The Raintree Rebellion

by Janet Mcnaughton

  So at least that mystery is solved.

  As we walk back to our office, I try to process everything we’ve learned. “If my father had enemies inside the government, he must have been special, Erica, don’t you think? Maybe he was a leader of the resistance, like you and William were in Terra Nova.”

  “Try not to get your hopes up, Blake.” I hear the caution in Erica’s voice, but I’m already beyond that.

  In our office, I find a message from Kayko, directing me to the archives for the morning. Terry Raven is waiting with a copy of the radio broadcasts for me. “You can work anywhere, of course, but I’d be happy to have you work here. That way, I can download your content notes before you leave.” He waves toward a cubicle. “Astral has already set up in there.”

  Inside the media booth, he hands me earbuds and loads the disk while I patch my scribe into the system. Then he leaves me alone with the past.

  “Good morning, human animals!” a voice yells into my ears. “You’re listening to RTLM, Toronto, Radio to Liberate Your Mind! Here’s last week’s number-one hit, ‘We Bin Robbed, We Bin Robbed,’ by the Silent Spring Tribe.” The music throbs. As I listen, it occurs to me I might have heard this broadcast, or one just like it, as a baby passing some radio receiver on the street in my mother’s arms. Or my father’s. I’m powerfully drawn to that vision of the past. I have to force my attention back to the music. The singer is chanting against a rhythmic backup. The song is about the toxins in the atmosphere. The final verse gets to the heart of the message:

  Tell me who took away our ecology?

  Well it must’a been all that technology.

  The time is coming to show some might,

  To blast away the techies and get back what’s right.

  We bin robbed.

  That’s just the start. As the morning passes, I realize RTLM existed to whip up hatred against science and technology. And they were very creative. Like “We Bin Robbed,” all the music decried the destruction of the environment, or urged people to revolt against technology, or both. I listen to an episode of “All the Earth’s Children,” a serial play about a girl with environmental diseases. She seems to have three or four, all fatal, and her parents rage helplessly against technology, while her friends try to trace the toxins back to their sources. It’s dramatic, wildly unrealistic, and very effective, I’m sure, in making people hate technology and science.

  My father was a scientist. At least, I know he worked in a lab. What would it have been like to be the target of such intense hatred? By lunchtime, I feel sick. Astral looks grim when he comes out of his cubicle. I remember his mother was a scientist too.

  “Are you all right?” he asks.

  “I’m fine,” I say automatically, then I stop and shake my head. “Not really. It’s awful, isn’t it?”

  “I always wondered how my mother knew she had to send me away. I guess it was like that everywhere. It must have been a nightmare. At least we’re finished for the day. I never thought I’d be happy to sit through a Council meeting.”

  “Neither did I.” But I’m almost giddy with relief. I’d forgotten about the meeting.

  At lunch, Kayko, Griffin, and Luisa ask about RTLM, but Astral and I don’t say much. The feelings those broadcasts have provoked are too intense to discuss. The others are so excited about their hologram, they don’t notice. This enthusiasm helps wash away the residue of hatred that seems to cling to me like a fine layer of filth.

  We spend all afternoon watching the Justice Council debate the finer points of accepting victim statements, but I barely listen. Instead, I spin daydreams about my father, the brave resistance leader. But I can only create my dream father for a few moments at a time. RTLM keeps intruding. There’s something horribly contaminating about those radio broadcasts.

  I don’t talk to Erica about RTLM after work. I’m too confused by the unaccountable shame of knowing that someone related to me incited such hatred. The hate was wrong, evil even, but it floods my system like a toxin. By nightfall, I feel like I’m crawling out of my skin. I wish I could go to High Park, to see how Sparrow is, to talk to Prospero, but I’ve promised to stay away. I’ve got to distract myself.

  Then I remember William, during the holo-conference, reminding me to use the portable holo-lab. I still haven’t touched it. I’ve almost forgotten about science since we came here, about what I’m supposed to be. Now, I feel the need to reclaim that part of myself. I open the case, set up the rods that run the tiny holo-projectors, and patch my scribe into it. The lab can be used for original experiments, but I’m too involved with the Justice Council to think creatively, so I call up the menu of classic experiments and disappear into the world where I feel most at home.

  I choose something basic, a twentieth-century experiment that creates organic compounds from inorganic materials. This might just be a cute trick, or it might help explain how life began on earth. Nobody knows. This experiment would be dangerous to run in my bedroom real life, because a flame is needed to keep water boiling inside glass tubes and a power source sends an electric charge through the artificial atmosphere, so it’s perfect for the holo-lab. I call up the glass tubes and configure them into a closed circuit with a chamber for boiling water, a spark chamber, and a cooling area. It takes time to work out the best configuration. Then I insert the virtual sterile water and select the amounts of hydrogen, methane, and ammonia to create the reducing atmosphere. I set up a virtual fuel cell to provide the spark that charges the gases, simulating lightning. I work with intense concentration, loving every moment. Finally, after a few hours, I light the virtual burner that will keep the water boiling. It’s a simple experiment, but the holo-lab won’t produce results unless I’ve done everything properly, just as in real life.

  When I’m finished, I shut off my lights and lie back on the bed so I can admire the skymaker’s stars on the ceiling, but I leave the holo-lab open, so the blue flame lights my night as well. Science is not evil. Technology harmed the earth, but only because people weren’t good enough to use it better. The Consumers could have stopped the destruction of the planet. Instead, they went on consuming.

  The next few days are going to be difficult, but I’ve got to get through. Some lost truth about the start of the technocaust might be hiding in those broadcasts. If it is, I’ve got to be strong enough to find it.

  18

  Violence is justified when the future of the planet is at stake. Take out the techies.

  —Radio RTLM, July 2353

  When I meet Astral in the archives the next morning, dark circles smudge the skin under his eyes. “I can’t take a whole day of this,” he says before I can ask him what’s wrong. “I barely slept last night, thinking about those broadcasts. I’m going to ask the others if you and I can spend afternoons working on the hologram of that rally. I know Kayko wanted to study the fractiles more first, but we’ve already identified that tent as an area of interest. Are you with me?”

  He’s taken me by surprise; I was steeled to carryon. “If we only listen in the mornings, those broadcasts will just take longer to get through.”

  “But I’d probably be able to sleep at night. Blake, you’re a lot stronger than I am—” he starts to say, but I interrupt him.

  “Oh, I don’t think so. It upset me too, you know. I felt contaminated.”

  “But you found a way to overcome that, didn’t you?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “I knew you would. You can endure anything. Probably because you’ve been through so much.” He spreads his hands and lets them fall in a gesture of helplessness. “I just don’t have your resilience. This is eating me alive.”

  “All right,” I say, “we’ll talk to the others at lunchtime.”

  But I back away from Astral. In spite of my loathing for RTLM, I can’t get into the media booth fast enough. I knew his anger was protecting something. These caustic radio broadcasts have stripped away his shell. He’s so vulnerable, it scares me. I patch my scribe into th
e system, but before I load the disk, I stop, suddenly ashamed of myself. Everybody’s afraid of something. Astral’s fear of this hatred from the past is honest, at least. What am I afraid of? His weakness or his honesty? The intensity of his emotion? The thought that he might want me to feel something for him? When it comes to feelings, I’m the coward.

  Maybe because I’m braced for RTLM today, it doesn’t hit me quite as hard. I still have to listen to hate-filled songs, but there’s a new feature: “Creatures from the Lost Ark,” profiles of animals that disappeared during the mass extinctions of the twenty-first century. Today, it features the great apes, the gorilla and the orangutan, not-so-distant cousins of humans, now gone forever.

  “They were like us in some ways,” the broadcaster says.

  “In the twentieth century, we taught them sign language and learned they were capable of creative thought and deep emotion. But their native habitats were already threatened. Our greed for land and timber destroyed the orangutan even before the planet was plunged into chaos.” Somehow, this is easier to listen to. The broadcaster sounds sad rather than bitter.

  So the morning isn’t nearly as bad as I expected. By lunchtime, I wonder if I could possibly persuade Astral to continue. But when I see his face, I know there’s no point in trying. “As bad as yesterday?” I ask.

  “Worse, if possible,” he says. “The shows that invite listeners to express their opinions really get to me. You hear the hate in their voices. They managed to blame science for just about everything.” He looks like he can’t take much more.

  “We’ll ask about the hologram,” I say.

  The other aides are sympathetic when we explain. “Why didn’t you tell us yesterday?” Kayko asks.

  “I think we were too shocked to talk about it,” I tell her.

  “Mine wasn’t bad this morning, but Astral is right, it’s very hard to listen to. Can you give us something else to do in the afternoons?”

  “You can start to work on the fractile with the tent, but it won’t be what you expect,” Kayko says. “We’re going to have a hard time with that projection because of the gaps that will appear as people move out of camera range. I’d like you to fast-forward all the way through the projection and identify as many of the people as possible. Keep track of when people leave the tent. Map their movements so we know which fractiles they disappear into and record the counter numbers at those points.”

  “So we won’t actually have to hear anything today?” Astral says. “That’s a relief.”

  “Why do you want us to record where people disappear?” I ask.

  “So we can follow them,” Griffin says. “We’re hoping people will talk about things that went on inside the tent after they leave.”

  I shudder. “Eavesdropping on the past. It’s a bit creepy, isn’t it?”

  “This whole exercise is eavesdropping on the past,” Griffin replies.

  “But today, you’ll just be watching,” Kayko says as she stands. “I’ll get you started now. I’ll put the counter on the wall. Record the numbers when you make notes. Fast-forward with your remotes and pause when you need to. Go to the main projection room now and I’ll load the disk.” As we start to leave, she says, “This will really be helpful. I didn’t think we’d have time to do it.”

  “Are you all right?” I ask Astral as we go into the projection room. We ask each other this a lot now.

  “No. I feel like I’m living the last year of my mother’s life. She wasn’t here, but things must have been about the same in British Columbia. If this keeps up, I’ll have to try to talk to her.”

  The idea startles me, but I try not to show it. His ability to believe gives him strength. Who am I to argue with that?

  “It’s not as bad for you, is it?” he continues.

  “No, I don’t think it is. But there’s a reason. I haven’t told anyone else yet, but I might be about to find out more about my father.” As I speak, I realize I’ve been afraid to tell anyone, as if talking about him might make me less likely to learn about my father’s past.

  The projection suddenly fills the room and freezes. Large red numbers glow against a wall. Kayko’s voice floats over to us. “There’s the counter. If you run into problems, we’re here.”

  We should start work, but Astral ignores the projection around us. “Tell me about your father,” he says.

  So I do. “And I guess living in 2353 seems somehow fitting to me at the moment,” I say when I finish. “But we may not find out much about him.”

  “Sounds like there’s a good chance you will,” Astral says. “I envy you. I don’t know a thing about my father.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “Nothing. ‘He checked out before you checked in.’ That was all my mother would say when I asked.” He points his remote at the control panel on the wall. “I’m going to mute this. It will be weird enough without the sound.”

  He’s right. A full-scale hologram in fast-forward is completely bizarre. People rush around and through us in fast, jerky motion. At first, we only see Swan Gil inside the tent talking to someone who never comes into view. Then a crowd of people arrives. Astral freezes the projection. “Those faces look familiar.”

  We find every one in our files: “Let’s keep going,” Astral says. He sounds more like himself now. After an hour or so, there are about twenty people in the tent, and almost all of them are persons of interest. I can’t think of them as suspects any more.

  A tall blond woman carrying a baby enters the tent. She sits down, puts the baby to her breast, and begins talking to the people around her. The baby has curly red hair, and white, white skin. One hand waves like a little floating starfish while she nurses. I’m fascinated. “Do we know who that woman is?” I ask.

  Astral pauses the projection. “Maybe.”

  It takes us awhile to find her. “Here she is,” he says at last. “Dido Anders.”

  I hate to ask, but I can’t stop myself. “Where is she now?”

  Astral sighs. “She died in 2354.”

  Suddenly, this is just as grim as RTLM. I look at the baby, frozen in her mother’s arms. Another orphan. “Keep going.”

  More people enter the tent. “This is incredible,” I say.

  “These are all people we want to know about.” A few minutes later, a man approaches the tent. I feel a shock of recognition. “I know him,” I say before I can stop myself. He’s clean-shaven and much younger, but I recognize his face and the way he carries himself. He stops at the door of the tent. Dido Anders comes out and gives him the baby. It can’t be, I think. “Do you mind if we play this part?” I ask, and Astral complies.

  The man stands at the opening of the tent and calls to Dido. She comes out and gives him the baby. “She’s fed,” she says, “so she’ll be fine until this afternoon. Bring her back around two. And Gary, try not to do anything stupid, will you?”

  He laughs. “You know me.”

  She lowers her voice to a furious whisper. “I mean it. Get yourself arrested today and you’re on your own. What’s going on here is too big for me to be distracted. Understand?”

  “Got it.” He grins. “Without a net.” But she’s still angry as he leaves.

  Astral pauses again. “Is he in our files?”

  I shake my head. “He looks exactly like someone I know. But I must be wrong.”

  I find it difficult to concentrate after that. Luckily, Astral is engaged enough for both of us. He barely notices how distracted I am. I must be mistaken, I tell myself while the rest of the projection whizzes by around us. No one would speak to Prospero that way. It seems unthinkable. But there’s the red-haired baby. Rosa, he said she was called. The wife who died in the technocaust, that would be Dido Anders. Even his phrasing. “Without a net.” That’s what he said to me when I told him about Sparrow. But why was she worried he’d get arrested?

  “Look at that!” Astral jolts me out of my thoughts. I look up to see a man surrounded by bodyguards approach the tent. Falcon Edw
ards.

  He enters with someone who looks like an aide, and the bodyguards arrange themselves around the tent. “He’s sitting right in the middle of camera range,” Astral says. “We should be able to hear everything he says.”

  “Should we listen?”

  “I’d love to, but that isn’t what we said we’d do. We should wait until everyone can watch.” For a long time after, we simply fast-forward. No one goes in or out.

  “Maybe they wanted to shut the rally down,” I say.

  “But we know they didn’t,” Astral replies. “We have a full day of recordings.”

  “What’s going on then?”

  “I can’t imagine. But it looks important.”

  Edwards finally leaves the tent after what must have been several hours, followed by his entourage. We map his course out of the fractile, then fast-forward again. No one else leaves for a long time after. The man named Gary comes back with the baby and Dido Anders leaves with him, looking upset. Soon after, a number of important people leave too, Eric Wong among them.

  Kayko, Griffin, and Luisa finish for the day, but Astral and I send messages to our offices and stay on. Just before the projection ends, everyone leaves the tent. We spend a few frantic minutes viewing and rewinding until we get everyone’s coordinates mapped as they disappear. Then the projection ends.

  “That was a good afternoon’s work,” Astral says.

  I’m still trying to process everything. “That wasn’t really a speakers’ rest area. Nobody went in or out for such a long time, but the speeches on the platform must have continued.”

  “You’re right. We should meet with the others tomorrow morning to tell them about this.”

  “You’re just trying to avoid RTLM.” I’m surprised to find I can tease him.

  He smiles. “Avoiding RTLM is a bonus, but the others really do need to know what we’ve found.” He sighs. “And it won’t take long to tell them. We’ll still have plenty of time for hate radio.”

  That evening, at home, I’m pleased to see my experiment is already showing results. The water has turned pink, a sign that amino acids are collecting. Everything is falling into place.