EverWorld (Book 3 of the Down World Series)

Chapter Twenty-Six

On the second week, I was allowed to go to the school.

Aunt Amalia led the way down a wide gravel-lined path I had never seen before, chirping blithely about the various buildings we were passing: "There's the power station I told you about. The solar panels are hidden on top of the trees in the woods. And the brownwater purification plant. Of course, that mostly happens underground. Did you want to see the hydrofarm?"

"No, thank you," I answered, my voice measured. "Just the school."

"Of course," Amalia said. "You're going to love it here, Marina. I know it's a lot to take in at first. But it really is just like, well..."

"Paradise," I answered for her.

"You see it, don't you?" she asked. "The potential of this place. Did you know we don't have crime? When somebody makes a mistake, they confess it immediately."

"They don't have a choice," I reminded her, feeling my sensor whir as it processed all the new sights and sounds that encased us here in this cocoon.

"Well, no," she agreed. "People used to have choice and look what they did with it."

I nodded, but I was already tuning her out. I couldn't help but feel like she was manipulating me, showing off all the technology that she must have known I would love. It was everything I had wanted: self-sustainable communities. No carbon emissions. People who were honest. But it was that key element that was missing, the element that separates free people from slaves:

Choice.

If you have no choices, are you not free. No matter how impressive the infrastructure.

I wondered suddenly what Adam would have thought of this place. Would he have been impressed? Or would he have seen it for what it was immediately: a beautiful prison? If Adam were here, would we have already escaped? If Adam were here...

If Adam were here...

"This is the school," Amalia said as we made it to the end of our long walk.

The structure was all glass panels and mismatched bolted metal slabs that looked like they were recycled from old buildings—maybe skyscrapers? But it was beautifully integrated into the surrounding trees, with a garden in front and green vines dripping off the roof, hinting at another garden on top.

"We have no waste here," Amalia explained. "Everything is reused. All surface is farmed if possible. Except the trees, of course. That's for the wildlife."

"How big is this place?" I asked.

"Pangaea is one of the smaller colonies. We're only about twenty square miles."

"One of?"

"Oh," she caught herself, her delicate cheeks darkening to a deep blush, like she wasn't supposed to tell me that. "Well, I guess now that you're here, you might as well know."

"Know what?" I asked, though I could hear the fear in my own voice.

"Come on," she smiled. "You can sit in with the little ones today."

She took my hand, and I let her. We walked that way into the building and down a long, clean hallway, lit from above with skylights that provided a peripheral view of some of the roof garden she had mentioned. Her hand felt warm and familiar, and by the time I realized it was because it felt so much like my mother's, we had already reached the classroom.

I sidled into the back, but no one noticed me as the lights were dimmed. The children were sitting on the floor, cross-legged, making a large circle with a clearing in the middle. And in that space, there was a film playing—a projection, really, in 3D. I laughed at how much it reminded me of Princess Leia's hologram in Star Wars.