Chapter 19: Nightmares
The thunder crackled in the night. I looked out my window, where the long, jagged edges of lightning streaked from the sky into the mountains. The effect was breathtaking. Every year during the summer solstice, the city’s weather machine created a thunderstorm. Apparently it was necessary to prevent storms from building up during the year. By allowing the excess energy to be expelled during the summer, it made for more manageable weather for the rest of the year. By most residents’ request, rain happened at night while days were mostly sunny. No one wanted one of their events cancelled due to poor weather. I found that while most people hunkered down during this night, I watched in awe since I had a front seat to nature’s majesty.
There was another reason I enjoyed this night every year. The lightning, coupled with rain and wind, made it hazardous for the drones. As I looked outside, there were no flying red eyes anywhere in the sky. The air smelled fresh and clean. Just to prove me wrong, I heard metal clanging on the sideway as an older drone rolled down the sidewalk, oblivious to the rain. Although it was expressionless, its slow movements made it looked like a creature that was miserable in its task. As I looked down, it stopped and gazed up at me, its red eye searching the dark. Instead of stepping back out of sight, I stared back. With its ultraviolet scanners, I’m sure it could see me. Seconds later, it must have become disinterested because it was first to look away and continued to trudge down the street.
On this night, it was nearly impossible to sleep. I needed to talk to Austin but realized that with the security he was under (and still probably myself), it was hard to talk freely. My conversation with Lord Morall had changed my outlook towards the drones. I was realizing that drones weren’t evil or good; they were simply the tools of whoever was using them. Yet my dream to escape remained unchanged. Since I was unable to go to sleep, I pulled out my tablet and looked at the map of the city.
It was large — many millions of people in a huge sprawl of five thousand square miles. It had beauty and it had squalor, and even at my young age I had seen a lot of it. Yet when I looked at the sky each night, I knew there had to be more. Considering the flaws in our society, I wanted to find out if other cities were as security-conscious as ours. Could I simply just go into the countryside and actually be alone, without something trailing me and recording my movements? I looked up other places across the world, the pyramids in Egypt, the jungle in the Amazon, the museums in Paris. There was so much to see. Surely I could get the necessary visas to travel to these places.
I remembered a story my grandmother had told me about their honeymoon in Niagara Falls. The sound of the water was deafening, she said, drowning out all other noise, as millions of gallons flowed over the falls. Now she would barely leave her own backyard, yet she’d had the opportunity. That’s all I wanted. The opportunity to visit these countries on my own. To realize that there was more to life than the corners of this city.
“Pene?” A voice made me drop the tablet, which tumbled to the floor. I whirled around to see Dad’s scared face. “It’s just me, sweetheart. I know how you don’t sleep during these annual thunderstorms. I was checking to see how you were doing.” He walked into the room.
“Knock first, Dad. You scared me.” I lay on the bed while my eyes were still focused on the sky. One star seemed to glow brighter than the rest.
“Here’s your tablet.” My dad handed it back to me. “Still can’t wait to explore the world? Is life here with me so bad?” His expression was pained, as if my need to travel was a slight against him.
“No, Dad. But I want more. There is more to life than this city.” I thought about my childhood. “Do you remember my scrapbooking project when I was eight?” He nodded and sat beside me on the bed.
“Like it was yesterday. I think it was called ‘Around the World in Eighty Days.’”
“You’re right. Together we had to pick out twenty places around the world that we wanted to visit and why. And you know which place I wanted to visit the most?”
“Any place but here?”
“Dad!”
“Joking. You picked the Grand Canyon because it was one nature’s greatest wonders. And because your mother loved it as a girl.”
“Whenever I saw pictures, it reminded me of the moon with its huge caverns and rock cliffs. But I especially wanted to go because Mom loved it.”
We were silent but I knew we were thinking of the exact same thing. Of her. “Do you still miss her?” I asked, expecting him to clam up or try to escape out of the bedroom. Thunder rolled, and just when I thought he wasn’t going to answer, he spoke.
“Time heals all wounds. Whoever coined that phrase didn’t know anything about love. How about time is a wound that festers every day, bleeding but never healing.” He turned to look at me. “Every day I see you I think of her, and I think of every memory we didn’t get to share together, every memory that you lost out on.”
“Am I more like her than you?”
“More than you can know. While I was happy with what we had, where we went, who we saw, she always wanted to do more. She was inquisitive and strong, two traits that you share.”
“Why did she die? Was there something you could have done?” His eyes became moist, and I knew that I was pushing him. Yet I wanted to know.
“Your mother was researcher and a lobbyist. She wanted more for this city. But those that she aligned with, their methods were questionable.”
“But I thought she worked for the city. Weren’t the terrorists responsible for the earthquake?”
“Officially, yes, once the power plant overloaded and the city went dark. But some felt the city should have had a disaster recovery plan, that the corruption prevented the city from spending on backup generators. It’s pointless to blame now. Despite what the history books said, both sides were responsible for what happened. Your mom was an innocent bystander. Thousands died that day, and hundreds of bodies were never found, including your mom’s.”
“Did you ever think she was still alive?”
“For days the emergency crews searched the rubble. In some cases, people were trapped and still alive. There were dozens of people saved, and most of us held out hope that our loved ones could be alive. But after a week the miracles stopped and body after body was removed from the debris. No more survivors, no more hope. There was mass burial ceremony near the center of town where all the victims were commemorated.” I thought of the statue downtown. “The names of the victims were stenciled in the surrounding wall to always be remembered. Like we ever forget.”
“Did they ever find her body?”
“No. Over the years a number of bodies have emerged, as well as some unidentifiable remains, but not your mom. But the earthquake was massive. The ground opened up and swallowed buildings whole. It felt like the ground rose into the air, and for the longest time the sky went completely black with soot. Most of us thought that all of our lives were over.”
“Can it ever happen again?” I asked.
“Not if we learn from our mistakes. Think why the schools have the multiple re-enactments each year to drive home the lessons we have to learn. The school finals will explain even more. During that, you’ll learn beyond why it happened, but more on the horrible aftermath. Your generation can’t make the same mistakes that mine has.”
Lightning flashed and my dad’s face lit up. For the first time that I could remember, he looked old. The weight of Mom’s death, the stress of work, my demands on him, they had aged him. It’s easy to get caught up in your own life’s issues and feel the world weighing down on you. Dad’s face was the result of a battle fought over many years. It scared me.
“Dad? What will you do when I graduate and move away? Will you come visit me?” I smiled up at him but he didn’t return my warmth.
“Well, you know how much red tape that takes. I’m happy to stay here. When you get through all the regulations to travel, you be sure to bring lots of gifts back for your old dad.”
I smiled, wondering what I would bring back for him.
“Why is it so much tougher to travel now than before the earthquake?”
Dad slid of the bed and walked over to the open window. “Many of the terrorists came from outside of the city, Pene. Most city officials thought we should be more careful about who leaves and enters the city limits. With the change in regulations, everything we do now keeps us safe.”
“Safe? Try suffocating. I’m afraid something is watching me when I take a shower.”
“You’re being silly.” Dad frowned. “I know you have concerns about our justice system but there is no doubt we live in safer place. The drones have saved untold lives.”
“But are we living?” I exclaimed, feeling my blood rise. “How do we not know that every moment is being recorded? The satellites above could be tracking our every movement, deciding if we’re good or bad.”
“The drones and cameras don’t work that way. They just patrol public areas. Nothing private like our home.” I felt like telling him about Austin’s computer hacking, the lights on the screen. I couldn’t share that with Dad. Instead I looked outside into the drone less sky.
“Dad, imagine a place where you could walk down a street and you didn’t have a flying bird track your every step. A city that didn’t have cameras spying on your every move.”
“Pene,” Dad grabbed my shoulder, “I don’t have to imagine. The world used to be like that. People got hurt, criminals got away and no one was there to help. Is the loss of privacy so high a price to pay for your safety?”
I realized this was a debate I would never win. No adult who had already experienced the world would ever deny that the city was a better place now. I couldn’t agree. Lou’s aged face showed me that we were puppets for others to watch and control. How safe was a place that could determine your guilt when you had never committed a crime?
“Do you think Mom would have survived if she lived today under the safety of the drones?”
Dad frowned at my question.
“Your mom’s death was an accident, probably not preventable even with today’s safeguards. Now try to go to sleep.” He kissed me on the forehead and walked out the door. “Big day tomorrow with the finals.” And then he was gone.
I barely knew my mom, but somehow I knew she would want me to pursue my dreams. I had to talk to Austin, tell him about the drones and work out some other way to escape the city. The lightning had stopped and the rain had come crashing down, washing away into the sewer drains flowing under the street. The same old drone trudged by, this time going in the opposite direction. Despite the rain and darkness, I knew it was always watching.
It stopped and turned in my direction. I gave it the finger. Let it analyze that.