When It Rains

Chapter 13 -O Canada

How is it that Nicole is always in the lab before me? She's bustling around the room, long red hair swinging behind her, as she looks at gauges and monitors. I don't know what she is doing and when I ask, she tells me it's above my level.

This morning, Nicole is humming. I don't know the tune but it's a cheerful one and I hope this means she's in a good mood.

"You're happy this morning," I say.

"It's Friday," she says. "I can sleep in tomorrow morning and not have to worry about work."

"What happens when you're not here to watch the gauges or whatever you do?"

"My subordinate. They work the weekend and holiday shifts."

"That's good, then," I say. "Well, I'll get to my entry work. Don't want to keep those papers waiting."

Nicole laughs.

"I'll get you for lunch," she says.

"Thanks."

My little office of computers and stacks of paper make a cozy warren. I copy a couple of pages of data in case Nicole comes rushing in to see how I'm doing. I doubt she will. She seems to think I'm competent.

Before I start writing, I copy some of the data from the forms and paste it into a blank document. Now how do I write a newspaper article? I should have done some research on journalism and reporting before this morning. Uncle has a huge library and probably some old texts would have a few tips on writing.

I put my fingers on the computer keyboard. Nothing comes to me. I don't know what I should or need to say. I look around the room at all the piles of paper. Each sheet is a life. My warren isn't as cozy anymore.

Stacks of paper equal many lives, I type.

There are experiments going on at the Peoples' Champion Lucius Sebastian Institute for Science. People are dying.

Here, I hesitate. Should I write Aeternians are dying? I shouldn't be using that word but I shouldn't be writing this article either. I delete the word people.

Aeternians are dying. The GlobalGov is killing its own people and keeping the news from Newtopians. There are several different experiments that have are been ran in Phases One to Four. Phase Five is currently underway. There has been no official acknowledgement of these tests. Speculation is that it is to fuel Sebastian's weather making power.

I gasp.

Is this what Trunken has been saying all along? I shiver in the warm room. Picturing that horrid thing makes my insides cold. But just what had been his exact words? I scrunch my forehead and tap my finger on the desk trying to remember what he said... and what he wrote.

"Something like, in changing nature, a man feeds himself?"

I shake my head. That wasn't it.

"In changing nature, a man feeds nature?"

It was: In changing nature, the man now solely feeds on the natural.

That's what is happening. All these Aeternians on all these pages are food for Sebastian. He's not eating people but they are fodder. Connected to something I don't understand yet. But that dreadful little Trunken also asked me to think about who isn't around anymore. I haven't recognized any initials on the date sheets but Hyla has already listed some Newtopians that she hasn't seen in a while.

"No," I say out loud. "There's no way Trunken was trying to help me. No. Way."

My heart speeds up like I've been climbing up a mountain. Like the first time I met Trunken in the rock corridor years ago. I was coming down from the glacier after filling my jugs with water and a group of Waterstealers surrounded me. He was one of them. Standing beside Stooders, the man who killed Jude.