5.4

‘Don’t you remember?’ mocked Prussia gently.

‘He can’t, Mon Avshalom was born here,’ explained Nelesia as she finished signing the Guest Book at the door and the three of them entered together.

Prussia was picturing Ronan navigating Netech’s clean corridors, knowing full well he’d never set foot on Raintree –just like her. But Nelesia’s answer; it had clearly been a rhetorical question, a joke, so why the response?

‘Ms Baker,’ greeted Ronan as the artist was drifting by. She stopped and turned to acknowledge each of them in turn, with the exception of Nelesia, it was the first time she had met them. ‘Mon Avshalom, thank you for coming; Min Catar, Dr Greenfield,’ she beamed, ‘please call me Alysia.’

‘Alysia, is this your work?’ motioned Prussia at a nearby picture.

Alysia nodded humbly.

As they stood together in contemplation, a waitress floated by with a tray of drinks; Alysia took one.

A story in the image unravelled in alignment with the exhibition at large. Ronan tilted his head, as Prussia ventured an explanation. ‘Is it about…if they wanted to come here?’

Ronan breathed, Nelesia stilled, and Alysia sobered.

‘Well, with regards to the rein-habitation project,’ began Alysia, ‘I think it’s inevitable that one day we’re going to find ourselves dealing with people who wish to live here.’

‘Not within our lifetime,’ sniffed Ronan.

Prussia looked undecided. ‘Interaction with Raintree’s natives is illegal for a reason,’ she pointed out. ‘If they learned of us, or we took them in, we’d have to spend a serious amount of resources inducting… teaching them.’ More surely, she declared, ‘Outlawing contact –interaction - with Raintree inhabitants for the time being is necessary, for their health.’

‘And their… self-determination,’ mused Nelesia. ‘Cultures here are forced. Façade and mimicry, uninhabited –unreal. I personally don’t want to see Raintree’s inhabitants inducted into our culture, I want see what happens when we become exposed to Raintree.’

Ronan smiled faintly. ‘You’re over cooking again; it’s hardly a new world Nelesia –I doubt there’s much they have to teach us. But, let us find novelty in their customs and hope we do not digress from our own evolution,’ he nodded boredly, before perking up at the sight of a tray of appetisers.

Nelesia quietly watched Ronan busy himself dipping fresh bread into oil, and then some form of dukkah. He wasn’t impressed by the taste.

‘Well,’ started Alysia tentatively. ‘These are the kinds of conversations we expected to prompt here tonight.’
Prussia took a step back thoughtfully, as Alysia took a deep sip of her drink and looked around the room; her peers were deep in conversation with other guests. Many influential people had been drawn to the Wakeland Gallery, Settlers Exhibition opening night, and Alysia felt nervous in the presence of so many Members of Elthred.

‘And this part here, on the right?’ asked Prussia interestedly.

‘Well, here I started thinking about - what I suspect we’ve yet to fully explore - the experiences of people that were inadvertently trapped here after the tethers broke. We could draw on stories of how they dealt with-’

‘Trapped?’ interrupted Ronan.

‘Well, for want of a better word,’ replied Alysia, slighted by his indifference. She tried not to physically react to Ronan’s expression, though she could feel herself starting to shrug and took another sip of her drink while consciously straightening her shoulders, which made her feel equally ridiculous, so she slouched slightly.

‘Millions would, and some probably did, kill for the chance to be here,’ insisted Prussia.

‘Yeah for some to end up here, what a lucky break,’ smiled Alysia awkwardly –now she was definitely shrugging.

‘Very lucky,’ sighed Ronan, unamused by the pun.

Alysia guessed Ronan might be related to a class of old money, the first generations in Netech, or even those who had schemed to get here in the lead up to the event.

‘I’m sure those who had not yet earned a place in our system,’ remarked Ronan, ‘were able to adjust to the loss of their true home, and make themselves and their generations to follow of some value to the greater community of Netech.’

‘Yes, in time I’m sure they all integrated, participated, gave back.’

‘Did they have a choice?’ muttered Alysia softly.

‘For who knew what was to come?’ added Prussia.

‘Yes, who knew?’ shrugged Alysia, unsure if she sounded sarcastic. She was unaccustomed to filtered conversations. It was so much easier to create something and be absent when people received it, to avoid their reactions.

Alysia pressed on against the tension and the colour rising in her cheeks. ‘So my questioning in this part of the painting, yes, it’s along the lines of… what if you didn’t want to live here, like this, in this environment? What if you hadn’t intended to be here when the tethers broke –what if you wanted to go home?’

Ronan raised his eyebrows.

‘After things had calmed down,’ added Alysia as images of catastrophic flooding ripped through her mind.

‘Well, now you can,’ breathed Ronan.

Alysia wanted to hit her own head; Ronan was handsome, but gosh he was dry.

Nelesia finally stirred. ‘They,’ corrected Nelesia. ‘Now they can go home…but realistically we know we can’t.’

In that moment, an image flickered in Alysia’s mind, she tried not to react.

Nelesia spoke with sadness as she gazed at the painting, from one figure to the other.

‘In a word Alysia, to me this is about longing.’

Alysia sighed, relaxing entirely under the weight of a truth.

‘What a pity,’ Nelesia mused, ‘to live through the turn-point twenties, the fiery fifties, solemn sixties, and celebratory seventies to finally hit the twenty-twenties of the taikenai only to be thrown back into a… a dark-age per se –or maybe not,’ she added unexpectedly.

~

Grey woke Alysia where she had slept on the couch, with the smell of freshly toasted raisin bread. She sat up slowly, head aching. Still wearing her headphones, the black cord line was wrapped around her neck, and twisted around her arm as it trailed along the ground to a device on their drinks table.

Grey was walking over, eating toast, and smiling at her as her eyes blinked open. ‘One of these mornings, I’m going to find your music has gotten the best of you,’ he lamented.

‘It’s your music I’m listening to,’ Alysia retorted as she pulled the headphones off her ears without extricating herself from the cords around her neck. ‘Oh…you wouldn’t believe what I did last night,’ she grinned as she buried her head in her hands.

‘I’m sure it has nothing to do with your green thumbs though,’ he teased softly, leaning down to kiss her temple and point out her paint stained fingers.

‘I shall return, with water,’ he laughed, when she failed to steal a bite of his toast.

Alysia relaxed in contemplation for a moment as she waited, until something came back to her from the night before.

She reached for the edge of the table and swiped into a SuperNet. Quickly opening a recent research folder, she backtracked through the site names she’d visited while working on her Settlement exhibition project. Pausing hopefully, she retrieved the image she had recalled while listening to Nelesia last night.

Grey returned with water and sat down on the couch beside her. ‘What you lookin at?’

‘Blackout footage,’ she mumbled offhandedly.

‘Pre?’ asked Grey hopefully, gearing up to further laugh at dated images of antediluvian Raintree-to-Netech Tethers. Alysia opened a link, and Grey realised he was watching some timeworn recording of actual scenes within Netech during the event –he sobered.

‘Look, there…’ Alysia paused the screen.

Together, they peered at a very young blue haired girl slumped over another body. ‘It’s… but she’s… so she’s not fully carbon-based,’ faltered Alysia.

‘I guess not.’

‘But she feels… there’s something about her… she just seems so-’

‘Human? I’m sure she is –mostly,’ promised Grey with conviction.

Grey struggled to recall the various manmade, humanoid, reproductions he knew of within the Poltauramy’s demesne and lifespan.

Alysia backtracked through tabloids that claimed Nelesia Greenfield had been a common being, who’d laboured up the ranks of her profession until she caught the eye of a mensch who plucked her from obscurity –Alysia knew better.

‘But how?’ Alysia’s wondering was interrupted by a blinking light on their table.

‘That’s for me,’ explained Grey.

‘You’re working at The Gathering today?’

‘Yeah, did you know Poltauramy owns it?’

‘Ataur?’

‘No, senior.’

‘I’m sure he owns a few chains,’ she shrugged.

‘Nah, just that one place. It’s the only one,’ assured Grey as he donned his own jacket and the front door closed behind him.

~

Mar Poltauramy Palamedes Ealahad III, had ensured Elthred support of the collection of specimens for Eden, and today he would finally meet the important, yet notoriously reclusive, Assistant Project Manager –Dr Nelesia Jane Greenfield – in person.

An Opening Ceremony was to be performed during the morning cycle, when natural sunlight would breach the glass labyrinth via a series of strategically placed mirrors.

Mon Anuk Petreya, Ida for Education and Specialisation, greeted Poltauramy at the entrance. Like Poltauramy, Anuk realised the significance of the Eden Project as more than an extravagant arboretum. He too believed in its ability to inspire future generations to inhabit the land with better ways than their forefathers. In his enthusiasm, Anuk had brought his own son to the historic event. ‘Poltauramy, this is my son, Mario. He is a budding natural historian, and oddly, great at commerce,’ he touted proudly. ‘He’s making a roaring trade from his love of florae –selling more than a K of his own plant designs every week now.’

‘Is that so?’ smiled Poltauramy warmly at the young boy, encouraging him to elaborate.

‘Well…’ Mario glanced his Father, ‘Most… mostly to people in Solaris.’

Poltauramy raised his eyebrows to express how impressed he was. Drawing himself up to his full height, Poltauramy looked down upon Mario and declared, ‘If I should have a child, I should be so lucky if they’re half as creative and clever as you young man.’

Young Mario grinned as Anuk ruffled his hair affectionately.

‘Why you’re no different to most of the team here today, that worked on this very project,’ continued Poltauramy. ‘Bringing life into… space…es,’ he trailed off.

‘Didn’t I tell you he’d be impressed,’ remarked Anuk, to Mario smiling bashfully.

Anuk nodded a quick thanks aside to Poltauramy, as he led his son away.

Alӕ Leed approached with a tall, blue haired, green eyed woman, and introduced her, ‘Mar Poltauramy, Ms Greenfield.’

‘Ms Greenfield, Call me Polt,’ he interjected hastily as he proffered his hand.

‘Polt,’ she beamed with a relaxed and carefree manner he was not expecting, and took his hand in both of her own.

Poltauramy drew a breath as he admired the woman who had largely influenced the design, and almost solely determined the species to be propagated, within Eden –now Netech’s central garden. Polt felt disordered as she sang, ‘Thank you, thank you for your support. We couldn’t have done it without you.’

‘No, no,’ he quickly countered, ‘it could not have been done without you.’

After a minute, Alӕ Leed coughed conspicuously, prompting Poltauramy to stop gazing, and Nelesia to release his hand.

‘Yes,’ Poltauramy grinned, searching hastily for appropriate words.

‘We did it,’ smiled Nelesia, putting him at ease as she turned to embrace their scene.

Looking out over the crowd of students brought to perform under the great central Golden Oak tree she quoted Poltauramy himself. ‘As you said, to free the destruction of the wilderness, from the slow violence of the foot of industrialisation.’

Polt had indeed used this line very early in the project, in an initial email vying for her professional support. ‘I’m flattered you remember, however it was definitely your post-graduate self I was quoting,’ he revealed to her surprise.

Alӕ Leed coughed again gently, ‘Mar Poltauramy, Mon Reynard.’

Suddenly realising the empire-building Mon Reynard was in their presence, Poltauramy and Nelesia wilfully concealed their mixed feelings.

‘Why, thank you Leed. Perhaps you could fetch yourself a lozenge before the next person comes along,’ nodded Poltauramy warmly before turning to Reynard.

‘Mon Reynard.’ Poltauramy shook his hand in front of Nelesia, as she stood unsure how to dismiss herself.

‘Rey! How’s business?’ he cheered, ‘Booming! I take it,’ he jested, throwing Nelesia a cheeky glance.

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