think she’s still alive,” he said as calmly as he could. “That’s why you watch them.”

  “I don’t know,” Mom sobbed. “Maybe. Probably. Th
ey always do something with them.”

  “Then I’m leaving,” Martin said. “I’m going to go get her out of there. I promised her I would.”

  His mother pulled away to look at him in wonder. “No one can live outside!”

  “It’s a lie,” Martin whispered, casting a glance at the listening walls. “There are things living out there right now. Flowers, Mom. Real ones. I’ve seen it! I’m not coming back till I’ve got Cassie.”

  “I’ve always hated it here,” Mom said, and her voice was taut with emotion. “I’ve tried my best to find things to do, but this is no life. If there’s a way—any kind of life for you out there—then you take it, Martin. And I don’t see how, but I hope you find your sister. If you do, don’t ever bring her back here.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not good in school, but I always know the stuff that matters.” She smiled through her tears and nodded, as if these were things she didn’t need to be told. “And tell Dad—” What? he thought. That I hate him for being a coward and a liar? That I never want to see him again? “Tell Dad good-bye.”

  Martin made Chip lie down so that he could saddle the dog with the blanket and bottles of juice. He grabbed his backpack and scooped out some energy bars to make room for Cassie’s stuffed bunny. Then he left the house. But he stopped at the sidewalk.

  “Dad isn’t supposed to be at work yet,” he told Chip. “I bet he’s coming home to vote and eat breakfast. And I don’t know what I’d do if I saw him right now—punch him or something—so we have to not meet him, not up here, not in the loading bay. Which way can we go?”

  Martin was facing the park. Without thinking, he was scanning its familiar sights: the play structures, the jogging track, and the distant ball field. A small, dignified building near the street caught his attention. Its sides were faced with polished gray stone, and its wide asphalt walkway was lined with ornate street lamps, but the big metal door was shut. Martin had never seen it open.