Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
“Speechless?” I ask.
She points at the cityscape outside the window. “Is that a river?”
“That is a river. You have rivers above, so there must be rivers below.”
An incredulous huff escapes with her words. “I… don’t know what to think about this. It’s a city.” She looks up at me. “Like a normal city.”
I shrug. “If it makes you feel any better, I felt the same way about the up-top cities when I first saw them. I had never imagined that something could exist on the surface. To go up there and see… civilizations, well, it was jarring.”
Clover points at the sky. “What is that?”
“An artificial sun. I know they have really good ones up top now, but this one is old. It’s UV, but it’s not nearly as strong as the one where I come from.”
“But it looks like a sky up there. It looks like a bright sunny day.”
“It’s a hologram. Again, kind of a substandard one compared to other, better cities down here. But it’s a nice touch, I think.”
“A hologram. I feel like I just fell into a science fiction movie. Do the people down here know they live underground?”
“Yes. Of course they know.”
“But what do they think is up there on the surface?”
“What do you think is up in space?”
Her face screws up for a moment before answering. “Stars.”
“But you don’t know there are stars out in space. You were told there are stars out in space.”
“Yes. But I can look up at the stars myself. I can use a telescope and see them up close. The people down here, they go their whole lives never seeing the top?”
“First of all”—I hold up a finger—“you don’t know what those tiny pinpricks of light up in the sky are. You only know what you’ve been told. It’s the same with everyone down here. They are born here, told that this is all there is of the world, and most of the time there’s no reason to question it. It’s the same with the stars above.”
“But it’s not the same. I was told the truth. You’re lying to these people.”
“Second of all”—I hold up my second finger—“you have no idea if you’ve been told the truth. You were told something. And everyone around you was told the very same something. Common knowledge is a hard thing to fight.”
Clover side-eyes me. “If you’ve got something to say about space, just say it.”
“I don’t. I have no clue what the stars are beyond what I’ve been told as well. It’s a very difficult thing to question the narrative. I mean, where would I even start? Assuming I was living up top. Where would I start to study the stars?”
“College?”
“A logical option. But colleges and universities are filled with people who all think the same way. Why should they question mysteries that have been solved? These things are… facts.”
“Why do you say it like that?”
“Because come on, Clover. Facts? Think about it. There are very few facts in this world. Very few. Not even the laws of physics are facts. They are presumptions based on equations, which is based in the idea that the universe runs on math.”
“But the universe does run on math.”
“Says you.”
Clover shrugs. “Fine. I don’t know then. Where would you study stars?”
“Well, I wouldn’t. Because I don’t care if the stars are true or not. But there’s almost no way to get past the… consensus.” Now it’s my turn to shrug. “So why bother. But anyway, my point is that the people who live down here think the surface is like space. Unreachable and unknowable except through the lens of science and textbooks. So why should they spend one moment of their lives questioning the narrative?”
“Surely you have curious, imaginative children who dream big? I mean, I can see the adults falling into line, but kids? They don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t know it’s pointless to fight the narrative and seek a new one.”
“We do have our fair share of those kids. Myself included. But at the first sign of ‘curiosity,’ as you call it, they remove us from the general population and conscript us into the Future Founders.”
“What’s that? Like the Boy Scouts?”
“Yeah. Sure. It’s just like the fucking Boy Scouts.”
“I’m serious. I want to know what it is. Especially if you were in it.”
“Why would that make a difference?”
Clover sighs. “I dunno. I just… think it’s all very interesting. So, what is this Future Founders thing? An ROTC?”
“Kind of. I mean, sure. Yeah. It’s ROTC. My father is a general.”
Her eyes go wide. “Oh. That’s significant.”
“Yeah. So, when my curiosity started causing problems, I was sent into Future Founders.”
“Is it like a stayaway camp?” She’s grinning at me.
“Sure. It’s exactly like a stayaway camp.”
Now she frowns and huffs. “So that means it was horrible.”