Children of Eden (7 page)

A sudden
whir
comes from my left, and I turn to see the flash of a metal bot streaking toward me. They're coming for me after all! I jump to my feet to run, but sure enough, my legs are shaky, and before I can even begin to stagger away the bot crashes into my shin. I cry out, first in pain, then in relief. Oh, sweet Earth! It's not a securitybot, just a ferrybot delivering more takeout. It beeps irritably and zooms around me on its mission.

Bots are known for their fast reaction. In fact, I read in one of Ash's Civics books that bots are designed to be as unobtrusive as possible, zipping through the city autonomously,
serving humans without ever causing them inconvenience. I remember one section noting that however fast a bot moves, it never collides with a human. Ever.

But that ferrybot crashed right into me as if it didn't see me.

I think about how the city lights illuminate around everyone else as they stand in their doorways or walk along the city streets, lighting up just for them, turning off immediately behind to save precious energy. The world didn't light up for me. My way was dark.

Can it be possible? Can the city not see me?

The thought makes my stomach knot. I always knew I was secret. But invisible? It is as if I don't matter at all. Sure, it's lucky for me. Still, it hurts somehow. I have a mad desire to scream, “Look at me!”

A few people have noticed the bot accident, and several curious pairs of eyes regard me. An elderly woman says, “Are you all right, young man?” I want to look at her, the first person in the real world to show me a scrap of kindness. But even as I raise my head, I lower my lashes. If she sees my freakish kaleidoscope eyes, she'll know I never received the eye implants. She'll know I'm a second child.

Instead I pull my light gold scholar cap low over my face and mutter something she can't possibly hear.

“I'm not surprised
,”
another voice says with disdain. “Kalahari
teezaks
can never hold their
akvavit
.” I've never even tasted
akvavit
, the potent, sharply spiced liquor.

I haul myself up to my feet and sneak a sideways glance. It's the gang of young men in sports jerseys, evidently a team from a rival school of Kalahari, where Ash goes.

“Don't be such a prune,” another tells him. “Hey kid, if you're looking for the Kalahari party, it's at the Rain Forest Club, on the next street.”

I remember now that Ash had mentioned that party.
Nearly everyone in his grade was going to be there, celebrating the end of midyear exams. Everyone except him. Part of the reason is that our family needs to keep a low profile. Ash isn't the type to get arrested, but if he was ever with the wrong crowd and any little thing brought attention to our family, or a search of the house, it would be a disaster. So he almost always skips the parties.

I think maybe he does it for me, too. He thinks I'd be jealous of him out having all that fun while I'm stuck at home. He doesn't realize how the very idea of a party terrifies me. A huge crowd of people, all looking at me, talking to me . . .

But now I have no choice. The pedestrians are beginning to lose interest in the momentary interruption of their nightlife, but those who are watching think I go to Kalahari, think I'm headed to the party. So the only thing I can do is walk away with my head down. I'll head toward the Rain Forest Club until I'm out of sight, then make my way home. It's the best way not to attract unwanted attention.

As I walk away unmolested, I think about what the elderly lady called me: young man. In my baggy pants and boxy jacket, with my hair up under a scholar cap, I must look like a boy. In fact, I must look exactly like my twin, Ash. That thought gives me a measure of confidence. I might not be at home in this world, but he is. If I pretend to be him, I'll feel bolder, more sure.

Still, I'm in danger. Not just my eyes, but the smallest thing could mark me as a second child. I try to attach myself to other walkers so no one notices how the streets don't light up for me. For the most part, though, I look like any of the students out that night, in my slightly shimmering, gold-colored school uniform. I'm at the Rain Forest Club in just a few minutes. It's hard to even walk by the door. The music pulses, and inside I can see bodies writhing in dance, hear
voices shouting to be heard above the music. It's not a place for me. I bite my lip and turn away . . .

Only to see a Greenshirt rounding the corner at the end of the block.
Bikk!
Without thinking, I dart into the Rain Forest Club and I'm immediately engulfed in brilliant light and sound, in the crush of bodies. The place is decorated to look like one of the long-dead rain forests, but the trees are all synthetic, the birds and frogs and ocelots robotic. There are shrill, discordant sounds piercing the music, and I think they must be the sounds of artificial insects singing in the make-believe canopy.

My breath comes fast. I close my eyes almost all the way, focusing on a narrow sliver of floor, and start to walk toward the back, doing my best to shut out the confusion that attacks all of my senses. I'm overwhelmed.

I bump into someone—most of my social contact so far seems to be from accidental collisions—and sneak a peek at them. What I see is alarming: a man, I think, but not a man. At least not quite anymore. At first I think his skin has simply been painted, but when I look closer I see that it is sculpted, with some kind of implant beneath the skin to give it an odd texture. Tattooed color enhances the effect, making all of his exposed skin look like intricately patterned snake scales. Shocked, I make the mistake of looking at his eyes, and find that they are gold with narrow vertical black slits for pupils. They make my own eyes look normal! They must be contacts. He catches me looking—my own eyes are shadowed by my scholar cap—and flicks out his tongue at me. It is forked, like the snakes I've seen animated in Eco-history vids. Then he slips sinuously through the crowds.

I've heard that a few fanatics take their connection to the Earth's lost animals so seriously that they feel like they have to actually become one of those animals. Ash hasn't talked
about them much. It isn't common in any of the inner circles. Farther from the Center, though, I've heard people spend fortunes on changing their appearance to mimic animals. Some, Ash says, feel that they were born in the wrong bodies, that they should have been born an animal instead of a human. They call themselves Bestials.

I never dreamed I'd see one. It's almost like seeing a living snake. I watch him dance, his arms above his head, his slim, supple hips twisting.

The room is full of such strangeness. Many of the young people are wearing their vibrant single-color school uniforms. Many are the light shimmering gold of Ash's school, Kalahari. Some of the slightly older ones, those beyond their student years, are dressed in homage to extinct animals. One woman is covered in plastic feathers, though she resembles no bird I've even seen in Eco-history vids. Another has painted herself in spots and teased her short hair up to look a bit like cat ears. They look artificial compared to the snake man, though. At the end of the night they'll pluck their feathers or scrub off their spots and be human again. Then the next night they'll be a fish, or a wolf.

Finally I reach the back of the dance hall. There's a dark hallway branching out in two directions—one to the kitchen, I can tell by the savory aroma, the other to the restrooms. I choose that way, thinking I'll attract less attention, hoping there's a back door.

There is! I surge toward it. I've pushed it halfway open, and can just see the blessed quiet solitude of a back street outside when I hear a voice behind me.

“Ash? Is that you?”

I turn, and there in the shadows is Lark. Ash has shown me pictures of her so many times I know her face by heart.

Her dress is the yellow-green of new leaves in springtime.

FOR ME, IT'S
as if the clouds that were darkening the sky of my life suddenly parted and the sun shone a glorious beam directly on me. As I stare at Lark, a strange longing fills me. I don't understand half the things I feel. It's as if I've known her my entire life, and we're already in perfect harmony. It's as if I've been running a seemingly endless race, and she's the finish line finally in sight.

“Ash, what's wrong?” she asks, her voice like honey from a long-extinct bee. I've never heard such sweetness.

The corridor is dim, and I realize she can't see me well enough to notice my strange eyes. In this light there is nothing to distinguish me from my twin. My hair is tucked up under my scholar cap, and the jacket probably disguises my curves. Though not exactly identical, our features are so similar that in the school uniform she'd naturally assume I'm Ash.

Until I speak.

I don't want to break the illusion, so I just shake my head to tell her nothing is wrong. She takes a step closer.

I should leave. Just stalk away without a backward glance. If she takes just one more step she'll see my unfixed eyes. If I open my mouth she'll surely know I'm not Ash.

“Are you having an attack?” she presses, leaning toward
me. I can smell a pleasant fragrance wafting from her. Not sweet, exactly, more spicy and earthy, like when rain hits the moss in my courtyard. “I have a spare inhaler for you if you've forgotten yours.” They're that close, I think, that she not only knows about his condition, but carries his medicine with her.

I can't walk away from her. Lark's hair is lilac-colored, her eyes gray and luminous, huge as they shower me with concern and friendship. Seeing her is like . . . like seeing one of the extinct animals I've learned about in Eco-history videos. A bird of paradise. A jaguar. For all my life, someone like her has been just as rare, just as impossible to ever experience firsthand. I know it's an illusion, just as the images of long-gone animals in my vids are illusions. If she finds out what I am, she'll scream for the authorities. She's Ash's friend, not mine.

But right now, for just a brief moment in time, I can pretend.

I try to memorize every aspect of the encounter so I can savor it later. The way her flower-colored hair seems to glow in the dim light, the long, soft curls a bit wild. The way she stands poised, about to move nearer to me, her weight just about to shift to her front foot to take a step, but hesitating for some reason.

Right now, in this magical moment, I have a friend.

It is wonderful.

It is torture, because any moment the spell will break.

“Ash?” she asks again, uncertain.

“I'm fine,” I say, trying to deepen my voice. It sounds strange to me. It must to her, too, because she frowns slightly, two fine lines appearing between her eyebrows. Her head cocks to one side, like a bird's.

Then, suddenly, she sits down on a low bench along the edge of the corridor. Tentatively, I lower myself to the one
on my side. We've established territories, with a boundary of hallway between us. She's not coming closer. Maybe I can snatch a few more moments of this delicious heaven.

“You seem . . . different tonight, Ash,” she says, and I can't help but laugh. “Oh, there you are!” she says, her brow clearing like breaking dawn. Ash and I have exactly the same laugh, a low, throaty chuckle. “I didn't think you'd be able to come to the party.”

I take a deep, steadying breath before I venture any words. “I had to get out tonight,” I say, my voice odd and gravelly. “I had to . . .” I gulp. “I had to see you.”

Even in the darkness I can see her flush. This hallway is undecorated, bland compared to the gaudy rain forest motif of the main rooms. But Lark lights it up like a thousand lanterns.

“Are you serious?” she asks.

“Completely,” I say. “I feel like I've waited all my life for this night.”

Lark is silent for a moment. All the time, she searches my face. I want to look away, but I can't. I just pray to the good Earth that it isn't light enough for her to distinguish the strangeness of my eyes. If it meant my death, I swear I couldn't look away.

At last she says, “There's something new in your eyes.” Immediately, I bow my head. “No, not in your eyes. Your eyes are in shadow.” With relief I turn toward her again. “It's in your expression, though. What is it?” She stares at me awhile longer. “I know. You're not anxious,” she says with a sigh. “You're happy for a change.” She smiles, and the radiance engulfs me. I smile back.

“I am,” I say breathlessly, thinking that I shouldn't be. My life is in danger, and even if I get home safely my life is about to be so uprooted it might as well be destroyed. But at this moment I'm completely, blissfully happy.

“You've
been my friend since we moved to this circle, Ash. Sometimes I think you're my best friend. But there's always been a distance between us that I never understood. You always held something back. And it bothered me. I never pried, you know. I let you keep that part of you walled off.”