Children of Eden (8 page)

I have no idea what Ash is like away from home. I only know what he tells me about his life outside. I'm always jealous of everything he does that I can never do (though I rarely let it show). But it never occurred to me that he carried his burden of secrecy out into the public realm. I thought I was the only one who had to bear the weight. But now I can guess that it affected him, too, strongly enough for Lark to notice.

“And you don't have to tell me now,” Lark goes on. “I'm just happy to see you looking out at the world as if it just might be a wonderful place after all.”

Then she stands, crosses the scant distance between us, and bends awkwardly to hug me. I stiffen, then relax as the warmth of her hands seeps through my clothes. Then her face is near mine, her lips near mine . . . and suddenly her eyes widen, and she pulls back a little bit. But she doesn't let go of my shoulders. If anything she holds them tighter.

“Oh,” she breathes, looking into my kaleidoscope eyes. “I understand now.”

I think she'll scream for help, run away, say something cruel. But she slides to my side, one arm still around my shoulders, the other fumbling for my hand. “A second child,” she says softly. “A twin. I didn't know.” She gives a little laugh that sounds like music. “Of
course
I didn't know. But that explains a lot. What's your name?”

I just breathe, terrified and elated that my secret is finally in public, and that I'm not instantly condemned. And with Lark of all people, the friend I've dreamed about for years!
I try to speak, but I'm so cold with nerves that my teeth are starting to chatter. My fingers are icy in her hand, and she rubs my knuckles with her thumb.

“It's okay,” she says soothingly. “If you belong to Ash, you belong to me, too. I'll keep you safe. I promise.”

“Rowan,” I say in my own voice. “My name is Rowan.”

She smiles at me, and I feel like I'm being seen for the very first time.

We talk as though we've known each other forever. In a way we have. I've been hearing stories of Lark for so long that she is a part of me. And she probably sees so much of Ash in me that she thinks she knows me, too. As we talk, she keeps looking at me with her head cocked like the small bird that is her namesake, sometimes frowning when some preconception of me isn't fulfilled, or smiling with sudden brightness when some expression or nuance pleases her, conforms to her idea of what I am, or should be. I think I am both familiar and mysterious.

I tell her about my life, about the endless years of solitude with only Ash, Mom, and Dad for company. About running in circles to nowhere, about climbing the wall around our courtyard to the top every single day, but never daring to go over until this night. I tell her about the loneliness, the yearning, the constant low-grade fever of anxiety that runs through me like a subtle sickness. And through it all she nods, sometimes holding my hand or stroking my arm. She is on my side, completely, I'm sure.

Still, even as I revel in finally having someone to share with, I can almost hear my mother's voice in my head.
Don't trust
, she whispers to me.
You're a secret, a dangerous secret that needs to be kept at all costs
.

I ignore the imagined voice as Lark tells me about herself, her beliefs. She talks about Eden in ways I've never considered
before. To her, the city is as much of a prison as my house is to me.

“Are we really all that's left?” she asks. I can only tell her what I've heard in History vids. Our ancestors were the lucky few who survived two hundred years ago. There are no people outside of Eden. No animals, either, just a few lichens, algae, bacteria, and the like.

“But I've studied Ecology and Eco-history,” she says, her voice passionate. “Life is enduring, adaptable. I know that humans are terrible, destructive, but the Earth is strong. I can't see how we could do anything to it that would destroy it completely. Ecological collapse, sure. Mass extinction, broken food chain. But I can't believe that
everything
is gone.”

Again, I can only reply with what I've been taught: that beyond Eden, the world is a wasteland, dead and barren.

But it is the one-child policy that seems to particularly bother her. “Humans are part of nature,” she tells me. “We're animals, just like all the other animals that used to live on Earth. Animals are meant to propagate, to expand, to grow.”

“But Eden can't survive if the population grows,” I protest, even though I'm arguing for my own doom.

“I don't know,” she says, pressing her lips together contemplatively. “There's something that doesn't add up. The vids at school say that the original settlers in Eden were chosen. That means that someone—maybe Aaron Al-Baz himself, creator of the EcoPan—decided on a number of people. Why pick so many only to reduce their numbers later?”

“Maybe it was just compassion,” I offer. “He wanted to save as many as possible, and then later generations could deal with the overpopulation.”

She shakes her head. “He was a scientist, a computer programmer, a practical, pragmatic man. I think he would have chosen the right number of people from the start. But listen
to this.” Though we're already close, shoulder to shoulder, she leans in closer so her lilac hair brushes my cheek. I shiver.

“My mom works in allocation. Once when she had to work on a weekend I went in with her and hung out in the records office all day while she was busy. I wasn't supposed to be there, and that was the only place I'd be out of the way. No one cared about old receipts and supply lists. But you know me, I can't
not
read.”

She catches what she just said with a low chuckle, and we exchange a knowing look. I
do
know her. I knew this fact about her years before we met. She reads the way other people breathe, incessantly, of deep need.

“I started thumbing through old records printed out on plastic paper. Not important stuff like they'd keep in the archives where your mom works. Just old receipts for food distribution and the algae farms and water circulation volume. Things no one cared about. Most of it was just shoved in any old how. Boring, I thought . . . then suddenly it got interesting.”

She tells me how this jumble of printed records went back at least a hundred years, maybe more.

“And what I found, after I'd gone through enough mind-numbingly boring lists and receipts, is that the amount of resources hasn't declined over the years.”

I have to think about this for a long moment.

“You mean,” I say slowly, “we're not running out of food and water and energy?” But that's supposed to be the justification for the one-child policy. The population has to be reduced or all of Eden will run out of resources and perish.

“Not only that,” Lark whispers in close conspiracy. “From what I could see, in this district at least, the resources are actually increasing.”

AN HOUR LATER
I make my way home in a dream. Well, a dream that is part nightmare. So far in my life my strongest emotions have been limited to such things as boredom, loneliness, and occasional hope. Now I've not only learned an entirely new range of feelings, but I've discovered that even seemingly contradictory ones can exist side by side. As I creep home with Lark, I'm both giddy and afraid. Both emotions have the same symptoms: pounding heart, shaking knees, anxious darting eyes.

As we start out, I realize I have no idea where I am. The map I thought I'd had in my head is gone. It should be obvious, and it would be if I was calmer. Eden is laid out in concentric rings with connecting spokes, so all I really have to do is mark the huge emerald eye of the Center and head inward until I find my own circle. But I'm so shaken by everything that has happened this night that suddenly I feel lost.

“This way,” Lark says gently, and leads me through a bot access passage.

I turn, pulling against her guiding hand. “Are you sure?” I can see the shining green dome in the other direction. “I thought . . .”

“I see a few Greenshirts on patrol tonight. More than they
usually have in this circle. Are you sure no one spotted you earlier?”

“I think . . . no,” I say, not wanting to worry her about my mysterious encounter with the young Greenshirt.

“Still, something's up tonight to have increased security. We should go the long way around. If we cut out to the next ring and then take another spoke back inward, we'll attract less attention.”

I'm nervous, but I trust her. “You sound like you've done this before.”

She gives me a smile of mischief. “I've snuck out to a meeting or two,” she admits. I question her with raised eyebrows and she elaborates a bit. “People who think like me. People who aren't so certain that all is well in Eden. Naturally, the less attention I get the better. And some of the meetings are in outer circles, so it's safest to be sneaky.”

I know she means not just safe from the focus of authorities, but from the seedier element that lives in the outer circles. Ash never mentioned any of this. I guess Lark has a secret life, too.

I hardly even see the gaudy lights, the extravagant costumes of the passersby. We've reached the next ring, and though it is visibly less clean and chic than the entertainment circle closest to my house, it is still hopping with activity and crazy with color and decoration, on both the people and the buildings.

“Look out!” I whisper when I see a Greenshirt up ahead. But Lark takes my hand and pulls me so that I veer away from him. He hadn't noticed us before, but the sudden movement makes his head swivel toward us. I tense, ready to run, but Lark laughs and leans toward me as if whispering some secret. What she really says is “Smile! He has no idea who we are. Just girls out for a night of fun together.” I stretch
my tense face into a smile, and the Greenshirt turns away. We clearly aren't a threat.

Bit by bit, I start to relax. With Lark to guide me I feel . . . not safe, exactly, but as if I'm in good hands. The music, the crowds no longer intimidate me. I feel like I'm a part of it all now. I have a connection. I have a friend.

“Do you have any idea where you'll be living when you go with your new foster family?” Lark asks. I shake my head. I left before I could learn any details of my future. “I hope it's close,” Lark goes on, “but if not, there's always the autoloop. You can get anywhere in Eden in a few hours now that they've upped the rail speed.”

There's so much swirling around in my head. Just a couple of hours ago I was told I'm about to leave my home, my family. Who knows when I'll see them again? I'll be living with strangers. I'm torn up about that, and yet . . . Somehow, there's an edge of happiness. When I ran away from my home into the night I felt like my whole world had broken. Now I begin to think that I can put the pieces back together. Not in exactly the same way, of course. But maybe, just maybe, even better.

Is it Lark that makes me feel that everything isn't as grim as it first seemed? Now that I've met a friend, shared my secret, anything seems possible.

Not that I don't have enough problems of my own to worry about, but somehow I keep thinking back to everything Lark told me about the supplies, the one-child policy, her vague theories about something being wrong with Eden. But what does that matter? The world is what it is—dead outside, alive in here—and I have to make the best life for myself given what I have. Whatever is going on in the government and supplies, or in the electronic heart of the EcoPanopticon, that's not my problem.

My heart slows to the point that I can have a real look
around me. We're walking briskly through the next entertainment ring. While the one nearest my house—the entertainment district closest to the Center—seemed loud and boisterous at the time, I can see now that by comparison with this ring it was quiet, civilized, and staid. There, people walked slowly, in orderly fashion, politely making way for one another. Here, they jostle and shove. There seem to be many more people. More security, too. Did Lark make a mistake going this way?

“They have other things to worry about,” she says when I express my concern. “Look over there.”

I see a man standing on a small folding stool, head and shoulders above the crowd. Fragments of his impassioned speech reach me. “Dominion over land and sea, over the beasts of the Earth and the fish of the sea . . .” Few people seem to be paying him any attention. Most just walk by, but every once in a while someone stops to shout a curse, and once someone hurls soggy scraps of a sandwich at him. He keeps on declaiming with the burning eyes of a fanatic.

“Idiot,” Lark says, scowling in his direction. “That's the kind of thinking that got us here in the first place.”

“What is the Dominion, exactly?” I ask. I've heard the term occasionally, but I only have the vaguest idea what it's all about.