Revolution in the Underground (3 page)

             
Often times Ember was happier inside his little overly dramatic world.  When he closed his eyes nothing else in the world besides his own thoughts seemed to matter.  It was his own special place that no one, not even Maggie, knew about.  Some days Ember would close his eyes for hours at a time—building entire worlds and constructing complete realities. 

There was a part within his brain that deeply believed in the reality of these worlds.  Even while in his romantic revelries he knew their existence had to take on a different form—they did not and could not exist in the same sense that Erosa existed.  Several times, during his waking hours, Ember had tried to justify the existence of his worlds.  He would draw upon numerous metaphysical arguments, call into question the notion of a transcendent reality and certainty, and throw around words like “subjective” and “ambiguity.”  Ember wasn’t afraid of believing in his fantasies, but no matter how detailed his arguments would become, he could never get himself to truly believe in their reality—not while his eyes were open.  Though he was prepared to accept all the philosophical consequences of his various lines of reasoning—some of which were considerable—he could never truly convince himself.  When his eyes were opened, not even he could fool himself.  Ember figured that it was his body’s natural defense mechanism to prevent his fantasies from colliding with the real world.  If there was one thing he could count on, it was that the light would sterilize everything. 

              As Ember opened his eyes, his fantasies vaporized.  Suddenly he knew just how short lived Rouge’s mortification was.  He knew that she, just hours after enduring such great humiliation, was relaxing and giggling with her friends.  He knew that she would hardly spend more than half an hour in the ensuing months recollecting about the event.  It was nothing to her.  She did not really care and he did not
really
love her.  He loved the thought of loving her, but he did not love
her.

              Ember’s body had drifted over to the waterfall.  He let the water pound on his body and bury him beneath its surface.  When he popped his head back out of the water, he saw the girls walking together across the bridge.

             
“There they are!” one of the guys shouted. 

             
“What’cha all doing?” one of the more confident girls yelled, presumably speaking on behalf of her group.

             
“Come on in! The water’s great!”

             
Ember dipped his mouth below the water.  He enjoyed the feeling of its surface against his upper lips.

             
“But we didn’t bring our bathing suits!” the same girl replied, again speaking for the group.

             
“Oh, that’s okay!” one of the older guys responded, thinking he was clever.  A few of the girls put their fingers over their lips—actions that succeeded more in seducing than in expressing shock. 

Coquettish playfulness was the norm for young adults.  In fact, behaviorally speaking, most Erosans never really matured.  For the average Erosan, life is composed of three phases: pre-pubescence, adolescence, and near-death.  Once the insecurity and angst of the early teenage years passed, the average Erosan would settle into a care-free and jovial manner that would change little throughout the rest of his or her life.  Erosans didn’t seem to age until they reached their mid-sixties, at which point they seemed to age all at once.  The maturation process occurred discretely as opposed to gradually: after one takes on the responsibility of a job, and after one reproduces.  Nonetheless, it was not uncommon to see a married man, or a married woman with children, harmlessly flirting with other people.  For Erosans, even the older ones, life was a game meant to be enjoyed.  Only the Elders and Ember adopted serious airs.

              Ember scanned the flirtatious crowd for his sister.   He knew that she was there.  Maggie was always there.  Any time there was anything worth doing or talking about, she was close by.

             
“We had other plans,” a girl said coyly. 

“We were thinking that maybe we could include you guys in them,” the confident girl said again.

One-by-one the guys left to join the girls.  Only Onyx asked Ember whether or not it was okay if he left.  Other than a few exchanges of pleasantries and a couple departing “Good luck’s,” all was quiet.  Ember watched as the guys and girls walked across the bridge. 

              Maggie pushed her way past the girls who were running in the opposite direction.  The boys, in hot-pursuit, bottle-necked at the entrance of the bridge.  A few of the girls ran further up ahead, while others remained behind to watch the spectacle.  Some of the boys stammered clumsily over the wooden rungs.  One of the younger boys fell and was nearly stampeded.  Maggie hugged the rope railing and slowly sidestepped her way through the mass of boys.

             
Amongst all the chaos and confusion, none of the guys noticed her.  Owing in no small part to her beauty, playful personality, and general knowledge of Erosan happenings, Maggie was easily one of the most popular girls in Erosa, and had the guys noticed her passing, many would’ve stopped dead in their tracks and followed her.  Maggie was glad no one followed her because today she wasn’t interested in little games; she was interested in her brother.

             
She walked over to the water and scanned it for signs of life.  Near the waterfall she spotted a nose just above the water and instantly recognized it as Ember’s.

             
“Ember, get up!  You know I can see you!” she shouted.  At first there were no movements, but slowly the water started to stir.  A head appeared.

             
“Hi-ya,” he answered, knowing full well that she wanted him to come out of the water.

             
“Meet me on the tree branch?” she asked through inflection.  He was quiet.  Maggie found the sight funny: Ember’s ostensibly bodiless head in the distance, innocently popped up against the backdrop of the placid water, gentle waterfall, and ridge walls.  She chuckled discreetly.  He blinked a few times and then dipped his head under the water again.

             
“Come on!” she said between laughs.  She knelt down and splashed the water playfully with her hand.  She imagined Ember smiling underneath the water, though she knew he probably wasn’t.  “I know you’re there!”  His head popped up again, but this time more slowly.  “Meet me on the tree branch, ok?”

             
“Why?” he asked with more than a touch of indifference.

             
She frowned, tipped her head to the side, and then turned away and headed to a nearby tree.  Ember lifted his arm and skidded the tips of his fingers against the smooth surface of the water.  He slowly breast-stroked to the edge of the basin, as if he had all the time in the world.  He put on his shirt and joined his sister on a sturdy branch of a tall, nearby tree. 

Climbing trees and balancing on branches were activities that nearly all Erosans mastered at young ages.  Though they were known to be dangerous and though injuries occurred from time to time, it was such a part of daily life that hardly anyone feared it.  Erosans, as a whole, were quite adept at these activities.  In fact, the last time someone fell from a tree and got seriously injured, Ember was 2 years old and Maggie wasn’t even born.  Usually, if one slipped and fell, there were enough nearby branches or ropes to break the fall.  This particular branch, however, was dangerous because it hung over the forest floor beyond any major town structure.  To make matters worse, the branch was a “loner”—Erosan speak for a branch around which there were no other major branches.  “Loners” were dangerous because if one fell from them, one would not stop until one hit the ground.  The branch upon which Maggie was perched was a particularly tenuous “loner,” and she liked it for precisely that reason.

              As Ember crawled onto the branch, Maggie scooted down to its distal portions.  The branched bowed downward slightly as Ember joined her at the end.  Each of them put an arm around each other, as was traditional in Erosa, to provide extra stabilization.  Though a fall from this height would mean certain death, neither of them was afraid.  Just overhead there was a small hole in the canopy—just large enough to catch the face of the rising sun.

             
“So…” she began.

             
“So…” he parroted.

             
“Shall we talk about it?” she said with a smile.

             
“What’s there to talk about?”  Maggie frowned again.  Ember always had a way of getting under her skin.  She knew that his understated, apathetic responses were just his way of spoiling her bubbly excitement, yet she couldn’t help but get annoyed each and every time.

             
“Come on, don’t do that!”

             
“Do what?”

             
“Act like it’s not a big deal.  Come on, today’s your Evaluation!”  Ember smiled lightly.  Maggie instantly grinned from ear-to-ear in response.  Though these were the sorts of games they played very often, it always made Maggie feel better when he broke.  It reminded her that all was not miserable in Ember’s life—that although he might not be the happiest guy in Erosa, he at least had some inkling of contentedness.  “They’re going to suggest you for Protégé.”

             
“I know,” he whispered with the same sense of understated acceptance he knew would bother her. 

Protégé was the highest, most ambitious position an Erosan his age could be awarded.  The first few years of the job consisted essentially of accelerated apprenticeships.  The Protégé would be trained in everything from engineering to cooking and agriculture, resource management to administrative planning.  After several years of acquiring knowledge in all the major trades, Protégés would resign themselves to theoretical work and assist with city planning, after which they were assigned the title “Arbiter of Truth.”  Arbiters were generally bookish creatures that seldom left their studies except to advise others.  In order to be a good Arbiter, one needed a powerful clarity of mind, a strong sense of inventiveness and intuition, and, most of all, a desire to learn.  After a few decades, Arbiters usually develop along one of three paths: exploration, theoretical application, or shadowing.  Ember and Maggie’s parents were both explorers.  The most gifted of the Arbiters would become Magistrates.  Their sole job was to observe and listen to the Council of Elders until one of them needed to be replaced.  Ember was a particularly precocious child, and there was never really any doubt that he would one day become an Arbiter, the only question was whether he would follow his grandfather into the Council of Elders or go down his parent’s path.

“Are you going to accept?” she asked seriously.

             
“What do you mean?”

             
“I’m just saying…  It’s a very different, dare I say ‘difficult,’ lifestyle.  Don’t you think you might be happier living a more… well… relaxed life?”  A sparse fuzz of light danced around the parting clouds and onto Ember and Maggie’s faces.  She put her hand up and slanted her fingers to protect her eyes.  The topaz hue of the rising sun was rapidly giving way to bluer shades.

             
“It doesn’t matter.  I’ll become what they want me to.  What is the will of an individual in the face of the well being of the many?” he asked semi-rhetorically.

             
“Ember?!” she snapped.

             
“What?” he said, alarmed.

             
“Cut it out.  We talked about this!  It’s your life, do with it as you please.”  She pulled her arm away from him and extended her two index fingers.

             
“No, come on, don’t!”  A huge smile swept across the face—the type of smile that comes naturally when one is about to be tickled against his or her will.  “Not here!”

             
“Smile more often and I won’t have to!”  She inched her index fingers closer to his face.  Ember took his arm off her to aid with his defense.  He batted her fingers away playfully.

             
“Come on, get out of here!  Can’t you let me have my pity party in peace?” he exclaimed, trying really hard not to smile.  “This is dangerous.”

             
“I’m going to do it eventually, might as well get it over with!”  She plunged her two fingers towards his mouth.  He batted her left finger away with his right hand, but lost his balance in the process.  His eyes opened wide and his mouth ceased to smile as his weight shifted unevenly.  Maggie caught Ember by his shirt, and used her other hand to slowly help him re-balance.  The two of them breathed heavily and looked at each other for a few seconds.  She interpreted his eye contact as a dare and stuck out her index fingers again.

             
“Really?” he said with a flattened mouth and squinting eyes, simultaneously conveying a sense of annoyance and acceptance.

             
“Yep.”

             
“Get it over with,” he said with a face of a person that has gone through such a trial many times before. 

             
She put her two fingers in the corner of his mouth and raised them to make a smile.  In a silly, slow, mocking voice, presumably meant to imitate Ember’s own, she said, “My name’s Ember and I like to mope around.  My life is sooooo difficult.  Woe is me.”  He stared at her with the same annoyed, but accepting eyes.  “My sister is sooo nice.  If only I can learn to live like her,” she continued mockingly.

             
“Ok, cut it out,” he mumbled with her fingers still in his mouth.  “You done?”

             
“Yep!” she said, pulling her fingers from his mouth and wiping his saliva on his shirt.  “You better get going.”  He nodded.  “Oh, by the way, Grandpa told me to warn you.”

             
“Warn me about what?”
              “I don’t know, it was kind of cryptic.  I guess, just be careful.”

             
The two of them sat silently, appreciating the last few moments of the sunrise.  Finally Ember said, “Thanks,” and climbed down the tree.

***

              Ember slowly climbed the tall wooden ladder to the Council’s Court—only once looking down to see how small the villagers appeared below.  The Council’s Court was an impressive structure, built just above the canopy of the highest trees, and soaring above all other town buildings. 

The Court was so high that it required a special lift to accommodate the Elders.  Utilizing an elaborate series of pulleys and rope, a passenger could maneuver his way to the top and then stabilize the platform with a mechanically connected lever.  These particular pulleys were constructed in such a way that even the oldest of the elders could manage his own lift—though a few had taken to asking for assistance in recent years.  Lifts were a major part of Erosan life, and nearly everyone had experience in operating them for water, furniture items and general transport.  Out of respect, however, this particular lift was reserved exclusively for the Elders.

              The Court was large, flat, and minimalistic.  Besides for the Elder’s seven chairs, there were three symmetrically situated birdbaths, and a small pool of water within a man-made cavity.  Though the base of the platform was made of wood, and though the structure itself was supported by wooden beams, the top was layered with white rock tiles—one of the few places in Erosa with non-wood building materials.

             
Ember arrived at the top and calmly walked over to the white-robed men and women.  He looked momentarily at his grandfather, who donned a plain blue robe, and then sat down with his legs crossed, and his hands perched patiently on his knees. 

Maggie, of course, had secretly followed Ember and was carefully hiding behind the leaves of the tallest nearby tree.  Though she could only barely see Ember and the Elders, she was close enough that she could hear everything.  She hugged a tall thin branch, wedged her feet in a groove between two parting boughs, and carefully hid her face within the leaves.  She had surveyed the area many times before, and only recently came to the conclusion that this was the best spot for observation.  This was the same spot that she used during Rouge’s Evaluation a few days prior.

All was quiet.  The Council stared at Ember coldly.  He did not flinch.  At first Maggie thought the Council was taking a few moments to come up with questions, but after five minutes she knew that something was awry.  She had secretly observed many Evaluations before but never did she see something like this. 

A pair of birds perched on Maggie’s branch and began chirping.  Not wanting them to interfere with her hearing, she shooed them away. 
What are they doing?
Maggie thought to herself?
What type of test is this?  If they think they can out-wait my brother, then they have another thing coming.  They don’t know Ember.  He’s far more stubborn than they are patient… Especially when he’s in one of these moods.  The only question is if he is more stubborn and if they are more patient than I am curious.

She wondered what was going through his mind.  Was he frustrated or bored?  Accepting or ready to burst?  Wide awake or nearly sleeping?  Maggie so loved and respected her brother.  Although the Elders had clearly laid a trap for Ember, she was certain that he could maneuver his way to the solution.  She wondered what type of subtext she was missing that Ember was perceiving.  Maggie admired her brother so greatly that she more or less constantly believed that he was capable of comprehending subtleties so infinitely intricate and diminutive that she could hardly notice their existence.  Whether or not this was true was beside the point.  This was one of the moments when Maggie assumed there was something she was missing.  She imagined all the subtle movements and tactical mind games that were buzzing around their heads—and of course she imagined her brother winning.  Soon the static scene became a dramatic, tense battlefield in Maggie’s mind.  She found herself rooting for Ember more and more with each passing second. 
Don’t give in!  You can beat them!  I believe in you!”