Columbia Rising

I feel the alcohol, cool and wet on my upper arm, followed by a bit of pressure and then, the Pinch. Warmth flushes my body. My heart beats harder for a moment, and then slows. The injection nozzle rotates up and a Monitor nods his faceless head.

Lines of my fellow podmates silently step forward, and, one by one, set an arm in an available cradle.

Every morning our day begins with the Pinch: an injection of the pharma, Octon. I have known the Pinch since I was twelve years old.

Through the overhead speakers, children who are long dead sing about being another brick in the wall. As I continue down the corridor, an old man screams that the children can’t have any meat if they don’t eat their pudding.

Inside the Nutrition Station, where neither meat nor pudding is served, I grab a recyclable cup filled with LPP, or liquid plant protein. Cool, light green and tasteless, it fulfills all of my nutritional needs. Todd calls it ‘glop,’ because, he explains, refusal to use official names is a form of resistance. I don’t know what he’s resisting.

I drink as I walk and drop the empty cup into the recycling bin. The morning virt is about to begin. I swipe my right wrist under the scanner and my presence is recorded.

Inside the auditorium, I find my assigned seat. A VirtGlass hangs on a hook in front of me. My podmates, all dressed in identical disposable gray hemp fabric pants, pullover and slippers, silently fill the seats. I glance across the aisle, where all the boys sit. Todd’s eyes meet mine. A Monitor walks up the center aisle. I snap my head forward and stare over the sea of shaved heads.

The lights blink on and off. The show is about to begin. I slip the VirtGlass over my eyes and nudge the buds into my ears.

A guitar plays melodically for a long time before drums begin to thunder. Guitar chords ring out. Whoever created this song is long dead.

Virts appear in front of my eyes: a man in a suit hangs from a sign that reads ‘Wall St. 22-51’ . . . an iceberg crumbles . . . dust whips over a field of dead plants . . . bloated bodies float through a canyon of tall buildings . . . a crowd of men wearing black ties pump their fists upward as an angry speaker pounds a podium . . . a sign reads NO CLEAN WATER TODAY . . . people encased in envirosuits toss bodies onto an enormous roaring fire . . . rotting whale carcasses line a beach . . . a firing squad shoots a pretty woman with a crown on her head . . . three funnels wind their way through a town, blowing buildings apart . . . filthy-faced children wear T-shirts marked with a red cross and pose with machine guns . . . A sign reads LEVEL ONE IMMUNITY ONLY PAST THIS POINT . . . rows of helmeted men march forward behind metal shields . . . a terribly thin, naked man holds a paper that reads WILL KILL FOR FOOD. SERIOUSLY . . . bodies impaled on stakes line a road.

The song singer screams about sleeping with one eye open and a place called ‘never-never land’ as the virt continues, until a tall, white pointed column, facing a pond surrounded by trees with pink blossoms, collapses as the base explodes.

The first virt ends. Soft, pretty music begins. New images appear: a blue, cloudless sky . . . yellow grain waving in the wind . . . a mountain range . . . an orchard of trees laden with apples. The Voice—deep and calm—speaks. “The Bedlam continues. The threat level remains high. You are safe. Consider yourself Chosen. The Protectorate needs you. No task is without purpose. Be productive. Do your part to speed the arrival of the New Dawn.”

The music swells and the Woman in the Flowing Robe, a determined look on her face, and long, black hair fluttering in the wind, appears. She stands on a pile of rocks in the midst of a raging sea. Children huddle around her legs. The background of this virt is bright yellow. I don’t know who this woman is or whether she is also long dead.

Every morning, after the Pinch and the glop, we watch the same virts. The images and music never change because we must never forget how horrible the Bedlam is.

I remove the VirtGlass and place it on the hook. We rise as one and wordlessly file out. Those assigned to reclamation duty, like me, stream down the concrete passage that leads to the loading zone.

Compared to my previous assignments, Camp Recovery and Camp Ultimate Victory, this camp, Distant Horizon, is the largest and best organized. I am one of a thousand podmates who labor fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, in service to the Protectorate.

Todd catches up to me. “I love you, Esme.” He has a friendly face, like Theodore Beaver Cleaver.

No one in CDH loves anyone, at least not in the way Ozzie Nelson loved Harriet in the Good Old Days, for as I was told when I was much younger, love is an emotion and emotion hampers productivity, as do anger, hate and frustration. The Pinch keeps our emotions under control, so that we will be as productive as possible and speed the arrival of the New Dawn. Nonetheless, Todd declares his love for me at every opportunity.

I have never declared my love for anyone.

At the end of the tunnel, I scan my wrist, while messages flash on the screens.

YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN.

BE PRODUCTIVE.

YOU KNOW ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW.

“Let’s hope for a great productivity score today,” Todd says. He and I are assigned to Unit 11, though he refers to us as ‘Bone Gatherers.’

Outside, transports purr. Todd whispers, “You know Elijah Nine?”

“No.”

“Brown guy, broad shoulders?” More of my podmates have brown or yellow skin than white, like Todd and me.

“No. Why?”

“Someone said he jacked the InfoMass.”

Todd always has rumors. None of them are true.

“What did Elijah learn?”

“It will be passed.”

Todd talks while waiting for the transport or walking back after our shift ends, except when Monitors are close. Monitors listen, you see.

The transport doors open and we climb aboard. Deciding where to sit is the only decision we make.

Our Monitor arrives, sheathed in a sleek silver protective suit, his face hidden behind a black helmet faceplate. The lasher, an electronic whip that can slice a body in half, dangles from his belt. I’ve never seen the whip itself, only the long silver handle that holds it.

The transport starts to move. The main gate opens and we pass through the high wall and into the Wasteland, where a long row of propellers that will generate energy when the wind blows sits motionless, waiting for some signal. I helped reclaim that land. I am productive.

Silence cloaks the interior. My mind wanders.

Todd is wrong. The InfoMass is the source of all stored knowledge. No podmate can access it.

YOU KNOW ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW.

How do I know anything? As a child, before I was assigned to the camps, I watched vids and listened to music with hundreds of other children in the Knowledge Center. Virts seem real, while vids seem distant and appear on message screens rather than the glass in front of my eyes.

Some vids were short, like the ones about the Nelson, Anderson and Cleaver families, and others, like the one about George Bailey, who lived in Bedford Falls, were longer. Vids taught me about what people wore, ate and did all day during the Good Old Days. During that time, families with white skin lived in houses and were happy and in love, just as all of us, including people with brown, black and yellow skin, will be after the arrival of the New Dawn.

We only watch the morning virts now, although sometimes we gather and listen to someone from Central Control explain a new process, procedure or the True History of some event as soon as it is written. Other than that, no communication comes in or goes out because no digital devices exist within CDH. Neither do pens, pencils, paper or books.

Rumors are passed from one podmate to another by speaking. If Elijah Nine jacked the InfoMass, what he learned might eventually reach my ears, though what he learned won’t change my life in the slightest.

We arrive at our work site. Thousands of such sites exist and all must be reclaimed.

Sunlight slices through the blanket of heavy clouds. That’s good; sunlight is necessary for the solar panels. Because of the effects of global warming—or what Todd calls the ‘climate shit’—the sun never shines all day, or every day, for that matter. Sometimes a windstorm sweeps through. Sometimes the sky is red, green or gray. More often, rain falls.

True History informs us that the climate shit was the result of capitalist greed and the failure of those responsible for making intelligent decisions to act for the greater good.

Every so often, I see a circular airship slip effortlessly through the clouds. Todd has no idea what this airship does, though he’s sure it’s something invented by the Protectorate’s Tech Division.

Small yellow flags mark plots on the blackened earth. The recycling machines are already in place, along with the massive metal shredders. Monitors surround the transports.

Inside the long, portable changing station, I pull on my envirosuit, boots and gloves before I lower the hood with the clear visor over my head. Fresh cool air swirls inside the suit when I power up the circulation system. A second switch activates the sound unit.

The Voice speaks through the hood speaker. “You have been Chosen. Every task is important. Be productive.” The same message will be repeated during the day, except when a Monitor interrupts to give an order.

I notice Todd hasn’t switched on his vocal unit. I do. He gives me a thumbs-up, a signal from the Good Old Days.

“Proceed to the assignment area,” the Monitor says in my ear, with a voice not at all calm and soothing.

Outside, I grab a shovel and three reclamation bags; one for plastics and paper, one for metal and one for bones. Bones are valuable because they contain calcium, a metal with a higher conductivity quotient than aluminum or copper. Calcium is important for the energy storage systems and to power nano-engines, like the one that moves the transports. We learn many interesting facts about what we reclaim.

Todd and I each grab a shovel.

“Plot eleven,” the Monitor says.

We find the plot, and I turn the earth until my shovel turns over a skull. I grab it and toss it into the bag. This skull has no body attached and is worth fewer productivity points. A cluster of plastic bottles lies two inches deeper. I collect these too.

When my bags are full, I lug them to the proper disposal units, scan my wrist and plod back. Todd has uncovered two complete skeletons. Only small bits of cloth stick to the scorched bones.

How long did these people lie here to rot in the acid rain, their bones cleansed by insects and scavengers? Do they have a family that missed them? My family doesn’t miss me, because my mother and father died during the PB6 pandemic like millions of other mothers and fathers.

My father was handsome and smoked a pipe. My mother was beautiful and had a wide, toothy smile. I was shown a photograph of both at the Knowledge Center.

In six hours, we make fifteen trips to the recycling unit. The Monitor’s voice announces, “Nutrition break. Proceed to the changing station.”

Inside, we pull off our helmets and gloves and hold our hands under the ultraviolet light bank before we drink our glop in silence.

When we return to work, Todd and I are directed to a brown truck with shattered windows submerged in the earth. The words SONS OF LIBERTY sit beneath a coiled snake on the truck’s door. True History tells us that the Sons of Liberty attempted to overthrow the duly elected true democratic republic and were defeated by brave Colonel Reginald Richmond when he was Defender of the Homeland.

The Homeland is gone. Luckily, the Protectorate exists.

The Monitor explains what is to be done. I toss shovel after shovel of dirt over my shoulder until ordered to step back.

A large crane unit rumbles into place. An arm descends and a magnet lifts the vehicle from the ground. The rubber, metal, glass and plastic will be recycled.

The sun disappears behind dark clouds. A Monitor sends us to another plot. Much paper here, soggy and rotted.

Beneath one rotting book is a tablet in a waterproof case. I pick show it to Todd. His eyes grow wide. I think he wants to hide it. He should know better.

I carry the tablet to a Monitor. My wrist is scanned.

It’s raining now, a feathery drizzle. Todd and I finish two more plots. We find military rifles called M-80′s, which we cannot touch. A Monitor marks them for a special disposal unit to handle. Later, we uncover a shallow depression filled with hundreds of small bones and skulls. A mass grave for children. Many such graves exist. Because of the Protectorate, I did not end up as a skeleton.

I am beholden.

As I work, I think about the tablet. It had been sitting in the ground for a long time, yet it was encased in plastic. Maybe it can connect to the InfoMass; then again, maybe not.

The tablet is a digital device and Edict One forbids possession of such a thing. Even if the tablet could be slipped past the scanning units, who knows how to use it?

Does Elijah Nine?

Toward the end of the workday, we are transported to a plot, located beneath a glass roof supported by metal uprights. Saplings, one hundred in all, are arranged in ten rows and sit next to one hundred holes.

The earth here has light brown swirls in the black, churned earth. Our job is to remove the hemp rag from the root ball, place the tree into the hole and fill the hole with the special earth that sits in the bins placed between the rows.

Creating a new forest is very important because trees breathe in carbon dioxide and release oxygen. Oxygen is essential to repair the damaged ecosystem. Many thousands of trees must be planted to speed the arrival of the New Dawn.

Nothing grows in the Wasteland because heavy metal bombs and acid rain poisoned the earth. After we reclaim the land, the Ag Division treats the soil to remove the poisons and enrich the earth. Our teams have already planted three new forests of Genmod trees. Maybe one day I will be sent to the Amazon Rain Forest, which has been burning for more than ten years, to plant trees there.

The new trees will not be harvested to make paper. They need to grow tall and strong. The old paper we reclaim is turned into organic mulch.

I don’t plant trees every day, though I enjoy it more than gathering bones.

When our shift ends, we enter the changing station and stand at attention. The Voice speaks to me. “You have earned ninety-two productivity points today. Your work is important, Esme 6321.” As we peel off our envirosuits, I tell Todd my score.

“Fifty-one for me. Turning in the tablet did it for you,” he whispers. “We should have kept it.”

I nod toward the Monitor. Todd falls silent.

Back at CDH, I drink my glop. Todd waits for me and we walk down the central corridor until it’s time to peel off in different directions. Boys go left, girls right. Monitors watch.

“I love you Esme, with my heart and soul.”

Ten pods, each five levels high, are connected to the circular central control unit by long corridors. Through the glass walls I watch my fellow productive workers stream toward their cubicles.

My location number is Pod Six, Level Three, and Cubicle Twenty-one. I walk down the wide, winding ramp to Level Three and make my way to my cubicle. I scan and the door slides open. Inside, the soft blue light that disinfects my skin and keeps our Vitamin D level acceptable bathes the room.

The door closes behind me with a soft rush. A bed sits on one side, my bathroom on the other. A stack of biodegradable hemp outfits sits on a single shelf, slippers in a neat row beneath. Set in the wall next to the bed is the message screen where announcements appear. It is also the Wordbook screen. I love the Wordbook; it contains all the words we need to know.

Above the message screen, the red time-counting numbers tick off days, hours, minutes and seconds. I don’t pay attention to the numbers. Time has no meaning for me.

In the bathroom, I strip off my clothes and drop them into the recycling chute. Naked, I study myself in the full-length mirror. I am taller than many of the other girls. My skin stretches tight over the ridges of my ribs. I have no idea how large my boobies should be.

Since our heads are shaved, I don’t know why the dark triangle between my legs is allowed to grow. Sometimes, I wonder how I would look with hair on my head. My eyes are silvery blue, unlike my mother’s, if I remember correctly.

My parents died before they could name me. I was five when I chose my name from a list on the message screen; ‘Esme’ sounded like ‘is me.’

The light on the Hand and Foot is red. I slide my fingers into the slots in front of me and stand on the steel platform. Yellow light flashes as my nails are trimmed and the hair removed from my legs. Cleanliness is very important, because of the pandemics.

I poop and pee in the toilet, stand, close the lid and press a button. The toilet takes my poop and pee to be turned into compost by the Ag Division. Nothing is wasted. Everything is useful.

Inside the shower, I have exactly one minute to wash my body. The water is cold at first, and then quickly warms. I cover my body and head with gel, rinse and step out. I couldn’t wash long hair in a minute anyway.

I dry my body and toss the towel down the chute. Next, I spread gel on my teeth, upper and lower. In twenty-seconds, the gel evaporates.

Because wearing clothes in bed is wasteful, I sleep naked. The sheets are scratchy clean. Outside, thunder rumbles. A moment later a storm begins. My cubicle has no windows. I can hear the rain, though, as it pounds the pod.

Turning in the tablet raised my productivity score. No one knows how many points are needed until you are assigned work inside the central pod, where no Wildings lurk. I would miss planting the trees, though.

Octon ushers me into a dreamless sleep and will wake me, ready for a new productive day. The blue light gradually dims and my eyelids flutter shut.