Iris (The Color of Water and Sky Book 1)

by Andrew Gates

  Today is the day, he told himself. Today, I am going to ask her to hang out.

  Jallah had never asked a girl out before, but right now he knew he wanted to. Usually black boys like him only asked out other black girls though. He wondered if it would be an issue if he asked out someone like Margery. As far as he could remember, the only couples he had ever seen were two people who looked alike.

  I need to get that thought out of my mind, he told himself. He would have no hesitation today. Today is the day, he reminded himself one more time. No hesitation. Jallah did not know where this newfound motivation came from. Perhaps seeing Clinton so upset this morning gave him confidence or perhaps his attraction towards Margery had just grown so strong that he could no longer avoid it. Either way, his mind was made up.

  Jallah waited until class was over and powered off his pod as quickly as he could. He walked through the desks, sliding between students. He accidentally bumped into Tanya on his way, but did not say anything. When he finally reached Margery’s desk, she was still powering off her device. She always did everything slower than the other students.

  “Hey Margery,” he said to her. Margery had not seen him. She raised her head towards him, surprised. Jallah wondered if he was smiling. He was so nervous he did not even know.

  “Hey,” she replied just as she slid her pod into her pocket. When she stood up from her desk, Jallah saw that she was wearing dark colorless pants, not unlike what construction workers were known to wear. But these were more stylish and clearly not intended to be worn as working clothes.

  “I like your pants,” Jallah said. He immediately realized how stupid he must have sounded. He had simply said the first thing that came to mind. Jallah slapped himself on the head jokingly and tried again. “I mean… sorry, I mean, I didn’t see them when you were sitting down so I was just wondering… anyway, I uhm… I was wondering,” Jallah was struggling with this part. He was not usually this nervous.

  “You like my pants?” Margery asked.

  Jallah paused. He did not expect her to bring up the pants again.

  “Yes, but let’s forget about the pants. That’s not what I wanted to say,” he said. Jallah looked around the room, wondering who was watching. Most of the students had already left the classroom. Only three more remained and they were on their way out.

  “What is it?” Margery asked again.

  Just say the words.

  “I was wondering if you wanted to hang out sometime,” he finally said. It felt good just to say it. Even without an answer yet, it was like he had just jumped his first hurtle.

  Unfortunately, Margery’s facial reaction was not the one Jallah expected. She seemed taken aback by the question and hesitant to respond. Jallah waited anyway, although he could easily guess her answer.

  “I’m sorry, do you mean like… go out?” she asked.

  Jallah paused for a moment but eventually nodded

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Oh, okay.” Jallah studied the room. They were the only two remaining aside from Ms. Vitneskja. At least no one saw that.

  “I just don’t think it’s a good idea,” she said again. “It’s not you.”

  It’s not you. Jallah was confused by this.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  Margery glanced up towards Ms. Vitneskja. Jallah could not tell whether she was not listening or simply pretending not to listen, but their teacher busily organized the things on her desk as if this conversation were not happening within earshot.

  “Let’s go outside,” she said, obviously wanting to move away from their teacher.

  Jallah followed her outside into the hallway. This was better. Students walked past but no one stopped to pay them any mind.

  “What is it?” he asked. Jallah was slowly growing impatient.

  “It’s just… you know, we don’t belong together.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Margery stared him into his eyes. He stared back at her. She looked so innocent and somehow that made him happy. He felt himself smile. This was the power of her stare. Even in rejection, Jallah found himself lost in the cool shade of her colorless gaze.

  “You’re… you know, right? Don’t you know? You’re…” Margery was clearly struggling to find the right words, “you know… you’re African.”

  “So?”

  “So… I’m not African. So we can’t date,” she answered. After a pause, she continued. “It’s illegal. I don’t want to get in trouble.”

  This was just as Jallah had feared. Although he never knew for sure whether there was a rule on this, he always had his suspicions. Now those suspicions were finally confirmed. It’s illegal.

  “Oh, I didn’t know that,” he replied honestly. Jallah did not know much about the law, but Margery was so smart. It came as no surprise that she would know all about these things.

  “I’m sorry, but that was very sweet what you said.”

  Jallah simply nodded. Even with Margery there to make him happy, he felt embarrassed, defeated. No wonder all couples look the same. I shouldn’t have done that, he thought to himself. I should have looked up the rules first. He started to feel stupid and naive.

  “I’m sorry,” Margery said again. “I thought it was sweet though.”

  Jallah turned and walked away. He wanted no more of this. He wished he had never done this. He wanted to go back to walking past her locker, hoping to run into her in the halls. Now he could never go back.

  I’ve ruined it. This must be how Clinton felt when he was defeated.

  Jallah spent the rest of his day going through the motions as if he were half asleep. Students busily rushed by all around him, this way and that, going on with their normal lives. He was glad when the school day finally ended. He wanted nothing more than to leave and go home. After all, the color grey seemed dreary and depressing compared to yellow.

  IRIS WAS SURPRISED SO MANY students could fit in the freight elevator at once. She originally planned to separate the class into at least four different groups but quickly found that simply splitting the class in half was enough. Students were packed shoulder to shoulder like newborn babies lined up in their hospital cribs, but at least they all fit.

  According to the guide taking them down, the elevator was recently redesigned. Supposedly it could travel the distance of about 60 meters in only a few seconds, the equivalent of 20 levels in the Atlantic Station. Iris was skeptical at first, but to her surprise, only a few seconds passed before she felt the heavy mover hit the bottom.

  “Believe me now?” the guide said as the doors slid open.

  Iris blushed.

  “Yes, I believe you now,” she replied, having voiced her skepticism only a few moments earlier.

  The guide was a salty older man with a scruffy unkempt beard. Iris guessed he was around her father’s age, though he was certainly in better shape and had a better sense of humor. Everything the man wore looked old. His grey beanie was torn, his brown jacket and green shirt were covered in both dirt and rips and his sleek black pants held a revolting smell that Iris could not identify.

  He’s quite the farmer if I’ve ever seen one.

  As she exited the elevator, she noticed the ground in the hallway was wet, but not wet with water. Here and there along the floor were pockets of a thick brown liquid that stuck to her shoe as she lifted it up. At first this substance confused her, but then she remembered her books.

  Mud.

  Iris was glad she had worn her athletic shoes today. She had not even considered the presence of mud. She studied Dan. He wore nice black dress shoes, not a good choice given the circumstances.

  Despite her footwear, Iris dressed up today, or at least by her standards. She wore a red blouse, the same one she had worn on her first day of work, but decided to wear black pants instead of a skirt.

  Dan had taken the opposite approach. He dressed down. Today he simply wore a white collared shirt with brown pants. It was
a simple look, but Dan always pulled off whatever clothes he wore. He’ll probably pull off this mud too.

  The hallway was dimly lit, narrow and smelled of the same unidentifiable odor as the guide’s sleek waterproof pants. The walls themselves were cold and grey, but unpainted. The sight was familiar to her, though only from her books. Iris guessed the walls were made of concrete or something robust of that nature, though she was no expert on building materials. The guide led them to the end of the hall through a series of large green doors and into another hall, this one better lit and not as foul smelling.

  The new room did not look particularly unique. Black government walls enclosed what seemed to be an office area. To their right side was a sea of cubicles lit up with monitors. Men and women in suits busily walked from one end to the other, some carrying pods, others simply chatting. The floor was sleek and shiny, despite the mud that Iris and her fellow visitors were dragging in.

  “Black?” Iris said aloud as she walked through the area.

  The salty guide smiled and looked back towards her as he led them through the office area.

  “Aye, black. The government runs these offices here. They’re in charge of how much food we produce, how we produce it, where it goes. That’s not my job. These are the numbers guys. It’s all highly regulated blah blah, you know,” he answered.

  Iris understood.

  “Where are you taking us now?” Dan asked.

  “I’m taking you to the conference room. We have one big enough to fit you and the other group once they get here,” the guide responded.

  While the group that Iris chaperoned, along with Dan and Mark, had gone down the elevator first, the second group, led by Jorge, Hope and Jacella, had to wait for the elevator to come back up. Since the trip was changed at the last minute, some of the teachers had been assigned to chaperone with little warning. Hope, for example, was supposed to stay at school. But Tim wanted another history teacher to be there. Judging by the disgusted look on her face and the fact that she had hardly said a word to Iris all day, Hope was not too pleased by these changes.

  The group walked down the hall that hugged the office area until they reached a large series of glass doors on their left side. The guide pressed the doors open for them and the school group entered. There were ample seats, certainly enough for everyone, lined in a half circle facing inwards. At the very center of the room was a podium, made out of some strange brown material Iris could not identify.

  She stood by the doorway as the kids entered and counted each of them. When they all finally entered, she thanked the guide, shook his hand with a firm grip and found a seat. All the students had chosen seats on the outside of the half circle, but Iris decided to sit closer to the center next to Dan.

  Iris was tired lately from her work with Dr. Parnel and from making last minute changes to the new field trip. It was a lot of work but it had finally paid off. Here she was with her students in the agricultural sector, the last great remnant of the surface era. Despite her tiredness, she could not be more excited.

  She looked towards Dan. He tapped his right foot up and down as if keeping a beat. He’s thrilled too, Iris realized. She liked to see that he shared her opinion. Of course he is. The agricultural sector is as much about science as it is history.

  “Happy?” he asked, turning his head towards her. Iris instinctively turned away, but then realized this was a stupid thing to do and turned back again to face him.

  “Happy?” she repeated. “Of course! This is what I’ve been waiting for.”

  Her response made Dan smile. She liked seeing him smile.

  “You’ve worked for it,” he replied.

  Iris blushed. That was certainly true. It was important to remember why she had worked for it. Get at least half of them interested in history, she reminded herself, or all of them if I can.

  “I can’t wait. Lettuce leaves, wheat, corn, cows! Did you see that at the elevator?”

  Dan chuckled, amused by her excitement.

  “You mean the mud?” he asked.

  Iris nodded. She felt the grin grow wider on her face.

  “Yes, I did notice the mud,” he joked. “I think my shoes noticed it as well.”

  Iris glanced down at his shoes again.

  “Nice,” she responded, acting like she did not already know.

  “I’ve never seen mud before,” Dan said.

  “Me neither.”

  Dan turned around in his chair and studied the room. Iris did not know if he was counting students, examining the area, or looking for someone in particular. After a few seconds, he turned around in his seat again.

  “This is a nice room. I would have never known this whole place was down here,” he said.

  Iris looked around too. The walls were as black as the seafloor, the color that always gave her comfort. Much like the seafloor, this whole area was deeper than she had ever traveled before. Part of her wondered if this entire sector was resting on ocean bottom.

  After a few minutes, the second group of students arrived and filed in, filling the back seats. The guide for the second group wore a large waterproof orange jacket around a white undershirt. His pants were similar to the one Iris’s guide wore, even down to the mud stains. He had a trimmed white beard that only covered the bottom part of his chin and his hair was nicely cut around his head like a Navy man. This guide, unlike Iris’s, did not leave after the group entered. Instead he walked towards the middle of the room and stood behind the odd looking podium. The lights went up as his hands pressed against the strange material’s surface.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said in a much more eloquent voice than Iris anticipated, “welcome to the agricultural sector!” The group applauded, some even cheered here and there. “It’s great that you guys have come all this way from Harrison. We don’t get a lot of visitors down here. It’s not… it’s not the kind of place a lot of people want to go. So whenever we get these tour groups, it’s a big deal for us. We’re excited to have you here. You’re going to see some things today that not many people get to see.”

  Iris glanced over at Dan. Dan smiled back at her.

  “My name is Randal Radcliff,” the bearded man continued. “You can call me Randal, or Randy or Mr. Radcliff if you’d like. Or even ‘hey, that guy’ works too.” The group laughed at that one. He even chuckled a bit too. “I know you’re probably all excited to get started. Can’t wait to see where the food is made. Hell when I was your age, I had no idea. Really, it’s true. We all knew what the agricultural sector was, you see, but nobody really knew how it worked. The fact that you guys are getting to see it, it’s really great. I can’t wait to show you what’s inside. But before we go in, I just want to give you some background on what we’re going to see.”

  The man leaned forward over the podium. As he spoke, Iris realized he was here for more than guiding the second group down to the room: this man was going to be their tour guide through the sector. It’s really happening. We’re really here.

  “The agricultural sector is as old as the station. It’s not like those stores or schools that popped up a few years after those freezers opened up. No, this sector is old. And it has to be, you know? It’s necessary. Without the agricultural sector, we’d all be dead.” The man looked around at the walls. “This whole place was running autonomous, you see.”

  Iris wondered if her students knew what autonomous meant.

  “I don’t know if you talked about this in your class, but the Atlantic Station was nowhere near ready when we went down. It still needed a lot of work. That’s why they froze us. People couldn’t live down here at first. The system was set up so it wouldn’t wake us up until the food production was sustainable. It was computers that did it all, you see. The computers set it all up and got it running. Once there were enough crops, that’s when the station woke us up. Well, not just crops, it was other things too, but that was a big part of it. Like I said, most of the station wasn’t working. But anyway, it works now. That�
��s why we’re still here, making sure everything runs smoothly, thinking how to improve growth and make it work better. The machines just do what we say, but we’re the ones that have to give the orders. It takes a team. Just look at all the offices you just passed by. That’s why sometimes I’m amazed we got this thing up and running all on its own.”

  Iris had to admit, she was rather impressed too.

  “What you’re going to see today,” Randal continued, “is a lot of stuff from the surface. It’s a lot stuff nobody has ever seen. We’re going to see crops, corn, lettuce, all that. But we’re also going to see some things you’ve only learned about in class or seen in old video. Trees, dirt, bees, even cows. You’ll learn about metamorphosis, about pollen and seeds. It’s all some really cool stuff. But while you’re here, we ask that you not take any video or pictures, you see. The government likes to keep its methods secret. It’s a security thing. They’re all worried the Pacific Station is still out there watching us, I guess. But no matter, the other rules are stay together and don’t touch anything, you got that? No pictures, stay together and don’t touch anything.”

  Iris could hear a sea of heads nodding up and down behind her. Now let’s just get on with it. All she wanted to do was see the cows. Just get to the cows.

  Iris would have to wait a bit longer though. The farmer continued on about the history of the station. The more he talked, the less Iris paid the man any attention. She really did try to keep up, but her excitement was too great. Her mind just wandered in and out. After what felt like at least half an hour, the man finally stopped talking and glanced toward Iris.

  “And without further ado, if you would follow me,” he said. Iris jumped up faster than a student at the end of class. Dan followed at a regular speed and chuckled at her as he stood up.

  “Don’t make fun of me,” she joked, turning her head towards him.

  The group followed Randal out of the room. Iris, Dan and Mark took the lead behind him. They passed through the offices outside and headed back towards the muddy lift. But this time rather than get inside, they opened a small door just to the left of the lift instead. Iris had not even noticed this door was there when she walked by it the first time. The doorway was small so the students had to enter only one or two at a time. Once inside, they found themselves in a long narrow hallway. Iris could hardly see the end. The walls were painted white, reminding her of home. But the paint had a strange smell to it, one she had never encountered before. Do they disregard color regulations here? White was supposed to be the color for residential districts. Everyone knew that.