Part II
Chapter 10: The Only Future
Hannah exited first.
When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she tossed her suitcase aside on the pavement and scooped up two of the younger ones, who shrieked with glee. "Hi babies, I missed you!" Several other kids chattered at her and tugged at her dress, vying for attention.
Ellie managed one out of three steps down before a multitude of kids surged forward and blocked her progress.
"Hi Miss Elizabeth, I'm Priya."
"I'm Alex."
"Miss Elizabeth looks like she doesn't feel good."
"HEY!" A mid-30's man with a mop haircut had jogged forward out of the adult coalition. "Kids, back off. We talked about this. Space." He began herding them backwards.
"Yeah, listen to Mister Sven, guys, I know you're excited but remember this is new for her," Riley called.
All of this entered Ellie's ears in a muffle. Her eyes were still tunneling, and she knew from experience that she was descending into a panic attack. She shakily lowered herself and sat on the stairs. Ellie began taking deep, deliberate, even breaths to quell her pounding heart.
Riley touched her shoulder blade from behind. "Hey, you okay?"
Ellie nodded, still breathing evenly. She was concentrating on taking stock of each of her limbs and their exact position; a grounding technique for panic attacks she had been coached through.
The solid fiberglass stairs supported her butt and upper thighs firmly. The steps weren't going anywhere until Ellie decided otherwise. Her hands made very real contact with her knees, palms warm against her kneecaps. Ellie's own feet sat two steps below, sweating a little in her rubber flats. Each of ten toes were present when she wiggled them. They felt capable as always of carrying her weight. All of these were important facts to cling to as she encouraged her heart to resume a normal rhythm.
"Panic attack?" Riley's voice again.
Ellie nodded.
Riley stood up, still at the top of the stairs behind Ellie. "Okay kids, SERIOUSLY. Atras. BACK. UP."
"Miss Hillary gets panic attacks too," one of the little boys told his friend. "She said so."
"I just need a minute," said Ellie between breaths, to no one in particular.
The Black man had dropped his winning smile and stood patiently waiting for Ellie to gather herself. Hannah stood nearby with a little girl who looked roughly five propped on her hip. Her brow was furrowed with concern, but both adults gave Ellie space and did not fuss or hover. She was grateful.
The mob of kids wasn't the trigger. Not entirely. In fact, Ellie supposed, they were exactly as advertised. But the reality of all of this -- personally witnessing what Hannah and Riley had described to her -- was completely shocking in a way that snuck up on Ellie.
Her eyesight began to clear, and she looked up. The kids had given her about fifteen feet of space. The front of the group stood near the wing tip, and they fidgeted and scratched and awaited further instructions. They wore clothing of natural fabrics like cotton and hemp -- not uniform, with personal touches, and clearly skillfully handmade -- but most of them were barefoot. The few that wore shoes were either wearing sandals or canvas-and-rubber sneakers resembling unbranded Converse.
Ellie noticed that very few appeared to have a consistent ancestry; Every skin color was present in nearly equal measure, as well as blends of everything in between.
Behind them, Ellie had correctly identified a converted train station. It wouldn't have been out of place in an Old West film; It looked ancient, it was made of logs, and a covered wooden walkway extended the length of it over what used to be the boarding platform. Though new pavement had been laid for air traffic, a rusty, overgrown set of rails twisted off from the end of the airport and into the canyon they'd just flown through, tracing a mountain stream that fed the lake.
One sharply incongruous detail defaced this historied building: A control tower had been constructed on one side. The control room up top was open-air. Ellie saw a bearded middle-aged man wearing a headset leaning on the railing watching her. He gave a friendly wave when he caught her gaze.
On the other side of the welcoming committee, a dirt road wound toward a cluster of buildings along the shore of the lake. These were also ancient, and Ellie wondered if this had once been an abandoned mining town. A low, damaged, sheer cliff face along the boundary of the village confirmed. These newer settlers had carved words into this rocky face: THE ONLY FUTURE. Ellie looked closer and saw smaller words carved beneath: Respect. Care. Love. Ellie remembered Hannah's goofy mantra in the hotel room.
Further back, where the hillside began to rise, Ellie saw many clusters of newer buildings large and small. Several had tall smokestacks and looked capable of light industry. Most of these were made of logs as well, save for a campus higher on the hill. A group of bizarrely modern facilities constructed of steel, concrete, and glass stood there overlooking the valley. They included an actual observatory that would have been home at a university research lab. Its white dome gleamed in the sun.
Highest on the hillside perched a wooden water tower and two rotating wind turbines.
Beyond the village and further down the lake shore, sweeping farm fields, orchards, and a very large greenhouse -- inconsistently modern like the compound above -- extended the length of the valley along the water until a pine forest halted their progress. Ellie noted a patchwork diversity of crops. Dots of humanity moved around them. Animals grazed in the fallow fields.
Finally, along the lake shore could be observed hundreds of feet and several rows of clotheslines. Enough clothing for a few dozen people were flapping in the breeze.
The picturesque valley -- its teeming little village and vast lake -- was framed on every side by severe mountains that rose well beyond their jackets of pine forest to expose bare, angular rock faces and cliffs.
It was, Ellie admitted to herself, spectacular. Her heart had slowed. She made to get up.
The Black man stepped forward quickly and grabbed her hand to assist. "Elizabeth. It is wonderful to meet you." He had an unctious dialect that Ellie thought might be Jamaican. It came out "Ee-liz-ah-BET."
"I go by Ellie actually."
The man chuckled and shook his head. "Pardon (Pah-den) the kids' welcome signs, then." He turned to the group. "Children! I have just learned that Miss Elizabeth goes by Ellie. That was my mistake, though your posters are still wonderful." He raised his eyebrows and stuck his arms out wide. "Can you all give Miss Ellie the welcome we practiced? Let me hear it!"
"WELCOME TO EDEN, MISS ELLIE," chorused the crowd. Ellie heard a couple of stray "Elizabeth"s from the younger kids slower on the uptake. Several of the kids chirruped Ellie's name repeatedly, trying it out.
"Sorry," said Hannah to the Black man. She had deposited the little girl back with the group. "Should've let you know in the email. Ellie, this is Thaddeus. He's one of our counsel members. He'll be showing you around today."
"Cool name," said Ellie, and she meant it.
"My friends call me Tad," he said, extending his hand again to shake Ellie's and formalize their acquaintance. "Are you feeling better?"
He was about three inches shorter than Ellie and bounced on his heels as he spoke. Smiling appeared to be his default expression. Deep smile lines etched his cheeks and converged into well-developed crow's feet around intense, somewhat bulging brown eyes. Like Hannah, he carried himself with childlike flamboyance, belly protruding under his shirt buttons. Perfectly comfortable in his skin. Underneath his exuberance, however, Ellie noted dark circles around his eyes that carried decades of stress and burden.
"Yeah, I'm getting there, thanks... I think I was just a little caught off guard," said Ellie. "It's beautiful here." Though it was June, and Phoenix was baking in triple digits, a cool breeze here complemented the warm sun.
"Yes, we like it," said Tad, as though Ellie had just remarked on his new swimming pool. He peered over his shoulder at the buildings. "I think it is coming along perfectly."
