Marion and Allison sat hip-to-hip on the soft leather seats of the passenger lift, luxuriating in the elevator’s unexpected opulence. The seating was arranged in three concentric circles, with the longest bench curving along the glassed-in outer wall, and the shortest wrapped around the center post. Although all three sets faced outward, Marion had been relieved to discover that the smallest ring was placed far enough back to obscure the soon-to-be dizzying view outside.
“This is really nice, huh?” Allison bounced against her padded seat, running her fingers over the row of round brass tacks holding the rich red leather to the wooden benches. “I mean, my boss’s office doesn’t look this good.”
“Oh yeah?” Marion turned toward her, genuinely curious. “Where do you work?”
“At this survey center, in midtown. But it’s not a real job — I just do it a few days a week, enough to keep me in pasta sauce and paint.”
“Huh. What’s a survey center?”
“Well, have you ever gotten one of those annoying calls? You know, where some total stranger interrupts your dinner and starts asking all sorts of personal questions?”
“Um, no,” Marion admitted. “But then, I don’t really… I don’t have a phone.”
“You don’t have a phone?”
“Not exactly, no.”
“Oh.” Allison tried not to sound shocked, realizing once again just how little she actually knew about her partner in crime. “Well, anyway, I just sit around all day and make those calls — asking people about various politicians, or social issues or whatever. It’s deadly dull, to tell you the truth.”
“Sounds like it. But when you’re not working, you’re a painter?”
Allison smiled, finding Marion’s first-date chatter both cute and completely surreal. The fact that she was sitting here, trading small talk with a fellow fugitive on route to the Garden — a level she hadn’t visited since grade school — seemed almost too absurd for words. “Yeah, but not a successful one. I applied to Parsons last year, and they seemed to like my stuff, but in the end I didn’t make the cut.”
“That’s too bad. Are you going to try again?”
“What, for Parsons?” Allison thought about it a second, tugging at a strand of her strawberry hair. “I don’t think so. I mean, at this rate, we might never make it back to the city anyway, right?”
“Yeah, I guess not.”
Allison had been half-joking, but the way Marion answered, with such a solemn face and serious intent, caught her by surprise. He didn’t really think that they weren’t eventually going to return, did he? It suddenly struck her that Marion’s life in the city was much, much different than hers.
“So, anyway, what about you? What were you doing down there before… you know, all of this?”
“Not a lot,” Marion admitted. “I fixed things, antiques mostly, for people who needed it — short-wave radios, old watches, stuff like that.”
“Oh, that would explain all of the little tools, huh? Where’d you work — one of those Times Square electronics stores?”
“No, nothing like that. Anyway, those places are a total rip,” he said disdainfully. “I just had this little table, next to the shoeshine guy at Union Square?”
“Ohmigod! I think I’ve seen you there!” Allison widened her eyes, studying Marion’s thin, boyish face, his incongruously rosy lips. “Between the N train and the 6, right?”
“Yep. That’s me.”
“I can’t believe this. I pass by you all the time! I always figured that you were some kind of apprentice shoeshine boy, or, or, you know…” she stuttered into silence, suddenly embarrassed.
“A homeless guy?”
“No!” Allison threw her hands up, mortified. “I didn’t mean that at all.”
“That’s okay.” Marion shrugged, seeming genuinely unfazed. “I am. Homeless, I mean. I sleep out in the park during the summer, then underground when it gets cold. It’s no big deal, really — I had a room for a while, but I got tired of dealing with it. I could never remember to pay the bills on time, or which day to put out the recycling, any of that stupid stuff. So now I just keep a toothbrush and a towel and some extra clothes in a locker at the 14th Street Y.”
“Wow. That’s incredible.” Allison stared at him, really seeing everything for the first time. It seemed crazy that she hadn’t figured it out right away, that she couldn’t tell. It was all right there — matted into his long, tangled hair, tucked into the pockets of his jacket, hidden behind the sharp look in his eyes. It explained so much about him, Allison realized — made his easy movements and sanguine attitude fall perfectly into place. Every time he took a step, he was leaving the rest of the world behind.
“Everyone please be seated,” a calm voice instructed, floating down from the mirrored ceiling. “We will be departing for the Garden in approximately one minute.”
A group of schoolchildren pushed their way past, shouting and jostling each other as the exasperated teacher waved her hands ineffectually above their heads. After one final chime, the lift rose swiftly out of the station, dropping one of the surprised kids against the carpeted floor. Allison laughed, then felt terrible for doing it. She looked away to avoid the teacher’s disapproving scowl, finding Marion with his eyes locked onto the narrow strip of picture window visible from their seats. She couldn’t help but notice the abject fear gripping his tightened face.
“You really hate going up, huh?”
Marion tore his eyes away from the window, and then looked quickly back, obviously mesmerized by the pale streak of sky flying by.
“Yeah, I do,” he admitted, his adam’s apple jumping with each word. “I mean, I’d never done it before, and this is, like, the third time in two days.”
“Jeez. You’ve really never left the city before?”
“Nope. But then, I never really had anywhere else to go.”
A young attendant walked up, pushing a drink cart through the curving aisle.
“Would you like a complimentary beverage?”
Allison thought about it for a second, then decided what the hell. “Can I get a Bloody Mary?”
“Sure,” the attendant replied perkily, her incisors gleaming like polished porcelain. “I just need to see some I.D.”
Allison reached instinctively for her purse, her hand closing on itself, forming a small fist. “Oh,” she said dejectedly. “I must’ve forgot my purse.”
The girl shrugged, her dimples fading. “Well, call me if you need something.”
Allison watched her trot away. “Damn. My one chance for free alcohol.” She kicked her feet out from under her dress, tapping her pillowy slippers together in the air. “Marion, do you mind if I ask you about something?”
“No, of course not. What is it?”
“Is it true, what you said the other day? Were you really born in the Medical Center?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I grew up there, as well — I had my own room in the recovery wing.”
“But, I don’t understand.” Allison paused, trying to formulate the right question. “I mean, how could they — who decided…”
“No one decided anything,” Marion said firmly, still betraying no emotion. “It just happened. Surprised the hell out of everyone, I’d guess — especially my mother.”
“And… do you still know her?”
“Who, my mom?” He seemed surprised that she would even ask. “Nope — I never even met her. Her name was Anne, is all I know. She wrote on the admission form that she was ten weeks pregnant, but one of the nurse practitioners told me later that anyone could tell she was at least six months…”
“Six months?” Allison cut him off, shocked. “Marion, that can’t be. They couldn’t take her, not outside the first trimester — they’d have to refer her to a private hospital.”
“Well, they did.”
“But, that’s against the law.” Allison was livid. “It’s completely illegal.”
“It might’ve been an honest mistake. Apparently both the admitti
ng and attending doctors that night were residents, ‘cause the supervising obstetrician was sleeping off a hangover in the break room. Anyway, like Ian said, it’s supply and demand.” Marion shrugged, obviously uncomfortable discussing the issue. “They needed the tissue, and she had it.”
Allison sat silent for a moment, staring out the window as the first layer of clouds slipped by. “So you just… came out?”
“Yep. Her water broke in prep, and I started wriggling my way out. I was about as premie as they come, but Poppy always said I was a tough little bugger, even then.”
“Poppy?”
“Yeah, he was sort of my adoptive dad — closest I had to one, anyway. I never did figure out if he was a doctor, or an administrator, or what. But he came around every day when I was a kid, took me on trips, things like that.”
“And you actually lived in the Center? That seems totally insane.”
“Yeah, it was pretty weird.” Marion finally turned away from the window, the edges of a goofy smile pulling at cheeks. “I was pretty sickly, the first few years, so it made sense to keep me in the hospital. After that, they talked about placement — I even remember a few couples coming by to look at me, like a puppy in the pound — but nothing ever happened. So I just stayed there, in my own little room off the children’s ward, until I was about thirteen.”
“And then?” Allison scooted closer, completely fascinated.
“Well, I had this fight with Poppy, the maybe-doctor guy? I really wanted to go live with him, but he said it just wasn’t possible. So I packed up all my stuff that night, stole a bunch of food from the cafeteria and just took off. I figured I’d come back after a week or so — you know, teach them all a lesson. But I never did. Make it back, I mean.”
“Wow, that’s absolutely incredible. “ Allison reached out and gripped Marion’s shoulder, giving it an affectionate squeeze. “Is that why you were there? The night of the riot, I mean.”
“I guess,” he said, looking unsure. “Like I said, I hadn’t been back in years. But with the snow, and all the chaos… I don’t know, it just seemed right.”
“It was destiny!” Allison threw up her hands, drawing a few stares.
“Might’ve been,” Marion said, grinning. “It might just’ve been.”
The stewardess squeaked back by with her cart, watching the floor as she walked. She stopped for a second in front of Allison, staring at her tennis-shoe slippers with a prolonged and vapid interest.
“Wow,” she commented brightly, pursing her lips. “I really like your shoes.”
Once the lift was safely docked, Marion and Allison exited cautiously into the welcome center, following the flow of tourists and schoolkids as they swarmed through the open doors. Everyone was swinging their cameras and bag lunches around with manic enthusiasm, already overwhelmed by the spectacle surrounding them.
The welcome center was a cavern of foliage and glass, rising at least fifty meters above the arriving crowd. The ceiling came to a distant peak, like a greenhouse, the shining surface obscured behind layers of delicately strung vines and hanging plants. The schoolchildren twisted their heads in every direction, pointing excitedly across the vast green interior, tracing the dizzying array of leaves and bright blossoms that climbed the walls of the building.
“You know,” Allison said, “the last time I was up here I was in high school. On a field trip.”
“Really?” Marion walked slowly, staring up at the distant ceiling. “Did you enjoy it?”
“Yeah I did. I made out with Todd Kennedy behind a banyan tree”
“Well, I’m glad you learned something.”
As they surged forward, the frenetic activity of the crowd seemed to increase, filling the space with a loose, chaotic hum. The glass ceiling sloped closer, funneling the new arrivals toward a finely carved stone arch.
But then, just as they were about to enter the Garden, Allison suddenly spotted something of interest and yanked Marion awkwardly out of line.
“What are you doing?”
“Shopping,” Allison whispered, steering him toward a small enclave bounded by a wall of wooden cubbyholes. As they approached, Marion’s ears gradually filled with the excited laughter of children.
The Enchanted Forest.
The sign loomed overhead, carved out of a massive slab of polished oak. It capped an arched portal, through which Marion could see dozens of excited toddlers and their weary parents running around a padded playground constructed to resemble a rolling, grassy meadow.
“Shopping for what?”
Marion looked over from the playground, finding Allison moving slowly down the wall, bobbing up and down as she peered into one cubbyhole after another. As he watched, she reached into one of the cubbies and pulled out a pair of gleaming silver shoes with heels that seemed taller than the shoes were long. She studied them for a few seconds and then slid them back, a look of regret creasing her face. She moved quickly to the next row and stabbed her hand into another space, emerging with a pair of blood-red boots that, except for their dainty size, wouldn’t have seemed out of place on a construction worker.
“Dirtmom saves the day,” Allison said, grinning as she kicked off her puffy sneaker slippers and pulled on the rugged boots instead. She tightened the laces with swift, practiced tugs and double-tied them, stomping her feet a couple of times to make sure they fit.
“Perfect. Let’s go.”
Marion was more than happy to comply. But as he started to move, Allison reached out and grabbed his hand, looking furtively over her shoulder.
“Wait, hold on.” She held her slippers aloft, glancing toward the playground’s sign-in station. “I need to leave these.”
Marion watched her warily, his heart rate increasing by the second. She dashed to the entrance and began writing furiously in the guest book. The fact that she was scribbling with a pen on paper just a few centimeters away from an available mediascreen was, in and of itself, a sure sign of eccentricity. But once you factored in the billowing sundress and gleaming red combat boots, the entire tableau seemed certain to draw unwanted attention.
“Okay,” Allison coughed theatrically as she tore a page from the guest book, stuffing a hastily written note into one of her slippers as she jammed both of them back into the empty wooden slot.
“Okay, let’s move.” Allison spun in her new boots and began pulling Marion toward the greenhouse exit, deftly merging with the crowd.
“What did you write in that note?”
“I just said I was really sorry,” Allison said, taking one last look back at the playground. “And I gave her my roommate’s number, in the city, so she could call her up and demand a new pair.”
“You’re not worried?”
“What, about Joanne? Nah, she’s a big girl — I think she can handle one angry mom in giant novelty slippers.”
“No, I mean aren’t you worried about, you know, leaving a clue behind?”
“A clue?” Allison gave him a sideways smile, her eyebrows arching up. “I hate to break this to you, Marion, but I don’t think they need any clues to figure out who I am. Or where I live. Or what I had for breakfast this morning.”
Marion frowned, his shoulders sagging a little as he walked. “Do you really think Ian turned us in?”
“I’m sure of it,” Allison answered without hesitation. Marion was certain, as well, but hearing it somehow made it worse.
“Well, maybe they’ll assume we went back down to the city,” Marion said hopefully. “That would make more sense, right?”
“Yeah, maybe.” Allison had no doubt that the cops were, at that very moment, grilling the ticket vendor for their whereabouts — but she realized that pointing this out wouldn’t really help.
Directly ahead, they could see the first grainy rays of artificial sunlight slicing through the archway. Resolving to push all distressing thoughts about their pursuers from her mind, if only for the moment, Allison squeezed Marion’s hand and skirted a slow-moving tour group, e
ager to show Marion the ludicrous, bioengineered bounty of the Garden.
It was just as Allison remembered it — both wondrous and absurd. It began with a natural tunnel of giant redwoods, twin lines of massive, rust-colored trunks rising into a canopy of thin green foliage, the needle-like leaves woven into a sun-streaked ceiling overhead. The chattering voices around her were struck into near-silence by the sight, a reverent hush descending on the crowd.
It really was magnificent, Allison thought, watching the procession of tourists as they spread out beneath the distant, outstretched branches, their bodies speckled with shadows and light. Between gaps in the dark wood, past the giant columns of wrinkled bark, Allison could see glimpses of the surrounding landscape: acres of sculpted gardens and fauna that rose gradually from both sides of the low valley. For the first time since she had left the city, Allison felt a growing sense of tranquility and calm, even as she marveled at how contrived it all was.
“It’s pretty incredible, right?” Allison let go of Marion’s hand, her eyes sweeping up toward the distant canopy of snowflake-shaped leaves. “They cloned them from original California Sequoias — but they had to do something to the root structures, I think, to make them grow so close together.”
Marion could only trail dumbly behind her, his senses absolutely overwhelmed. Sure, he’d spent all kinds of time lazing around Central Park — but this was a different order of magnitude altogether. It was so huge, so ostentatious, that he almost forgot just how much trouble they were really in.
Directly ahead, an egret broke his line of sight, flitting swiftly across the end of the tunnel. His eyes jerked up involuntarily, unused to seeing such quick motion across the sky. The uproar around him was sudden and complete, a broad flurry of waving hands and raised cameras as the crowd surged toward the open field. The handful of park rangers stepped out of the way, knowing better than to try to stem the flow. The mob spilled wildly into the Garden, running from the tree-cover with mouths agape, eyes blinking against the shining sun.
The egret was joined by another, circling in an intricate dance alongside her mate. With a yell, one of the schoolchildren spotted a flock of Canadian geese, cruising low over a willow-edged lake. The visitors obviously had more excitement than they knew what to do with, spreading out in a sudden orgy of random movement.
Marion and Allison happily joined the exodus, running across an open field, chasing a red-breasted robin until it disappeared into the thick, leafy crown of a black oak.
“Wow,” Allison said, falling breathlessly against the tree’s wizened gray trunk. “Birds are so cool! I wish we had them in the city.”
“They used to,” Marion said, lowering himself onto a thick root next to her. “At least that’s what Poppy told me. He said at first they tried to introduce them and, you know, keep them inside year-round. But the migratory instinct was just too strong, so there were all of these horrible problems — birds smashing into the Build and raining back down into the city, clogging up the filtration systems, stuff like that.”
“Really? I never heard that.”
“Well, I don’t know if it’s true or not — Poppy used to tell me all kind of stories about the city. Maybe he was just making it up to keep me entertained.”
“Could be.” Allison looked up into the sky, watching a long-necked crane cruise past. “If it’s true, I guess they worked out the kinks for up here, huh?”
“Yeah. Maybe they put in a window.”
Allison laughed, leaning shoulder-to-shoulder with Marion against the wide trunk. It was amazing how comfortable she felt with him, she realized. She knew it was probably just a temporary bond formed by the extreme events of the past few days — but it felt like more than that, somehow. It was as if they had known each other for years. As if they had been meant to find each other.
“Look at that,” she said, pointing across the wide expanse of grass. The field they were in formed an enormous circle, ringed with long, railroad-tie picnic tables and isolated copses of trees, grouped by region and species. Following Allison’s finger, Marion found a squat, brownish hulk of a tree; a hideous thing that looked like it had been planted upside-down, leaving the thin, finger-like roots to claw helplessly at the sky.
“That’s a Baobab, from Africa. It’s also known as the Monkey-Bread tree.”
“How do you know that?”
“I had a book, when I was younger.”
Marion tossed an acorn into the branches above them, sending the robin flying off in a wild rush, a shower of brittle leaves floating down around them.
“You had a book?”
Allison tilted her head, flashing a wry smile. “Yes. A book of trees.”
Marion was struck suddenly with a vision of her as a girl: sitting on her bedroom floor, barefoot in faded jeans, her oversize nature book spread out, in all of its colorful splendor, beneath her hands.
“Why, didn’t you? Have books, I mean.”
Marion shrugged. “Sure. Textbooks, mostly.”
“That’s not much fun.”
“Yeah, but I bet I learned more.” Marion smiled, hauling himself up and dusting off the seat of his pants. “Come on, let’s look around.”
Allison followed him toward the pavilion, crumbling a dry red leaf between her hands. She wanted desperately to ask him more about his life, but decided that it was probably best not to press him on it. They’d have all kinds of time to talk, she figured. Although why she felt so sure about that, Allison couldn’t really say.
The soft tranquility of the park was split suddenly by a shriek of feedback, a disconcerting squawk that made the crowd jump and birds flutter nervously in their trees.
“Attention,” a soothing feminine voice commanded, emanating straight out of the pearl-blue sky, shattering any illusion of nature that the visitors might have had. “The aerial for the Observation Port will be departing from the West Station in fifteen minutes. The aerial for Meditation Meadow will be departing from the East Station in thirty minutes.”
“Should we go?” Allison asked, gesturing back toward the welcome center.
“Well, we sure don’t want to be left here alone,” Marion reasoned. “Let’s wait and see what everyone else does.”
They eased over into a larger group clustered around the Japanese garden, trying to appear interested as a park ranger detailed the names and characteristics of various plants and trees to the murmuring crowd. He finally finished his lecture in front of the Japanese Plum, rhapsodizing about the deliciousness of the tree’s ripe orange fruit without actually offering any to his audience. With that, the crowd began to disperse, splitting roughly in two as they headed toward the transports.
“I guess we’d better go,” Marion said, holding onto Allison’s arm as the crowd broke around them. Allison nodded, maneuvering them toward the West Station.
“Let’s go take a look at the crops — the Meditation Garden is so totally boring.”
The ride was, for once, quiet and uneventful. Marion sat stiffly in the scooped seat of the aerial, waiting for the fear to come, but it never quite took hold. He was nervous, certainly, but not panicked, not fighting the violent lunge of his stomach as they dangled over the field below.
It’s getting better, he thought, chancing a look out of the train window. The aerial was swaying slightly in the wind, writhing like a glass-and-steel worm above the station floor. Outside, Marion could see tree limbs and waxy fronds waving in the artificial breeze, heard a faint whisper as a single leafy branch brushed against the aerial window.
“You okay?” Allison leaned in from the aisle, avoiding the scrum of elbows and knees as people scrambled for seats.
“Yes,” Marion replied with satisfaction. “Actually, I feel pretty good.”
“Good. Me too.” Allison pulled her glossy red hair up, letting her neck breathe. In the slanting light, Marion noticed a pale gingerbread run of freckles disappearing beneath the straps of her sundress.
“Weird, isn’t it? I feel
like we should be, I don’t know — more frightened or something.”
“It’s because we’re free,” Allison said, dropping her hair and shaking her head like a wet dog. “We’re free, and we’re on the move. What more could you want?”
“Not much,” Marion admitted.
The lights inside the aerial flashed once, and the train began to hum forward, crawling along the suspended track.
“Please be seated,” a soothing voice advised, sounding at once robotic, comforting and serene. “Secure your belongings, and please keep your children with you at all times.”
It’s the exact same person, Marion realized; the voice from the prison intercoms and the Hamptons lift, the announcer blaring from the Garden’s fake sky. The connection struck him as strange, somehow. He tried to envision a face attached to that nondescript, feminine voice, but couldn’t.
“Allison, isn’t that the same voice, from the announcement outside? And the lift?”
“Sure,” Allison said, glancing up at the loudspeaker. “It’s the operator lady. You know, the one who gives out codes, tells you when the line is busy, all that.”
“Do you know her?”
Allison laughed. “Of course not. It’s probably a robot, anyway.”
The aerial gained speed, curving out of the dense grotto and weaving over the wide field. Allison leaned over Marion and pressed against the window, watching the rows of trees as they whipped beneath them.
“You know,” she said, half to herself, “if you concentrate, it actually feels like the world is moving around us. Like we’re just sitting in place, and everything else is rushing by.”
Marion followed her gaze, watching the perfect rolls of clouds as they drifted across the bright azure sky.
“Yeah, I know exactly what you mean,” he said, enjoying the weight of Allison’s elbow as it rested on his knee. “I guess all we can do is hold on.”
The riders exited the aerial in a long, jostling line, marching across the concrete platform toward the observation port. Marion and Allison allowed the crowd to push past, staying in their seats until only a few stragglers remained. Only when their reticence began to look suspicious did they finally slip into the aisle and trail after the swarming throng.
The park surrounding the aerial station was lush, well-manicured and inescapably constricted. There were pathways of strewn pebbles rolling out in all directions, threading between beds of bright right azaleas and meticulously trimmed round shrubs. Scattered here and there were larger hedges, clipped into the shapes of exotic animals: waxy green giraffes and elephants that looked as if they had been standing guard over those fake hills for centuries. In the distance, Marion could even make out a topiary sea monster, grown cleverly in three sections — head, arched middle, and tail — so that it appeared to be swimming across the lawn.
There were birds here, as well — although far fewer than had populated the welcome center, Marion noted. He watched a stork glide majestically by, its breast low to the ground as it swooped down to roost at the edge of a nearby lake. It settled in and dipped daintily into its own reflection, spraying a fine mist of water from its wings as it preened.
Why so few? Marion wondered idly, looking back over the snaking path of the aerial. It’s not like it’d be difficult for them to fly this far.
But then, just a few steps further on, he suddenly understood. At the crest of the hill, where the golf-course-perfect grass met the wide blue horizon, he could now discern the flashing, reflective sheen of polished glass stretching into the sky. The observation window dropped out of the clouds in a clear curtain, cutting into the rolling landscape like a crystal guillotine. Marion moved forward cautiously, more than a little apprehensive about what lay on the other side.
“This is my favorite part,” Allison said excitedly. “It’s like the world’s biggest picture window!”
Marion nodded, gazing up at the glass barrier looming overhead, afraid to look down at the vast tableau floating into view beneath them. The thick pyrex wall had to be at least a hundred meters wide, its edges cleverly concealed behind strategically placed groups of trees and curving, sky-blue walls. I wonder how many birds plow into this thing every year? Marion mused, feeling more trapped than ever.
He certainly didn’t miss the irony of the situation. Even the fowl were smart enough to stay away, but here he and Allison were, strolling right up to this insurmountable barrier: a couple of odd birds stuck behind a giant window, and no way to get through.
Allison, on the other hand, didn’t seem overly concerned with their predicament. Whether she was just hopelessly optimistic, overcompensating for her fear, or totally delusional, Marion couldn’t really say.
“God. Look at all of that land!”
Marion finally forced his eyes down, staring out of the giant portal at the distant fields growing hundreds of meters below. The carefully cultivated rows seemed to roll on and on, an endless, shimmering carpet of wheat and corn, striped with random green rows of lettuce, bordered at the far end by a wide orange and yellow swath of citrus. This was the real Garden, Marion realized; the bio-engineered expanse where the city’s food supply was actually grown and harvested. He squinted at the acres of agriculture spread out in a checkerboard map beneath him, the soft surface undulating in wide ripples as the green and tan stalks waved slowly in the noonday sun.
The crowd pressed as close to the window as possible, gaping down at the seemingly infinite acres of produce. Marion felt himself pushed forward with them, trying to fight the encroaching vertigo that made him feel so nauseated and unsteady. Unfortunately, it was no use. Even while anchored inside this huge mob of people, Marion couldn’t help but feel that the earth might suddenly cave in beneath him, sending his body plummeting back toward the distant streets of New York.
“Attention,” the voice jumped out of nowhere, echoing across the noisy crowd. “Please return to the aerial. All visitors please return to the aerial immediately.” Marion followed the instructions without thinking, pulled by the muttering throng. Not until he felt Allison’s firm grip on his arm did he wake from his acrophobia-induced stupor.
“It’s not her.”
Marion stopped, momentarily confused. “Who?”
“The voice,” Allison whispered. “It’s a different voice.”
She was right, Marion realized. This announcer’s timbre was all wrong: a gruff soprano that sounded like a bad female impersonator.
“Something’s wrong.” Marion edged back toward the window, struggling against the exiting flow of tourists. Allison stuck close behind him, trying to look nonchalant. The mob of people began to dwindle, and then disappear, leaving Marion and Allison alone as they slunk guiltily along the bottom edge of the observation window.
“Who saw us?” Marion asked, feeling like a bug trapped against the bright surface of the glass.
“Who didn’t?” Allison moved faster, galloping forward like a wounded horse.
“Where can we go?”
“Anywhere but here.”
They hit the edge of the lake in an agitated flurry, sending a flock of geese squawking across the calm water. Marion stopped dead, the tips of his shoes splashing in the cold muck along the shore.
“Great.” Allison surveyed the length of the shore, trying to find a way around. The lake was relatively narrow on their end, running right up to the turquoise dividing wall. She could see the brackish water sloshing lazily against the concrete barrier, staining the paint above the waterline a darker blue. There was a tall chain-link fence to their left, stretching over the water, running from shore to shore. Beyond that, the lake widened, expanding into a huge, sparkling pool, surrounded on all sides by weeping willows, rows of fuzzy green icicles grazing the mirrored surface. A trio of ducks paddled deliberately toward the shore, their long necks dipping in time to the motion of their feet.
“Well,” Allison said, staring across the water, “I guess there’s only one way across.”
Marion frowned,
looking at the opposite bank. “I don’t swim very well.”
“It looks pretty shallow.” Allison leaned over and unlaced her boots, and then carefully tied the laces together so she could wear them around her neck. She grimaced as she stepped gingerly into the muddy water. “Yuck. The floor feels like wet compost.”
Marion quickly pulled his sneakers off, struggling to tie them together as he waded in after Allison. His jeans immediately became dead weight, pulling at his legs like quicksand as he pushed deeper into the pond. Before long he was up to his neck in water, his feet sucking from the slime below with each disgusting step.
Allison dove suddenly forward, surfacing far from the shore, her wet hair coiled around her neck like a snake. “Swimming in a dress. Gross.”
Marion floated forward, looking at the NO SWIMMING signs posted along the shore, trying desperately to read the small print.
“Do you think they might’ve stocked this thing with something dangerous, like sharks?”
“I doubt it. Maybe killer trout.”
Marion began to dog-paddle his way toward the center of the lake. “It says no swimming, you know. We’re breaking the law.”
“Well, no duh.” Allison laughed.
Marion was swimming toward her when the pumps kicked in and the water purge began. The small slice of water behind the fence immediately began to whirlpool, swirling in a vortex around the unseen drain. Marion had no time to think, flailing his body against the stiff current, trying desperately to grab hold of the chain link, watching with wild surprise as Allison disappeared beneath the waterline.
The excess water drained off the lake with frightening speed, rushing through the galvanized metal filter in a churning white froth. Marion felt his fingers lose their weak grasp on the fence as his body was pulled downward, somersaulting backwards, a rush of cold water washing over him in a violent wave.
It’s a giant toilet, he thought idiotically, watching the crimson leaves of a maple spinning out above him. The weight of his jeans yanked him down like a cinderblock, pulling him through the center of the whirling flume, past the dark, mucky bottom of the lake.
It was, perhaps, the worst moment of Marion’s young life. He had, at the exact same time, the terrifying feeling that he was both falling and drowning, his dizzy breaths pulling in nothing but water, his hands clawing at hard plastic as it flew relentlessly by. This is death, Marion thought, feeling his body washed in a downward slant, his nose and mouth filled with black water, his head bouncing crazily from one side of the pipe to the other.
And then it was over. There was one final twist, a hard turn that shook Marion’s spine, and then open air, the feeling that he had been shot from the mouth of a cannon. His lungs barely had time to react, sucking in one coughing breath before his body plunged into the murky water below.
Marion sliced into the drainage pool head-first, hearing the splash from beneath the water’s surface. That was my body, he realized, still fighting for breath. That was the sound of my body falling.
He might not have surfaced at all, if it hadn’t been for Allison. She dragged him from the deep, filthy basin while she could barely move herself, pulling his limp form up the rock-strewn banks and onto dry land. Then she quickly removed his sneakers from around his neck, releasing the tight shoelace noose that was cutting painfully into his trachea.
“Are you okay?” She was bleeding from her nose, trying to talk through a mouthful of muddy water. Marion leaned over and vomited, coughing up a mixture of water and mucus onto the embankment. After a moment, he leaned back, still unable to breathe, his chest spasming in tight, painful hiccups.
Above them, the wall seemed to rise into infinity. Marion finally managed to draw a real breath, feeling the waterlogged gauze biting into his bruised ribs, watching as the sunlight seemed to dim for a second in front of his eyes. About five meters up he could see the exit pipe, still spewing a brown cascade of water into the churning pool below. The earth around them was a swampy mess, the overflow from the lake saturating the muddy soil.
“Jesus Christ,” he finally sputtered, the words rasping and sore against his throat. “What happened?”
Allison lay sprawled against the bank, her legs still half-submerged in the coffee-colored pool. “Look,” she whispered, pointing up the boundless surface of the wall. Marion squinted, following the line of her hand. Far above them, past the pipes and the rushing waterfall, he could just make out the flat rectangle of the observation port, shining brightly in the afternoon sun.
“We’re in the fields,” Allison said, wiping her bloody nose with the back of her hand, then washing it in the dark water. “We fell all the way down.”
The overflow pipe finally began to dry up, the spewing jet of water slowing to a feeble trickle, sounding like someone urinating in the shallow end of the pond. Marion began to test his legs and back, gradually rolling over onto his bruised knees.
“How are you doing?”
“Okay,” Allison said, looking anything but. “I don’t think anything’s broken, but my stupid right ankle hurts like hell. Again.” She stood up slowly, her legs shaking beneath her, straining to support her weight. “And I lost my boots.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Allison looked over to find Marion staring down at his right leg, where Allison’s shiny red boots were wrapped firmly around his ankle, the toes splayed in opposite directions beneath his feet.
“Well, look at that.” Allison laughed, which degenerated quickly into another coughing fit. “I guess shoes really like you.”
“Yeah,” Marion sighed, leaning down to unwind the boots from his throbbing ankle. “Either that, or they want to kill me.”
He stuck the boots under one arm and struggled up the slope toward Allison, trying not to slip back into the pool as he navigated away from the basin’s edge. He slipped one arm behind her back and, with a great deal of combined effort, and they both began to climb unsteadily out of the ditch.
They finally made it up the steep embankment, rising out of that red clay bowl into a wide, vibrant ocean of green. For a moment they were stunned into silence, leaning weakly against each other and staring at the vast sweep of cornstalks stretching out in never-ending rows all around them.
They stumbled into the cemetery just after dusk, completely oblivious to what they had found. They had been walking since noon, at first hidden among unending stalks of corn, then crouching low though acres of wheat, and eventually winding their way through what felt like five thousand meters of grape trellises.
They had to travel slowly, due to Allison’s swollen ankle, which remained so sore that she had to keep one boot loosened and untied. But she had started walking on her own after the first kilometer, which at least seemed to indicate that nothing was broken.
The entire way, Marion kept glancing nervously over his shoulder, watching the huge wall as it faded behind them, the observation port shining high above the Garden like the calm, unblinking eye of a Cyclopean giant. And every time he glimpsed that mirrored surface, which never appeared to get any smaller, he couldn’t help but wonder if some cop with a telescope was staring back down at him.
At first they were terrified that they would run into a CorCraft work crew, or perhaps a line of harvesting machines, but they soon realized that the fields were largely empty. They could see a few hulking combines rumbling in the distance, but it was easy enough to angle away from them. And once they hit the vineyards, Marion was reasonably certain that the grapes were far too small and green to be harvested, making the chances of being discovered seem slim.
“Marion, look.” Allison was moving between rows of vines, treading on her stiff ankle as much as she dared.
As he hustled to catch up, Marion peered beyond the grape leaves and saw the hazy outlines of a dozen tall, cylindrical structures, rising into the reddening sky like a battery of missiles.
“What are those?”
“Grain silos, I think.” Allison stopped for a s
econd, considering them. “Maybe there’s some sort of processing or storage facility up there.”
“Well,” Marion said, already trudging forward, “I guess there’s only one way to find out.”
They hit the next cornfield a few minutes later. It seemed weird, somehow — this viridian wall of stalks pressed tight up against the snaking grape vines. Plus, unlike the previous patch, this field wasn’t planted in neat rows, making it seem like a nearly impenetrable mass of scratchy long leaves and thick underbrush. But it seemed way too wide to walk around, so Marion and Allison dove in, muscling aside the stalks and stamping on smaller shoots as they went.
“I swear, if we don’t find a patch of ripe fruit soon, I’m going to eat one of these stupid ears raw,” Allison muttered.
They struggled in relative silence for the next half hour or so, grunting and cursing their way through the dense foliage as the sunset faded and the sky grew dark overhead. And then, suddenly, the cornfield ended. One minute they were thrashing through an endless sea of plants, the next they were in an open pasture, looking out over waist-high grass. Marion stopped, surprised, and turned in a slow circle, finding a tall fence of green and yellow leaves stretching out on all sides of the wide, overgrown enclosure.
“It’s, like, a hidden park or something.”
“What the hell?” Allison started limping toward the center of the field, completely mystified. “Looks like this cornfield has a bald spot, huh?”
They wandered into the graveyard a few minutes later, though they didn’t realize it at first. It sat in the middle of the grassy field, surrounded by a low wall, the spare grass mowed low, the graves marked with small, identical blocks of polished granite. Marion got there first, almost falling over the half-meter-high wall, knocking one of the loose bricks off onto the ground with his knee.
“Watch out,” he called back, stepping gingerly over the crumbling stone, “there’s a wall here.”
Allison followed him over, then paused to sit on the edge of the wall, bunching the damp folds of her dress between her knees. Marion sat down next to her, squinting at the long rows of markers.
“They look like stepping stones,” he said, trying to find some sort of pattern among the sunken blocks. “But they’re too far apart.”
Allison pushed herself up from the wall and walked over to the closest one.
“It’s got a number on it,” she said, squatting next to the small stone, running her fingers over the etched surface. “582384763.”
Marion watched her quietly for a second, the muddy white fabric of her dress glowing faintly in the gathering night.
“That’s weird.” Marion got up and walked toward her, trying to puzzle it out. He stepped gingerly, not really knowing why, feeling each sneaker print as it stamped the earth. Then he stopped.
“Wait a minute. That number — does it have any dashes?”
“No, why?”
He pulled up next to her and looked down. Then he moved to the next block, and the one after that.
“Allison, I think these are social security numbers.”
Allison rose to her feet, not wanting to believe it. “You think… you think these are graves?”
Marion took a step back, feeling the crunch of dry grass beneath his sneakers. All around him, the low markers seemed different, somehow, spread out beneath the waxing moonlight. The shadows were longer, the ground darker, the rows just a little too straight.
“I do,” he said quietly. “I think it’s a graveyard.”
“But…” Allison stared at the hundreds of gravestones, those horrifically impersonal rows of numbers stretching to the far end of the field. “For who?”
“For the people who die here — at least the ones who don’t matter,” Marion guessed. “For us.”
“But they can’t hide them,” Allison protested. “They can’t just hide the bodies.”
Marion took a few more steps forward, still gazing at the ground. When he spoke again, he sounded defeated. “I guess they can do what they want.”
Allison put her hand on his back, and they stood there for a while, watching the big fake harvest moon rise like a gauzy orange spotlight against the black sky. Finally, without saying anything, Allison began moving again, heading toward the shadowy silos rising over the other side of the cornfield.
Marion trailed after her, suddenly morose. It had become real, in that instant. After all of the insane accidents and arduous effort, the excitement and fear of the chase, it took something as small as this to make it real. Allison reached back and grabbed his hand, gripping it as though he were hanging off the side of a cliff. Marion squeezed reassuringly back, walking through the immense graveyard in a steady and fearful silence.
It was then, just as they were beginning to feel safe, that the world exploded around them.
They had fought their way valiantly through the other half of the cornfield, finding themselves on a flat plain of hard-packed dirt, with the huge silos looming just ahead. As they walked toward them, a low complex of buildings appeared slowly out of the darkness, looking like a squat castle framed against the moonlit sky. The first thing Marion noticed was the tangle of ducts and tubes sprouting out of the complex like hair. A half-dozen wide, rusting pipes shot straight up into the black night, tying the buildings into the sky, making them look like boxy marionettes, dangling at the end of steel strings. The second thing was the resonant, industrial hum that rumbled through the ground beneath them, suggesting that some level of mechanical activity was happening nearby.
“It’s some kind of processing plant,” he said, guessing out loud. “Maybe those pipes are transportation tubes, for the corn and wheat and stuff?”
“You think?” Allison was looking at the bare earth around them, wondering how safe they really were. The swaying grass had dwindled to staggered tufts, growing haphazardly out of the hard soil.
“I hope. We sure can’t hide here.”
Marion glanced over at Allison and saw that she was shivering, rubbing her hands ineffectually up and down on her biceps. “Here,” he said, shrugging out of his windbreaker, “take my jacket. You look like you’re freezing.”
Allison accepted it gratefully, pulling it on and wrapping it tightly around her thin dress. It seemed different, somehow, wrapped around someone else, Marion thought. He stared at the faded blue fabric, worn until it was almost white, the last sad remnant of the city below. He thought suddenly of the small, nearly forgotten statue buried in his inside pocket, that peculiar little talisman that he had taken from Bernard’s shop right before all of the craziness began.
He reached out and put his hand on Allison’s arm, wanting to ask her to check and see if it was still there. But it was then, in the instant between thought and speech, that the sun rocketed in a blind flash across the sky.
It rose with a sudden and startling brilliance, ascending swiftly out of the east like a helium balloon. One minute they were in relative darkness, moving toward the darkened factory, and the next they were squinting in the bright, shimmering heat of noon.
At first Marion was dumbstruck, staring at Allison’s blinking, confused face and thinking I didn’t know they could do that. Then he broke out of it and began running, grabbing Allison’s hand and dragging her toward the suddenly gleaming towers ahead. Behind them, above the growing rumble of the processing plant, he heard a droning blur of noise, fading in and out of the factory’s hum like a buzzing mosquito. Marion reached the first silo and veered around it, the aluminum siding flashing by in vertical bars of light, the earth pounding hard against his feet.
“Over there!”
Ahead of them, shining in the harsh light, the warehouse jutted out of the ground like a huge metal brick, a beckoning black mouth set low on the closest corner, gaping just above the terra-cotta earth. They ran straight for that loading bay, not daring to look back, Allison’s skirt flying in a dusty tangle around her knees.
At the last moment Marion risked a look behind them,
trying to locate their pursuers. At first, he mistook the machines for birds, circling over the churning fields. But then the shapes became distinct — a trio of tapered bodies and whirling propellers hovering just above the crops. The helicopters were flying in looses circles, flattening the crops beneath the wash of their blades, skimming back and forth across the distant fields. Above them, circumscribing a larger, much lazier circle, Marion could see a drone, its glossy white body almost invisible against the sun-drenched clouds.
They don’t know, Marion realized, still staring over his shoulder as he dashed toward the open door. He tripped against the concrete ledge, flailing sideways into the dark warehouse.
“Watch out!” Allison hissed, her voice on the edge of panic.
“I’m okay,” Marion said, spinning around. “We’re okay.”
“Are you sure?”
“For now. As long as nobody’s here.”
Marion stood frozen for a moment, his vision slowly adjusting to the dim light. The warehouse floor in front of them was stacked with crates of produce, forming a maze of heavy coated cardboard and rough pine planking on all sides. Marion scanned the narrow, fissure-like corridor in front of them, searching for signs of life.
“Have you heard anything?”
Allison shook her head, moving cautiously between the towering walls, running her fingers along rows of carefully stacked boxes. “Just that machinery, whatever it is. Other than that, it seems pretty empty.”
“Well, it is night time. Or at least it’s supposed to be.”
“Anyway, it’s definitely safer than out there.” Allison moved further into the shadows, shuffling across the concrete.
The forklift rolled around the corner about five minutes later, just as Marion was breaking into one of the slatted crates. There was almost no warning, save the battery-powered whir of its engine and the faint squeal of bald tires. Marion didn’t notice until he was framed in the machine’s bright white headlights, his fingers still gripping limp handfuls of spinach. He fell clumsily to the ground, looking for someplace to hide, knowing that it was almost certainly too late to escape.
“Oh, crap,” Allison said, gaping at the oncoming truck, too surprised to even move out of the way. There was no place to go, anyway, since the forklift was blocking the closest exit with its rusty metal fangs, and the corridor behind them stretched at least fifty meters before crossing another passageway. So they just stood there, rooted to the concrete, waiting for the driver to stop his truck and sound the alarm. In fact, Marion was so resigned to his fate that he didn’t even jump out of the way until it was obvious that the man intended to run them both down.
“Watch out!” He reached out and yanked Allison out of the way, pulling her flush against the wall of crates as the lift sped by, its wide black tires rolling implacably forward. It was ten meters past them before Marion finally realized that the thing was empty.
“It’s automated,” he said, his arms still trembling. Allison watched it go, the fading taillights glowing amber against the shiny floor.
“What, there’s no driver?” She hesitated, looking back at the open door, and then started to run after the lift. “Well then, let’s take it!”
Marion took off after her, skidding on scattered produce, swinging onto the back of the truck just as it rounded the corner.
Allison sat propped against a crate, chewing on the well-gnawed core of a Fuji apple. She pulled the stem out and used it as a toothpick, trying to get the skin from between her teeth.
“Do you think this will work?”
Marion swallowed and wiped a trickle of peach juice from his chin, gazing up from his stack of wooden boxes two levels below. “I don’t see why not. The only real question is which way we’re gonna go.”
The loading platform was still humming with activity, filled with forklifts and carts weaving back and forth in an intricate, pre-programmed ballet. Another load of tomatoes backed slowly into the freight transport, adding to the already sizable mountain of vegetables and fruits packing the interior.
“What if they stop the lift?”
Marion shrugged. “Not much we can do about that, I guess.”
Allison wiggled a banana from the gaping top of a waxy brown box, trying not to bruise the delicate flesh. She leaned back against the wall, peeling the mottled skin back with her long, graceful fingers.
The glowing orange light above the elevator door flashed once, and the vibrating hum of the transport edged up a notch. Marion leaned back, steadying himself as a huge wooden door ratcheted slowly across the open end of the lift. Allison waved down at him and tossed her banana peel into the air, landing it squarely in his lap.
“Buckle up,” she said, her words muffled behind a mouthful of fruit. “Here we go again.”
Marion grinned into the sudden darkness and threw the peel back, missing her completely.
Five: The Pit