by Krista McGee
“I apologize.” John pats my hand and walks to his couch. “I have not redecorated in years.”
“How can you stand this?” I can’t stop crying. I don’t even care that the tears are dripping off my face and falling onto my shirt.
“It’s not so bad.” John rubs the arm of his couch. “James has offered to get me new furniture, but this reminds me of the old days. I need reminders.”
“No, not the room.” Although it could certainly use a good cleaning and, at the very least, some new fabric. “This. Life. Being cooped up and told what to do and who to talk to and who not to talk to.”
John leans forward. Yesterday I would have found his slow movements endearing. Today they are just frustrating. Everything is frustrating.
“Did something happen?”
I laugh. The question isn’t funny, but the laugh escapes anyway. “I found out there is a whole community of people living aboveground, and that if I care anything at all for Berk I can never see him again, and if I’m really good maybe I can go above and be completely removed from him forever. That’s all.”
John’s thick white eyebrows come together. It’s an odd sight. “There is a community aboveground? Are you sure?”
“Of course I am sure.” My mind flashes to the dust, the pods. Asta. Stone. “It’s . . . nice. Different.”
“A community aboveground.” John isn’t talking to me. He is somewhere else, lost in memories I can’t even imagine. “What does it look like?”
My frustration melts away. He is so eager, so hungry for news of the world he once knew. “I didn’t see much. Just some pods and gardens. And a child.”
John sucks in a breath. “A child?”
I see the little girl again. Summer. Her dark hair and eyes. Her tiny hands. “She was beautiful.”
“What I wouldn’t give to see a child again.” John sighs. “The only time I see children is . . .” He shakes his head, unable to complete the thought.
“I also saw my friend Asta.” I know Stone said not to speak to anyone down here about Progress, but this is John. “We were told she was annihilated several years ago. But she wasn’t. She is alive.”
“Asta?” John’s face changes. “Was she a young girl when she was brought here? Eight or nine?”
“Yes.”
“I spoke to her.” John puts a hand over his heart. “All she had was a little cold. Just a cold. And they—”
“They took her above.” I try to comfort the old man. “She is fine. Happy.”
John shakes his head. “No. I walked with her to the annihilation chamber. I prayed with her.”
“The Scientists must have taken her from there.” I am sure there is a simple explanation. “She wasn’t annihilated. They allow the ones who can survive above to live there. They even allow them to have children that are . . . born.”
John stands. I have never seen him so agitated. I stand to walk to him, but the door opens.
“Thalli, you should not be here.” My Assistant is at the door, motioning me to follow. She gives me no time to comfort John or even to say good-bye. She is walking down the hallway, and I know I need to stay with her. I look back and John is still standing, his eyes wide, blinking away tears. I wouldn’t have told him about Progress if I knew it would upset him so much.
“You must eat.” The Assistant opens the door to my room, where a tray with food that seems even more unappetizing than usual sits. “Then I will return to take you to isolation.”
She expects me to object. I should not disappoint her. “Isolation?”
The Assistant raises her hand to stop me. “Leaving your room without permission is not allowed. And that man—”
“His name is John.”
“He is dangerous.”
I want to defend John, to argue with this Assistant that there is nothing dangerous about John, that he is the only one down here—other than Berk—who treats me like a human. But I don’t say anything. Because she is taking me to the isolation chamber. And that is where Asta found me. Perhaps Dr. Loudin is allowing me to go to Progress again. But this Assistant cannot know that.
“You must eat,” she repeats. I realize she will not leave until I do.
I swallow the food—a vegetable patty with sourdough bread and apple slices. I barely taste any of it. My mind is in Progress. I want to see more of it this time. Last time I was so shocked, so overwhelmed, I could barely take anything in. Not now. My curiosity—it is still hard to believe that is a positive trait—drives me to see more, to explore.
The Assistant opens the door. “Isolation.”
I haven’t heard music in a while, but it is there again. A flute plays staccato notes, trilling, skipping up and down the scale. I wish I could take out my pad and type this out. The music of Progress. Of hope.
I sit in the white moving chair and wait.
I barely have time to close my eyes before the door opens. Asta pokes her head in.
“It’s about time.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I am having trouble seeing. Everything looks white. My eyes water. The last time I was in Progress, the sky was darker, closer to evening. But it is daytime now. And it is bright. So much brighter than what we have below. Even with our artificial lights and our panels, our world is darker. And the sun—I can actually feel it. It is an amazing feeling. Like nothing I have ever felt before. I blink a few more times and my eyes begin to adjust.
“Stone insisted that he get you all to himself today,” Asta says as we continue walking.
Stone is smiling, two sheets of plastic in his hands. “I would have come to get you—”
“He is scared of the inside.” Asta smiles at me. “He thinks he’ll get stuck in there and not be allowed out.”
Stone rolls his eyes. “No. I just prefer the air out here.”
“Right.” Asta laughs and walks off. I have never seen people interact like this. So . . . not serious.
“Ready?” Stone hands me a sheet of plastic and I begin to follow Asta. “No, not that way.”
“What?”
Stone takes off in the opposite direction, to the other side of the building. “You’ve already seen that part of Progress. I want to show you the west side.” He turns to look at me and bends down, his face inches from mine. “Plus, I want to have you all to myself. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since you were here.”
I don’t know what to say. I said those words about Berk just a few days ago. Is it wrong to accept them from Stone now? But Berk has to remain in my past. Stone could be my future. I am confused. But I don’t have time to think about it because I am sitting on the plastic, careening down the hill. I don’t even think about the dust. I just enjoy the speed and the rush of movement. I could do this all day.
It is over and we are at the bottom of the mountain. This looks similar to the other side. Dust as far as I can see. But this side has no pods, no people. Stone holds his hands out to help me up. Instead of letting go when I have risen, he pulls me closer, wrapping his arms around my back. I lean into him, enjoying the feel of my face against his chest, his breath in my ear.
“I have missed you.”
I pull away, but Stone keeps his arms around me. Our faces are so close that my eyes struggle to focus. “Why?”
Stone lets go of me and laughs.
“What’s so funny?” This response seems quite strange. Everything about Stone is strange. I find myself almost as curious about him as I am about Progress itself.
“You are so innocent.” Stone shakes his head.
“Innocent?”
Stone takes my hand and we begin to walk. “It isn’t a bad thing. It’s just so different.”
“Different?”
“Out here, feelings are encouraged.” Stone squeezes my hands. “Lots of feelings. We get angry. We get excited. We love people and we miss people.”
My heart is beating faster. “I have heard of love.”
Stone stops and turns to me. “What h
ave you heard?”
I am embarrassed to tell him about John and Amy. Will he think I am feeling that way about him?
“It’s all right. We don’t have to talk about it right now. We’ll have plenty of time.”
I sigh. I am relieved that he isn’t pressing this. We walk again, and I see something in the distance. “What is that?”
“A building.” Stone smiles and pulls me along, moving faster.
“Building?” I recall that word from my history lessons. “Built by the ancients?”
“Exactly.”
I cannot believe it. “But I thought everything was destroyed.”
“Almost everything.”
“But our lessons said that nothing was left standing. That our community only survived—”
“Because of the reinforcements put in place by the Scientists?”
“Yes.” I am surprised he knows that.
“Some of the newcomers have brought their learning pads with them.” He shrugs.
“So the Scientists lied?”
“The Scientists really are good, Thalli.” Stone stops and looks at me. “But they can’t let everyone know everything. Sometimes it’s best to withhold the whole truth in order to protect people.”
“I suppose.”
“Not everyone is like you and me.” Stone moves closer to me. Our shoulders bump as we walk along. “The others down there, they are programmed to be productive. To help the State survive. They don’t need to know there have been some unaffected areas in order to do that.”
“But it’s okay for you to know that?”
“And you.” Stone motions behind us. “The original settlers of Progress broke free from the programming and they raised us the same way. And the Scientists recognize that is good. We will be the ones to move our generation on to bigger and better things.”
Stone is so confident, so inspiring. So sure. I am still struggling to understand that I am really not malformed. It’s a wonderful thought, but it’s also a little frightening. How much of what I was taught is false? How long will it take me to unlearn what I have learned?
“Have I lost you?” Stone stops again.
“I am sorry.” I keep walking, my eyes looking down at my feet. “I was just thinking.”
“About what?” He grabs my hand again, this time fitting his fingers in between mine. “I want to know what you’re thinking.”
“I don’t like feeling so unsure. Just a few weeks ago I thought I knew everything. Now I don’t know what I know.”
“That is one of the beauties of living on the outside.” Stone releases my hand and places his arm around my shoulder. “You don’t have to know everything. You can’t know everything.”
I feel like I want to cry. But I don’t know why. I look up and realize we are almost there. “The building!”
“Cinema Royale.” Stone points to the faded letters above us.
“How do you know that’s what it was?” All I see are a few scattered letters, some barely hanging on.
“Come inside and I’ll show you.” He pushes aside a sheet of plastic, like the ones we came in on, and I am in a massive room. Bigger than I have ever seen before. “Welcome to Cinema Royale” is written in huge, sparkly letters on the wall to our right. I can tell people have visited this place often because it is free of dust. But it is so strange. “What is that?”
“The concession stand.” Stone steps behind a long counter and pushes a button that brings a machine to life. In minutes, the machine makes a horrible noise but emits a wonderful smell.
“A concession stand?” I reach toward the machine, but Stone pushes my arm down.
“Don’t. It’s hot.”
“Oh.”
“And that isn’t a concession stand.” He points to the machine. “That is a popcorn machine. This whole thing is a concession stand. People who worked here would sell all kinds of things. Most of it requires ingredients we no longer have. But this”—he opens a small door and fills a metal bowl with some of the contents of the popcorn machine—“this we can use.”
“Is it safe?”
“Of course.” Stone takes a handful and stuffs it into his mouth. “Try it.”
I lift just one piece to my mouth. It dissolves almost immediately. “It’s good.”
“I told you.”
“But how does it work?”
“I’ll explain it to you later.” Stone leaves the concession stand and walks in the opposite direction. “But there’s something else I want to show you.”
We walk down a dark hallway where I see half a dozen rooms. Stone leads me into one of them. It is even darker than the hall. Chairs are in there, strange chairs whose bottoms are folded to meet the backs. Stone folds one down and tells me to sit.
“I’ll be right back.”
I am too overwhelmed to say anything. I am in a building. Eating popcorn. I feel like I have jumped into one of the lessons on my learning pad. I lean back and the chair follows. It doesn’t move like the white chair in the isolation chamber, but it does move. My eyes adjust to the darkness and I can see art on the walls. Cloth pictures of strange people wearing strange hats and clothes. I want to get a closer look, but then the wall in front of me blinks on. Then I hear music. Amazing music. Instruments I cannot identify, all playing together. I have always wondered what that would sound like. I close my eyes and just listen, picking out the violins and flutes, percussion and piano. So many people playing.
“Don’t close your eyes.” Stone is sitting next to me. “You’ll miss the movie.”
“Movie?”
“It’s an ancient form of entertainment. My father and I want to reinstate it. We just haven’t quite figured out how. But we did find a few old movies hidden away in this building. This one is my favorite.”
His father. He says that so casually. I want to ask what it was like to grow up with a father and a mother. With children of different ages. But I don’t have time.
Images fill the screen, and I see places that are beautiful. Cities filled with buildings that are new, with a ground that is clean. People who had no idea their world would be destroyed. But I can hardly concentrate on what they are saying because underneath almost all their talking is music. I wish I could turn the voices off and just hear the instruments. I wish I could play with them. I can hear a part for my violin, a harmony that could be played just under the melody.
I feel Stone’s gaze on me. “You like it?”
“Yes.”
I am captivated by what I see. It’s like the simulations, only better. I am part of the story, but I only observe. The people on the screen speak only to each other. Their accents are different. Like John’s.
As the story progresses, I grow uncomfortable. I feel like I am watching someone’s private interactions. I see two people go out together alone, like Berk and I did on the picnic. But they are in a building filled with tables and flowers and Assistants who bring food to them. Afterward, the couple walks on the shore of an ocean. The man takes the woman in his arms and puts his lips on hers.
Stone is looking at me again. I feel his arm brush against mine. The music is swelling to a crescendo and my heart beats in time to the music. I feel dizzy and scared and . . . wonderful.
“Are you all right?”
I look back up at the screen. “I’m sorry. I need to go.”
I rush out of the room, out of the hall, all the way back outside. I finally stop and I am panting, gasping for air.
Stone rushes through the plastic at the entrance. He pulls me to him in a tight embrace. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I thought you’d like it.”
“I did.” I pull away, needing more air in my lungs. “I do. It’s just . . . so different from anything I have seen. The music. The places. That couple—”
“They were in love.” Stone smiles at me. “Many of the films we have found are about love. That is one part of the Scientists’ formulations I don’t understand. Why eradicate love? It’s beautiful.”
&nb
sp; I think about John and Amy and I must agree. Love doesn’t seem like something that would create division. Could it?
“Do you want me to take you back?”
I can only nod, grateful for his understanding.
“You know”—Stone takes my hand again as we follow our footprints back to the base of the mountain—“if my dad and I can figure out how to make movies, we will need a Musician to create the background music. Do you think you might be interested?”
My heart beats faster. Make music like that? “Oh, Stone. Yes. But I would need others.”
“We have some you could train. Or we could record you playing each instrument, then play the recordings together. You could be your own orchestra.”
We spend the remainder of the walk discussing movies and music and techniques and plans. It is wonderful. I can hardly believe when we are standing at the door.
“You don’t have to go.” Stone takes a step closer to me, his hand grazing my cheek, then cupping my neck.
I see the couple from the movie in my mind. I am scared. Stone steps back. “It’s all right. We have plenty of time. I’ll see you soon?”
I can only nod and rush back inside. I am barely inside the isolation chamber before I collapse on the sleeping platform, exhausted.
I do not dream at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I am back in my room. I vaguely remember being escorted back here earlier. I am holding my violin. So many notes are bombarding my brain I don’t even know where to start. I try to erase those notes from my mind. To just play what I feel. My fingers reach for my bow, and I place the instrument in the familiar spot on my neck and close my eyes and play.
I play my walk with Stone. I play the movie. I play the feel of Stone’s hand in mine. I play the fear at his closeness. I play the music of Progress. So different, so free. Scary and inspiring and hopeful. I play my sadness at the thought of leaving this place forever. Never again seeing John. Or Berk. I try not to play Berk. His future is planned. And it is a future without me. But I cannot stop myself from playing. I see his face in the young man’s from the movie yesterday. I am the woman. He puts his hand on my face, just like Stone did. But with Berk, I don’t pull away.
