Planting Eden

It is the year 2197, I think. I don’t know what month it is...we stopped keeping track of days and dates a long time ago. I’m in the middle of the Arizona desert and it is dusk. I wasn’t planning to be outside tonight. Or ever again.

My brown hair is pulled back in a ponytail because it was all I had time for. The revolver in my bag is loaded in case I get attacked. My linen dress goes down to my knees and conceals the hint of blood from a scrape on my right thigh. I keep running over dry soil that is covered in sand and ash. Occasionally, I come across skulls or complete skeletons that either look picked over by wild beasts or blackened with fire. I look to the horizon and keep scanning. I should be able to see the dome soon. If I don’t, it may be too late.

Things have changed so much. I’m told that this used to be a beautiful place. But when the radiation from the bombs started causing mutations, animals became more aggressive and craved human blood. Being outside on a night like this means death. After leaving the only home I’ve ever known, I’m now running through this wasteland to find “New Earth 5,” a self-contained biosphere dome that, I’m hoping, can serve as a radiation free oasis from this hell.

I keep running. Just one more step. Just one...more...step. I grip the locket around my neck once more as a reminder as to why I’m out here.

Cassie…

Cassie and I grew up in a fortress full of women. Women realized many years ago that apart from needing men’s sperm to create children, men were useless. They built fortresses and kept the men out, and learned to live on their own. Outside, men continued to fight each other, taunting each other over radio broadcasts. Their battles eventually included nuclear weapons. There are no radio broadcasts anymore. This all happened before I was born.

My eyes keep scanning and finally, I catch sight of the dome. I can do it, Cassie...just a little bit farther…

In the fortress, all women were considered equal at first. But as time went on, things changed. Women with beautiful faces, long legs, and slender figures, felt superior and started bullying those they considered genetically inferior. The beautiful ones lived on the top floor of the compound, and ruled over everyone else. “Top shelf” is what we started calling them. If you weren’t “Top Shelf,” you did what you were told. To disobey meant imprisonment. Sometimes, it meant death.

Now that I am outside the fortress, my lungs are burning. The air tastes like soot and sulfur. It’s hard to see through the smog. Get me out of this hell. The compound was horrible...but this is worse...

I first met Cassie when I was 18. Not being “Top Shelf,” I was given a mandatory “calling” as a midwife. Everyone under 18 was kept in the dark about the rules meant for adults. I naively asked the Overseer who had assigned me my calling if I could have children of my own. The Overseer, a stunning woman with high cheekbones and blond hair pulled back into a bun, slapped my face so hard that I lost my balance and fell to the floor.

“Insolent brat!” She shouted. “Know your place!”

She launched into a tirade reminding me, and everyone else, that we were there to serve those with superior genetics. In short, “Top Shelf” were allowed to have children, and everyone else could not. I started to weep bitterly. Ever since I could remember, no matter what else I decided to be, I knew that I wanted to be a mother. The Overseer’s stern face showed no remorse. I felt completely alone.

That is, until I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up and saw an older girl with wavy brown hair, dimples, and a big smile on her face.

“Hey!” She said, “It’s going to be okay!”

She introduced herself as Cassie and helped me up. She put her arm around me and walked me away from the crowd of onlookers who awkwardly awaited their own fates. When we were out of view of everyone else, Cassie turned and gave me the warmest, most sincere hug I had ever received. For the first time in my life, I felt loved.

After that dramatic introduction, I got to know Cassie pretty well. She had been chosen as a midwife the year before. She adored her job and gushed about how much she loved how babies smell. Day after day, she showed me the ins and outs of our job as we delivered babies and spent many long hours in the nursery, taking care of the newborns.

My mother, like all of the mothers here, must have been “Top Shelf” but I don’t know who she was. Like all children here, my “Top Shelf” mother birthed me and nursed me...but then abandoned me to the care of a nursemaid, who took care of children out of obligation. When I cried as a child, I cried alone.

Cassie, unlike me, had actually known her mother. Her mother loved her and had kept her longer than most mothers in the fortress do. But her mother had died, leaving her nothing but a beautiful heart shaped locket with a keepsake compartment inside.

Cassie and I became the best of friends. She violated curfew so she could sneak into my dorm. We sometimes stayed up late playing games and she even slept in my bed until it was time to sneak back to her room in the morning. Many times, she almost got caught by the Overseer. I wanted to tell her not to come, that it wasn’t worth the risk of getting caught. But I couldn’t. I wanted her with me all the time.

A year passed, and my feelings for Cassie matured. I remember the first time I told her I loved her. We had just finished a pillow fight and we were kneeling on my bed, out of breath and giggling. It got quiet for a moment and our eyes met. When I told her I loved her, I could tell by the look on her face that she knew what I meant. She just smiled with those adorable dimples...and then she kissed me. Her lips were so soft and warm. We kissed for a long time. We held each other afterward.

Weeks later, I told her a secret.

“Cassie,” I whispered, “I want to have a baby with you.”

She drew back, a little surprised. “I think we both know about a million reasons why that can’t happen.”

“I know,” I replied, “It’s still something I want.”

We both knew that “Top Shelf” women who wanted children had to be artificially inseminated. Occasionally, male survivors of the war came to our gates begging for food. Their DNA was analyzed and it was found to be relatively free of genetic defects, a man could trade samples of his semen for a few days’ rations. This “currency” was only available to “Top Shelf” women.

One night months later, Cassie and I were coming back from the nursery after a night shift. Cassie stopped walking all of a sudden and grabbed my hand.

“I know the risks,” she whispered excitedly, “...and I don’t care. We’re doing this!”

She guided me through various hallways until we came to the in vitro lab. I stopped. I started shaking… This is what I wanted most in the world but I was petrified.

“Cassie, I don’t think I can do this.“

“Then, I’ll do it.“

She went inside… And I followed. We had to act quickly. She found the instruments that she needed and jumped up on the examining table.

“I don’t know what to do!” I told her.

“Don’t worry…I trust you. I’ll tell you what you need to do.”

With my hand shaking, I used the instruments and a sample from the cryogenic freezer and injected the sample deep inside her. We cleaned up quickly so that no one would know that we were there and got out. I remember running back to my room, exhilarated.

It would take a few weeks before we know whether or not it took hold. We waited. Weeks later, when Cassie started having morning sickness, we knew that it had worked.

We were both so happy. Of course, we couldn’t tell anyone. But then the truth of what we had done became real. What would we do once we were discovered? We worked on a plan. Cassie discovered that there was an abandoned self-contained biome built decades ago by the space program about 9 kilometers away. When the time was right, we would have to leave the fortress and run away together. We packed bags with things we would need to make it to the biome that would be our new home.

A few weeks later, Cassie didn’t show up at work. I went looking for her and found several guards outside her room. The next thing I saw was Cassie was being led out of her room by the Overseer. She was in chains. People stopped and stared. She looked pale. They had somehow discovered that she had stolen a sample.

Our eyes met. I opened my mouth to say something, but she quickly shook her head, urging me to keep quiet. She looked at me meaningfully and mouthed the word “room.” Tears welled up in my eyes. She again shook her head. She then mouthed the words “I love you” in a way that I could tell really meant “goodbye.”

That was the last time I saw her alive. They decided to make an example out of her. They executed her that evening. There was nothing I could do.

That night, I found 3 things under my bed. The first was a note, in Cassie’s handwriting.

“Melanie” the note said, “I’m sorry I was so careless. I don’t have much time. I have left you what you need. Our baby can grow in you. Be the family we planned to be. I love you.”

The second was an object I had seen before. As midwives, we sometimes rescued fetuses from dying mothers. They were then preserved in a capsule until they could be injected into a healthier mother.

Next to the injector, was a heart shaped locket. When I saw Cassie’s locket, I understood. Her baby, our baby, was alive...and preserved in a capsule inside the locket.

I knew what I needed to do. I grabbed my things and Cassie’s gifts, went out the garbage chute, and ran away from the fortress.

And here I am now, sweating and hobbling closer and closer to the dome on the horizon.

The red light of the evening sky reflects off of the glass panels of the domed enclosure that will hopefully be my salvation. Our salvation, I correct myself. I refocus my eyes on the path ahead and quicken my pace. I’ve got to get in.

I eventually get to the door, and shoot out the lock with the revolver in my bag.

I run inside, and lock the gate. Inside the dome, I find a paradise, long since abandoned. Tropical fruit trees surround an artificial lake, moving with the motions of fish. I close the airlock and bolt the door. I collapse on the warm sand at the lake’s edge.

Home.

After a minute, I take out the injector and the locket. Placing the loaded injector between my legs, I take a deep breath and squeeze the lever.

I feel pain shoot to my very core.

Exhausted, I curl up in the sand, clutching Cassie’s heart shaped locket to my chest.

Good night, Cassie...I love you and I always will.