04:37, May 18th - Exactly one hour until my 21st birthday.
Sometimes you get lucky and have someone born in the same minute of the same hour of the same day as you - not me. Like most, I face the room alone. Bare room, steel lined. Two doors, both remote controlled. One screen.
The exams are over. The last two weeks have been complete hell. Oh yeah, it is funny to make jokes about the testing when you are 15. Hysterical, a total frakking thigh slapper, at 19 in the breeding center. But it isn't funny now.
04:53, May 18th
Funny how things are. All the time while learning, doing the daily maintenence chores, teaching the littles, I never once thought - why 21? Why is your 21st birthday decision day? I could have asked, of course - anyone can access the computer, or talk to the Historian or Mother. Hell, the Farmer almost never shuts up, but he knows little outside his speciallity.
05:07, May 18th
Half an hour to go.
Girls get longer of course - until 25 or their third child. Without them, the system would break down. Even in my lifetime, two new living caverns have been built. The Historian talks about population pressure and expansion - that goes over my head. I studied under the Engineer. Always had a talent for that. Making the machines keep working is more of an art than a skill, he told me, and one that I have.
05:13, May 18th
It is a shame that each profession, except the Doctor, is only allowed 2 apprentices and two journeymen. It means I have to out point people who have been around as much as 10 years longer than me! That is really not fair. Guess it is not fair on the apprentice who will take my place either, but that is his hard luck. As Mother keeps saying, life is a serious business and there is no room for sentiment in the caverns.
05:19, May 18th
I wonder what Jen is doing. We paired off in the breeding center. Not exactly according to the rules, but there are ways around that as long as healthy children are born. We have two between us, confirmed by genetic analysis as being ours, healthy and free from mutations and undesirable genes.
Is she thinking of me?
05: 26, May 18th
Nerves. Not getting up to pace, there is a rumor that the room is a final test of nerve and dedication. Very faint printing on the wall - faded to almost illegibility.
What does it say?
Primary Decontamination Chamber,
Denver Environmental Shelter Number 3.
What is a Denver?
05:36, May 18th
All you can do is hope. After all, some must stay to carry the life of the caverns on.
05:37, May 18th, 2213
The screen flickers to life. The aged face of the cavern's senior Doctor looks out. He has white hair - something I have never seen before.
"Candidate Gerrard. Your test results have been compiled. A decision has been made regarding your future on this, the 18th of May, 2213."
Please - I studied hard. God, if you are there, let me be the one.
A door grates open. The wrong door.
"Candidate Gerrard, you will find everything you need for surface life in the next chamber. Seeds, tools, decontaminants, personal protection for two years. Do not consider this a death sentence. You, like tens of thousands before you are working to make the surface once more mankinds home. Good luck and build well."
Dammit.
I shuffle to the open door.
Exile.
Oh, Jen!!!
05:43, May 18th
The second chamber is an elevator. It rises slowly, groaning, for 2 miles. The door opens again, on a landscape of blowing dust and ash. Nothing can live here.
At least the tools include a very sharp knife.
