Consider (6 page)

It’s funny how everyone is clamoring to interrogate the holograms. Like we’re all searching for flaws with their planet. If we were interviewing ourselves about our world, we’d never pass our own criteria. There are plenty of things we tolerate, know are wrong, and still ignore. Like how leadership is often determined by popularity and not competence. Weird that we have high expectations for outsiders but low standards for ourselves.

Or maybe, just maybe, deep down we’re hoping their planet’s better. That they figured out all our problems by the year 2359, and we can simply travel there and erase our mistakes.

“You know what bothers me?” I ask. “Why do the vertexes only work in one direction? Why can’t we go, check out their planet, come back, and tell people about it? Wouldn’t that make sense? It seems like an obvious trap.”

“True,” Dominick says. “But they said it takes a lot of dark energy to keep all the vertexes open for an extended time. That’s why they sent holograms instead of coming themselves. Light has no mass. Plus, it sounds like the vertexes are set up to pull us through. It’s not a doorway. Works more like a sideways, cosmic funnel cloud.”

“Blah, blah, blah, science,” Rita mocks.

I nod. “I guess. Just seems too convenient.” Looking back at the crowd, I realize that there’s no way we’re getting close enough to ask a question.

“This crowd is impossible,” Dominick says.

From a distance, I spot the same crazy lady from the hospital, the one they had to sedate, near the front of the crowd. She’s wearing oversized jeans with a dingy, yellowed shirt that looks like it came out of a dumpster. She screams at the hologram through a megaphone, but so many people are asking questions at once it doesn’t respond. I can’t make out all the questions in the commotion, but crazy lady’s voice carries over the crowd like a blow horn through a foggy night.

“Shape without form,” she shouts through the megaphone, pointing her free hand at the hologram. It’s an indictment, and she’s the prosecutor.

“Shut up, lady. Move outta the way.” A burly man with a short beard pushes her to the side.

She pushes back and breaks through a police barrier. “Shade without color.” She tries to snatch at the hologram. Something in her words makes sense to me, but I can’t quite figure out why. Two cops drag her away while she kicks and flails. Bet they’ll give her another dose of whatever was in that needle.

Crazy lady is not alone in her quest to be heard. Another group grabs her megaphone from the ground and starts chanting, “Jesus is the only Lord and Savior. Jesus is the only Lord and Savior.”

“Sounds like my parents,” Rita says. Her voice has lost its edge. Religion seems to suck the life out of her instead of celebrating how alive and vibrant she actually is.

“If it’s any consolation, that woman the police just arrested sounded like my mother when she gets drunk,” Dominick says.

Rita smiles, and he pats her shoulder. Moments like this remind me why I’m with him.

I want to ask the hologram my own questions, but the questions I have, it can’t answer.
Should I still finish high school? If there is a comet, will I be okay in your world? Should I leave if my family wants to stay?

The government has
decided to send a wheeled robotic device through a vertex fitted with a live mini-camera on its frame and other monitoring devices so we can witness what happens when a person steps through to the other side.

The holograms claim our technology is obsolete in their future, and even if our devices were more advanced, the other parallel planet is too far away for our instruments, never mind our minds, to fathom.

Sure enough, scientists navigate the little robot, nicknamed Scout, by remote straight through a vertex in California. As soon as Scout hits the swirling blue energy, it vanishes. So do all traces of it on our monitoring systems. It’s a leap of faith.

Someone in Florida
caught a sparrow on video flying into a vertex. It’s all over the Internet. In the footage, the sparrow makes a loop in the air, attempts to change direction, and disappears into the blue oval at top speed. The hologram outside the vertex places one hand in front of its stomach and bows low from the waist in a strange show of respect for the deposit.

I find myself thinking about that bird for the rest of the day and writing about it in my journal. I wonder what will happen to it in their world. They said no pets.

Chapter 5

Day 17: August—4,019 hours to decide

Question: What is your view on death?

Answer: It is a natural part of life, although the average human’s lifespan on our planet is around 250 years due to medical advancements.

Benji arrives in
uniform a week later. He fills it out more than the last time I saw him. It’s hugs all around, and I watch both my parents dote over him for the next few hours. My mother cooks his favorite dinner, eggplant Parmesan, and Dad randomly pats him on the shoulder like a football coach with his star player who just helped win the state title.

Benji’s been stationed at the vertex in Quincy for security reasons. He won’t discuss details, but I know he knows more than he’s saying because he keeps avoiding eye contact with me. Dad asks him for specifics, but Benji’s a genius at maneuvering around questions and skirting the truth. The military trained him well. Or maybe he was always like that.

The men spend the evening in the backyard drinking beer and talking. Mom cleans up their mess and checks the spare bedroom, Benji’s old room, for the thousandth time to make sure Benji will be comfortable. The gender lines have been drawn, and I don’t fit the illustration. It’s not until later that night, after leaving the bathroom, that I find Benji still up in the spare room watching the news and eating popcorn.

“Hey,” I say from the doorway. I should know better than to engage him in small talk, but I want more information on the vertexes.

“Hey,” he replies.

I enter and sit on a cedar chest at the foot of the bed. Mom’s favorite blue and white floral quilt from our great grandmother lays folded over the bottom half of the mattress. It’s usually in the chest so it doesn’t get ruined. I’ve always hoped she would give it to me someday, yet here it is spread at Benji’s dirty feet.

“Mom spoiling you enough?” I tease, running one hand across the quilt’s stitching.

Benji grins. “There’s no such thing.” He tosses popcorn into his mouth.

“Whatever.” I steal a handful of popcorn. “So what’s the real scoop? What are you really doing here?”

“I told you. Security.” He wipes his buttery hand on the quilt. “Get your own popcorn.”

I try to ignore the small grease spots on one of the white squares. “No, really.”

“Really.” He stares back at the television screen. The same news feed plays of the bird from earlier in the week, except there’s an added interview with an ornithologist who predicts the bleak odds for the sparrow in a foreign environment. “Honestly, the government doesn’t care if some people leave. That will help with overpopulation. They’re more concerned about what could come out.”

I hadn’t even thought of that.
“But the holograms said the vertexes only work in one direction. You mean like if they’re totally lying?” My mind starts to swirl.
I knew it was too convenient.
It’s the perfect cover. Wait, wait, wait, and then BAM. Alien invasion. Right when we get used to having the bizarre things around.
“You think some futuristic army is going to pop out of the five hundred vertexes and start a war?”

“You never know.” He shoves a fistful of popcorn into his mouth. “You gonna freak out now?”

“No. Shut up.” A fluttering, dull pain gathers in my chest. “I can’t believe they think putting you as a guard is going to help save us.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” He chews on a few more half-popped kernels. “Tomorrow,” he says. His face doesn’t move.

His ominous tone makes my insides curl. “Tomorrow, what?”

“Tomorrow it begins.”

“Aliens are coming?” I ask, half joking, half concerned after his last comment.

“Well, no. Not aliens. We don’t know all that,” he admits. “But let’s just say tomorrow the world as we know it may change.”

“That’s all you can give me?” The surface of my skin brims with negative energy.

“Tomorrow,” he repeats.

I stay up all night, even after taking Ativan. Freaking jerk. Benji and I do not mix well. We’re like water and oil. Or more like oil and fire. He knows how to make me burn, and he seems to enjoy it.

The following morning,
August 18, Benji’s forecast rings true. The United Nations announces a change—they’ve lifted the stay on all vertexes within UN countries. We can decide for ourselves whether or not we want to step through to the other side. They warn that there are no guarantees either way, but they admit they must “allow for individual freedom.”

The choice is ours. The only catch: all vertexes will be monitored for safety, and they will keep track of those people who leave, “for world census purposes.” I wonder if they are telling the whole truth. I wonder if Benji even knows the whole truth. I scramble to write all the details into my journal.

Tomorrow, starting at noon, they will allow the first volunteers to travel through vertexes. I can’t imagine anyone crazy enough to set foot in one of those things. I mean, for all we know, it’s a death trap. Take one step inside and you fizzle up into oblivion.

But across the globe, a small number of volunteers actually come forward to sacrifice themselves to the vertexes. Ex-military, former astronauts, adventurous spirits—all waiting like inmates on death row. Major networks interview them one by one. They must be suicidal.

The next morning,
Rita comes over to watch the moment with me. Her family has banned all media coverage of the holograms and vertexes. I text Dominick to join us, but he’s watching his little brother since his mom has to work. He promises to take me to the movies tonight to make it up to me.
How can he think about going to the movies at a time like this?

At noon, the major networks focus on the first U.S. volunteer at the Washington, DC vertex. The President of the United States stands stoic as the hologram delivers its daily rote warning. Military officials flank each side of the vertex. At the entrance, a soldier holds an electronic tablet, ready to enter those who depart into a database.

I gulp for air from the safety of my bed and grab my journal. Rita comes out of my bathroom wearing a red, V-neck T-shirt, jean shorts, a stack of silver bangle bracelets on both wrists, and red, white, and blue earrings that look like falling fireworks. She drags my purple saucer chair in front of the TV on my bureau. The back of her dark head bobs in and out of my view of the screen.

From the living room, Dad’s commentary bounces off the walls and makes its way down the hallway. Mom scurries from the parlor to the kitchen to my bedroom and back again, bringing snacks, forgetting things, and yelling from the kitchen, “Is it time yet?”

“I can’t believe Private Benjamin can’t be here,” Rita pouts from the chair. “I was hoping to get in some good flirting time.”

“He has to guard the vertex in Quincy even though no volunteers are going through there.”

She swings her legs up and sits upside down in the saucer, letting her head fall backward. Her feet dangle in my view while her dark hair mops my dusty floor.
The germs that might be collecting on each strand, invisibly crawling up to her scalp
. . . I bite my tongue to keep from sharing my concern.

“I hope he’s safe,” Rita says. “Why are guys in uniform so attractive?”

“Grace,” Dad’s voice echoes. “It’s time.”

“Ooh, it’s starting.” Rita flips her body back around in the chair. My stomach and shoulder muscles hurt from anticipating her tipping over and cracking her skull on my wooden floor.

On screen, George Rogers, a former U.S. astronaut, waves to a crowd. He’s been a pop culture icon ever since his ex-wife and her lover tried to poison him. The trial lasted months, and the two lovers were found guilty of attempted murder. Rogers became a household name after that. The fact that he’s willing to throw his life into a cosmic anomaly while we watch seems like backward poetic justice to me. The media’s putting a positive spin on it. They claim he’s sacrificing his life to his one, true love who never betrayed him: space.

President Lee presents Rogers with a folded American flag, the kind they usually present to families of lost soldiers, an image that I’ve come to dread. She salutes him, and he reciprocates. Rogers surprises everyone when he unfolds the flag and drapes it around his neck in a final show of patriotism. The crowd in Washington, DC goes wild.

“Stop treating the flag like a fucking towel,” Dad yells from the living room.

I sigh. Rita giggles.

“I should shut the door,” I say and jump off my bed.

“No, leave it. He’s hilarious. My parents never swear. They never say what they really feel. I like this. It’s real.”

I shake my head and return to my bed. It’s not real—it’s wrong.

“I wonder how Private Benjamin is doing,” Rita sighs.

“Stop it. I’m sure he’s fine.” I hug my pillow. Even though no one volunteered in our area to leave today, that doesn’t mean people aren’t crowded around waiting in hope and horror for someone desperate enough for fame to step forward.

Rogers steps up to the microphone and gives a quick goodbye speech about life in our world and “the possibilities beyond the stars.” The crowd eats it up. I copy it down verbatim. Then he straps on a black backpack with his belongings and spins around to face the vertex. The soldiers on each side of him salute. One soldier types onto the tablet, making George Rogers the first name on the census list of the departed. Cameras zoom in on his face. He closes his eyes, taking a moment. I wonder if it’s for himself or for the camera.

I hold my breath. I want to scream
Don’t do it!
At the same time, something inside me wants him to go. Wants to push him in and see what happens.

When Rogers opens his eyes, they seem darker. He takes one step forward. Another. Then another. And with one final step his body evaporates into the swirling blue of the vertex like the sparrow. The hologram bows low in respect. The crowd pauses in silent awe, and then a slow clapping and cheering begins and spreads until the noise becomes deafening.

He did it. I can’t believe he did it.

“Whoa.” Rita’s face glows a patriotic blue and red since she’s so close to the television screen. “He’s totally gone.”

“Idiots,” Dad comments from the other room. “This isn’t the Olympics.”

Media channels repeat
footage from around the globe of the first six volunteers who stepped into vertexes. I jot down the names.

George Rogers age 72 United States

Kun Wen age 86 China

Abani Dhillon age 77 India

Vadim Kozlov age 91 Russia

Nakamura Manami age 82 Japan

Jack Brocklehurst age 75 England

It feels like the beginning of a bizarre space race. Who’s willing to sacrifice themselves into the unknown to show they are the bravest, ready to take on a new challenge and represent their country?

Not me.

Plus, according to the government’s new Q&A website, the holograms said that people live an average of two hundred and fifty years there, so it makes sense that all the initial volunteers are elderly. It’s like a wacked-out fountain of youth. The volunteers aren’t brave or suicidal. They’re like the 49ers, hoping that the rumors are true, that the grass is greener on the other side.

But who says there’s grass or gold on the other side of this rainbow? Why risk it all without a guarantee?