“It’s not a bother, Sylvia,” Gen beamed. “I think I know just the trick to show you. I found it in an old horticulture text I discovered in the legacy files on my scrollpad.”
The girls walked through a depressurization chamber and then into an intensely metallic silver corridor. They smiled and nodded as they passed other kids in uniforms similar to theirs but with varying trim colors. The boys wore full body jumpsuits.
Sylvia turned to Gen as they walked, her smile intensifying suddenly. “So I noticed that Zeke finally pulled you onto the dance floor.”
Gen tried to hide a guilty grin when suddenly she spotted Adam and Tuna slipping suspiciously into a side room ahead. “That’s weird.”
“Weird?” Sylvia said, confused.
Gen slowed down to see what room they had entered. AUDIO RELAY SYSTEMS was written on the door. “Huh?” she said under her breath.
“Gen?” Sylvia questioned having not seen Adam and Tuna.
“Zeke?” Gen said, redirecting. “Yes, he was a perfect gentleman. How could I refuse?”
Sylvia smiled and the two girls walked on down the silver corridor.
* * *
TUNA STOOD IN FRONT of a giant wall of lights. There were four small computer screens embedded at eye level. Adam walked behind him excited by the possibilities of all those lights.
“I figured out what we heard last time,” Tuna nervously admitted.
Adam patted Tuna on the back. “I knew it had been eating at you. Okay, so tell me. What did we hear?”
Tuna scratched behind his ear and nodded. “We figured it was music, right? I recognized some specific instrumental peculiarity about the little bit we heard. I searched all last night after the party until I found a match.”
“Nice work, Tuna. That’s the spirit. Give it to me.”
“It was a counter culture anthem from 150 years ago. The musicians purposely wanted the music sounding rough and under produced. The title made no sense, but the subtext was that authority figures were all, how do I say it, to be ignored.”
“It was a rebel song,” Adam guessed.
“Yes. That’s it.” Tuna said, excitedly. “That’s a better way to put it, but just for teenagers against adults rather than a political statement.”
Adam thought about this a while. “And what about the man who started talking? Was he a part of the song?”
Tuna shook his head. “I don’t think so. Back then, on the radio when they played music, a person would introduce the songs. He was a DJ.”
Adam paced around as Tuna watched. “Wait a minute. You’re saying this was just something from the past, some kind of lingering echo.”
“No. I’m not saying that at all. That was live. That was a real person talking. I don’t know how or why, but that guy was broadcasting, probably all by himself. That was radio. A radio station.”
The two boys let those words hang in the air between them. Adam felt hope welling up within and for the first time in a long time there was a sense of wonder in his heart.
“Go ahead,” Adam urged. “Do it, Tuna. Do it again.”
Tuna turned to the wall of lights and paused in awe of what he was about to attempt. Adam noticed Tuna’s reluctance. He put his hand on his shoulder to nudge him forward.
All four computer screens were gray with a single flashing prompt in the center. Tuna stepped to the screens and cracked his knuckles. He turned with uncertainty to Adam.
“Exploration,” Adam whispered.
Tuna turned back to the computers, exhaled and then his fingers attacked the four touch screens, one after the other, punching out complex passwords in a flash. A unique shape appeared on each screen.
Tuna was able to touch the shapes, slide them off one screen and throw them onto the next and vice versa. It was a kind of picture code which Tuna sequenced in six confident moves. The screens went black.
Adam became anxious as the screens remained black. Tuna turned to his panicked friend, winked, then turned back to the screens. Slowly, orange code began to rain down onto each black screen.
“How do you do that?” Adam asked while the indecipherable numerical gibberish began to invade the black screens.
“Dude, I’ve been programming since I was three.” Even as Tuna spoke he was already typing two screens at a time with lightning precision. Adam watched his friend’s hands fly across the four touch screens like a skilled pianist.
A high-pitched beep announced Tuna’s victory over the chaos. The orange code had been gathered into small, single lines of code in the center of each screen. All characters in these lines of code were now zeros or ones.
“Binary breakthrough,” Tuna said indifferently. He punched a few more keys and three screens went gray. The forth screen was all black with just a single green frequency number on it.
“352.91,” Tuna said, reading the screen. “That’s us.”
Adam scrunched his face trying to understand.
Tuna realized he needed to explain again. “Just like last time, if we change this like so, we change the frequency.” Tuna pressed the corner of the screen. An up/down arrow appeared.
He pressed the up arrow and they watched the frequency rise to 353.4, then 354.88, then 356.52. Tuna tapped the up arrow twice very quickly and the number went up 100 to 456.52. He pressed the arrow again and rode it to 468.4 and finally 468.99. He stopped.
Tuna stepped back. “There.”
“I don’t hear anything,” Adam said, confused.
Tuna touched the other corner of the screen and a volume control appeared. He swallowed hard and then turned up the volume to a staticky melody. Adam’s eyes opened wide as he listened intently.
The song was sad and melodic without singing. The static gave it even more of a haunting, distant quality.
“The signal is weaker this time,” Tuna observed. “I think he’s moving.” For the first time Tuna appeared befuddled. “If he’s portable then his signal can’t be very strong to begin with.”
A moment of clarity erupted onto Adam’s face. “He’s close. Nearby. He must be broadcasting on a ship, right?”
Impressed, Tuna took the words under advisement. “Not bad, Thirdborn. I think you’re absolutely right.”
And then something happened that shocked both of them to their cores. The song ended abruptly. Haunting static filled up the room with distance and emptiness until, finally, they heard his voice.
“That one will always reach deep into your gut, listeners,” the DJ said. The boys stood with their mouths hanging open. “Or is it just listener without the S or maybe by now, I am broadcasting only to ghosts. Well then, boo to you ghosts. Boo Hoo. Ha-ha. I hope you enjoyed that haunting little aperitif before I drop six straight golden oldies.”
Static again. Adam held his hand on his cheek and Tuna stepped away from the touch screen as if it were alive.
“Six straight guitar gods are coming up while I go see about a few digestive issues that have ruined a perfectly good day at sea.”
Adam pointed quickly at the screen hearing the words “at sea”.
“Four months with nothing but canned beans will do that for you,” the DJ quipped, “but I’m still having a gas and I hope you are too.”
And on that comment, the music began, a single guitar playing what sounded very familiar. They bent their faces trying to make it out.
The boys startled suddenly as the door slid open from the corridor.
Gen stood in the doorway trying to understand why Adam and Tuna were inside the audio relay hub guiltily listening to guitar music. Tuna looked to Adam for a cue, but Adam just stared at Gen.
She turned up her ear to the music, suddenly recognizing the song. “That’s the old national anthem?” Gen said, confused. “What’s with all the static?”
Tuna spun back to punch out a quick escape on the touch screens. All four screens returned to gray. The music stopped. “Yep, that’s what it was,” Tuna concluded. He patted Adam on the back and walked toward Gen. “I’
ve got navigation homework.” Tuna squeezed past Gen into the corridor and left her alone with Adam.
When Adam tried to follow Tuna out, Gen stepped in front of him.
“I don’t know what that was, Thirdborn,” she said. “But I know it sounded like trouble.”
“Really?” Adam smirked. “What’s trouble sound like exactly?”
They were inches apart and when Adam smirked down at her, Gen lost her patience. “You should know.”
Adam stifled a laugh. “You’re serious? I should know? That’s the best you can do?”
Gen felt challenged. “To you? I think trouble sounds like music.” She pointed over to the touch screens. “Trouble is music to Adam Thirdborn’s ears. That’s what I think.”
His smirk faded. “That’s a little better, Fifthborn.” They stared into each other’s eyes, hostile yet savoring the moment. “A lot better actually,” he added, almost impressed. “Now can I go?”
She stepped aside, mock graciously. He walked quickly past her.
-4-Doctor Lotte Becker walked down the corridor with a confident gait. It was important to her to project strength and confidence. She was a fourth generation doctor. She had graduated third in her class at the Oberon Medical Institute and she had spent her internship in pediatrics at the Capitol Center for Infectious Diseases (CCID). Her father had been both a decorated combat doctor and later the President’s personal physician.
Sixteen years on the island and she had been present at every birth. She had been a shoulder to cry on for the kids on hundreds of occasions even if her shoulder was forever on the other side of the glass.
The Eden Project team had been commissioned by a secret government committee months before the outbreak had become acknowledged to the world at large. It would take five years before they devised the plans and another five before the dome had been completed. Uninfected girls had been quarantined for years waiting for the breeding to begin.
A team of thirty doctors, scientists and engineers were eventually brought to this remote island to begin first the breeding process and then the training for the launch.
She remembered arriving with the other doctors to find scientists and engineers already at work fine tuning their incredible creation. She stood there looking through the glass with the other awestruck doctors marveling at the four massive ships inside the dome which, they were told, were mounted on top of huge underground rocket silos.
In that moment her hidden skepticism faded away. She had never seen anything like it in all her days. Her initial thought back then was to consider it the crown jewel in the history of human technology, but quickly a second more ominous thought emerged: the thought that if the project failed then this glorious island was to be the final act of all human technology and all human history.
They began with sixteen doctors. She was among the final four to survive. The others had been quarantined over the years when they began to test positive. They were quarantined immediately and allowed to continue to participate in the project via computer as long as their failing minds would allow.
Each of the doomed doctors, scientists and engineers had signed a pre-release allowing them to be destroyed once the virus mutated and reduced them intellectually. It was a mere matter of days or weeks before each infected colleague had to be drugged then incinerated. Their ashes were quickly locked inside toxic waste containers.
Along with the four doctors, there also remained two deep space scientists and a single engineer. Thirty team members had been reduced by the virus to seven and they were all now called to an emergency meeting.
Doctor Becker was the last of the team to enter the conference room. The dark-haired, square-jawed Doctor Quarna held the door while she hurried into the room, walked past four other seated men and took the open seat next to the only other woman in the room, Claudia Cardoza.
Claudia, the engineer, was a lean, yet muscular woman who contrasted all others by wearing a snug, gray t-shirt while they wore white lab coats. She was the lone surviving engineer. She had been working hard before this meeting and she would be working hard after this meeting. This meeting was obviously testing her patience.
An air of concern hung over the faces of Doctor Pappas, Doctor Wescott and Doctor Naseer, three men in their fifties. They were uneasy sitting next to gray-haired Doctor Hossler, the oldest of the Eden Project team, whose face was beet red. He fidgeted restlessly waiting for Doctor Quarna to begin.
Like the two women, Doctor Quarna was in his mid-forties but still incredibly fit and so he did not look a day over thirty-five. As director of the Eden Project he projected his confident command effortlessly in every small movement he made.
He cleared his throat and seemed to hesitate. He went over a thought once more in his head. “Doctor Hossler, you may have heard,” Doctor Quarna stopped to exhale. “Clive has lost his son. We got word two days ago. It’s a terrible thing.”
Everyone already knew this, but they all looked at Doctor Hossler sympathetically. Doctor Hossler ignored them defiantly.
“He asked me for a vote. I told him we don’t vote about such things.”
Doctor Hossler sat up, could not wait any longer. “I want a vote. Forgive me, Doctor Quarna. Sorry to interrupt, but let’s get right down to this. My son is dead. We all know this by now. He was my last surviving child.”
The room watched the old doctor become overcome suddenly by the finality of his last statement. “I have a grandchild,” he continued, quietly. “He’s uninfected. I want to get to him.”
Doctor Becker looked to Claudia. The two women were devastated by Doctor Hossler’s news of his grandson. Doctor Quarna hung his head trying to avoid falling into sentimentality.
Doctor Hossler saw that the room was firmly behind him. “Their shelter was found. My son died defending it. The others got word out but now they are on the run. I need to get out. I need to get off this island.”
Everyone looked around. Those words that no one had ever dared speak aloud hung in the air. He was asking to leave the island.
“The Project is on automatic pilot,” Doctor Hossler said. “You don’t need me. My grandson needs me. I want to leave the Eden Project.”
Doctor Quarna rose from his seat and paced behind his chair. They had been having this argument for days and were finally bringing the others into it.
“You all know the rules,” Doctor Quarna announced angrily. “We have all made sacrifices. We have all lost people. We leave the Eden Project together.” Doctor Quarna glared at Doctor Hossler for making him the bad guy.
“No one can leave this island and put everything at risk. Oh, and I mean everything. Not only everything we have sacrificed our lives for, but everything, period, the whole damn human race.”
Doctor Quarna opened the door and held it, noticeably upset. “We leave next year,” he said barely, not looking back at the others. “We leave after the ships have launched, after the navigation is checked, tested, verified. We leave when the kids are safe, when they’re sleeping in their hiber pods.”
He looked out through the door and a thousand miles beyond. “Only then,” he said before walking out of the room.
Doctor Becker watched him leave, took a moment and then reached out to touch Doctor Hossler’s shoulder. The others joined her in comforting their old friend who could only hunch sadly forward in his chair.
-5-Gen tapped her fingers on the table in front of her and waited. She faced three digital wall panels where she could see Cassie, Sylvia and Maya sitting impatiently on their own ships.
Maya, a dark-haired, dark-eyed fireball, shook her head from frustration. “Why is it that we are always waiting for the boys?”
“Too bad we can’t start the new world without them,” Sylvia added.
Tuna appeared on Cassie’s panel and quickly sat next to her.
“Did I make it?” Tuna asked, gasping for breath.
Gen watched on the first panel as Cassie glared at him. Tuna ignored her, looking instead at hi
s own ship’s wall panels. “Good,” Tuna said, relieved. “I beat the other guys again.”
“Beat the other guys?” Cassie turned her whole body to look at him. “Are you serious, Tyler Secondborn?” She was the only one who called him by his real name. Even the doctors had taken to calling him Tuna.
“I, ah—” Tuna stymied under the heat of her inquiry.
“I, ah—yeah, you better not answer.”
Gen enjoyed when Cassie scolded Tuna.
“Just because you are not as late as the other boys doesn’t make you our champion.” Tuna took Cassie’s words seriously which amused Cassie. Tuna noticed her face fighting off a smile and relaxed a little.
Cassie treated Tuna with a certainty and underlying affection that Gen dreamed of one day having with Zeke. She envied the reverence between them, the playfulness and the familiar trust.
Ozzie entered next to Maya and quickly thereafter Zeke sat down next to Gen. She flashed a pleasant smile at Zeke, but said nothing. She was just happy Zeke had arrived before Adam who seemed to enjoy making people wait.
Sylvia was noticeably disappointed. She sat alone until Adam entered confidently and set some kind of blue malt drink in front of her. While the simple gesture pleased Sylvia to no end, it pissed Gen off completely. Adam was the most self-centered kid in the dome and yet he always got away with everything.
“Can we begin?” Gen said, sounding nastier than she had intended.
Adam smiled his breezy smile through the wall panel and right into Gen’s heated gaze or so she felt. He knew he had gotten to her again and she knew what he was thinking.
“We each sit with our intended,” Gen said, recovering. “This is an open forum suggested by Doctor Quarna and Doctor Becker.”
“Doctor Hottie suggested this?” Tuna asked with a wide grin.
Gen clicked a button on her console and a fourth panel opened up in front of everyone. Doctor Becker appeared on the monitor.
“Doctor Becker will sit in with us as a moderator,” Gen said pointedly at Tuna’s panel. Cassie shoved Tuna who turned red.
The Eden Project: Humanity's Last Chance Page 2
