Текст книги "The Sun Dwellers"

Автор книги: David Estes

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

Chapter Sixteen

Tristan

I hate seeing the look on Adele’s face when she realizes we don’t have an escape plan, when and if we complete our mission. But it only lasts a second before being replaced by narrow eyes and tight lips and a proud incline to her chin. I have the urge to kiss her right here, but the others are watching and now’s not really the time.

She understands the situation, so I don’t say anything more. Instead, I start down the road that leads to the tunnels, seeing no one. The entire subchapter is at the parade, enjoying the festivities like the rest of the sun dwellers, while the other two-thirds of the Tri-Realms fight for their lives. It disgusts me, although this is one of my favorite Sun Realm cities. The people here are kinder, less radical, a slightly older crowd, more family-oriented—but they’re still spoiled, just like everyone else up here.

The road runs right up to the cavern wall, which rises hundreds of feet above us, all the way to the diamond-studded roof. Cut into the rock is a massive tunnel, arched at the top and rectangular at the bottom, wide enough for a hundred men to walk side by side, and tall enough for a dozen people or more to stand on each other’s shoulders, if they were into that sort of thing.

As we enter the gaping tunnel mouth, Adele cranes her neck, as if she wants to watch herself being swallowed whole by the earth. “Will we run into any sun dwellers in here?” she asks to the tunnel roof.

“If we do we can just blend in anyway,” Trevor says. “In these digs I fit right in.”

“It’s unlikely we’ll see anyone,” I say. “As Roc said earlier, most people will stay in their own city for the Sun Festival. It’s kind of a tradition, like people are proud of the celebration their subchapter comes up with. They’re always trying to outdo each other.”

Nodding, Roc motions to the wide expanse of the tunnel. “On any other day, the tunnel would be pretty much full from side to side, end to end. People in the Capital Cluster frequently travel to the Capital and back again, either for work, shopping, or entertainment,” he says.

“I’m glad it’s not any other day,” Adele says. “I’ve had about enough of large crowds for my entire life.”

“I don’t know,” Tawni says. “I kind of enjoyed it.”

“Me, too,” Trevor says. “Although I had the urge to smack most of ’em around.”

I laugh, my voice echoing through the empty tunnel. “I know the feeling.”

We walk in silence for a few minutes, the orange tunnel lights pulling our shadows forward, back, and then forward again. It’s a wonder this group ever runs out of things to say, especially with Trevor around.

“Where should we stop?” Roc says.

“Stop?” I echo.

“To tell your BIG secret,” Trevor says, over-exaggerating his words. “Or have you chickened out?”

Ugh. Yes. I might feel more comfortable if I had any clue how they would react. Especially Adele—her reaction worries me the most. It doesn’t help that I’ve kept it from her this long. I swallow a thick gulp of spittle, which only adds to my nervousness.

“Uh, yeah. I mean no. I mean I’m going to tell you. I have to.”

“Where?” Roc repeats, glancing to the side as we pass the doors to a rest stop meant for the oldies, who can’t make it the whole way through the tunnel without stopping to use the bathroom or rest their legs.

“Maybe at the next stop,” I say, trying to delay as long as possible.

“I think there’s only one left,” Roc says.

“That’ll do,” I say, my mind whirling through what I want to say, how I want to say it. It’s like all the information is there, but is broken into a million pieces, none of which I can make sense of, or which fit together. As I desperately try to connect the facts, they disappear, as if my memory’s been wiped. My palms start to sweat. My lips are dry. My mind’s a black hole, empty of logical thought. I’d rather face my father in a fight to the death a hundred times over than tell the truth I’ve hidden to those I know it will hurt the most.

“Last rest stop is just ahead,” Roc says, and my head jerks to the side, my eyes locking in on the doors I dread opening, the doors that might change my relationship with Adele forever. Where did the last few minutes go? It’s like I blinked and we were a quarter mile further along the track, some trick of time and distance. My face is hot and my chest tight, my breathing short and shallow. What is wrong with me? Step up and be a man. I’ve faced much graver dangers than this—dangers that threatened my life and the lives of those I care about—and yet I’m much more scared now.

“I’m ready,” I say, not to them, but to myself, trying to convince myself that I am.

We reach the doors and I stop, just stare at them. They’re the exact opposite of how I’m feeling: bright pink and blue striped with ornate carvings of a city—the Capital, the presidential buildings, a statue of the first Nailin president. A happy and light scene leading the way to a tale of darkness and the unfairness of the world my father controls.

“Are we…going in?” Trevor says from behind, a verbal kick in the butt.

I want to move aside, to let Roc or Adele or anyone else open the door, but I know I have to do this myself; by opening these doors I’m metaphorically opening the door to what Roc and I know. The door to the truth.

I take a deep breath. Take a step forward. Place a hand on the door.

Then I’m in, having pushed the door open without even really realizing it, holding it for the others behind me.

Once everyone’s inside, I let the door swing shut behind me. We’re in a sanctuary of sorts. A sanctuary from the sun dwellers, from the tunnel that leads to our destiny, from my father. The room has brown wooden floors and crimson matted walls. Table lamps light a plush seating area with a half dozen couches and chairs. A second door leads off to an area marked as a bathroom.

“This is the nicest room I’ve ever seen,” Trevor announces, which doesn’t help me at all. Just another example of inequality in the world we live in.

“You should all sit down for this,” I say, motioning to the couches. I wonder how the seating positions will end up. Naturally, Roc and Tawni sit together on a black two-seater, Trevor grabs a solo lounge chair, immediately resting his feet on a cushioned ottoman, and Adele snags the end of a large couch, clearly inviting me to join her.

I sit down next to her, but keep a space between us, leaving it up to her whether to eventually fill the gap. I take in the four faces watching mine. Tawni looks interested, Roc serious, Trevor amused, and Adele uncertain, her expression neutral, with clear eyes, her brows raised slightly, her lips as straight as a sword.

“Do you want me to participate?” Roc asks, a kind offer, one I know I must reject.

“Thanks, but no. All your information is secondhand, whereas I’ve experienced it.” Roc nods, as if he already knew what my answer would be and agrees: it has to be me.

“We shouldn’t linger too long,” Adele says softly, pushing me to get started. She slides her hand into the space between us, palm up. An offer.

I meet her eyes, thankful for the gesture, and then place my hand atop hers, embarrassed by the moisture on my skin. I take another deep breath but it catches as a lump forms in my throat. My body’s rebelling against me, I think.

“Where do I start?” I say under my breath, trying to gather up all the crap in my mind and turn it into a coherent thought.

“From the beginning,” Adele suggests, raising an eyebrow.

Yes. The beginning…which is where exactly?

My fifteenth birthday. My father’s gift. Not a new sword or a trip to the Sandy Oasis or a new dress tunic, but a revelation.

“The day I turned fifteen,” I start, “was one of the worst days of my life.” I look around, checking for reactions. The faces are like stone, frozen on me, not giving away anything. Even Trevor’s managed to suspend his amusement for the moment.

“I woke up ready for a day of presents and cakes and a party, but instead, my father was waiting by my bedside. ‘Today I have something to show the entire family,’ he said. ‘Something you’ll all one day be a part of.’ By that point in my life my father and I had already grown miles apart, but I didn’t hate him. Not yet. Not until later that day.”

I pause, breathe in, breathe out, choose my next words carefully.

“None of us knew what to expect—not even my mom. Killen was excited, only thirteen at that time, I was curious but wary, and my mom was very quiet, like she knew something bad was coming. My father was himself: stern, gregarious, intimidating. ‘After this you become a Nailin,’ he said to me as we left the presidential buildings, slapping me on the back. He didn’t ask if I wanted to be a Nailin.

“A black car took us through the city, past the statue of the first Nailin President, past the shopping district, past the train station, until we reached an ordinary black stone building in a corner of the capital that I’d never seen before. The security was the tightest I’d ever been subjected to. Even with my father in the car, they searched it, checked all of our identification, as if we were somehow Nailin family look-a-likes. It was crazy. It’s the type of thing that would normally set my father off, but he was calm and patient through the entire thing. He even said that all the procedures were to be strictly enforced, no matter what, under his orders.”

“Why all the rigmarole?” Trevor asks.

“There was something hidden inside that no one could ever know about—not even the security guards. Even my father’s family didn’t know about that place, at least not until that day. Only my father’s most trusted advisors and top scientists knew about it. Oh, and those sun dwellers, moon dwellers, and star dwellers who were recruited to participate in the project.”

“Project?” Adele says, her hand tightening on mine. “What project?”

“And since when was your father interested in input from moon or star dwellers in anything he did?” Trevor asks.

I put a hand up. “Please. I’ll get to all that in time.”

Adele murmurs, “Sorry,” while Trevor leans back and motions for me to continue.

“Where was I? Oh, yes, security. We weren’t done yet. After parking the vehicle in a covered lot full of black cars, we went through a physical pat down by a guard each, a metal detector, and then a chemical identifier. And that was before even entering the building.

“Once inside, we filed down a hall, and then rode a lift to the eighteenth floor, which was marked as RESTRICTED on the panel—my father had to use a key to access it.

“The eighteenth floor was like nothing I’d ever seen, full of men and women in white coats running around doing who knows what.”

A few eyebrows go up, but I rush on, not wanting any questions just yet. “One of them—a bald guy with a nametag that identified him as Dr. Markus Kane—recognized my father and came to greet us. He introduced himself, welcomed us to the Nailin Center, and then led us through a maze of desks and expensive-looking lab equipment.

“A door at the other end of the floor provided access to this crazy bridge. It was glass on all sides, including the floor and ceiling, and shot out of the building, high above the edge of the city, and disappeared into the side of the cavern. I was so shocked at the feeling of flying as we walked through the glass passage, I didn’t notice what was at the other end until we were right on top of it.”

“Let me guess, another bald white-coated scientist?” Trevor says, curling a lip.

“Close. A vault, complete with a card reading device and a little black panel that read fingerprints. Like I said before, this place spared no expense on security, and we were apparently headed for the most secure area of all.”

“And you say the vault led into the side of the cavern, as in out of the city?” Adele asks.

“That’s right,” I say.

“So basically a hidden cave on the outskirts of the city.”

“That’s correct. The only way in or out of this cave was through the black building and the glass walkway. Anyway, the scientist inserted his ID card in a slot, stuck a finger on the reader, and then turned a huge wheel, which opened the door.

“The cave was completely different to the eighteenth floor. The walls were rough, the lighting dim, and only three people manned the station, each of whom snapped to attention as soon as we entered.

“Although Dr. Kane introduced them to us, I can’t remember their names anymore. But I can remember what they did. They controlled access to the Cylinder.”

“The Cylinder? What is that—like a big tube?” Trevor asks.

“Pretty much,” I say. “But a big freaking tube, made from concrete. It rose from the floor all the way to the ceiling. There was a hatch cut into the side of the tube.”

“So they had three people just to control access to this tube thingy?” Adele asks.

“That’s right. I’m sure they did other things, too, but if anyone was scheduled to use the Cylinder, I guess these people would be there. Before we entered the tube, we were each given metal bracelets to wear on our arms. They snapped on our wrists, clasped so tight we couldn’t move them at all. The only way to get them off was with an electronic device that controlled the locking mechanism.”

“What were they for?” Adele asks.

“They told us two things: First—to track us. Second—as a symbol of our authorization to enter the next secure area.”

“Another secure area?” Trevor says. “This all seems just a little over the top. Even for sun dwellers.”

“It was pretty nuts to me too,” I admit.

Tawni asks her first question: “Why would they need to track you?”

“Everything was just very controlled. They wanted to know where everyone was at any given time. In case anything happened, I guess.”

I look around, glad everyone—except Roc, who’s just watching, his lips pursed—is engaged and participating. Somehow hearing other people’s voices is helping with my nerves. I’m in a rhythm now, the words flowing freely, my mouth on autopilot. My heart rate has even slowed to a seemingly normal pace. But as soon I realize I’m closing in on the moment of truth, my blood starts pumping again, and my chest vibrates to the thud, thud…thud, thud…thud, thud…of my beating heart knocking against my bones.

I continue slowly, trying to delay. “We went into the hatch and the door closed behind us. My mother had been silent for most of the trip, until now. ‘Where the hell are you taking us?’ she said. It was the first time I’d ever heard her curse, and I could feel a surge of anger, or maybe fear, coming off of her.”

“And she never got angry,” Roc adds, finally breaking his silent streak.

“Which scared me,” I say. “My father wouldn’t answer her, just kept saying, ‘You’ll see. Just wait.’ He wasn’t smiling exactly, but he did wear his typical arrogance like a cloak that day. As usual, he knew he had all the power, and we were forced to cooperate with his every whim.

“The pod started moving. It was very hard to tell which direction it was moving—sometimes it felt like we were dropping, other times rising, and sometimes moving to either side, maybe even diagonally. It’s very possible we were moving in all different directions. There was nowhere to sit, so we were all stuck standing for about thirty minutes, until we finally felt the pod start to slow.

“My mother demanded to know where we were, even going so far as to grab my father’s shirt. I’d seen her argue with my father before, but never raise a hand to him. He slammed her against the side of the pod—you should have seen his face, all red, veins popping from his forehead. ‘Don’t ruin this, woman!’ he yelled, and then slung her to the floor.”

I realize Adele is rubbing my hand with one of her fingers. There’s a tear in my eye but I don’t care. It’s for my mother and she can have it.

“I should have gone to her, comforted her, but I was too scared of my father, too scared of what he might do to me. I’ll never forgive myself for just standing there, watching my mom huddled on the floor.”

“You were just a kid,” Adele says.

“It was two years ago,” I say.

“You’ve changed a lot in two years,” she says, and despite having not known me when I was fifteen, she’s right. I squeeze her hand.

“Just finish, Tristan,” Roc encourages lightly.

“When the door opened it was dark and there were men in orange plastic suits with big clear bubbles over their heads. They had black guns and black boots. The way they charged into the hatch I thought they might shoot us, but they didn’t. First they checked our bracelets, scanned them with a handheld device. Then they escorted us from the pod into an alcove, using flashlights to guide us. We entered a monster tunnel. The tunnel kept getting brighter and brighter as we moved forward. By the end I was squinting.

“The passage led into a holding area, which we entered without the orange men, who closed a hydraulic air-lock door behind us, locking us into a glassed-in section of tunnel with showerheads all over the walls. ‘Prepare for detoxification,’ a voice droned, before the showerheads burst into life, spraying us with hot water that smelled a bit chemically. We still had all our clothes on and soon our tunics were sticking to our skin. When the water stopped, the door on the other side of the airlock opened, and men wearing black and gray uniforms entered, scanned our bracelets once more, and escorted us by the elbows to a room with two doors, one for women and one for men. My brother, father, and I took the right door, while my mom was forced to enter the left door alone.”

I pause, realizing my mouth is dry from speaking uninterrupted for so long. I hope someone has a question to break up my monologue, but no one does. They’re all just staring at me with eyes that want me to continue. Thankfully, Roc hands me a canteen and I’m able to swish some water around to moisten my tongue and lips.

“There were dry clothes in the changing rooms. We put them on and then met my mom back outside. She had new clothes on too.

“We went down another tunnel to where the men in uniforms were waiting, none of them having spoken a word to us since our arrival. Finally, one of them spoke, an older bearded guy. ‘Do you want to tell them anything before we head through?’ he asked my father. ‘No,’ was all my father said. ‘All right,’ the man said, handing us each a pair of sunglasses. ‘You’ll need these.’ Then he opened the door.”

The breath leaves my lungs. There’s tension in the room, as if all the air’s been sucked out, as everyone leans in closer. Adele’s fingers are no longer stroking my hand, but are frozen, waiting for me to speak. I take a final deep breath, feeling sudden and unexpected emotion well up in my eyes.

“We stepped onto Earth and the sun blinded us,” I say.

Chapter Seventeen

Adele

His words have no meaning to me. They’re just words. Either he’s not being very clear or I’ve been dumbstruck.

…stepped onto Earth?

…the sun blinded us?

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Trevor says, ironically all joking filtered from his tone.

“Do I look like I’m kidding?” Tristan says, his expression more serious than I’ve ever seen before.

“You walked ‘onto Earth’?” Tawni says. Evidently she’s having trouble with the wording too.

“Yes,” Tristan says, confirming the meaningless words.

“Like a pile of rocks or what?” I say.

“No, like the surface of the earth. You know, up above.”

A shiver runs up my spine. My head spins. I feel faint. What? I’m missing something. A punch line or a piece of information—like maybe I dozed off and didn’t catch a detail or two. But I know that’s not true; I was wide awake, riveted the whole time.

“That’s the biggest load of bat turds I’ve ever heard,” Trevor scoffs.

“It can’t be,” Tawni says heavily.

But Tristan’s ignoring them, his eyes boring into mine, his face clouded with concern, his eyes thick with emotion. He’s worried about my reaction. I realize I’ve pulled my hand back from his, a reflexive sign of separation.

“You’re saying you went above? To the surface of the earth?” I ask again, because I’m still not sure what I’m hearing.

Tristan nods.

Which means…

“Earth is safe again?” Tawni asks.

Still watching me, Tristan says, “Not exactly.”

“You should tell them everything your father told you,” Roc suggests.

My head is getting hot. Tristan is still staring at me and it’s starting to annoy me. Like what he’s telling us only affects me. My hands tighten and I tuck them at my sides.

“Tristan?” Roc says again when Tristan doesn’t respond.

“Why didn’t you tell us before?” I growl. “And don’t give me any of that crap about it not being the right time.”

“I was scared of how you would react,” Tristan says, his face a blank piece of paper.

“We deserved to know before we went on this mission.”

“I know,” he says. “The longer I waited the harder it got. It’s the best-kept secret in the Tri-Realms. It’s why my father tried to capture or kill me back in the Moon Realm—when we first met. I think he knew I would tell someone eventually.”

“This is ridiculous,” I spout, my anger growing.

“Would it have changed anything?” Tristan says, his voice rising. “If I told you just before the mission, or the moment we met, or anytime along the way. Would it have changed your mind about coming, or changed the Resistance strategy, or had any impact at all?” His own hands are fisted now, too, his jaw a tight line.

I fill my lungs once, twice, three times. Try to get control of my emotions. Think logically. If he had told us there were people on the surface of the earth before we left on the mission, how would I have reacted? My shoulders slump.

“No,” I say. “It would have just fueled our desire to overthrow your father. Knowing he’s kept such a truth from the very people he’s meant to be leading…”

“Unforgivable,” Tawni finishes for me.

“That was my reaction when he told me,” Roc says. “It took him a few weeks to tell me, too. Give him a break, this is a big deal. It’s not something you tell someone in normal conversation. Can you all just back off and let him tell the rest of the story? It’s important.”

Tristan’s eyes flit to Roc’s, soften somewhat, and then return to mine, seeking approval. “Okay. I’m sorry,” I say, not sure if I mean it yet.

“Are you guys really buying this?” Trevor says.

“Shut it,” I say, warning him off with my eyes.

“Thanks,” Tristan says. “And I’m sorry for not telling you sooner. We literally walked outside onto the surface of the earth,” he starts again, trying to hammer home the crazy truth that I’m still trying to come to terms with. “Even with the sunglasses I couldn’t see for ten minutes, forced to cover my eyes with my hands, letting through a little more light minute by minute. My mother and Killen were the same, but my father adjusted quickly, because it wasn’t his first time above.”

My heart leaps suddenly as a thought hits me. “Were there clouds?” I ask, my voice a little too squeaky for my liking.

Tristan smiles for the first time in a while. “You should have seen it. The sky was dark red, spotted with bits of grainy clouds, which moved across the heavens faster than you would believe. The sun was nothing like our artificial suns. Compared to it, they are but a single hair on a person’s head, whereas it is the entire head of hair. Bright enough to light a thousand earths, it turned my skin red in only fifteen minutes.”

“It burned you?” Tawni asks.

“Yes, my gosh, how it burned. My skin ached for days and then became paper thin and peeled off as if I was a snake shedding my skin. There were trees and plants everywhere, but only in the Bubble.”

“The Bubble?” I say, curiosity getting the better of me.

“Sorry,” Tristan says. “I’m not explaining things right. I mean, there’s just so much to tell it’s hard to decide where to begin.”

“Tell them about the city,” Roc prompts.

“There’s a city?” I ask, my brain buzzing with too many questions to ask them all.

“Yes. That’s where we were. The only city left on Earth, at least as far as anyone knows. It’s called the New City, although informally people just call it the Bubble, because there’s a huge glass dome surrounding it, which looks like you could pop it by sticking a sword in the side. In reality though, it’s three feet thick and nearly unbreakable.”

“Who built it?” Tawni asks.

“Aha. Good question,” Tristan says, looking more and more comfortable with the subject now that we’re asking questions and not giving him a hard time about not telling us sooner. “Everything I’m about to tell you my father told us, so I’m assuming it’s true as he had no reason to lie or volunteer the information. Two hundred years ago, well before my father was born, my great-grandfather had his engineers build unmanned probes to send to the earth’s surface. When they returned, the rock and air samples they brought back were very encouraging. After weeks of analysis, fact checking, and experimentation, the scientists determined there was a greater than fifty percent likelihood that Earth could be safely inhabited once more.”

“But you just said it’s not exactly safe on the earth’s surface,” Tawni says, her eyebrows raised.

“It’s not exactly, but I’ll get to that. My great-grandfather had a grand vision of building what he called the New City, the first city on earth since Year Zero. But he wasn’t about to go up there, not without some pretty strong evidence that it was safe. Nor was he willing to put sun dwellers in danger. So he personally recruited a collection of moon and star dwellers to be the guinea pigs.”

Trevor grunts. “Look, man, I’m trying to believe this—I really am—but do you really think your grandfather—”

“Great-grandfather.”

“Whatever. Do you really think he could’ve kept it quiet? Once he started involving people from all the Realms, surely someone would have gotten the word out.”

“I asked my father the same thing. Keeping it hidden all these years is what he was most proud of. It was easy, really. When the moon and star dwellers were recruited, they simply acted like they’d won some kind of a lottery, a chance to move to the Sun Realm, live the high life. But really, they sent them to the earth’s surface. No one was any wiser.”

“What happened to them?” I ask. Everyone’s so worried about all the damn details, but what matters—what really matters—is what’s happened to all these so-called recruits.

“They died,” Tristan says, looking down.

“All of them?” Tawni asks.

“Yes.” Tristan says the word into his lap, slightly muffled.

“That’s horrible,” Tawni says.

We all agree, which is why no one speaks for a few minutes. I stare at Tristan, who refuses to look at me. Tawni plays with her fingers. Roc taps a toe. Trevor, well, even he’s quiet, although I can tell the silence is getting to him, because he keeps sighing and looking around at everyone, as if he wishes someone would speak but doesn’t want to be the one.

“How did they die?” I ask finally. Now I’m interested in the gruesome details for some reason.

“Exposure to semi-toxic air,” Tristan says, raising his head slowly to meet my eyes.

“Semi-toxic?” Trevor says, almost bursting to join the conversation. “If they all died it sounds fully toxic to me.”

“Only to us,” Tristan explains. “They weren’t used to the air above.”

“But it’s the same air we breathe down here,” I argue. “We get it from the earth’s surface.”

“Yeah, but ours is highly filtered, going through multiple air locks where potentially harmful dust and bacteria are removed from the air. Our lungs aren’t used to the real air up there. Maybe we never will be. The initial earth dwellers only lasted a little over a month before contracting various types of irreversible cancers.”

“Let me guess, they got more moon and star dwellers for round two,” I say, feeling slightly ill.

“Yes. This time they equipped them with heavy-duty protective clothing, an earlier generation of the orange hazmat suits the guys were wearing when we first arrived on the surface. Even wearing the suits around the clock, they only lasted six months before their bodies gave out. But they had made a significant start on building a city—a city that was uninhabitable, at least if you wanted to live to see your next birthday. My great-grandfather was getting old at that point, so he passed the torch to my father’s father, who realized that even if he continued to use dwellers from the Lower Realms to build the city, replacing them as they died, he would still be stuck with a city that no one could live in.”

The story is coming together, feeling more and more real with each added detail. “So he built the Bubble?” I ask.

“Not him, of course, but yes, more ‘recruits’ built it, an airtight globe that protects the New City both from the dangerous rays of the sun and the noxious air on the earth’s surface. It filters and recycles the air using a system very similar to what we have in the Tri-Realms. A hundred thousand people now live in the New City,” Tristan says.

A big question remains. The biggest, really. “Why didn’t your grandfather tell the rest of the Tri-Realms once the city was livable?” I ask.

Deep lines appear in Tristan’s creased forehead. “Because he’s a Nailin,” he says. “Look, he and my father are cut from the same marble block. They’re cold, hard-hearted, and think they’re better than everyone else. My grandfather had a good thing going. President of the Tri-Realms, a good life, everything he ever wanted. A drastic change like Earth being inhabitable again? That might have destroyed everything he worked so hard to build. The hundred thousand people up there aren’t allowed to come back down, which is fine by most of them. Ninety percent of the earth dwellers used to be sun dwellers, and were selected over time to populate the surface of the earth.”

“And the other ten percent?” Tawni asks.

“Moon and star dwellers. Up there only to do the jobs that the sun dwellers don’t want to do, like garbage disposal, cleaning, cooking, all the same stuff they do in the Sun Realm.”

“Slave labor,” I say. The messed-up world we live in has just become even more messed up.

“Pretty much,” Tristan says.

“And your father wanted to maintain the status quo, too?” I ask, already knowing he’ll answer in the affirmative.