Iris (The Color of Water and Sky Book 1)

by Andrew Gates

  Rings like these made it easy to commute around Level 5. Traveling from one level to the next, however, was more of a challenge. Going up or down meant using an elevator and the nearest elevator was too far away for Grey to travel there without a power scooter.

  The math teacher turned and waved to his older brother before splitting off.

  “See you later then,” he said.

  “See you,” Dan responded.

  The brothers were lucky enough to live in the same district on Level 5, but Dan had an errand to run before returning home, the details of which Grey had already forgotten.

  During rush hour, the yellow zones were swarmed from left to right with power scooters and crowds of working class pedestrians, crawling forward like babies. By the time his commute was over each day, Grey felt as if the color yellow were permanently engrained in his mind. Today’s early dismissal came with the gift of calm mid-day traffic. Without crowds to push through and scooters to doge, it took the teacher almost half the time to get home, not enough time for the deep yellow to seep into the back of his head.

  Grey pushed the door open and let the white walls greet him. He expected his daughters to be using their pods in the living room or eating lunch in the kitchen, but as he entered, he could not find them. Instead he noticed light coming from underneath their shared bedroom door at the opposite end of the living room. Grey smiled, closed the door behind him, took his backpack off and placed it on the foam couch near the door. He walked across the living room and pressed on the girls’ door.

  “Hey girls,” he said as he pushed the metal door open.

  They both looked up at him as he entered. Five-year-old Kaitlyn sat nearest the door in black shorts and a white t-shirt. She wore a pink headband in her dark hair that came down to her shoulders. Misha sat further away from the door in a brown one piece pajama set and held some sort of robot doll in her hands.

  “Hey dad,” greeted Kaitlyn quietly.

  “Daddy!” said Misha with much more enthusiasm. The three-year-old stood up and waddled awkwardly towards her father with her arms outstretched.

  Grey held her daughter and ran his hands through her hair, messing it up. He smiled at her and slowly put her down next to her sister.

  “Have you two been sleeping this whole time?” he asked.

  Both of them sat in the middle of the room when he entered. Misha’s bed was on the left, pressed against the wall and Kaitlyn’s was on the right. Their sheets were piled up on the mattresses, unmade.

  “No daddy, we’ve been awake early,” Misha said with enthusiasm. She either spoke with enthusiasm or not at all.

  “Oh yes? Did you have good dreams?” he asked, leaning down to her level.

  Misha shook her head and held onto the robot toy.

  “Oh no?” he asked.

  “I dreamed about a power scooter so fast and big and it runs me over,” she answered, this time without as much excitement in her voice. “And it hurt me and I was sick and had no arms.”

  “You had no arms!” Grey responded, acting enthralled by her dream. “What happened to them?”

  Misha looked up at her father and stared him in the eyes.

  “I told you they fell off when I got hit by the scooter!” she said.

  Kaitlyn stood up and walked by her younger sister. She put her arm on Misha’s shoulder.

  “Misha nobody wants to hear about your stupid story,” she said.

  “That’s not true. I like your story.” He turned to face Kaitlyn. “And Kaityln, we shouldn’t say words like that, okay?”

  Kaitlyn pouted, as if she was surprised her father would react this way.

  “What have you guys been doing this morning?” Grey asked.

  Misha lifted the robot doll high into the air, as if trying to present it to him.

  “Mom got us a new toy!” she said. “Look, daddy!”

  Grey could not keep track of his kids’ toys. They all seemed the same to him. One day their favorite toy was one thing, the next it was something else.

  “Misha won’t let me play with it, dad. She’s been using it for this whole time!” protested Kaitlyn.

  These trivial arguments were nothing new. Everything had to be perfectly 100 percent fair to each of them. If one thing was off, these girls would pick up on it. Grey supposed he should admire their level of attention to detail, but in times like these, it became nothing but annoying.

  “Mom only bought one toy for both of you?” he asked.

  “No, Misha broke mine and now she won’t let me use hers!” Kaitlyn responded.

  Grey looked Misha in the eye. She lowered the robot toy and held it in one hand.

  “Is this true? Did you break her toy?” he asked.

  Misha nodded. At first she was quiet but then she raised her head and spoke loudly.

  “But this one is mine. Kaityln’s is broke,” she said.

  Grey grabbed the robot toy from his daughter’s hand, studied it for a few moments and handed it to Kaitlyn.

  “You guys will have to share. Kaitlyn gets a turn with it now and then you can play with it again later, okay?” he said.

  Misha nodded reluctantly and did not say a word. Grey simply smiled back, hoping to cheer her up, but when he noticed that she was looking somewhere else, he stood up again and turned towards the door.

  “Thanks dad,” Kaitlyn said.

  Grey turned to face them again.

  “You’re welcome,” he responded. “Did mom say when she was coming back?”

  She shook her head.

  “No. She’s at work. Maybe she left a message,” she answered.

  “Okay. Well I’m going to make lunch for you girls soon. So be ready to come into the kitchen in a few minutes.”

  With those words, he turned one more time and exited the room, closing the door behind him.

  The girls usually got along just fine. Even when having petty disputes like this, they often behaved themselves. Grey was glad they got along so well. He and his brother always fought when they were growing up.

  Grey remembered when he and his brother were kids. He recalled spending weekends in the recreation center with their mother. There was a wide pool for swimming, beams made of metal where they could swing or climb and a pit full of sand transported in from the ocean bed. His brother always jumped into the pool first, grabbed onto the first metal beam and was not shy to throw sand at other children. Grey smiled as the memories came to him. There was no more sand in the recreation center these days. Too many parents complained about safety and the Atlantic Federation did not see the need to waste precious sand on a child’s pit when it could be used for glass. He heard the metal beams had been lowered too and that swimming had been limited to one hour maximum. So many rules now, he thought. He had never taken his own kids to the recreation center though. Selena thought it was too dangerous for them.

  “There are other kids there. A lot of them are going to be big kids,” Grey remembered his wife say. “They might not get along.”

  His wife was always protective of the girls, perhaps excessively so. She often worried about their interaction with other children. Grey knew some of her paranoia had rubbed off onto him as well. Years ago Grey did not mind watching Kaitlyn talk to another child in the transition zones. But now he worried when he saw her with anyone else, even other kids her age. Your wife has made you paranoid, he often told himself.

  He loosened his yellow tie as he walked towards the kitchen. Like most residences in the station, the open-concept kitchen opened towards the living room with no door or wall delineating it. Grey always liked this floor plan. It was a good open layout for families like his. The government must have thought the same thing when they first put these residences together.

  Grey pulled three plates out of the cabinets and took some food out of the fridge to make sandwiches. After getting all the ingredients out, he realized that he had forgotten to check his pod for messages. He put everything down and walked over to his backpack on the c
ouch. He unzipped the bag, reached inside and pulled out the thin rectangular block. He waved his hand in front of it to wake up the touchscreen.

  “Check messages,” he said once it had woken up.

  He had one new message. It was from his wife, just as he expected.

  “Play message,” he said.

  The message contained nothing of particular importance. Selena was at the bank, where she worked, and would be back in a few hours. Grey smiled as he closed the message. No news was good news as far as he was concerned.

  Selena was a special woman with an unexplainable power over him. He never felt worried when she was around. Just hearing her voice on the pod filled him with comfort.

  Grey remembered the first time he had seen her. They were students together many years ago. She was studying finance. He was studying math. Back then they were just two young ambitious minds without a care in the world.

  Grey was 21 and not yet the cultured man he would later become. Whopski-fueled parties were the norm. Cases of government-approved obliterole lined the white walls of the residence, whose owner Grey had never even met. Between green milk bombs, blasting music and dense crowds, Grey would get lost in the chaos of it all. He would let his mind be free, taking in the experience, allowing the alcohol to have its way with him.

  But not on this night.

  On this night not one sip of whopski was consumed. Before the first glass could be lifted, his eyes were drawn to another sight.

  Her face shone as bright as the core of a light emitting diode, flashing on in a world of shadow. Her hair curled in front of her face, concealing part of her head. Her piercing eyes shone through her dark curly locks like traps for an on-looking beholder. Her freckles dotted her smooth skin, caressing her cheeks and nose like splotches of imperfect paint on a freshly painted wall. Grey found himself transfixed. His eyes met hers and before he knew it, he felt a grin form on his face. She looked back at him with the same face, that beautiful face. She blushed and lowered her head. Her hair slid down, covering her expression. But even looking away from him, she was beautiful.

  She was so pure, so natural. There was nothing artificial about her, just her bare skin and emotion.

  He placed the full glass onto the nearest tabletop and let his legs guide him forward. Dancing bodies raced back and forth in front of him in slow motion as his feet moved one in front of the other. The music seemed to die down and all other sights seemed to fade away.

  “What’s your name?” he asked as he stopped before the young woman.

  She slowly looked up at him. Her two front teeth shone through the small opening of her lips. Her eyes were focused and unmoving.

  “Selena,” she replied.

  That was the start of it all. Over 10 years later, they were the proud parents of two beautiful girls, owners of a comfortable home near the Harrison School and living with hardly a care in the world. A simple chance encounter between two people was all it took to set the pieces in motion.

  Grey had a good life. He had a steady job as a math teacher, two healthy young children and a wife who loved him. The picturesque Atlantic Station family, he thought.

  Sometimes this thought made him think about Dan. He wondered if his brother thought the same thing about his life. Is Dan content living alone? Does he ever want more? Grey thought Dan seemed fine but he was never quite sure. I certainly couldn’t live that way, he thought to himself. He has a good job, yes, but no family.

  The reminiscing husband turned back towards the kitchen and continued preparing sandwiches for his girls. He smiled as he pulled the meat product out from the refrigerator. Meat product was expensive for a family on a teacher’s and banker’s salary, but today was a special day. Once the school year started up again, he would not be able to make sandwiches for his girls. The proud father wanted to savor every moment of this.

  Suddenly synchronized bangs erupted in the hall like beats on a drum.

  Grey was instantly pulled from his thoughts. It was like waking from a dream to the blaring of an alarm. Curious of the noise, he put the meat product down and headed to the hallway door. As he walked, he quickly glanced back to make sure his daughters were safely in their room.

  The front door handle was cold. It was always cold. Everything was cold down here in the station.

  As the curious teacher pulled the door open, the sounds grew louder and he could now make them out more clearly. These bangs were not beats on a drum, but footsteps.

  A dozen Navy men and women in clean white shirts walked in single file formation, each armed. Their footsteps hit the cold metal floors simultaneously, causing a ripple up into the walls with each stomp. Leading this line of soldiers was a woman with dark skin, older than Grey and with a stern look about her. She was not dressed like regular military so she must have been a civilian. He had never seen this woman before on any of the government broadcasts, but with an escort like this, she was clearly important.

  Grey had nothing against the military. He understood they were here for his own protection, but their presence in this residential sector could mean trouble. They had better not bring any trouble to my family.

  “The interrogation proved nothing,” he heard the woman say into her personal pod. “Saljov is an incompetent drunk. There is nothing he can offer us.”

  Grey wondered what this woman could be talking about. Who is Saljov and why is he important? For his own good, he thought it would be best to close the door and go back inside. He did not want to hear any more than he should. The last thing he wanted was the government kicking down his door, asking how much he knew.

  He caught one more sentence as he quietly closed the door to his residence.

  “President Ortega will have to wait until I have something of substance to report, Commander,” the woman said into her pod.

  The door clicked shut and Grey backed away.

  Who tells the President of the Atlantic Federation to wait? Grey heard enough. He knew to stay out of whatever the hell was going on.

  I’m a lucky man with a good life, he thought to himself. He did not want to lose his luck anytime soon.

  I pledge myself, both body and mind,

  to the ideals of the Atlantic Federation

  that we as humanity may survive and prosper

  under the Light of the Lord Beyond Both Seas.

  Progress through obedience.

  Long live the Federation.

  IRIS TAPPED THE ICON ON her touchscreen and sent the lesson plan to her students. The information transferred almost instantaneously through the Meganet and lit up their screens. Half the class seemed to pay any attention though. Only the first day and it seemed as if the other half had already lost interest.

  The week of orientation had gone by just as Iris expected. Following the teachers’ orientation meeting and the brief tour of her new room on the first day, the rest of the week was spent doing team-building exercises with other teachers, taking a more detailed tour of the school and even attending department specific meetings where they discussed the controversy surrounding Jorge Gonzalez’s new curriculum taught by none other than Iris herself. The history meetings did nothing but frustrate her and confirm her negative opinion of the outspoken Hope Davis, who continued to oppose the curriculum. Iris was never one to speak out so she remained relatively quiet during the meetings, but often glared towards the brown haired beauty with distaste when she said something that annoyed her. She was not quite sure if Hope ever saw her glances, but wished she had. Fortunately, Jorge was there to support her. He seemed to share Iris’s opinion on the matter, which was good considering he was as outspoken as Iris was shy.

  “Don’t blame me when we have a lawsuit on our hands,” Hope said during a particularly heated moment. Iris remembered not knowing what to say, simply waiting there quietly.

  “Education is more important than a lawsuit,” Jorge replied. Iris liked that response. It was short and direct. That comment managed to shut the outspoken beauty up for the
rest of the meeting. Iris smiled as she remembered the scene unfold.

  But now was not time for memories. Iris looked up as the students sat before her. No matter how Hope Davis felt about the new lessons, they were in place and that was that. There was no way out of it now that the lesson plans had been transferred to the students. Iris had taken the proverbial first step.

  “So did you all get that?” Iris asked as she looked around the room. Those who still paid any attention nodded to themselves. Few answered out loud, but she heard enough yeses to determine that the lesson plans had gone through. “Alright then,” she continued, “so if you would like to take a look at the lesson plan, we can get started. So today we will be talking about surface history in a broad sense, just to introduce you all to the concept. But to understand the surface, first we have to understand what we’re doing here.”

  A few more heads started to look up. As the students slowly began to regain focus, Iris was starting to feel a bit nervous. This was it. This was the moment. For a brief time she became very self-conscious. She felt the thin layer of makeup upon her face. Her long brown dress felt heavy, tight and awkward. She wondered if she had spoken clearly enough or if her words had come off as unintelligible. But all of these thoughts quickly left her mind almost as fast as they had arrived.

  I’m a history teacher, she told herself. It’s time to teach history.

  “So,” she said, regaining her own focus, “let’s start off.” She looked around the room. Almost all the faces were on her now. “Who can tell me why we’re here?” she asked.

  A few hands went up. Iris pointed to a Northern Indian looking girl in the front row, wearing a white shirt and a bright pink headband in her messy uncombed hair. At first the girl searched around, perhaps not certain whether Iris was choosing her or another, but upon realizing she was selected, the girl wasted no time answering.