The Variables

“Yes,” Grant replied. “But, you know, what will you say when people want to leave?” he asked.

“Leave?” Huck repeated as if he didn’t understand the question. “No, no. That’s not the plan. The earth must heal—”

“No one will ever want to leave?” Grant looked at Huck and tried not to look as incredulous as he felt. Yes, Kymberlin was a gorgeous architectural feat; its scientific advances were the things of Grant’s dad’s science fiction books. It felt warm and light, even if people were still wearing blue jeans and not starchy white uniforms with imbedded tracking systems or walking around with robot best friends. He thought about those who had arrived here and may not have viewed their watery home as a viable living space for generations.

“Where?” Huck said. “Where are they? These people who don’t want to stay here. I don’t have people lined up to see me with complaints...my appointment book is empty of dissenting voices.”

“I don’t know,” Grant said as he shifted from one foot to another.

“They don’t exist, Grant. The people on my Islands, some of them have been part of this process for a long time. They gave up a different life to be here, and it was a sacrifice they made willingly. They said goodbye to friends and family and familiar comforts and agreed to join this journey. They are not here out of force. They are here of their own free will. And don’t you think that’s the difference between them and you?”

Huck turned his chair back around. His hands were in his lap, and he paused, expecting Grant to challenge him.

“Wait, what’s different?” Grant asked. “I’m not here of my own free will?”

He felt like a student expected to know the answer about something they hadn’t studied: caught in class, with all eyes on him, hoping to have someone let him off the hook.

“Grant.” Huck kept saying his name, pulling him in with his soft tones and his generous ma

“But you don’t want me to stay?” Grant asked him. If Lucy were here, she would have challenged Huck, and pushed back on his idealized creation. She would have pointed out that his subjects lacked freedom, and she would have questioned his motives. He wished he could put her in his pocket and carry her around with him, and if he needed her voice and her words, he could call on her to take over. This conversation was exhausting him and he felt confused. He didn’t know what Huck wanted him to say and yet, somehow, he knew his time here was coming to a close.

“Do you want to stay?” Huck asked, leaning forward. “Or if I gave you the option to go back...live outside my walls, do it on your own...would you do it?”

Grant could sense the trap this time. He coughed and looked Huck in the eye. “There is nothing for me anywhere else,” he said. “My only chance for a home is here. With Lucy. And I’ve earned it.”

“How? By saving my daughter’s life? Which you say you don’t remember...”

“No, because...” Grant stumbled. He looked back over to the beautiful piano. It was the first time he had ever played a piano that nice; first time he had seen one up close and not on a stage. Sometimes he went to the music stores downtown and played their pianos until someone, usually a mousy employee with bad facial hair, kindly asked him to move on. The upright piano at his house was out of tune and rundown, six of the keys were dead, and the pedal stuck. “I don’t have a reason,” he admitted. “I don’t have answers...”

“Because you don’t really want to be here,” Huck replied, snapping his fingers as if he caught Grant in an elaborate lie.

“I do,” Grant said. He did. He didn’t. If his father wasn’t alive, if Darla wasn’t waiting for Teddy, if Lucy seemed content, then of course he’d stay where there was luxury and safety. Food and comfort. The world’s best doctors, scientists, thinkers, builders. And if he left, what was waiting for him back on land? Disease, devastation, and disaster. His dad. Darla. Freedom from feeling like his life was constantly in danger.

“We’ll see,” Huck replied. He opened up one of the manila folders and put it under his arm. “Follow me.”

Looking out the large picture window one last time, hoping for a glimmer of the amusement park, Grant turned. Dark clouds were rolling in from the ocean and settling over the shore. All that Grant could see were vague outlines of hills, and nothing else.

“A summer storm,” Huck said. “Good for waves.”

Grant assumed that meant something; he shuffled out of the room and into an adjoining one with no windows, just a long metal table. Huck placed the thick folder on the table with a splat and then let his hand linger on top of the stack.

“It’s a test. Take your time.” Huck left. There was a thick click of a lock sliding into place. Grant checked the door, extending his hand out and turning the knob, but it didn’t budge. Without any other option, he went back to the folder and opened up his test. In front of him were pages and pages of questions about situational ethics, his past histories, and his loyalties to friends. Grant flipped through, answering honestly and thinking of Lucy. And then to his father and the promise he had made him.

“I’ll come back,” Grant had said.

He hoped he could make that promise come true.

It took him an hour, and when he finished, the door opened magically, as if the room itself sensed his completion. He stuck his head out into the small space and saw Huck’s secretary waiting. She didn’t have a computer or a phone; she simply sat with a robotic interest in the cheery robin’s egg blue wallpaper that covered the walls.

“Oh. You’re done,” she said and tapped her desk three times. Grant stood on his toes and looked over the blank expanse, noticing that she had a computer inside her desk, visible only to her at her angle in the chair. “Okay, you may go in,” she a

“That’s fancy,” Grant said, pointing at the desk.

“Uh-huh,” she answered in a chipper voice, her eyes narrowing. “Very fancy.”

He backed away and walked back into Huck’s office; the lights had dimmed since he had left, and Huck stood looking out his window again—his back to Grant.

“I finished,” Grant a

“Put them on the desk,” Huck answered him without turning.

“And then can I go?”

It started small at first, barely audible, and then it grew into a roar—a loud, hoarse laugh. And when Huck turned, his shoulders rolling, he put his hands across his stomach as though the laughing was tearing him apart from the inside out. “No,” Huck said, calming down. He walked to Grant and snatched the test from his hands and flipped through the pages. “No. No. You may not go.” He let one single page fall to the floor. “Generous. Kind. A real people-pleaser you are.” Another page fluttered to the ground. “Trusting.” Huck spat the word like a curse and tossed a third page to the floor. “Optimistic. Sensitive.”

Instinctively, Grant moved backward toward the door as the test created a trail of white along Huck’s carpet. With a flurry of movement, Huck tossed the entire stack of multiple choice questions and short answers into the air, and the rustling sheets sounded like wind through the trees as they danced and fluttered around him before landing still.

“Did I do it wrong?” Grant asked, his voice had weakened by Huck’s display.

“No,” the old man answered sadly.

“I’m sorry,” he replied. “I don’t understand. I can do it again.”