Romulus grinned, clearly enjoying the eager pleading from Flora and the others. Finally he said, “Chase, bring out Chestnut.”
Chestnut was a small, dirt-colored mare. “Chestnut is the most kind and gentle of the horses here,” explained Romulus.
They each had a chance to ride on Chestnut, with Romulus giving them a boost up onto the horse’s back. Most of the new recruits looked very uncomfortable on Chestnut’s back, despite her slow pace. Mendel was so nervous that he couldn’t even sit up straight. Instead, he chose to lean forward, hugging the horse to keep from falling. “A low center of gravity is more stable,” he insisted.
Stalk was equally awkward, but Crick mastered riding easily. “Buck up there Stalk,” he said, clapping Stalk on the shoulder. “It’s not as difficult as you make it look.” Stalk sauntered off, muttering under his breath. Unsurprisingly, Garland also had little trouble on horseback.
Aster, however, looked incredibly nervous riding Chestnut while Kava was all smiles. Bunsen insisted on riding with his plant, Bonsai. When told he would need both hands, he fashioned the pot into a helmet and wore it strapped to the top of his head. Instead of being embarrassed, he reveled in the laughter he sparked in the others, even when he proceeded to fall off the horse.
When Flora went to help him up, Bunsen waved her off. “I’m fine. Got plenty of natural padding,” he said, pointing to his own butt. It looked like Bunsen was starting to feel more comfortable at the Institute. Actually, they all were, including her. Here at the Institute she was learning new and amazing things. And here she had finally found some friends who were delightfully odd and just a bit different, like her.
And then it was Flora’s turn to ride Chestnut. That settled it. She was in heaven. Riding Chestnut felt like the most natural thing in the world. Her body easily fell into rhythm with the horse’s gait as she became one with the horse, the air they moved through, and the ground they trotted over. She was eager to go faster, but all too soon it was time to return to the Institute her own two feet.
Master Romulus clapped her shoulder. “You’re a natural, Flora,” he said. “You and Garland both. You make a good pair.” Flora’s eyes widened in surprise. “Yes, you make a good pair of scholars,” he added.
Later that night, Flora made a promise to herself. One day she would ride Blizzard, and she’d be faster than a snowstorm.
************
Where was he? Flora and the rest of her cohort had been waiting in the Glasshouse for over an hour. A scholar had come by and apologized, telling them that Grandmaster Sagerius would be here any moment. That was thirty minutes ago. The boys looked anxious. Garland was pacing around in circles as usual. Mendel was discussing something in excited tones with Bunsen, the two of them having become close friends over the last week. Stalk and Crick were sitting off by themselves doing whatever it is boys do by themselves. Meanwhile, Aster and Kava were braiding each other’s hair. Flora lay on the grass beside them, appreciating the magnificent surroundings.
Though Flora appeared relaxed, her mind was actually spinning. Over the past few days, memories from her dreams kept popping into her head, insisting on her attention. And yet they remained frustratingly vague. She had asked some scholars about the world beyond the mountains, but they were unwilling to discuss it. Instead, they suggested that she speak with the Grandmaster. Today she would get the chance...if he showed up.
As if on cue, Grandmaster Sagerius walked into the meadow and sat cross-legged in the grass. Ignoring them, he crossed his arms and closed his eyes as if in meditation. Flora studied him for a moment. His gray hair and beard were unruly, as if he had just woken up. He wore a simple white robe with no scarf or other adornments. Around his neck, the teardrop crystal hung, especially bright amongst its drab surroundings. In this light, Flora could really see the heavy lines that crossed Sagerius’ face. He must be seventy or eighty years old. The students slowly gathered around him.
Sagerius’ eyes opened. “Why, hello there children. Beautiful day out here in the Glasshouse. What are you kids up to today?”
The cohort exchanged glances, and then Garland spoke up tentatively, “We’re here to receive instruction about the Department of History.”
“History?” Sagerius sounded surprised. “I can speak to you about history. It’s a very, very important subject. What would you like to know about history?”
Garland looked really confused. “Um...how about the history of the Institute?” he asked.
“Ah, yes,” Sagerius said. “The history of the Institute tells us how we got here, why we are here, and where we should be going. The Institute was formed over 400 years ago you know.”
“Yes,” Garland replied. “Master Romulus told us it was formed amongst chaos and brought order to society.”
“True, true,” Sagerius replied. “But society was doing just fine before the Institute. Chaos wasn’t inevitable. Something happened. Something terrible.”
“What happened?” asked Flora. “What was so terrible?”
“There were no babies,” Sagerius said.
“Kind of like what happened fifteen years ago?” asked Flora. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
Sagerius shrugged his shoulders. “It wasn’t that bad fifteen years ago because the Institute was ready for it. Four hundred years ago, there was no Institute to limit reproduction. Families would have four, five, even six children each. When hundreds of babies were delivered with no semblance of humanity, it scared people. After several months with no solution, people lost hope. They formed new religions, blamed each other, and pretty much looked for anything that could provide an answer. The government was unable to provide an answer and toppled under the riots that followed. Soon, Terrene fell into civil war.”
Sagerius shook his head, as if remembering the events himself. “And the Institute was formed to protect our purpose.”
“To safeguard humanity’s knowledge, to protect it, and progress it,” Garland added.
“No, no,” Sagerius said, waving his hand dismissively. “That’s just what we tell everyone. Of course, that’s one goal of the Institute, but the Institute was formed mostly to carry on the true purpose of Terrene.”
“Terrene’s true purpose?” Mendel asked surprised.
“Well yes,” Sagerius responded. “The reason Terrene was founded in the first place.”
“So that means that there’s something outside of Terrrene,” Flora interjected excitedly. “There’s something beyond the mountains.”
“Well of course,” Sagerius responded. “Hmmm, I guess you didn’t know that. Well, we’ll fix that. I’ll show you tomorrow.”
“Can’t you just tell us today?” asked Flora impatiently.
“No, no,” Sagerius muttered. “Showing is much better, and I’m much too tired to make the trip today...much too busy. Tomorrow’s better. Tomorrow I’ll show you what’s beyond the mountains, and we’ll discuss the true purpose of Terrene.”
Sagerius got up slowly, ignoring their questions, and walked back out of Glasshouse.
That night, after saying goodnight to her roommates, Flora lay in bed, her mind racing. She slipped the tiny snow globe out from it’s hiding place in her bag and stared into its depths. Jane Ingram’s world was out there. Tomorrow she would find it.
Chapter 9: The Show
Jane’s heart pumped so hard she could hear it in her head. BaBoom. BaBoom. She paced around the room nervously, clenching her hands over and over again on a battered tissue, trying to keep her hands dry. Breathe in. Breathe out. Why was it so hot in here? A basket full of candy caught her eye. Her hands wanted to reach over, grab a handful, peel the wrappers off, and stuff them in her mouth. Her head vetoed the idea. There were just too many ways that could go wrong.
Her mobi rang. She made a mental note to turn it off right after she checked this one message and whipped the handset out of her pants pocket. Ashton thought it was ridiculous that she still used a pocket mobi rather than the wearabl
es that were all the rage these days. In fact, he had sent her one of the new models from the company he was working at this summer, but it lay unopened on her dresser. She wasn’t quite ready to be connected all the time. She glanced down at the message window and pressed the display button. The tiny camera on the device tracked her eyes and directed a tiny laser into her retina. A text message scrolled across her vision in 60 point font. “Hi Doc. Don’t screw up - Mai-lin.”
She smiled as she shut off her mobi and tucked it into her pants. Mai-lin had been her rock for the last twelve years. She was diligent, hard working, and fiercely loyal. She was also bluntly honest and completely lacking in diplomacy. She once publicly stated that the director of the ICCF’s recent outreach programs were “an advertisement on how we can waste people’s money on advertising.” Jane spent weeks smoothing things over with Dr. Forrester, trying to convince her that the smiley sticker Mai-lin left on her office door was a form of apology. And now she would be doing some outreach of her own.
A young woman with her hair meticulously pulled back into a bun popped her head in through the door. “Five minutes,” she said.
“Thanks for the warning, uh,” Jane started, but the woman was already gone. Her quick departure did save Jane the trouble of remembering the girl’s name. Kate maybe? Or Kay. It was something that started with a “K.”
The next five minutes dragged on forever. The clock on the wall seemed stuck. With no second hand ticking away, Jane couldn’t tell if it was broken. Jane wondered if she should go out and check. Just as she was about to, Kate/Kay, stepped into the room.
“Please follow me, Doctor Ingram,” she announced.
Jane followed her through some haphazard hallways, carefully stepping over the cables that randomly crossed her path. They stopped just shy of the set. They waited in the dark, hidden from the audience by a false wall. But they could see the brightly lit set, where a middle-aged man was sitting in a comfy yellow armchair talking with a pretty looking blond who sat on a matching couch set at a corner with the man’s chair.
A voice spoke from above. “And we’re on in five, four, three, two...”
“Welcome back to the Rodney MacKinsaw show,” the man said, turning to face the cameras. “I’m Rodney MacKinsaw. For those of you just joining us, I’m sitting here with Miss Alicia Madding, star of the summer blockbuster hit, Escape.” Rodney then turned to Alicia, gave her a broad smile and a familiar pat on the knee and continued their conversation. “We’ve already talked about your early roles in romantic comedies and the proliferation of your fan sites on the net. Now let’s talk about this new movie. What made you step out of your comfort zone and take a role in an apocalyptic thriller?” Jane held back a chuckle. Hot blonde in an action movie wasn’t that far of a departure from hot blonde in a romantic comedy.
Alicia flipped a lock of perfectly curled hair back from her eyes and scrunched her face into a carefully calibrated look of deep contemplation. “You know,” she said, “I was perfectly happy doing comedies. I wasn’t trying to do something different. But then James sent me the script, and I thought to myself, I need to do this movie.”
“Why don’t you describe the premise of the movie to our audience here,” suggested Rodney. “Of course without giving away too much of the story for the two people who haven’t seen it already.”
“Sure, sure,” Alicia said. “The movie is set far in the future. The irresponsible release of carbon into the atmosphere has turned the world into a hot, dry, barren land. The remaining pockets of mankind live in geodomes that protect them from the scorching environment outside. Humans are prevented from leaving these domes or advancing beyond stone-age technologies by our guardians, the robots which were created to safeguard our race. But the rule of the robotic guardians has become totalitarian and ruthless. My character is a young woman in one of these domes who works with other young people to revolt against the robot overseers.”
“It sounds quite fantastical,” commented Rodney.
“It’s actually not that far-fetched,” Alicia protested. “James assured me that the story had been quite thoroughly researched.”
“Of course,” Rodney said, placing his hand gently on top of hers. “It’s all over the news how the Senate just passed groundbreaking legislation to further ban research on artificial intelligence. Escape played a part in rallying the people to protect us from those tyrannical robots.” He winked at the audience. “I no longer have to be scared of my toaster.”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” Alicia said. “Since I was a little girl, I’ve always been a real nature-lover. When the other girls were playing with their dolls, I’d be camping in the backyard with my brother. As I grew older I became appalled at how little we were doing as a society to protect nature. This movie is really about the dangers of climate change, not about robots. And I hope that its success will make people more aware of this highly important issue.” Though Jane loved the seriousness of the message, she couldn’t help being distracted by the cuteness of her voice.
“Oh, but weren’t those robots great?” Rodney asked. “The special effects were stupendous. I could watch that movie over and over again.”
“I guess,” Alicia muttered. “But about climate change...”
“Ah yes, to shed more light on the subject, I’ve invited Doctor Jane Ingram to join us,” said Rodney. “Dr. Ingram is a lead scientist for the International Climate Change Foundation and the author of the book “Beyond Carbon: Understanding the World before we Destroy It.” Please join me in welcoming Dr. Ingram to the show.”
“That’s your cue,” Kate/Kay said. “Remember, no soap boxing.”
In the preparations for this interview, the show directors had made it clear that she was supposed to keep things short and sweet. This show was about Alicia Madding, not her. She was just filler. They reminded her that though Rodney acted like a nice guy, behind those big white teeth lay a shark. He was known to rip guests to shreds when they got out of hand.
“Don’t screw up,” Jane whispered to herself as she walked out onto the set, smiling widely despite being nearly blinded by the bright lights. She smiled out at the audience and almost tripped. Seated in the back row was a hauntingly familiar form. It wasn’t just the man’s giant size that made him stick out. It was also the lack of a smile and the way his eyes were focused intently on her, as if dissecting a bug.
She sat down to the right of Alicia, noticing that she didn’t look quite so beautiful up close. Too much makeup. But then again, Jane was probably wearing too much makeup as well. They had pretty much painted the stuff on her face before declaring her fit for television.
“Thanks for joining us,” Rodney said, giving her a wide smile.
“Thanks, uh, thanks for having me,” Jane responded. She looked out at the audience again, but with the lights in her eyes, she couldn’t quite see the Asian giant. But he was there. He was always there.
“So we’ve been talking about the new movie, ‘Escape’ where the world has been turned into a scorching desert.” Rodney said this facing the camera. He then turned toward Jane. “In your scientific opinion, is this a likely scenario?”
“Unfortunately, all too likely,” Jane responded vaguely. She just had to keep smiling. Fran had given her some advice on stalkers the other day. “Ignore them,” she had said. “Don’t look at them or acknowledge their existence. That’ll just encourage them.”
“But we have carbon taxes now and international carbon treaties. Haven’t we slowed down global warming?,” asked Rodney.
“Actually, all the efforts so far, though very worthwhile, have not kept up with the growth of industry worldwide,” Jane said effortlessly. She had given the same interview dozens of times over the last few weeks, and each time, the same man sat in the audience. “Even in the U.S., where awareness is high, we are still increasing our carbon footprint daily.”
“Okay, I can buy that we’re still releasing carbon dioxide into our atmosphere and
that it’s melting the polar ice caps,” Rodney remarked, raising his hands as if he were holding a globe. “But my house is far enough in the hills that I won’t get flooded when the oceans rise. How do we get from losing all our beachfront property to turning the world into a hot, barren desert?” These were fluff questions, but then again, she was just a fluff guest. She’d be lucky if the audience could take their eyes of Alicia Madding long enough to hear what she had to say.
Jane answered promptly, “That’s a good question. It seems a little unintuitive that flooding and deserts would go together, but they do. You see, the rising oceans are just the beginning. Our estimates predict that just a 2 degree Celsius rise in global temperatures could cause large tracts of frozen ice above the arctic circle to melt. The rise in temperature could also thaw out tons of carbon dioxide that has been frozen inside that ice. This would lead to more carbon and methane being released into the atmosphere and more global warming. In the next hundred years, we are likely to see a 4-8 degree rise in global temperatures.”
“They call it the ‘carbon time bomb’,” added Alicia eagerly.
“That’s right,” Jane said, surprised. “A change of global temperatures of 4 degrees might not sound horrendous, but it’s enough to change the face of our planet. 55 million years ago, a massive release of frozen methane caused the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum event.”
“Is that when the dinosaurs died?” Rodney asked.
“No,” Alicia answered him. “But it did kill off most of the sea life at that time and raised the oceans by 100 meters.” Jane smiled. Maybe the audience would learn something today.
“Wow,” Rodney said. “It sounds like I’m the only one here without a PhD in climate change.”
“Alicia is absolutely correct,” Jane continued. “And we believe the overall temperature rose just 5 to 6 degrees then. Today, if we experienced a similar rise in temperature, we could expect a similarly disastrous result. The tropics would be ravaged by stronger storms from the oceans while other areas suffer droughts due to the evaporation of water from the land. The main population areas in Europe and the U.S. would also dry up since most of our fresh water comes from the glaciers that will no longer be there. It’s the lack of fresh water that will turn our world into a desert.”