Tundra 37 (2 page)

Her first thought shot to the computers. Could she save her life’s work? For privacy, the Seers instructed each matchmaker to store all data on the computer in front of her. The lights flickered out and an alarm screamed down the hall. One of the fiery balls grew larger, hurtling right toward the glass separating Gemme from the void of space.

Forget the data.

Taking one look back at her touchscreens, Gemme sprinted to the portal and slammed her fist on the panel. The second it took for the particles to dematerialize tugged on her nerves. Visions of space sucking her out haunted her more than visions of being stuck to the ship like the Seers. Gemme clutched her hands together and bounced on her toes.

The particles disappeared, and smoke wheezed in. Bending down, Gemme covered her mouth with the sleeve of her uniform and ran. The ship pitched sideways, and she fell into the wall, bumping her knee. Her leg collapsed, but she forced herself up through the pain. The corridors lay empty. Was she the last one on the outer decks? She hoped so. Most of the Lifers slept in their cells at the heart of the ship at such an early hour.

“Hull breach imminent. Congregate to the inner decks immediately.”

Was there a hint of fear in the Seers’ voices? Gemme refused to believe it. The Seers had everything under control. They always did. They wouldn’t let anything happen to her, would they?

She punched the portal panel in front of the elevators, but nothing happened. Fear twisted her stomach, climbing its way up her throat. She breathed in, and the air seared the back of her mouth. Coughing, she slammed the panel harder.

Come on, you aging piece of junk.

The panel light flickered out like a dying sun.

Smoke filled the corridor and burned her eyes. She ran to the air shaft’s emergency ladders. Another crash hit the hull, and another. What were the Seers doing? Had they lost their minds? She clung to each ladder rung as she climbed down, afraid another shock would send her plummeting ten levels at once.

As she reached the next deck, the air spiraled over her head. Pressure sucked the breath out of her lungs. A warning buzz sounded, and the Seers’ unison voices echoed out, “Hull breach on Deck 86.”

Gemme searched below her feet. She could climb down ten more rungs to close the lower hatch, or climb back up five to close the upper hatch. Metal clicked, and the emergency systems made the decision for her. Beneath her feet, the particles of the lower hatch materialized.

Panic rushed up her legs along with the dwindling air. The Seers had locked her out.

Gemme stared at the spinning particles. If she fell too soon, she’d be stuck in the particles of the hatch and the portal would rematerialize inside her. She had to wait for the hatch to become solid.

The air grew thin and she gasped for breath. The force of the suction pulled at her, yanking hair out of her ponytail. Once the hatch formed, she leaped down on top of it. Scrambling in the folds of her uniform, she brought out her keytag.

Thank goodness she’d worn it around her neck. Sometimes the cord irritated her skin, and she took it off, setting it by her touchscreen. Now, she wasn’t sure if her touchscreen still existed. The thought of her office pummeled by comets flashed in her mind. She couldn’t go back for anything now.

She shoved the keytag into the portal panel and typed
override
. A message popped up.

Please enter your security code.

The temperature dropped and she shivered, sucking in one last breath. Gemme forced herself to type slowly to get it right. One missed touch would shut her out forever.

Her heart raced as she tapped the panel and the particles disappeared.

A wave of hot air blew by her as the hatch reopened. Gemme jumped down and slammed her fist against the panel to close it above her. As the particles solidified, she climbed down to the next level and kicked something blocking her way.

“Whoa! Look out.”

Miles Brentwood gazed up from the toes of her boots, his green-flecked eyes piercing the semidarkness. Gemme’s heart sped up. To see any person right now made her emotions crumble, never mind the man she’d been thinking of ever since she deleted their pairing. “If you’re going up, there’s no way out. I sealed the passage.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” He took the sight of her in, traveling up her cheek to her eyes and she almost lost her grip on the ladder rung. “I’m looking for you.”

Miles Brentwood had come to spend the end of the world with her? Gemme’s mind reeled. Nothing that morning had made any sense. She felt stuck in some sort of quasi-nightmare turned hot dream. “What?”

Although chaos crashed around them, his hair still looked perfect, the blond wave rising an inch above his broad forehead. “I’m retrieving all the stragglers. I followed your locater number.”

“Oh.” She looked away, feeling sheepish and small. How could she have ever thought he’d know who she was, never mind go searching for her in particular during this disaster?

He gestured over his shoulder. “There’s a safe chamber just down this hall. Follow me.”

Gemme collected her scattered emotions just as something crashed against the hatch above them. The screeching sound of crushed metal echoed down the vent shaft.

Brentwood shouted over the din, “This compartment’s losing pressure, come on!”

She followed him down two more levels and through a side passage she’d never have found by herself. They crawled through an air shaft, collecting dust webs under their fingers. A metal grating hung missing half its hinges. Had he come all this way just for her?

Brentwood looked back at her over his shoulder. “It’s not far. You can jump.”

He paused at the hole below them and waited for her to make the first move.

Of course, his valor screamed “ladies first.”

Gemme dangled her legs and judged the distance from the ceiling to the floor below her feet. If she fell the wrong way, she’d break both her ankles.

He must have seen fear cross her eyes because he offered his hands. “Here, I’ll help you.”

The warmth in his voice calmed her racing thoughts. She locked on his gaze. The flecks of green were so pure, they reminded her of the foliage in the biodome. Those eyes could have been hers to gaze into. She damned the pairing program. Why had it ever put such an outrageous idea in her head?

“Take my hands.”

Gemme blinked her thoughts away and slid her hands into his. Their palms molded into a perfect fit. His skin emanated heat, warming her cold fingertips. She closed her eyes as the ship crashed around them. She expected to feel pain, but a light-headed ecstasy bubbled over her.

When she opened her eyes, the airshaft remained intact with Brentwood eagerly waiting for her to move. All the crashing had happened inside her, levels being knocked down to reveal surprising emotions she didn’t think herself capable of. Yet, the feelings stirred an undercurrent of familiarity. Gemme searched his features to see if he experienced any of the same emotions, but his wide lips frowned. He was more concerned for her than drunk on possibility He hoisted her down and her feet hit the floor with a bounce. The ship pitched again, and she fell against the wall. Brentwood jumped behind her and ushered her forward, his hands along her waist.

“Just a few more steps.”

They ran to the belly of the ship, where the structural integrity would hold under pressure. Brentwood slapped a panel and the portal disappeared to reveal a bunch of colonists huddling together. Food rations were stacked against the far wall along with space suits. Panic worked its way up Gemme’s spine. If they needed those suits, they were dead already.

“Shouldn’t we run to the escape pods?”

Brentwood shook his head. “Not yet. The Seers believe they can salvage the ship. The escape pods would only scatter us into deep space.”

Gemme nodded and bit her lower lip. She’d known his answer. Escape pods were useless unless they found a habitable planet. It would only delay inevitable death.

He bent down, his face hovering a breath away from hers, lips slightly parted. Gemme froze in shock, noticing each light hair in his eyebrows and the moisture on his lips. Only lifemates leaned in so close. He pulled back, shaking his head as if recovering from a trance.

“My apologies. I must search for others.”

Before Gemme’s heart could beat again, he’d disappeared down the corridor, smoke trailing in his footsteps.

Each comet collision to the hull hurt like a puncture wound to Mestasis’s own flesh. She checked on Abysme, but her sister calmly calculated readjustment maneuvers by her side, as if evaluating a math equation. More cyborg than woman, she showed no sign of physical pain or emotional reaction to the threat. Although Mestasis had no more of a claim to normal humanity than her sister, her thoughts battled with which parts of the ship to salvage.

The biodome sat in the center, just above the heart of the ship. She’d instructed Lieutenant Brentwood to secure the majority of colonists beneath it, so that part of the ship took priority over all else. They must preserve the human, animal, and plant life, which meant steering the extremities into the line of fire.

Abysme’s head jerked.
Engine capacity at thirty-six percent. Rerouting alternate energy means.

Mestasis sent out a corresponding impulse.
Harborside capacitors engaged.

Did Abysme’s voice hold a hint of desperation, a fraction of humanity? Or was Mestasis the only one of them to weigh such decisions on her soul?

A comet ten meters across crashed into the main communications tower. She winced as she sealed the bridge, locking out three colonists to preserve the lives of the several hundred hiding below in their family cells. Each life lost was a unique human genome that could never be reclaimed or reproduced. The
Expedition
was losing its diversity, and Mestasis could only gamble so much of it away before their mission failed.

She needed her sister now more than ever.
Bysme, what are we going to do?

Abysme’s cataract eyes flickered like two radiant moons.
Structural integrity will hold. We must fly through the field. Protect the orb.

The orb was the least of their concerns. What was her sister talking about?
Bysme? Protect the orb?

Abysme shifted, wires stretching.
Protect the ship.

The cold, analytical edge to her tone made Mestasis want to cry out and shake her. But Abysme was right. The comet conglomeration trailed too far back to sit and wait it out. They had to navigate their way through or risk further damage.

The engines flared up and she knew Abysme would use their last store of energy to propel the ship forward. Estimating the trajectory with the least amount of exposure took only milliseconds, but to Mestasis it weighed on her soul like an eternity. She chose the course, and Abysme approved it. Together their minds steered the ship within centimeters of collisions on either side.

Ninety-two percent of her mind worked on navigation, while the last eight percent traveled to a memory she thought she’d lost. They’d worked together once before to prevent a disaster threatening both their lives.

§

Old Earth, 2436

The air hung hot and dry with golden swirls of dust accumulating on everything in a thick sheen. The world had turned stale and Mestasis could feel conflict brimming in every molecule. She chipped a piece of old paint off the banister and let it fly into the wind. Leaning over the balcony of her high rise, she peered through the smog clouding the lower levels below.

A piece of tarp rustled as a woman hung her laundry to dry. Children kicked dented containers in a game of soccer on an intersecting corridor between her building and the one next to it. Above her, the roar of engines filled the air. Hovercrafts flew between the buildings stacked like dominoes across the world’s surface. The rich had no need to descend to the lower levels.

Until today.

“When will he come?”

Mestasis turned and saw her own face: dark skin, round, velvety brown eyes, and thick lips. Abysme leaned on the edge of the patio door, wearing her best clothes and the one pair of waterproof boots they’d saved up for all summer to share.

“Soon. I thought I heard the engines coming down, but it was a transport ship.”

Abysme jutted out her lower lip. “I don’t want to leave Mom. She needs us.”

They’d had this argument a thousand times, yet Mestasis tried once again to convince her. “With this, we can help Mom more. Just think of the money we could make if we get in, if we graduate.”

“I just want the world to stay as it is.”

“Everything is going to change, Abysme. I can feel it. The only way we’re going to survive is if we change with it.”

Her twin joined her on the balcony, clutching the railing as if the smog would rise up and take them away. ”That’s what I’m afraid of, Metsy.”

Mestasis took her hand. “I’ll always be by your side. That’s one thing that won’t ever change.”

The air rumbled over their heads and a gust of wind blew back their hair. A hovercraft with the words
Telepathic Institute of New England
lowered between the buildings and hung like a dragon across their balcony.

The hatch lifted and a middle-aged man emerged. His pale skin shone white in the sun. Streaks of gray shot through his curly blond hair.

“Are you Abysme and Mestasis River?”

Mestasis nodded with determination. Abysme shot him a suspicious stare.

“Are you ready to take the tests?”

“We are.” Mestasis nudged Abysme and she nodded, studying her boots. If their mom had been home to say good-bye, Abysme would’ve had more closure. But she had a double shift at the recycling factory, and she’d lose her job if she missed a day. They paid a hefty sum to live in New York City on Level Fourteen above the gangs.

“Jump in. I’m Doctor Jasper Fields. I’ll conduct the tests when we arrive.”

Mestasis mindspoke, reaching out to comfort her sister.
Bysme, take a deep breath. Don’t look back.