The Burn (2 page)

“No.”

Jessa doesn’t answer my question because we both know
she doesn’t understand. We’ve had this discussion before, and she
does try to see where I’m coming from. But she’s happy down here,
so she just can’t get it. She doesn’t try to offer advice—she knows
there isn’t anything she can say that will help—so she just listens
better than anyone else can, and tries her hardest to cheer me up.
Sometimes it works, but more often than not she leaves frustrated
that she can’t do more.

She gives me an awkward hug through the radiation
suits and bumps her helmet against mine in one of those ridiculous
gestures of camaraderie that looks inane, but I know the depth of
feeling behind it. I don’t want her worrying about me.

“I’ll be fine.”

“We’ll have time for the Juice Deck. It’ll be
fun.”

I try to smile.

It takes us four hours to finish up, and then we head
out to the Juice Deck. The Juice Deck is on one of the higher
levels of the colony and has a huge observation window overlooking
the Mariana Trench. A kind of romantic idea, I guess, but at this
depth, light doesn’t make its way down here, and you can’t see
anything. There’s nothing to see, but for some reason people still
want a seat by the window. If you’re here in the morning or the
evening, you can see the sub going for the trench or coming back,
its lights glowing until it disappears in the murk. I don’t know
why there are windows in this place at all. There’s nothing but
black and cold all around us. It feels oppressive, and I sit with
my back to it, which isn’t much better. I feel like something is
always watching me.

Brant orders for us: a mango mash for Jessa, a
blueberry blast for me, and chocolate chug for him. The Juice Deck
serves smoothies and light snacks—all nutritionally optimized, of
course.

Brant takes a long swig. “Ow, brain freeze!” He holds
his forehead for a moment. “Mmm, that tastes so good after working
in the field. How’s yours, Jessa?”

Jessa nods, still slurping at hers, closing her eyes
in satisfaction. Brant wraps his arm around her shoulders and
buries his head in her hair.

“Mmm…your hair always smells good. Like
strawberries.”

Jessa flips her hair over her shoulder. Half the guys
our age are in love with her for her hair. A few publicly fantasize
about running their fingers through it. It is a shiny, black
waterfall. Brant knows he’s lucky to be the one to touch it.

I avert my eyes and sip my drink.

“You know, in Mr. Klein’s class, he told us that up
on the Burn they had something called refined sugar. They added it
to smoothies like this, and it made them taste ten times
better.”

Brant rolls his eyes. “I guess that’s something they
teach you when you’re three grades ahead of everyone else in
history. Why don’t we have it?”

I shrug my shoulders. “Empty calories.”

“Figures,” Jessa says.

“Stuff up there was so weird,” Brant says. He grabs
my smoothie and slurps it.

“Hey!” I swat his arm. He slides my drink back.

Brant and I have been friends for a few years. I ran
into him on one of my ill-fated house calls, and now it’s like
we’ve known each other since diapers.

Then he met Jessa two months ago, and it was
spontaneous combustion. I give credit to Jessa for not letting
things get awkward when the three of us are together. He’s googly
for her, but she keeps it cool when I’m around.

Brant tries a sip of Jessa’s smoothie.

“So weird,” says Jessa. “I mean, can you believe the
mythologies? Those ancient cultures on the Burn believed such crazy
stuff. And the most enlightened cultures, too.”

Brant grins, leaning close like a conspirator. “Crazy
names too, like Zeus, and Hera, and what was the goddess of earth’s
name? Ga-, Guy-, shoot I can’t remember.”

“But can you imagine?” I say, not wanting to let the
sugar die. “Something tasting better than this?”

“Just let it go.” Jessa reaches out her hand and
touches my elbow. “You talk too much sometimes, and you know
it.”

I shrug. So what? But I smirk at Jessa—she knows
exactly how right she is. She raises an eyebrow at my
cheekiness.

“You know what happened the last time you went on
about something up on the Burn.”

I do remember, and I resent our dad for it. When each
kid turns fifteen, they enroll in Mr. Klein’s Burn History class as
part of the school curriculum. By school board mandate, the first
thing they see is old news footage of the Event and its aftermath.
It’s just in high-definition instead of 3D projection, so naturally
there’s always a few elbow jabs and eye rolls at the primitive
technology. But everyone sobers up pretty quickly. Naturally, no
one is too curious about the Burn after seeing that carnage.

But after I had been in Mr. Klein’s history class for
two months, he came to my dad and recommended I be put in a more
advanced course. What he didn’t tell my dad was why I was so much
more advanced. It wasn’t my superior intellect (which I don’t
have), it was just my obsessive fascination with the Burn and
anything related to it.

At the time I didn’t realize that could be a
dangerous thing. After all, we take a history class about the Burn.
If they want to teach us about it, how bad can it be? The first day
in the advanced course, Mr. Klein taught about scuba divers and
submarines, and how primitive ones were crushed by sea pressure.
After the Event, some of the survivors salvaged a few remaining
submarines and tried to locate the colonies.

So I ran home after school and talked my dad’s ear
off about scuba divers and submarines. But when I asked him if any
of us had gone up there to explore, he just about lost it.

“No one has ever gone up there. No one ever
will.”

And I had the guts to ask why.

“Nuclear fallout. Roving gangs. Complete anarchy. No
reliable plumbing. Take your pick!” His face had gone beyond red
and was almost white with anger. “I am never to hear about
exploring the Burn, visiting the Burn, or anything related to it
unless it is a purely historical, intellectual exercise. Do I make
myself clear?”

I had fled to our room. Before I had even closed the
door, I heard him sink into the sofa and begin to sob.

“Oh, my love, what can I do better?” Dad always
talked to the ghost of my mom when he was in trouble.

Jessa was in our room, studying. I spent the rest of
the night curled up against her shoulder, crying.

By morning I had catalogued the excuses: nuclear
fallout, gangs, anarchy, plumbing. I would go to Mr. Klein’s office
and ask about those. It was scheduled introspection, so I knew he’d
be in his office instead of teaching.

His office was a small room just off a corridor. One
wall was a window covered in bookshelves. You could just catch a
few glimpses of the dark ocean between books. He deliberately
covered up the dark space. He didn’t like a window into night
anymore than I did. In a corner was Mr. Klein’s desk, all titanium
with a couple slots for papers. He hunched over a small laptop,
probably working on lesson plans. He ran his fingers through his
salt and pepper hair. He wore brown pants and a tweed jacket. No
one else wore tweed. But he always said it was the traditional
uniform of academics, so he had the colony outfitter produce enough
tweed jackets for his lifetime and then tell them they could stop
production if they wanted to. The door was ajar, so I rapped on the
door frame.

He jumped up and closed his computer in one motion,
like he was caught red-handed doing something bad. Weird. Then he
turned, squinted, and smiled. A little relieved, I thought, when he
saw it was me.

“Hello, Terra, come on in.” He gestured to an empty
seat by the desk. I sat down quickly, staring at my shoes. I had no
idea how to begin this conversation. If being obsessed with the
Burn was such a bad thing around here, how did I bring it up with a
teacher who could just report back to my dad?

Mr. Klein studied me for a moment. Then he nodded,
folded his fingers, and put his hands on his lap.

“You got in trouble with your father?” he said.

I glanced up. “Yeah, how did you know?”

“You’ll find that not everyone has an appreciation
for the Burn like you or I do.”

“But why? It’s where we came from. We should know
about it. And there’s survivors up there! My dad said so. Shouldn’t
we help them?”

Mr. Klein gave a sad, low chuckle. “You should be
easier on your father. He’s never been quite the same since your
mother left.”

“Then maybe he shouldn’t have been so stupid!”

Mr. Klein ran a finger around the rim of a mug,
ignoring my outburst.

“Did you know in my early teaching days I advocated a
new vocation? Burn Exploration. It was shot down before it could
even be introduced at committee. And I was strictly warned that if
I ever brought up something like that again, I would lose my
teaching position. I couldn’t be a liability—infecting children’s
minds with such bad ideas.”

He smiled at me, but his eyes were tired and old.

“I had no idea,” I whispered. What else could I
say?

He nodded. “There are two schools of thought in the
colonies. There are the Old. They want to keep life down here a
secret. Of course people up there suspect about us. How could they
not? But they’ve never seen any proof, as far as I know. So the Old
want to keep it that way. No contact, no exploration. They’re
afraid there’d be a run on our colonies—people trying to find a
better life.

“Then there are people like you and me, Terra. New.
People who don’t believe the lies about radiation poisoning—and
they are lies. Sure a week, two weeks after the Event, conditions
were still incredibly dangerous. But after a hundred days, fallout
dangers are all but gone. Land can be cleansed and improved. It’s
been a hundred years. We could all go back up there and resume a
normal life. It’s true that socially things have been rocky.
Understandably so. But they’re trying to get their lives together,
establish order. Some are succeeding, some aren’t.”

“How do you know all this? I thought contact with the
Burn was illegal.”

Mr. Klein’s eyes flashed once, as if I’d asked
something too close to the mark, and then ignored the question,
uncrossing and recrossing his legs as he leaned closer to me. He
moved his hands gracefully with his words, as if we were discussing
nothing more than this morning’s breakfast.

“The trouble is—besides the fact that the Old have
more influence—is that the Old can’t see past the ends of their
noses. They think they’ve created Eden down here. That they’re safe
in their high-tech cocoon. But I’m a history teacher, and I know
better. You know my mantra in class about history and
ignorance?”

“They’re doomed to repeat it,” I said, seeing where
this was going. The Old refused to listen to the past or learn the
lessons from it by embracing the Burn. In another hundred years,
who knew. Maybe all the colonies would blow themselves to hell and
only a few scientists would escape and want to colonize the
Burn.

Mr. Klein nodded. “I’m glad you pay attention.”

He reached for his coffee and brought it to his lips.
Then he paused before taking a sip.

“Up on the Burn, their coffee has caffeine in it.
Produces quite a satisfying little buzz of energy.” He studied his
mug for a moment before continuing.

“I know how you feel about life down here, Terra.
We’ve had a lot of conversations before.” His eyes flickered to the
watcher, the small, black camera in the upper corner of his office.
Every moment of our discussion would be added to the colony
archives. You can’t ever think you’re alone down here. Then he
looked at me hard, and I could tell he was going to choose his
words carefully.

“So if anyone wanted to explore the Burn, they should
be cautious, listen to good advice, but shouldn’t believe false
information. Now if you’ll excuse me.” He finally took a sip of his
coffee, turned his back on me, and opened his computer. “Please
shut the door on your way out.”

“What is with you today?” Jessa asks as we leave
Brant outside the Juice Deck. Jessa and I have to be home in seven
minutes to help Grandma with dinner before Dad gets home from the
colony offices at 18:00. We head to the nearest transport that will
take us through the traveling tubes of the colony and drop us off
in the living quarter.

There are more people in the corridors now, leaving
their vocations for the day, leaving school, leaving their
enrichment lessons. The corridor buzzes with people talking and
laughing. I watch two boys a few years older than Jessa and me.
They talk excitedly about some new variety of angler fish they had
seen while exploring the Trench in their field studies. I’ve seen
hundreds of angler fish before. Sure they have a bioluminescent
dangler. Big deal. A lot of fish down this deep do. But I learned
last week in Burn History that only one species up on the Burn can
do it—
pyractomena borealis
. The firefly. It flies around
when the sky turns dark and flashes its little light, glowing like
a star.

“Seriously. What’s up?” Jessa asks again. She’s
irritated now. I had completely zoned out on her. I shrug.

“Nothing.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet it’s nothing. Is it because of Brant?
I know you guys’ve been friends for so long. I didn’t think going
out would be a problem.”

I shake my head, waving away the distraction. “Nah,
not a big deal.”

We turn the corner, and the doors to the transport
are closing. We slip in as fast as we can. The doors hiss all the
way shut, and a monotone, female voice announces, “Next
destination: the living quarter.”

There are mostly other kids around our age on the
transport, coming home from vocations and school. My stomach
lurches as the transport drops, heading down the transport tube
toward the living quarter. The transport tubes are clear, so you
can see everything speeding by. The tubes go between levels in the
colony, so usually all you see are lots of wires and air ducts and
flashing lights. But sometimes the tubes skim along the outer wall,
so suddenly you’re plunged into blackness with only the eerie
artificial light to keep you company. I involuntarily lean into
Jessa as we fly out next to the water.