Makeover [2430-1-2 Wed 10:00 am]

[Persephone Ruspoli]

There was a nice breeze blowing outside, and Persephone just leaned against the solid railing running around the balcony. Skye was almost glowing in the sunlight, her smile as bright as the sun itself. After the life she'd been through, she really deserved all of this, as much happiness as she could grab in two hands and hold tight.

She smiled back because it was impossible not to. All her life, Persephone's father had told her not to pity anyone living in the Below. You couldn't save everybody, and you'd go insane trying to, so you just had to live your life and settle for letting them live theirs. She'd truely and honestly believed that was for the best. Send money to the orphanges and charities, but leave the people alone. An hour ago, she'd been furious at Titus for bringing Skye here, worried that he'd get bored of her and throw her back into the abyss.

But how could she feel like that after hearing what Skye had been through and knowing this was the first time she'd stood under real sky, had real food and a bed and safety. She hoped Titus meant what he said about giving his sister what she needed. And if he didn't, then Peresphone would.

"You can see my apartment from here." She said, to break the silence. Persephone pointed to a gold and silver building in the distance, notable due to the unexpected top covered in greenery. "I own the the rooftop, and the apartment below it. It's great. I can grow my own fruit and vegetables."

[Skye Thompson]

So this was what paradise felt like. Skye’s smile stretched across her face as she drank it all in. The sun warmed her skin, but her wet hair was cool against her cheeks. The wind stirred softly, caressing her skin with it’s gentle fingers, tugging at the fabric of her shirt. It was strangely unreal, almost magical, standing way up here, so much higher than ever before, feeling and seeing all these things as never she had. Yet it was wonderful, and she was happy, happy as never she had been before.

Skye’s eyes lit up as Persephone spoke, and she looked eagerly toward the building Persephone was pointing at. “I see it.” She whispered, her eyes fixed on the tall structure. The top was covered in green. Adrian had told her about gardens, but she’d never thought of one on a roof. A garden in the sky, she though, her smile stretching still wider. “That’s so neat!” She told Persephone enthusiastically, “Could I- Do you think I could- Could I… maybe come see it some time?” She gazed around at the bare-roofed buildings surrounding Persephone’s apartment. “I’m surprised more people don’t have gardens on their roofs. It’s such a wonderful idea.”

[Persephone Ruspoli]

"Of course! I'll be doing some gardening tomorrow. If you can get Titus to let you out, I'd love to have you over." She tucked her hair behind her ears, even though it was a futile action. The wind would just blow it out again. But Persephone had never let futility stop her from doing anything.

"Gardens are harder to grow this far north. We get colder quicker, and there are sometimes killing frosts." She still remembered her mother crying her eyes out when the frost had come in the night and killed half the garden. They'd lost the lilies, and while there were other breeds, other samples, none of them were like her mother's pink lilies. "You can't see it, but I've got heaters set up to keep it warm at night, and a cover that comes on automatically as soon as the temperature is below zero."

"There are more gardens if you go south. The equator is one great big green belt, spanning the whole planet. They even have forests growing there in the buildings." She couldn't keep the excitement out of her voice. "There's one redwood that's grown up through fifty stories. They keep having to raise the roof because the tree just pushes on through. And it's going to keep growing, maybe for another hundred years if nothing awful happens."

[Skye Thompson]

"Wow," she murmured, "That's amazing! I never knew trees could get so big. And thanks, I hope I can come!" Skye's excitement was building, her head still reeling from everything that had happened in such a short space of time. Yesterday she was wondering if she would even see tomorrow, and now tomorrow she might be able to see a real garden, and maybe, just maybe, she would get to help in it. She felt as if her entire life she'd been standing still, waiting for her moment. Now her moment had come, and she was finally moving.

As she listened to Persephone speak, it struck Skye that everything in the Top seemed to be somehow more complicated. You couldn't just do something, there were all these other strings attached that you also had to worry about. In the Below, if you wanted something you just went for it and hoped for the best. In the Top, there were people who could tell you exactly what you'd get for your trouble and precisely why you would or wouldn't succeed. So what was the point in trying? How did people ever find the strength to try new things? The same way they always did, with hope.

And hope was what filled Skye as she listened to Persephone describe all the wonders of the world that she had yet to see, that she had, in fact, never heard of until this moment. Suddenly, she had the answer to a question she hadn't even known she was asking. When all your dreams come true, what do you live for? When all your dreams were realized, there was only one thing to do. Dream bigger. "I hope nothing happens to that tree. I hope it keeps growing and growing, and never stops." She grinned. "That would be wonderful."

[Persephone Ruspoli]

"Me too." Persephone had put in an application to have one of the redwood's cones, but it would probably be years before her name came up. They were millions of other collectors across Terra trying to get their hands on a redwood cone and start their own tree, and the cones were no guarantee that you'd even get a sapling. There was another movement to plant the trees offworld and let them flourish there, but that could be an environmental disaster depending on the ecosystem.

"I keep trying to talk Titus into growing some plants, but he says he's too busy to take care of them." That wasn't a total lie on his part, but she had a feeling his life would be a lot less busy if he stopped caring what people thought about him. Or if he stopped making those horrible trips to the Below... "If you're going to be around for a while, I can give you some seeds. My marigolds grew like crazy last summer, and I have a ton of extra seeds."

[Skye Thompson]

Her blue eyes lit up. "Yeah! That would be... That would be great! Thanks! I'd love to try growing stuff! I've always wanted a garden, ever since Adrian told me about them." Skye froze. Adrian. Did she really just say that name out loud? The brother that wasn't supposed to exist. How would she explain to Persephone? Titus was going to be so angry with her... But suddenly she had it, the perfect excuse. She took a deep breath, and then said in a carefully casual voice, "Adrian was a friend of my step-father's. He was a pilot on a cargo ship. He traveled all over the solar system, and he used to tell me stories, everything he saw and did..."

Good. Hopefully it would be enough to convince Persephone. What Skye really needed now was a distraction. She had been to embarrassed too ask the question before, but she welcomed an excuse to ask it now. "Persephone, what um... what do you do with seeds? I mean how do they like... end up being plants?" Skye ducked her head, her cheeks flushing. The answer was probably obvious to Persephone, but she herself had barely seen a plant before. How was she supposed to know? Hopefully Persephone wouldn't think she was too dim.

[Persephone Ruspoli]

"He sounds nice." It was pretty clear that Adrian had been important to her. He'd probably been a real father, the kind of guy who actually listened to her and didn't... well. The kind of guy who made you feel like a person instead of a kicked dog. It was clear Skye wasn't ready to talk about him, so Persephone let it drop.

"You plant them in the dirt. I know how silly that probably sounds to you, but that's how it works." Skye had probably never seen real soil, just the dust that seemed to cover every inch of space in the Below. It would be nice to show her tomorrow, if Titus was ready to let Skye out. "Then you give them water and heat. The seed sorta wakes up once it's got heat and water, and starts growing. In a couple of days, you'll start to see it pushing through. Then you just give it sunlight and water, and some fertilizer, and it'll grow like gangbusters, especially the flowers."

[Skye Thompson]

Yes. Adrian had been nice. The nicest person Skye had ever known, at least until a few days ago... Of course, that was a completely unfair assessment. She'd only just met Titus and Persephone, where as she'd known Adrian all her life. Yet somehow, she couldn't help feeling more grateful to Titus and Persephone for doing the one thing Adrian had never done. Keeping their promises. Adrian hadn't had the chance to fulfill his promises, but of course, chance was what determined people's lives. Skye's brother had never had the chance to give her a chance, where as Titus and Persephone had, and furthermore they'd taken it. How could she not hold them in the highest regard? On that thought, she returned to listening to Persephone, feeling slightly guilty for getting distracted.

Putting seeds in the dirt to get them to grow did sound silly to Skye, but Persephone knew much more about plants than she did. If she said that was the way to make them grow, then that was the way. It also seemed that plants needed a whole lot of water, as well as sunlight which would explain why there weren't many of them in the Below. The water made sense to Skye however. Everybody needed to drink water to stay alive, even plants. And if plants drank... "What do plants eat?" She asked with interest, eager to learn more. There was so much to know here, so much a person could wonder about when they weren't wondering about staying alive. Skye smiled as she gazed out over the city. This was the very definition of freedom. The ability to ask questions and seek out the answers.

[Persephone Ruspoli]

"That's kinda complicated, but basically they eat dirt and sunlight." She turned, back leaning against the balcony as she spoke to Skye. "The plant has leaves, the green part we see, and it has roots that grow underground and hold tight to the dirt. The roots drink in water and absorb nutrients from the dirt. And the leaves do a thing called photosynthesis where it takes in carbon-dioxide and sunlight, and eats them, and spits out oxygen as a waste product."

"There's a big push to have every house on Terra stock plants since they naturally put out oxygen, and they do it even more efficiently than the big oxygen scrubbers they've got working on the north and south poles." She's only seen pictures of them, huge things like the bee-hives her aunt ran. They're huge squat things, rising from the grey ocean where ice has supposedly once been. The oxygen scrubbers were the only thing keeping Terra from choking to death on their own deadly exhales. "I think it's a great idea, but not everybody can afford to keep them alive, especially the big trees."

[Skye Thompson]

Every time Skye asked a question, the answer only left her with more questions. Strange that answers could lead to questions. After being empty for so long, her mind was finally being filled. Yet already she was hungry to know more. It was an exhilarating feeling, but at the same time, frustrating. It was as if she were traveling down a winding, many-forked road, having to pick and choose certain paths, while leaving others behind. But someday, Skye promised herself, she would follow each and every path.

It was important, however, to take one step at a time. Persephone’s last answer had left Skye’s mind reeling with questions, and she had no idea which to ask first. What did the leaves and roots of the plant look like? How did the roots absorb nutrients from the soil? How could anything eat sunlight? How did photosynthesis work? How did the plant get water from the soil? There wasn’t any water on the ground unless it rained or you were near a lake, was there? How was it possible that plants produced oxygen more efficiently than machines?

Now that was fascinating, something truly worth discussing. “I can’t believe plants do a better job at something then machines. That’s kind of amazing, really. It’s like nature just gave us a ready made solution to our problems!” Skye frowned. “I guess we ignored it though.” Or maybe not. Maybe it wasn’t to late. Maybe with people like her and Persephone, they could bring the plants back, let them be the natural filters they were meant to be. Plants replacing machines, she thought, imagine that.

[Persephone Ruspoli]

"The planet was taking care of herself long before we showed up and started building. I've seen old filmstrips and photos of Terra before we started building the ultacity, and it's... it's just awe inspiring." It wasn't like anything she'd seen in photos of other planets, more like a combination of all of those factors brought together to form one world with small cities, buildings only fifty stories high, and greenery growing on dirt that was forever trapped under a mile of concrete and oceans that couldn't even remember what blue looked like.

She was really going to have to get Skye some reading material, since she seemed so interested. Then it occurred to Persephone that Skye may not know how to read. If her step-father didn't care about her, and he clearly hadn't, then he might not have let her go to any of the free-schools, much less the ones that charged money. "This is going to be really rude, but did you ever learn to read?"

[Skye Thompson]

For a moment, she tried to close her eyes and imagine it. Terra, without the humans. No city, no buildings, no people. But then what was there? She knew there had been plants, and lots and lots of water, but what else? Was there anything else? Though she tried with all her might, Skye could not think what Terra may have looked like without the humans. She tried to picture plains, but she'd only ever seen weeds growing in sidewalk cracks, and a few holos of flowers that Adrian had brought her. She tried to picture oceans, but she'd only seen puddles. How could she imagine trees, when the only things that had ever towered above her were skyscrapers?

All her life, Skye had felt imprisoned by the towering hunks of steel that rose up all around her in the streets of the Below. She'd thought that would change when she reached the Top. Yet somehow, she still didn't feel quite free. Free from starvation, free from her fathers cruelty, but not yet freed from the need to escape the dull color of cold, gray iron. Whether it was rusted or shiny, it was still the same thing. The same color she'd seen day after day after day. She wanted to see things that were green, like the plants on Persephone's rooftop, blue things like the sky, red things like Persephone's pink hair. Perhaps colors were like knowledge. The more you had, the more you wanted.

But as she listened to Persephone's next question, Skye's thirst for knowledge overcame all other needs. "No." she murmured, "No I didn't. Did you?" She hesitated a moment, realizing her mistake, "Oh, right, sorry. Of course you did." A flush of embarrassment crept up Skye's neck and onto her face. Her cheeks grew hot, and she shifted uncomfortably, suddenly realizing what she had almost asked. She was glad she'd said something dumb, to make her pause and stop her from saying what she would have otherwise said. It was asking too much.

[Persephone Ruspoli]

"Don't be embarrassed. It's actually more likely than you'd think, even among the Top. I've got friends who don't know how to read at all. They just have things read to them by the computers and dictate their answers, or send video-mail instead." Persephone knew how to read because her parents wanted her to take part in the business end of things one day, either helping with her father's smelters, or serving on the board of directors at her mother's family's construction company, or both if she found the time. Many of her friends wouldn't have to do anything until they were in their forties, and they could always just hire others to run the companies for them.

"Which room did Titus put you in?" She asked, stepping away from the edge of the balcony and into the house. Just because Skye didn't read didn't mean she couldn't learn. It would just take some tweaking of the viewscreen to make sure it would stay at her level. And if she wanted to learn, that could easily be arranged.

[Skye Thompson]

She was surprised to learn how many people in the Top couldn't read. Skye had been sure that illiteracy only happened in places like the Below, where no one had the opportunity to learn. Yet it seemed that opportunity was not the only thing stopping people from seeking knowledge, but more often it was pure laziness. When you could learn, but didn't need to learn, didn't want to learn, then you didn't. If you lived in the Below, people expected you to be ignorant because of where you came from. If you lived in the Top, people didn't care if you were ignorant because you were rich. Skye smiled ruefully. It was only human nature.

"Oh," she murmured as she turned toward the door, distracted from her thoughts by Persephone's question. "It... it's the one just at the Top of the stairs, to the right. I'll show you if you'd like to see it." She slid the door open, stepped inside, and crossed to the stairs. Bounding up the steps two at a time, Skye came to rest in front of the entrance to her bedroom. She danced inside and perched herself on the edge of the bed, her heart filling with fresh joy at sitting there, in her own room, on her own bed. Skye sat there and let the elation sweep through her as she waited for Persephone to catch up with her.

[Persephone Ruspoli]

It was impossible not to get caught up in Skye's energy and joy. Persephone had never skipped up the stairs at Titus' house, but she found herself taking the spiral two at a time to keep up with Skye, who must have had wings on her feet. She was in the guest room at the end, though Persephone supposed it was Skye's room and she'd have to stop thinking of it as the guest room.

There didn't seem to be any personal possessions in it, or anything to mark that it was anything other than a guest room. Persephone decided right then and there she was going to change that. Skye deserved to have things to mark it as her own room.

She turned on the viewscreen and quickly went into the options. She enabled the personal tutor program that came with every viewscreen, and adjusted it to begin at a beginner level, with instructions to increase difficulty as Skye needed it. Then she set it to show videos instead of text whenever possible, and that it would listen to video-commands. Hopefully that would be enough to allow Skye to use the Network and watch as many videos as possible.

"Okay, there we go." Persephone make a shortcut to the tEncyclopedia on her desktop, and another shortcut to the Simple Explanations database. SP was more for little kids, but if Skye didn't know much about anything, it was best to start there and when she hit areas that were too simple, she could switch to the tEncyclopedia. "You can probably find anything you've got questions about on either of these databases. Just open it up, say what you're looking for, and it'll show you a video explaining what's going on. I also turned the tutor program on, so if you feel like learning stuff, just say 'tutor turn on'-"

The program automatically opened. The default voice was that of an older woman. "Good morning. What would you like to learn today?" It asked, displaying six icons.

Persephone pointed to the one that looked like a padd. "There's your reading. I'd start with that, then you can do the rest if you're interested. Tutor turn off." The program shut back down, returning to the regular Network interface. Persephone stepped to the side, "Now you can just ask the computer to define a word for your, or a concept or whatever, and it'll do that."