The End of Eden (Water Worlds 1)

Chapter 9

9

"Quick, Young Moon, everything into the fire!" Father barked. I had never ever heard him this angry before.

Wait, angry isn't it, I thought. He's scared! Now I was getting frightened too.

I ran to the plastic file cabinet in the corner of the lab and grabbed a stack of papers from the open drawer, then dashed back to the open fire in the burning metal rubbish bin in the middle of the room.

"These, Father?"

"Yes, everything. All of it, and quickly. They could be here any minute."

Who? Why? I thought, but I didn't dare speak.

Father had awakened me from a sound sleep only an hour before. With an urgency I had never seen in him, he bundled me off to his lab here in the heart of University City. It was late at night and no one was around. Despite the secrecy of the place, no one tried to stop us either, and that was unusual.

I dumped the papers in the fire and went back for more. The flames crackled and spit and licked aloft a few of the lighter pieces. Gently, like kites floating above the beach on a breezy day, they rose and fell. The gentleness of it seemed very out of place in all this excitement, and for a few seconds I was transfixed.

Paper is much too valuable to burn, I thought. It should be recycled at least. This is not like Father at all.

The fire itself was a blasphemy in this room. Like a curse word spoken in anger in front of Mother. Something that just shouldn't be. This sparkly-clean laboratory was Father's pride, and I spent hours here in the days before Apophis, drawing my circles while he huddled with others over banks of screens.

That seemed like a different world, now.

I made three more trips and the paper was gone, burning red and crackling in the bottom of the metal bin. The smoke curled towards the ceiling tiles, and I wondered if it would set off alarms.

I stooped to pick up a few stray sheets that had slipped to the floor, and was suddenly frozen to the spot.

One of them was my drawing! The same drawing Father took from me on that day so long ago.

What's this doing here? I thought.

Deep veins within the inked lines on the page began to come to life as the firelight flickered. Instantly, faces formed in the patterns and then just as quickly disappeared.

"Father, what is this doing here?" I began to ask.

He cut me off. "We don't have much time now. Move!"

Father had finished wiping data cubes and was gathering some electronics from the glass table along the back wall. He stuffed them into a sack, then paused a moment and, with a deep breath, flicked a single old-style toggle switch on the wall above his nearly empty desk.

Then he turned and headed for the door with purpose.

"Come! Now!"

I folded the drawing, slipped it into my pocket and ran to catch up. For some reason, I didn't want him to see me do this. Like it was stealing.

But it's my drawing! I thought, and I want it!

We were out the door and down the shaky wooden fire escape in seconds. Father kept his car under the stairs, which is technically illegal and could have meant jail to a normal person, but the campus guards looked the other way because Father was special.