Flash Fiction Friday
The Cost of Coffee part 11
Prompt for 9 May, 2025 from (who thought I couldn’t make it work without a dream sequence)
Write about the sea
Inviting shadows
"I don't think so"
A character who is a merfolk
A long steel tube stretched before her, maybe 3 meters across and just as tall. Her father pulled her in, handing her a heavy jacket and gloves before closing the doors behind her. Once fully sealed, Pinta could not see their outlines. Pulling on his own parka, he led her through the tube to a heavy metal door, curiously decorated with a Norwegian ocean scene with the Northern Lights dancing near the top. Pinta spent several minutes in silence, just taking it in. She knew from her studies what she was looking at, but the detail of the painting almost made her seasick.
"Do you like it?" Her father's voice broke her reverie. "It took a long time to get the perspective and colors right, but it looks almost as real as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault view of the Arctic, although sized for the needs of this biosphere, not the whole of Earth."
Pinta looked near one of the hinges, spying a person sitting on a rock. "Does that girl have a fish tail?" she asked.
Her father chuckled. "Good eyes. That's a character from an old Danish storyteller. I should have done a better job teaching you the stories of old Earth. There are some wonderful morality tales that would go a long way toward keeping people from being greedy for power here. Human nature, my dear. It hasn't changed as much as we had hoped it might."
Pinta recalled her father talking about religion earlier. She had never seen this philosophical side of him. He was always kind to everyone, even the ones who, she was beginning to understand, tried to harm him. She thought of Arturo arguing with the packer, demanding that profit be made more important than quality product. So much had changed since that day: fires, then the computer denying the fires, her mother sedating Father, her own run-in with Arturo--who knew her mother. Pinta's reality more than cracked; it was falling apart because--why, exactly?
"Father, what is this place, why have you brought me here, and what is really happening to the Bio?" Questions tumbled out of her like waves on an arctic seashore--if she had known what that was.
"Come inside, child. Secure your coat; it's cold in here." Father entered codes on three different security pads before pressing his palm to a scanner. She heard the great door unlock and her father pushed it open, just enough to squeeze through. "It's heavy, so there's no point opening any wider than necessary. Welcome to my secret laboratory and seed vault."
Pinta thought she couldn't be surprised anymore, but her father kept revealing new things. Of course he had found a way to save seeds once the Bio plants had begun producing. She had never thought about it, but looking across the wide cavern lined with rows of labeled tubes, it made sense. There had to be hundreds of them, sealed behind glass and steel. A robotic arm arced toward a window, as if ready to fetch a particular sample. It was a stark contrast to the cluttered office she started in.
"Whoa," was all she could say. Her father laughed.
"You didn't have any idea this was here, did you?" Pinta shook her head as she gazed up at a ceiling painted with more of the Arctic sea. This time she felt like she was underwater, standing near a blue-white glacier. "I didn't think so. I've cloned every seed we brought her, along with the hybrids I've been developing. I actually had this built before we emigrated here. Who would think to look for a deep freeze on Mars?"
"Actually," Pinta replied, "Mars is mostly a frozen wasteland, even though the color makes it appear hot and dry. Color does weird things to our brains." She was beginning to emerge from her shock and wonder, allowing her analytical side to take over again.
Father laughed. "There's my science minded girl. Hand me that note again, please. I want to recall how much I told you already." He added, " I have a small room on the back of the first row of seeds where we can talk freely." He led the way to a small rocky room, warmed to just above freezing by an orange coil that reflected against the gray. The light somehow created inviting shadows that helped Pinta relax as they sat down. She pulled out the note, now crumpled and torn, and handed it to her father.
"Ah yes. My head was not quite right when I wrote this, but I think you understood what I tried to say."
"Yes, Father. There are people here who want more for themselves at the expense of others. That idea goes against participatory economics, so I don't understand why. And somehow Mother is involved. She is the Comptroller, so the economy is her job. Doesn't she know that our humanitarian ideals ensure everyone has what they need? And why fires?" Pinta still couldn't connect the facts of the fires to the computer's denials and how her mother might be involved.
"What are any person's motivations? When I was a child there was a Cold War--cold in that two competing philosophies tried to dominate the globe without firing weapons. Over time, each side grew in extremes: one to a life dominated by the State and the other arguing for what they called 'rugged individualism.' Global powers fought for control of the philosophy while their economic policies ran amok over the people. Human rights became more important than human responsibilities. That was the beginning of the end."
Pinta twirled a lock of her thick dark hair, something she often did while thinking hard. "So, you think that there are people here who think like those people? People who want more than they need and get it by manipulating others? But, why? We haven't been in the Bio that long. And it took a long time for Earth to fall apart because of contradicting philosophies and stupid decisions."
Father laughed. "Stupid, yes. Self-centered, prideful, greedy. Once upon a time the Catholic Church taught about seven deadly sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. Even without any religious training, I'm sure you can see how those things would decimate a culture if let out of control. Only two things really helped people remember that they were part of a community, not independent self-operating entities."
"What were those two things, and do we have them here?" Pinta's mind was whirring, but sometimes it was just easier to ask.
"Sadly, Pinta, we may have ignored the two most important things that human beings need to thrive: religion and story."
