His father’s chin jutted up in pride, a smug smile on his lips. “See how you will be honored if you follow in my footsteps?”
Soren had to admit he would enjoy having others respect him. Oh, he’d won academic awards and the occasional chess tournament, but he’d lived his life in constant apprehension, the fear of not being good enough ever close to the surface.One mistaken calculation, one wrong answer, and then what?He’d been raised to aspire to perfection. But what if he couldn’t be perfect?
As they proceeded deeper into Unity Hall, they were met with bows. People stepped aside for them to pass. A sense of worthiness seeped into his psyche. But while an aptitude for science had defined Soren since his elementary grades, he lacked a passion for it. The study was merely a means to an end.
“Yes, Father,” he answered hesitantly. “But what about my art? Painting is what I love.”
“Certainly you can still paint, boy,” his father promised, “as a pastime. It’s your duty to use your brain for the good of the nation. Besides, the Ministry would never allow it. Anyone can draw. You are needed for loftier endeavors.”
“Yes, Father.” Soren’s glimmer of hope snuffed out, he followed Adélard to a pair of steel double-doors. His father swiped a card in front of a panel, then pushed in a code. The doors to the mountain opened, and they stepped inside.
The air was cooler, tinged with a metallic scent, awakening Soren’s wonder as he glanced around the place where it all began. The hum of turbines pressed into his chest, steady as a heartbeat, as corridors branched off toward sealed labs and reactor decks. White-coated researchers filed past in silence, their eyes forward, each step measured, like extensions of the machine itself. His father’svoice carried over the din—pride, certainty, expectation all rolled into one—as though the Core wasn’t just a system to be maintained, but a destiny waiting for him to accept.
“Be sure to check the humidity levels hourly,” he directed to a whitecoat. “Attendant Hummel,” he called to another. “When’s the last time you ran an anti-static sweep?”
“Just an hour ago, sir.” The Caucasian male snapped to attention. “The levels for this floor are within standard parameters.”
Adélard acknowledged him with a crisp nod. “Recalibrate the ion flow.”
“I’ll get right on it, sir.” Attendant Hummel strode away, tablet in hand.
At the chamber’s center loomed a cylindrical processor stack, plunging deep and rising stories high, thrumming like an iron spine with veins of light pulsing along its ribs. Every surface was alive with motion—fans spun, conduits pulsed, monitors blinked. A technician checked a coolant tube. Others wandered about, tablets in teal safety-gloved hands. The closer to the central column they moved, the stronger the pulsing vibration spread through Soren’s body.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Adélard asked, his smile that of one keeping a secret. He pushed an elevator button. “My station is two floors down—data control. I have my finger on the pulse of the Core’s brain. Exciting.”
“I can’t wait for you to show me,” he answered in his practiced voice for lying to the world. Sorencouldthink of more exciting things.
The door slid open, and they walked in. Soren studied the panel with its lights and labels. His father pushed three. “This is my floor.”
“Why does number one say restricted?” He pointed, a sudden barb of doubt pricking his gut. A red light flashed. A keyhole rested beside the button.
Adélard dismissed his curiosity with a nonchalant wave. “Nothing of your concern. I’m going to show you where the real magic happens. You know, the timing has worked out so perfectly, with your twentieth birthday coming up in a few months—right before fall term begins. You’ll be slotted into your specialty, and with a wife to see to your domestic needs, you’ll have more time to devote to your studies.”
Soren didn’t look forward to his birthday and the coinciding match ceremony—he dreaded them. “Not if I’m matched with another Institute student. Then she’ll require just as much time for study.”
Nathan’s handsome, smiling face blazed across his mind—his square jawline and chiseled chin, his curly, sandy-blond hair blowing wild and free, and his incredible eyes. They were golden-brown starbursts ringing black pupils on a leaf-green canvas, singular and vital, just like him.
The memory of when they met two summers ago during a community exchange program rushed through him unbidden and without rebuke. Children of the urban elite were supposed to learn humility by spending time on rural labor rotations. Soren was hopeless at anything physical, and Nathan had taken pity on him, birthing a potential friendship.
One afternoon, the Harmony Ridge youth took the city boys to swim in the river. When Nathan stripped off his shirt and pants to jump into the frigid water, Soren was done for. He’d never seen such a muscular chest, bulging biceps, or tight six-pack. Watching water droplets streak down his sculpted body was intoxicating. Nathan had done a cannonball into the water from a high jumping rock that Soren had been afraid even to climb. The boy was fearless, larger than life, but, rather than look down on Soren for his frailty, he spent time with him. Tentative conversations morphed into secret night walks, notes tucked into pockets, and stolen touches in barns and shadows.
Soren returned to Clover Hollow, smitten and forever changed. He’d always been effeminate but hid it by telling peers he was just a bookworm. Once, his mother caught him dressing up in her clothes. Blessedly, she didn’t tell his father. In his imagination, Soren had always had a pretend boyfriend.
Over the past two years, he and Nathan grew from friends to clandestine lovers. Nathan had started bringing shipments from the commune to the city every month, and they’d get together. Only now, with Nathan’s birthday next month and his following close behind, Soren stood to lose it all.
“Here we are, son,” his father said, showing him to a gleaming station in a sterile office. “This interface is where I tap into the Core itself, feed it the vital information, receive responses and recommendations from the Oracle Core. Ofcourse, I’m only one of the twenty-one Ministers of the Oligarchy, and it’s up to the First Cipher to interpret the meaning and will of the Oracle. But that couldn’t happen without my expertise keeping the Core running glitch-free.”
Soren studied the control panel, the readout machine, and glanced over his shoulder through a wall of windows at the pulsing engine. “It’s impressive, all right.”
“I’m so glad your scores put you in the top tier,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about being assigned to a biochemical field or mechanical engineering. If you prefer research and development, coding is the way to go. But why would anyone want to work outside the mountain? I’m on the team for tomorrow’s program, when the Oracle will speak to the crowds. Minister Chen Lu, Creative Designer Elsa Davis, and First Shepherd Severin Dray are programming the projection, tweaking the voice, and writing the script. Everything must be approved by the First Cipher, but I’ll be running troubleshooting to make sure the event goes off without a hitch. Would you like to stay and watch me work, get a feel for it?” he asked hopefully. “Or do you want to look around, maybe talk to someone in reactor dynamics or synthetics research?”
None.He pictured the Unity Hall staff, the technicians robotically roaming the ground floor of the mountain, and inwardly cringed. Must knowledge and progress come at the cost of individuality? He didn’t want to be a cog in the wheel, spinning forever in the direction others pointed him.I want to be an artist.
“This place is awe-inspiring, Father,” he replied. “And your job is especially significant. You always talk about the science of it all, but you’re in the Ministry, our government. I’d like to know more about that aspect of your work.”
“Here, have a seat.” Adélard offered him a practical office chair on wheels while he took an identical one at his desk. “I don’t talk about my job with the Ministry much because so much of it is classified.”
“Like the first floor,” Soren inserted.
