Falling Water: A dystopian climate change novel

by Isa Marks

  He had to get to the other side of this level, the east side, and check there. There were only two options. The fastest was through the red zone. The other was along the south side, marked yellow to orange on the map. He had time, he thought, worried the red zone would be too crowded. It could go either way, in the best case he would blend in with the crowd or in the worst case he could stand out in his guard uniform. He didn’t know if it was a place guards would go in uniform, so he decided to play it safe. He made his way east along the southern residential route, checking the outside wall for exits on his way.

  It was a residential area as he expected. Small houses with apartments stacked on top of each other. The roads in between them were just wide enough to walk through. Every now and then he ran into someone leaving one of the brightly colored living spaces, making them squeeze past each other. They looked at him as they passed, but that was it, they did not speak to him or salute him. He had not seen any other guards here, they most likely lived somewhere else. The stares made him wonder if it was unusual for a guard to walk in this segment. Maybe he should have taken the other route?

  The south wall was a dead end just as he’d expected. There was only one tunnel and it lead to an opening on the southern mountainside. There were branches on the floor, something had come in from the outside, it looked like birds had been nesting here. He wondered . . . As he stood close to the edge, he looked out over the ocean below him. To his right was where the Hospital had been in the far distance. There was nothing but water now. . . . This must be the opening he had seen from the valley below.

  A voice came from behind him. It startled him. Someone had approached him so silently he hadn’t heard him coming. He turned around and saw a man smiling at him. He was well dressed, gray suit, white shirt, shiny neat shoes. He pulled his tie a bit looser.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” the man said.

  Daryl tried to look more relaxed than he felt.

  “Well?” said the man, “Do you have a cigarette?”

  That would have been a good reason to be out here, Daryl thought, if only he had any.

  “I needed some fresh air,” he improvised. It didn’t really answer the question, but it made the man smile again.

  “Well, you had me worried for a second. Agent Smith seems to have inspired a couple of people to jump after him since his ‘accident’ last week. I should have them close off this tunnel but then where am I supposed to smoke, right?”

  He offered Daryl a cigarette. I guess suicide would be a good excuse to be here as well, Daryl thought while he declined the offer.

  “I should get back,” he hurried past the man, “my shift is about to start.”

  He felt that if he were to look back, the man would still be staring at him. It was better to resist the urge. That had felt like a close call, or was he just getting paranoid, he couldn’t tell for sure.

  He had noticed the change in his behavior. He had become more nervous and grumpy from being locked inside this mountain. He needed his freedom, and he needed to be alone sometimes. Being locked up with these kids all the time exhausted him. He loved them, he cared for them, but he had always been a lone wolf. He needed time to think and recharge.

  The stacked apartments gave way to rows of colored cabins. As he walked between them he thought about his favorite place as a kid. Just behind the Farm House had been a couple of cabins once, hidden between the trees. He had just learned to read and his mom had traded some of her best homemade moonshine to get him a bird book for his seventh birthday. Every day after school he took the book to the cabin and climbed on the roof to watch the birds. He spent every spare minute there, he stayed as long as he needed and promised he would not rest until he had seen every bird in that book. All he ever saw were ravens, but he didn’t care. The great fire had destroyed that place a long time ago, but he’d think about those days every time he passed the square opening between the tree stumps. Whenever he needed to calm down he imagined himself back on top of that cabin, the book in his hands, watching the ravens circling the treetops.

  The colored cabins, in turn, gave way to larger mansions. This must be where the orange section crossed to the yellow one, he thought. The houses stood further apart and the roads started to get wider. The buildings were all painted the same white color, giving it an overall feel of luxury, coherence, and tranquility. It was a strange mix of Victorian, Tudor, and Colonial style buildings. Some were even a combination of two or more styles. Like someone had taken them apart and had put the puzzle pieces back together incorrectly. It made them into strange monstrosities. Everything about them was wrong but each single one of them was beautiful in it’s own way.

  Daryl made his way through quickly, he took the road along the back wall and searched the tunnels for exits. He had been wrong, this side too proved useless. It had taken him a whole day with the risk of being exposed and all of it had been for nothing. He was disappointed in himself, but even more he felt bad disappointing Cathy. She counted on him and he had nothing to show her, no way out. He failed her. He hoped she had more luck.

  It was time to head back through the roads below, he always tried to avoid walking the same roads twice. The mansions were built upon a slight slope, giving him a view of the area before him. He could see the edge of the red zone from here. The brightly illuminated center gave off a glow in the near distance. Apparently that’s where all the people are, he thought, because the streets here were empty.

  Well almost empty. A couple streets below him he saw a girl approaching. He was too far away to see her face but she looked in her twenties and seemed to have made an effort to dress up, or maybe that was just the way they dressed here. She was fidgeting, adjusting her dress. For the second time she walked up the same road, this time going right instead of left at the junction. It looked like she had been here before but couldn’t quite remember the route. Probably going on a first date, he thought. She showed all the signs.

  She was pacing in front of one of the buildings, still pulling at her dress. A guy stepped from the front porch. He was about the same age, blond side parted hair and well dressed. The guy walked towards her, took her hand and kissed her on the cheek. He had been right, he thought, feeling a sense of relief.

  He also felt a bit uncomfortable, as if he was spying on the couple, but was triggered to keep watching when the two turned around simultaneously. They looked in the same direction down the street, where a man came walking towards them. Gray suit, white shirt, neat shoes. His hands pulled the piece of fabric around his neck, tightening his tie. Had he been following him?

  CHAPTER 14

  THE VIRUS

  Did he die? Was she an angel? Cecilia, he thought, she had died at the Spring Cabin . . .

  Murphy became strangely aware of the blood flowing back to his fingers. The tingling sensation of his fingertips that he had for the past hour finally stopped. That’s nice, he thought, drifting on a cloud of numbness. His knees were still too weak to support his body. If it hadn’t been for the two guards beside him he would have crashed to the floor. These guys were the best, taking such good care of him.

  It was pretty much a straight drive from the lab, without any corners. The vehicle had gained some speed and the sounds flooded together again like the lovely music he had gotten used to over the past months. He liked this cocktail and reminded himself to thank Doc next time he saw him.

  He had lost count again of the stripes on the wall. He had been in and out of it for the past forty eight hours, which seemed to have lasted just an hour but could also have been a month. It was very likely he had missed a couple of stripes anyway. The massive headache didn’t help and his muscles were cramping badly now. He decided to scratch the wall with a game of tic-tac-toe instead.

  There was a loud pounding on the door. No, he did not feel like it, not now, not ever. He knew who it was. The guards didn’t bang it like that, they just used the key. There was only one who would announce his presence like this. The soun
d bounced around in his head, amplified by the headache he already suffered from.

  “If it isn’t the virus himself,” Murphy snapped sarcastically.

  Adrien entered the cell, a guard behind him pulled a chair out of the hallway and positioned it a couple of feet from Murphy. Adrien sat down and motioned the guards to leave the room. He had been arrogant enough to take Murphy’s remarks as a compliment. It made him wonder though how much the boy knew. The kid was sharp, he had noticed that in their past conversations, at least when he wasn’t on one of Doc’s potions.

  What had Doc told him? Or had he figured things out himself? Murphy could be more dangerous than he had thought. On the other hand if he could control him, maybe make him more obedient, more dependent . . .

  “So you know about the virus then?” Adrien tried, hearing out what the kid thought he knew.

  Murphy remembered parts of his last conversation with Doc. That guy was so full of himself, he talked and talked and talked. He wondered if he actually realized someone was listening, or if it was more like thinking out loud. The old man probably talked just as much when he was by himself.

  That afternoon he had gone on and on about a virus he had created. It was not supposed to be traced back to them, so Doc praised himself for coming up with an adjustment to an animal virus. It was so clever, he remembered Doc saying, it would only affect people with the specific genetic characteristics he would attribute to it. It would have to be the furthest away from his own DNA of course, just to be sure. They had injected the guards to spread the virus, and once it was out there it would spread itself.

  He had continued about being the savior of the human race, curing the world of hunger and diseases like obesity. How he had ended overpopulation, giving the rest more oxygen to breath. Murphy had almost started to believe his good intentions, Doc definitely seemed to believe it himself. But he knew it was nothing else than biological warfare.

  Doc had been behind the deaths of the thousands, millions of people even, that had died so many years ago. Back when they maybe had a chance to turn around that damn changing climate. He thought about how young Doc must have been, probably even younger than he was right now. And Adrien must have been just a teen soldier back then. How one man’s actions can have so much influence on the world.

  Adrien had followed right in his footsteps, he was sure of it. He worked closely with Doc, admired him it seemed. And his intentions were anything but pure, that much was certain. Murphy watched Adrien eat the slice of bread that was actually intended for him.

  “You know the math is simple,” Adrien said with his mouth still full. “You’re a smart guy, you must see it too. Less people use less energy, breath less air. It’s just that sometimes when the charts go the wrong way we are forced to intervene. Wouldn’t you do anything to keep your people safe?”

  “Do you make socks out of human hair too?” Murphy said.

  He had wondered why Teagan had shaved him but hadn’t cut his hair. Maybe the boy didn’t know how to do it, he wasn’t a barber after all. Maybe they let it grow for a reason or maybe it had no reason at all. He didn’t really care. It just reminded him of something he had read about in some history book once, that felt somehow similar.

  Adrien looked at him, not sure what he meant by that. But it probably wasn’t anything good. He picked up the chair and walked to the door. He turned around and looked at the wrecked boy, skin over bones, lying in the corner.

  Throwing the bread crusts in Murphy’s direction he said, “You could be grateful I saved you, you know. Don’t make me regret it.”

  ◆◆◆

  Faye looked disappointed. She didn’t like that she had to wait even longer, but she understood they needed a plan first. She had talked to the others about her meet up with Cathy. The uncertainty of how long they had to wait before being rescued was eating at all of them. How were they going to survive until then? Especially since they couldn’t eat the food at the dorms.

  “I have a plan!” seaweed guy said.

  “Well let’s hear it,” she sighed.

  Faye did not have much hope that his idea would be anything realistic, like all the other ‘plans’ he had come up with. She hadn’t really known him before the dam broke, in fact she didn’t even know his real name. The only thing she knew was that he had lived on the other side of the village, just like the others, but that was about it. She hadn’t really felt like getting to know him better here either. Maybe it had something to do with his stupid remarks.

  “Well, eating in the Field is kind of dangerous right? What if we eat that food here?”

  “And how are we going to do that?” Faye said, still not expecting to hear a well founded plan from that guy.

  “Listen up! You know how the vans that bring us back to the dorms park right next to where the food vans are parked? What if we could take some of the crops from the crates and hide them inside our vans? We could then eat them here, when they think we are sleeping.”

  She had to be fair, that actually sounded like a plan, who knew?

  “We could try it,” she said. “But we’ll have to be very careful, you know what will happen if we get caught.”

  The next day they all chose a place between the edible crops. It gave them a chance to stuff something in their mouth if the opportunity was to arise, like a riot among the workers or something else that would distract the supervisors. Nothing like that happened though, and their stomachs remained empty. The day went on calm without any disruptions. The crates were carried towards the vans. They seemed heavier every time, she knew they weren’t but it felt that way. There were a lot of people around the vans. Both workers and supervisors. The full vans took off and made room for new ones. The vans that would escort them to the dorms parked close to the ones half filled with crops.

  “That’s good,” she mumbled to herself.

  They could have parked near the soy filled vans, which would have made them walk a lot further without being seen. The sliding doors of the vans were open as usual, ready for them to enter and take off as fast as possible.

  Faye stuck some small zucchinis under her shirt. One of the other workers had noticed, but he just looked at her, nothing else. There were many workers around her. If she could only get the zucchinis out without being seen, at least not by the guards. Her back was towards the van, behind her was the opening of the door. Her nail scratched the skin of one of the vegetables as she reached for the things under her shirt. She looked at the supervisors, the workers and guards, they didn’t seem to pay attention to her. She felt behind her, and shoved them under the seat. She wiped the slimy green goo from under her fingernails and went back to work as if nothing happened.

  The others had done the same, only once each. They fought for their spot on the vans. Faye was too late for her spot, the man that had seen her had taken her seat. The van only had room for six, so she had to move to the next one and took a seat next to seaweed guy. He seemed proud.

  “I’ve got tomatoes,” he whispered to her, “what have you got?”

  “Shhh,” she hushed, hoping he would shut up. His talking had alerted the driver. A guard took place next to the man behind the wheel. They chatted indistinctly for a minute and then the van was off, only to arrive at the dorms a couple of minutes later.

  It was a short drive, which had always made Faye wonder why they had to drive there. They could easily make them walk instead. The doors slid open again, and they formed lines, two by two, as instructed. The guy that had been sitting next to her now stood in front of her, the tomatoes tucked under his shirt. He kept his hands on his belly, struggling to keep his precious cargo together. She thought about the zucchini’s in the car behind her and glanced at the man a couple feet further up the line.

  “Eyes front,” A man yelled in her ear. It made her whole body shake. She flinched and turned her gaze down to the ground. From the corner of her eye she saw something red, something round . . . No, no, no, no, no, that wasn’t good. How could he ha
ve been so careless? The guard had seen it too, he now bended over and picked up the tiny tomato.

  His big red face was close to hers, she could feel it even with her gaze still downwards. She was afraid to look up.

  “Look at me,” he yelled. “Explain this!”

  She felt his saliva cover her cheeks and tears started to form in her eyes.

  “It... it’s... not mine . . .” she stuttered. She wasn’t lying, but she knew where it came from.

  “What about you?” he yelled to the girl behind her. The girl started sobbing immediately.

  The guard turned around, walking right past seaweed guy in front of her. He turned around and punched the guy in his stomach.

  “What about you?” he yelled again. She saw him tremble and crouch together until he lay in a fetal position on the floor. His shirt turned red around his abdomen. It wasn’t blood . . . not yet at least.

  CHAPTER 15

  OCEAN LOUNGE

  Cecilia still couldn’t wrap her mind around it. Murphy had been on that table. Why would he volunteer for the trials? At least, that’s what Doc said when she had asked about ‘the guy on the table.’ She hadn’t said his name or anything to suggest they knew each other from before, she had been careful. Doc had seen her expression, and had taken her aside. He explained that the boy had signed up for it voluntarily. She wasn’t sure if she believed him though. “It’s not like I am conducting secret human trials here,” he had laughed. It was as if he had read her mind. He was probably right. But Murphy didn’t look good, and that worried her.

  She needed to focus her mind on something else. Teagan had invited her to go to the Ocean Lounge tonight. It made her nervous, but in a good way, she hadn’t felt like that in years. She took out the dress they had given her when she arrived. It was the first time she got to wear it. It wasn’t really appropriate for work and she hadn’t had any opportunity to wear it until then. The dress was pretty, pink with flowers, the silky fabric fell smoothly over her skin. She hoped it was appropriate for the Ocean Lounge, Teagan had not said anything about a dress code. One look at the people in the city had given her the impression that it was important to look your best here. She would try her best to adapt and fit in, even though she had felt like nothing more than a village girl in the big city until now. The dress helped.