He pauses as a particularly bright meteor crosses the sky, his head turning to follow it. Then he continues:
“I’ll never forget the neighbors blabbing on and on about how they’d been spared by God. ‘Thank God this, and thank God that.’ Even so, I prayed for the first time ever that night. I prayed that God had also saved my grandmother. I searched through the crowd, becoming frantic with each stranger’s face that looked down as I tugged on familiar nightgowns. My bare feet went numb in the snow. My young teeth chattered out of my head. A man caught me up and took me to his home. We warmed ourselves beside the stove. He told me it was a miracle that I’d survived.”
“What about your grandmother?” I ask.
“It was three days before they officially broke the news. She’d likely died of smoke inhalation, but there was little left of her to bury. In that moment, I gave up on believing in God.”
“I felt jus’ the same way when the Park Service killed my family,” Jimmy says.
There’s a long silence where I wish I could make out the professor’s face to see if he shows any pain of responsibility for his and Jimmy’s shared horrors, but it’s too dark.
“I’m sorry about your family,” he says, finally breaking the silence. “It somehow seems different, having met you. Amazing how detached things seem when they’re on a little screen.”
“Thanks,” Jimmy says.
“What happened to you?” I ask.
“To me?”
“Yeah, after your grandmother was gone?”
“I went to live with a foster family.”
“Did you like them?”
“They were fine as far as foster parents go. They had a lot of state kids, so none of us got much attention. But we were looked after all right. I dove into my schooling then. I think the sciences appealed to me because I wanted to disprove God, at least to myself. It seemed better that there be no God than a God that I could only hate. But then I discovered physics and a new world of possibilities opened in my brain.
“I was young. Easily excited, perhaps. My mind began to see mysteries in science. Questions began to keep me up late at night. What if there was no single judging force that controlled worldly events? No God like we’d been taught? But what if it wasn’t all pointless chance, either? Perhaps the universes were ruled by a cosmic set of likelihoods? Clouds of probability? What if there were multiple realities, only one of which we perceive? Then perhaps my grandmother was saved from that fire after all. Or perhaps the fire never even happened.”
“What do you mean, never happened?” I ask.
“If a particle can exist in two places at once, couldn’t a person be both dead and alive?”
“Dead and alive?” I ask, thinking about my mother and father and hoping it could be true. “How could that be?”
“Well, it might have been juvenile thinking, and many of my contemporaries certainly laughed me out of their collegiate discussions. Still, I wondered. If we were able to truly transcend what we perceive, might it be argued that anything possible is not only possible, but in fact, is? If my grandmother believed in a heaven where her soul would carry on for eternity, is it too much to think that her belief made it so? What if everything that could possibly happen is happening and always has been and always will be? What if those meteors are particles ablating in the upper atmosphere? But what if they’re also the reentering souls seen by Jimmy’s mother?”
“So you do believe in souls,” I say.
“I don’t know what I believed then,” he replies. “But I’ve learned enough now to not believe in anything.”
“I hope I never learn that much,” Jimmy says.
“Me either,” I say. “But I do like your idea about multiple realities. About nothing really ending, but going on forever and ever. If that’s what you meant.”
“It has a darker flip side,” he says. “Might not suffering be also eternal? Might not evil play out again and again?”
“Is that why you agreed to go along with Dr. Radcliffe and the Park Service?”
“I’m not sorry,” he says. “If that’s what you’re asking me.”
“Well,” Jimmy pipes in, “ya should be.”
“You didn’t see the horror of humankind,” he says. “I did. When we came up from Holocene II and began touring the devastation, I went back to my hometown, but my hometown wasn’t even there. Then I went to the cities. I’ll tell you here and now I saw the apocalypse on display. You have no idea the destruction leveled by thousands of thermonuclear bombs. Bomb isn’t even the right word, they’re such hell. And there were many more of them than anyone thought, too. How ignorant we were to feel safe all those years before. And if you were a survivor, you’d have wished to have been inside the blast radius instead. Awful mutations. Cancer. And the crimes we unearthed! You’d be surprised what people will eat when no crops will grow under a blacked-out sun.”
“It sounds to me like you don’t agree with our stopping the drones,” I say. “So why are you helping us?”
“I don’t know what’s right anymore,” he sighs. “But I have no interest in leading anything, so I’m happy to let you try and figure it out. And who knows, maybe we were wrong. It doesn’t look as though it’s worked after all these years. Plus, as I’m sure you know, my brain is suffering now after nearly a millennium of thought, if you can call it that. I used to believe I’d get wiser with all this time, but it doesn’t seem so. Besides,” he says, pausing to lift his shadowed arm up toward the night sky, “I’m ready to join my grandmother up there. Or wherever she is or isn’t, alive or dead, always being or never having been.”
The meteors fade with the close of his story until we’re all standing in the sparkling dark, listening to the screw churn up the glowing waves behind us. After a short while, and without another word, the professor leaves us and heads inside. Jimmy and I linger for a few quiet minutes, watching the stars.
I toss and turn in my bunk, trying to fall back to sleep. My mind is running with images that I’d rather not see. Nuclear blasts catching cities by surprise. The professor’s grandmother burning in her townhouse. Eden on fire and my mother and father’s brains melting away in the boiling pool. The slaughter of Jimmy’s family in the cove, the pile of their burning corpses. Dr. Radcliffe shooting Gloria. Mrs. Radcliffe setting off the wave. The images roll across my mind and melt into each other like some kind of kaleidoscope of horror. I lean over the edge and look down on Jimmy.
“Are you hot?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Not as bad as earlier though.”
“It’s hotter than hot up here.”
“Go bunk in the torpedo room.”
“Torpedo room?”
“That’s what the professor called it when he chased me outta there. Last door in the forward passage. It’s nice n’ cool. But take yer pad, the floor’s got them traction thingies on it.”
The torpedo room is dark and cool, but the only place to lay my mat is between the stored torpedoes themselves, which means I’m cuddled up to a damn warhead.
I press my cheek against the cold metal casing and imagine the destructive power hidden inside, just inches from my face. Would I even feel it? No way. It’s strange to think what things we build with our big brains. That someone once picked up a rock and realized it could do much more damage than their fists alone. Then they sharpened it. Then they attached it to a stick. And here we are all these centuries later, and I’m sleeping next to a live torpedo.
There are times when I can almost understand where the Foundation was coming from when they dedicated the world as a park and formed the Park Service to protect it. But violence can’t be the right solution to violence. Or can it? I don’t know. Sometimes I wish other people would just tell me how to think. Tell me what to believe. I can see why it was so easy for the professor to go along with Dr. Radcliffe.
I open my eyes and see a blue light pulsing against the ceiling in the far corner of the dark torpedo room. At first, I think it must be my mind
playing tricks on me. Some lingering view of glowing plankton, or a strain on my eyes from staring at too many shooting stars. But then the light begins to annoy me, and I’m already feeling short on sleep.
When I get up and turn on the LED room light, of course the blue light seems to disappear, making me hunt around for its source. I step over torpedoes, kick around the miscellaneous supplies stored between them, finally coming to a tarp covering something in the far corner. I pull the tarp free, exposing the black box labeled ANTIMATTER. Its translucent window glows with a rhythmic pulse of blue light.
I storm into the control room, shouting: “What is that damn thing doing on here!”
The professor’s head jerks up from his chest, where he’d been sleeping at the wheel.
“Huh? What?” He franticly checks the controls.
“I said: what is it doing here!”
“What are you talking about?” he asks, once he’s satisfied by the gauges that we haven’t run up on another reef. “And more importantly, why are you yelling?”
“In there!” I shout, pointing. “In the torpedo room. The antimatter. Why is it here? With us? On the submarine?”
“It’s nothing,” he says, waving it off as no big deal. “Just a simple precaution is all.”
“A precaution?”
“Yes. We thought it would be wise to have a deterrent on board, in case something goes wrong.”
“Who’s we?”
“Myself and Hannah, of course.”
“Oh, is that so? You and Hannah? You mean Hannah who didn’t even want to come with us? Hannah who’s back safe at the Foundation, but she sends the antimatter along instead?”
“It’s perfectly safe,” he says, trying to be reassuring.
“I don’t care. I should have been told. And since when did you take orders from Hannah anyway?”
“Since Dr. Radcliffe was her father.”
“Well,” I huff. “We’ll see about that when we get back.”
“If we get back,” the professor corrects.
“What do you mean ‘if’?”
“I mean we have absolutely no idea what we’ll find on the Isle of Man. And that’s precisely why Hannah thought it wise to have some insurance on board. A bargaining chip of sorts. And frankly, even though I wouldn’t have challenged her either way, I agree with her reasoning.”
“Is that right? Her reasoning? Well, aren’t you two just thick as thieves? I’m beginning to distrust you, Professor. And when exactly did you find the time to haul that thing on board beneath our noses anyway?”
“We looked for you, but you we’re gone.”
“Gone where?”
“Your little boat trip with Jimmy. The morning we left.”
“Well, even so, you could have told us.”
“It didn’t seem important at the time.”
“Important?” I ask. “I’m not the physicist here, but I’d say enough antimatter to annihilate us and the entire Isle of Man is important. Wait? Is that the deterrent? If we find people there, you intend to threaten to destroy the island?”
“There is no plan,” he says. “It’s just another tool. Let’s not forget the mission. We need to get that encryption key, if it’s even on the island. And then we need to get back safely with it so you can take control of the drones. Otherwise, it’s business as usual up here, and your people are stranded down in Holocene II. Isn’t that why you came? To free them?”
“Yes, but—”
“But nothing,” he says. “Every tool we can bring that may help is worth having. Wouldn’t you agree? I should say you would. Let’s just hope we don’t need it.”
“Is everything okay?” Jimmy stands in the doorway with his eyes half shut and his hair tousled. Junior skulks at his feet.
“It’s fine,” I say. “Sorry if my yelling woke you.”
Jimmy turns without another word and shuffles off back the way he came. Junior follows him.
I spin back to the professor and speak in a lower voice. “We’re going to have a talk about not keeping things from one another when we return. You can bet on that.”
“Whatever you say,” he shrugs. “But that sounds like a talk you’ll need to have with Hannah.”
CHAPTER 10
The Isle of Man
Cold winds and high swells meet us in the Irish Sea.
This is a shame because I just catch a glimpse of the steep cliffs on Ireland’s distant southern coastline when the professor calls us down to close the hatch so we can dive.
It’s strange seeing everything for the first time. I have a strong sense of déjà vu because I’ve been building these images in my mind ever since I could read. And sometimes they’re just as I’d imagined. Other times, they’re not. The most shocking difference is that I always imagined the world in the past, as it was written about in the old books—a world filled with people. But not so up here now. Other than our misadventure with the ’Mericans, as they called themselves, we haven’t laid eyes on a single ship or any coastal signs of civilization for the twenty-three days we’ve been at sea. It’s a far cry from the busy but humdrum routine of my childhood life in Holocene II.
I’m in the head—that’s what the professor calls the shitter, although I don’t know why—when Jimmy comes knocking on the door.
“Hurry up,” he says.
“You feel sick, too?”
“No,” he shouts through the door. “We’re here.”
“Where?”
“The Isle of Man.”
Junior lies in the corner of the control room, chewing on something (probably the professor’s slipper), and Jimmy looks over the professor’s shoulder at the controls. I step up to the professor’s other shoulder and look over, too.
A pop-up LCD screen displays a rugged coastline covered in snow. And the snow is still falling, being driven in flurries by the wind, providing only peekaboo views through the digital periscope. Waves crash against rocks. Steep banks rise from the water. Hills roll inland like so many snow-covered swells.
“Doesn’t look very friendly,” I say.
“No,” the professor replies. “The weather is unfortunate. It’s usually much milder here, I think.”
“How big is it?” Jimmy asks.
The professor sighs. “Quite large, I’m afraid. I suggest we patrol the coastline at periscope depth. See what we can see.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” I say.
Other than brief restroom breaks and snack runs, we stay glued to the periscope’s screen. But my hopes sink with each passing kilometer. More jagged shoreline, more unwelcoming cliffs, and more falling snow. Eventually, Jimmy drifts away and passes the time by running down the passageways dragging his rabbit fur for Junior to chase. Every time they come skidding into the control room, the professor jumps with surprise then mumbles profanities, as if he were caught completely off guard, even though it just happened moments before. In time, Jimmy and Junior head off to hunt up food, and the professor nods off in his chair and snores. I stay alert and watch the screen.
It’s mesmerizing to stare at the coastline as it crawls by, its rugged beauty enhanced by the anticipation of what might roll next onto the scene. In a strange way, I feel like I’m back down in Holocene II, watching some ancient educational in our Level 3 theater. I have to keep reminding myself that what’s on the screen is happening right now, and that I’m only five meters beneath it underwater, not five miles beneath it underground.
I think about the people in Holocene II, going through their daily motions and still believing that this is a wasteland up here. I can’t wait to get this encryption key and stop the drones and invite them up to see for themselves how gorgeous it really is. My thoughts drift to my father—to his dreams of someday seeing a butterfly. I wish more than anything he were still alive. Him and my mother. Then I think about Hannah and Red back at the Foundation. I’m pretty pissed with Hannah right now, not just for staying last minute, but for letting the professor bring the antimatter along
without talking it over with Jimmy and me first. But that doesn’t stop me from worrying.
“Is that a light out there?” I ask, turning to the professor, only to remember that he’s sleeping. His response is a snore.
Nightfall came to the winter world above while I was daydreaming, but I swear that I catch a glimpse of light on the dark screen. I reach over and shake the professor awake. He yawns, rubs his red-rimmed eyes, and blinks at me.
“What is it?” he asks.
“A light. On the screen.”
“I can’t see it.”
“Wait for the snow to clear for a second. There!”
The professor springs to life, adjusting the controls and bringing the submarine to a halt. He zooms the camera as far in as it will go. The light grows on the screen from a tiny speck to a square glow, as if from a high window. But the driving snow and darkness make it impossible to discern the light’s source. And moments later, it disappears. The professor drops anchor and marks our position just in case we drift overnight. Then he stands and stretches, yawning.
“Good eye, kid,” he says. “Nothing to do now but wait for morning. Let’s get some rest.”
If the others really sleep, I’m not sure how. I toss and turn all night, wondering what we’ll find in the morning. I’m curious. I’m nervous. Several times I lean my head over the bunk and look down on Jimmy, but his shadow is as still as can be, his arm flopped over the bunk and resting on Junior’s back. I hear the professor snoring across the way, and once he gets up and stumbles to the head. But otherwise, it’s just dead silence and an occasional light rocking as the submarine is pulled against the anchor chain by the currents. At least the cooling system seems to be working again.
I’m the first one in the control room, anxiously awaiting sunrise. Jimmy shows up next, carrying cups of hot algae tea. By the time the professor joins us, the dark screen has lightened to gray. And that’s all it does—gray and more gray. The entire island is swamped in with a thick fog. We rotate the fiber-optic periscope every which way, but can hardly even see the water more than a few meters from the lens. I suggest we move the submarine in closer, but the professor says it’s best to stay put, after mumbling something about the impatience of youth. And maybe I am impatient. But it seems to me that every extra hour we spend looking for this encryption key is an extra hour that the drones spend hunting humans.
Isle of Man Page 13
