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

shadow running from his forehead down to his neck. I close my eyes and brace for the blow. It doesn’t come. When, I open my eyes again, Red is turned away, staring down. He kicks an invisible stone and then sighs.
    “Guess this is goodbye,” he says.
    “You mean you’re not gonna hit me?”
    He shakes his head. “Nah ... not this time.”
    “I’m sorry about your face,” I say.
    He shrugs. “Sorry about treating you so mean.”
    “Well, why did you?”
    “Maybe I just didn’t think you’d like me,” he says, kicking another invisible stone. “Guess I’m not so smart.”
    All this time he’s been knocking me down, pushing me around, burying me in sand, and he’s been doing it because he didn’t think I’d like him? People are funny.
    “Is that why you were trying to corner me alone all week?” I ask. “Not to beat me up, but to tell me you were sorry?”
    “I guess so, yeah.”
    I’m not sure what to say. I stick out my hand: “Friends?”
    He reaches over and clasps my hand in his and we shake. My first real friend, I think. Releasing my hand, he walks away and joins the small crowd of fifteens waiting by the elevator that will take them down to Level 5.
    All the elevator doors open at once ...
    No warning, no fanfare—they just slide open, revealing sterile, empty cars big enough to transport an entire class of fifteens if necessary. The sobbing begins. Quiet here, hushed there, but with a sort of repressed dignity. Then, as if being counted down by an invisible clock, the fifteens hurry onto the elevators despite their obvious desires to linger with their loved ones in farewell. The few low-testing fifteens going down to Level 6 step boldly into their car, not smart enough to understand what lies ahead. I see the back of Red’s head, tall above the others, as the fifteens going to Level 5 crowd into their waiting car. Then the elevator to Level 4 fills with a handful of fifteens heading down to work as welders and riveters in the plants that build parts for the exploration drones. And because Level 2 above is not a full living level, but just a Transfer Station worked by the shipping and receiving teams moving supplies, I step alone into the only car going up.
    Inside, I turn and look out—
    The elevator is big and empty and its steel walls and LED lights create the illusion of me floating in empty space. The open door in front of me looks like a disappearing window into an already distant Level 3. Waiting for the doors to seal, I scan the crowded platform. Last week I was the talk of the Valley, but now everyone’s attention is on their own family and friends, loaded into the other cars and about to leave forever.
    I hear him before I see him.
    “Aubrey!” he calls out, his voice strained and breathless.
    Then he bursts from the crowd onto the platform and rushes toward the elevator. I step forward to meet him just as the door begins to slide shut between us. He reaches into the shrinking opening and presses his pipe into my hand. He pulls his arm back out, and as the door seals shut, I swear I hear him say it for the very first time—
    “I love you, son.”

CHAPTER 5
I’ve Died and Gone to Eden
    Closed inside, the elevator is quiet.
    Too quiet.
    I’m used to the constant hum of Level 3 ventilation fans. My ears search for something to ground me, to set my balance. Any sound. Nope—complete silence. With nothing to listen to, my ear goes inward and I hear my heart beating, my pulse throbbing in my head, and the echo of my father’s last words—
    “I love you, son.”
    I wish I’d had time to say it back.
    Wiping my eyes with my sleeve, I slip my father’s pipe in my pocket and stand in the center of the elevator and brace for the ride. My stomach drops and I know the ascent has begun. After my guts settle, the silent elevator moves without vibration or sound and there is no way to gauge how quickly I’m rising or how far. A minute goes by. Two, maybe three. And just when I’m