Quantum State, page 20
“Do you see this?!”
“Yeah…it's amazing.” Esfir's voice reminds me he is there.
My eyes search frantically, as if I might not have enough time to absorb it all, when my fingers caress the large leaves of a tomato plant beside me. We walk underneath a plethora of hanging ivory as hundreds of plants sit to my left and right. I pass a group of aloe beside pink-and-purple flowers, and then notice orchids to my right before I hear my name, Masha.
The voice is so familiar that I am put at an immediate calm. I look up and my eyes follow the outline of a woman standing beside the end wall in overalls and with a shovel in hand. Long, dark tresses hang over her shoulders and deep-set chocolate eyes fix on mine.
Then, it all comes rushing over me. Mama!
State of Masha
“Is it really you?” I can't believe my eyes—maybe MAQS is playing a trick on me. I have to touch her, if just to know for sure. I stumble forward, my breaths heavy and hyperventilating. My jaw clenching. “Mama?”
I reach out to the woman at the other end of the wall, the one with a large birch tree to its right and an aloe plant to the left. The woman lays her shovel into the pot with the aloe and dusts her hands off on her baggy pants before opening her arms wide to me.
“Masha!”
My brain tries to catch up with my heart as I throw my arms around this woman's neck and we hug. Her frame is much shorter than I remember, but then, I was much younger the last time I'd seen her. A few new scratches over her chin, but her eyes—her eyes belong to Mama.
“Mama?” I say more as a question, because I can't be sure of anything anymore. Nothing inside of Cherni is what it seems.
“Masha, it's me,” she says, and I want to believe her—need to believe her, because then MAQS isn't a monster after all. If she let my mama die in the cell—by herself—then no matter what the truth is, MAQS doesn't deserve my loyalty. But if this woman, this green thumb, is Mama, then, then…“Masha!”
She senses the confusion in my mind, the doubt in my eyes as I even doubt myself. So, she grabs my hand and bends down with me to the pot with the aloe plant and digs a hole in the soil with her finger. “See, like this.”
Memories wash over me of Mama helping me garden in our backyard. I cry, my heart pounding. She tugs on the white ribbon around my wrist. “You kept a part of me with you.”
My arms swing around her waist as she squeezes me hard again. “How?”
Mama stands and I stand with her, feeling weak in the knees and exhausted. It's way past my bedtime, and all I want to do is sleep or talk to Mama till the sun rises. I'm not sure which feeling dominates more.
Esfir inches closer as Kir steps beside me to examine this ghost. “Masha?”
“Kir,” Mama says, and hugs him.
“But how? I thought you were dead.”
Mama nods as she explains, “Everyone thought I died. That was the plan.” She takes a deep breath. “MAQS's plan. She didn't want anyone knowing about the experiment. About my participation.”
Kir shakes his head. “But you were a rebel; the leader of Freedom.”
Mama's eyes widen into a glossy glow. “I was, but after my captivity…after years of captivity, MAQS and I had many discussions. Through KLI, of course. I never saw her myself.” Mama pauses, then continues. “Well, not until I decided, agreed, that I'd participate in her experiment. Then, I was escorted underground, where I learned the fullness of the truth.” Mama's head descends, her eyes lower to the plants potted below us, and then she looks at me. “That humankind had destroyed itself, and left a planet incapable of sustaining biological life. That the only reason we exist is because of MAQS. That without her, without her reconstructed districts, like Cherni, we would cease to exist once more.”
We all stand in awe of Mama. Maybe it's her words—the realization that we'd have nothing without MAQS and that we quite literally owe her our lives—or maybe it's the fact that Mama's really alive.
“What experiment?” My brows rise.
“MAQS wants to expand the boundaries of the districts, to help rebuild what Earth once was, but the Cylindricals can only protect a small portion of space at a time, and they are difficult to make. Materials are in short supply. Bots have to travel for days outside in search of metal and wire. They end up digging for weeks at a time, and ransacking destroyed buildings.”
Mama plays with the leaf of the aloe plant. “MAQS wants to build more rooms like this one.” Mama's hands wave upward. “Enclosed spaces connected to the districts—like tunnels—so they're protected. A place where we could grow more plants and eventually more animals.” She looks at me. “One large, self-sustaining greenhouse. We could build rooms like this all around Cherni, around every reconstructed district. Imagine all the extra plants we could produce.”
I'm not sure how I feel about all of this. This is all so new. MAQS…a good guy? We all just stare at Mama—at this ghost—and maybe me more than anyone else wonders if this is all for real.
Kir interjects, “What are you doing up, anyway?”
Mama answers, “MAQS informed me that you'd be arriving. There's an Echo in the corner of the room.” She points to the long, familiar pole that I've cursed many times. Then, she shrugs. “Besides, I don't just tend to plants in here.” She waves to us to follow her to the back door in the other corner, opposite the Echo. She signals to one of the bots with a flick of her forefinger and the closest bot walks to the wall and inserts its pinky into the socket to open the back door. “Follow me.”
The three of us follow behind Mama as she leads us into the darkness of what must be officially outside. The coarse air against my skin, and the heat—even apparently at night—hits me hard like a stampede of Keepers knocking me over, and I know for sure we are really outside this time. “Why are we out here?”
“My other duty is to collect rock and sand samples from the outside. To study them, to see if the Earth is improving. I work with a team of bots assigned to me by MAQS. I head the team; after all, I scored highest in Cherni in the sciences.” A gust of wind blows her hair, and she pulls strands out of her face as she finishes, “The nighttime is the easiest time to collect samples. The weather is more merciful then.”
It's then when I realize that I am more like Mama than I thought, even though I always concluded because of Papa's duty in farming that I must be like him—a green thumb. If I created MAQS—if my original self created her—then I am good at the sciences too, just the ones not allowed inside of the reconstructed districts: physics and electronics.
Esfir looks suspicious and then asks, “But why does MAQS need you? I mean, I'm not trying to be offensive, but MAQS has enough bots to do all of this investigative labor…not to mention all of our duties inside of Cherni?”
Mama turns from her rocks and looks at Esfir point-blank. “As MAQS explained to me once, human beings are nothing if they don't have purpose, and so they must be given duties. She decides what duties best suit us based on our genetic composition.”
The bots escort us into a vehicle of sorts. It has four tires, and closed windows and after we all squeeze in—me, Esfir and Kir in the back, Mama in the front passenger seat, and a bot at the wheel—I remember the name of this vehicle from a TV show. A jeep!
I'm a tad apprehensive and yet also excited as the bot reeves the engine. “What are we doing?”
“MAQS wants you to understand the state of things better. She requested I show you.”
After about a ten minute drive, we are past most of what Esfir and I saw when we escaped Cherni through the hole that Kir made. Now, the land is mostly flat and looks like a desert for miles. The only life—if I can call it that—is that of a few bots here and there, just walking and gathering whatever they can find like scavengers. The scene is almost pathetic—leaving a mixed feeling in the pit of my stomach. Out here, under the brutality of the heat and natural elements, they don't seem as scary. The seem almost…desperate. The bots gather maybe a few rocks here, a scrap of metal there. In the distance I notice a collapsed building with a rusted exterior.
I don't see a bird, nor a lizard, not even a bug. In Cherni, we at least have those, though only a few. There is absolutely no life out here. Just death. Kir was right all along. Venturing outside would have brought us nothing.
After our excursion, the bot drives us back to Mama's area. We exit the vehicle and Kir stands beside Mama, his arm straddling her waist, as if all these questions about our new reality mean nothing to him now that he's here with her. “I missed you. I really missed you,” he says, his kiss on her cheek leaving me with the impression that they were more than mere friends. He smells her neck and then they hug.
“I'm sorry I couldn't tell you I was alive,” Mama says with a stream of tears, to Kir, and then looks to me. “I couldn't tell anyone. No-one can know I'm here. That I'm doing this. There would be too many questions. I've seen others—chosen, like me—fall, after learning the truth.” Her eyes swell up. “Suicide. They aren't with us anymore. The truth is too hard.”
“I know.” I turn to Esfir. “We won't tell anyone either.”
It's funny how quickly the night turns into day. Walking outside Cherni to help Mama collect rocks for her samples passes quickly, and before I know it, the sun has risen over the distant horizon. The blood red of the valleys comes closer into view, and the sandstorms that roll over the dunes look eerily closer by the minute. Soon, the bots escort us back inside the safe house, and we are all sitting at a small wood table between an array of colorful flowers.
Kir slides beside Mama and his face glows like I've never seen him before. “I still can't believe it's you.” He stares at her as if she might just disappear on him, and then Mama pours each of us a glass of juice.
“It's made from the aloe plants here. I usually make a pitcher for myself.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Mikhailov.” Esfir sounds so formal, so polite, before he slurps the aloe juice from his ceramic mug. Then he asks, his brows curling, “So, our grandparents were all cloned?”
“Yes,” Mama answers plainly. She's had more time to adjust to all of this truth.
Esfir scratches his head. “And you were then born from a clone?”
“Yes,” Mama answers again.
“Wow.” Esfir shakes his head, his half-astounded expression getting the better of him.
“So, what have you been doing down here by yourself all this time? Don't you get lonely?” Kir asks, the juice forming a clear mustache around his lips.
Mama opens her mouth; unheard words linger there for a moment. “I was, at first. But I'm not really alone. I have the bots, and MAQS, and she tells me everything you're up to.” Mama's eyes flit up to me.
“You mean like my excursions to the Cylindrical? My stunts? Time in jail?” I almost feel ashamed now.
Mama's grin grows. “Yeah,” she chuckles. “I so badly wanted to sneak into Cherni and tell you everything. I thought about it so many times. I couldn't believe how often you retraced my steps. You were following a ghost.”
“So, why didn't you?” I say with a hint of fury that surprises even me.
Mama's face grows sad, regretful even. “I couldn't. I couldn't risk others finding out. You telling your papa, or your—” she glances at Esfir “—boyfriend.” Her head shakes. “Besides, even if I had snuck in, MAQS would have known and stopped me before I got anywhere near you. The world she's created for everyone inside is an illusion that can't afford to be shattered. Not even for you.”
We sip our mugs, all of us silent at the fact that even with all this truth, we are still in a sense prisoners to MAQS—more specifically, prisoners of our own making.
“So MAQS told you everything?” I emphasize.
Mama nods. “I know who you are.” She clears her throat. “Who you were. I know there are eight districts, including Cherni. And I know MAQS was created in 2050 to protect humanity—by you…or who you once were, anyway. What she calls the eighth day of recreation.”
“So, you're okay with it all?” I ask my mat hard. Mama stares at me, as if she isn't sure she knows my meaning, and so I clarify for her. “Okay with there being just thousands of humans left on Earth, all clones inserted into mother's bellies by nursebots when still just the size of a mustard seed; with MAQS in charge of us, still?”
“I wasn't at first.” She glances down at the table. “For the first year, after learning, I had moments where I broke down, where I sat in a corner of this greenhouse and just cried—all night.” Her dim countenance rises with her chin and her eyes on me. “But then you kept me alive, kept me hopeful.”
I sit with that thought, with the notion that Mama had something to hope for…in me, and it's then when I realize that the only way to get through all this, to have any of this mean anything, would be for me to have children, though I never could have imagined it before all of this.
The thought of so few humans left, of this district being just like every other is a dreadful, dark thought. But children could mean hope for difference, a possibility for something more, for change unexpected. I found myself considering what I never would have previously.
Esfir slips closer to me and interjects. “Then you also know your daughter was assigned to marry Kazimir.” He looks up to my mat. A thick gulp stays in his throat.
“Yes, and as I told her when she was just nine and a half, she had the obligation not to follow the orders of MAQS, but to follow her heart. And it seems she may not have to marry Kazimir after all. He's been reassigned, hasn't he?”
Suddenly, the date dawns on me. “It's my eighteenth birthday!” I say, half jovial and half unsure. “Does that mean I have no one to marry?” My mind trails off with images of a wedding dress and no one at my side.
Esfir shrugs. “I don't know.”
“Surely, she won't make me go through with it, now?” I argue, peeking at Mama from behind the mug of aloe juice. She would know more. She's known MAQS personally longer than any of us have. “Right? Even though Kazimir and I both know the truth now, and I'm not really a criminal—but her apparent creator.” I look to Esfir, unsure. “I mean, to undo Kasimir's reassignment. That would be…that would be…”
“Unnecessary.” Esfir adds.
“I…I don't know,” Mama answers with sorrow etched in the corners of her eyes. “I don't know what MAQS will do given the turn of events. If Kazimir is the best genetic match for you, maybe she'll make this exception for you and let you marry him. After all, the point of matchmaking is the harmony, and your generation is the first that will try for biological children. Your pairing with Kazimir will give the offspring MAQS predicts and wants.”
“What?!” I'm dumbfounded.
Mama nods her head. “Biological children never succeeded before. That's why MAQS relied on clones, but she believes she has perfected the clone in your generation. That your generation may be the first to have biological children.”
“But I don't want to marry him, Mama.”
Mama rubs her forehead. “Talk to MAQS. She will find a reasonable solution.”
Reasonable, huh? I wonder if the same reason I have, that I don't love Kazimir—though I might like him—applies to MAQS. If the same reason I have, that Esfir has been my best friend since as long as I can remember, should matter at all to her.
MAQS has one thing on her mind for humanity and that is to survive, and that means to procreate. Obviously cloning doesn't allow humans to live very long, which is why our grandparents always died in their forties. MAQS wants humans to live longer than that, and that means biological progeny. It's no wonder she's always taken such good care of us all, and required we all marry at eighteen, provided for all of our needs, and even makes sure prisoners are taken care of well enough. Even those at Calypso Tower.
What would the districts do without her water showing up at our doorsteps each morning? We wouldn't even have water if MAQS didn't create it, let alone food to eat…like peanut butter sandwiches and almond milk. As much as I long—longed—to flee Cherni and be on my own, to discover the truth for myself…in a different way, she answered all my questions. I would never survive out there, wouldn't want to, now. What would there even be to survive out there for?
I've seen what being out there costs. I found a human skeleton, and even Kir, a man who barely made it if not for the bots locating him. Living inside Cherni makes so much sense. Everything I believed MAQS to be was the lie—not her. Everything I thought she stood for was wrong. So wrong. She was never trying to harm us, but protect us—from ourselves.
Then, I wonder if children are something Esfir would even want now, with everything we know. Maybe the children would not be the perfect progeny that MAQS would want, but they would be mine—Esfir's and mine—and that would be enough, at least for me. I look up at him, his freckled nose so defined. “If…” his eyes catch mine, “if I was to request marriage to you.” His eyes grow big. “Would you even want children?”
“Children? I thought that was the last thing you wanted, Masha?” Esfir reacts surprised.
“I…” I shrug, “I just don't know now. After everything we know; given the state of humanity. Our dismal numbers. It just seems, that would make sense.”
Esfir freezes, silent. And I know that look. The one with his curly brows hanging too low over his eyes as his silence grows and his breaths get heavier. “I can't say I want kids, Masha. I'm sorry, but with so much uncertainty I just don't see a point in bringing life into this world.” His apologetic eyes plead to me. “Right now, all I know is that I want you.”
We sit at the table, everyone just staring at Esfir and me, as we can only stare silently at each other with nothing more to say. The exhaustion of the day—of the night—finally sinks into all of us, and for Mama, I guess this is her usual bedtime. Our heads finally find comfort on the table, and my mind is half-asleep, half-awake when I feel myself contemplating marriage to Kazimir. Though I'd never admit this out loud or even fully to myself, I could petition MAQS to marry Kazimir too. Things have changed. What I know—what we all know—has changed and Kazimir still wants me.
