Isle of Man

CHAPTER 6

It’s Okay to be Afraid



The professor hands me another list.

“Gee, Professor. For someone who didn’t want to go, you sure seem excited about this trip.”

“On the contrary, young man. I loathe going outside, but today just seems to vibrate with energy, wouldn’t you say?”

He rushes off, making his rounds to check our progress.

We send the train down to Holocene II twice for supplies. The communications liaison for Level 5 sends a message up through the system informing us of a missing citizen, but we decide it’s best not to mention Red. Instead, we send a message back explaining that a minor flood has damaged Eden, and that retirements will be on hold for several months while repairs are being made. At least it’s half true. Fortunately for us, because the scientists needed to hide their age and keep up the illusion of Eden, communication between the Foundation and the other levels is limited to emails on the closed computer system.

After the supplies are offloaded and inventoried, we start the slow work of storing them away on the submarine. With only four bunks, it would be a squeeze for five people anyway, without all the supplies. We load meal bars and algaecrisps in every empty drawer. We stack canned goods on the floor in the passageways and lay metal strips recovered from the scaffolding over the cans so we can walk on top of them. Vacuum bags of freeze-dried vegetables make perfect fillers for empty nooks. When we finally finish, there’s hardly room to move, and I get the feeling it’s going to be a long several months at sea.

The professor explains that the submarine manufactures its own fresh water, and the electric engines that turn the screw run on liquid metal batteries that recharge via solar cells molded into the sub’s outer skin.

“Wouldn’t you need to be on the surface for that?” I ask.

“Only close to it,” he says. “They’re very sensitive.”

I ask the professor about breathable oxygen and he shows me the systems that use electrolysis to separate the oxygen and hydrogen molecules from seawater. It’s all very interesting, and I could spend months learning about how everything works, but by the third day of preparation, the professor announces that we’re ready to leave the following morning. Or at least when we wake from our next sleep, since it’s impossible to tell night from day down here.

A hush falls over the group the eve before our departure. Hannah hides away in her lab as usual, the professor goes to his room, and Jimmy disappears with Junior somewhere in the maze of buildings. Red falls into a panic about some perceived shortage of supplies and spends the evening counting cans in the submarine, constantly losing track and having to begin all over again. I lie in my bunk listening to him count, trying to imagine what it will be like to spend two months in here.

There’s a tap on the door.

“Come in.” The door opens and Red steps in. “Geez, Red. Give it up already. How many times do you need to count what’s in here?”

Red sighs and sits on the edge of the bunk across from me. “Can I talk to you?”

“Sure, Red. What’s up?”

“I don’t know. It’s just that something’s on my mind.”

“Better share it then and lighten the load.”

“Well,” he says, scratching his head, “it’s just that I’m thinking maybe it might be best if I went back down to Level 5. I mean, don’t get me wrong—this seems like a great adventure and all, and I really want to go more than anything. I do. But I’m just thinking about the others, really. Because I’ve been counting, you know, and there aren’t enough supplies. There just aren’t, no matter how I do the figures.” When he finishes talking, he stares at me with a hopeful expression.

I lean up in my bunk and look him in the eye.

“It’s okay to be afraid, Red.”

“Afraid?” He asks, placing his hand on his chest. “Me? I’m not afraid. Not at all.”

“I am.”

“You are?”

“Sure.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“I’m afraid of being trapped in this tin can at the bottom of the sea. I’m afraid of dying. Hell, I’m afraid of what we might find if we do make it to the island.”

“Wow,” he says, his eyebrows lifted with surprise, “I never thought you were afraid of anything.”

“I’m afraid of lots of things. I’m even afraid of confined spaces. That’s why I’m in here now, before we’ve even left, trying to get used to it.”

Red drops his head.

“You remember when we used to bury you in the sand at the electric beach?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Well, how come you never seemed afraid then?”

“Because I wouldn’t let myself show it.”

“But if you wouldn’t show it then, how come you’re okay telling me you’re scared now?”

It’s a good question, and I take moment to consider my answer.

“I don’t know,” I reply. “I guess I’ve been through so much that it just seems silly to be afraid of being afraid.”

Red nods, thinking over what I’ve said.

After a long pause, he says: “I think I’ll go spend my last night in a regular bed.” Then he stands to leave, hesitating in the doorway. “Aubrey?”

“Yeah?”

“I am afraid. But I feel better now. Thanks.”

Smiling to myself, I close my eyes and lay my head back on my bunk. I feel better, too.

I’m woken sometime later by another tap on the door. Assuming it’s Red again, I sit up and prepare for another talk, but Jimmy steps in. He sits across from me and sighs. My first thought is that he must be having second thoughts also. And that scares me, because he’s always so much braver than I am.

“What’s up, Jimmy?”

“Somethin’s worryin’ me,” he says.

“We’re going to be fine,” I reply. “I’m nervous, too, but we’ve been through worse with less. We’ve got plenty of food on here, and the professor seems to know what he’s doing.”

“It ain’t about me,” Jimmy says. “It’s Junior.”

“What about him?”

“It ain’t right to take him.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s already showin’ signs he ain’t happy jus’ bein’ down here. I cain’t imagine makin’ him spend near two months on this here submarine.”

“What else can we do?” I ask.

Jimmy looks down and picks at the mattress seam.

“It’s killin’ me to even think it, but we need to let him go.”

“Let him go? You mean leave him behind?”

“I jus’ think he’d have a better chance up at the lake.”

Right away, I know Jimmy’s right. With five of us trapped on here having to take shifts for the bunks, and hardly enough room in the submarine control room for all of us at once, it would be cruel to make Junior come along.

“We better hurry then,” I say, pulling on my shirt. “Won’t be long before the others are up and ready to go.”

Jimmy holds Junior while I pilot the boat. Usually, the trip up the locks seems to take forever. Today it goes too fast. When the upper doors open, we cruise out into early blue dawn on the mist-covered lake. Strange, billowy clouds hover not far above us, brighter than the dark sky they’re hanging in, as if illuminated by some light of their own.

I look over and see Jimmy’s bowed head buried in Junior’s fur. Junior sits there unaware and almost smiling as he looks out the window. I steer us toward the site of the lake house, figuring familiar territory might provide the best chance of survival for a fox on its own. I go slow, reducing my speed as we approach the peninsula. Still, the shore seems to rush upon us as if some current were carrying us there against our will.

I kill the jets and run the boat onto the gravel. Jimmy sighs and looks at me. A single tear runs down his cheek. He doesn’t bother to wipe it away. I know he won’t be able to do it, so I release the latch and lift the lid on its hinges. Junior wiggles free from Jimmy’s arms and bounds across the bow and leaps onto the shore, taking off like a terror down the beach.

It’s just another adventure to him.

The sky is a lighter blue now, the clouds a darker shade of gray, as if they somehow soaked up the darkness like so many sponges in the sky. We watch as Junior races away, stopping occasionally to sniff at things he passes before glancing back toward the boat and then racing on again. He’s obviously happy to be free from the darkness of the cavern bay.

Jimmy’s voice cracks with emotion: “We’d better get on back now, while we still can.”

“You sure?”

Jimmy nods, pulling the top down and latching it. I start the jets and back from the shore, turning us toward the dam.

“You remember when we found him, when he was jus’ a pup followin’ us along that river?” Jimmy asks.

I smile just thinking about it.

“You remember what ya told me?”

“Yeah, I told you to not look back.”

“Then you’s looked back yerself.”

I laugh.

“I sure did.”

“Will ya tell me again?”

“Tell you to not look back?”

“Yeah. I need you to tell me.”

I shake my head.

“I won’t tell you that, Jimmy.”

Tears well up in Jimmy’s eyes again, and he covers his face with his hands.

“Oh, God,” he moans, sobbing. “I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry. I’m cryin’ like a baby.”

“It’s okay to cry,” I say, touching Jimmy’s shoulder. “He means a lot to you.”

“He was all I had when you left me on my own,” he sobs.

What he says hits my chest like a hammer.

“I know I was a jerk,” I say, not strong enough to take the blow, “but it was you who left, Jimmy.”

“You coulda come after me,” he stutters.

Now I’m crying, too.

“I’m sorry, Jimmy. I really am. I’m sick over it still. I was all caught up with Hannah and my own stupid hormones. You have to understand, I’d never even met a girl before who liked me. I betrayed you, and I’m sorry.”

“I know it,” he says. “We each done stupid stuff.”

I wipe away my tears and focus on the water ahead. I think about when Jimmy took off with Junior from the lake house and made camp in the woods. I remember how Gloria came to cut my hair and how I asked about Jimmy, and she told me that Jimmy had been asking about me, too. And I remember him pulling me from that river and saving my life, and how he said it was Junior who followed me. I crank the wheel and whip a one-eighty and drop the throttle and speed back toward shore.

Jimmy looks up from his hands.

“What are ya doin’?”

“I’m looking back again.”

Jimmy’s face breaks into a huge smile.

We’re still pretty far from shore when we run up on Junior swimming after us. He’s obviously exhausted from paddling, and I doubt he’d have had enough energy to even make it back to dry land. Jimmy pops the top and leans out and scoops him dripping from the water and pulls him into the boat. Junior lies limp in his arms and licks his face. I peel off my shirt and hand it over, and Jimmy uses it to dry Junior’s coat while I pull the top down and continue on toward the dam.

When we arrive back at the underground docks, no one appears to have noticed that we even left except the professor who pops his head out from the submarine and says:

“I was about to start offering odds on whether or not you two had run off for good.”

“Where is everybody?” I ask.

“Red’s still snoring loud enough to wake all of Holocene II, and Hannah’s in the shower. Why don’t you boys pull that boat up on the lift there, since it won’t be needed while we’re gone.”

After we’ve stored the boat, Jimmy takes Junior on board the submarine and hunts up a spot for his bed. I hang my wet shirt to dry and, as much as I hate to do it, change back into my zipsuit. Red arrives shortly with a renewed enthusiasm, even laughing at himself when I ask if he wants to count the supplies one last time. The professor tinkers with the controls, emerging several minutes later to announce that we’re set for departure. We all gather on the submarine deck and wait for Hannah.

“I’ll go get her,” I suggest.

“She’ll be along,” the professor says. “Give her a little time to prepare. It’s a long journey for a young woman crammed in here with four men and a fox.”

And soon enough, she does come.

She walks toward the dock with her head bowed and her long, red hair, still damp from her shower, hanging over the shoulders of her gray Holocene II zipsuit. She stops on the dock below the sub and looks up at us.

“I’m staying.”

“What?” I ask.

“I’m staying here.”

“Why?”

“Because someone needs to be here,” she says. “And I’ve thought about it all night. It just doesn’t make any sense for all of us to go, wouldn’t you agree?”

“What do you mean?” I ask, jumping down to the dock and facing her. “We’re all in this together.”

“What if something happens to us out there?” she asks.

“Then it will happen to all of us.”

“Yes,” she says. “But have you thought it through? What will become of Holocene II? With no one left here to call the train up and set them free, won’t they be trapped down there forever? That’s not a very good plan.”

“But Hannah—”

“She’s right,” the professor says. “And not just that, but someone should be here to respond to any queries from them also. I’m sure our delaying their upcoming retirements has put them on edge already. Routine is very important down there, as you well know, Aubrey.”

“Well, what if something happens to you here?” I ask.

Hannah shrugs.

“There’s nothing to worry about here. You’re the ones taking all the risks. The only thing I’ll need to contend with is boredom.”

“But what will you do for two months?”

“I’ve got plenty to keep me busy in my lab,” she says. “And there’s lots to be done yet around here after the flood.”

“No.” I shake my head. “I won’t let you stay.”

“I’m not asking you,” she says. “I’m telling you.”

I look to Jimmy, but his face is expressionless, as if to say this is my decision. The professor frowns, but nods, agreeing with Hannah. I storm to the edge of the dock and look at the dark tunnel leading down the step locks toward the Pacific. How many miles, how many months? Anything could happen.

The professor clears his throat.

“Ahem. We need to get moving now, I already set the locks to lower.”

I turn back to Hannah.

“Fine, but I’m not letting you stay here alone. No way. Someone either stays on with you, or none of us goes at all.”

Hannah drills me with an angry stare, but I stand my ground.

“You need the professor to pilot the sub,” she says. “And there’s no way Jimmy would let you go without him. I know that much. So I guess that leaves Red.”

I look at Red, having entirely forgotten for a minute that he was even there. He raises his hand meekly, almost as if he were asking permission to speak.

“Yes,” I say, “what is it, Red?”

“I just want to say, for the record, that I’ll stay if you need me to, but after last night I’m ready to go.”

I smile, remembering our talk.

“I know you are.”

Several quiet moments pass with only the sound of our breathing audible in the almost absolute silence. A fan turns on in a building somewhere.

I step to Hannah and wrap my arms around her. She leans her head on my shoulder and I smell her wet hair, the scent of shampoo. My guts are knotted up and aching with heartbreak already, but I don’t cry. We stand together hugging for a long time, neither of us moving to pull away. I know when we do it will be time to say goodbye, and I have no idea what to say.

I think about the first time I saw her from the bluff. It was sunny then and she was wearing that white skirt and knocking tennis balls across the net. I remember Jimmy hoisting me up to look over the fence and her standing there with her hands on her hips. She told me Aubrey was a funny name for a boy. Man, it seems like ages ago already. Almost like another life.

“Give us ninety days,” I hear the professor say. “If we’re not back by then, bring up some help from Holocene II and make a plan. I’d suggest any of the managers from the loading bay. They’re practical people.”

Hannah nods, her head still resting on my shoulder.

“Other than that, try to have as little contact as possible with them. They don’t expect to hear much from us up here.”

Suddenly, I feel Red standing beside me on the dock. I pull away from Hannah and turn and look him in the eye. He nods, seeming to understand what I want to say but can’t. With just his eyes he promises to look after her.

Then I turn and climb aboard the submarine and descend into the hatch without looking back.





Part Two