State of Nature: Book Three of The Park Service Trilogy by Ryan Winfield Page A

go.”
    We climb down from the vent and weave our way through the towering racks of plants, walking on elevated metal walks built above some kind of drainage field. We’re still among them when a fine mist begins to rain down, soaking the plants and us with them. We walk beneath the arch of a monochrome rainbow until we leave it and the plants behind to descend onto a stone path. As the others walk ahead, Jimmy grabs my elbow and slows me until we’re lagging several meters behind.
    “Whaddya think of all this?” he asks in a whisper.
    “I’m not sure,” I say. “It’s all happened so fast.”
    “I know it,” he says. “But dun’ let all this talk about how you ain’t who you are get ya down. I know who you are.”
    “Thanks, Jimmy. I just wish we knew for sure if we could trust them or not.”
    “Me too,” he says, “but I guess we ain’t got no choice.”
    “No, I guess we don’t.”
    “Hey,” he adds, a minute or so later, “I meant to ask you somethin’ back there, but I didn’t wanna sound stupid.”
    “Sure, what is it?”
    “Where’s China?”
    “It’s a long ways away,” I say.
    “Like as far as we went to the Isle of Man.”
    “Even farther.”
    The path eventually leads us to a long, narrow cavern lined with piles of sand and clay and other minerals for mixing and making soils. We pass several large machines sitting idle against the walls. On the far end of the cavern, giant steel doors stand closed, and as we approach them, they loom above us like the forgotten entrance to some long extinct race of giants.
    Seth punches a code into a keypad on the wall, and the doors groan and rumble as they swing slowly inward, revealing an enormous hidden den, its countless openings glowing a dim and hellish kind of red. Piles of waste and junk rise like some subterranean dump, nearly touching the ceiling of the cave. Tunneled paths lead into and out of these piles as if it were a huge hill built for a colony of ants the size of people.
    “I’ll say goodbye to you all here,” Seth says. “Good luck out there. All of you.”
    Jimmy turns and shakes Seth’s hand. He says, “I’ll never forget what you done for me, mister.”
    Seth nods solemnly, not bothering to lie and say that it’s no big deal. Then he turns to Bill and they embrace. The look on Bill’s face makes it clear that they’ve been more brothers than friends, and that this will be their last farewell.
    “I’ll see you on the other side, if there is one,” Bill says.
    Seth forces a smile. “Just promise me when we win, which we will, that you’ll pull the plug on Eden and let me rest.”
    Bill nods that he will and then steps aside so Roger can say goodbye. Their farewell is less personal, just a quick hug and a promise to take care. Lastly, Seth turns to me and I feel like I should say something, but I don’t know what. He smiles as if he understands. Then he looks at my bare feet, strips off his own shoes, and hands them to me.
    “I won’t be needing these where I’m going,” he jokes.
    I watch him walk away, trudging past the piles of earth and the idle machines on his way home for the short time he has left there. Then Bill punches a code into the wall, the giant doors swing closed, and we’re on the other side.

CHAPTER 11
Subterrenes and Strange Dreams
    When we enter the tunnelrat den, I notice the smell first.
    Dried urine, or maybe decades of dried sweat.
    Bill leads the way, with Roger close on his heels, and the pathway we walk is illuminated by intermittent red lanterns that are set out on stands, as if to be always ready for relocation as the tunnels change shape. The walls are made of earth, old machine parts, and bits of synthetic fabric all laid long ago to waste. I recognize some ancient cracked and broken reading slates amidst the rubble. There is even an earlier generation zipsuit with the original Foundation crest looking cartoonlike on its faded breast. Here we are, walking inside a time capsule