Free Children of Eden by Joey Graceffa

me.
    â€œAre we really all that’s left?” she asks. I can only tell her what I’ve heard in History vids. Our ancestors were the lucky few who survived two hundred years ago. There are no people outside of Eden. No animals, either, just a few lichens, algae, bacteria, and the like.
    â€œBut I’ve studied Ecology and Eco-history,” she says, her voice passionate. “Life is enduring, adaptable. I know that humans are terrible, destructive, but the Earth is strong. I can’t see how we could do anything to it that would destroy it completely. Ecological collapse, sure. Mass extinction, broken food chain. But I can’t believe that everything is gone.”
    Again, I can only reply with what I’ve been taught: that beyond Eden, the world is a wasteland, dead and barren.
    But it is the one-child policy that seems to particularly bother her. “Humans are part of nature,” she tells me. “We’re animals, just like all the other animals that used to live on Earth. Animals are meant to propagate, to expand, to grow.”
    â€œBut Eden can’t survive if the population grows,” I protest, even though I’m arguing for my own doom.
    â€œI don’t know,” she says, pressing her lips together contemplatively. “There’s something that doesn’t add up. The vids at school say that the original settlers in Eden were chosen. That means that someone—maybe Aaron Al-Baz himself, creator of the EcoPan—decided on a number of people. Why pick so many only to reduce their numbers later?”
    â€œMaybe it was just compassion,” I offer. “He wanted to save as many as possible, and then later generations could deal with the overpopulation.”
    She shakes her head. “He was a scientist, a computer programmer, a practical, pragmatic man. I think he would have chosen the right number of people from the start. But listento this.” Though we’re already close, shoulder to shoulder, she leans in closer so her lilac hair brushes my cheek. I shiver.
    â€œMy mom works in allocation. Once when she had to work on a weekend I went in with her and hung out in the records office all day while she was busy. I wasn’t supposed to be there, and that was the only place I’d be out of the way. No one cared about old receipts and supply lists. But you know me, I can’t not read.”
    She catches what she just said with a low chuckle, and we exchange a knowing look. I do know her. I knew this fact about her years before we met. She reads the way other people breathe, incessantly, of deep need.
    â€œI started thumbing through old records printed out on plastic paper. Not important stuff like they’d keep in the archives where your mom works. Just old receipts for food distribution and the algae farms and water circulation volume. Things no one cared about. Most of it was just shoved in any old how. Boring, I thought . . . then suddenly it got interesting.”
    She tells me how this jumble of printed records went back at least a hundred years, maybe more.
    â€œAnd what I found, after I’d gone through enough mind-numbingly boring lists and receipts, is that the amount of resources hasn’t declined over the years.”
    I have to think about this for a long moment.
    â€œYou mean,” I say slowly, “we’re not running out of food and water and energy?” But that’s supposed to be the justification for the one-child policy. The population has to be reduced or all of Eden will run out of resources and perish.
    â€œNot only that,” Lark whispers in close conspiracy. “From what I could see, in this district at least, the resources are actually increasing.”

AN HOUR LATER I make my way home in a dream. Well, a dream that is part nightmare. So far in my life my strongest emotions have been limited to such things as boredom, loneliness, and occasional hope. Now I’ve not only