Intentionality Read online

  Eden encourages the Monos in her inaugural speech.

  We watch her daily, raising the morale of the survivors. We stand always as her speech is broadcast throughout The Nest, as we prepare for every new day.

  These key phrases were her Intention.

  “The city of Intentionality is born.

  Amongst the seedlings of hope,

  The soil of regeneration

  And the water of survival,

  Its leaves will grow strong,

  Its buds will blossom.

  A place in which to aspire.

  Our destiny and our legacy.”

  This speech was put to music and is now our anthem, our mission statement.

  The survivors were more than grateful to be led and were housed in cargo containers found at the docks. Eden proposed that the boxes should be kept singularly and evenly spaced, to prevent the spread of more disease. The term ‘Mono’ was used to describe the survivors. However there were to be two types of survivors; the immune, who never contracted the plague and the ‘real survivors’ who fought it and won.

  As it turns out this name was completely appropriate in more than one way, as within just one generation some infants born to the ‘real survivors’ were, it seemed, exhibiting incredibly unusual gifts of knowledge. They seemed to be born with the ability to not only carry the knowledge that their parents and grandparents had been educated with, they also had the practical skills to use the knowledge in a purposeful way with no training.

  Once safely into their teenage years, the ‘real survivor’ Mono generation developed their skills almost overnight. Eden began harnessing this evolution, first researching how it had happened and whether it was likely to continue.

  Scientists found that a memory gene had mutated in the eggs of the mothers who had fought and beaten the plague. They named this the Evo-gene and then quickly set about segregating the Monos who were survivors through immunity only. They remained in their cargo box homes while other Monos were rehoused and renamed. The Acer community was developed, these people had beaten the plague during the internal warfare a body must go through in order to become a victor. They shared their knowledge of technology and medicine, making the whole community strong, self-reliant and mindful of the delicate balance they shared with the elements on Earth. In many ways an improved human force than before the Evo-shift.

  The film ends with a rousing cheer and stills of people at work, rebuilding the great city. Chanting our Anthem.

  “You made it through!” whispered Lily enthusiastically

  “So I did!”

  “How was it for you this time? Are you just a little wobbly? Or am I to catch you surreptitiously as you swing off your chair towards the floor?”

  “Oh, ever the clown Lily, thanks for the vote of confidence. I’ll have you know that I talked my way through it this time and I am completely composed. Look how I shall waltz into the coming traffic in the corridor without a moment’s thought to my own danger.”

  “Ok, be off with you sister, I shall follow at a safe distance in the emergency backup vehicle!”

  Well, I did make it off my chair at least before barrelling into Mrs Alder, who used the opportunity to remind me that our Evo-genes are about to mature and a concerted effort on my behalf to reach an emotional maturity of more than a ten-year-old before this event, would be necessary to control my new skills successfully.

  My sister and I are to be communicators of some sort. Quite a broad description, I have always felt, as almost everyone communicates. Maybe we calm people in trouble. Maybe we are to be psychologists, perhaps teachers.

  Two

  “Power is getting low Ma’am.”

  “It’s not critical yet but we would benefit from harvesting some of the Seeders soon, so that we can ease them through the set up procedure and get them online before it’s urgent.”

  “Thank you officer, please communicate this to The Nest and ask them to artificially mature the girls with the serum. How is our experiment coming along Doctor?”

  “Ma’am the twins are virtually ready for The Harvest. One is demonstrating signs of stress, but the other has developed a way to compensate for this. Their power potential is greatly amplified. So far, the experiment has been a great success. I am convinced that their output will exceed expectations and considerably reduce the amount of Acers needed in the production plant.”

  “Excellent news Doctor, I wish to remain in the loop as far as our little development is concerned. You have done Intentionality a huge service. This will be recorded on the evolution documents.”

  “That is all I require for this morning, ladies and gentlemen. Let us plan to regain communications in three weeks time, when I shall expect our twins to be online. I can’t wait for their statistical data to enlighten our research further. If they maintain a stable power supply, the possibilities are endless.”

  “Triplet embryos are waiting in the suspended animation tanks Ma’am. We just need to know if the twins can be stabilised on The Grid, then we can action Project Two.”

  Three

  Lily and I made it through lunch without further delay today. The buzz in my head was lessened by our choice of location. We usually try to eat amongst the other Seeders, but Lily decided that we both needed some together time, so we collected our lunch order and went down to my favourite level.

  The botanical gardens are a vision of enchantment plucked from a fairy story. The Monos have been able to cultivate seedlings from the surface. How they have done this with only their present knowledge, I don’t know. Some have old rescued texts from before the Evo-shift. Maybe these help, or I suppose there is a possibility that they have continued to pass on knowledge of plant life through the conventional method of communicating with one another. There is also the chance that they are using a little known skill; trial and error!

  Of course as with everything they do, they are expected to share with us because we are seen as their saviours. It’s quite ironic really, as I don’t imagine for one minute we would ever be able to survive down here without them. We are but tadpoles to their frogs at the moment. I know my destiny is to be a communicator but I haven’t the first idea how to do this yet. Until my Evo-gene has actually matured it’s like a gloriously extravagant gift, which remains in its wrapper.

  The botanical gardens are kept at a warm, comfortable, welcoming temperature. The one that creeps onto your skin minutes after getting into bed; just after the quilt has moulded itself to your form. The fragrances are sweet like your favourite dessert but also musky in places where the soil is kept continually damp. The greenery that surrounds us down here is of course nothing we have ever experienced for real. We are used only to the feel of cold plastic and smooth metal, the smell of clean surfaces, and the feel of the same ambient temperature night and day on our skin. We are synthetically regimented into twelve hours of being awake and twelve of rest or sleep, so that when we ascend we are already suited to the living timetable on the surface. This of course is maintained by the dimming of lights, rather than the physical movement of the earth around the sun! The rest of our senses are nurtured only for necessity, to enhance our Evo-gene. Spontaneity would, I feel, shock us into an early grave. I shudder to think how my body would cope if the temperature control were to malfunction for more than the hour it takes to carry out the routine reboot and upgrade once a month.

  So here in this haven, we are accosted by the aromas, sights and textures that I can only guess all humans were exposed to before the Evo-shift. I am jealous beyond belief and can’t wait to savour and cherish the experiences of the surface. We have lived in no other way at the moment, so it’s not like I am mourning what I once had. It’s just I feel it in my heart, almost like a distant memory that this natural green environment is where I should be. This is home.

  My favourite smell is the vanilla orchid. It has a comforting aroma because it is used in so many of my favourite indulgences in the canteen. However I also adore the way that it win
ds itself around the form of another plant, using it for stability but in turn sharing its beauty. Each plant benefits somehow from the other, never taking too much. It gives me confidence in our system. That the model we are given, regarding our lives on the surface is actually attainable, because it is a model that is naturally occurring.

  Eden placed us down here under the Polar Ocean.

  “Away from contamination and out of harm’s way,” she declared.

  “Free to develop without deviants and unauthorised influences.”

  This was her answer to the first mutiny, as a result of the Acers being separated from the Monos. Inevitably families were divided. Some had survived through natural immunity and others had fought and won the war of the plague. They were not asked what they would like to do. They were conscripted for the cause. Some women were even pregnant and yet still ripped from the arms of their loved ones. This seemed a harsh and unjust blow to the struggling Mono community. They fought back, some running rescue retrieval operations in the dark of the night and others began to riot.

  Our history becomes patchy with this turn of events. Peace was eventually restored but uncharacteristically for our civilisation it is not clear how this was achieved. Records have been mislaid or were never produced. They simply begin again during the next year, explaining in detail how our Nest here under the Polar Ocean was developed.

  We arrive here as embryos, ‘seeds’.

  We have no elders, no ‘family’, no influences that are not first authorised and vetted before being efficiently timetabled. We are of course looked after in the practical sense. Our clothes are washed by the Monos in the laundry level, our food cooked to order. Our education is paramount to the cause, so this begins very early on and is by its nature a source of entertainment for the one hundred or so girls that reside as princesses in this submerged palace. Our every whim has been anticipated, every worry eased along the way. We in turn are extraordinarily well behaved. Why would we not be? We are the future, the chosen.

  “You are the honoured few. Your mothers gave selflessly to our cause. Your grandmothers survived through great distress and hardship, but the true gift givers were your grandmothers of three generations ago. They fought and emerged victorious so that we could remain and prosper. Now we are in your hands. Let your journey to us be scholarly and swift. Do not tire, do not deviate, for you ladies are our future, Intentionality waits to be yours.”

  These are the words of our leader Natura (the daughter of Eve and grand-daughter of Eden, our saviour) in her annual address to the Seeders.

  We see her once a year. She travels here to The Nest. We show her our world (a highly polished version!) and then we have a harvest. A high percentage of us on this day are to be ready to ascend. Of course this is not the only harvest day, our Evo-genes mature at different rates but it is generally the group of girls from Mrs Alders advanced learning set that ascend during these special harvest days. Lily and I are expected to ascend this time.

  We place ourselves in between the orchids and the freshly cut grass. The stream in front of us trickles and tinkles as it winds its way past our feet. Always busy never stopping, with a focus and a surety that I should try to emulate one day!

  “So please explain to me in simple terms how on earth you managed to not turn up for class again Mae?

  “It’s not like it’s planned Lily. It’s the buzzing, I can’t focus and then when I do it’s only to try and work out what the sound is. I was wondering whether it means that my Evo-gene is about to mature? Perhaps then I shall get the answers to my questions. Maybe I will become a dentist. That would explain the buzzing! Anyway why would I even want to turn up to that torture on a Friday? I have been lifted off the floor too many times to forget our history. I can’t change it and it’s not like we get any insight into our future until we ascend.”

  “Mae, focus, with harvest time nearly upon us, it’s too important for us to be missing parts of the induction process. Remember when we were separated for that term when you were really ill in the medical bay. I just couldn’t go through that again. I don’t work well on my own. Once after visiting you, I even threw myself into the air hole on the lower deck. I thought that the water would make me ill and I would be able to be with you for a few days.”

  “Oh my God Lily, you didn’t tell me that! What happened?”

  “You were so far into the induced coma Mae. You couldn’t respond to me, your voice had been artificially removed from my head for the first time ever. I was so lonely. Everything seemed blank and silent. The Seeder girls don’t know me as a person. They only speak to us as a unit. They thought they might catch whatever you had if they became my friend, so I was alone, a freak of nature in an unnatural world.”

  I listened agog as my sister revealed a part of her life spent separated from me. How would she cope if I didn’t ascend?

  “So one evening when I knew that only a few Monos would be around, I travelled down to the air hole and threw myself in. Of course I had meant to pull myself out when my fingers went blue but it was just such a shock, hitting that freezing water was like cutting yourself with a knife! It just made me scream and then all of the air seemed to escape from my lungs. Before I knew what was happening the side had disappeared and I was sucked into the middle of the pool. I figured that I only had a minute or two at the most before I wouldn’t be able to keep my head above the water; I wasn’t injured just so paralysed by the cold. I don’t know how those Mono divers can stand to be in the water for so long.

  “I began to lose consciousness, sounds became muffled and light became intermittent, each time after regaining focus I had found myself deeper under the water. I called to you Mae, as silly as it sounds, I said goodbye and that I loved you and of course that I was sorry. I knew you would be distraught because that was exactly why I had taken such a ridiculous risk. I shall never take that sort of risk again Mae, and you must promise me to never leave me, you have to be with me for The Harvest Mae, you need to be well and find a way to ignore the sounds.”

  “Oh Lily I do try. I do know how you feel too. Even though I was unconscious in the hospital, I was lonely! How strange that experience was. I just sat on a cloud. It felt like floating in a pool, the feeling enveloped me; warmth and comfort were my companions. I just didn’t want to leave; things were calm and so very still. No noise. No nothing actually, then the memories began. I suppose that is when the drugs began to be reduced. Then you were there, doing your normal routine and I was watching. I called to you Lily! I said that I was sorry and that I would try to get back but each time I let go of the cloud and floated down to you, I was returned to the place where I had started. How did you survive the near drowning though?”

  “It wasn’t anything I did. We don’t have survival training with Mrs Alder, do we! I was saved by a Mono.

  “I think you have also noticed him. He didn’t speak he just acted. One moment I was saying goodbye and the other I was gliding to the side of the air hole. He lifted me so easily and carefully Mae, but with the minimum of actual physical contact, like I was something to be preserved! Something that had been brought up from the depths to be studied! He laid me out by the waters’ edge and covered me with a silver blanket. He carried me all the way to our living pod. Then he stayed with me all night. It took four hours for me to stop shivering, but all the time I was so very worried that he would get into such serious trouble, that the guilt was worse than the pain of the blood eventually running back warm into my system.

  “Then he left, just like that, before I could really thank him properly without my teeth chattering. I wish that I could tell you his name at least, but for the whole four hours he remained silent. I can tell you that he had the most memorable eyes that I have ever seen. Do you remember watching a screening of the tropical rainforests with all of those funny little creatures that come out at night? His eyes were the green of the leaves and vines, vibrant and clear. ”

  It is so much prohibited for a Mono to be in s
uch close contact with a Seeder, that I was shocked by what my sister had told me. She had never even spoken to a Mono away from the hospital pod. Let alone been carried and nursed by one in my own living pod! I have been ill many times and find myself regularly linked to some sort of machine in the medical bay. It is here that I learnt to trust the Monos. They are so very warm in body and mind. They aren’t knowledge machines like us. Each Mono has a gentle caring nature, one that exudes compassion and confidence. They are practical and independent. Taking decisions for themselves and on behalf of others is second nature. Actually I respect and hold them in high esteem. They are not just a number like us, waiting to be selected. They are actually living in real time.

  That is what I imagine we will be like when we ascend.

  When our true character is released.

  So after that revelation it is vital, no imperative, that we ascend together. That means we have to pass the Ascension tests together, our Evo-genes must become activated at the same time and that would take an absolute miracle!

  Once on the surface I believe it will be much easier to be independent. I can’t wait to be of use to Intentionality, for my ideas and skills to be respected. I presume we both carry the same skills and that we will be a force to be reckoned with. I wonder if we will be housed together and employed in the same place of work.

  We finished eating our selection of premade unloved nutrition. Sat a while in silence, lapping up the experience of being in a little secret haven and decided to return to our living pod with the intention of creating a revision timetable, strong and reliable enough to allow even me to pass the Ascension tests. At some designated period of time just before The Harvest ceremony, we will be ready to develop enough knowledge to activate our Evo-gene and then the surface is ours for the taking.