P. Hoover - Solstice

Overhead, the giant industrial air conditioners kick in. The city has mandated they can only be turned on in times of disaster, and only then, set to cool to eighty-nine degrees. Otherwise, most of humanity has to settle for eco-friendly A/C, which cools to a toasty ninety-three degrees.

I take out my FON and scan each kid’s identifier until it beeps. One by one, I make my way down the line, but I stop when I notice a girl sitting against the gym wall with her knees pulled up against herself and tears running down her face. Her arms are covered in red blisters, and standing over her is some empathy-challenged freshman girl and her boyfriend who even in the midst of disaster tries to act like he’s above it all, the heat be damned. There’s just something about the whole situation that gets under my skin. I detest bullies. I detest when people are flat-out mean and get away with it. And I detest when people take advantage of bad situations.

I walk over, and when they see me coming, the girl and guy scoot away to Chloe’s line. Chloe catches my eye and winks. I know my best friend will set them straight. I turn back to the girl on the ground, but she doesn’t look up. Instead, she scratches her blisters and stares straight ahead.

“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” I say and squat down beside her.

She bites her lip, but her tears are still coming.

I reach out and run my hand over her blisters. “You’re allergic?”

She nods and then pulls her arms away and tries to move them to the inside of her legs.

She shouldn’t be embarrassed. One out of every ten people is allergic to the cooling gel they use, but this was deemed acceptable by the city council since it helps more people than it hurts. My mom was furious about the decision, but her vote was in the minority.

“I’m Piper,” I say.

The girl’s eyes finally meet mine. “Everyone knows who you are,” she says.

I give a weak smile to help relax her. “Only ’cause my mom’s on the city council.”

“Yeah, maybe,” she says. And she smiles back.

“You know my mom swears fennel tea will help reduce the allergic effects of the gel.”

Hope fills the girl’s eyes. “Fennel tea?”

I nod. “It’s supposed to counteract the chemicals they use. We grow all sorts of it at home.”

“At the Botanical Haven?” she says.

“Yeah. The Botanical Haven.” Apparently everyone knows where I live, too. I guess that’s the price of living in the largest private greenhouse in town. Chloe had told me once that people refer to it as the Flower Fortress behind my back. “I’ll bring you some on Monday if you want to try it.”

“Really?” Her face lights up like I’ve told her I’ll be her best friend.

“Yeah, really,” I say. I give her a final smile and stand up and am about to start scanning more kids when, over the wail of the sirens, there’s a boom so loud I feel it deep in my bones. It sounds like a bomb has dropped just outside the school walls. The ground rumbles, and the A/C overhead gives a final clunk and turns off. Any sense of order that might have been taking over the gym vanishes.

Someone shouts, “we’re all gonna die,” and people start screaming and crying. The sirens are still blaring, and the thermometer on the wall reads ninety-two. As I watch, it creeps up to ninety-three. Ninety-four. Everyone’s eyes are fixed on it, like it’s some electronic symbol of their fate. I hold my breath and wait for something to change. The sound from outside could only be the disperser missile. If it doesn’t work, maybe everyone else will be right. Maybe this will be the end of the world. Ninety-five. The temperature keeps rising. Ninety-six. And now, having twelve hundred kids and ninety faculty members stuck in a sealed-off gymnasium doesn’t seem like such a good idea. Maybe they should have been testing the air conditioning more regularly.

I’m just about to let despair consume me. The thermometer clicks to ninety-seven, and I think this is it. This is going to be the end.

But the temperature holds.

And the sirens go silent.

And the thick plastic walls lift.

And then there’s the sound of the doors to the gym unsealing, and twelve hundred kids start cheering, myself included. Whatever the missile was supposed to do to disperse the heat bubble, it must’ve worked. And I think maybe we will be able to survive this global warming disaster after all.

The principal comes back on the intercom and tells everyone school is canceled for the rest of the day. He instructs everyone to return home “in an orderly fashion” and await further instructions. Since I already talked to my mom, I know that the domes are about to be sealed. I hurry over to tell Chloe, but she’s caught in the crowd and being pushed out the door. I’ll text her once I get outside.

One step outside, with no cooling gel, and it’s like an inferno. Even if the bubble’s dispersed, it could take hours for the hot air to drift away. I don’t wait for a shuttle because everyone is trying to take one; the wait will be eternity. So I start the walk home.

Overhead, the steel struts of the dome structure extend into the sky. Thirty domes are being built over Austin, but only eight are supposed to be operational so far. Our Botanical Haven isn’t inside one, and I don’t want to be caught on the wrong side. My mom would freak.

I have to admit the thought of being away from my mom for a weekend is appealing. I could stay with Chloe. We could stay up late and watch ridiculous videos on the tube and eat popcorn and talk about which guys are hot and which ones she’d never date even if they were the last guys left on earth. But I keep walking.

I’m hardly past the last strut when the glass starts to grow between the beams of steel. I can’t pull my eyes away. Inch by inch, the glass forms like the shell of some sea creature. The Global Heating Crisis will continue to destroy the atmosphere, and cities around the world will create their own new atmospheres, and maybe life will go on; at this point, nothing is a guarantee. I watch until the glass seals fully into place, and then I walk home.

From what my mom and I watch on the news Friday and Saturday, the domes work just like promised. The eight functioning ones sealed shut and blocked the worst of the heat and UV radiation, which was great. What wasn’t so great was the fact that, in the areas which weren’t domed, the crime rate skyrocketed. Reporters estimate a record high of thirty rapes, fifteen murders, and an uncountable number of burglaries throughout the city. Hotter days always bring more violence to the city, but this is the worst it’s been yet.

The steel struts retract the glass of the domes late Sunday, reabsorbing the sand and lime for use the next time the domes are needed, and now everyone’s allowed out again. My mom tells me the GHC council has an emergency meeting after school Monday—that she might not be here when I get home. I try to keep the smile off my face; I’ll have a little time to myself. My mom is smothering in large doses, and this weekend of her doting on my every movement hasn’t helped matters. I only saw one other person the entire weekend when my mom went out to collect some seeds. One of our customers, Melina, came by to talk and drop off a birthday present. On a normal Sunday, I look forward to Melina’s visits, but this time, the whole vibe felt wrong. I figured it was the heat.

The next day at school, all anyone talks about is the Global Heating Crisis. Everyone’s trying to outdo one another with stories about how crazy or scary or awesome their weekend was. I mull over the fact that I spent the entire weekend inside the Botanical Haven with my mom while my eighteenth birthday came and went. To her credit, she tried to make it special, making me a vanilla cream cake and molding tiny flowers out of fondant for the icing. But even the cake couldn’t erase the fact that I didn’t get to see Chloe.