The Burn (6 page)

“You doing alright?” she asks, still holding my hand.
“You don’t have to do this, you know.”

If I didn’t know better, I would have thought she is
talking about my leaving. And I almost shout out, “Yes I do! And
you can come with me!”

What will I do without her? And what will her life be
like without me? Will she miss me? Will she just go off with Brant
and live happily ever after? I hope so because she belongs here.
I’m selfish to think of taking her with me. I catch her up in a
fierce embrace.

“Love you, Jessa. Always have.”

She laughs. “Love you, too.” Then she pulls back and
looks at me again, the laugh still playing with her mouth. “You’re
weird.”

I make a face at her and turn so she can’t see my
eyes full of tears. She slips a few sparkling barrettes into my
hair.

Gram knocks on the door. Then I hear her giggle.
Giggle? Gram? Jessa and I look at each other. I didn’t know Gram
could giggle. Jessa opens the door.

Gram sweeps her arms open for a double hug. Gram
smells of freesia and nutritionally optimized bread slices, and I
breathe it in deeply. She pats my head.

“You both look lovely. I’m thrilled you’re going
together. I’ll be there for a little while, at least, and I’m
excited to watch you dance.”

I look at her clothes then, and she’s dressed up too,
and her hair is neatly combed into soft, silver curls around her
face. She beams at us.

I will have to stay at the dance long enough to
convince Gram I’m having a good time and would dance all night long
if I could. I squeeze her hand and give her a quick kiss on the
cheek.

“Oh, and Terra. Matt’s here already.”

I freeze. He’s five minutes early. I haven’t prepared
myself for this. I had thought and rethought what to pack, the
quickest route to the submarine dock, what I will say if I run into
someone along the way. But it hadn’t crossed my mind what I will
actually do with this boy tonight. Gram turns to go out into the
common room, and Jessa grabs my arm when it looks like I’m not
going to follow her.

“He’s just a guy, Terra,” she says. “Calm down.”

I let her lead me into the room.

Matt stands next to the door, and he has a rose in
his hand. A flower? I don’t even know his last name, and he’s
giving me a flower on our first date. He holds it out to me. Then
he notices my lobster skin and stutters.

“Y-y-you look nice,” he says, as I take the flower.
Gram bustles around finding a vase for it.

“Thanks.” I glare at him. Why is he so nice to me?
I’m just going to ditch him in a few hours. He looks down.

“Do you want to go already, or do you want to wait
for your sister?”

“Um, let’s wait for Jessa and Brant.”

He can’t think of anything else to say, and the look
on my face tells him there isn’t anything else to say, so he just
rubs the toe of his shoe on the back of his pant leg and waits.

Awkward. Completely, totally awkward. And why not?
Why should the last night of my life in the colony be any different
from any other day I’ve spent here?

There is a knock at the door and Jessa opens it for
Brant. He offers her a carnation and she throws her arms around his
neck and kisses him. Dad comes out of his room and clears his
throat. Jessa pulls back.

“Well, you all behave yourselves, and I’ll see you
there in a little bit.”

That is all he says, and I raise my eyebrows,
expecting more. Matt must too because he avoids my dad’s eyes and
blushes until the tips of his ears are bright red. But if this is
the extent of Dad’s words of wisdom for the evening, I’m definitely
going to take it. But then he grabs my arm as we walk through the
door.

“But don’t think I’m done with you yet, young lady.”
His voice is a whisper. “I feel like you’re dangerously close to
doing something stupid, and I don’t want to lose you. Just like
your mother, regardless of what you think about that situation.
We’re having a long chat tomorrow during your personal reflection
time. Got it?” He does his best to keep his face composed, but his
eyes still shine.

I nod. There won’t be a tomorrow.

The dance is in the atrium every year. The atrium is
a large gallery next to the main submarine dock. The colony council
gathers here to welcome people visiting from other colonies, as
well as holds colony meetings and celebrations. It’s a large bubble
of borosilicate separated from the main colony by a tunnel. A
single metal stilt plunged into the ocean floor supports the
bubble, and a glass floor cuts the bubble in half, so it looks like
you’re suspended in the middle of the ocean in an air bubble. The
effect is pretty spectacular—if you don’t have issues with the
black ocean crushing everything in sight.

Loud music plays through the dim lights. People swirl
and sway to the music. It all melts into a blur of movement, color,
and sound as Jessa and Brant lead the way into the middle of the
bubble and join the rhythm of the couples dancing around us.

Matt dances next to me, his long, skinny arm bumping
my shoulder as we move in contrary directions. He tries to stay
near me as I try to make more room for myself. He brushes my hand
as I take it away and cup it to my mouth to whisper some made-up
secret to Jessa. She watches with a bemused smirk on her face. I
should never have talked myself into this, thinking it a brilliant
excuse for a chance to leave the colony. Is it worth this?

I imagine what one of the fish down here would see,
if they weren’t blind. A bubble floating through the ocean, filled
with people moving to some unknown command, smiles on their faces,
all flash and color, but nowhere to go. There would never be a
change, it would always be stagnant. Just the same, eternal bubble
floating with the same music, the same conversations, the same
people.

Then the music stops, and the ebb and rise of the
dancing stops, and we all turn to the podium. Dad makes his way up
there to give his traditional Summer Dance Speech, and already the
applause ripples across the crowd. I lean toward Matt, and he eats
up this first show of wanting contact.

“I’m going to go get a drink.”

He leans away, disappointed. But he rallies. “Would
you like me to get it for you?”

“That’s okay.” I’m already walking away. “I heard my
dad practicing this earlier. But you should stay and listen, it’s
great.”

The crowd parts regretfully for me.
No one should
miss this
, they seem to say.
This is the summer dance, the
highlight of our year. Stay! Stay!

But if this is the highlight, what does that say
about all the rest of it? I feel a tug on my dress.

“Terra!” Jessa’s there, with her hands on her hips.
“What do you think you’re doing?”

I swallow, looking around. Has it been that obvious
what my plan was all along? I panic and my throat dries up.

“Thirsty.”

“I don’t mean about that. I mean with Matt. Can’t you
see he’s totally bonked for you, and you’re blowing him off. What’s
the deal?”

I look at her helplessly. What can I say?
Yeah, I
know, I just came so I could run away without anyone stopping me
anytime soon
. But it can only go two ways: Jessa will laugh at
me, or she’ll try to stop me with everything she’s worth. And I
can’t gamble with those odds. So I just shrug my shoulders.

“I’m taking a quick break. You know, getting a drink
and regrouping. I’m trying, Jessa, really I am.”

Jessa relaxes. “Yeah, alright. I’m sorry. I’m just
really determined to have tonight be fun for both of us.”

She always wants everything to be fun for me. I hug
her again, and I know it will be the last time.

“Thanks, Jessa. For everything.”

“Wow, don’t over do it,” she says, laughing. She
turns to go back to Brant and Matt. “I’ll see you later.”

I can barely nod.

My dad’s voice echoes off all the hard surfaces of
the bubble as I leave and wind my way through the corridors. There
are watchers everywhere, and they record my every step, but it
won’t mean anything until it is too late. Everyone is behind me.
Once they realize I’m gone they’ll comb through the archives to
follow me on my path through this corridor, along the transport
that takes me to the vocation quarter, through three more corridors
to the research submarine dock. They will see my panicked,
determined, terrified, elated face as I sigh in relief that it is
vacant.

Dad will no doubt watch as I walk to the single-man
submarine bobbing gently in the water, moored by the robotic arm
that provides both its power and diagnostic reports. Dad will watch
this part for sure, and I ache for his grief—grief that I have
helped linger. So I look around for the closest watcher. I turn to
it so it can see my whole face.

“I love you. I love you all,” I say before I get in
the sub and turn my back on the colony forever.

I was trained to use a submarine since I could walk,
and it’s second nature to release the robotic arm, turn on the
engines, slip from the dock into the black water, turn on the
navigation system, and direct the sub toward the Trench.

The hard part will be finding Gaea’s home. I have
only been down the Trench a handful of times on class field trips
or when Dad wanted me to come with him on official business. I’m
not too familiar with the geography of things down there. I can get
to the research station no problem, but as far as lips of rock that
might hold houses, I have no idea what to look for.

The Trench looms ahead of me, and I slow down. With
the sub’s lights, I can see about twenty feet in front of me and
the rest of it is pitch black. I could use the navigation system
that shows where the sub is on a topographical map of the area. I
glance at it once or twice, but I prefer to use what my eyes can
see. I don’t want to miss the edge of the Trench that will guide me
down to the research station.

I float along slowly for a few moments, and then the
bottom of the ocean, grayish in the lights from my sub, disappear
and there is nothing but water. I descend down into the Trench.

I know it doesn’t bother the researchers that come
down here every day and often spend a week or two at a time in the
research station. But every time I go down the Trench and watch the
numbers on the gauge slowly drop to depths that would crush me if
there was the tiniest flaw in my sub, I’m unnerved. I grip the
controls tighter, and my knuckles whiten. I breathe deeply. This is
all just part of it—part of leaving. It’s not going to be easy.
That’s one thing Dad always told me—and I actually agree with
him—“Anything worth having is never easy.” The first time he told
me this, I thought it was all just part of his political garbage,
but he’s right. He’s right more than I give him credit for.

The depth gauge reads 34,224 feet. The deepest part
of the Trench is still another 2,000 feet down, but I’m almost to
the research station. There shouldn’t be anyone here tonight—they
should all have left this afternoon (or not even gone in at all) to
be ready for the dance.

The station is dark. Just a few pricks of light shine
through the darkness—the dock illuminators. The station is eerie in
the darkness. Usually you can see the researchers through the
well-lit windows, bustling about with their experiments. But the
station is just an empty shell tonight.

Beyond the station, the lights of my sub catch the
first waver of the warm water and smoke that fill this part of the
Trench. The black smokers are thick here—hydrothermal vents that
spew out sea water that seeps down into the earth and chars itself
on the molten core. The minerals that escape back into the ocean
with the hot water form layer upon layer into huge chimneys. The
water down here can get up to 500 degrees. That’s one of the
reasons the station is down here: to study the vents and the
organisms that can live in these conditions.

There is a forest of the black smokers south of the
station, some of them forty feet tall. Surely this is where Gaea’s
home is hidden. Somewhere along the east wall where the lip of
rock, the smokers, the darkness, and the murky water will hide it
unless you know it’s there.

I start just south of the station and study the wall
as high as the highest smoker here, down to where my lights no
longer illuminate the wall. The wall of the Trench is irregular,
but smooth, like the way a ribbon ripples in the air but is still
satiny. The lights from the sub bounce off these ripples and make
shadows. I think the first three shadows I see are the lip of rock
Gaea’s home hides behind, until I look closer and realize my
mistake. It will take me hours to find her home like this. It has
to be different. None of these ripples can hide an entrance that a
sub could squeeze through.

I change the angle of the sub. Instead of facing the
wall straight on, I am now at a 45 degree angle, facing southeast.
I start combing the wall again.

There, just up ahead. There is a mouth of shadow that
gapes open. I turn the sub full-face on it, and the darkness shifts
to look like any of the other shadows threading its way up toward
the abyssal plain. This has to be it.

I squint at the shadow mouth through the light. It’s
hard to differentiate what is rock and what is mere darkness. I
inch forward and see the slightest variance between the shadows—one
looks more ghostly, less substantial than the other. I follow the
ghost.

The tunnel leads behind the lip of rock and then
turns sharply to the left and up a steep climb. I follow it for
five hundred feet before the tunnel in front of me disappears and
the lights of the sub hit rock. This rock is more jagged. Even the
slight ocean currents haven’t made their way into this long tunnel
to wear at the rock. This is closer to what it might have been when
it was made.