Power

in which the history of civilization begins

 

Chapter 3

 

          The door hissed as Quenby let herself into Nancy’s room the next morning. Humming “Lay, Lady, Lay” by Bob Dylan, she opened the metal window shutters and pushed back the white curtains. The light in the room didn’t change; the power had been on for an hour already.

          “Rise and shine, sleeping beauties!” Every morning since they met, four months ago, Quenby had come to wake up Nancy, always with decaf, a smile, and a greeting for both Nancy and the baby. A neat freak, she bustled around, straightening the room and making the bed, as Nancy got ready for work. 

          “So, do you think Blue-Eyes will be at the disco? And speaking of soldiers, those two on guard right now are crazy! You would have thought I was trying to sneak a bomb in here or something!” Quenby asked, shaking out a towel that Nancy had carelessly left on the floor the night before. She was referring to the two guards that were always posted at the entrance to the pregnancy area. Nancy, who had been struggling to put her sock on around her ever-growing stomach, stopped for a moment to catch her breath.

          “Well, I sort of like that they’re there.” Nancy tactfully avoided the question about the blue-eyed soldier but was surprised to feel herself blushing. Quenby grinned and knelt to help Nancy with the offending sock.

          “So, you have thought about him.” Nancy shook her head.

          “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She said, unconvincingly, as she picked up her journal. Quenby gazed out the window as Nancy scribbled quickly.

 

          August 31 2037   Monday

 

     Today’s the big day! After four and a half months of outlining and transferring known history into the computer, I will finally be able to start writing it! Dr. Sherwood was so excited on Friday when we finished transferring it into the main hard drive that he decided to give me Saturday off! I spent it sleeping, of course. The baby is so strong and she makes me so tired. Quenby is ceaseless is her attempts the find the blue-eyed soldier… I think she is more anxious that I am! A week from now is the disco party and we’re going to pick out our costumes today with Patricia and David. Off to breakfast…

 

          Quenby reached out and touched Nancy’s arm as the door hissed closed behind them.

          “Nancy, it would be okay if you had thought about him.” Nancy swallowed and took a sip of her coffee to calm herself. In fact, her mind had often strayed toward the soldier, but she had never thought of him being at the disco. Were soldiers even allowed to come to parties?

          They had reached the cafeteria and the smell of bacon wafted out as the doors opened. David and Patricia were already eating, seated across the room at the group’s usual table. 

          “How long do you think it will be before they hook up?” Quenby was referring to David and Patricia. The two worked together and seemed to get along great.

          “I don’t know.” Nancy picked up trays for both of them as the two girls looked at each other and grinned. 

          “If they don’t hook up by the disco, one or both of them will explode!” Quenby said. Laughing, they made their way to the table.

           After breakfast, Patricia and David headed to the greenhouses and Quenby and Nancy followed the crowds to the elevators. They descended nine levels and Nancy tapped her code into the elevator keypad. As the doors hissed open to the Historian’s Hall, Nancy waved goodbye to Quenby. Because she had an undergraduate degree in English, she had been sent to work with the historians, recording, rewriting, editing, and copying their records and memories in an orderly fashion. With her degree, Quenby had gotten a job as assistant to one of the psychologists on the eleventh floor and the two had met in the elevator one day soon after their placement.

          Turning her back on the elevator, Nancy smiled. The Hall, as it had come to be called, was decorated like an old-fashioned library, with fake mahogany tables and shelves and thick, wall-to-wall carpeting. She could almost smell the comforting, musty perfume of old books. She sighed and headed to her computer to sign-in for the day. A door hissed behind her. 

          “Morning, Dr. Sherwood!” She turned to greet her boss as he stepped out of his office.

          Dr. Robert Sherwood, a history professor at Harvard when the draft was announced, had been extremely well known in professional circles. He was tall and thin, but had aged well; he was still incredibly sexy at forty-five. Nancy, who had always had a thing for professors, adored him.

          There were two doors on either side of Dr. Sherwood’s office, the one on the right belonged to Dr. Beth Adkins, who had been a history professor at Yale. Her door was decorated with pictures of famous women and quotes. The door to the left led to Dr. Thomas Lancaster’s office. Dr. Lancaster was from Duke University and his door was mostly covered in pictures of different wars. Nancy was assistant to all three professors, but reported directed to Dr. Sherwood. While their offices were connected to the main room, each also opened to a back hallway leading to their lounge and living quarters.

          “Good morning, Nancy! Are you ready for the big day?” Dr. Sherwood set his briefcase on her desk and clicked it open; he pulled out a stack of papers he had taken back to his room the night before. 

          For the past four and a half months, the four of them had worked constantly on producing a single, comprehensive yet coherent outline of the history of the world. The first three months had been spent methodically listing every detail of world history, either retrieved from memory or from textbooks brought in by the colonists. This was done on a long piece of paper, which was now draped over the tables and chairs, drooping to the floor in between each support. 

          As soon as the outline was completed, Dr. Sherwood, along with his two colleagues met with the President and his Cabinet to present the final draft. Because their account would become the only history that future generations of colonists would know, the final draft was incredibly important. The meeting had lasted hours and Nancy had paced around the Hall, waiting with coffee and encouragement during the breaks. It was the most stressful day she could remember since she entered the colony. Finally, the President had approved the outline and given the go-ahead for the next phase of the project. 

          The following six weeks were spent transferring The Scroll, as the four of them called it, to the computer on a simple word processing program. Today, Nancy would begin typing the history of the world into, roughly, the form that future generations would come to know.

          “Dr. Sherwood?” Nancy asked as she settled down at her computer.

          “Hm?” He asked, distractedly.

          “Does it ever scare you? The power that we have?” She frowned, leaning back in her chair a bit and glancing over at him. 

          He looked up from his papers and peered at her over his glasses.

          “What do you mean, Nancy?”

          “Well, we have the power to rewrite history… to erase it or change it or…”

          “Yes, that’s true. But everyone who has ever written anything about history has changed it. We are changing it right now just by being in this colony. The human race should have destroyed itself months ago, but here we are… three thousand of us… thriving. That, Nancy, is changing history.”

          Nancy sighed, not entirely convinced. Dr. Sherwood read the doubt in her eyes.

          “Nancy, don’t worry. We will tell it as we know it; that’s all we can do.” He smiled, his eyes crinkling around the edges and that sexy lock of hair falling onto his forehead. 

          Nancy smiled involuntarily and felt a little more at ease. 

          “You’re right.” Taking a deep breath, she placed her fingers gently on the keys, caressing their familiar faces. Alright, Nancy. Moment of truth. She closed her eyes and typed the first words:

 

                Life, as we know it, began . . .

 

          She opened her eyes and smiled, letting out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. ‘Yes.’

Reviews

[TLK]

I am at a loss to say what exactly is happening here. There is a lot of "Nancy", though.

NANCY.