Reconception: The Fall (15 page)

Tears welled up in Evie’s eyes. They’d done what
they could. They’d gotten here as fast as was possible. “How
many?”

The woman sank to the floor, and the younger one,
unable to hold her up, slowly sat down with her. “We’ve lost
hundreds ... I don’t know how many ....”

“We’re so sorry. We tried ....”

The older woman looked up and smiled brightly,
despite her tears. “Thank you. Thank you for coming.”

Others had come out of the shadows, out of their
rooms and lost little corners, and joined the group forming in the
center of the great hall. Evie could almost feel the lassitude lift
as food was handed out.

The producers were taken in great ceremony to the
food vats and carefully set in place. A great sigh went up from the
crowd as the little bacteria were input into the system and got to
work.

Through it all Eagle watched, saying little,
interacting not at all. This was an evil place, he felt, a place
where dying people didn’t even have the sense to open the doors and
go look for food. Although it wasn’t plentiful, it was still
growing outside. The hills surrounding the entryway to this place
were home to wild berries, root vegetables and greens. Lizards,
snakes, and the occasional rat could have provided for them. What
was wrong with such people that they hadn’t even considered looking
to the earth for their sustenance? Instead, they’d simply died. It
was beyond his knowing.

Later, when he spoke to Evie about it, she tried to
explain that they didn’t really understand that there was anything
outside. They’d been born inside, been locked up in here all their
lives, and the earth was more like a theory than a reality.

“Before I go back, I’ll show it to them,” Eagle
said.

Evie smiled, but she was too worried about Teller to
concern herself too deeply with the people of Southeast. The
tragedy was too much for her anyway. Since they’d gotten there,
Eagle and Garret had helped to cremate almost a thousand people. It
was a horror beyond comprehension, and Evie had no desire to face
it. She held one woman’s life in her hands and would not rest until
she’d found a way to save it.

The problem was that Teller’s injury didn’t respond
to the antibiotics that were available. Evie had cleaned the wound
and done everything that she could think to do. Although Southeast
had had several doctors, two had died and the others were still too
weak to be of much use. Anyway, she thought, what do they know that
I don’t?

She checked the IV in Teller’s arm and made sure she
was getting enough fluid, but it wasn’t enough. Evie wished she
were home in her own lab where there were things she could try. She
could even try that engineered berry they’d created—that superfood.
And they had other alternatives—drugs that Southeast had never
heard of—drugs that her own people had developed over the
years.

On the bed, Teller moaned. “My baby! No! Don’t take
my baby!”

Evie lifted the damp cloth from Teller’s forehead
and dipped it in the bowl of water beside her. Once again, she held
the coolness against Teller’s burning face, and while she did it,
she prayed.

CHAPTER 13

Northeast USA: 2128

Jersey turned the screwdriver a final time and closed
the metal door of the cabinet. His job was done, and all he knew is
that he wanted to get home. Whatever Morgan did with these nuclear
weapons, he no longer had the strength or the desire to care.

After traveling for days through that blighted
landscape, he had few illusions about the world anyway. There would
be no restoration, no matter what the others thought. The deed
begun by their ancestors was already finished. Those living
underground simply didn’t know it yet.

But Morgan would show them. He would make it
abundantly clear to every single one that they were wasting their
time if they thought that they could change what had already been
done. Billions of people had already died; and it was obvious that
no one could be living on the surface. So what difference?

His research hadn’t been in biological restoration
anyway. He was on the verge of a discovery that could change the
world in a different way. Within his grasp was a way to cross the
boundaries of time that would perhaps one day allow them to return
to the world before ecological disaster had overtaken it. Now that
was a dream worth working on, and as it always did it filled Jersey
with a sense of elation. Because he knew it was possible.

Now, if only he could get out of this godforsaken
place and get back to his laboratory safely. What a waste of time
to be handling weapons for Morgan when he had so many more
important things to do.

Southeast USA Habitat: 2128

The helicopter was a surprise. In her wildest
imaginings, Evie had never dreamt of such a thing. Oh she knew of
them in theory; she could probably design one if she had to. But
when she learned that Southeast had one, and that they might be
able to get it off the ground, she was absolutely shocked. How
amazing that they’d chosen to keep such a thing in their habitat,
that they hadn’t melted it down and used the metal for other
things. It boggled the mind.

Because this helicopter was the chance that Teller
needed. With it they could return to East USA in just a few hours
and be in her lab in time to save her friend. She just wished that
Garret would hurry up with those operation manuals and get them out
of here.

He and Eagle were like a pair of kids playing with a
new toy. Although she knew that Eagle disapproved in principle with
things like helicopters and land vehicles, she could still see how
the newness of it, the daring and adventure captured his spirit,
especially if it meant they might save Teller. He was just as
anxious as she to get in the air.

He’d tried earlier to get her to accept the
possibility of Teller’s dying, but she would not. Although the
mountain people had learned to be fatalistic in the face of death,
Evie came from a different branch of humanity, and she would never
give up without a fight.

She smiled at the irony of that because, after all,
it had been her people who had starved to death and hadn’t done
anything about it. So maybe it wasn’t a matter of fatalism after
all. Maybe it just had to do with who you were and how much you
knew. If there were any hope at all within sight, she believed that
all humans would reach out to it.

As she reached out now, climbing into the cockpit of
the eighty-year-old relic of a helicopter. “It’s in perfect
condition,” the Southeasters had told them. “Every couple of
months, we start the engines. It’s kind of a ritual, a way to
remember what might have been, you know?”

Evie and Garret looked at each other and nodded. They
did know. They knew a lot more now than they had when they’d
started out on this unlikely journey, and now in an even more
unlikely fashion, they were going home.

Northeast USA: 2128

Morgan too was going home. The habitat couldn’t be
more than a day or two away. At least the air is cleaner, he
thought. The blight hasn’t traveled this far south.

What an adventure! And soon they’d be home and the
real adventure would begin. Too bad there would be no one to share
it with until after the deed was done. He supposed he could invite
Jersey to be with him when he fired the missiles, but from the way
the physicist was acting lately, he doubted he would be very good
company. The man really was a terrible bore. All he wanted to talk
about was his own research, and Morgan was not the least bit
interested in the past. His mission was to remake the future.

Airborne: 2128

The helicopter rose swiftly into the air. Too
swiftly, Evie thought, hoping she wouldn’t get sick. It took a
while for Garret and Eagle to get the bird under control, but they
did, and had since then maintained a steady northward course.

The headsets weren’t working, so when Garret yelled
out to her to look down, she could barely hear him. He pointed and
she looked out the window. Down below was the small village where
they’d almost been killed. Little people raced across the brown
landscape following the shadow of the copter on the ground.

Teller lay stretched out on the floor of the
helicopter, breathing a little easier than she had been. Evie
checked her once again, and found that her temperature was down.
Even the wound looked a little better. She’s passed the crisis,
Evie thought gratefully. “Hold on, Teller,” she murmured. “We’re
almost there.”

When they finally put down in the meadow outside the
habitat, Evie could hardly believe that she was home. She reached
for Garret’s hand and found it in hers. Looking up, she saw he was
smiling at her, as relieved as she to be in this familiar place
where they had some kind of power, however illusory, over their
world.

Evie led the way, followed by Garret and Eagle
carrying Teller’s litter. She turned the wheel that would open the
outer door of the lock and proceeded into the dark cavern that was
the foyer of their underground habitat, thinking how different it
was from the home of the Mountain people.

This was, by comparison, an unwholesome place, a
place of stale, recirculated air and carefully constructed foods; a
place of great intellect but little feeling, of stunning
accomplishment and no meaning. When Teller was healed, Evie
resolved that she and Garret would go back and live with the
Mountain people. And if their lives were a little shorter, so be
it. At least they wouldn’t be buried alive.

She glanced behind her at Garret, wondering if he
felt the same way. One look at his face, the expression so
reminiscent of that first day Outside, told her that he was with
her all the way.

CHAPTER 14

East USA Habitat: 2128

The habitat was different, Evie thought. No, she and
Garret were different, that was all. Although everyone had been
friendly and pleased to see them, thrilled that they’d actually
made it to Southeast and saved their counterparts, Evie was
surprised to discover that most of her friends and neighbors didn’t
want to hear about it.

They’d held a discussion group the second night after
their return and barely a hundred people had attended. Evie was
shocked at the numbers. Didn’t they want to know about Outside?
Didn’t they want to know about Eagle and Teller? Weren’t they
thrilled and excited to learn that people were surviving out there?
Didn’t they want to learn more?

When she spoke with Garret about it, he wasn’t
surprised. “Evie, they’ve always been like that. They’ve always
been insular, limited people. Why are you surprised?”

“But they’re not, Garret. They’re scientists; some
of them are New Scientists. How can they not want to know what’s
out there?”

Garret stretched his legs and made
himself more comfortable, the familiar lab surroundings a comfort.
“They never wanted to know some things. Don’t you remember when we
were kids, and I’d ask about the water wars and the holocaust in
the mid 21
^st
century, how they’d change the subject? No one
wanted to talk about what happened out there. Oh yes, they’ve made
restoring the earth their mission, just like we did, but they never
wanted it to be real. Just an abstract, intellectual problem to be
solved. You know what I’m saying is true.”

Evie sat down on a stool at her bench and put her
head in her hands. He was right. She’d never realized it before,
but it was so. Outside had never been real to any of them. And now,
bringing Eagle and Teller in here just made them want to run and
hide because they didn’t know what to make of a tribe of people who
weren’t like them, who didn’t live underground, who weren’t
scientists. Most of them treated Eagle like some kind of aborigine.
“We have to get them to open their eyes. Did you see how Carl
Frobish talked to Eagle last night? Like he was stupid or
something?”

Garret sighed. “He wasn’t the only one.”

“Garret, when Teller is better, we’re leaving, aren’t
we?”

“Do you have to ask?”

Evie smiled. “It’s dangerous out there.”

Garret ruffled her hair playfully. “I’ve developed a
taste for it.”

Morgan and Jersey returned to the habitat three days
later, claiming to have made a wrong turn and gotten lost. After
answering as few questions as he could manage, Morgan retired to
his office to complete his calculations before pushing the button.
The trip had been a huge success. Not only had he gotten Jersey to
prepare the warheads for launch, he’d also discovered a cache of
automatic weapons that might prove useful in the coming days.

People might get a little angry at him when they
found what he’d done, but Morgan was way ahead of them. He’d
already lined up a few of the most malleable and aggressive of his
followers to act as his protectors when the time came.

The big news in the habitat, that a tribe of people
were actually living outside, troubled him not at all. Why should
he concern himself with a few degenerate natives? Of course, many
of the undergrounders were insisting that the so-called mountain
people were civilized, but what did they know? He’d been outside.
He’d seen the blight, and he knew better than they how bad things
were up there. He wouldn’t let a couple hundred genetically
inferior people holding on for dear life change his plans.

Jersey, at last free of Morgan, drifted away from
the group and back to his lab where he surveyed his time traveling
apparatus with joy and relief. Everything was as he’d left it,
ready for the first experiment. The machine was enormous, taking up
most of the lab, and requiring huge energy resources to send very
small masses into the past. At first, he’d wanted to build one big
enough to send a human being—him—back in time, but that would have
taken more power than the habitat could muster. And, there was also
the question of safety.