The Faarian Chronicles: Exile (16 page)

After another few minutes I felt like quitting in
frustration. The government had put restrictions on all communications to
Earth.

“You’re kidding,” I said in disbelief at her explanation.
She shook her head. “Geez it’s like we’re in prison!”

“It’s just inter-world security, Veridian. The less that
Earth governments know about us, the better. You’ll get used to it.”

“Get used to it! The government is going to read every word
I send out just to make sure I don’t say something wrong? And if they don’t
like it, my family won’t even get the message?”

“Yes, that’s the idea. Mostly though, if they don’t like
something, they’ll delete that part and send it on. You’ll get a copy of the
final message.” She laid out the rules:

1)No mentioning Macawi by name.

2)Nothing about spaceships or interplanetary travel.

3)Especially nothing about the wormhole or its location.

4)No pictures of species or phenomena that do not occur on
Earth.

“In short, nothing that would tell someone on Earth that the
email was from another planet. Simple, really.”

“Yeah, simple,” I grumbled. “So this is why I can’t IM or
Skype or even text anyone on Earth, because they have to have time to screen
everything?”

“Yes, that’s why,” she said. “I’ve had your Dad, Judith, and
Andi’s addresses pre-approved, per your father’s request. If you want to email
anyone else, you’ll have to get them registered with the Inter-World Trade
Office.

“There’s no way around it. Believe me, I’ve tried. Oh, and
they charge a fee for the privilege of someone reading your mail, too.” Her
lips twisted in annoyance. “So, I’ve set up an account for you with a volume of
one email per day to Earth. If you go over, you’ll run out of funds and have to
wait until the next month.”

What? That was impossible! Andi and I usually texted each
other constantly. How was I supposed to stick to only one email per day?

 “And the Inter-World Trade Office isn’t open on
weekends. So if you send something late in the day on Friday, it won’t go out
until Monday morning at the earliest.”

What? Three whole days that I couldn’t even email Andi? What
a cartful of crap!

She saw the look on my face and made her own face of
disgusted agreement. “Yeah, we’ve been trying to get that changed for years.
Some of us actually do work on weekends. Anyway, the fewer questionable things
you put in your message, the quicker it will get sent on.”

“Well, uh, thanks,” I said. She kept glancing at her link on
the desk and I realized our session was over. I got up to leave.

“You can stay here for a while, if you’d like,” she said
awkwardly, glancing up from the link that had already caught her attention.
“Write your email and do your reading. That way you can ask questions if you
need to.”

“Um, no. No thanks,” I said, backing toward the door. “I’ll,
um, just work on this later.” I nodded at the link in my hand. I needed some
time alone after all that. Information overload. And I wanted some privacy to
email home.

Chapter 19: Foul Play

Back in the apartment I held my link in front of me and took
a deep breath. Okay, here goes. The device had no keyboard and the thought
converter everyone else seemed to use was almost impossible, so I told it to
start a new voice document.

***Andi, hi! Could you forward this first part for
Dad and Judith? The rest is for your eyes only.***

Dear Dad, Andi, and Judith,

OMG! Talk about the longest first day ever! The
people here are mega-weird and I miss you guys so, so much already! And
Judith’s cooking, definitely.

I’m only allowed to send one email per day. Can you
believe that? Totally lame. There are a bunch of rules about what I can and
can’t say for like, national security. So, if parts seem missing, that’s what’s
going on.

It’s like I’m stuck in the middle of desert
nowhere. There are almost no animals or trees outside. The only birds around at
all seem to be this giant pest they’re trying to get rid of because they eat
pretty much everything – including towns and people! Think: swarms of fluffy
ostrich chicks that want to eat you. Today my “team” left me alone on my first
patrol and one bit me. Eight stitches - my entire hand is swollen! (See
picture.)

Dad, I have to tell you, I don’t know why I’m here.
No one likes me – including my mother. She’s like, this military General - for
real. See the attached picture that Ethem took of us? That’s how she looks ALL
THE TIME. You said my mother wanted to get to know me, but how could she when
she doesn’t spend any time with me? She was too busy to pick me up at the port,
or show me around, or have dinner with me tonight. I had to track her down just
to get her to teach me how to email you, and then we had a huge argument! She
ordered me to fight someone on my first night here, calls you her “ex” – she’s
horrible!

These two mean girls have been doing nothing but
pick on me. And, this has to be the worst out of everything: they don’t have a
gym here - of any kind! How am I supposed to practice with no equipment? I have
to at least have mats so I don’t kill myself on all the stone floors!

Dad, I know when you read all this, you’ll
understand. I’ve gotta get out of here! Please Dad, I need to come home! I’ll
wait for your response.

Love,

Sunny

***For Andi only***

Help!! See the picture of the big twin girls trying
to look tough? Well, they’re my cousins (yes, I am related to everyone here).
Anyway, they seem to like playing mean practical jokes, especially on me! What
do I do? Help!

Also, and Andi, you cannot tell anyone this – promise
you won’t! Pinky swear on it, okay? Okay. Women here. Don’t. Shave. Or wax. Or
use makeup, like at all. They’re a bunch of big military hippies! When I was
wearing shorts, my cousin Thal asked me if I had some sort of leg disease that
made me not grow hair. So, it’s either keep waxing and not fit in, or – ewww! –
be hairy. I’m going to be all hairy and gross! The next time you see me, you’ll
have to pretend you don’t know me. Don’t worry. I won’t hold it against you.

Your BFF,

Sunny

It took me a few tries to get the photos attached in the
right format, and then I told it to send to Andi’s email. Okay, next project:
sewing Meowman’s mangled remains back together and getting caught up on what I
needed to know about this planet.

“I want to look up information,” I spoke clearly into my
link, holding it close like a walkie-talkie. I didn’t know how to get to
whatever the equivalent of the Internet was here, and didn’t really expect
anything on my first try. Sure, I could do what my mother had told me to do and
read
, but I wanted something easier and faster than reading some boring
old history textbook. I needed the good parts version.

A colorful little man popped out of the link to stand a few
inches high. I jerked it away from my face and dropped it onto the table with a
surprised grunt.

“Hello, Veridian,” he greeted me, righting himself
automatically. “I am BLIN, your personal research assistant. What would you
like to know today?”

“Er, hey,” I said, trying not to grimace. “Hey, I uh, I didn’t
know anyone was in there. I swear, no one told me to activate you,” I hurried
to explain before he berated me for having left him off all day.

He cocked his head to the side, eyes strangely blank. “I did
not understand. Please restate your request.”

 “Uh,” I poked two fingers into his side
experimentally, expecting a rebuke. The Robot
hated
it when I did
anything that pointed out he wasn’t real. My fingers passed right though and
the little man didn’t react. “Are you alive?” I asked, curious. The Robot had
always insisted he was living, not just a computer-programmed hologram.

He cocked his head to the side again and stated
dispassionately, “I do not require air, water, or sustenance in any form. My
programming does not allow for sentient thought, nor can I reproduce. In other
words, I do not possess any of the things that, by most standards, define
life.”

“Oh.” I paused for a few moments, considering him.

“I am BLIN, your personal research assistant. What would you
like to know today?” he repeated, exactly the same as before. It sounded like a
company’s catch-phrase. Okay, maybe he wasn’t like the Robot.

“I want to know…” I blew out a breath of frustration,
“everything a newcomer to Macawi should know about this planet.” That seemed
like a tall request, but I didn’t know how else to say it.

“Your request has resulted in one full match and 4,751
million partial matches,” BLIN said. “Would you like me to start with your best
match?” I nodded. “It will begin momentarily.”

BLIN faded out while a voice-over announced, “Welcome
Veridian! This planetary tutorial is brought to you with limited commercial
interruptions by The Macawan Foundation. Moving forward today, for a better
tomorrow.”

A very polished and pretty man and woman came on next, in
bodysuits that resembled Star Trek uniforms – the man’s with a shiny codpiece
and the woman’s with a coordinating shiny bustier. Ugh, was that fashionable
somewhere? Okay, at least the hideously bland fatigues here were better than
that
.

“Are you tired of your drab, ordinary life?” the man asked.
“Are you always being left behind - never good enough, smart enough, fast
enough, or strong enough to reach your dreams?”

“Are you ready to become your fullest and best self?” the
woman continued. “With one quick and easy in-office procedure, you’ll open
doors for yourself that you never thought possible. Best of all, with our
state-of-the-art technology, we have the best success rates on the planet.”

“So don’t trust your life conversion to anyone else,” the
man said. “Isn’t it time you reached your full potential? Wholly endorsed by
The Macawan Foundation. Become all that you can be.”

“Get an edge on life, in the Army!” I sang to myself at the
end of the commercial.

“You’re singing along with the propaganda?” My mother asked
incredulously from behind me, making me jump as she entered the sparse
apartment.

BLIN popped up again beside the infomercial. “Greetings
General.”

She ignored the hologram. “Veridian, don’t watch that
drivel. It’s all government approved garbage. When I want to know what the
government has to say, I put their news on summary mode.” As soon as she said
the words, it switched from the special planetary overview that was starting to
a few short sentences about each of the days’ news events. Which was totally
not
what I’d asked for.

“Kindreds demand more water for unnecessary projects from
the already overtaxed global water system. Glass City electricity production
held hostage until Kindred demands are met. The National Council vows to stand
firm,” a bland newscaster reported.

“We will not cave to such unreasonable demands from the
Kindreds while they try to tie our hands with threats to our electricity
needs,” a woman in an expensive suit was shown saying. “We must stand strong in
the face of these strong-arm tactics. Remember: we do not need their
electricity as much as they need our water.”

My mother snorted. “And that is what I mean about drivel.
They are the ones holding us hostage, and putting whole Kindreds at risk. The
Kindreds have always had an agreement with the capital, Glass City, to exchange
water for electricity from our solar arrays. Now they’re pressuring us for more
energy, but they refuse to repair the pipelines, or to increase the water
supply for increased crop production so we can grow and prosper too. They twist
the facts to suit their own agendas.”

The news summary continued a few more minutes, unfortunately
sounding very much like the nightly news back home. A building collapse had
left two dead in someplace called “the lower reaches” of Glass City. A
policewoman had been suspended for racial profiling, which had fired up the
Afflicted rights protesters I’d seen at the port. The search was continuing for
a runaway girl. A picture flashed briefly of a brooding teenager standing in
front of a huge greenhouse dome.

“Now, when you want to see what really happened, you turn
off this blasted BLIN contraption. BLIN off,” she repeated. The holographic man
pouted and disappeared, “and switch to manual mode. Faarian Truth Seeker,” she
commanded. A bare-bones newspaper site came up on screen. I reached over and
stretched the link to make the tiny print larger. I sure liked the holo-TV
better. This was like reading a foreign newspaper after watching life-size news
in person.

“See, here’s that story about the building collapse in Glass
City that they claimed killed two,” my mother said. “It looks like it really
killed at least fifteen, and some suspect they were dead before the building
collapsed. And some of the bodies are still missing. Something’s going on
there,” she mused.

“And the so-called runaway girl is here, top story. She’s
the latest in an unsettling wave of girls to disappear. I know her parents.
They must be devastated,” she added. “Have to contact them and ask if there’s
anything we can do,” she murmured to herself and cleared her throat before
continuing.

“No one’s been able to figure out what’s going on, but
witnesses have seen some of the girls get into vehicles with people in masks,”
my mother said, filling me in. “The girls seem to go willingly and they send
notes back to their families saying they’re fine and not to look for them, so
they’re labeled runaways, but then who are the people in masks? Are the girls
really runaways, or are they being coerced or blackmailed?” She shook her head
angrily.

“No one seems to know or care because the government news
insists that they’re all unconnected runaways or accidents. This girl was on
her way home from school, barely a hundred miles from here, and she disappeared
from the train without a trace. Foul play suspected.” The same picture was
shown as on the holo-TV version. She scrolled down to reveal pages and pages of
pictures of missing girls.

 “But… but why would the government news want to hide
what was really happening?” I asked skeptically.

“Good question. To make it look like they’ve got everything
under control? To keep people feeling calm and safe?” She shook her head. “If
you figure out the answer, you let me know.” She was quiet for a moment.
“Veridian, I want you to promise me that if you see anyone in a mask, you’ll go
the other way. Don’t go with them, no matter who they might threaten or what
they might tell you. Fight them if you have to.”

I froze in my seat. “I thought you told Dad it was safe
here.”

“It is safe here,” she snapped and took a deep breath. “No
girl from our Kindred has ever been approached by these people as far as I
know, and I don’t want you to be the first. The other girls have all gotten the
same warning.”

I nodded and went back to sewing Meowman back together
again. Don’t get in cars with strangers. Check. It seemed more likely that my
mother’s newspaper website was wrong. The Faarian Truth Seeker seemed very much
like a conspiracy site to me, and the holo-news certainly looked more
professional and trustworthy. Anyway, it was almost bedtime and I was
exhausted. She obviously didn’t spend much time in the apartment.

 “Now,” she changed the subject, “you can sew, but you
don’t know how to take care of a pair of boots?”

“They’re just going to get dirty again tomorrow,” I replied
reasonably, not looking up from my attempts to avoid Frankenstein-like scars on
Meowman’s furry neck. I think I needed a different needle for this.

She grunted with displeasure at my response. “I left you a
boot kit for a reason, Veridian,” she said in a quiet voice that made me look
up from what I was doing. Unfortunately, I wasn’t smart enough to take the
warning in her voice.

“What good will shining them do, anyway? They’re plastic,
not leather.” I looked at the ugly boots in the corner in disgust. They were
totally gross, covered in dried blood and dirt, with bits of blue down here and
there.

“They’re haratchi leather, impregnated with resin and
treated with deterrent. Did you wonder why that little chick today didn’t go
straight for your ankles? That’s why.” I looked at the tall, grungy boots again
curiously. Really? They looked like dark blue plastic with a fake metallic
sheen. Her voice changed from cold and displeased to the impersonal commanding
tone of someone used to giving orders and having them followed.

“You will clean and shine those boots every evening when you
return from patrol. Use the haratchi deterrent last and allow it to dry at
least two hours before spit shining. Leave them outside your door so I can
check them in the morning before I leave.” I bristled at her commanding tone
and her assumption that I would blindly do whatever she said. She seemed to
read my mind.