On the side of the Umbilical is a wide slot door with hinges on the bottom that pul s open and fl at. Jacob peers in, takes out a large Tupperware container that I recognize. I smel the potatoes and noodles.
“Breakfast,” says David.
The green light stops blinking, turns to red.
I bend down, curious, sticking my head through the opening. A long, narrow tunnel— no wider than my head— runs underground, leading toward the Institute. This is the other end of the tunnel— the Umbilical, I guess— I saw in the kitchen.
“That's how we get our food,” Jacob says. “After we fi nish eating, we send all the dirty dishes right back. Every so often, they'l send us clothes. Sometimes, on one of our birthdays, they'l send us a treat. Birthday cake, paper and crayons, books, board games.”
“Why is it so far away from everything else?” I guesstimate the distance. “It's outside the perimeter of the Dome, isn't it? When the Dome comes up, the Umbilical is outside the glass wal , right?”
They nod. “That was intentional. They were afraid that someone smal would attempt to squeeze his way down the tunnel to get to us. At night, obviously. So they placed the Umbilical opening outside the Dome perimeter. That way, even if the smal person was able to burrow his way through at night, he'd still end up outside the wal s.”
“And nobody would ever do it during the day,” says Ben.
“For obvious reasons.”
“Recently, they've been sending us textbooks,” the heper named David adds. “Books on self- defense, the art of war.
We don't get it.
And then one night a few months ago, they left spears and daggers and knives right outside the Dome for us to col ect in the morning.
We've been messing around with them— Sissy's gotten really good with the fl ying daggers— but we're not real y sure why we have them. I mean, it's not as if there's game to hunt around here.”
“And then yesterday, we get these metal ic cases,” Ben jumps in excitedly. “Five of them, one for each of us. But the letter instructs us not to open them until further notifi cation.
So Sissy won't let us even touch them.”
I look at Sissy.
“I don't know what they're for,” Sissy says. “Do you?”
I glance down. “No idea.”
“But anyway,” Ben goes on, thankful y, “we have all these weapons. We've been practicing with them, the spears and axes and daggers, anyway. Sissy's the best, but we've run out of targets.”
“Until you came along.”
I don't need to turn around to know the heper named Epap said that.
“In fact, why did you come here?” it continues. I turn around.
The expression on its face is unmistakably hostile and cagey.
They're like open books, these hepers, with naked emotions swimming off their faces.
“He came here for water,” Sissy says before I can answer.
“Leave him alone, okay?”
The Epap heper circles around until it's standing directly in front of me. Up close, it seems even more gangly. “Before we start giving out food to him,” it says, “before we start showing him around like he's nothing more than a cute stray puppy, he's got some answering to do.”
Nobody says anything.
“Like how he's survived out there for so long. Like how he's survived living with them for so long. And what exactly is it that's he's doing here. He's got some talking to do.”
I look at the heper girl. “What's its problem?” I ask, pointing at Epap.
The heper girl stares intently at me. “What did you say?”
“What's its problem? Why is it so worked up over—”
The heper girl steps up to me until it's less than a yard away. Before I realize it, its arm blurs toward me, smacking me on the side of my head.
“Hey—”
“Don't.”
“Don't what?” I say, feeling the side of my head. No blood, just the sting of humiliation.
“Don't cal him it. ” She bends down and grabs a fi stful of dirt.
“This ground is an it. That tree over there is an it. That vegetable is an it. That building is an it. Don't cal us it, that's just insulting.
What's your problem, anyway? What makes you so high and mighty?
If you think we're a bunch of its, you can just walk on out and never think about coming back here. Besides, if you think we're nothing but its, then you're as much an it as we are.”
“Fair enough,” I say, the side of my face still smarting. “I apologize.”
But in my mind, there is a huge difference between them and me.
They are savages, undomesticated, uneducated. I am none of those.
I'm a survivor, self- made, civilized, educated. Next to me, though we might look the same, they are nothing like me.
But as long as I need them to survive, I'l play along as necessary. “Wasn't really thinking, no harm meant at all .
Look, I'm sorry, Sissy. Epap, I'm sorry.”
She stares at me, unmoved. “You're so ful of it.” The moment grows tense as the other hepers, taking their cue from Sissy and Epap, look back at me with suspicion.
It's little Ben who breaks the tension. “Come here, I'l show you my favorite fruit!” He then runs to grab me, pul ing me along by my arm to a nearby tree.
“Ben, don't—,” Epap cries after us, but we're already gone.
“Come on,” he says, leaping up to grab a low- hanging red fruit.
“The apples from this tree are the best. The south tree has apples, too, but not nearly as good as these ones. Love them.”
So strange, I think, to use the word love so openly. And for a fruit to boot.
Before I know it, an apple is sitting plump in my hand. Ben is already tearing into the apple he's plucked for himself. I rip into the apple, the juices bursting into my mouth. I hear footsteps behind us. The group has caught up. Maybe it's the sight of me enjoying the fruit with such kidlike joy, but they don't seem quite as hostile as before. With the exception of Epap, of course. He's still glar-ing at me.
“Aren't these fruit the best? Wait til you try the bananas from—”
Sissy places a gentle hand on Ben's shoulder. He quiets immediately and turns his head to look at her. She nods softly, then turns to me. It's with the same look she just gave Ben: reassuring, but with a strange command, a gentle insistence. “Actual y, we would like to know. Why you are here. Do tel .”
After a long moment, I speak. “I'l tel you,” I say, my voice hitching for some reason. “I'l tel you. But can we move inside?”
“Just tel us here,” Epap snaps back. “It's nice right where we are now and—”
“Inside is fi ne,” Sissy says. She sees Epap about to cut in again and quickly says to me: “The sun can't be comfortable for you.
You're not used to it.” She is already beginning to walk toward the nearest hut, not bothering to see if the others fol ow.
Gradual y, one by one, they do. And last to go is me, trailing all of them into the opening of a mud hut.
What I tel them is almost the truth. That's not as good as the complete truth, I know; but I like to think I don't so much lie as neglect to disclose certain parts. still , as my second- grade teacher used to say, the almost- truth is the same as an outright lie. But I do it— lying—with aplomb: easy to do when your whole life is essential y a lie, easy to deceive when your whole identity has been built on deception.
There are many of us on the outside, I lie. In every sector of community, at every level of society, hepers abound. Our existence is as widespread and diverse as snowfl akes during a night storm.
And yet, like snowfl akes in the night, our existence is unseen. We are joined by our shared lives of secrecy, of passing ourselves off as normal to the general populace.
We are scrupulous about shaving, fake fangs, maintaining a blank demeanor. We do not form underground societies but build smal networks of three to fi ve nuclear families. It is a dangerous existence, but an existence not without its joys and pleasures.
Like what?
Like the pleasures of family life, I say, continuing my lies, the freedom within our cloistered homes once the shutters have fal en at sunset. Foods we love to eat, songs we love to sing, laughter and smiles and (rarely, only when necessary) the crying of tears. The retention of tradition, the passing along of books and ancient tales.
Then there are the very occasional secret meetings we have with other heper families in the bright of day while the rest of the city sleeps behind shuttered wal s, oblivious. And as we get older, there are the possibilities of romance, the exhilaration of fal ing in love, the eventual beginnings of our own families.
Why are you here?
I was recently hired to be on staff at the Institute.
You replaced the Scientist?
Yes, I have replaced the Scientist, moved into his abode, am continuing his research. He was very diligent, extremely hardwork-ing; it will take me months just to catch up.
And so you know about him.
Of course.
That he was a heper.
A pause. Yes, of course.
Where did he go? He just disappeared on us.
What? What did you say?
Where did he go?
Can I have some more water, please?
Where did he go? He told us he was going to get us out of here.
To a land of milk and honey, fruit and sunshine.
It is something you think about, getting out of here?
Of course. Every day. We have been here all our lives.
Imprisoned by glass, imprisoned by the desert, imprisoned by fangs and claws.
The Scientist told us he was going to get us out of here. But he never said how or to where. Do you know where?
I do.
Where?
I point to the eastern mountains. Over there. Over those mountains. Where we are original y from. Where there are thousands of our kind. A land of milk and honey, fruit and sunshine.
How? It is too far away. We will die.