Read The Park Service: Book One of The Park Service Trilogy for Free Online Page A

opens.
    “May I come in?” my father asks, his shadow filling the small doorway. When I nod yes, he steps into the light.
    I’ve never thought of my father as big, but seeing him now in my tiny room, he seems to be a giant. He sits on my bed, the mattress sagging beneath his weight, and he pats the space next to him and I sit, too. We both look at our feet, his stretched out almost touching the wall, mine barely reaching the floor.
    The silence is heavy, and after a few minutes, I can hear the soft whir of the ventilation fans humming in the Valley outside my closed window.
    My father reaches over and rests his hand on my knee. I look up and see his eyes are wet, the same as they get whenever he talks about Mom. I feel a lump in my own throat, then my eyes get wet, too. I look back down at my feet.
    He pats my knee and stands, and then I hear my door shut softly behind him as he leaves.
    The next morning, I eat breakfast alone.
    I know my dad’s no good with things like this, but did he really need to leave for work early? Today? Oh, well, maybe it’s easier if we don’t say goodbye anyway.
    I just hope they have better food on Level 1.
    When I finish, I stand to leave but stop in the doorway and look back at our living quarters one final time. We don’t call them homes because they belong to Holocene II and are often reassigned as people retire and others have children. We were lucky to get to stay here this whole time. It’s small and cramped and lacking anything too personal, but still, I can see imprints of our life here everywhere. Ghosts of my father and me. My height marks notched into the corner wall. Our matching elbow indentations worn into the table’s surface where we sat across from one another and ate five thousand silent breakfasts. My father’s faded tea tin of tobacco sitting on the counter, waiting for his ritual Sunday smoke. I guess this was a home after all.
    Closing my eyes, I picture the room to make sure I have a snapshot memorized. It’s there all right, perfectly preserved in my mind’s eye. In that way, I’ll take it with me wherever I go.
    The metal door bangs shut behind me one final time.
    Unless someone is retiring, the platform usually sits empty and ignored. But today is a very big day: the great exchange of genetics and brains. Today, the platform is crowded.
    They’ve all gathered to say goodbye. Mothers combing hair and pestering departing sons with last-minute instructions on hygiene and manners. Father’s issuing stern and final warnings to departing daughters about lower-level boys lurking in wait to take advantage of them. Promises from scared and embarrassed fifteens that they’ll raise their own kids to study better than they themselves did; promises that the next generation will return the family name to Level 3. Best friends clinging to one another, crying, waiting to be pulled apart, knowing they’ll never see one another again until retirement, when we’re all reunited in Eden.
    It’s all a wild flurry of nervous energy, leading up to those of us who are leaving being herded into the waiting elevators destined for our new levels. And once we’re all gone from here, the waiting will begin—waiting for the arrivals. I know because I’ve been here to see it myself in prior years. I’ve seen the families double-checking the names on their slips and wondering about the new boy or girl assigned to them. I’ve seen lab managers and engineering leaders eagerly expecting a new crop of capable young apprentices that they can train to replace themselves when they retire. And, of course, I’ve seen the most excited group of the bunch—the lucky fifteens who’ve tested and are staying here at Level 3, the girls and boys now free to date and dying to lay first eyes on any cute newbies stepping off when the elevators arrive from other floors.
    I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn around ...
    Red is standing over me. The green dye has faded to just a birthmark-like