Community, page 6
11
SEREN
Seren got home late.
Adrenaline still pulsed through her veins as she pushed open the unlocked door to her apartment, careful to avoid its squeak. Though it was past midnight, Seren was not tired. She’d done it. Dear Warren, she had done it! Without thinking, she let out a small whoop of glee, then clamped her hands over her mouth.
Ma was fast asleep on the couch, her mouth hanging open. Ma slept on the couch sometimes to avoid Pa’s snores. Seren couldn’t blame her; Pa’s snoring made the entire apartment quake. Seren tiptoed over to her, knelt, and stroked Ma’s hair. Despite the circumstances, Seren smiled. Touching Ma’s hair made her think back to Haircut Sundays, a monthly tradition from Seren’s youth. She recalled how excited she would get when Ma would announce that it was, once again, time for a Haircut Sunday. She’d sit Seren up on the counter, and Pa would sit on a tall chair, so that her hands were level with their heads. Seren would nibble on cacao beans as Ma snipped, repeatedly reminding her to sit still. Pa would plant himself in front of Seren and make funny faces. Her favorite was when he would stick his tongue so far out of his mouth that it almost reached her nose. Seren would giggle and giggle while her mother scolded them both, warning them that if they didn’t sit still, their hair would end up looking like the head of a celery stick. That only made Seren giggle louder.
When it was Pa’s turn, Ma would let Seren watch. She even let Seren cut Pa’s hair sometimes, though Pa’s hair was difficult to cut because it was short and fine and not at all like Seren’s. Afterwards, Seren got to sweep up the fallen hair. That was her favorite part. She would sweep until her reddish locks mixed in with Pa’s thin salt-and-pepper strands, creating what Ma referred to as “Quinn Hair Soup.” Seren would squeal with laughter as her mom vacuumed it all up, and the three of them would sit together on the couch with their fresh haircuts and watch the Evening Broadcast, cuddled up as a happy family.
They still were a happy family, but things felt different now. Maybe that was just collateral damage from growing up: suddenly, life no longer held the happy glow of youth. Community had become ever less exciting as Seren aged. No more looking through books with Lucas, no true choice in her future, no variety in her day-to-day. Slowly, she began to realize that her life would not change until the day she died.
Seren missed her early days, sometimes as fiercely as she missed Henry—especially on days like today, when it seemed as though the whole world might collapse around her. She wished she still had Sundays to look forward to, when she could sit cuddled between Ma and Pa with her fresh haircut.
But that was just a dream. Seren cut her own hair now.
Ma stirred, pulling Seren from her thoughts.
“Chickpea,” she murmured, smiling softly. “What’re you doing up?”
Seren stroked Ma’s curls, brushing the baby hairs from her forehead with her thumb. “I brought you something,” she whispered. Pa’s snores continued steadily as Seren pulled the pill bottle from beneath her shirt and pressed it into Ma’s palm.
Ma cracked open her eyes. She looked at the bottle, and her expression turned grave.
“Is this what I think it is?” she whispered, holding the bottle away from her body as if it were poison. In truth, it was just as dangerous.
“Yes.”
Ma shook her head. “Where did you get this?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Seren…” Ma tried to hand the bottle back, but Seren wouldn’t take it.
“Ma, this is the answer you’ve been looking for. This could save you. We can cover for you at work if you still feel sick by morning. I could go in and tell them—”
“Seren!” Ma snapped. Then upon seeing Seren’s surprise, her expression softened. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, cupping her daughter’s cheek in her dainty hands. Pa always made fun of how small Ma’s hands were. He called them “doll hands.” They were cool on Seren’s flushed skin.
“I already told them, Chickpea,” she whispered, rubbing her thumb up and down Seren’s cheeks. “I told them this morning—but it didn’t matter. They already knew.”
Her eyes were reassuring, but Seren could feel her entire world crashing down around her. They know. I’m too late. A wave of nausea washed over her, as if her heart had dropped all the way into her stomach, and now each cadenced heartbeat kicked at the inside of her organs.
“Chickpea? Are you okay?” Ma asked quietly.
Seren thought she might be sick.
“But you can still take it,” she said. “People lose these things all the time.” “These things…” She kept her voice low. Discretion was important in case someone was listening.
“No. They don’t.”
The worst part of it all was that Ma was right. People in Community didn’t just lose their babies. Not anymore.
Seren backed away from the couch, her head spinning in great big circles. “You can’t do this,” she whispered.
“I don’t have a choice.”
Seren shut her eyes. “What about me and Pa?” she whispered.
“Everything will be okay,” Ma said quietly.
Seren shook her head. She would hate this child. She would hate this child with her entire being—and she would never forgive Ma for having it. Seren’s fist closed around the pill bottle. All that work, all that risk, for nothing.
“Even if they didn’t know … if someone ever found out about…” Ma’s eyes darted towards the bottle in Seren’s hand. Seren clutched it tighter. “… that … we’d all be dead. Understand?”
Hot tears sprung into Seren’s eyes. She blinked, and they cascaded down her cheeks in streaks. “Don’t pretend like you’re doing this to protect me.”
Ma’s forehead became a wrinkled peach as her brows furrowed. “I’m just trying to do what’s best for our family.”
“No,” Seren spat. “You’re doing what’s best for you.”
“Seren…” Ma reached for her hand, but Seren pulled away.
“Don’t touch me. I hate you!” The words sprung out of her before Seren could stop them.
Ma flinched. “You don’t mean that.”
Seren opened her mouth to speak, but Pa’s voice interrupted.
“What’s going on?” he asked from the bedroom doorway. He rubbed his tired eyes and looked between his wife and daughter. Seren couldn’t bring herself to look back at him.
No one said a word.
Ma gave the slightest shake of her head, and Seren realized that she still had not told Pa.
Seren took a step back, heart pounding. How had Ma not even told her husband yet? Suddenly, the apartment walls began to move towards her, trapping Seren within the narrow confines of the apartment. She felt suffocated.
“What’s going on?” Pa asked again.
Seren couldn’t take it. She couldn’t take Pa’s concerned glances or Ma’s hurt expression. She had to get out. Now.
Without a second thought, Seren ran back into the hallway, leaving her parents in her wake. She heard Ma and Pa calling after her, but their voices faded as she tore around the corners, choking on the antiseptic aroma. The darkness didn’t feel as much like a barrier anymore. She could make out the familiar landmarks: the old Playroom, her Year Three classroom, and the local bakery. She had been in each place so routinely that they had become extensions of her apartment and extensions of her mother’s words. It all felt too familiar. Seren didn’t want to be in Community anymore. She longed to escape, to go outside, to see something new.
But that was impossible.
So, Seren did the next best thing: she ran until the familiar became unfamiliar. Her pounding pulse filled her ears as she rounded corner after corner, longing to find some place, any place, she had not yet been. She eventually found her way back to the staircase that led to the other Tiers. She didn’t question herself as she burst through the door and bounded back up the stairway, past Tier Two, to a place she’d never been.
Tier One.
Home of the Governor, of his son, of the council, and of so many unknowns. The only true unfamiliarity left.
Seren stared at the door, the sapphire identity card burning in her palm. The IC might not work—or worse yet, it might alert the Harmonizers. If it did, they’d find her with the stolen card in minutes, and she’d be as good as dead.
But did she care?
She couldn’t live without Ma, she couldn’t help raise the child that would kill her mother, and she certainly couldn’t go back to Tier Four.
Knowing that she might deeply regret it, Seren raised the sapphire identity card to the keypad and waited.
It flashed green.
The door opened.
Seren stepped through into the quiet hallways of Tier One.
The layout of Tier One was different than anything Seren had ever seen. She’d thought Tier Two was breathtaking, but she didn’t have a word in her vocabulary to describe Tier One. The amount of space alone was almost incomprehensible. The hallways were three times as wide as in Tier Four, the ceilings twice as high. She peeked into the windows of various rooms and saw that they, too, were massive. Wealth and prosperity dripped from every inch of the place. Golden lights, cream-colored walls, wooden floors… She was still in Community, but it felt as though she’d stepped into another world. She had never stopped to contemplate the stark disparities in the ways the Tiers lived. Lucas was right: a little knowledge was a dangerous thing.
Seren knew she should go home; every moment she stayed here was a moment that she could get caught. But something kept her going. It was as if an invisible force were compelling her forward, further into the depths of Tier One. She was tempted to open every door, explore every crevice, soak in every new bit of this world that she could. She’d lived in Community her whole life and had never had any idea that this existed.
Henry’s words echoed in her mind as she rounded a corner: “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, Seren. It is the illusion of knowledge.”
Seren’s exploration led her through the empty halls and down one hall that seemed to glisten brighter than all the others. Her heart pounded as her feet led her, as if they had a mind of their own, to the end of the mysterious hallway. But there was nothing there but a dead end.
Seren moved to turn back the way she came, but something stopped her. On the far wall, well blended with its surroundings, was a small script. As she moved closer, she found that the hallway was not a dead end at all. The door hadn’t been apparent at first. It blended into the dark marble wall, but it was a door, alright. It stood at least six feet wide and towered three feet above her head. Above it in dark letters were two words: The Simulator.
Seren blinked twice, convinced that her tired eyes were betraying her.
It can’t be.
The words triggered a memory buried deep in Seren’s mind. It was from years ago—she couldn’t have been more than seven at the time—but she remembered it vividly. She, Lucas, and Henry were on the floor of Lucas’s family room, sitting with their legs crossed and their elbows resting on their knees. They were playing a game, something silly, while Ma and Pa sat at the kitchen table with Jean, chatting and sipping tea.
“Sandwich!” Seren had yelled, hitting the ground. This earned her another point, and she won the game.
Lucas pouted and crossed his arms. “Cheater,” he said.
Seren gasped, appalled at the accusation. “Am not!” she yelled.
“Are too!”
Henry placed a hand between the two of them. “Hey, now,” he said strictly, giving Lucas the kind of look a father gives when he doesn’t want to scold his child in front of others—the kind of look that makes a child clamp their lips shut and behave.
Lucas seemed unbothered. “This game is boring. I want to go outside.”
“We can go for a walk through the hall, if you want,” Henry said, not unkindly.
“No! I want to go outside. To Earth.”
Henry shot a look at the other adults in the room to see if they’d heard. They hadn’t.
“You know we can’t do that,” he said, his voice low.
“I just want to see it,” Lucas said. “Just once.”
“Me too,” Seren said. And she had wanted to see Earth, ever since she’d learned of its existence. She’d always dreamed of seeing what it was really like outside Community’s stifling walls.
Henry glanced again to the table of adults. They remained deep in conversation. “Do you want to know a secret?” he asked, leaning in close.
Seren and Lucas nodded enthusiastically, their eyes wide.
“I’ve seen it,” Henry whispered.
“No way,” Seren breathed.
“How?” Lucas demanded.
Henry motioned for Seren and Lucas to move in even closer. They did.
“There’s this big room in Community,” Henry said. “Floors above where we are right now. The room is a magic room—one where you can wish to see anything from Earth, and it’ll appear right there in front of you.”
“What’s it called?” Seren asked.
“The Simulator.”
Seren and Lucas were aghast. Seren imagined Henry standing in a big room, wishing for all sorts of amazing things. She wondered what Henry would wish for. She wondered what she might wish for.
“Could we ask for chocolate?” Lucas asked.
His father laughed and threw Lucas down on the couch. “Chocolate? You think you need more treats?” He tickled Lucas’s belly while the boy squealed and begged Seren to come save him.
After Henry died, Seren didn’t think about the Simulator. She thought Henry had made it up, the way adults often did to make children’s lives more magical.
But maybe he hadn’t made it up at all. As Seren stood in front of it, it looked as real as anything.
“No way,” she whispered.
To the right of the door, a list was engraved into the marble in black letters.
Simulation Policy
No violence. No simulating violence or acting out violence.
Sexual acts of any kind PROHIBITED
No simulations involving specific members of Community.
Please note: for the safety of our users, all simulations will be recorded.
Outside the door was the same keypad as the one in the stairwell. Seren looked at it, then back to the card in her hand. Curiosity prickled her skin, and excitement coursed down her spine. She knew she should turn around, but she couldn’t leave now. Not with the Simulator right here!
This is by far the most idiotic thing I have ever done, she thought as she brought the card up to the door of the Simulator.
The green light flickered.
The door opened.
Seren stepped in.
12
SEREN
Black, all around.
It wasn’t what she expected. Grass, maybe, or a bright blue sky—not matte black walls and flooring with no lights in sight.
Had Henry been lying after all?
The door closed behind her, and the room became engulfed in darkness. Everything was still.
“Hello?” Seren called into the dauntingly blank space.
A spotlight suddenly flickered on above her, illuminating Seren in brightness. She blinked and squinted, blocking the light from her eyes.
“Hello, Mr. Holland,” a voice boomed from above. It took Seren a startled moment to realize that the female voice belonged to a machine, echoing off the walls and sending vibrations through her body. “What would you like to see?”
Mr. Holland…? Seren looked at the card in her hand. She had not noticed it before, but in the top right corner, the card’s owner was identified as one Alaster Holland. The Simulator knew her identity from her using the card.
Magnificent.
Excitement buzzed through her. “What are my choices?” she asked.
For a moment, there was silence, then: “Choice unidentifiable. Please repeat or change command.”
Seren paused. Could she really choose anything?
There was so much she wanted to see. The books she’d studied with Lucas were full of photographs, each capturing beauty beyond belief. Mountains, oceans, animals, cities… There were so many things to choose from; how could she just pick one?
Seren bit her lip and racked her brain. What did she want to see? A sunset? A tornado? Rain…?
Oh, I know! She thought. One Earthly pleasure stood out above all others, a light amongst the confusion. Seren wanted to see the celestial anomalies she’d been named after: the lights of the old world.
“I’d like to see the stars,” she called out to the machine. Her pulse quickened as the words left her lips.
“Generating star simulation,” the mechanical voice boomed.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the light above her shut off, and the room returned to black. The darkness intensified for a moment, and then suddenly, thousands of tiny white lights lit up the ceiling. They sparkled and shifted to form groups of stars.
Seren let out an involuntary gasp. Constellations!
Some burned brighter than others, shining luminously amongst the duller lights. Some twinkled playfully, reminding Seren that stars were just balls of gas, mere jumbles of the leftovers from the formation of the universe. It was beyond anything she could have hoped for. Her eyes scanned the constellations, picking out those she knew from the books: Orion with his bow, Ursa Major and its handle, the scales of Libra. They were magnificent, more astonishing than anything she had ever seen.
Still, something was missing. Seren had stared at photos of stars for years. This simulation felt like just another photograph.
“Is this satisfactory?” asked the Simulator, perhaps sensing her discontent.
Seren paused and considered how to vocalize her desires.
“Can you make it more … real?” she asked finally, a slight quiver in her voice. “I want to feel the elements.”
“Simulating elements. Please hold on.”
Hold on…?
Abruptly, the floor beneath her feet rose into the air. Seren stumbled. She had barely caught her balance before she was ten feet above the ground. Water spurted from the walls, filling up the Simulator at an alarming rate. Not ten seconds later, air started to push at her from all directions, whipping her hair across her face. The water continued to flow until the room was completely full. It moved in bizarre ways, shifting into mountains that crashed against each other. The platform quaked. She squealed as water splashed at her from every direction, soaking her clothes and bringing goose bumps to the surface of her skin. It was a new, glorious sensation for Seren, who had never felt true cold before; she’d never felt anything like this!
