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| Noah in the 22nd Century - Lukas Scarpetti CHAPTER ONE: JOURNEY Noah looked out the train window at the smoggy, polluted city. The city was, like all other cities, an eyesore. Noah was an environmental research scientist whose main specialty was water. He had had success using water filters to clean chemicals and other pollutants from the world’s heavily impacted water sources, but there was a missing piece, something that he could not quite identify, that held the key to clean waters. He was oneofthe few people left in his world who still cared about the environment. That was the reason he was in the city, to test the water supply and see if it was safe for all twelve million people in the city to drink. All around the world people were dying of thirst or disease. Noah was afraid that if he found out it was safe to drink, nobody would care; alternatively, ifhe found out it was not safe to drink, nobody would care either. That is how it was in his world: nobody cared about the environment, not even if the air and water were killing them. All the environmental institutions had given up hope twenty years before, when industries were given permission to dump their massive amounts of toxic waste in the earth’s waters and soils. Trying to keep the earth clean in the face of this destructive policy was just too hard. After the environmental institutions gave up the worst of these industires knew no one could regulate their actions, and began to freely dump their junk wherever they wanted. Now all the rivers, lakes, streams, and even swimming pools were nasty polluted cesspools. The train pulled up to the platform and stopped with a squeak. Noah choked as he walked out into the air, which was so full of particles and smoke it was hard not to choke. He had to get to The West Border Chemical Labs on the outskirts of town, and he would have to take a subway to get there. Noah walked through the station, desperately trying to find a subway. He had asked everybody where it was, but nobody would answer, in fact they were more hostile and stand- offish than friendly After hours of searching in air that was so polluted he could barely see a foot in front of him, Noah was coughing and about ready to keel over with exhaustion. He held up a map of instructions with the name of the lab printed boldly in front He was about to give up and go home when a woman in an Earth First shirt came up to him and said: “ If you’re lookin’ for the West Border Chemical Lab, there’s a line made just for it, it’s over this way, come on!” “Thank you! “Noah replied, for no stranger had ever been this nice to him before. After about five minutes of walking, they finally reached the platform. “Thank you.” Noah said “No problem,” replied the woman. “By the way, I’m Na’ Amah, and I’m going to West Border too.” | |||||||||
