Children of Eden (3 page)

Whatever I expect it's certainly not the sound of weeping from my mother. She sounds like she's right on the other side of this wall, and I actually take a step forward, stubbing my toe. Do they hear? No, I don't think so, because the stranger speaks. I hear him clearly through the wall.

“One week,” he says. I frown in puzzlement. What is happening in a week to make Mom cry?

“So soon?” Mom asks, despair in her voice.

Dad immediately cuts in. “We've been waiting almost seventeen years,” he says gruffly. “Not nearly soon enough if you ask me.”

Almost seventeen years? Are they discussing something about me? They must be. Either me or Ash.

“You understand there have been difficulties,” the stranger says, placating, though I can tell from his voice he must be a little annoyed, too. “Black market lenses are just the beginning. Half the criminals in Eden can get fake lenses that show another person's identity on a level-one scan. The problem is creating a new identity.”

“We paid you enough,” Dad snaps. “It should have been done long before now.”

“Hush,” Mom says to him. She sniffs hard, and I can tell she's trying to pull herself together. “Go on, Mr. Hill. Please tell us the rest.”

“I don't
care how he did it, as long as it's done,” I hear my father say in an undertone. I can picture his face, impatient and peevish as it so often is, his eyes restlessly glancing sidelong. “A week, you said? Why not sooner?”

I hear the doorbell chime, and Mom gasp, at exactly the same time, so I can't tell whether she is shocked by that, or by what my father has said.

“Are you expecting anyone?” the stranger asks in evident alarm.

I'm wedged in my tight nook, blind and stifled, but in my mind's eye I can see clear as day the way Mom and Dad exchange a quick look. Their relationship isn't always perfect, I know, but they do have that trick of silent communication. I've often wondered if other couples can do this, hold rapid unspoken conversations with a glance, and reach a conclusion without a word. I wonder now if I'll ever know someone that well.

I hear quick movement through the wall, and a startled sound from the stranger. I realize he's being hustled upstairs to my attic hideaway. Whoever he is, at least he'll be more comfortable than I am.

Mom rushes back a moment later, and when she talks in a hushed, urgent voice I realize Dad hasn't gone to answer the door yet.

“Will they find him?” she asks.

“How should I know?” he snaps. “I don't know who they are or what they want. Probably just someone from work.”

Mom sighs in frustration at his optimism. “But why now, of all times? We should get him out of the house.”

“He's a Center official,” Dad counters. “Why shouldn't he be here? He could be my friend.”

“No, they might be watching him. If he's involved in the
black market, we can't afford to be linked to him. Not when we're this close. They'll get suspicious.”

“They'll get more suspicious if we don't open the door soon,” Dad says, rightly enough.

“Where's Rowan? Did she make it to the basement?”

“I don't know, but she's sensible enough to stay out of sight until one of us comes for her. Go have a drink and join us in a few minutes. If anyone sees your face now, they'll know something's wrong.”

I hear the heavy tread of his feet as he goes to the front door. The living room is completely still now, and I can hear the sound of my own breathing again. For a moment I think Mom has left, her lighter step unheard. Then I hear a little scratching on the wall just outside my nook. She knows I'm here. Or she thinks I'm here.

Gingerly, I scratch back, once, twice. I hear a gentle sigh from the other side, and I feel a love so overwhelming I would sit down if I had room. Dad has done whatever is necessary to keep me safe, but it's always been Mom who let me know that everything she did, everything she sacrificed for me, was done out of love, not obligation or fear or necessity.

She walks away with a deliberately heavy step so I will know she's gone. Still, in this moment, because of her love, I don't feel alone. I don't feel trapped. I feel safe.

But it isn't long before my sense of safety evaporates entirely. I hear the clump of multiple pairs of boots, and though I can't be entirely certain, I'd bet anything that they're Greenshirts, the police force of Eden.

Ash always makes a joke of the Greenshirts, telling me how they chase down kids who hijack the public lighting system to spell out rude words like
teezak
and
koh faz
, or break into the lichen gardens after hours with their girlfriends. Maybe the Greenshirts are benign to kids pulling childish
pranks. But I know that they are really a deadly civil defense squad whose main purpose is to root out anything that goes against the survival mandates of the EcoPanopticon. And that's pretty much the definition of me.

Greenshirts patrol the streets and investigate any crimes that happen in Eden. They're more heavily concentrated in the outer circles, far from the Center where people are poorer and more desperate. But they're here in the inner circles, too. I've glimpsed them a couple of times from the top of the wall, stomping in black-booted pairs along the avenues. I always duck down quickly, and usually don't risk popping my head up again for a few days after every sighting. I've never been spotted, though, by them or anyone else. No one on the streets ever looks up, and I confine myself to the uncertain light of dusk and dawn.

Now there are almost certainly Greenshirts in my living room. What if they're here for me? Did someone spot my peeking head after all and grow suspicious? Could Ash have been careless and let a word drop into the wrong ears? If they have discovered my existence, I am hopelessly, helplessly trapped. There is only one exit out of this hiding place, and simply squirming out would be a struggle. I wouldn't have a hope of flight. I can picture their black boots waiting outside the grate, almost feel them grabbing me to drag me away to some awful, unknown fate . . .

There's some kind of bot with them, too. I hear the whir and beep of one of the smaller models. Is it a securitybot come to sniff me out? What is it doing here? Bots are nosy; they can be trouble.

Then I hear a silky voice speaking social pleasantries, its unique upper-class Center accent marking the speaker as one of the Eden elite. The voice sounds familiar, but I can't place it until Dad addresses him by his title.

“Please, have a seat, Chancellor,” my father says, his voice more polite and deferential than I've ever heard it. As the physician general he is a high-ranking government minister himself, and looks down on most of Eden.

The bot rolls across the floor, coming closer to my hiding spot.

I've heard Chancellor Cornwall's voice on newsfeeds, seen the man himself on vids. I remember that wherever he appears, he has a cohort of Greenshirts standing guard behind him.

What is the head of the government doing in our house?

Part of me is starkly terrified. Another part is almost reassured. A hidden second child might be a serious, even capital offense. But it certainly doesn't warrant a visit from the leader of all Eden. He'd just send in a Greenshirt strike force to capture me. He wouldn't be standing in my living room while Dad ordered a servebot to fetch him a cup of fauxchai, the fragrant drink made of algae that is genetically modified to taste like pre-fail tea. He must be here for something really terrible, or really wonderful.

It turns out to be both, I think.

I listen, amazed, as Chancellor Cornwall tells my father that the current vice chancellor is resigning due to medical reasons.

“I'd be happy to examine him and offer a second opinion,” my father ventures, but the chancellor ignores him.

“I believe you would serve Eden well as the next vice chancellor.”

There is dead silence in the room. My father, who came from an outer ring of Inner City, has risen high in the government ranks to become physician general. It was mostly by his skill as a surgeon, I always thought. But apparently Dad has been playing a deeper political game than I ever realized. Why else would the chancellor notice him? My father makes occasional pronouncements about health, monitors public
policy on mandatory sterility surgeries and vaccinations, and occasionally provides personal treatment to ranking members of the government and their families.

This is a surprise to me. Perhaps it is to Dad, too. He always seems to keep as low a profile as he can, given his position. By “position” I mean me, his shameful secret. He keeps his head down and doesn't socialize or network as much as other people in the government. He can't exactly host cocktail parties with me hiding in the cellar, can he?

But somehow, he's attracted notice.

The silence hangs too long. At last my father says, “I would be honored to serve Eden in any capacity.” His voice is tight, and I wonder if it's from humility or nerves.

They speak of this awhile, and I listen, almost forgetting the first visitor, wondering what this will mean for my family. Will Dad have to move to the Center like all the uppermost Center officials? Will we? Impossible. My safety depends entirely on this house.

Then I hear the small bot roll across the room, pausing right near the vent. I hold my breath. Has it spotted something suspicious, some sign of my existence? I don't know what kind of bot it is, but if it is a variety with good visual acuity it might be able to actually see me if it scans directly into the tiny openings in the vent. It inches closer, and beeps. If a bot can sound uncertain, this one does.

Then the chancellor says, “I won't take up any more of your time now. Let me know what you decide by tomorrow morning.” The Greenshirt guards wheel in formation. The chancellor snaps his fingers, the bot glides away after him, and the room is quiet. Though my legs are stiffening and the air is growing stale with my breath, I don't dare leave until I receive the all-clear signal. It takes so long I think they've forgotten about me.

When I scramble out, covered in a light dusting of plaster, Mom is waiting for me in the living room. She's alone.

I have so many questions, about the first Center visitor, about the chancellor, that I don't know where to start. But first, most important, is Ash. “He was having an attack. Is he okay?” My jaw is clenched tightly as I wait for the answer. It takes a long time coming. At first that makes me think it is going to be terrible news.

“I just checked on him, and he's resting comfortably,” she says. I sigh with relief. Somehow, the rest doesn't seem to matter as much now. That feeling lasts for all of thirty seconds.

Mom looks at me in silence for a long moment.

“What's going to happen?” I finally blurt out. It is an all-encompassing question.

Mom's answer shakes me to my core. It's like all of my dreams and nightmares are coming true at once.

“They've made lenses with a new identity, Rowan.” I wait for her to smile. She doesn't, and I tense. Mom pauses again, then says gently, “And they've found a new family for you. You leave in one week.”

My legs give out and I sink to the floor, my back pressed against the very wall that hid me just moments before.

“NO,” I SAY
weakly. I've waited for the freedom to move all my life, and now . . . “No!” I cry again, smashing the back of my fist against the wall. Sorrow and anger are building inside me, fighting for control. I decide to let anger win for once.

“I won't do it!” I shout. “You can't make me leave this family.
My
family!” I jump to my feet and don't know whether to hug my mom or punch the wall or run for Ash or collapse again.

It was always a possibility. I've known that for years. But I always believed there would be another way.

I always believed my parents wouldn't let me leave them. Ever.

But there are only two fates for a second child. A life hidden away . . . or a life in a new identity.

Well, there is one more, the usual one. Termination after conception—or after birth. However long after birth the child is discovered.

When the Earth died just a little more than two hundred years ago, humanity was doomed along with every other higher animal on the planet. Everything bigger than a paramecium became extinct—and life probably wasn't all that good
for the paramecia, either. Of course, we humans were the only ones who had it coming. It was our fault.

We were the only animals with brains clever enough and fingers agile enough to create nuclear power, to frack the Earth and poison the sea and spew out chemicals that would destroy the atmosphere. We, intelligent humans that we are, fiddled with the DNA of our crops to make a better soybean that could survive anything and feed the world—until that soybean proved so hardy and aggressive it took over the rain forests. We raised living things for food, forcing them to live as prisoners, walking in their own feces. So we dosed them with antibiotics—dosed our children, too—and then we were surprised when bacteria mutated into superbugs.