The Proving (3 page)

And while Cassy had been content to run around with his friends under the soft blue light of fireworks exploding in the night sky, his sister had spent the entire evening sitting on a stool, back aching, pride burning, as an artist ran a hundred little lines across her bare arm. Father and Mother stood beside the artist, watching with stern faces.

And with each new line, Father told a fresh story about their family lineage.

Now Skye touched her own face, second-guessing her own cleaning abilities. Had she washed away every line? It would be embarrassing to show up at her Proving with a dirty face, a sign of weakness. Cassy seemed to recognize the fear in her eyes and gave a little shake of his head, which satisfied Skye.

“Ah, it looks like we’re the first to arrive,” Father said proudly. The train slowed to a stop. Through the side windows between two black weapons lockers, Skye could see a small, empty station. This was a private stop, directly underneath Parliament. Only authorized mag-trains stopped here.

“Father,” Cassy whispered, pointing.

Skye craned her head to look out the windshield. A single young man was standing beside a white support pillar. On the pillar was an ad screen offering the newest deals on EcoMeat Light, promising fewer calories and twenty percent less sodium than the regular EcoMeat. The bright colors of the ad bounced off the young man’s face. He had narrow eyes and a sharp jaw and a skinny neck. He was wearing an Ecosuit but it looked too big. A white half-cape hung from his right shoulder. His head was shaved.

“Who is that?” Cassy asked.

“He is your Historian,” Father said in a low voice. “Trust the Historians least of all.”

The corridor was empty. S-LED bulbs hung from the ceiling, protected by whorled brown shades reminiscent of seashells. Each one was unique, thin enough that the light from the bulbs glowed through.

Artist’s guild, Ben assumed. All of Neo Berlin’s underground corridors had their own design. They ran beneath the streets, each with their own conveyor belt to assist in faster travel. Some, in the poorer sections of the city, were simpler. Underground shops advertised products in their windows with smartglass technology that scanned passersby and estimated their consuming habits. In the more affluent sections of the city, the lights hanging from the ceiling might feature some kind of crystal, and instead of underground shops there would be art lining the walls. Or maybe just a simple paint scheme: dark gray, with a dark brown wooden trim and a few mirrors.

Ben preferred the tunnels under the Microscopy building on his school campus. Screens hung from the walls, cycling through images taken by electron microscopes. An eyelash. A butterfly’s wing magnified so that the individual scales with their iridescent colors could be seen. A bee’s eye. A drop of salt water, teeming with a dizzying array of microorganisms. On his way to classes, he tried to avoid as many of the commercial districts as possible. They were too bright and too loud.

Tahlia reached up and grabbed his hand. “Look at those, Ben.”

He followed the line from his sister’s little finger to the blue walls on their right, where tall picture screens hung between arcing steel support beams. The screens were cycling through images of Earth’s last remaining cities. Now here was something even better than microscopy: buildings. Bundles of towering skyscrapers distinguishable by their style: Deco-Glass towers were lined with solar panels between tall panes of glass. Brutalfire towers could always be spotted because of the lights snaking up their exteriors. Lifecycle-style buildings always found a way to incorporate plants — plants running up the buildings, plants on patios, even plants on rooftops. “We’re going too fast to get a good look,” he said.

Tahlia turned to their mom, who was standing behind them on the conveyor. “Can we just walk the rest of the way? I want to see all the pictures.”

“All right,” Mom said. “We’ll get off at the next stop.”

“But we’re going to be late,” Dad said. He stood beside their mom, a full head taller, a full decade older and grayer. Not quite totally gray, not yet. Just a few spots here and there, places where the topical treatment wasn’t doing its job. Ben could fix that. He knew it was a problem with the chemical compound Dad rubbed into his scalp every week. Dad would want his gray hair fixed because he liked to look young. Why not? The technology existed, and simple topical treatments weren’t illegal.

Not
yet
.

Mom, on the other hand, was the perfect picture of natural, ageless beauty. For a mom, Ben supposed. She was slender, had long brown hair and not a single wrinkle blemished her face. Her body responded well to approved gene therapy, and it might do so for another thirty years or more, depending. Depending on a lot of things. The body is a machine. A self-contained wonder whose little parts work together to make the whole. Don’t want wrinkles? Don’t worry . . . there’s a procedure for that. Don’t want gray hair? Try this topical treatment. Need a new lung? Just let Clan Athens grow you a new one using your very own stem cells.

But when it came to
enhancement
. . . well, then Parliament had a problem with it. Nanobots, genetic therapy to “turn off” or “turn on” certain genes that gave certain people advantages . . . those were all illegal unless they were of a clear health benefit and no alternative therapies existed. There were so many laws against genetic enhancement that Ben couldn’t understand how Clan Athens navigated them. Turning on the “Einstein Gene” to increase brain capacity? Illegal. Turning on the “Super Gene” to add muscle mass? Illegal.

But using optogenetics to let scientists create new neural pathways in the brain? That was legal, although only when it was used to help stroke victims. People like Ben’s dad, who hundreds of years ago would have spent the rest of his life suffering the debilitating effects of a stroke. But instead, Dad completely recovered. It had taken therapy, both physical and genetic. It had been a trying year, one that could have been simplified with a simple nanobot repair algorithm.

Why, exactly, should nanobots be illegal if they could make human beings
better?

Ben took a deep, shaky breath. “I think we should walk, too. I’d like to find a restroom before we get to the station.”

“You’ve been outvoted, love,” said Mom, smiling wryly at Dad. He frowned, leaned down and kissed her on the head.

“Gross,” said Tahlia. “Don’t embarrass us in public, please.”

That just encouraged them to snuggle more, floating past picture screens whose built-in cameras identified the romantic gesture and brought up pictures of beautiful sunsets and exotic forests. At the bottom of each screen was a message:

THIS ROMANTIC VIEW BROUGHT TO YOU BY KABULIN ENTERTAINMENT.

Ben felt his stomach lurch, although not for the same reason as his sister’s.

“Don’t use
gross
,” their mom said sternly. “Not while you’re out on your Proving. The Historian records everything, and language purity is important to our clan elders.”

“That, and
not getting killed
,” Ben added. He immediately felt awkward. Bad joke, he thought. Bad, bad joke.

His parents were instantly transformed, their good humor gone.

“Don’t joke about death,” Mom said. “Please, sweetie.”

Dad put an arm around her shoulder. “Everything will be fine. When my Coterie went through our Proving, we didn’t see a single Specter. We went out, repaired some farming machines, then came back. Kudos all around! I think we even threw a party. Fernando didn’t join us, though — he’s my Spartan teammate, so you know . . . all seriousness, no fun.”

“They are who they are,” Mom noted. They stepped off the conveyer. About ten feet ahead was another pair of conveyors. The one on the left was moving in the opposite direction. They walked between the conveyors, taking their time. Ben tried to nudge them to walk faster, setting the pace. He needed a bathroom. He could feel sweat gathering at his forehead; sharp pains had begun stabbing him in the stomach.

It could just be nerves. Or it could be something worse. His mind ran through a dozen different scenarios, but the only one that made sense was some kind of side effect of the injection.

Not good. Not good at all.

“What city is that?” Tahlia asked, pointing to a large cityscape hanging on the wall to their left. The image moved in time-lapse. As they walked past it, the sun rose behind the tall shimmering glass skyscrapers, painting the water along the shoreline a dark orange. The sun disappeared out of frame, and then very slowly the light faded. The lights in the skyscrapers became more visible.

Stars appeared in the dark sky.

They all stopped, admiring the image.

“Stars are so beautiful,” Tahlia said. She reached over her shoulder. “Mom? I have an itch.”

“That was Neo Tokyo,” Mom said, reaching down and running her fingers hard across Tahlia’s back. Mom’s nails dug into the spidersilk fabric of the Ecosuit. “That was before the Specters arrived. It’s gone now.”

“Oh, it’s still there,” Dad said. “Just not like this. Buildings have crumbled. Windows have shattered. Nature reclaimed it.”

“Nature reclaims everything with time,” Mom said. As they walked past the image, day replaced night again. A new day. A different day. Clouds drifted across the sky, sail boats darted around on the water. People congregated near the shoreline then just as quickly disappeared as another night fell. Lights flicked on in the millions of windows; most soon went out as people went to sleep. The stars remained, watchful.

All those people in the video . . . all dead now. Long gone. Wiped out by hordes of Specters fallen from the sky so, so long ago.

The scene changed, revealing an old crumbled building with cracked concrete and a crown-shaped top lacking a roof. “Oh, neat!” Tahlia said. “Can you imagine how many species of rat probably live there?”

“Ugh. Unfortunately, I can.” Ben gave her back a little push. “Let’s not dwell on it.”

“Probably a few swamp rats . . . maybe a
desmomys yaldeni
or two . . . definitely some Millard’s rats. Maned rats, too. Maned rats sit on their haunches and eat their food with their paws and it’s pretty cute.”

“Can we . . . just keep walking,” Ben said. “Dad’s right — uh, we’re going to be late.”

They kept walking, passing another cityscape vidscreen. This one was smaller, composed of four picture screens next to one another, each one showing a different section of Neo Berlin. The city was shaped like an X, with the tallest buildings lining the two main highways. There were four large parks — one on the northwest end, one on the southwest end, one on the northeast end, and one on the northeast end. The park in the picture was the northwestern park, Sventon Park. Ben could tell from the stout Athenian fruit trees that lined the cobblestone paths. The trees had been genetically modified by Clan Athens to produce nutrient-rich apples with protein-loaded digestible seeds. Where natural apple seeds had no nutritional value — and even contained a little cyanide — Clan Athens had modified the fruit’s genes to maximize its value.

Natural! What a garbage word, Ben thought. The new apples were better in every way, including taste.

In the picture of Sventon Park, people strolled leisurely along the stone paths. Kids ran on the fresh-cut grass. A few had brightly-colored kites that floated in the air. Kites were a strange relic from the past. But some people enjoyed them. Some people took comfort in simple things.

Ben saw the appeal. He wiped sweat from his forehead, taking a deep breath. Kites probably had a calming effect. Flying them released dopamine, which made people feel good. The
pictures
of the kites weren’t doing much for him, though.

As they passed the four vidscreens, the pictures paused, advertising Fa-Chicken, which featured a new barbeque flavor and could be purchased at any printing terminal for just two credits.

The next vidscreen featured another city at night. In the corner was the time: 20:43. It was a live feed of a city on the other side of the world. And on the edge of the horizon was the Ring, glowing red, threatening at any moment to close in on Earth. Ben stopped, staring at it and feeling a tightness in his chest.

The Spectral Ring. Silently orbiting Earth. Billions and billions of chunks of frozen ice. Spectral Energy swirling between the ice.

“It’s thousands and thousands of kilometers away,” Dad said, reading his mind. He put a hand on Ben’s shoulder.

“Two hundred thousand,” Ben said. “But not far enough.”

“Are we going to see any Specters during our Proving?” Tahlia asked.

“You’ll be fine,” Dad told Tahlia. “Just trust your big brother.”

“He’s not really my brother,” Tahlia said. The way she said it made her sound like she’d just learned the information. But she’d known about it for a year or so now, ever since her first genetics class. Ben could still remember that class. It was where the students learned their parents weren’t their parents. Clan Athens, like Clans Sparta and Persia, used in-vitro fertilization of their best and brightest to maximize efficiency. Spartan warriors and Persian computer geniuses and Athenian innovators from decades or centuries ago. If you contributed enough to society, your clan would save your eggs or sperm and your DNA would live on.