The Future Was Now

by J. R. Harber

  “Even out here,” Cyrus said in a low voice, “we see drones overhead from time to time. Sometimes they don’t hide themselves because they want us to know they see us, that they’re watching. Why do you think we keep everything underground?

  “But we can’t truly live underground. It’s not right to raise a child totally hidden from the sun. So, we go up, walk around, trap game for food, and take cuttings to plant. Then every once in a while, the drones come in cloaked, and they snatch people.

  “They do it so fast we can’t stop them. We can’t shoot them down without killing the people they’ve taken. All of us have lost people we love that way. Mostly they take children, so we learned to guard the children more closely. But if they can’t get children, they’ll take anyone.”

  Asa was speechless. Eve had her hand on his knee, and she was gripping it tightly; he put his own hand on top of hers, grasping it as if she could ground him.

  “What’s the matter? You didn’t know?” Simon asked with a tone of bitter mocking.

  “I’ve told you, Simon, they don’t know about this on the inside,” Lilith snapped. “Aquila, did you know? Zach?”

  They shook their heads.

  “I didn’t know,” Joel added, speaking for the first time. Cyrus made a noncommittal grunt.

  “I knew,” Saul said, speaking for the first time since they’d sat down.

  “What?” Eve stared at him, shocked.

  He grinned. “Finding out stuff like that is pretty much how I ended up here,” he said. “Everyone finished? How about I take my long-lost sister on a tour? You too, new guy,” he added, glancing at Asa.

  The three of them stood, and Saul led the way out of the dining room and down another staircase. This one had more paintings on the walls—mostly landscapes—and at the bottom of the stairs was another statue, this one a creature—half-man, half-horse—chasing a human woman.

  “Where does all this come from?” Asa asked as they passed it, making their way down another narrow hallway.

  “The sculptures? Most of the art comes from a vault we found under the city ruins a few miles away. Some of it we make—not me, but some of the others.”

  “There was a city here?” he asked.

  He was suddenly fascinated by the prospect of such a real, tangible connection to the years before the Founding. He had known in a vague way that some traces of the old civ must exist, but the idea that real people had found them and brought the artifacts into their present lives was somehow both obscene and enchanting.

  “Nearby, anyway. The wreckage of the old civ is everywhere. I send parties out, the people who want to explore. They search for tech and materials and for others who have run away into the Waste—not everyone wants to live among us, and not everyone wants us to live, but many do, and those we bring home. But there are those who want to discover the treasures of the old civ, and I encourage it. They kept much of their artwork in climate-sealed, underground storage vaults. I suppose not all of the art survived, but enough did that we’ve built up what I imagine is quite a collection.”

  “Impressive,” Eve murmured, looking back at the statue.

  “Not as impressive as the rest of what we’ve been able to do. The ruins of the old civ are what allow us to survive. Our water treatment is upstairs. It started out as a cobbled-together mess, but now I’d put it up against anything you’ve got on the inside. There’s no shortage of materials and parts out here, so if you’ve got someone who knows what they’re doing, there’s no limit to the tech you can create.”

  Eve was smiling. “And by ‘someone who knows what they’re doing,’ you mean you?” she teased.

  Saul grinned. “Not just me. Look, there are generations out here. People like Cyrus whose grandparents stayed outside when the walls went up. People whose parents left or were cast out before they were born. It’s a real society. People have handed down knowledge that I had never heard of before I got here.

  “And, yes, there’s me. I was able to upgrade a lot of their tech. I taught some boys and girls programming and plumbing. Meanwhile, I’ve learned some things myself.”

  He threw open a door, and Asa and Eve gasped in unison. Before them lay a vast expanse of greenery and light from above as bright as the sun. It took Asa’s eyes a moment to adjust before he could figure out what he was seeing.

  “Hydroponic greenhouse,” Saul said. “You can’t plant much in the desert, and we don’t want our food supply aboveground—vulnerable to the drone raids.”

  Asa nodded, trying to catalog the plants—some were familiar, tomatoes and beetroots, while others were mysterious, leafy greens and budding berries he could not have named. A squawk came from the far side of the greenhouse, and Eve jumped.

  Saul laughed. “Fowl,” he said, beckoning them toward a fenced-off area where a couple of small fat brown chickens were scratching and pecking at seeds scattered in the dirt that covered their patch of ground. There were a few more behind them, and in a little hutch by the wall, Asa could just make out a few more, sitting on nests.

  “Mostly we keep them for eggs, sometimes meat,” Saul said. “Come on, there’s more.”

  On their way out of the greenhouse, they passed three women going in, chatting enthusiastically until they noticed Saul and his guests.

  “Don’t mind us,” Saul said, watching amusedly as they stared at Eve. “Just my little sister.”

  One of the women flicked her eyes over Asa. He shrugged.

  “Eve, welcome,” the woman said, smiling. “We heard you’d come. Mary, stop staring at the poor girl.”

  They walked down the hall a few yards, and Asa could hear music again. Saul opened a door to let them into another room. The music expanded outward like a physical force, a pounding beat so loud Asa could feel it in his chest. He looked at Eve, who was covering her ears. There was a young man sitting at a table, a wide array of tech spread out in front of him. After a moment he looked up, saw them at the door, and turned a knob on the box beside him. The music faded into the background, and Asa felt his shoulders relax. Eve took her hands away from her ears.

  There were half a dozen tables scattered around the room, each one covered in what looked like a messy tangle of wires and parts, though Asa suspected they were all in fact precisely arranged. A gray-haired woman was standing over the farthest table, engrossed in her work, and behind the young man who had turned down the music was a large screen, perhaps four feet across, where animated figures ran across painted terrain. It was some old civ movie, discovered and restored. Two children were sitting in front of it, their ears covered by large black devices, their hands manipulating small gadgets. Asa moved closer behind them, watching, and determined that the children were controlling the animation onscreen. The children did not seem to notice him, their attention absorbed.

  “Asa?” Saul was standing at the door; Eve was already in the hallway. “I have one more thing to show you,” he said.

  Saul led them back to the staircase and opened a door Asa had not noticed, leading to yet another set of stairs. They descended yet again, and Asa began to wonder how far into the earth they were—a hundred feet? Two hundred?

  Each staircase seemed to take them farther than the space from one floor to the next, as if something were hidden in the space between, but he was disoriented. At the bottom of the stairs, Saul looked nervously at Eve, then threw open the door. Eve took a step inside and gasped.

  Asa moved closer to see what lay inside, then stopped when he saw the look of shock on Eve’s face. The room was domed, the walls deep brown and uneven. Light streamed in through the thin places. It cast a dim amber glow, crossed with shadows. At the center was a column that stretched to the ceiling, and Eve walked slowly toward it. Asa came into the room, and Saul followed, closing the door quietly behind them.

  Saul watched his sister with a slight, almost reverent smile on his face as she walked to the column at the center and fell to her knees in the latticework of light, the look of shock still on he
r face. Saul broke the silence with harsh, guttural words Asa did not understand, and Eve covered her face with her hands.

  He heard her whisper something in response, and Saul went to kneel beside her. He took her hands from her face and held them, and Asa could see that her cheeks were wet with tears, glistening in the artificial sunlight. Saul said something to Eve that sounded like a question, in the same unfamiliar language, and she answered immediately with the almost childish cadence of ritual. They exchanged three more questions and answers, then Eve bent her head again, and Saul brought her hands to his cheeks.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” he said softly.

  “How do you have all this?” Eve asked, pulling away from him gently and standing.

  She put her hand on the column and ran her palm up and down it, looking up. Asa followed her gaze and saw that the top of the column became a stylized tree, the branches interweaving and reaching out to form the whole ceiling of the small room, then bowing down to the floor to make the walls.

  “We made it,” Saul said. “Not everyone, I mean—just me and a few others. Not everyone believes, but it’s allowed here. Some people have other beliefs I had never heard of before coming here. We’re all free to worship as we wish. There’s no one in this world to stop it.”

  Eve nodded, almost dazedly. “I gave you my necklace,” she said. “When you went away.”

  Saul smiled. “You want it back?”

  “No. I wanted you to have it. But can I see it?”

  He took something from his pocket and handed it to her; Asa was too far away to see it in detail, but Eve gazed at the small thing in wonder, turning it over in her hands.

  “Eve,” Saul said gently and held out his hand. She gave it back. “Turn around and get all that hair out of the way.” Eve obliged, lifting her long hair up so Saul could fasten the chain around her neck. “It’s always been yours. Mom gave it to you.”

  “Mom would be disappointed in both of us,” Eve said, picking up the charm and looking at it upside down.

  “Oh, that would have been true no matter what we did,” Saul said cheerfully. “Come on, you’ll have all the time in the world to pray later. Let’s show your friend the rest of this place.”

  He led the way back to the staircase, and Asa followed behind Eve, still seeing her aglow in the strange underground tree room.

  She’s a believer …

  It was the last thing he would have guessed of Eve, that she would place her faith in myths and stories, holding fast to one of the great destructive forces of the old civ. Worship begins war, he thought, recalling a phrase from childhood, though he could not remember where he had heard it. It was like The sun always rises or We’re all in this together, bits of truth that everyone just knew.

  “We are all free to worship as we wish,” Saul had said.

  “No wonder the Waste is so brutal,” Asa said under his breath, too quietly for Eve to hear him.

  The rest of the tour took them past variously arranged living quarters—some people apparently lived alone, like Saul, or in couples or families, and others were ten to a room, bunk beds lined up against the walls in rows.

  “How is it decided who shares?” Asa asked, and Saul gave him an odd look.

  “People just do what they want,” he said.

  They passed an open area, where a few people were lounging in chairs and on cushions, reading books, and others talked quietly in small groups. On a bright blue carpet in the corner, two men were helping a toddler build a tower of blocks. Asa paused for a moment to watch them. One of the men looked up and smiled; the other moved closer to the child, his face guarded.

  “I used to do that with my dad,” Asa said. “Building towers. I’m Asa,” he added hastily.

  “I’m Judah,” said the man who had smiled. “That’s Abe, and our daughter, Claudia.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Claudia, say hello,” he said gently, and the little girl threw the block in her hand onto the rug.

  “No!” she declared, then collapsed in a fit of giggles. Abe shook his head and gave Asa an apologetic smile.

  “She just learned how to say no,” he explained.

  Asa smiled back, then gave a short nod and hurried to catch up with Eve and Saul, who were already several paces down the hall.

  Saul rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “Abe and Judah spoil her,” he said in a low voice. “If they don’t start teaching that girl discipline—”

  “She’ll be a regular, happy kid?” Eve interrupted.

  Saul shook his head, his face growing serious. “Not out here,” he said. “They’re good parents, as far as I know anything about that. But if you’re going to raise a child out here, you have to make sure they’ll run when you say run and stop when you tell them to stop.”

  “The drone raids,” Eve said, comprehending.

  Saul nodded. “We don’t teach them blind obedience, but a kid who can’t follow orders is a kid we’ll never see again.”

  Asa glanced back, still feeling a step behind. “Do you raise the kids, um, collectively?” he hazarded at last. “Judah said, ‘Our daughter.’”

  Saul barked a short laugh, and Eve glared at him, then looked hesitantly at Asa. “Asa,” she said, “I think he’s … their daughter. His and Abe’s.”

  “They adopted her after her mother was taken in a raid,” Saul said a little coldly. “She’s a lucky kid.”

  He strode ahead down the hallway, and Eve picked up her pace to match his. Asa let himself lag behind, a bit disturbed. Everyone knew there were men and women whose sexual appetites ran against nature; it was a defect they were born with. No one judged them for something they could not control. But to allow two men to live like a married couple or—worse—to raise a child together that way? What would young Claudia see as she grew up? What would she come to believe was right?

  “Asa?” Eve was waiting for him; she and Saul had stopped at the door to a staircase.

  “Coming,” he said, picking up his pace to join her.

  They wound through the mazelike halls of the building again, ending up this time in a bedroom meant for a half-dozen people. Three bunk beds lined up neatly to fill the space. Asa’s and Eve’s bags were piled on the one nearest the door, and Eve went straight to them and picked up hers, the one she had filled with Daniel’s devices.

  “There’s no one else staying in here,” Saul said quickly. “We have more space than we need, really.”

  Asa glanced at Eve, his pulse rising as he considered the possibilities for where they both might sleep. Eve sat down on a bunk and leaned back against the metal headboard, crossing her legs and swinging the bag up onto her lap.

  “I know it’s not much,” Saul said. “But it’s just for tonight while we make a proper room for you. We’ve got a wealth of old furniture, artwork, things to make the place more comfortable … and another room for you,” he said hurriedly, looking to Asa. “If you want one. Or even another room for tonight … Sorry, I guess I assumed …” He looked sheepishly at Eve. “Baby sister, is he with you or what?”

  Eve smiled. “Or what. We can share for tonight at least. Thanks, Saul.”

  She’d unzipped the bag partway but had not begun to examine what was inside, and now she took out a single item, one of the metal strips she’d used to buy the rail tickets, and began to toy with it, bending it one way and then the other as if testing how far it would go before it broke.

  “Wait,” Asa broke in. “Thank you, Saul, really—you’ve saved our lives, I think literally, but we’re not staying after tonight.”

  Saul laughed briefly, then stopped when Asa did not smile. “You’re serious? What, do you have another congregation of outlaws you’d rather stay with?” He looked from Asa to Eve. “Kids, I’m sorry, but you’re looking at the only city in the Waste. It’s not so bad once you’re used to it, Eve, I promise. We do some great things down here, stuff Daniel and I dreamed about but didn’t dare attempt on the inside. It’s not a paradise, but it’s my home, and it
can be yours too. I promise.”

  He sat beside Eve and held out a hand. She didn’t take it, so he patted her foot awkwardly. She kicked him halfheartedly, but she smiled.

  “We’re not staying,” Asa repeated. “We’ve got a plan.”

  “What’s your plan?” Saul asked.

  Asa sat on the bunk facing them. “You must know what’s in that bag,” he said, gesturing to it. Eve’s hands tightened on the canvas, and Saul nodded.

  “We have to be very careful what comes in here. Everything in those bags has been returned to them, though I hope you’ll let me take a closer look,” Saul said to Eve, who hesitated, then relaxed her grip on the bag.

  “Of course.”

  “It’s Daniel’s stuff,” Asa said.

  “I assumed as much.”

  “Daniel always talked about how he had a backdoor into the system,” Eve said. “He said it was how he got you off that transport before you could be …”

  “Terminated,” Saul said. He nudged her gently. “Saying the word won’t make it happen,” he added.

  Eve gave him a cold look. “Yes. Thank you. Anyway, we had hoped we could get across the river to Sanctuary, to Daniel’s grandfather, David. He built the Network. He built the back door … and we thought he could help us.”

  “Expunge our records, call off the stalkers,” Asa explained.

  Saul nodded, but his face was grave. “Do you even know if David is alive?” he asked.

  “No,” she admitted.

  Eve was beginning to look exhausted, and Asa straightened his spine, warding off fatigue of his own. He realized that he was not exactly sure when he had last slept. Not the last night, certainly, and very little the night before—and that was in the stalkers’ cell.

  “Saul,” Eve said slowly. “I know it was a long shot, but it was the only chance we had. You worked with Daniel. He trusted you with his life—”

  “I’m not sure how much that counted with him,” Saul said dryly.