Elites of Eden

  “Ash,” I ask carefully. “Tell me the truth. Do you believe in the forest?”

  He starts to nod . . . and then it is as if I can see the neurons firing in his brain, changing his mind mid-nod. “I believe in you, Rowan. That’s why I’m here. And I believe we need to save Lachlan. But . . . trees? A whole forest, with animals, and clean air? How could that be?”

  I feel tears prick my eyes. It’s not his fault. He must be being controlled. Just like everyone in Eden with lenses.

  “And you, Lark? The complete truth.”

  I watch her narrowly, and I can tell that for her, too, it is a bit of a struggle. But her epilepsy interferes with a lot of the connection, resetting it, so it would seem, whenever she has an episode. “I believe the stars,” she says. “They can’t be changed. I believe the proof I found in my mother’s job, the tallies that showed that we wouldn’t run out of food or water or air even if the population doubled. I believe that no one but the second children and a few people with lens problems remember the earthquake. Put that all together, and it’s clear something is very wrong with Eden. It’s clear we’re being lied to and controlled.”

  She sighs and takes my gloved hand in her own. “I don’t know if there’s a forest, or a whole living world out there. But if you saw it, I’ll believe in it. I want to believe in it.” She squeezes my hand quickly and then lets it go. “We need hope, Rowan.”

  We walk in silence for a time. I want them to hurry, but they don’t seem able to go any faster. Sweat starts to drip into my eyes. The world around me is hazy and shimmery. I can’t tell if it is from the inside of my suit fogging up, or the desert mirage of waves rising from the horizon, or the slight dimness the lens imparts. I feel like I’m walking in a dream, sluggish in the overwhelming heat. Just like in a dream, everything feels a little off.

  I feel like I’m falling asleep on my feet. Ash gasps out something breathlessly that I can’t make out. Bikk! The heat and exertion are giving him breathing problems. I knew we shouldn’t have let him go.

  “We should turn back,” I say, even though every fiber of my being is urging me toward the trees I know exist right beyond the horizon. “No,” I amend, “Lark, you need to bring Ash back.” I make my voice firm, hard, commanding. “If one of us gets into trouble, the other two might die trying to save them. We can’t have any weakness or hesitation.” I ignore Ash’s wounded face. “Look, we’ll never find Lachlan out on the desert. There’s not time in the suits. It’s too vast. The only chance is if he made it through to the forest. You two go back, and I’ll run the rest of the way. If he’s there, I’ll have plenty of time to find him. And probably enough life left in my survival suit.”

  “I’m not letting you go on alone!” Lark says.

  Instead of answering her, I look at Ash. She does, too.

  “I can survive. Ash can’t.”

  Ash protests angrily that he isn’t weak, that he’s not a burden, that he won’t be treated like a child. But I lock eyes with Lark, and we understand each other. He has been her best friend since long before she met me. Many of the things she loves about me are the things she first came to love—though not in a romantic way—in him. Her friend, my brother. We join forces to keep him safe. Lark and I are survivors. It might wound him to think it, but Ash is not. The desert will kill him.

  “Come on, Ash,” Lark says, taking his arm. “We’re going back.”

  “No!” Ash protests, but there’s a whining, childish quality to it, as if he already knows he’s defeated. “I’m not going.”

  Lark puts a spin on my tactic. “If you don’t go now, you’re putting us all at risk. The longer you stand here arguing, the less time Rowan has to cross the desert.”

  “Then we should all go back,” he begins, but even as Lark starts forcibly dragging him away, her proximity alarm sounds.

  “There’s movement!” she shouts, looking down at the reading, then whirling frantically to scan the desert all around us. “Is it Lachlan?”

  But he’s nowhere to be seen, and a moment later we see the undulating disruption in the sand that means a patch of nanosand is approaching.

  “It’s okay, stay calm,” I say. “You head back toward the bean trees. That’s what it wants, to chase you out of the desert. If you leave, its job is done. If I keep going it should follow me. You’ll be safe. It can’t catch you if you keep moving.”

  Lark nods and pulls again at Ash. The motion detector keeps sounding. “Bikk! There’s another one.”

  I see a patch approaching from our flank, like a shimmering blob just beneath the surface. “Go!” I shout, and Lark takes off running back toward the bean trees. But before long Ash breaks free and tries to run back to me.

  “Come on, Rowan! I’m not leaving you behind. I can’t lose you again!” His feet sink into the soft sand and he runs painfully slowly.

  “Go back!” I cry, and almost run to him to force him to turn around. But no, better if I just run away from him. He can’t catch me, can’t keep up. He’ll have no choice but to go back with Lark. It seems like the most efficient way, and with the heat seeping inexorably through the suit, speed is of the essence.

  Only, Ash doesn’t realize this fast enough. He tries to run after me, even though it is obviously hopeless, and Lark trips as she spins and runs after him. For a long moment we’re all spread out in a line, me at my top speed, glancing over my shoulder at the other two as the motion sensor continues to wail.

  Then I see it.

  The alarm barely detects motion. It can’t tell how many things are moving. My senses dulled by the heat, the lenses, by the myriad uncertainties in my own brain, I’m slow to see the other patches of nanosand approaching. Two are close; Ash has seen those.

  He doesn’t see the third.

  Like a predator it has circled around behind him, and now moves in for the kill. I skid to a halt, sending up a plume of sand, and race back to him as fast as I can. I point, I shout, but my voice is muffled by the suit and I’m sure he can’t hear what I’m saying. But he knows something is going on, so he stops to figure it out.

  The worst choice.

  I know what nanosand feels like. First the stealthy nibble around the edges of your feet, feeling almost like the rest of the normal sand. Then a suction as it becomes a little bit harder to move. At first you’d think you just stepped in a patch of looser sand, and you’d stop, trying to pull your feet out. This is what it wants.

  Nanosand doesn’t just trap you. It eats you.

  That’s what Lachlan told me. Each individual particle is a synthetic organism. Together they act with a hive mind, pursuing any living thing foolish enough to enter the desert. The particles grab you, adhering to every surface of your skin and clothes. Then a billion tiny artificial creatures draw you slowly underground to your doom.

  Then, Lachlan said, they start to digest you. Flesh, bones, and all. I don’t know how he knows this. Maybe it is all a legend. But I was almost killed by the nanosand when it swallowed me. It filled my nose, my mouth, tried to choke the life out of me. I would have died if it hadn’t been for Lachlan.

  Now I skid to a stop just outside the reach of the nanosand and stretch my arms out for Ash. He’s looking at the ground in perplexity, as if he can’t believe this is happening to him. He bragged about being ready to face danger, but now that it is here he doesn’t know what to do.

  “Hold on! I’m coming!” I hear Lark call out. Then she shrieks. Beyond my slowly sinking brother I see her dodge sharply to the left, a look of panic on her face. There’s nanosand all around her! She plants her feet and stops abruptly as a patch seems to erupt in front of her, then hurls herself backward out of its reach, sprawling on her back in the sand. I drop Ash’s hand and take a step toward her.

  “No!” she shouts to me. “I’m fine. Help Ash first!”

  She looks like she can evade the sand for a moment longer,
and this patch has swallowed Ash to the thighs by now. I grab both of his wrists and pull as hard as I can, but the suit is slick, and my gloved hands slide off, making me stumble back. When the tension of my pull releases, he falls back, too, and the nanosand seems to lurch hungrily around his hips.

  I hear a sharp cry from Lark and risk a glance at her as I skitter around this patch, looking for a safe place to stand so I can grab Ash again. Bikk! No! It’s got her, too!

  For a moment I’m frozen, as Lark and I lock eyes across the shimmering, sweltering sand. Who do I help? Who do I save? How can I choose her over my brother? But how can I let her die?

  “Help him first!” she shouts. “I can hold out. I’m on the edge—it just has my legs. My top half is on regular sand.” I squint against the glare. It looks like what she says is true. “Hurry! Help him!”

  With a sob I turn all my attention back to Ash. I clench the sleeves of his protective suit in a tight grip and heave, shifting him a few inches. But the nanosand seems to be pulling back. I lean backward, using the weight of my body for leverage, and shift him a little more. But it’s as if he has weights on his legs, pulling him deeper. For every inch I drag him out, the sand sucks him down two more inches.

  “Ash, please, hold on!” I cry desperately as my hands slip. I can’t even risk a glance at Lark. He’s sunk so deep now, and the sand keeps moving closer to me, so I’m dancing here and there, trying to find solid ground.

  “No!” He slips down to his shoulders . . . his neck. I’m not strong enough! I grab his face in my hands, and feel him slide from my grasp. “Ash!” I shriek, and as I lunge forward to reach for him I don’t know if I’m trying to save him, or to join him. I can’t fail. I can’t lose my brother. Anything would be better than that.

  Suddenly a hand reaches over my shoulder, plunging deep into the nanosand and grasping Ash by the shoulder.

  “Lark!” I gasp with relief, certain that she managed to escape.

  But it’s Lachlan. His face is barely visible beneath the fogged-over mask of his protective suit, but his golden second child eyes seem to glow. He shoves me aside and lies on his belly, reaching both hands into the killer sand. Even though he’s much stronger than me, it takes all his effort to haul Ash halfway out. As soon as I can grab his arm I help, and we pull him free, scrambling out of reach of the sand.

  All I want to do is lie panting on the ground, overcome with relief. But the sand is still moving inexorably toward us, trying to surround us. “I’ll get him out of reach of the sand,” I shout. “You get Lark!”

  I scan the desert as I stumble away, supporting Ash on my shoulder. I’m dizzy with heat, disoriented. I can’t find Lark against the shimmer of heat rising all around us. “Lark!” I scream. “Where is she?”

  Ash tumbles to the ground, out of reach of the nanosand for a moment at least as the shifting patches of deadly sand regroup and resume their hunt. I start to run toward the nanosand, but Lachlan’s arm loops around my waist and he jerks me off my feet, whirling me around. “We have to go. Now!”

  “But Lark! I have to save her!”

  Lachlan pulls my head to his chest and holds me tight. “She’s gone, Rowan. She’s gone.”

  MY SCREAM ECHOES across the scorching dunes. I crawl toward the place where I last saw Lark, when she assured me that she was fine, told me to focus on saving Ash. Why did I listen to her? Why didn’t Lachlan come sooner? I scramble to my feet and run the rest of the way. Lachlan is calling to me but I can’t hear what he’s saying. I don’t care. My heart is broken.

  I claw at the nanosand. My knees are being slowly engulfed by the predatory grains, but I don’t care. I’m searching for one single lock of lilac hair, anything I can grab hold of to save her.

  But there’s nothing.

  My screams fill the air, and beneath them, the motion detector is still wailing as if it, too, is mourning Lark. I feel an arm around my waist, and Lachlan scoops me up. I flail in midair. “We have to save her! I have to reach her!”

  But the nanosand almost has us surrounded. With one arm around Ash to help him, Lachlan carries me away, kicking and crying and screaming for my lost friend. My lost love.

  By the time we get far enough from the nanosand to be safe for a few minutes at least, Lachlan is almost carrying us both. Ash is near the end of his strength. Weak with sorrow, I realize there’s no time to mourn Lark now. Ash’s breathing is ragged, and his face beneath his protective mask is pale. I was a fool to believe that he was well. The medicinal camphor in the air in the Underground might have soothed his lungs, but they were damaged before he was born—when our father tried to kill me in the womb—and nothing can fix him. The exertion and heat have brought on his symptoms more quickly, more strongly than I’ve ever seen before.

  “We have to carry him,” I say when Lachlan releases me. “Hurry! He needs help!” All I want to do is curl up into a ball and cry until I pass out, but I have to pull myself together. I can’t lose them both.

  Ash is on his knees, drawing ragged breaths so shallow I can barely see his chest expand. The heat is seeping into our suits. Even with them on, it must be 120 against my skin. Outside it has to be much hotter. We can’t last much longer.

  “I’ll take his feet,” I offer, but Lachlan brushes away my efforts and without another word kneels in front of Ash and pulls him over his shoulder, so Ash’s arms and legs dangle. It isn’t dignified and can’t be comfortable, but Ash is beyond complaining. He dangles there limply, looking frighteningly lifeless.

  “I know these symptoms,” I tell Lachlan.

  “So do I,” he says. “Ash was like this the night we rescued him. The night I lost you.”

  Lachlan is panting and sweating. How long has he been in the desert? Did he make it to the forest? I can’t ask now. I need all my breath just to keep going. Even when I was being chased for hours through the streets of Eden I never felt this weak and breathless. The merciless heat is draining my strength, my will.

  Even the tears that fall from my eyes feel boiling as they roll down my cheeks.

  Finally, we make it to the shade of the giant artificial bean plants. The difference is instant. We cross the sandy border, and all at once the temperature drops by half. There is a fleeting instant when I can feel the pleasant coolness bathe the front of my body, while the back of my body is still in the scorching desert. Then we’re safe, cool.

  Lachlan stumbles to his knees and I cushion Ash’s head as he goes to the ground. Quickly, Lachlan strips off his protective mask and I feel my brother’s pulse. It is weak and slow, but steady. But there’s a wheezy rattle in his breathing. His lungs are so irritated that they’re filling up with fluid. He’s prone to that, and the resulting infections, but that is a fairly slow, chronic process. If it were just that, we could get him to help in time. But an asthma-like condition makes his lung problem worse. When his lungs react too badly, his throat begins to close, too, almost like an allergic reaction. I can tell from the gasping squeak in his breathing that his windpipe is tightening.

  If it closes all the way, he won’t be able to breathe.

  I pull off the rest of his protective suit and check his pockets. “Where’s your inhaler?” He’s unresponsive.

  “It’s hard to get medical supplies in the Underground,” Lachlan explains. “He ran out a few weeks ago, but when I offered to steal him another one he said he didn’t need it anymore. He was breathing just fine down there.”

  Ash’s eyelids flutter open. “Shouldn’t . . . have . . . come . . . ,” he manages, then he’s overcome by a cough that makes his eyes roll back in his head.

  “Stay with me, Ash. Do your breathing exercises. Remember?” I try to do them with him, the careful, controlled breathing that would always buy him some time if he had an attack in the house. Now, though, every breath of mine threatens to become a shuddering sob. Ash isn’t doing much better. I don’t know how m
uch it will help, anyway. At home the breathing would keep him calm until someone could get his inhaler, in a mild case, or a syringe if he needed stronger drugs. So far, medicine has always been able to reverse the symptoms. This time, though, he might have to be intubated, or . . .

  No, can’t even think about that right now.

  His eyes are closed, but I know he can hear me because he’s trying to match his breathing to mine. I fill my lungs fully of the refreshing cool air, but he’s only getting a fraction of that volume into his own lungs. I wish I could breathe for him.

  Oh, great Earth, not both of them! Not in pursuit of a forest that might only be my delusion. This is my fault . . .

  “Can Flame help him?” I ask as I strip off my protective suit, and then the rest of Ash’s.

  “She saved him before,” Lachlan says. “But it was touch and go for a while. She’s used to nerves and brains and chips and wires. This isn’t her specialty.”

  “Leave . . . me . . . ,” Ash gasps out.

  We ignore him. “Can we get him to the Underground?” I ask.

  Lachlan shakes his head. “It’s too far, and carrying an unconscious person though the streets, on the autoloop, would attract too much attention. But there’s a place we might be able to go, close by. If it’s still there.”

  With a grunt of effort he hauls Ash back over his shoulder and we march through the fake forest. It takes more effort and frustrated tears than I could possibly have imagined to maneuver Ash back though the tangled wall of relics, but finally we reach the other side. Ash is completely unconscious now. I kiss his clammy cheek, grateful to feel the smallest movement of breath against my skin. He’s just barely holding on.

  What will I do without him?

  No, I don’t dare think like that. Ash will survive.

  We have to take a risk carrying him through the street in broad daylight. Before I was captured, it wouldn’t have been an issue. I had seen several people openly passed out on the dirty, dangerous streets. Drug use was rampant, illness common and poorly treated. It wouldn’t have been by any means unusual to see someone carrying an unconscious friend somewhere.