Legacy (The Biodome Chronicles) (30 page)

“Oaklee and Laurel, I am most honored to present my bride,” Leaf said with a shy voice, and Ember gave him a wide grin in response. His sisters ran into Ember’s arms, embracing her with joyful exuberan
ce. All three ladies began giggling and talking all at once in high-pitched, excited voices, making him laugh to himself. He placed a hand on Willow’s shoulder and then said, “We must keep this a secret for now.”

“Yes, we understand,” Willow said, and Laurel nodded her head in agreement.

Leaf smiled. “Let us continue our walk, before the other families reach us.”

Ember lifted the hood back onto her head once they reached the trail, and all four quietly continued the journey around the Great Hall toward The Forge near the entrance to the Mediterranean dome. Leaf glanced over his shoulder and noted the lanterns in the distance, still too far away for anyone to have made out his and Ember’s forms distinctly. Willow was wise to not wait long, even though he wished for more time with Ember alone. The Elders were right. The passions of youth did come alive with touch. His entire being was ablaze.

***

New Eden Enterprises was granted land along the Salton Sea in southern California’s Imperial Valley to set up a biospherics facility, including a biodome to house nearly 1,000 residents. Under a bargaining agreement, New Eden Enterprises owner and CEO Hanley Nichols will assist the state in developing ecological restoration programs for its dying sea, a victim of concentrated salinity and the highly polluted New River. The Salton Sea is a stopping point for many migratory birds and was once an ecological paradise and tourist hotspot in the mid-20
th
century. Nichols said that he will work to turn the barren wasteland back to its former glory, an Eden rising in the desert.

—Associated Press, “Back to Eden,”
Los Angeles Times
, March 8, 2026

Space Biospheres Ventures represents a new approach to doing business. We are a private ecological research firm that has created one of the boldest research and development facilities of this century. We are also a profit-making venture. Biosphere 2 ushers forth technological development that is marketable and beneficial to the Earth. It responds to the current environmental crises by searching for real solutions, and it stands as a vision of hope so that we as a species can move forward and leave our destructive ways behind us.

—
Margaret Augustine, CEO and president of Space Biospheres Ventures, September 1993
*

***

E
ndless nothing. And then suddenly an eerie wasteland appeared with dead palm trees reaching up to the sky, as if begging for their lives to be spared. The white and gold hues of the salt sink stretched in every direction, dotted by remnants of life from a bygone era.

He was told tourists packed the shores of this cesspool one hundred years ago. Now, rusted trailers, cars, and boats jutted out of the sand and parched soil, forever frozen in time to haunt the residents and brave souls who ventured into the Imperial Valley. Old roadside motels and resorts were vandalized and weathered, most lying in heaps of rubble. Hanley opted for the scenic route along the Salton Sea, and Fillion quietly watched the images of death whiz past him. His morbid curiosity turned the landscape into a post-apocalyptic world, a dystopian mirage.

New Eden Biospherics was on the opposite shore, next to the mud volcanoes near Calipatria, the southeastern area of the Salton Sea. Hanley’s jet landed at the Brawley Municipal Airport, an easy distance to the biodomes, but he insisted that they sightsee for a bit, traveling as far north as Salton Sea Beach along the western coast. Originally, he had wanted to bypass the biodomes on the way south again, heading north on the eastern side to the famed Bombay Beach. But he changed his mind. Fillion glanced at Hanley, and watched him stretch his jaw in a soundless yawn, his dad’s nervous tick when processing and organizing information internally.

Hanley noticed his staring and asked, “What do you think?”

Fillion responded with a slightly raised shoulder in a disinterested shrug.

“I wanted you to see this death, so that you can appreciate the life. New Eden Enterprises tried for many years to save the Salton Sea, but the New River is too polluted, and that is a political issue too great for my company to mount since Mexico is involved too. However, we have been successful in continually desalinating the sea. The saline level is now that of the Pacific Ocean. The birds and fish seem to appreciate our efforts. They would thrive if it wasn’t for the New River.” Hanley sighed. “A new water treatment plant is nearly finished. Hopefully this will help eliminate many of the pathogens crossing the border. California really does value the ecosystem its citizens accidentally created one hundred and fifty years ago when the Colorado River experienced a record flood…”

While listening to Hanley ramble on, Fillion defocused on the scenery moving past him and onto his reflected image in the window. He no longer recognized his own face, and the change in the last two days left him feeling strangely vulnerable and naked. There was no image to hide behind, no self-made identity to present the world. Everyone could see him for exactly what he was: Fillion Malcolm Nichols, first-born loser of a first-rate swindler.

While going off the main byways and onto dirt roads, Fillion wondered at how many people traveled this desolate path over the years and whether they found what they were looking for. He was just one among many throughout this valley’s history who sought a new beginning, a new adventure. It was a passageway toward a future not of his own making, a forced opportunity, but an opportunity he would seize now that the shock had worn off some. His mind cringed at being enclosed like an animal, but his heart soared at being out from underneath Hanley’s direct control for such a length of time. The scenic route was a paved graveyard of dreams, but Fillion hoped his would rise from the ashes, marking the moment when he would finally own his life.

Glancing at his image in the window again, he raised his hand to feel the soft hairs newly cut to just above his ear, styled in a common fashion from the Middle Ages. Fillion tried to convince his dad to let him keep his longer length, also an acceptable style from the Medieval era, especially among young men. But Hanley refused, afraid Leaf and Willow would recognize him. Dark eyebrows popped out immediately on his reflected facial features, and the blue of his eyes was like ice in contrast. The hair stylist dyed his hair to the original color, dark brown, nearly black, with a mahogany glint under certain lighting.

Then, in the distance, Fillion watched as New Eden grew out of the Colorado Desert. Three enormous oval structures patterned in a honeycomb design gleamed in the autumn sunlight, connected to each other like soap bubbles. The geodesic designs stretched over the arid flats. He had seen pictures of New Eden all his life, but nothing prepared him for the gigantic proportions that stretched before him. Fillion sat in growing apprehension. He was already impressed by the rooftops. The thought of standing before the actual buildings already made him feel small and insignificant. They were cathedrals forged from the pages of ecopreneurial fantasy.

“She’s beautiful, wouldn’t you agree?”

Fillion gave his dad another imperceptible shrug with his shoulder before turning back to watch as the town car rolled up to the main gates for New Eden Biospherics, shielded by a barbed wire privacy fence and ten-to-fifteen-foot-tall oleander bushes. The white, pink, and red flowers provided a verdant contrast to the fallow fields on the opposite side of the road.

The research and development laboratory was itself fashioned as a mini-biodome, visible beyond the decorative gate panels that blocked their path. The gates were supported by a giant, wrought-iron arbor that depicted two trees. The iron trunks arched over the driveway, meeting in tangled boughs that spelled out “New Eden.” Wildflowers and various succulents bloomed at the bases. A nearby sign announced, “Welcome to the Township of New Eden. Population 421.”

The chauffeur reached out a gloved hand and punched in a code, and the gates slowly opened, revealing an enormous garden. The hidden paradise teamed with citrus, nut, fig, and olive trees, artichokes, herbs, poppies, lilies, and wildflowers, both the ornamental and the edible woven into the garden together naturally. Chickens roamed the outer property freely, causing Fillion to crease his eyebrows in disbelief. This was not exactly his idea of a corporate headquarters. He bit the inside of his cheek when a chicken squawked and flew out of the way with agitated flaps as the town car moved forward.

“This garden is a masterpiece, designed by a highly sought-after permaculture design team. They created this self-sustaining Mediterranean forest garden for the scientists, one that is more biblical than modern, using my desalination irrigation system. Gardeners from the biospherics team re-plant certain annual crops each growing season, such as the artichokes and tomatoes, to ensure the kitchens have fresh produce.” Hanley paused briefly before continuing, “It will be nice to get out and stretch our legs a bit.”

Fillion didn’t respond. He was taken captive by the giants that stood before him. They were, by far, some of the largest buildings he had ever seen
. The domes went on for possibly a mile each, if not more, and reached one hundred seventy-five feet tall. He had studied the holographic schematic designs of the township the prior evening in his dad’s office. And still, he was not prepared for exactly how the architectural wonders, his future kingdom, would make him feel.

Exactly what drives a man to such lengths? He looked at his dad with wariness wrought by the mounting realization that real power sat next to him, a human with world influence. Hanley turned his head and gave a small grin, enjoying the many questions apparent in Fillion’s eyes.

“Still hate me?”

Fillion refused to answer him, and turned his head.

His dad continued in a conversational tone. “Your mom would say this experience will bring us closer to together. What do you believe?”

“I believe you suffer from narcissism,” Fillion said, hoping the contempt would shut Hanley up. Instead, he heard his dad laugh, slapping his leg.

“Just wait, Fillion. One day you will surpass even my achievements. You have more passion and conviction than I ever possessed by your age.”

“Only you would come up with something as hubristic as siring a son more powerful than yourself.”

Fillion opened the door to the car as it rolled to a stop, jumping out as fast as he could. He needed air. He needed space. He needed to cool down, literally and figuratively. No such luck. God, it was hot. The heat was immediately oppressive, almost making him forget the reason for the blistering adrenaline boiling through his body.

When they left Seattle, the temperature was a balmy fifty-five degrees. The Colorado Desert was one hundred one degrees today. The chauffeur, in an attempt to make small talk, explained it is usually in the eighties this time of year. Even the eighties would be too hot.

Fillion strode off, allowing his feet to follow a dirt pathway toward the front of the biospherics lab. A sight caught his eye and he stopped short. In the center of the courtyard lay the image of his dad’s company. The large pomegranate tree was bursting with red fruit, the narrow leaves pointing to the world Hanley had created. The garden appeared ancient and wild, the pomegranate tree separated as a living centerpiece. It was a vision straight out of a medieval manuscript depicting Eden and the Tree of Life. Fillion reached up and touched the place where his tattoo lay, a silent salute to the tree that burned at the center of his convictions.

“Fillion, it’s time to go meet the team,” Hanley called out as he walked toward the entry.

Reluctantly, Fillion turned and began following his dad. Hanley placed his thumb on a reader, and opened the door after hearing the click of security clearance.

The air inside was far cooler than outside, and the entryway represented a scene from the Pacific Northwest, making Fillion feel suddenly homesick. Cedars, maples, firs, and birch trees welcomed them. Giant ferns and huckleberry bushes filled the undergrowth. Hanley continued on a leaf-littered mulch path that led over a small brook. Fillion watched in wonder as the brook continued through a hole in a wall disguised as a stone-capped cave. The impressive stone wall climbed to the very top of the paned ceiling.

“It looks and feels real doesn’t it?” Hanley asked, watching him absorb the recreated temperate forest.

Moss and lichen grew on the outer bark of some of the trees, and the air was spiced with evergreen forest smells. Blue jays jeered from a branch in a Douglas fir while Fillion watched a tree frog hop across their path, then hide beneath a decaying leaf when it reached the other side. A slight breeze rustled the leaves, and Fillion startled, looking at his dad in confusion.

Hanley smiled appreciatively, and then said, “The mind bends, accepting what it simultaneously rejects.”

“How is this possible?” Fillion heard himself ask before he could mask his feelings and stop the words from leaving his mouth. The ceiling appeared a hazy shade of blue, a mosaic sky devoid of richness, yet strangely perfect in this setting.

“Biospherics technology, which is largely dependent on breakthrough nanotechnology and biomimicry. Think of the biodome itself as a living organism, and everything inside of it is a necessary part of the body to ensure it functions properly. The structure not only encloses life; the very walls, panes, and hidden infrastructure sustain it.”

Fillion was intrigued, and his interest in physics and engineering momentarily overpowered his resentment. “If the dome is meant to mimic life, does it have a heartbeat to give an electronic pulse so that it can power a magnetic field?”

“Yes, we use nanotechnology inside the panes of the dome to capture excess CO2 when it exceeds a limit programmed into a sensor. It is then converted into methane which is used to produce an electric current, powering a large electromagnet. Ever wonder how we’ve kept technology from infiltrating the biodome? The technology inside the computer room is housed inside a Faraday cage. The satellite communications are run through a fiber-optic LAN into the underground copper room and the walls are coated over with the mud mixture used for forming cob. A repeater is strategically placed in the main dome to provide WiFi signals for the Scrolls. Devices located outside the computer room are coated in a polyshield as protection against the EMP. They transmit all messages through the fiber-optics and satellite communications.”

“What about excessive radiation and solar flares on Mars?”

Hanley gave him a sideways glance, and smirked.

“OK, stupid question. I forgot that I was dealing with world domination for a moment.”

“Galactic domination. We plan on colonizing Mars, remember?”

“Because the world isn’t big enough for you. Got it. Do you ever get bored with yourself?” Fillion rolled his eyes and looked away, and his anger began rebuilding when his dad laughed sardonically. In frustration, Fillion asked, “Does anyone inside know how the biospherics technology works? Or did you keep them ignorant as part of your master plan to control them?”

“Your sarcasm will get you nowhere, Fillion. I’m not intimidated by you, and I don’t seek your approval to validate my life or my actions. You have much to learn, and I’m the best resource you have. The sooner you accept this, the better your future will be.”

Fillion droned, “Yes, Master,” and then gave his dad a look of mocked compliance.

Hanley kept his face business-like. It was his dad’s typical way of emotionally controlling the conversation, irritating Fillion further. He just wanted his dad to have a reaction once, to actually give a damn.

Fillion crossed his arms over his chest and walked away, studying the forest, stone walls, and leaf-littered ground while his mind furiously attempted to regain control before he lost it. Crouching down, he lifted a large decaying maple leaf and with one finger gently touched the tree frog he spotted earlier, watching the frog’s throat erratically pulsate. Was the frog born in this room? Or brought here? His dad began speaking again, and the conversational tone grated against Fillion’s nerves. He watched the frog a moment longer and ignored what Hanley was saying. Carefully, he placed the leaf back onto the frog and stood, facing his dad.