State of Nature: Book Three of The Park Service Trilogy (36 page)

“Now,” Jillian says. “Here’s how this works. The girls get to choose first. As I call your name, ladies, step forward and give a ribbon to your first choice partner. Red for red, blue for blue. Boys, if she gives you a ribbon and you accept her as your mate, take her hand and leave the line. If not, keep the ribbon, and the girl will move on to her second choice, and so on. When a girl is out of ribbons, and if no boy has accepted, she returns to her line alone. The boys who end up without mates will pick from them later, going in order of who has the most ribbons. We’ll do this until everyone is paired. Here we go”—she pauses to look at her clipboard—“the first to choose, based on her tests scores, of course, is Laylani.”

Laylani steps forward with her three red ribbons, walks straight to me, and hands me one. I look at the ribbon in my hand and then at her. I shake my head. She frowns and moves down the line to another young man. He smiles, takes her hand, and they leave the line together. Then Jillian calls another girl, this one with a blue ribbon, and she brings it to a young man she had been making mutual eyes with all morning. He immediately accepts, and they too leave hand in hand. This goes on for some time. Every girl called out with red ribbons offers her first one to me. It quickly becomes obvious that they all think of me as some kind of hero, just like Jillian had said. But I turn each of them down with a silent shake of my head.

Even though Jimmy can be asked by any girl, red or blue, not one offers him a ribbon. Instead they stop to look him over and then turn away at the sight of his burns and move on down the line. By the time we’re half finished, Jimmy’s head is bowed, and he’s looking at the ground.

Jillian keeps calling names, I keep turning down mates, and then only two red girls remain across from Jimmy and me. I look at my fistful of red ribbons. Then I look at Jimmy and he has none. The sad look of rejection on his face breaks my heart.

“Okay, Aubrey,” Jillian says, an edge of frustration in her voice. “We need you to be a team player here. It’s your turn to pick from the two remaining girls.” Both girls perk up when she says this, then frown when she adds, “Jimmy will pair with the other by default. So, Aubrey, who do you choose?”

I look at the two remaining girls, both fine-looking with ordinary features and hopeful, expectant expressions etched on their young faces. The sun has risen above the temple, and they both squint into it, their virgin Holocene II skin shining pale in its golden glow. Jillian stands tapping her foot impatiently and looking down at her clipboard as if she were reading something extremely important there. She strips her glasses off and looks up when she hears the crowd murmuring loudly. Her mouth is half opened to say something to me, but when she sees that my ribbons lay on the ground and that I’m holding Jimmy’s hand, she closes it so suddenly, I hear her teeth clack together. Then she looks around, as if someone might appear who can tell her what to do. Bill steps forward and claps his hands together.

“Well, folks,” he announces, “looks like this matchmaking ceremony is over. That means back to work for everyone.”

Jimmy and I stand hand in hand as the crowd grumbles and slowly descends from the temple steps. As soon as Bill has us alone in our tent, he motions for us to sit on the bed. Then he ties the door shut, pulls a chair over, and sits in front of us. He runs his hands through his hair and sighs.

“Is there something I need to know?” he asks.

Jimmy just looks at me, so I speak up first.

“As far as I’m concerned, you don’t have a right to know anything unless we want to tell you. The last time I checked, we don’t work for you or for Jillian. And if my mother were here, I have a feeling you’d both be working for us.”

“Listen,” he says, holding his hands up as if surrendering, “you don’t have to tell me that Jillian can be a bit overbearing. But she has good intentions.”

“Yeah, so did Radcliffe.”

“Hey,” he says, “that’s not fair.”

“Maybe not. But I don’t trust her, Bill.”

“Do you trust me?” he asks.

“Yes, I trust you.”

“How about you, Jimmy?” he asks. “Do you trust me?”

“You ain’t never given me no reason not to,” Jimmy says.

“Good. Then the two of you need to tell me right now what’s going on.”

“What’s going on with what?”

“You know,” he says.

“No, I really don’t,” I say, getting frustrated.

“With the serum. You both have it inside you, don’t you?”

Jimmy and I look at one another. Then I turn back to Bill and nod. He gets up from his chair and paces the room.

“This will never do,” he mumbles. “Never, never, never. She’ll have them down in Holocene II being tested straight away.” Then he stops and turns to us. “Is it just you two?”

“Yes,” I say. “Hannah was the only other, and she’s dead.”

He sits back down in his chair and looks at both of us with a worried expression.

“Here’s the thing, fellas,” he finally says. “The rumors are already circulating about the serum. If you two stick around, you won’t age, and they’ll think for sure we still have it. That means rebellion and chaos just when we’re trying to settle things down. Even if they do believe that the last of it was destroyed along with the Foundation, they’ll have you taken below for testing in the labs.”

“You mean Jillian will have us taken for testing,” I say.

He nods. “She has good intentions, I told you, but she also has ambitions.”

“So what do we do?” Jimmy asks.

“I don’t know,” Bill says, “I don’t know.”

Jimmy looks away; Bill looks down at his feet. I look over and see my mother’s reading slate beside the bed. I have an idea. I reach and pick it up.

“I’ll tell you what we’ll do, Bill. We’ll make you a deal.”

“I’m up for anything. You know I’m on your side here.”

“Good,” I say, “because it sounds to me like you could use a little leverage with Jillian. And I’ve got just the thing that will do it right here in this slate.”

“What is it?” he asks.

“Everyone called my mother Chief, right? Even Jillian?”

Bill nods. “She was like a mother to us.”

“Well, she wrote a plan for a new society on the surface. It’s called
State of Nature
, and it’s in here.”

“What does it say?” he asks, reaching for it.

I pull it away. “I don’t know. I haven’t read it.”

“Why not?” he asks.

“It doesn’t matter why I haven’t.”

“Okay, but what’s the deal then?”

“I want the valley.”

“What valley?”

“The one you found me in,” I say. “I want the valley and thirty kilometers in every direction set aside for Jimmy and me to live in forever.”

“That shouldn’t be hard,” he says. “It’s a big continent, and there aren’t very many of us out here. Plus, Jillian’s worried about you having too much power because of your fame, so I’m sure she’d be okay with you leaving.”

“That all good,” I say, “but you have to do something more permanent.”

“Permanent how?” he asks.

“Your promise isn’t good enough.”

“Why not? You said you trusted me.”

“And I do. But you have to understand that ... that you’ll die, and Jillian will die, and we’ll still be alive for nine hundred, maybe a thousand years. That’s a lot of generations gone by. So you need to set us up some kind of constitution or something. Create us a nature preserve in the valley, a reservation that no one can enter. No drones and no people allowed. Ever.”

“I think I can manage that,” he says. “Although I’m not quite sure how to explain it to Jillian without her knowing.”

“Just tell her that we want to live there and die there and know that our bodies will never be disturbed. She’s got the rest of the world; she shouldn’t care.”

“When would you want to leave?” he asks.

I turn to Jimmy and notice that he’s smiling, a real genuine smile, maybe for the first time since he was burned.

“Jimmy, is this all okay with you?” I ask.

He nods that it is and says, “This is all I ever wanted.”

“Then when should we leave?”

“I dunno,” he says. “Why can’t we leave right now?”

I turn back to Bill. “We’ll leave as soon as you can round us up supplies. We’ll need rations and tools to get us started.”

“What kind of tools?” he asks.

“Hatchets and saws. Maybe some hammers and a shovel or two. Anything metal that we can’t make on our own.”

“That’s no problem,” he says. “Jillian’s already got that stuff cranking out of the sintering plants on Level 4 for use up here. Most of it she designed herself.”

“Great,” I say, holding out my hand. “We have a deal.”

“When do I get the slate?” he asks, hesitating.

“As soon as you drop us off in the valley.”

He shakes my hand. Then he shakes Jimmy’s too.

“I’ll miss you both,” he says. “But I think this is the right thing for you. I really do.”

When he stands to leave, I say, “There’s one other thing.”

He stops at the tent flap and looks back.

“Sure,” he says, “you name it.”

“I want a supply of tobacco from Level 5.”

It takes Bill longer than he thought it would.

But by the morning of the fifth day after making our agreement, we’re standing on the runway getting ready to board the drone that will take us away forever.

After inventorying the supplies, Bill and Jimmy climb into the drone. I hesitate and turn to look back. Everyone in the camp has gathered around the runway to see us off. Even Jillian is there, looking somewhat sad about us leaving. Despite the sentimental sendoff, it seems strange to me that these are my people, because I hardly recognize a face in the crowd at all. Maybe a few, but it feels as if I knew them in some other life.

Before I can even climb aboard the drone, someone begins clapping. Then another joins them, and soon the entire group is clapping, even Jillian. I feel my face blush. Then I tell myself that this honor is not for me, that this is for the real heroes—this is for my mother, and for my father, and for Jimmy. I stand up straight and accept the praise on their behalf. Then I take a final bow, board the drone, and buckle into my seat.

Before I can even collect my thoughts, the runway is run out beneath us, and the drone has lifted off. Bill circles once, and we wave goodbye to the crowd below and watch them and the temple pyramid shrink away into the jungle. It’s a fitting place to make a new beginning, I think, and I sure do wish them all the best with it too.

I turn to look at Jimmy. He smiles at me with a silent thank you in his eyes. I pat his knee and turn my attention to the horizon ahead and our new life together, far away from all this heartache and death we’ve been through.

When we reach the Pacific, Bill follows the coastline north; retracing the path that he and I took after he rescued me in the valley. I look out on all that blue water stretching west to the horizon. I think about our adventures in the submarine with the professor. It’s hard to believe how little I knew then, that I had no idea yet that my mother was alive, or that my genetic father was Dr. Radcliffe. And I had no clue how evil and deceptive Hannah and the professor would turn out to be. Even so, I can almost forgive them now that they’re gone.

Spring is quickly giving way to summer. I’ve never seen the world look as beautiful as it does now—puffs of billowy clouds, snowy mountains, green forests, and silver rivers pouring down. Bill takes us low, and we see stretches of golden beach littered with napping sea lions; then the beaches give way to wild cliffs with waves crashing against them. When towering redwoods appear ahead, I know we’re nearing the cove. I look over at Jimmy, but as we pass it by, he just leans forward and places his open hand against the viewing bubble glass. I can’t tell if he’s saying hello or goodbye.

An hour later we approach the valley. I don’t know what’s more beautiful to look at, the green valley cupped between the surrounding peaks with its winding river, bright wildflowers, and lush trees, or Jimmy’s growing smile as he practically falls out of his seat, leaning forward to drink in the view.

“It’s perfect,” he says.

“As good as you dreamed it?” I ask.

“Even better than that.”

“Bill, would you mind taking us around once so we can get the lay of the land before touching down?”

Bill nods and flies the drone over the valley. It must be a full five kilometers wide and another twenty long with high, snowcapped mountains rising up on the southeast and feeding the river that runs through it. Lower peaks of alpine forests border the other edges. I can’t imagine a better place to hide away from the rest of the world and live in peace.

“You sure about this?” Bill asks, looking at the wilderness.

“I’ve never been so sure about anything,” I reply. “You can go ahead and set us down.”

After circling back, Bill glides in low and follows the river northwest until we come to the stretch of relatively level bank where he landed before. He touches down. We buck and bounce, slow, and then skid to a halt. The door is hardly open and I’m out. As soon as my foot touches the soil, I know I’ll never ride in another drone again. And that’s fine with me.

Jimmy steps out and looks around. I can see him already calculating where he’ll hunt and fish and build our shelter.

Bill joins us. He looks around and sighs. Then he nods, seeming to accept that this is where we’ll be saying goodbye.

“Well,” he says, “I guess we should unload the supplies. Where do you want them?”

“Jimmy, where should we make our camp?” I ask.

He points to the hill with the oak tree. “That’s where we build.” Then he quickly adds, “I mean, only if you agree.”

“I was hoping you’d pick that spot,” I say.

After unloading and double checking everything, we stand at the drone, not quite knowing how to say goodbye. I hand my mother’s reading slate to Bill. He takes it and nods.

“You sure you don’t want to know what she wrote?”

“I’m sure,” I say. “Just promise me you’ll do your best to do the right thing by her. And by me.”