“I’m entitled to some privacy,” objected Flora. She grabbed his arm to stop him.
“I’m sorry,” the guard said. “I’m just following orders. If you have nothing to hide, this will be over in just a few minutes.”
Flora froze, thinking about the globe hidden behind her hanging plant arrangement. “Fine,” she said. She had been told to be good, so that’s what she would do. She just hoped her hiding place served its purpose, or else her stint in the Underground would be short-lived indeed.
Flora sat down on her bed and watched nervously as the guard flipped through Aster’s personal belongings and then Kava’s. “All these searches have been really tedious,” the guard commented.
“Have you, uh, found anything?” asked Flora uncomfortably.
“Not really, but Grandmaster Romulus insisted we hit every room,” he replied. “Waste of time if you ask me.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, forcing a chuckle. “And what are you supposed to do if you find something anyways?” She knew it was stupid, but for some reason she couldn’t help asking.
“Orders are to arrest the owner and bring ‘em down to the cells.” The guard laughed. “Can you imagine being thrown in jail for keeping a book or some other ancient nonsense? I don’t see why anyone would take such a risk.” He moved towards the hanging plant arrangement.
“Well, don’t you think the punishment is a little harsh?” asked Flora. “They are just books and stuff. It’s not like they’re dangerous.” She looked around for something heavy. Her eyes settled on a large clay mug on her bedside table. She shuffled towards it.
“Well, the law’s the law,” he replied. He began studying the plant arrangement. “I just apply it.” Flora’s picked up the mug, gripping it tightly with her right hand, sweat trickling down its side. She moved towards the guard. Could she really do this?
“This is a really interesting arrangement,” the guard commented. “You make it yourself?”
“Yep,” Flora answered tersely. The guard lifted up the vines and reached right where Flora kept the globe hidden. Flora began to raise the mug. Maybe she could hit him hard enough to make him forget where he had been but not hard enough to actually hurt him.
“Okay, all done here,” the guard said as he turned around. Flora returned the mug to her lap so quickly that she winced from the impact. She would have a giant bruise on her leg the next morning.
“You okay?” the guard asked politely.
“Yeah, it’s just...” Flora searched her brain desperately. “It’s just this tea tastes really rotten. I mean it’s not rotten. We don’t have any rotten fruit here at the Institute. It just tastes a little...well, not like what I was expecting.”
The guard smiled. “Yeah, okay, well, sorry for bothering you. Just doing my job.”
After he left the room, Flora rushed to the hanging plant arrangement and reached behind it. There was nothing there. The globe had disappeared. Then she heard someone at the door. Had the guard come back to catch her red-handed? She dropped her hand quickly and turned around.
Kava stood at the door with a huge grin on her face. “Something wrong, Flora?” Aster asked impishly, poking her head out from under her sister’s arm. Then she winked. “Don’t worry, we’ve got your back.”
************
Over the next few weeks, Flora spent her days being a dutiful scholar, pulling weeds, picking fruit, and making arrows. But at night, she wrote. Romulus’ guards were always vigilant, but as promised, Devindry managed to supply her with the necessary tools. She never kept any of the restricted items in her room. Instead, Aster or Kava would return almost every night, having picked up pen and paper somewhere. The next day, they would return the items through someone else. The contraband goods never stayed in one place but kept being passed between people. The best hiding place proved to be no place at all.
The Underground was a silent movement, but it was steadily growing. Devindry clearly had a lot of inside knowledge of Romulus’ plans and managed to keep him from finding their store of ancient texts and Flora’s writings. Flora knew that Bunsen, Kava and Aster were part of the Underground, but she had no idea who else was involved. There were no meetings, and no list of members. She didn’t even know if Mendel was involved, and she couldn’t ask him. They were forbidden from ever mentioning the Underground out loud. She hated the silence. She longed to do more, to confront Romulus in public.
Unfortunately, Romulus seemed to get more and more popular with his guards even as the Underground grew to oppose him. Romulus gave daily speeches about moving forward with our lives and focusing the Institute’s resources on the Institute’s needs. Flora wanted to yell at him, to tell him that they couldn’t give up. They needed to realize the dreams of their ancestors. They needed to save the world for Jane Ingram, Bryce Kandari, and themselves.
But Romulus continued to seek out dissidents and continued to arrest them. And no one had been allowed to see Sagerius. As promised, Flora stayed quiet. She turned her passion into words and channeled her feelings onto paper. She hoped that Jane would live on in the hearts of the people who read her accounts. Flora maintained hope that they would solve the carbon-crisis that had plagued Jane’s world and return the world to the wonders that she had experienced only in her dreams.
Then one morning, Grandmaster Romulus called another Institute-wide meeting. Flora walked into the Glasshouse with Aster and Kava as she had so many months ago. Mendel, Bunsen, Stalk, and Garland followed closely behind them. Crick walked several feet behind the group, eyes downcast. She couldn’t help noticing how handsome Garland looked in the new red guard uniform even as she despised the uniform itself. Garland was still as honorable and caring as before, but now there was a new wall between them. Devindry had instructed her not to talk to her friends about the Underground. And with Garland acting as one of Romulus’ guards, it was too risky to confide in him. He still came to their regular game nights despite the extra shifts he had to work, but things didn’t feel the same. Crick never came. He hadn’t spoken to her since the night Sagerius was arrested.
For a while she was happy with Crick’s absence. She hadn’t said anything that wasn’t possibly true. He deserved it. But then the weeks passed, and Crick remained distant, as if he was scared to talk with them. Punching him didn’t seem to faze him for long, but what she said must have hurt him far more than she had imagined. Her eyes darted to Garland’s fine form. No, she had some things she had to clear up first. She hung back so that she was walking next to Crick.
“About that night,” she said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said.”
Crick didn’t look up, but she could tell he was listening.
“Look, even if your mom did mess with your test scores,” Flora continued. “It doesn’t matter. You’ve done great here. I think you belong at the Institute just as much as anyone else here, including me.” Crick’s silence was deafening. “Anyways, that’s all I wanted to say,” she said. She ran to catch up with the others, not looking back to see if Crick would look up.
There were no chairs and no tables set up in the meadow this time. The throng of scholars mingled in the center of the meadow, clumped into small groups of friends and colleagues. A ring of crimson surrounded the white masses as Romulus’ guards patrolled the perimeter. Reluctantly, Flora followed the crowd towards the center of the meadow, trapping herself amongst the giant herd.
A platform had been erected on one side of the meadow. Everyone turned as Grandmaster Regulus Romulus took to the stage. He no longer wore the white robes of a scholar. Neither did he wear the grand white robe of the Grandmaster. Instead, he wore an elaborately embroidered robe of bright crimson. Horses weaved from black thread wrapped around his body, and black vines crept down his sleeves. On his shoulders, he wore a heavy mantel of white cloth, richly patterned with silver horses. Around his neck hung the Portkey, a tiny bead of light surrounded by the grand image of Regulus Romulus.
He raised his arms
to command silence. With the rays of the morning sun behind him, Romulus looked nothing short of godlike, and his subjects had no choice but to obey. The crowd quieted down to wait for his silvery words.
“Scholars of the Institute,” he said warmly, “My compatriots. Today will be a new day for the Institute, a new day for Terrene.” Flora had no idea what he was talking about, but she could feel the excitement in the air and the dread in her own stomach. “Today we will leave behind the trappings of our past and move forward to a better and brighter future.” Romulus’ crimson guards cheered, but everyone else remained silent.
“For centuries, the Institute has been ruled by a belief in a single purpose,” continued Romulus. “We have closeted ourselves away from the rest of Terrene and devoted our time and energy toward the creation of a single solution. We have worked hard based on the belief that the Barren Lands surrounding us were once part of a great and wondrous world. We have toiled under the belief that centuries ago we destroyed that world, and that it is our duty, our destiny to bring that world back.” Flora heard some quiet murmurs of agreement.
“I am here to shed light on the truth that is unavoidable,” Romulus said somberly, “the truth that we have toiled and sacrificed for nothing more than a lie.” Protests exploded from the crowd but were quickly silenced by shouts from the guards. Romulus raised his hand once again for silence. “Now, I know this is hard for many to hear, but I do not speak these words lightly, and it is not from my lips that this truth comes.”
Romulus turned to the side and gestured to two of his guards who started up the stage, supporting a man in simple scholar robes between them. Despite his haggard appearance, Flora immediately recognized Sagerius. He was noticeably thinner and, if possible, had even more heavy lines across his blank face. He leaned heavily on the two guards as he slowly walked to stand next to Romulus. She tightened her fist. She hated Romulus for taking Sagerius away from her.
“Scholar Samuel, formerly Grandmaster Sagerius,” Romulus spoke clearly to the audience. “For years you have kept a dark secret from the scholars of the Institute. Please speak it now.”
Sagerius looked confused. There was something wrong with him. He stared off into space, seemingly unaware of the crowd gathered below him. “What’s wrong with him?” whispered Flora.
“He appears to have been drugged,” answered Mendel.
“Verem root maybe,” agreed Bunsen. “It makes you tell the truth...mostly.”
“Tell us the secret,” repeated Romulus slowly.
“Secret,” Sagerius muttered. “So many secrets. Which to choose? Secret of love, secret of health? Mmmm, secret sauce. That’s a good one.”
“Tell us about the Dragonfly project,” commanded Romulus.
“Ah yes, that’s a good one,” agreed Sagerius. “It was the answer to it all. A work of genius.”
“Please be specific,” said Romulus. “Tell us what it did.”
“Dragonfly was the pinnacle of all our work, the culmination of centuries of research.” Sagerius stared off into space, seemingly unaware of the throng below hanging on his every word. “A brilliant young scholar, can’t remember his name, but brilliant... Yes, he finished the design.”
“It was a plant of some kind,” prompted Romulus, a little flustered by Sagerius’ incoherence.
“Oh, more than that,” said Sagerius. “It was the solution.” Sagerius’ eyes grew large as he motioned with his hands. “A single Dragonfly was almost too small to see, and yet it could change the world. Yes, it could save the world.” Murmuring broke out in the crowd, but they were quickly silenced by a single gesture from Romulus.
“You see, it was airborne, light enough to drift in the skies like dust, forming thin clouds up high in the atmosphere. It captured energy from the sun and breathed in carbon dioxide, using it to replicate at enormous speeds, splitting off copies of itself, one after the other. It was designed to cool the earth by absorbing energy from the sun, and at the same time, it removed greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Yes, truly brilliant.”
“But that was the easy part.” Sagerius now looked like he was lecturing to a small classroom. “The real trick was self-regulation. The Dragonfly was extremely sensitive to the average atmospheric temperature. You see, when temperatures were warm, a crop of Dragonflies would replicate wildly and quickly to cover the skies. When the temperature cooled, the Dragonflies would go into hibernation. When it got cold enough, they would begin to die off at different intervals. Some would be gone in a few weeks while others would last decades. As individual Dragonflies died, they would release their carbon back into the atmosphere. Temperatures would rise again causing the Dragonflies to continue replicating. The Dragonflies created a self-balancing ecosystem that would maintain the atmospheric temperature at the ideal level.”
“It sounds perfect,” Romulus said. “What did you do with the Dragonfly?”
“The Dragonfly was ready,” Sagerius said. “So we released it over the Barren Lands.” The crowd started to murmur once again. Flora felt confused. Why hadn’t Sagerius told her this before?
“And how long ago did you release the Dragonfly?” Romulus asked.
Sagerius stroked his beard. “Let’s see.” He started counting on his fingers. “Twenty,” he finally said. “Yes, it’s been about twenty years.” The Glasshouse exploded with questions, but Flora heard none of them. Her world was filled with silence. They had already found the solution. In fact they had already applied the solution, and all before she was even born. But then why was the Institute still here?
Romulus raised his arms once again for silence and the crowd settled down. “Twenty years,” he repeated. “The Dragonfly was released over the Barren Lands twenty years ago, and yet nothing has changed. What went wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Sagerius replied.
“Did the Dragonflies not survive? Were they designed incorrectly?” Romulus asked.
“No, they’re doing quite well actually,” Sagerius said. “They have altered the makeup of the atmosphere as expected.”
“But the Barren Lands remain barren,” Romulus said. “The climate remains the same. Nothing has changed. How do you explain that?”
“I can’t,” Sagerius replied. “The Barren Lands appear to have been unchanged. Some scholars journeyed into the Barren Lands. They found absolutely nothing. One scholar attempted to cross the Barren Lands. He never returned.”
“So what have you been doing for the past twenty years? What have we been working towards these past two decades?” Romulus heavily emphasized the last two words. The color of his face began to match his robes.
“We have been looking for clues to the Port,” Sagerius replied. “One of the ancient texts states that the key should be brought to the Port.”
“One book,” interjected Romulus. “One book mentions the Port. But you have no idea where it is.”
“No,” Sagerius replied.
“And you have no idea what the Port will do, why the key should be brought there.”
“It will help resurrect the Barren Lands.”
“How is that possible?”
“I don’t know.”
“No, you don’t know.” Romulus concluded. “You know nothing and have led the Institute nowhere. This farce has gone on long enough. The resurrection of the world, the Portkey and the Port...they all sound like myths, some fantasy written by a novelist long ago. And we have turned it into the guiding principle of our Institute. It is time to come to grips with the fact that we will never rediscover a larger world outside of this valley because there never was one. This was all some cruel fantasy, and today it ends.” Romulus motioned for his guards to pull Sagerius off the stage. “Now is the time to put these wasted efforts behind us. Now is the time to stop directing our efforts and dreams towards a world that never existed and instead turn our attentions towards one that does.” The ring of crimson guards began cheering. “Now is the time for the Institute to return to the valley of Terren
e and to take its rightful place as its head.”
************
For the next few days Flora received no deliveries of pen and paper. She heard no news from Devindry. Kava, Aster, and Bunsen had no information either. The Underground had truly gone silent. But Romulus was anything but silent. He had done more in the last two months since his ascension to power than just retouch his wardrobe. Many of the scholars from the other departments besides History were being absorbed into Romulus’ department. The guards had been recruiting heavily and had expanded to twice their original size. And then there were the weapons, not just arrows, but spears and swords as well. Romulus was preparing to take over Terrene, and clearly force was an option.
Flora didn’t know what to do. She knew Romulus was wrong. There was another world out there. Jane’s world was real, but she had no idea what to do about it. If Sagerius had been telling the truth, then he had no idea what to do about it either. Flora felt helpless as a whirlwind of change swirled around her.
Then one day, the guards came for her. When she saw them at her door, she assumed that the Underground had fallen apart and that someone had given Romulus her name. She thought about putting up a fight. As the first guard moved to grab her, she would duck under his arm and kick the other guard in the groin. While he was bent over in pain, she would grab him and throw him into the first guard, giving her time to escape. She would run to the stables and grab a horse, Blizzard. Then...
“Good morning,” the first guard said, smiling warmly. “Grandmaster Romulus would like to invite you to his office. He sent us to see if you’re free.”
“Oh, okay,” Flora said, surprised. “Sure, I guess.”
On the way to his office, Flora contemplated why Romulus would want to see her. She didn’t even think he knew who she was, and she was hoping to keep it that way. Hopefully Devindry hadn’t betrayed her. The guards knocked on Romulus’ door for her. “Come in,” she heard through the door. The guards stayed outside as Flora opened the door and walked into Romulus’ office.
Romulus’ office was nothing like she had expected. Flora had imagined that his office would be lavish and grand, with images of horses everywhere to match his new robe. But instead his office looked like...an office. The walls were bare and undecorated except for the light vines that snaked along the ceiling. There were no chairs in the room; however, three large tabletops stood against the walls. They were covered with piles of papers. On one of them, a giant map of Terrene was spread out, held down by some forbidden books. It was good to see that they were still being used for something. Romulus was leaning over the map, carefully studying its features. He looked up when Flora walked in.