“Whatever!” I shouted back. “They use their fists on me all the time!”
Mom folded both arms and lifted her chin. “So your brothers were punching you?” She nodded at the mess. “Today, when all of this happened?”
I frowned and pulled my wedgie loose. “Not exactly.”
“You hurt your brothers, Ky,” she said, and for the first time, she sounded more sad than frustrated. The heaviness in my ribs gained another pound. “You’re not a little boy anymore. You’re thirteen now, strong enough to do real damage to people.”
I huffed a dry laugh. Duke could bench-press me with one arm, and Devin and Rylan probably outweighed me by a cow. Even Bonner was taller than me, and he was the youngest. “Not when they gang up on me like they always do.”
My mom sighed. “Did it ever occur to you that they’re trying to get your attention? That they want to include you?” She pointed at the Encyclopedia Universica lying open on the floor. “You barely look up from your books long enough to notice the rest of us.”
That wasn’t fair, or true. I noticed my family plenty. It was impossible not to when they were all around me every single day, talking and bonding over stupid sportsball, or whatever, while I sat at the dinner table with nothing to say. Nothing to contribute. Aching for someone to talk to about things that actually mattered to me. My family had taught me that I didn’t have to be alone to feel lonely. Books and sims were my only escape from the ordinary world. I’d go nuts without them.
“But I don’t like sports,” I said. “I like reading and sims. That’s not my fault. Why should I have to play laser hockey if I don’t want to?”
“Because that’s part of being a family,” my dad told me. “We do things for each other, not just for ourselves. Do you think I enjoyed running math drills with you when you couldn’t figure out multiplication?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Low blow, Dad. First of all, the teacher didn’t explain it right. Plus, I was, like, four years old back then.”
“The point is I didn’t want to spend my free time on math drills. I did it for you.”
“But that’s different,” I argued back. “You’re a parent. Stuff like that is your job. My only job is my education—you said so yourself last summer when I asked if I could work part-time.”
My dad tipped back his head and groaned at the ceiling.
“Listen, Kyler,” my mom said, clearly taking over for Dad, who was grinding his teeth again. “What we’re trying to make you see is that your brothers want a relationship with you. They just don’t know how to ask for it.”
Yeah, right.
My mom was bonkers if she thought my brothers wanted anything from me except to physically split me in half using my own underwear. But her delusion about brotherly love gave me an idea. If I could convince her that the Fasti Sun Festival would be a bonding experience for the whole family, maybe she would take me there. I would have to play it just right, though. My mom had a built-in lie detector that would trip at the slightest sign of fakery.
I twirled the hair at my temple and feigned deep thought, pretending she had reached me with her lecture. “So…” I paused, biting my lip for effect. “You really think Duke and Bonner and Rylan and Devin want to spend time with me? That they…love me for who I am?”
“Of course, Ky,” she said, pressing a hand to her heart. “We all do.”
“So I should probably try to include them in the things I like.” I raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you think?”
My dad’s eyes softened. “I think that’s a great idea.”
“Good. Then I have the perfect plan.” I picked up the simulator box from where it had fallen and turned it back on. Dr. Nesbit’s hologram appeared. I showcased her with both hands, like the superstar she was. “Let’s change our course and go to Fasti. All of us, together. It would be fun—like a family vacation but educational. I’ll bet we could even get school credit for it.”
In perfect sync, my parents’ smiles went flat, and they shared a sideways glance. My stomach dipped. They’d seen through my act. I was busted.
“Seriously?” my dad asked, jerking a thumb at Dr. Nesbit. “This again? I told you we wouldn’t be a part of anything that involves Quasar Niatrix.”
I scrunched my face so hard I almost sprained a muscle. My dad was next-level paranoid. “Quasar has nothing to do with the Fasti Sun Festival. He gives money to the scientists for research, and sometimes he buys a sun for a solar system he’s building. But that’s it. He won’t even be at the festival.”
“I don’t care,” my dad said. “That man is pure poison. It’s bad enough that Quasar wants to turn Earth into a business; it’s even worse that he’s dividing us to do it. He keeps saying the United Nations shouldn’t give equal rights to Wanderers. That’s because he wants voters to think Wanderers are a threat, that mutants will take away our jobs and our land. It’s a smoke screen to hide what he’s really doing, which is stealing our planet. Why do you think I organize all these protests?”
“To stop voters from giving him control,” I droned.
“Not just that,” he said. “I also want to show my support for Wanderers. The UN should give them the right to live on Earth. Anyway, the bottom line is this: If Quasar Niatrix has his fingers in a pie, you can bet it’s dirty. I won’t support the Fasti festival, not with my money or with my attendance.”
“But even if we would,” my mom added, “we wouldn’t reward your bad behavior with a trip. The only place you’re going is to your room. You’re grounded for two weeks, or until Devin’s nose heals, whichever comes first.”
“What?” I demanded. “But that wasn’t my fault. I was defending myself.”
My parents rolled their eyes at me—actually rolled their eyes!
The longer I stood there, the hotter my face grew. All of my parents’ talk about families sharing each other’s interests was garbage. My brothers didn’t care about the things I liked, and neither did my mom and dad. They just wanted the fighting to stop so they could focus more on protesting and work. And whose job was it to stop the fighting? Mine. Because even though my brothers made it a sport to tag team me, somehow it was my fault. My responsibility to play their stupid games and bend to their will to avoid getting NWARF’d.
Oh, heck no.
I planted both hands on my hips and looked my parents dead in the eyes. “I wish I really was adopted from mutants,” I spat. “Then I might have someone out there who actually cares about me.”
I spun around and started cleaning up the clutter from the floor before they could order me to do it. Neither of them said a word after that. The last sound I heard from my parents was the heavy stomping of their shoes as they walked away.
* * *
The Whirlwind landed on our docking lot, situated on the roof of the high-rise building where we lived. I stayed on board the ship long after my family went inside our apartment to unpack. The sun had set by the time I finished putting everything back in its place. My eyes burned, and my head felt like an invisible hand was juicing it. I walked into the pilothouse and peeked out the window at our building, wondering what was happening on the other side of the thick concrete roof.
Dinner, maybe.
My stomach growled, but I didn’t want to go inside. I doubted my family wanted me there, anyway. The only time anyone noticed my existence was when they needed an extra player for laser hockey or something lame like that. My family didn’t care about me. No one had offered to help me clean up the ship, or even bothered to check on me. So the odds of them apologizing were about the same as the moon coming alive and tap-dancing on the stars.
Stars, I thought with a sigh. I plopped down onto the pilot’s seat and pictured what a man-made star might look like when Dr. Nesbit presented it in the night sky. I could barely wrap my head around the fact that we could create stars at all, let alone imagine them moving from one place to the next. New suns meant more planets to colonize. More life. How could my family not be amazed by that?
Because they were cretins, that was why.
I would give anything to go to the festival.
A quiet voice inside my head whispered, Who says you can’t?
That was when it occurred to me that I had a sedan-class spaceship all to myself…and my parents hadn’t removed the security key. A devilish idea bloomed in my mind. What if I ran, or rather flew, away from home? I didn’t belong here, not with this “family” of jocks and bullies and protesters. Nothing would change if I stayed.
But if I left…
If I left, the galaxy would be open to me. I could start over somewhere new with the press of a button. The ship would pilot itself. All I had to do was set the course.
So I did.
But when the time came to fire up the thrusters, I sat there with my fingertip frozen an inch above the EXECUTE button.
Who was I kidding?
I didn’t have any money. Or food, for that matter, except for the leftovers in the galley. I wouldn’t last a week before I had to come crawling back home, and that would be even worse than not leaving at all. Then there was the issue of my parents killing me, restarting my heart, and killing me again. So instead of running away, I slumped over in my chair and daydreamed about the Fasti stars I would never see.
At some point, I must have fallen asleep.
I say that for two reasons. First, my chin was wet with drool, and I hardly ever slobber on myself when I’m awake. And second, I was no longer on Earth.
I sat bolt upright and stared out the window as distant stars whizzed past in a blur. There were no planets in sight, and judging by the swirling purple nebula ahead of me, this wasn’t the way to Nana’s house. I checked the navigation screen and felt my mouth drop open. The flashing beacon that represented my ship was halfway between Earth and Fasti.
(So you see, it is totally possible to steal a spaceship by accident.)
I guess my hand hit the EXECUTE button when I fell asleep. And because it would take just as long for me to turn around and go home as it would to finish my journey, it made sense to keep going, right? Either way, my parents would ground me into the afterlife, so I might as well earn the sentence, right?
Right.
An electric thrill rushed through my veins when I thought about the possibilities that lay ahead of me. Anything could happen on this trip. Literally anything. I could discover a brand-new element. Or meet a secret race of aliens. Or invent a new energy source. Or eat so much chocolate that I puked. Either way, I had complete freedom to make this journey into whatever I wanted, and once I realized that, there was no freaking way I could turn back. It was like the universe had dropped a gift in my lap, a gift I had no intention of returning.
I wiped the drool off my chin and smiled.
“Hold on to your stars, Fasti. Here I come.”
Mutants get no respect. Especially mutant girls like me.
Which is stupid, really, because the word mutate basically means to change, which I consider a good thing. I mean, who wouldn’t want to grow and change, to adapt to their surroundings and be a megaboss in the game of life? Who wouldn’t want to be better at survival?
Humans, I guess.
That’s the problem. Humans want everything to stay the same: boring and safe. They don’t like to take risks. They would rather sit on Earth, just like their ancestors did, because they’re afraid of losing their spot on the globe. The only people allowed to live on the “Original Planet” are humans with proof of ancestors born there within the last two generations. So in other words, if your parents and grandparents were born somewhere else—on a spaceship, on a colony planet, on a satellite hub—you’re flat out of luck. There are a few exceptions, like for diplomats or Galaxy Guards whose families have to work in remote places. But for the most part, Earth belongs to the descendants of people who were either too scared or too lazy to break out of their comfort zones and go exploring.
My people packed up and left the solar system ages ago, so we’re not allowed to come back. Technically speaking, we’re still human, but people don’t treat us that way. They would rather look down their noses at Wanderers like me, just because we don’t stay in one place and we weren’t born on their precious planet. I mean, what’s so special about Earth, anyway?
But whatever. I had bigger things on my mind than the Original Planet.
Someone wanted to hire me. For a real, paying demolition job—my first since the accident that took out my blaster and my ship.
And my whole life, I thought with an ache.
I shook my head, swallowing the emotion inside me until it dissolved like an asteroid caught in a T-5 laser beam. It had been two years since the wreck, and I wasn’t a kid anymore. I was thirteen years old, tall enough to pass for sixteen, and tired of hitching rides from one sketchy outpost to the next, begging for work and picking pockets when the pay didn’t stretch far enough. My parents wouldn’t want that for me. They would want me to pull myself up and get back on top. To do what I was born to do:
Blow things to smithereens.
From the day I picked up my first laser blaster at age three and clipped a flying space scorpion from a hundred paces, we all knew I had a gift for destruction. Word spread among the asteroid crews, and soon I was scoring more demolition work than Wanderers twice my age. Not to brag, but I was the best shot in the galaxy. If it weren’t for my missing blaster—well, and the fact that freelance demo was kind of illegal—I would be swimming in credits right now.
But I wasn’t, as my rumbling stomach reminded me.
The smell of roasting meat made my mouth water as I pushed open the pub door and headed to my meeting place in the back, where the tables were empty and cloaked in shadows. Of all the run-down mining stations in the galaxy, this one was the seediest, which made it perfect for dealing outside the law. The only downside was the miners—serious jerks. At the bar, every pair of eyes turned to slits when I walked by. Lips curled in offense, whispers spreading faster than disease.
Like I said, mutants get no respect.
Someone hissed the word ghost, and I tensed for a moment before lifting my chin and walking faster. Ghost was a slur for Wanderers. We had spent so many generations traveling in ships, deprived of natural sunlight, that we lost most of our pigment. So now we look like ghosts. Get it? Not the most original insult. As a bonus, our bodies had adapted to the radiation in space, which was good in that we didn’t get cancer, but bad because the mutation left blotchy red birthmarks on our cheeks. I could blend in if I wanted to. All it would take was skin concealer, a bottle of hair dye, and some tanning pills. But why bother? I wasn’t ashamed of who I was, and if anyone had a problem with me, they could kiss my blaster.
Well, as soon as I bought a new one.
“Hey, kid,” a deep male voice called from the shadows.
“Yeah, you,” a woman said. “Ghostie girl with the crazy eyes. Over here.”
Ghostie girl with the crazy eyes?
I forced myself to unclench my fists. Whoever my mysterious bosses were, they probably wouldn’t hire me if I threw a mug at their heads. So I sat on the edge of their table to give myself the height advantage. Maybe they would take me more seriously if they had to look up at my “crazy eyes” instead of down at them.
There were only two people at the table, a brown-haired man who was wildly bouncing his leg under the table, and a redheaded woman who sat as still as the grave. Looking closer, I could see that each of them had tattoos of bones inked across their cheeks and down the lengths of their noses, making them resemble living skeletons. The ink must have been holographic, because it covered their skin in a 3-D way, so realistic I wanted to touch the bones to see if they would feel solid under my hand. But I didn’t, of course. These people were creepier than a balloon-toting clown in a sewer.
“Too much for you, huh?” the guy said. He snapped his fingers, and his tats vanished, revealing a pretty-boy face that only an idiot would cover up. “You probably thought I was a monster. Monst
ers ain’t real, kid.”
Okay, yeah. He was an idiot.
But even so, the collection of weapons and gadgets strapped to his chest told me not to underestimate him. This guy might be a few threads short of a sweater, but he had some slick tech, and I was betting he knew how to use it. What he didn’t seem to know how to use was a shower. The pits of his T-shirt were dark with sweat stains, seriously gross.
Ugh. Boys.
The woman’s tats had disappeared, too, but the way she tipped her red head at me and smiled caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end. There was something cold and dangerous in her gaze that warned me not to mess with her. Not that I would have, anyway, because she was fit—like seriously shredded. I couldn’t help admiring her long, corded muscles. I wanted to be fierce like that…but, you know, still keep my soul.
“I’m Corpse,” she said, and thumbed at her partner. “This is my brother, Cadaver.”
“We’re twins,” he announced. Then he felt the need to explain, “But not the identical kind. The fraternal kind.”
“Yeah, I picked up on that,” I said. I wondered if Corpse and Cadaver were the actual names their parents had given them. More likely nicknames they’d given themselves to justify getting creepy death-themed tattoos. “I’m Figerella. You can call me Fig.”
Corpse frowned at me. “I thought you’d be bigger.”
“Yeah,” Cadaver added with a laugh, now shuffling his feet on the floor in a seated tap dance. He couldn’t seem to sit still, which explained the sweat stains. “I’ve made smells stronger than you, kid.”
I believed him. Even from an arm’s length away, the guy stank like low tide. A fly had already buzzed over to circle his head.
“Maybe,” I told him. “But I don’t need arms of steel to do this.…” And before he could blink, I dipped my finger in his drink and flicked a bead of liquid at the fly, knocking it from the air. The fly landed on an empty section of tabletop, where it lay stunned for a moment, then eventually got to its feet and zigzagged away in a clumsy path to the bar.
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