Pym_ A Novel - Mat Johnson [105]
“This whole thing, it must have taken a lot to create?” I asked our host, looking out at it all.
“To get this ready, it took years. And most of my money—but still cheaper than taxes. It’s modular, made the pieces up north, shipped it down, helicoptered it from there, then they put it up. Took a lot. Plus, when you’re talking custom-made, you’re talking extra labor. See that ceiling up there? That was special made. I don’t just mean the painting either. On the original plans, the whole roof was supposed to be glass. They tried to tell me I had to keep it that way. But the sky, that’s my big thing, my signature. The scene wouldn’t be complete without the real Thomas Karvel heavens glowing above.”
“It was supposed to be a greenhouse, then? To take energy from the sun. Heat, food for the plants, everything?” I said, my mind spinning. Seeing the direction I was revolving off in, Karvel quickly interrupted.
“Yes, but I took care of that: I had them put solar panels all over the new roof, then put in ultraviolet lights behind the gauze the sky’s painted on. Cost was no option; I do something, I do it right. Matter of fact, speaking of the panels, you boys want to do us a really big service?”
Garth, eager fanboy that he was, said yes before the proposition was spilled. Considering that our farming project was at a close, we needed some other purpose to serve to justify our citizenship, our pull on the resources. It wasn’t that this was the world I would have imagined for myself, or even chosen. It was just that there were no other practical options. Because it was very, very cold out there. And despite our second-class citizenship, it was still pretty comfortable in here.
“Now I know, it’s risky going outside. That air, who knows what’s in it. It’s a danger going out, but you did survive it before, an hour more can’t hurt too much. And we got those solar panels up there, and every few minutes or so you hear—” Karvel stopped, reached for the audio remote. A rare moment of silence in the chamber followed. Then came a sound, one I’d heard but never paid attention to before. Metal scraping. Darting his head up to stare at the ceiling and its perpetual sunset clouds, Karvel grimaced. “There it goes. You hear that? You’re not supposed to hear that. That’s not how it’s supposed to be, that racket,” he said and turned back on all the voices talking.
An hour later, we were headed for the roof. Fortunately, Mrs. Karvel had been less than exact in her following of her husband’s orders on our arrival, and instead of burning our snowsuits, she’d just washed them instead. We dressed and made our way back to the terrarium’s exit hatch, located behind a discreet and wholly cosmetic cave formation, itself hidden by an abundant cluster of hydrangea shrubs that distracted attention in a pink trademarked by Mattel.
Past the door, what was revealed was the hard, cold, industrial shell that kept our controlled world from the real one’s chaos. Here, the sound of the all-powerful boiler echoed violently and you could feel it in the air like humidity. A narrow corridor of metal and concrete rose up several stories to the ceiling, lined with storage containers and what appeared to be freezers. There was even a sailboat back here, wrapped in a tarp. It wasn’t a yacht, but it was still three times the size of a canoe, just small enough to ride the fifty yards down the Kool-Aid stream if you were so inclined. Past that, we saw the red “exit” signs pointed to an open garage door, where his and her snowmobiles with racing stripes sat waiting. On a metal balcony far above, I saw the image of Mrs. Karvel, so out of place in this industrial environment, waving at us. Braving