“Come on,” said Percy. “I have more to show you.”

28

As they walked farther in, Percy explained to Donny how none of the people they saw out working had “jobs”—not as Donny would think of it. The community was divided into groups of 50 to 150 who occupied and tended to different zones, each with its own urban farm plots and restoration projects. The idea was to mimic the structure of the earliest human bands. Everyone took their share of the chores, and had plenty of time left over to pursue their own other interests. Members of the groups who were so inclined could even go out on hunting excursions or forages. Necessary tasks were dealt with based on skill and availability. But specialization was resisted.

“People need to live full lives,” said Percy. “I am a lawyer, but I’m also a teacher, and a gardener, and a politician.”

“Are you happy?” asked Donny, repeating the question he had asked Lou just days earlier, in a very different world just hours away.

“I now understand I never realized what happy even meant,” she said. “This is a different kind of happy. Like a collective happiness that infects you, gets you out of your own head.”

They walked along Canal Street, which had been turned into a long grassland. A crew was out there tilling one section, and planting new seed. Percy explained how some of the grasses were hybrids with seed crops that would both restore the land and produce production-grade wheats.

“Are they from Tripto?” asked Donny.

“I didn’t ask,” said Percy.

Farther along, a bunch of kids were out playing.

“They’re from my school,” she explained, walking over to say hello to the students. Donny had expected to see hungry, shabby creatures, but they were the happiest and healthiest-looking kids he had seen in a long time.

“How do you have time to do this and do your job?” asked Donny, crouching down to receive an interesting-looking rock from a four-year-old girl.

“We don’t think of it that way. We especially don’t think about time that way. Your time is your own, and you spend it the way you need, or the community needs, which hopefully are the same thing.”

“No deadlines? No dockets?”

“Oh, I have plenty of those.” She laughed. “Mostly because I manage all of our litigation in other forums, outside the community. But I have a lot of help. That’s where we’re going now.”