by JN Chaney
“Jesus,” said the man, looking around the room. “You’re all still babies.”
He sighed and picked up a digital pen. “My name’s Henry Nuber, and I’m your teacher.” He made a few swipes with the pen on his desk, tapped it a few times, and his name appeared behind him on a translucent screen.
“I’ll be your teacher for as long as you’re in this school. It won’t be easy,” he said. “I’ll tell you that right now, but if you do exactly what I say, you’ll have a better time of it. Now, there are twenty-two of you in this room and twenty-two desks.” He started writing with the pen, pausing briefly to stare at the children. “Well, what are you waiting for? Sit your asses down!” He shook his head. “I can’t believe I agreed to do this.”
John and Terry found each other near the front of the classroom and without a word sat in adjacent desks, Terry on the right and John on the left. Mei took the seat next to John, directly in front of the teacher.
Once everyone found their place, Nuber continued. “Since your curiosity will no doubt get the better of you, I’ll go ahead and let the secret out now, so it saves me the trouble later.” He jerked his right sleeve out of his pocket, revealing an absent hand. Using his shoulder, he waved the sleeve in the air. “As you can see, I’m missing something.” He gripped the sleeve with his left hand, and squeezed. “All the way up to my shoulder. It happened several years ago before any of you were born. I was working as a contractor and my team was sent to the surface to work on one of the riggies, which are basically power stations that cycle electricity all around the city. I got injured on the way back and lost the arm. It was careless, plain and simple. I was stupid. You all remember that, you hear? Carelessness can get you killed. The outside world is a dangerous place, full of a thousand new and frightening ways that can kill you. Trust me. My missing hand could write a thesis on the subject.”
So that was it. Terry had noticed there was something wrong with his arm, but he never would have guessed the rest. He tried to imagine the story Nuber told, tried to put pictures to the words he was hearing. But the more he thought about it, the more afraid he became. Terry slouched down in his seat, gripping his right arm. Why would he tell us that? Terry thought. What’s wrong with him?
“Let’s move on,” said Nuber, tapping his desk again. The screen behind him quickly changed. This time, instead of his name, a list appeared, covering the entire display. As Nuber tapped his desk, the screen scrolled on and on, and for a moment it seemed like it might never stop.
“This is our schedule,” he said. “Pay attention.” He scrolled to the top and zoomed in on the first line. Modern History, it read.
“This is your life now, what’s on this list. Nothing else is going to matter. When you wake up in the morning, you’ll come here. When you leave, you’ll go to your dorms and study. There will be two hours of recreational activity every day, but the rest will be filled with this. Any questions?”
Everyone stared at the display, completely silent.
The old teacher sighed again. “I swear to God,” he said. “Bunch of babies.”
*******
Nuber spent the rest of the day going over the lesson plan and summarizing everything about it. It was a day filled with introductions: modern history, mathematics, literature, geology, biology. Terry got to know them all.
“Modern history covers the past two hundred years, approximately,” Nuber explained. “We’ll spend most of our time touching on the events that led up to the Jolt, and then we’ll talk about how our ancestors settled this happy little underground city.
“Mathematics is exactly what it sounds like, except I’m sure your mommies all covered the basics, so I’ll save my breath. What we’ll be studying will be a bit more advanced. The main focus will be geometry and, by the end of the year, physics.
“If you look in your desks, you’ll find a pad with a list of books. The pads are filled with all your textbooks, along with several reading assignments, which will be automatically updated and downloaded onto your pads every time I send in a request. These aren’t like the ones you had back home; they were made specifically for this class, which means you can’t download just anything to them.”
Terry opened the top of his desk and found the pad. It looked identical to the one Mother used for her work, except smaller. He pressed the power button at the top and watched as it came alive. Within a few seconds, he was sorting through a collection of textbooks and novels, moving from one to the next with a slide of a finger. So many weird books, he thought. Argonautica, The Odyssey, The Method of Mechanical Theorems, The Red Badge of Courage, and Meditations. He’d never heard of any of them. What was an Argonautica? He didn’t have a clue. He could barely pronounce it. Was Mr. Nuber serious about this stuff?
“Next, we’ll be discussing geology, which, for those of you still in diapers, is the study of rocks. If you haven’t been paying attention for the last several years of your lives, you may not have noticed that we live underground and are therefore completely surrounded by rocks. Thus, it would behoove you boys and girls to learn as much as you can about them. Finally, there’s biology, which is the study of living organisms, past and present. Mostly past.”
There was a sudden knock at the classroom door. Nuber stopped lecturing and walked to it. After a brief exchange with whomever was on the other side, he turned toward the class and cleared his throat. “I have to step out for a moment,” he said. “None of you are to move an inch until I get back. Do you understand? And don’t say a word. If you do, I’ll know. There are voice recorders in this room. Now, go over the reading material until I get back. Or sit there and look stupid. I don’t care. Just don’t talk.” He left and shut the door.
If ever Terry needed some kind of confirmation that school would be harder than his home lessons, this was it. Geology and biology? Argonautica? He didn’t care about any of it. He only wanted to go home and sleep—run upstairs to his bed and collapse and forget this stupid dream about Colonel Bishop and Mr. Nuber and a school full of strangers and children and books he couldn’t pronounce.
He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. Relax. I have to relax or everyone will see.
Something tapped his foot and he opened his eyes. It was John, kicking him and trying to get his attention. Terry looked with his best what-do-you-want face.
John stared at him for a moment, arching his brow. You okay? He mouthed.
Terry shrugged and nodded, hoping he was giving John the right response. He didn’t want to lie to him, but there was no way to explain how he felt, not without words. He couldn’t say he was trapped, or how he missed his sister, or that everything about this place was strange. All he could do was nod.
John returned the nod, but this time he did it with a smile. A wide smile, like he knew a joke but couldn’t say it. What was so funny?
Suddenly, there was a giggle from the other side of Terry. The sound was light, hard to hear, but it was close enough that it pulled him away.
That’s Mei’s voice. Terry leaned forward to see her. She was looking at John, and smiling, her face a little pink as she held her palm against her mouth. Mei shook her head, still grinning.
John’s smile turned into a snort as he covered his face with both hands. When he finally removed them, he was biting his lower lip and crossing his eyes, making an awkward, silly face.
Another boy snickered behind Terry, followed by another. Finally there were several. Before long, it didn’t even matter that John had stopped making the face or what the joke had been in the first place. The laughter had become contagious, trailing through the room, jumping from one child to the next. By now it was clear there was no real joke, that there never had been one, except for the thing inside each of their heads, the one they made for themselves.
As Terry turned to look at them, he felt his body relax. He looked at John and Mei, at each of their smiling faces. He watched as they laughed at nothing in particular, at
the simple idea of it all.
And then, despite himself, Terry smiled, too.
*******
April 15, 2339
The Academy, Central
Mara sat quietly in Bishop’s office, waiting for him to show. He’d called her in for a last minute appointment but didn’t give the reason.
Naturally, this irritated her, but she knew better than to show it. Sit still and wait, she thought. Everything in time. She blinked her dry eyes a few times and swallowed. It had been a long week with all the running back and forth to Central, submitting her closing contract to the mothers, and now this. If only she’d been born a man, none of this would be happening.
Mara glanced around the office at the display cases on the walls and the artifacts they contained. After years of coming here, she’d memorized most of the trinkets in the colonel’s exhibit. In the decades she’d known him, his fascination with the old world had only grown. So, too, had this collection.
There was a time decades ago, when she’d been impressed by all of this, when she’d cooed and swooned over Central’s rising star. His ideals, his dreams—every convincing word. The whole thing drew her in.
But no longer. The two barely spoke now and never how they used to. There were no private flirtations, no passionate nights of whispered possibilities. She let go of that a long time ago.
Besides, Mara was middle aged, and scandals were for the young.
The office door suddenly opened, and Colonel Bishop stepped inside. “Hope I didn’t keep you waiting, Miss Echols.” Bishop’s voice had a hint of a joke in it.
“A little over an hour,” Mara answered. “You’ll have to do better than that if you want to get a reaction.”
He shut the door. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“Of course not. Now tell me, James, is there a reason behind this, or did you simply miss seeing me?”
Bishop eased his way to the desk, far from the door, and calmly took his seat. “Of course there’s a reason,” he said. “I promised you a meeting, and this is it.”
Mara stared at him. “You mean the one we were supposed to have when I dropped off my son? You realized that was supposed to happen yesterday. Are you going to apologize for making me look like a fool?”
He clasped his hands. “I’m truly sorry, Miss Echols. Please forgive my rudeness.”
“No,” she said, turning her nose away.
“Please?” he begged.
She shook her head. “Nope.”
He chuckled. “Well, I tried.”
She smiled. “That’s why you’ll never make it very far, James.” It was an old joke. Something his old supervisor had told him many years ago. Since then, she’d repeated it often, whenever he did something that displeased her. It’d been a few years since she’d said the words, but they still felt as natural as they once had so long ago.
Bishop returned the smile. “Good to see your sense of humor hasn’t changed.”
“Only when I’m here,” she said. “I’m usually quite boring.”
“I find that difficult to believe.”
She could see where he was going, flirting with her, so she didn’t answer. Instead, she glanced off, feigning disinterest.
After a lingering silence, Bishop cleared his throat. “About the boy,” he said with a serious tone. “I had a look at him. Talked to him and everything.”
Mara tensed up. “And?”
“Seems like a good kid,” he said, shrugging. “Small for his age, but obedient. You did well.”
It was nice to hear him compliment her son, but she didn’t let it show. “I did my job.”
“Right, of course,” he said. “Anyway, we ran some tests on the class. It’s promising.”
“That’s good.”
“Yes, it is.”
A short pause.
Bishop leaned forward. “Look, Mara, I wanted to ask you something. Pending another test, which won’t take place for a while—pending that, I’d like you to donate again.”
“Donate?” she asked. “Donate what?”
He shifted in his seat. “Eggs,” he said. “Like you did before.”
Mara scoffed. “I can’t believe you just asked me that. Did you forgot about the contract I signed?”
“No, of course not. It’s why I’m asking you now.”
She rolled her eyes. “Only because you have to.”
“What? You think I’d force you if I could?”
She sighed. “I don’t know, James. Probably not. But Archer might. That rat doesn’t care about anything but his work and that lab.”
“Archer isn’t here,” he said. “The burden is all mine.”
“I’m too old to do that kind of thing anymore,” she said. “My body couldn’t take another one.” It wasn’t a lie. As soon as she sent Janice to the academy, she’d retire. No more experiments, no more sponsors, no more contracts. “Besides,” she went on. “The whole thing’s a waste of time.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
She blinked at him. “Oh, come now, Colonel. We both know where this experiment of yours is going to end.”
“Do we?” he asked. “Because from where I’m sitting, everything’s going pretty well.”
“Lie to yourself if you want, but I’m no fool. Those children don’t stand a chance. You might as well pull the trigger yourself.”
“You sound so certain.”
“I think the research speaks for itself, don’t you?”
“You’re oversimplifying things. None of the others survived the birthing process, sure, but these did. They’re walking around like any other group of kids.”
“So that’s it?” she asked. “Seventh time’s the charm?”
“Archer seems to think so.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think if it doesn’t work, we’ll know soon, and that’ll be it. You can say, ‘I told you so’ as much as you want.” He smiled a wide smile, the same one he always used to give when he thought he was right. “But if it works, Mara, if this group really is the one that pulls through and lives all the way to the very end, well, the future might not be so bleak after all.” Bishop leaned back in his chair. “But we’ve still got a few years left before we start the gene-activation process, so I guess we won’t know for a while.”
“I’m not giving you anymore eggs,” she said. “After Janice, I’m done. I’m sure you can find more mothers to help you. I’m not the only one around, you know.”
“But you’re the only one with a near perfect AGP,” he pointed out. “No one else even comes close.”
“Be that as it may, I’m done,” she said. “For all my years, I’m finally out.”
He didn’t speak at first. Instead he sat staring at her, considering. She didn’t look away from him, either. She was serious about this, and he was going to know it.
“Alright,” he said, after a while. “You win. No more after this. I promise. If that’s how you want to do it, that’s how it’ll be.”
“Thanks,” she said, standing. She started gathering her things.
Bishop stood with her. “Hold on,” he said. “Before you go, I have a deal for you.”
She sighed. “What now?”
“It has nothing to do with what we discussed,” he insisted. “It’s about the boy.”
“Terrance?” She set her bag down in the chair she’d been sitting in. “What about him?”
“How would you like to meet with me again?” he asked. “About your son. Meet with me to see how he’s doing?”
This was unusual. Mothers generally didn’t follow up with their children once they left for the academy. It wasn’t illegal or against any particular rule—it simply wasn’t done. Mothers were supposed to stay detached, otherwise they’d never manage to let the children go. What James was proposing now was uncommon, to say the least. The prospect seemed intriguing. “Why would you do that?” she ask
ed, trying to appear resistant.
“You want the truth?” he asked, walking to the display case nearest to his desk. He stopped in front of two-hundred-year-old baseball.
“That depends,” she said, watching him. “Will I hate you more or less afterwards?”
He touched the glass case. A translucent display appeared. It asked for a code. James entered four digits. There was a light click as that particular section snapped open. He pulled the glass back, took the baseball and held it in his hand. “I honestly don’t know,” he said, gripping the ball. He examined it, turned it over in his palm. “I don’t know you well enough anymore to say.”
She knew he was right. They’d barely spoken in recent years, only passing remarks. They were each so busy. She had her children, and he had his school. “The truth,” she finally said. “I won’t hate you if I can help it.”
He smiled at the words. “There’s two reasons,” he said. “The first is simple: I like seeing you. I’d forgotten how much before today.”
He was buttering her up, of course. She could tell that much. James always used to throw out a compliment before the big reveal.
“The second,” he continued. “Is that I still want your help. I know you’re against it, Mara, but maybe you’ll change your mind once you see your little boy’s doing okay.”
She paused, letting the anticipation build. “I’m not sure,” she said at last. “I’ll have to let you know about it. You understand.”
“Of course,” he said, tossing the baseball a few inches in the air and catching it. “I’ll be here.”
Mara left without another word. She closed Bishop’s door behind her, and made her way through the foyer and out into the street. Her thoughts circled the recent conversation.
