C James - Dome Six

Towers

The Dome’s immense hydroponic Towers are the source of all food and nutrition. Each Tower comprises 30 levels, 5 meters high and 50 across for a total height of 150 meters (492 feet). Water from an aquifer below the Dome is pumped to the top, where it is filtered and delivered to the growing floors, then collected and recirculated. Condensation from the roof of the Dome is also recaptured for this purpose. The Towers are generally distinguished by what they grow there.

units

Citizen apartments. Units are identical and determined by how many citizens are living there, though none are designed to accommodate more than three people. In the rare cases of a family with more than one child, units can be fitted with additional beds, spigots, etc.

UV blanket

A thin, but sturdy blanket made of reflective material to be deployed in the event of a UV shield failure. Drills are frequent and citizens are expected to carry them at all times.

UV shield

A system built into the roof of the Dome to modulate the levels of UV radiation entering the structure. It is a viscous, photochromic liquid sandwiched between multiple layers of graphene, controlled by a combination of pumps and capillary action.

WTR

Water Treatment and Reclamation. This mostly automated facility at the perimeter of the Dome treats all water intended for consumption, including the addition of contraceptives.

The students were painted down the classroom in six beige stripes of eight each, their loose hemp uniforms ranging from threadbare to new. As ever, their preadolescent eyes stared through Tosh as though she wasn’t there. If Dome Six had a flag, this is what it would be — beige stripes on a gray field, hanging limply in the recycled air.

The thin aluminum walls of School 2 were perforated by a narrow row of windows, just large enough to watch throngs of workers head one way down busy Rad 18 in the morning then back at day’s end. It served as a constant reminder of the toil and routine that awaited them.

It wasn’t education so much as indoctrination, a parking lot for the young and vigorous while they awaited Placement into one of the Dome’s ten basic job categories. In a few years her cohort would receive their lot from IDA, the artificial intelligence whose algorithms decided such things, and they would work until they got put in the Box. Kind words would be said, and they would be led inside to die. Their ashes would be made into hydroponic substrate, and their digital Legacies would become the only totem to their existence.

Perhaps she’d grown a touch cynical.

Tosh taught the same curriculum the same way to each cohort. It was so rote that she often found herself talking about one thing but thinking another, like whether she and Byron should apply to cohabitate. He already had Dee so there would be no pressure to have kids of their own. It might be nice.

A partner was the only real bulwark against unbearable loneliness, though marriage was never codified in the Charter. Some still used the old terms “wife” or “husband” though they had no official meaning. As long as you were productive and didn’t cause trouble, the Authority didn’t much care what you did or with whom.

What they did care about was reproduction. In a closed system, population control was paramount. Maybe one in eight couples was allowed to reproduce. The contraceptives would be removed from the woman’s water rations, and in a few months they might get pregnant. If the woman wasn’t pregnant by age 30, the permit would be given to another couple. Birth and death rates had to be balanced, as resources were finite.

The lessons Tosh had taught for the past 17 years were the same. The lessons she’d learned, she kept for herself.

Nearly 90 years had passed since the Dome’s connection to the outside world was severed to protect the network from hackers. Now only the Cache remained — echoes and snapshots of searches and page views dating back to the Originals. If you wanted to know anything about the Time Before, that’s where you went. Or, you asked IDA. If information didn’t survive the Collapse, then the Cache might be all that was left. The last account of human history.

The Yamamuras weren’t exactly known for their stories, but Tosh knew a few. She knew about the Great Earthquake that splintered California, and the Great Migration, and cars and airplanes and horses. About sports and games of every kind.

The Cache had those things, too, but the stories Tosh knew never quite aligned, and she didn’t dare try to teach them.

Sports, for example, were described in the Cache as being a cruel form of entertainment, where prisoners and enemies of the State were forced to play childish games for the amusement of the oligarchs. She heard it quite differently. Her great-grandfather played sports as a child for fun and exercise. To hear him tell it, they didn’t want to do anything else.

What the Yamamuras were known for was a history of subversive behavior that confounded the algorithms. Her twin brother, Hideki, was a Macro addict with a weak grip on reality. Her parents were dead, her grandparents shut-ins who lived almost as far from her as it was possible to be.

All Tosh wanted was to put her family’s past behind her and keep it there. The best way to do that was to keep her mouth shut.

Unfortunately, the Authority made that very difficult.

A month earlier, she went off-script and taught her cohort a different account of the Peninsula War. IDA flagged it, and the next morning she was being read the riot act in Director Davis’ office. Plenty of people who labored in the Towers or the Food Processing Center, he said, would give anything for the privilege of educating the next generation.

Just to punctuate this point, he assigned a classroom monitor to observe her teaching for two full months, ending today.

“Okay, everyone, time for lunch,” she said.

The class rose as one and filed out, starting with the side furthest from the door because it was Wednesday. Delia and Viola mimed eating as they passed, and Tosh held up a finger. Wait . After everyone filed out, she glanced over at the monitor, who stared imperiously back.

“May I join the students today?” she asked.

“Suit yourself,” he said, rubbing his temples. “This is my last day.”

“Oh no,” she said, barely able to conceal her glee. “I hadn’t realized.”

She about-faced and did a little happy dance as she stepped out into the courtyard. At age 37, a pair of precocious 12-year-olds were basically her closest friends. Her adopted son, Owen, had been the first to point this out. He wasn’t exactly wrong.

She found Dee and Vi stopped in the middle of the courtyard with the other students, their heads craned back. They were pointing up at the roof, wide-eyed.

“Miss Yamamura — look!” said Delia, pointing her slender arm directly overhead.

Tosh traced the line of Dee’s finger. A maintenance worker was up in his crawler, presumably to repair one of the wheezing air exchangers. The square, bucket-like vehicle traveled up and down on tracks between the panels, but it was stopped. It was a bit unusual to see a crawler during the day. Most structure repairs were done at night because it got so hot up there. From 400 meters below, she barely could make him out.

“That’s not your dad, I hope,” Tosh said.

“Nah, he’s in the Stores today,” Dee replied. “I don’t know who that is.”

“You’d never catch me up there,” said Tosh. Just tilting her head back that far made her dizzy. Byron had no problem with heights.