Spaced Out

by Korissa Allen

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “I was dreaming that they took Mother with them to the Corps, and there was nothing I could do to stop them,” he says, frantic. I pull him into a tight hug.

  “Don’t worry,” I whisper. “As long as you help with the mission, no one will take Mother.” I hear his breathing slow down, but I can tell he’s still worried.

  Daniel comes back a little later with some news. “I asked the man that worked in there where the Corps’ headquarters is, and he said we have to go to Vulcona. He said it might take a few days to get there, so we need to get going right away.” I get in the front seat, next to Daniel. We shoot off into space again and head toward Vulcona.

  Four days later, we arrive in Vulcona with barely enough fuel to go any further. Vulcona is the industrial planet in our solar system. They have a really nice landing pad station, complete with 200 hangars and a heated runway to prevent ice damage.

  As soon as we pull into the station, a cleanup crew helps us get out and then jumps in to clean out the ship so it can be used for other people. Daniel leads us to the main office so we can check in. I hold Kyle’s hand, making sure I don’t lose him.

  Daniel opens the door for Kyle and me, and we take a seat in the comfy, velvet chairs that line the wall. The room is much bigger than the main office on Coreno’s landing pad. The ceiling is much higher, and the desk isn’t as crowded. The office here doesn’t have a little hallway that leads to another room, though.

  On the right side of Daniel sits a girl I think I know. She looks to be about eighteen, like me. She’s really pretty, with long brown hair and light pink cheeks. She keeps trying to put her hand on top of Daniel’s, like she’s flirting with him or something. Daniel looks down at her hand and smiles, and I get this knot in the pit of my stomach. Almost like I’m jealous, but I’m not. I don’t have a crush on Daniel anymore, or so I think….

  A few minutes later, a really tall, skinny man walks through the front door and looks us all in the eye. I see Kyle squirm in his seat next to me. “Sorry about the wait. My wife likes to talk, a lot,” he says. “Anyways, let’s get down to business. My name is Andrew and I will be helping you, so your stay is more enjoyable. Who would like to go first? Come on, don’t be shy! I promise I don’t bite.” He says it with fake cheer in his voice, like he’s done this a million times. The girl looks over at Daniel.

  “We’ll go first,” Daniel says, and Kyle and I stand up and follow Andrew out of the room.

  “So, have any of you traveled before?” Andrew asks.

  “I have before,” I say. “And so has Daniel. But never here.”

  “Very nice,” he says, his voice distant, as if he really could care less. We stop just before we get to another room across from the main office. “So, which one of you is Daniel?” asks Andrew. Daniel raises his hand and then turns to Kyle and me.

  “This is Zandrea and Kyle. They will be helping with this mission,” Daniel says. I whip my head around to look at Daniel.

  He just told this man about the mission! Why would he do that? He looks over at me, and as if he can read my thoughts, he winks.

  “Right! I almost forgot,” Andrew says. “You guys are going to the Corps’ headquarters. How could I forget?” Daniel laughs, which makes me laugh, but it’s my nervous laugh. Andrew opens the door that was behind him and lets us in. A man sits behind a giant desk containing only a small computer and a small stack of paper. “They’re here Smith,” Andrew says and walks out the door. The man, who I assume is Smith, stands up and looks at us.

  “The only people who come in here bring down the Corps,” Smith says gruffly.

  “Yes, sir. That’s why we’re here,” Daniel says, his voice shaking slightly. Smith walks around the desk and over to where we’re standing.

  “If you want to bring them down, go to their headquarters,” he says, his rough voice edgy and tough. “It’s located in the center of Vulcona, in the capital, Irangas. It’s in a big building, labeled ‘Corps.’ But you need a plan, because everyone who has gone in never comes out. So good luck.”

  Daniel looks at me, his eyes saying: You can back out now if you want to. I send him a telepathic message saying: Don’t worry about us.

  “Thank you, sir. We won’t disappoint you,” I say. He shows us out the door and tells us to go out to the street and take the airbus downtown.

  “The airbus should be there in a couple of minutes, but you can stay here and out of the cold,” Smith says. We stand next to the door, waiting for the airbus to arrive. It comes three minutes later, and we board. The airbus is pretty full, so we find a seat and let Kyle sit, while Daniel and I stand next to him. The airbus is fast and can get you anywhere on the planet in a day or less, and we arrive in the capital only fifteen minutes later.

  The Corps’ headquarters is huge and very hard to miss. We walk over to the building and stand below it. There are security guards all around, guarding every side.

  “What are you doing? This is private property, unless you have a badge to get in,” one of the security guards says to us.

  “Sorry, sir. We were just examining this beautiful architectural design,” Daniel says. He puts his arm around my waist and his other arm around Kyle’s shoulders. “My wife and son and I would like to build a house someday. We were just getting some design ideas.” Daniel looks at Kyle and me and winks.

  “That’s fine, but you must stand behind the yellow line,” the guard says. Daniel nods, bows, and gracefully walks away, motioning for us to follow him. I wave at the guard so we don’t seem suspicious.

  We walk to the park across the street from the Corps’ headquarters and find a bench to sit on. The trees around us sway in the cool breeze. A few people walk on the outlined paths near us. They seem peaceful and happy, and I feel a kind of longing panging from my chest.

  Daniel drops his arm from Kyle’s shoulders but keeps his hand on my waist. Some part of me wishes this was not just an act, but that it was real. No, I have to remind myself. Daniel is just your business partner, and nothing more. Just a friend, who happens to be very cute and nice and… no, stop it! He’s just a friend.

  “Let’s just act like a normal, happy family of three. I know we look young, but just go along with it,” Daniel says.

  “Okay,” I say. Trust me Daniel, I won’t be pretending to love you. I decide that even though we are traveling partners, and this is strictly business, I can’t help but love him. I’m old enough to be looking for someone, and I guess I didn’t have to go far. Daniel is perfect, and he likes to travel like me. Everything I’ve wanted is right in front of me, and yet I can’t seem to reach it.

  Daniel tells us the plan: we change our clothes so we look more professional, and we make fake ID badges so we can get past the security. Once we get past them, we take the elevator up to the top floor, where we infiltrate the building and find the secret codes, and release everyone captured.

  I like the plan, but what clothes do I have that would look professional? And I couldn’t just make fake ID badges without them looking like frauds. I don’t think they would buy it. We try it anyway, I mean the worst that could happen would be that they take us inside, which is where we wanted to go in the first place, and lock us up. Kyle thinks the plan will work, which goes to show he has no experience with the Corps.

  “Come on, Zandrea. Think about your mother. We can do this, I know we can,” Daniel says. If Daniel thinks we can, then why not give it a try. I still don’t think it will work, but what choice do we have? We’ve made it this far, there’s no turning back.

  Daniel, Kyle, and I walk up to a different security guard and ask for permission to go in. “Do you have an ID?” the guard asks. Daniel shows him the ID badge, and amazingly, he lets us in, without even doing a scan or body search.

  “That was easy,” Kyle says. Yeah… too easy, I think.

  We walk in, and immediately it feels like a whole new world. The walls are covered in a lining of golds and silvers, and th
e ceiling rises up three stories. A golden elevator comes down, but it’s not like most elevators I’ve seen. The elevator goes up, down, left, right, and diagonal, you name it. The desk that stands in front of us is ten times bigger, and less crowded, than the one back at the landing pad on Coreno. The desk is silver, and I can perfectly see my reflection. I look tired and not professional at all, but I don’t have time to worry about that. I tuck a lock of hair behind my ear.

  The tiles on the floor are checkered gold and silver. The whole building is some variation of the colors. Kyle and I both stand in awe and take it all in. Daniel acts like he’s been here before, but I can tell he’s amazed as well.

  A woman stands behind the desk, tapping something on her gold computer. She has straight black hair, with gold and silver highlights which match the rest of the lobby. Her medium-length black, gold, and silver dress is perfectly ironed. Her makeup is minimal but striking.

  “Can I help you?” she asks in a monotone voice.

  “Yes, we have a meeting on the top floor in a couple of minutes, and we don’t want to be late,” Daniel says.

  “All of you?” she asks in the same voice. Daniel gulps.

  “Yes, and we are running behind, so if you wouldn’t mind speeding up the process, that would be great.” She checks the golden computer on her desk.

  “There are no meetings scheduled for today,” she says. Daniel gulps again and looks over at me for help. I do some quick thinking and come up with an idea. I smack my head.

  “Of course you wouldn’t know about it. It’s a secret meeting, and only the people invited to the meeting know about it. So if you wouldn’t mind, we really have to be going. Besides, I don’t think you want to lose your job because you refused us service,” I say. Daniel looks over at me and smiles. I smile back. The woman looks at me.

  “My mistake. I guess you do have a meeting today. Please don’t tell the boss. I had no idea,” she says in a non-monotone voice, as if she finally found some feeling inside of her.

  “I won’t, but this is the last time you do something like this, understood? Because the boss will be informed the next time something like this happens,” I say with authority. She presses a button on her computer, and a gold door opens to reveal a really long hallway with hundreds of doors on each side.

  We step into the elevator next to us, but there are so many buttons with numbers and letters to press that I’m not sure which one will take us to the top. Even Daniel seems confused. I want to ask the woman behind the desk, but that would give us away. I press the button that would make the most sense: 102C. I know from studying the Corps that their building goes up 102 stories, and I was guessing that C was the highest letter. As soon as I press the button, we shoot straight up into the air and over three spots. The door opens, and we step out of the elevator on floor 102.

  “Where do we go now?” I whisper.

  “I don’t know. Let’s check around the corner,” Daniel says. Kyle and I follow him around the corner. This floor seems to be completely blue: light shades to dark. The ceiling allows light to come in, but since the roof is blue stained glass, the light comes in light blue. The walls are a mixture of baby blue and turquoise, and the floor is a navy blue. There are multiple office rooms down a long hall, with each of the doors a different shade of blue. We walk down the hall and stop in front of one of the office rooms. Inside, the carpet is navy and the windows are stained light blue. Each of the chairs is a different blue, and the giant screen in the front of the room is tinted blue.

  “Why does each of the floors have a different color?” Kyle asks.

  “I don’t know. Maybe so the workers can determine what floor they’re on,” I say, but Daniel stops me.

  “No, I think they mean something.” I look at him.

  “What could they possibly mean?” I ask.

  “I read somewhere that a long time ago, a planet on the far side of the galaxy had different colors, based on what tribe you came from. Maybe these colors have to do with where the people come from,” Daniel says.

  “That’s impossible,” I say. “The Corps get all of their people from here. On Vulcona. They say it’s because they can’t trust anyone else, and Vulcona is the center of the galaxy. It’s the capital planet. I read that they once tried hiring people from other planets, and some of them who got the job hacked into their most secure files and stopped the war for a little while so they could reorganize themselves. They couldn’t trust anyone from outside Vulcona.”

  Daniel rolls his eyes. “Okay, you win. But still, Kyle has a point. What do the colors mean?” I keep walking past the multi-shaded doors toward the giant window on the far end of the hall. To the right of the window, there is a door, painted really dark blue, which reads “Entrance to Roof.” I reach for the door handle and then stop.

  There’s probably some silent alarm that goes off downstairs that will blow our cover. Kyle and Daniel walk up behind me.

  “Open it,” Kyle says. I shake my head.

  “It could set off an alarm, and then we’ll get caught. It’s too dangerous.” I walk away from the door like it’s haunting me.

  “Fine, then I will,” Kyle says, and before I can stop him, he opens the door. Nothing happens. No alarms, at least that I can hear, just a cool breeze from outside. Kyle closes the door. “Oh well. It was getting hot in here anyway.” All of a sudden, I hear a little yelp, and I jump. Kyle and Daniel look at me like I’m crazy.

  “Did you guys hear that? It was like a yelp or something,” I say. Their expressions don’t change. “Fine. I’ll just have to figure out what it was, by myself.” I walk off, but I’m completely lost without them. They must have noticed I didn’t know where I was going because they follow me around the corner and then in a circle.

  “So, how is finding this ‘little sound’ of yours going?” Daniel asks, and Kyle giggles.

  “It’s not funny! Someone could be hurt,” I say fiercely, but it’s really hard keeping the smile off my face. Kyle has made me laugh since he was a baby, and Daniel jokes around all the time. They both see me holding back my laughter, and we all fall to the navy floor, laughing.

  This has probably been the most fun we’ve had this whole trip, I think. Everything else has been all serious and boring. After we’ve calmed down a little bit, I stand up, and I hear the noise again. I think they hear it too. “See, I told you I wasn’t hearing things,” I say.

  “Come on, let’s go see if we can find out what it is,” Daniel says. We follow him down a hall and then around a corner. The whole building seems really nice and fancy, but I soon find out that I’m wrong. Kyle opens the door to one of the rooms, and inside are a bunch of steel cages, each containing a person inside of them.

  “This can’t be real,” I say. “Why are all of these people here?” All of the people stay quiet. I walk up to one of the cages, with a tired-looking woman inside. She’s huddled on the floor, her legs stretched out across the cage. “Excuse me, but do you know what’s going on here?” The woman slowly turns her head to look at me.

  “No, but ask some other people who have been here longer,” the woman says in a creaky voice.

  Been here longer? She looks like she’s been here decades, with little food or water. I back away from the cage, like it’s on fire, and rush over to where Daniel and Kyle stand.

  “We have to go talk to the others. I have to know what’s going on,” I say, my voice panicked and rushed. Daniel puts his arms on my shoulders to calm me down.

  “Kyle and I will both help you. Come on, let’s not waste a second,” Daniel says. We each pick a cage and start talking to the people inside. The first person I choose is an older man with scratches on his face and dried blood on his hands and clothes. He says he’s only been here for three weeks and doesn’t know why they captured him.

  “All I know is, I did something the Corps didn’t like, and now I’m in this prison cell,” the man said. Next, I went to a cage where a woman sat with two children, a boy and a girl
. The children looked fine and unharmed, but the woman was a different story.

  Her face and hands were tattered and her clothes were ripped to shreds. She had dried blood covering her hands and face and an opened wound on the side of her head that trickled blood. She was a mess, but she held the children with all the strength she had left. The kids looked to be about five and three years old, not old enough to take care of themselves yet. The kids were playing with each other, but the woman shivered uncontrollably, not like she was cold, but like she was afraid of something. I put my hand on the cage, and she jumps with fright. She looks at me, startled, but then softens her gaze.

  “I’m sorry I startled you,” I say softly. “Can I ask why you’re here? Do you know what is going on?”

  She looks away from me. “A couple of years ago, my husband and I got into a fight. A really big one. He started hitting me, and then he threatened to call the Corps on me. He worked for them, the Corps. He could easily have turned any of us in sooner, but as long as I did what he said, he would refrain. One night, I couldn’t take it any longer, and I snapped. The Corps came within an hour and took my children and me here. They locked us up in these cages and barely fed us. They turn the temperature way down, especially at night. Sometimes they beat us, if they feel like it,” she tells me. I almost start crying.

  This poor woman has gone through so much, and I can’t even help her. “I’m… I’m so sorry,” I choke back the tears, stand up straight, and try again. “We are going to try our best to get you out of here. My team and I are here on a rescue mission.” Her eyes widen, and she looks almost giddy. “I have to go talk to them, but I’ll be back for you and your children.” I walk away and start looking for Kyle and Daniel. I need to let them know that plans have changed, that we’ll have to put a pause on helping my mother and help these people instead. I find Daniel, only a couple of yards away, when suddenly I hear a voice.

  It’s faint, but I can hear it. It sounds close and familiar. I follow the voice for a long time, around many cages and crying people. I don’t know how I can hear the voice, or why I’m drawn to it, but it seems to be pulling me like I can’t control my own body. Finally, after a couple of minutes, the voice stops. I’m standing in front of a cage with a young man inside, probably in his forties. All of a sudden, I realize why I was drawn to this cage, why the voice lured me here. “Father,” I say.