The Girl Who Found the Sun Page 11

  He didn’t really die. She peered up at the ceiling. Outside? Was that him on the other tower? Why would he be so far away?

  “Hey,” chirped Tinsley, her voice muted under a filter mask.

  Raven about jumped out of her poncho, but managed not to scream. Her kid adored sneaking up on her while pretending not to have tried to. “Don’t do that…”

  “Got ya.” She giggled, then hugged her.

  “You did.” Raven kissed her on the head and resumed machining the rod. “Are you feeling better?”

  “A little.”

  “Good. Give me a bit to finish this, then I think I’m gonna call it an early day.”

  “I’m smiling. You can’t see it because I have this stupid thing on my face.”

  “Hah.” She almost said ‘take it off, they’re too old to be useful,’ but didn’t. The filter could still protect against dust.

  The child watched her work in silent curiosity. Soon, she got the replacement rod to the same size and shape as the broken one from the pump. Tinsley followed her across the room to her desk and sat on a nearby box. She coughed every so often, but not too severely.

  “Breathing okay?”

  Tinsley nodded. “I think I’m sick.”

  “Head stuffy?”

  “No. Just coughs an’ the dizzy.”

  Raven attached the rod to the impellor and put it back in the flow guide. “Something bothering your throat?”

  “Obviously.” Tinsley rolled her eyes. “I’m coughing.”

  “Hah.”

  “Mommy? What was it like when people didn’t have to hide underground?”

  “Hmm. It’s been a long time, might be hard for me to remember.”

  Tinsley laughed.

  “Well…” Raven smiled as she tightened the screws that held two halves of the flow guide together, thinking of things she’d read about. “Most people lived so far away from their jobs they needed cars to get there and they didn’t need clocks to tell them when to wake up because light came from the sky to chase them out of bed. Light they couldn’t just turn off.”

  “You’re making that up.” Tinsley folded her arms. “There’s no such thing as a light that won’t turn off.”

  Raven inserted the reassembled pump unit into the housing. “Didn’t you learn about planets in school?”

  “A little.” Tinsley shrugged. “Sienna’s teaching us about words and numbers.”

  “Okay. See, we live on a planet called Earth. It’s basically a giant rock shaped like a ball.”

  “Yeah. There’s a globe in the classroom.” Tinsley held her hands up as if holding a big sphere. “The real one’s a lot bigger.”

  Raven ruffled her daughter’s hair. “Sure is.”

  Tinsley coughed into the filter mask. “Did it fall off? Is that why stuff died?”

  “Fall off?” Raven blinked. “What do you mean?”

  “The metal thing that holds the globe. Did the real one fall off that?”

  “Oh.” Raven poked her in the forehead. “The real one doesn’t have a bracket. That’s only for the model.”

  “What holds it up if it’s not got a metal thing?”

  “It floats in outer space, orbiting the sun. That’s the light that we can’t turn off.” Raven plucked a ball bearing from a tray on her desk and a light bulb, holding them up to demonstrate orbiting. “The Earth turns, so when the part we’re on is away from the sun, it’s dark. When we come around the other side, light.”

  “Oh.” Tinsley watched the ball bearing go around a few times before staring into her eyes—and lapsed into a mild coughing fit.

  Raven set the stuff down on the desk and patted the girl’s back, her worry increasing. She’d never known anyone to cough like that without being sick. Yet, Tinsley didn’t sound stuffed up. Her nose didn’t run. No nausea or fever. She did seem unusually sedate. For this kid, that meant tired. Some lethargy seemed appropriate for a cold or flu, but she had no other signs of that.

  “Mommy…” Tinsley pulled the filter mask down off her face once the coughing stopped, and took a big breath. “I don’t wanna wear this. It’s hard to breathe.”

  Despite the doc advising it, Raven found herself doubting his advice. The ancient filters wouldn’t be of much use to begin with, plus she didn’t really believe contamination had anything to do with the child’s discomfort. She suspected the air itself as the problem, and no simple filter mask would help. Perhaps an oxygenating rebreather would, but none of those remained usable.

  What happened that three thousand rebreathers all got used up? She glanced up at the filthy concrete overhead. Level one? Did someone try opening the door and let in a bunch of bad air? Or maybe some kind of accident happened. They used to manufacture plastic and other chemicals downstairs.

  “All right. You can leave it off for a bit and see if helps.”

  Tinsley flashed a giant grin and let the mask dangle around her neck on its strap. “Did you really go to topside?”

  “Where did you hear that?” Raven looked around to see who might be eavesdropping. Lark, at the next workstation, wouldn’t care. Ben had gone off somewhere… maybe to talk to Noah about her ideas. Shaw, Trenton, and Ryan weren’t at their desks and no one appeared to be hovering by the door. “And yes, I did.”

  “Ooh!” Tinsley’s eyes lit up. “Like grandpa.”

  Her heart weighed down under a crush of sorrow, which she tried to keep from showing on her face. The girl had been two when Dad disappeared. She didn’t remember the hours he’d spent holding her or watching her while Raven had to work. But, she made damn sure her daughter knew all about him.

  “Almost. I didn’t go very far. Only to the turbine farm. One of them broke and needed to be fixed.”

  “What was it like?” Tinsley leaned forward and grabbed her arm.

  Raven pulled her daughter up to sit in her lap. “Bright. So bright it hurt my eyes.”

  “Wow. Like the farm?”

  “Almost. In a way it was brighter, but also not.”

  “Huh?” Tinsley’s eyebrows formed a flat line. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  Raven swayed side to side. “The whole hydroponic room isn’t bright, only above the tanks. Outside, it wasn’t exactly as bright as the grow lamps, but the light covered everything.”

  “I wanna see it!” Tinsley bounced in her lap.

  “Come on, you know it’s against the rules to go outside,” said Raven with a hint of sarcasm.

  Tinsley’s ‘give me a break’ smirk made her look closer to sixteen than six. “You went outside.”

  “The boss gave me permission because I had to fix the fans.”

  “Like the Saints?” Tinsley asked in a quiet, reverent voice.

  Kind of. Only… I came back.

  She exhaled. “They were a lot braver than me. I watched grandpa go outside before and it didn’t hurt him. The Saints lived a really long time ago. They knew that going out there back then would probably kill them.”

  “Oh.” Tinsley hugged her. “You’re not allowed to die.”

  “I won’t. At least, not from just going outside.” Again, she looked around to make sure the wrong people wouldn’t overhear her. “It’s okay out there now. Everything’s covered in green plants.”

  “I wanna see!” whisper-shouted Tinsley, bouncing again.

  “I can’t just go outside to go outside. We need a reason.”

  The girl held her chin up. “Wanting to see is a reason.”

  “It is, but not one Noah’s going to like.”

  “He’s a butt.”

  Chuckling, Raven shifted the girl in her lap so she could finish putting the pump unit back together. “Let me finish this up and we’ll get out of here.”

  “Okay,” said Tinsley… before coughing again.

  12

  Rules

  I never knew your mother. Sure, we shared a room for twelve years, but that doesn’t mean I knew her. – Ellis Wilder.

  Much like she did every wake aft
er spending enough time working, Raven headed to the cafeteria. With the exception of the primary administrator’s quarters, no one’s private rooms had food prep stations. It made sense. Less power consumption, less risk of fires, cheaper not to require 2,000 stoves and 2,000 refrigerators. Plus, with all the food being managed and prepared by people who did it as their job, it allowed for better control and management of resources.

  That they still put stuff out in a buffet style offered a little bit of reassurance to an otherwise bleak outlook.

  We’re not running out of food at least. Just air. Small miracles.

  Sienna and the other four children already sat in their usual spot at one of the long steel tables, near a concrete column close to the corner up front by the serving area. Josh spotted them and waved. This made the other three kids look up and wave as well.

  Raven returned the wave and headed over to the line, collecting a plate of beanloaf, some potatoes, and broccoli for herself and Tinsley. The girl helped out by grabbing two dinner rolls.

  The suspiciously rectangular brown slices consisted of a mixture of kidney beans, mushrooms, and flour—or something to that effect—and represented the cooks’ best attempt to present a food that came close to meat. Having never tasted actual meat, only read about it, she had nothing to compare it to for accuracy. They may well have gotten the taste right, but she doubted real meat had the consistency of scrambled eggs that sat out in the air for hours.

  Characters in the novels she read and people who lived before the Great Death had the luxury of liking or disliking food and not eating the stuff they couldn’t stand. Arc dwellers, not so much. In truth, she had no strong opinion about the beanloaf beyond that serving a dish primarily made of beans alongside broccoli in a closed atmosphere amounted to a mistake.

  The air scrubbers are already dying. We shouldn’t taunt them.

  They carried their trays to the table, sitting with the others.

  Immediate conversation erupted among the kids, who filled Tinsley in on all the games she missed when she ran off to spend time with her mother. Josh, Cheyenne, Xan, and Ariana behaved more like siblings than classmates. Unsurprising since they had essentially become so, living with Sienna and having her as a teacher. It almost seemed pointless for them to bother going to the classroom, but they still did. Since Tinsley lived with her mother, they treated her like a friend more than a sister, or perhaps somewhere in between.

  “How’d it go out there?” asked Sienna.

  “Hunk of metal fell into the gears. Got the turbine up and running again.”

  “Say what?” Sienna blinked. “How’s a piece of metal end up inside the machine?”

  Raven let a silent sigh slide out her nostrils. I don’t want to scare the kids or start a panic. “A piece of the outer shell rusted off and fell in.”

  “Oh…” Her ‘sister’ took a moment to process that, then her eyebrows went up, lips pursing. The implication finally sank in.

  “Yeah.” Raven looked down at her food. “Exactly.”

  Sienna leaned forward, lowering her voice. “Just the one, or are they all that bad?”

  “None of the others had a hole that big…” Raven sliced off a cube of beanloaf with her fork. “Went back up with a tarp to keep the rain from getting into it. Noah’s considering my request for a larger project to do the same for the others.”

  “He damn well better say yes.” Sienna frowned. “Sometimes I don’t know what gets into that man’s head.”

  “You know he’s only trying to keep everyone safe.” Raven ate the hunk of not-meat, continuing to talk around the gelatinous mass as she chewed. “He was pretty young when he got elected.”

  “What’s that have to do with anything?” Sienna stared, her fork—and a bit of broccoli—dangling from her fingers.

  Raven waved in a noncommittal gesture. “Just saying. Probably a lot of guessing involved in his decisions.”

  An abrupt cough launched a piece of broccoli from Tinsley’s mouth across the table. It bounced off Xan’s face and landed next to his plate. He scrunched up his nose in an ‘eww’ gesture, cringing. Ariana, seated next to him, grabbed and ate it.

  At that, Xan nearly threw up while the other kids all cringed—except for Tinsley who hadn’t noticed since she continued coughing into both hands, her eyes watering.

  “Tins?” Raven swatted her on the back, worried she might’ve gotten food into her throat.

  “I’m ’kay,” rasped Tinsley, gripping the edge of the table. She peered up at her mother, left eye closed, right one squinting, red, and watery. “Not choking.”

  “Don’t be nasty.” Xan nudged Ariana.

  “It’s bad to waste food,” said the nine-year-old, blasé as anything.

  “Mom!” Cheyenne waved at Sienna. “Ari just ate that after Tins coughed it up.”

  “I didn’t even chew it yet.” Tinsley wiped her face.

  “Ugh.” Xan closed his eyes. “Stop. I’m gonna be sick.”

  The kids laughed at him. Ariana’s giggle broke into a mild cough.

  “Uh oh. You made her sick.” Josh tossed a napkin at Tinsley.

  Josh, Cheyenne, and Xan leaned away from the table.

  “I’m not sick.” Tinsley resumed eating. “An’ people don’t get sick so fast.”

  “Did you take her to the doc?” asked Sienna.

  “Yeah. First thing this wake. Remember? The filter mask?”

  Sienna rubbed her forehead. “Oh, right. Sorry. It’s been nuts today. The kids all have extra energy.”

  “Maybe she inhaled some dust. Doesn’t seem like she’s got a cold.” Raven eyed Ariana, worry building up in her gut. The two youngest.

  “I feel better. My head still hurts a little, but not as bad.” Tinsley ate another hunk of beanloaf, clearly not suffering a loss of appetite.

  Raven twisted to look out over the cafeteria. Roughly eighty other people sat scattered around a room that could seat six hundred. Every so often, someone cleared their throat. Daniel, an older man who’d recently hit eighty, coughed, too. His sounded worse than Tinsley’s. He patted himself on the chest, seeming unable to draw a breath inward. Annoyance in his eyes shifted to alarm. For a moment, everything else in the world stopped existing but the old man struggling to breathe. Raven stared at him transfixed at his distorted, fluttering lip, flying spittle, hand swatting at his chest.

  Maybe he’s got a cold…

  Daniel collapsed off the bench, gasping for air.

  The man sitting next to him, fortunately, had fast enough reflexes to catch the old guy before his head hit the concrete floor. Raven felt like a ghostly observer apart from this reality, sitting there in mute shock, unable to move. A woman and two other men ran over to Daniel, who’d lost consciousness. They picked him up and hurried him out, heading toward the infirmary.

  Once they’d left the cafeteria, she turned back to face her dinner, not sure how to process what she’d witnessed. Daniel had always been nice to her. Despite being no relation, he’d always kind of felt like a grandfather. And… he’d given her the notebook Dad left with him in case he went out and failed to return. Watching Daniel collapse hit her hard, her emotions storming at the reminder of her father.

  It wasn’t the first time she’d seen an older person have a medical problem, but too many things already stacked up on her mind for her to dismiss it. The leaky hydroponic fluid, struggling CO2 scrubbers, frequent breakdowns of ventilation fans… not to mention the turbines.

  All of a sudden, the idea of staying outside didn’t feel all that crazy—just mostly nuts.

  Raven pressed a hand to the front of her throat at a sensation that could have been a tiny bit of beanloaf she didn’t swallow or the beginning of a hole forming in her trachea from whatever horror she’d breathed outside. She swallowed a few times, but the nagging presence didn’t go anywhere.

  “You okay?” asked Sienna.

  “Huh?” Raven looked up, her gaze focusing on her friend.

  “Somet
hing wrong with your throat? You had this far off look.”

  Tinsley glanced up at her, worried.

  “No, just thinking.” Raven picked up her water cup and drained it in a series of rapid gulps. She sat there breathing rapidly for a few seconds afterward, then realized the discomfort in her throat had vanished. Relief almost made her collapse over the table. Just a bit of food. Dammit, girl. Hold it together.

  “Mr. Daniel’s sick,” said Josh. “Is he gonna die?”

  The kids fell quiet.

  “I don’t know,” said Sienna. “He’s pretty old, but he’s tough. Not too many people live to eighty.”

  “Wow. That’s really old,” said Ariana. “More than ten of me.”

  Sienna frowned. “Come on, Ari. You know math better than that. How old are you?”

  “Nine.” She swished her feet side to side.

  “What’s ten times nine?”

  Ariana scrunched up her face, thinking. “Nineteen?”

  Josh and Cheyenne covered their mouths, snickering.

  “She got the word wrong,” said Tinsley. “She’s got the right number in her head but she said it wrong.”

  Ariana glanced at her, then Sienna. “Nine… tee?”

  “Right. And is eighty more or less than ninety?” Sienna raised an eyebrow.

  “Umm. Not as much.” Ariana bit her lip.

  “School’s done for the wake,” said Cheyenne. “Can we not math now?”

  The kids spent the remainder of dinner time talking about a board game they’d played earlier while Raven forced herself to talk about everything other than her fear about the Arc’s systems being so near collapse. Going outside had potentially been a bad thing as it tempted her to think more about ways to survive on the surface than fix the machinery down here.

  We’ve repaired and fixed and rebuilt everything so many times there’s nothing else we can do. She squeezed her fist tight, a release of frustration no one noticed. What would I be thinking if I hadn’t gone out there? If topside still scared the hell out of me. If it wasn’t an option… would I give up?

  “Be right back.”

  Raven grabbed her empty cup, climbed out of the bench seat, and went over to the serving station to refill it with water. Tinsley trailed after her. While Raven drank an entire cup of water standing in front of the dispenser, Tinsley took a second—albeit small—helping of broccoli in a bowl and hurried back to the table.