Tundra 37 (22 page)

“I’m sorry I told on you, okay? I won’t do it again. Dad won’t even notice the parts missing. He’s too busy trying to fix things in his job.”

Rizzy bit her lips as if she was considering it, tapping her fingers on the pod’s plastic curve. Vira held her breath. Her chest threatened to burst.

“All right.” Rizzy pointed a finger at her. “But you leave my poster alone, and your days of tattletaling are over.”

Vira pretended to squirt glue over her mouth. “My lips are sealed.”

“Fine.” Rizzy pulled out her illegal ID tag, the one that had gotten her trapped in the upper levels in the first place and waved it in the air, the shiny strip on the back glistening. “Where are you going to stash all this stuff anyway?”

Vira punched the corner of one of the panels in the floor and the metal popped up. Underneath lay a rusty compartment lined with dust. She used Rizzy’s favorite expression. “I have my ways.”

Rizzy gave her an appraising look and laughed. “And they think I’m the one to look out for.”

Vira stared at the poster as she waited, wondering if the sorcerer would tell the Seers about her spying if he could spring right off the wall and talk. Besides Daryl and Rizzy, everyone else followed the Seers as if they were gods.

But they weren’t.

They were once two human girls very much like herself.

Vira wondered what they were like when they were her age. Would they have been friends?

A plastic bin of gears, gadgets, and shiny tools dropped in front of her with a rattling
plop
. Vira blinked and shook her head, looking up at Rizzy.

“I didn’t know what you wanted, so I grabbed everything I could.” She put her hands on her hips. “Good enough?”

“I’ll say.” Vira pulled out a motor and a rounded metal beam that she could use as a steering wheel.

“So we’re good?”

“Yup.”

“Good. Because I’m going over to see Daryl right now, and if Mom or Dad comes back you tell them I’ve gone to study for colonization tests with Derva, k?”

“Derva
Legacy
?” Vira’s tongue almost fell out of her mouth.

“Yeah, they won’t question that, will they?”

Vira nodded. No one got in the way of the Legacys, and Derva would be an excellent study partner. She always aced all the tests. “K. Colonization tests with Derva.”

Vira didn’t think Mom or Dad would be back anytime soon, anyway. They both worked so much now, she hardly saw them at all. Rizzy was supposed to babysit her. But, she didn’t need her sister to look after her. She was the one that ended up looking after Rizzy.

“Have fun.” Vira waved and Rizzy smiled, ducking out the door. Maybe having a sister wasn’t that bad after all.

She dug through the parts scraping the bottom with her fingertips and sighed in frustration. No wheels. How was she supposed to reproduce the concentrated bursts of air that her hovercraft engines did without a decent power source?

She threw a box of metal bolts against the wall. If she was ever going to go anywhere, she needed wheels. Slumping against the wall, she bit back tears. Everything was so much harder for her than for everyone else. She’d avoided feeling sorry for herself for so long; she deserved a good bout of crying.

A whizzing sound came from the kitchen. The cleaning droid sped in, vacuuming the mess she’d made with the bolts. Its front nozzle swelled with the bolts as blue buttons flashed on its sides. Vira picked up a screwdriver to throw at it, when she noticed the shiny wheels spurring it forward.

Using all her strength, she emptied the entire container all over the floor. Pieces of scrap metal, used light sticks, and tiny drill extensions bounced in the rug. The cleaning droid beeped and turned in her direction. She held up a curled finger and wiggled it in the air.

Mestasis’s mind flicked through the latest system report with casual attention, a nagging pull from her memories stealing her focus. Mr. Reiner had temporarily stabilized the fusion core, and mechanics had repaired the hull breaches. The temperature on the ship remained stable, but the crops in the biodome still withered.

Must return to my memories.

She’d read
Romeo and Juliet
a hundred times in her spare time while driving the
Expedition
. Abysme had downloaded a bunch of classics into the mainframe before they left Earth. Mestasis knew the end, but the tragedy mesmerized her, making her relive the story again and again.

Her logical mind kicked in.
You can’t change the past. You can only impact the future by acting in the present.

Yet, an indulgent craving deep inside her rose up.
You can see James once again.

Making sure she’d reviewed all status reports, she gave herself up to forgotten dreams.

§

Old Earth, 2446

Dr. Fields stood before a blank holoscreen, his rigidly pressed white lab coat contrasting with the meandering wisps of the remaining gray hairs on either side of his head. In the ten years she’d known him, Mestasis thought he’d aged twenty. Perhaps it was better for them to have been born into a crazy world than for him to see it crumble around him as his youth trickled away. Although he tortured them with seemingly extraneous mental exercises, he was the closest thing to a father figure that she’d ever have. Above all else, he believed in them, even when they didn’t believe in themselves.

The doctor pressed the panel and a timer appeared on the holoscreen, the numbers formed by golden swirls. “Five hovercrafts are flying in the air space over TINE. One of them carries massive amounts of uranium-235 and plutonium-239, aka a nuclear bomb. You have two minutes to detect which one before the enemy blows us to smithereens.”

Abysme stood up and pointed her finger. “Not fair! We can only sense electromagnetic impulses in our building and other buildings connected to it. Not through air. It’s impossible.”

“Electromagnetic waves travel through air. Hypothetically, you should be able to detect it.” He flicked a glance over to a mirror, where they knew a research team awaited the results of the exercise: men and women with big pocketbooks and lots of credits willing to invest in TINE. His face remained stoic as he counted off. “One minute and twenty seconds left.”

“Damn.” Abysme paced back and forth while Mestasis closed her eyes, feeling vibrations in the floor under the soles of her feet. The air ionizers in the room worked on maximum, and two floors down, everyone had their holoscreen on. So much noise to filter out. She tried sensing the temperature of the air on the roof, and from there, the ebb and flow of sonic waves produced by the engines of the approaching hovercrafts. It seemed as though she tugged at threads no stronger than strands of Dr. Fields’ gray hair, the connection snapping whenever she pushed her mind through it.

A new pulse caught her attention, a distant tapping like Morse code. Her heart somersaulted in her chest. It was the rhythm she’d handed to James on the nanodisc. He was calling to her. She’d stood him up the next day at the Techno Express because of the death of their mother. Embarrassed and unwilling to talk about it, she’d avoided the café ever since. Mestasis had to choose: follow James’s signal or complete the test and time was running out.

What if he needed her?

Her mind shot to the origin of the code, traveling underneath her feet to a corridor connecting to an adjacent building. Her thoughts jumped down several levels to a credit machine on the right wall in the hall on level seventy-seven. Just as she pulled her mind back to the roof of TINE, the timer beeped.

“That’s it girls.” She opened her eyes and Dr. Fields stood with an expectant, almost pleading look in his face. “Tell me which hovercraft holds the bomb.”

Mestasis’s stomach sank to her knees. She’d become distracted and sacrificed the exercise. Her negligence could cost TINE new investors and cost her and her sister their jobs.

“The second and third ones from my right, tail numbers EK96 and EL39.” Abysme stuck her nose up in the air. “It was a trick question. There are two.” Above their heads, the sound of engines roared and dissipated as the hovercrafts rose up and changed direction.

“Excellent, girls.” Dr. Fields’ face flushed. He could barely hold in his excitement. Of course, he thought they’d worked in conjunction. He had no idea of Mestasis’s flub. Nor would he. Abysme’s loyalties lay with her and not TINE.

“You may go back to your quarters and rest. That’s all we need for today.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” Mestasis nodded to him and to the mirror. She could sense at least six bodies behind the glass, and she wanted them to know she sensed their presence, as if detecting bombs in high-speed hovercrafts fifty meters away wasn’t enough. Even though Abysme had stronger talents, she felt like she’d failed and had to make it up one way or another.

Abysme followed her as she rushed into the hallway.

What were you thinking?
Her sister ran to catch up.
Your mind strayed and I lost you.

I’m sorry, Bysme. I need to meet someone.

She grabbed her arm, slowing her down.
You’re scaring me. You’re the one wanting us to pass these silly tests, remember? Who in all of TINE would be more important than our future?

The person who’s gonna help us get out of here.

Her sister paused at her words and Mestasis yanked her arm back and sprinted the remaining distance to the elevator
.
Abysme glared while Mestasis pressed the elevator panel and waited for the doors to part.
Who is he?

I don’t have time to elaborate.
She didn’t know how long James could stand at a credit machine without inviting questions. And she didn’t want her sister to see her developing feelings for this man.
I won’t be long.

Her heart sped as she raced to the nearest corridor joining the buildings. She had rehearsed so many sentences in her head, hoping to set things right.
I’m sorry I didn’t meet you. I enjoyed our last conversation. I have so much I want to ask you.
None of it sounded right.

She didn’t think she could speak of her mother, the thought of that day sickening her stomach. It had been two weeks, and the sore remained just as exposed and tender as when she first heard the news. She didn’t think it would ever completely heal. Yet, to be truly honest with him, she’d have to bring herself to mention it.

A line snaked out from the credit machine, running down the hall to the next building. Businessmen carrying miniscreens, women with toddlers hanging on their arms, and a few teens lucky enough to have a keytag holding credits in the first place shifted form foot to foot. She followed the string of people up a staircase, wondering why they wanted to withdraw their credits all at once.

The thought of the world collapsing rose up again and she squashed it down. Not yet. Not until she found a way off this doomed planet. The line tapered off on a balcony on the opposite side, the last person an elderly man with a muscled bodyguard painted in tattoos. Behind them, James stood on the railing, his black cloak fluttering in the breeze. He’d tied his midnight hair in a ponytail, revealing the sleek ridges of his strong cheekbones.

He looked handsome as ever. The moment when their lips had touched came back to her in a rush. “James.” She placed her hand on his boot. “Please come down.”

His eyes widened as he saw her, stormy-silver like the clouds churning in the sky behind him. “I thought you wouldn’t come.”

“Nonsense. I gave you the nanodisc, remember?”

He leaped down, landing in front of her. Excitement flashed in his face. He reached out and pulled his hand back, as if he didn’t know how to approach her.

Mestasis grabbed his hand before he jammed it in his pocket and pulled him closer. “James, I’m sorry I didn’t meet you that day.” Swallowing a lump in her throat she summoned enough courage to tell him the truth. Besides Abysme, she hadn’t spoken to anyone about it, not even Dr. Fields. “My mother passed away. I learned the news after our conversation.”

His face changed from uncertain to compassionate. “Metsy, I’m so sorry.”

The facade she’d so carefully constructed crumbled and her lips trembled as tears brimmed. He brought her against his chest, wrapping his arms around her and holding her close. She heard the strong pulse of his heart beating just for her. “I tried to save her, but I was too late.”

James smoothed over her hair, his fingers running down her braids to her shoulders. “You still have time to save your sister.” He brought his head down next to hers and whispered in her ear. “I found the man in charge of one of the colony ships.”

Mestasis pulled back to see his face. “How?”

He shrugged, still holding onto her. To the elderly man and his bodyguard, they appeared as any young couple in love. The line moved up ahead and the tattooed man ushered his ward down the steps and into the hall. James watched them leave then continued. “Connections. If you listen to people talk long enough, you hear things.”

“Is he looking for people to take on board?”

“No. But he
is
looking for someone to drive it.”

“What do you mean?”

“The ship itself is so complicated, so many systems must run in sync, he needs someone able to oversee all of the regulations, someone that could work with the mainframe to ensure the safety of everyone on board.”

“You’re thinking me?”

James nodded. “Thadious Legacy’s his name, and he’s already agreed to meet with you. To save your sister as well, you must convince him you and your sister work together, that he needs both of you to run the ship.”

Mestasis thought back to the demonstration that morning at TINE. “That’s easy. The hard part will be getting out of our contract at TINE.”

“He’ll pay TINE off and guarantee them a number of spots on the colony ship.”

“You’re sure of it?”

James nodded once. “Positive.”

Mestasis’s heart fluttered as her head swam with the thought of a hopeful future and most of all, gratitude. “James, you just gave me everything I wanted. I don’t know what to say.”