Free The Lost Code by Kevin Emerson Page B

an entire living habitat.” I could see us all flinching at this, hating being called children, and also thrown off by the sarcasm, as if Aaron couldn’t have wanted less to do with us.
    “Aaron,” said Paul, like a parent lecturing a child, “please show the campers around.”
    “Right, okay.” Aaron glanced about. “Let’s see, what could your half-formed brains comprehend . . . ? Actually, probably not much less than my capable staff here.” Aaron said this just as two workers were walking by, maybe for exactly that reason. I saw them scowl to themselves once they were past him.
    “Follow me, lemmings,” said Aaron. He led us down a set of steps and around the first ring of workstations.
    I heard whispering and saw some Arctic Foxes pointing excitedly at the seated workers we were now passing. One was looking at a map of the entire complex, lit up with tiny green dots moving around. A close-up screen showed one of the mechanical butterflies. The woman typed in a command, then slid her finger on a touch pad, moving the creature around. Small windows displayed wobbly, curved views: what the butterflies were seeing. It made me wonder: were the butterflies a form of surveillance?
    Beside her was a man doing the same with hummingbirds, then a woman who seemed to be configuring bat wake-up times. A falcon, a trio of deer. All fake. And all possibly keeping watch. With that many cameras, there wouldn’t be much that could escape Eden’s eye.
    “Over here,” Aaron was saying up ahead, “is where we’re monitoring internal and external atmospheric conditions. You can see here, inside the dome it’s a comfy twenty-four degrees Celsius, and outside, a french frying thirty-eight. Humidity in here, sixty-eight percent; out there, nine percent.”
    I was half listening, but the itching had started up in my neck again. I tapped my knuckles against the bandages.
    “From here,” Aaron continued, “we control all the weather in the dome. Want to see it rain?”
    “Totally,” said Leech.
    This idea seemed to actually excite Aaron. “Okay.” He tapped at the monitor and slid a few bars up and down. He looked up and gestured with his chin. “Look out that window to the right, everyone. . . .”
    We did, and saw a dark gray cloud start to spin itself into existence off in the distance. It grew, up and out, and then a blur of rain began to appear beneath it.
    “And there we go,” said Aaron. “Just call me God.”
    “Can you do lightning?” asked Leech.
    “How about making the moon come up?” asked Paige.
    Aaron smiled. “Of course I can do all those things, even reverse the constellations, or make new ones—”
    “And yet I think we wouldn’t want to alarm the people far below,” said Paul from behind us.
    Aaron’s face straightened back to normal. “Right.” He moved his fingers, and the rain cloud began to feather apart and dissipate.
    “You should show them this,” Leech called, sounding like a know-it-all because of his previous visits. He had moved across the aisle and was pointing at another screen.
    “Can you please”—Aaron rushed over and pushed Leech back from the consoles—“keep the greasy fingers off the equipment.”
    Leech stumbled back and I saw him look at Paul, like he was hoping Paul would say something in his defense, much like he’d bragged about so many times. But Paul was quiet. “Jeez, watch it,” Leech mumbled, but it lacked his usual edge.
    “Nothing broken or soiled,” Aaron was saying, looking over the console. “Sure, I suppose everyone can see this.”
    We moved over and saw five camera views displayed. They showed panoramic views of the outside world, flicking from one angle to the next, always down the side of a dome. Labels beneath identified each Eden location.
    “Wow, cool, a pyramid!” said Mike, pointing at the camera marked EdenEast. For a moment, we all saw the giant stone structure, perfectly pointed and immense, before the camera switched.