Children of Eden (5 page)

From my height I can see the lights of several people from our circle all heading toward another ring, where they'll be going to parties, clubs, restaurants, the theater. If only I had someplace to go, someone who was waiting for me to arrive. I picture myself entering a party, all of my friends calling my name, beckoning me over. Someone hands me a drink, another cracks a joke about something we've all shared. I am welcome. I am accepted.

Again, I swing one leg over the outer edge of the wall, but this time, I start to climb down.

Mom sometimes uses an expression:
I know it like the back of my hand
. As I lower myself in grueling slow motion down the far side of the wall, I realize that defines my entire life until this moment.

In the first few seconds of my first foray away from home, I am overwhelmed with
difference
. Since birth, I've known every detail of my whole world to a hair's breadth. If I
lost my sight I would hardly notice—I could navigate my tiny realm without any of my senses. The home side of the wall is a friend, with crevices that reach out to help me like welcoming hands. On this side, the wall almost seems to be trying to throw me off.

I cling, frozen, just a couple of feet down from the ledge. Deliberately I steady myself, trying to feel the memory of the Earth within the stones. This helps a little, and I ease myself down another few inches. As I breathe slowly, the rock seems to breathe with me, pressing rhythmically against my chest. Smiling a little to myself, I descend again.

I make it down two more hand- and footholds before a crevice I thought was stable suddenly collapses under my toe. My hands tense and my foot scrapes against the wall, searching frantically for a hold. I find one—barely. The edge of my shoe is just touching the tiny outcrop. Worse yet, my hands are slipping.

The inside wall has been neglected, giving it character and, more important to me, irregularities and crevices I can use to climb. This outer facade, with its face to the world, has been maintained so that all the plaster between the stones is relatively fresh, the rocks themselves smoother. The holds are so much narrower than I'm used to.

I pick the worst hand grip and let go, to skitter my fingers over the wall like a long-extinct spider, searching. There's one! I shift my weight, trying to remember not to hug the wall too much. If I try to press myself against the stones too hard, I'll actually thrust my body out away from the wall.

I hear voices in the distance, but I have to focus all my attention on not falling. I'm still twenty feet up. The fall would be survivable—probably. At least the effort of climbing has distracted me a little from my anger and resentment and con
fusion. It's hard to think about emotions when your life, or at least your safety, is on the line.

I have managed to lower myself another few feet, when I notice the voices are coming closer. Careful not to shift my precarious balance, I turn my head and search for the source.
Bikk!
At the very farthest limit of my vision, several blocks away, stands a cluster of Greenshirts on patrol. They are illuminated in a glowing orb of light, and rays of their flashlights extend from that center, making it look like a many-armed underwater creature. The Greenshirts are searching the neighborhood for any signs of suspicious activity.

If they see me, they'll think I'm some outer circle punk high on synthocybe looking for gelt to finance her next fix. What could be more suspicious than a girl scaling a wall in a ritzy inner circle neighborhood?

Well, a second-child girl with no lens implants, of course. I'm not just any common criminal. I can be as law-abiding as I like. My life itself is a violation of the highest order.

Time for this nonexistent, illegal girl to get back home. My urge to see the world suddenly begins to evaporate as the chance of capture looms. They haven't seen me—their lights are focused in the other direction—but they're out, and much too close for comfort.

I lunge for a hold right above my head. As my fingers grip it, though, I have a strange, dizzying, disjointed sensation. The world seems to shiver slightly, and the entire block comes loose in my hand. I'd committed too hard, and with a sickening lurch I fall, my body scraping against the rock wall as I try to slow my descent. After what feels like an eternity—though I've only slid about a foot—my fingers catch and I dangle, swinging by one aching arm, still ten feet above the ground.

The stone has crashed below with a deafening noise, and I expect the Greenshirts to come running. But they don't
react. I'm panting now, crying at my own stupidity, wondering how on Earth I was ever so foolish as to try to go out into the world on my own. I'm not equipped for this. Why, I can't even make it safely out of the house! What did I think I was going to do? Go to a party? Make a friend? I probably can't even navigate the streets or figure out how to talk to someone I'm not related to and haven't known my whole life!

Only a moment before, I'd felt in a panic to escape. Now I'm frantic to get back inside, where everything is predictable and safe. I have to leave in three days. I need to cherish what little time I have. Or so I tell myself. Some part of me still yearns to be out in the city, to defy the fate that has kept me a prisoner all my life.

But no matter how I stretch and twist I can't find a single handhold above me. I've slithered into a trap, and there's nowhere to go but down.

I try to picture Mom's face when I ring the chime, and she opens the door to find me, shamefaced, on the wrong side of it. She's going to be so disappointed in me.

It takes me another few minutes to climb low enough that I feel confident to jump without injury. I push away from the wall and drop lightly. Then I freeze in amazement.

My feet are on ground that's not inside my house
. For the first time in my life, I'm outside. I look down, rocking back on my heels, lifting my toes to see the novelty beneath my feet. There's nothing special about the ground, really. It's just the smooth, clean, shining photoreceptive surface that lines most walls and floors in this city, gathering solar energy. But it's not like anything I've known before.

It's
outside
! I'm
free
!

It's like the very ground is sending electric sparks into my feet, ordering them to move without my volition. I take a step . . . and it isn't toward the front door. It is
away
. Away
from the familiar. Away from the safe prison. Toward dangerous freedom.

I take another step. My body wants to run, to revel and leap as I do at my most exuberant moments inside the courtyard. But I can't attract any attention. A third step, and I'm on the public sidewalk. Between that and the road stand artificial trees. I know they look exactly like the real, living trees that once covered the world, thriving even in densely populated cities, before the Ecofail. But they are as false as my new identity will be. They're just tree-shaped photosynthesis factories, making oxygen for everyone in Eden to breathe.

I touch one, and it is cold and dead.

In a daze, almost in a dream, I walk on, down the gently curving sidewalk of our street. Just three rings outside of the Center, our street is a relatively small circle. The houses are low, no more than two or three stories. Eden regulation keeps the inner buildings low so that the Center will always stand proud and tall. I glance over my shoulder at that structure, a huge emerald dome that stands like a giant faceted eye in the heart of Eden. Although I know it holds offices and high-level workers like my parents, I sometimes feel as if the Center is almost the eye of the EcoPanopticon itself, watching over Eden.

Tonight, I feel as if it is glaring at me balefully through the dark.

I turn my back on the Center, square my shoulders, and walk slowly into Eden.

It's night, but there are a few people outside, talking to neighbors or coming home from restaurants. I recognize some of them, though I've only seen them at dusk or dawn when I peep from my aerie. A gentle glow illuminates them wherever they linger or walk, lighting up before them, darkening behind them once they pass. But no lights come on for me as I go. It is as if Eden is shutting its eyes to me, rejecting me.

All my life, I've felt like I'd be pounced on if I ever set foot outside my home. But strangely, the scant handful of people on the streets don't seem to pay the slightest bit of attention to me. I'm relieved, of course, but there's a sting to it, too.

Then, unexpectedly, a man emerges from his door, fumbling with his keycard as he moves. He sees my shadow, cast in the light emanating from his house, and he looks up for a fraction of a second, giving me a quick nod and smile before turning back to secure his lock. I've moved past his threshold before he sets out, and he goes in the opposite direction.

I'm elated and shaking. My first contact!

But if I'm not careful, someone will notice my difference. I pull my cap over my kaleidoscope eyes and wrap my pale gold jacket more snugly around my body, hunching a bit as I walk. Why isn't the ground lighting up for me? They might not look directly in my eyes and see that I lack lenses, but eventually someone will notice I'm the only one moving in darkness. I only have two choices: get to a more populous part of Eden, where my darkness won't be noticed among everyone else's light, or go home.

I know I should go home. Has Mom discovered my absence yet? Maybe she thinks I'm sulking in my bed and decided to leave me to my thoughts. Maybe she knows what I've done, and she's going frantic.

I should go home, but I turn my steps toward the nearest entertainment circle.

The radial streets that branch out from the Center are usually more bustling, largely business rather than residential. The one I'm walking along is pedestrian only at this point, with a canal running down the center and walking paths on the side. Many of the shops here—mostly clothes, jewelry, and home décor—are closed now, but a boatman poles a cuddling couple along the center of the canal. The waterway in front
of the boat looks like mercury, silver and still, until the prow pushes through it. Then it dances like skipping minnows, and leaves an undulating snake-like wake.

Even though the businesses are closed, there are more people out and about than on my street. The traffic all moves in one direction—toward the entertainment circle. Here near the Center, where the rings are smaller, the entire street will be devoted to restaurants, clubs, bars, theaters, and the like. Farther out, in the outer circles, there are no dedicated entertainment circles. By that point, the rings are too huge. The poorer residents out there don't have the resources to go to the theater or out to eat very often. Still, I've heard Mom say that there are plenty of bars out there.

I merge into the crowd, using their light so no one can see I have none of my own. I realize I'm grinning like an idiot, from excitement and from nerves. But still no one notices me. They assume I'm like them, on my way to my own fun, my own friends.

All around me, I see things I've only glimpsed from a distance, atop my wall. To my left is one of the towering cultivation spires. It rises high above the tallest buildings in Eden to catch the sun. Inside, I know, a liquid slurry of genetically modified algae moves through sinuous tubes, harvesting sunlight and growing into a substance that fills all of a human's nutritional needs. It is then shunted to the factories where it is turned into synthetic food that (so I'm told) looks and tastes exactly like the real dirt-grown fruits and vegetables humans used to consume pre-fail. I have eaten strawberries, more or less, though the last true strawberry withered two hundred years ago.

The cultivation spire may be functional, but tonight it is beautiful. The twisting semi-helix of the tubes looks like a sculpture, made only to please the eye. I stop abruptly, looking
up in wonder at the massive structure, and someone bumps me from behind.

“Oh, hey,” a boy about Ash's age says, and I think I see quick recognition in his eyes. I lower my own and turn away. Peripherally I see him shrug and move on.

The brief encounter frightens me. I don't know if I can do this. A stranger says “hey” and I feel like running away, or taking a swing at him, or curling up in a ball. What's the right response? I feel my heart fluttering in my chest, and my breath is fast and shallow. The crowd is getting thicker as I near the entertainment circle.
Please
, I silently beg the mob.
Don't look at me. Just let me watch you, pretend I'm part of the crowd
. I feel like if anyone else tries to talk to me I'll break down completely.

But despite my growing anxiety, my feet keep propelling me forward.

The lights in my home circle are subtle and beautiful at night, pale green and mercury-colored, gently swirling to maintain an air of calmness and safety in the elite residential district. Here, though, light is ornament, statement, and above all, glaring, vibrant color.

I've seen animated Eco-history vids of fields of brilliant wildflowers, of forests painted red and gold in the autumn, of bright blue oceans capped with foamy white waves. The color of Eden's most snazzy entertainment circle eclipses them all. The city designers have created a panorama of hues that are dizzying to my eyes. I wonder if they have the same effect on everyone else. Maybe they're used to them. Maybe they don't really see them anymore.

It's beautiful, but a cold kind of beauty. I think of the natural splendors the lights remind me of, the things none of us will ever see. I guess this is the wild landscape of Eden, the human environment until the world heals.

I'm
in the thick of it all now. There's a club on my right. Strange, exciting music comes from inside, and pulsing strobes in a rainbow of colors. I move past it, slyly peeking in to see people gyrating, their arms raised above their heads as they dance. The next place is a more sedate theater with a marquee promising a sophisticated comedy. I flinch when I see the uniformed usher at the door. But no, his uniform is kelly-green with brass buttons, only superficially like a Greenshirt uniform.