The Staircase to Futures Past by Terrance Davis

Author:Terrance Davis [Davis, Terrance]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Third Act Books LLC
Published: 2022-11-29T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter twenty

At her normal lunch hour, Pearl18 changed her habit of decades of taking her meal in the Government Offices dining hall so that she could hopefully meet with Mark20, another candidate who had retracted. He was a member of the Engineering tech team, and she had worked with him and Eric20 on adding positions to Engineering for the Application specialty. A trove of ancient tools had been unearthed by the University’s dig scholars in the Iron Ruins, and the Engineers needed additional staff to determine their applicable uses and potentially to reverse-Engineer them. The latter was unlikely, as some of the ancients’ methods would never be replicated, but it was part of the Engineering protocol to make an effort.

Near the Engineering complex, a ten-minute walk from the Government Offices, was their dining hall. If Pearl18 remembered correctly—she’d been there, but it was years ago—there was an outside patio area adjacent to the dining hall whereby custom many Engineers took lunch outside in good weather.

It was a beautiful dry season day. Pearl18 walked on the paths through the spirals of permaculture gardens, mostly tall banana trees planted in circular mounds with pigeon peas and sweet potatoes embedded between them. In the near distance, the sun glinted off the banks of solar panels, and the rooftops, every available inch covered either by solar panels or the dark mesh of passive solar water heaters, plunged up through the greenery towards the clear blue sky.

She thanked the Ancestors again for their brilliance in creating her City. Trade for goods with Outsiders was well-established, but it was comforting to know that the City could, as it had many times in the past when the need arose, simply close the gates to the outside and live peacefully on, sustaining itself just by the light of the sun.

When she arrived at the dining hall, she got a tray of the day’s fare—kale salad, black beans, and rice, pickled red onions, and warm corn tortillas—and wandered about looking for Mark20. He wasn’t inside. Had he gone elsewhere for lunch? She stepped out into the patio and saw him seated at one of the far tables with another man whom she didn’t know who was wearing a Security Tech uniform. They were talking, and while the Security Tech looked calm and relaxed, Mark20 did not. His brow was furrowed, his mouth was a straight line, and his posture was defensive—arms crossed over chest and hands in fists. He looked like an adolescent that was being chastised by his parents. That was odd. She remembered him as a jovial man, thrilled to talk about his work with anyone who would listen, enthusiastic about recent discoveries and innovations and how they might improve the City for its people.

But that had been years ago, and people do change.

As she neared the table, both men looked up and, seeing her, the Security Tech got to his feet, said a quick goodbye to Mark20, and walked past her towards the dining hall and its exit.

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