Holland lost his rage and tapped the table. “He has acted sympathetic to their cause before. I know he’s an idealist, and his aspirations for Proxima wouldn’t be in alignment with the other Corporations.”
Eclipse and her team had exited Primary City almost as quickly as they’d come, and two of their fleet were destroyed in the battle. I guessed none had survived for interrogation. HQ was going to endure, and only the eighth- and ninth-ranked teams and their CEOs had been left on the top floor for the duration of the fight. They’d ended up with a few cuts and scrapes from the assault, but it could have been far worse.
“It wasn’t meant to obliterate anything. It was a warning,” I said.
“Or an example to the others considering joining the revolt or not. It showed that this is the first group that actually might have a chance at real change,” Luther suggested.
“You don’t make change with violence,” Holland mumbled.
“Is that so? Then you haven’t read much of Earth’s history, have you?” Jade sat beside him, slowly spinning in her chair. “This exact thing has happened repeatedly over the centuries.”
Luther caught the red ball I tossed to him. “They let you read that stuff at Luna?”
“It’s not illegal to read, Luther. Plus, sometimes it helps to remember how bad our previous generations had it, so I can sleep at night knowing I’m better off.” Jade stopped moving in the chair. “Anyway, I suspect the Race will go on.”
I wanted to tell them what I knew but kept it to myself. Now wasn’t the time to freak them out. We had a job to do, and if it was running, we still had to show up at the Race.
Bryson popped his head in, his lips scrunched up like he’d eaten something sour. “May I speak with Arlo?” He looked at the others. “Alone.”
“Sure. It just so happens I was getting hungry.” Luther rose, lobbing me the ball he’d been playing with, and the three of them left the room.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“I was reading the files on Eris.” Bryson strolled to the window with his hands behind his back. I stayed silent. “Do you know why I bought the facility from Oasis?”
“Because you wanted to climb the ladder, and the Elurnium was enough to bring you to the brink at number eleven. But how did you manage to convince Temeletron to drop out?” I pondered.
“Very astute of you. They were already on the way down; all I did was point them in the proper direction. As for the Elurnium, it’s basically obsolete.”
“But they’re still manufacturing it.”
“SeaTech has discovered something far easier to mine, at a third of the cost. It’s what truly boosted us this high, not the purchase of the Elurnium.”
“So why buy Eris? Let Oasis suffer for the project.” I didn’t have many nice things to say about the Corporation that had recently tossed me into the street.
“It was cheap. Believe me. And…I know what they hid.” His head tilted toward me, and I understood what he meant.
“You’ve spoken to Kol?”
“I have.”
“And what does this have to do with me?”
“Don’t play coy,” Bryson said.
“Did you hear about Veera?” I searched his face for a tell, but he just stared blankly.
“Who?”
“The woman on Eris,” I said.
“I think you should come with me, Arlo.” Bryson put a fatherly hand on my shoulder, as if the act was intended to strengthen me for whatever was coming.
We strode through the top floor and passed the rest of the team as they ate together. The elevator brought us to the lowest floor, and Bryson smiled as he pressed his thumb onto the keypad and typed a code. The screen glowed orange, and we continued to lower.
“Not many of my people are privy to this. Let’s keep it that way.”
I nodded, and seconds later, the doors opened, revealing a metallic corridor. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of the same reflective substance, and the sparse lighting gave the place an ominous tension as we walked out of the elevator.
“What is this?”
“Arlo, do you believe in more than what you see every day?”
“I don’t see much outside of Capricious. Sometimes the Belt Station. Used to see a girl in my complex.” I smirked, and he stopped at the end of the passageway. A man and woman were stationed there, fingers casually draped on the guns at their hips.
“He’s with me.”
They loosened up and stepped aside, granting their CEO entry.
The room was enormous. A giant cavern with the largest window I’d ever come across, a hundred meters from where I stood. It ran the entire length of the cave, giving way to an underwater oceanic view. Fish swam by, and I saw the start of the Tubes farther in the water.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Bryson pointed out.
“I believe the universe holds many secrets, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“In a sense. Do you believe in beings from other worlds? Are we alone, as the Corporations often pretend?” Bryson walked toward the middle of the room, where a tall console rose from the metal floor. It had three computers built in, each with a clear box under the keyboard. They pulsed blue, reminding me of the Racer’s Core drive containment shroud.
“I guess I do.” I recalled the derelict vessel I’d stumbled upon and wondered if perhaps it wasn’t an encrypted test ship from one of the Primaries after all.
“Kol was going to send me footage of someone’s experiment with the organic matter they found within the deep recesses of Eris, but it never made it. He did, however, manage to send me a sample.”
“I saw it,” I admitted, remembering the green form rising within the inspection box that Kol had shared with me.
“Did it look like this?” The room had a couple of people working, each wearing blue lab coats, and they stopped what they were doing when Bryson powered up the console nearest him.
I stared at the four-foot screen, squinting as it went from dim to exceptionally bright. The image settled, showing a glass case attached to the underside of one of the SeaTech facility’s giant tubes. Inside was the same creature. Green arms and legs protruded from a bulky torso, its head misshapen.
“You have it?”
“Fifteen kilometers from here, to be exact.”
The screen zoomed in on the creature, and two small eyes opened, along with a gap where its mouth sat. The thing lifted an appendage, and the footage cut off.
“Kol had a sample of this?” I asked.
“He did. Knew it would be worth something.”
“I’ve seen that thing break through some serious protective walls,” I warned Bryson.
“If that containment box can withstand the heat of a Core, it can hold an organic being. This is the most amazing thing. She can revert to a pile of material, akin to a pile of moss. We think it’s how she sleeps. I imagine they remain in this form of stasis for thousands of years. The sample was small, but now look at her.”
“Why are you calling it a she?” I asked.
“My team has observed characteristics that tend to resemble more maternal patterns of behavior. Of course, we understand it’s too soon to tell. Many organisms duplicate, and we don’t categorize them as either sex.” Bryson tapped the keypad again, typing in a series of commands, and the image returned. Her body was gone, replaced by a patch of mossy substance. “She’s become dormant since we’ve arrived, but it seems that she’s expanded.”
“Expanded?”
“My team estimates that when she rises again, she’ll bring a new life as well. Possibly both controlled with the same mind. We’ve yet to determine this.”
It was too much. “Who else knows?”
“Only a select few from my team,” he assured me.
“And Kol, which presumably means Oasis does as well.” I stared at the mossy bedding inside the container. “And if the rumors are true, perhaps the other nine Primaries are also aware.”
“I do
n’t think Kol shared the information with the rest of his team, but I imagine that Oasis is trying hard to determine what they found on Eris, once they figured out he was hiding something.”
“Torture?” I asked, wondering if that was below my former employers. I doubted it.
“There are other ways to make someone talk.”
I remembered Kol speaking to me of his family and planned retirement, and nodded. “What are they?”
“My team hypothesizes they came from a distant place. They contain organic materials not conducive to creation on Eris.”
“Aliens?” The word was a whisper off my lips.
“In a sense, though these aren’t the kind that show up in a spacecraft. They were most logically hibernating on an asteroid.” Bryson indicated the screen and changed the program. I watched a dark, deformed asteroid flying through a solar system, past a dozen planetary objects and into the recesses of space. “They were likely traveling through space in a dormant cycle, and crashed into Eris some time before we ever found it. Possibly before the spark of mankind was even on Earth.”
On the video, the asteroid approached Eris. They collided, and the screen paused. “They’re that old?”
“We think so, but there’s no real method of telling quite yet. Not without testing the site on Eris,” he said.
“And what about Veera? She was obviously altered by her contact with the thing.”
“We speculate that the mossy being contains a virus or defense mechanism. It was foreign to human genealogy, and quickly infected her neural pathways. It consumed her, causing her to become a feral animal.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “These things will turn us on each other?”
“We can’t be certain; more research is needed. But this bodes well for my goals.”
“How so?” I asked.
Bryson turned to face me, his expression enthusiastic. “Humanity has always felt an inherent loneliness within us. Deep down, we know we’re not alone. But why haven’t we expanded past our solar system? Clearly, we’ve mastered the technology.”
“Sure. A trip to Alpha Centauri is what, five months?”
“Closer to six,” he answered, and I’d caught him.
“You’ve been there!” I shouted, my voice echoing in the vast cavern-like room.
“Quiet. I haven’t, but I’ve seen the footage. This is dangerous information, but I want you to know what we’re racing for. Are you ready to take on that responsibility?” His voice was low, and he glanced at the two workers. He lifted his hand and motioned to the exit, and they walked away with their PersaTabs. We were left in the large room, standing alone at the center console.
“I guess so.”
“I’ve never shared this with anyone.”
“Why trust me?”
“We want the same things, Arlo. Better lives for our people. A different future than the one laid out at the feet of the Corporations. Sure, I’m a CEO, but you’ve seen SeaTech now. You know we’re different. With Proxima, we can assure our expansion, and control how our colony exists.” He stared at me, his eyes darkening. “My father was a great man, claimed too young by the reaper. He cared deeply for your grandfather. He and Preston were as close as friends come. That in itself gives me comfort in trusting you.”
“Show me the video.”
“Here’s our planet.” He tapped the keypad, and I waited as I stared at a black screen.
The footage was taken from the external cameras on a long-distance hauler. I could see the nose continuing from the bridge, dropping off twenty meters later. The planet was a speck on the screen, and Bryson increased the speed of the program.
“When was this recorded?”
“Last year. I sent the vessel without approval from the Board. They reprimanded me, but it helped push them to create the Race. Then I had to ensure I was ranked high enough to enter, though Octavia claimed she would have let me join as a bonus entry at rank eleven, if the others voted in my favor.”
Now I understood why the Racer had number 11 on it. “And when they voted against you?”
Bryson smiled. “I found a way to beat out Temeletron and get to the Primary rank.”
“And the number 11 on the ship?”
“The truth is, Catarina and I were wed on November eleventh.”
“That number… and R11?”
He nodded. “It’s my homage to her. She was lost far too early.”
Lost. I was about to ask him about that, but decided not to press. Instead, I returned my gaze to the video feed, showing Proxima b from the hauler’s cameras.
“The planet. It’s not as hospitable as they’d hoped, but some regions are compatible,” Bryson told me. “We will be able to live there, with greater ease than any imagined.”
“Do you actually think the Board will let SeaTech win?”
He laughed, the noise echoing in the chamber. “Arlo, they’ll have no choice.”
“You think it’ll be that easy?” I found it hard to believe they’d let him in by the hair of his nose and give him the rights, even if we did manage to pull off a victory.
“I don’t assume anything, but the world will know that ours is a Corporation not bending their knee to the Primaries and Board. There’s power in persuasion, Arlo,” Bryson said with a grin.
“How will Eclipse work into this?” I thought I may as well check, while he was divulging so many truths.
“She’s on her own. If you ask me, Liberty is playing a game with the wrong board pieces. She has the right idea, but doesn’t see the full picture. There are better ways than violence.”
“You’ve given me a lot to think about.” I patted my chest, where the Coin sat. I decided to hold on to it for now.
“I hope this motivates you. As you can see, there is no room for second place,” Bryson said as he led me the way we’d entered. I glanced at the screen, and saw the image was gone, the consoles dark.
Twelve
The last week before the Race went by at a snail’s pace, but a few days after the attack at the Board’s HQ, they’d lifted the flight restrictions. This allowed us to practice and watch as Holland used his Pod Sprinter to run a track set around the entire Hawaiian islands. We observed from the comfort of Pilgrim’s cockpit, linked into Holland’s helmet to discuss strategy.
The kid was a natural, but I could also see the countless hours of practice in the Pod’s movements. He anticipated turns like a real pro, and had reflexes that almost made me jealous. I wondered, if the two of us competed when I was in my prime, how the race would go.
Other than that, I spent a full day working with Luther and R11, combing the mapping systems, and planning for anything that might spring our way.
I wasn’t certain of our chances and continued to worry about making it to the end. Bryson’s news that Proxima was within our reach triggered something in me. I wanted to see it so badly. It was all my grandfather had sought when he departed on Obelisk, and the thought that I could see it through burned a fire inside of me.
I was tired of Earth, and the rules the Corporations imposed along with it. If Bryson and SeaTech could control a planet, we could leave this behind, do things our own way. His way, I supposed, but Bryson Kelley seemed to be a man of his word. I hoped that was true, because I was motivated to lead. Maybe that had been Bryson’s goal after all.
With two days left, we decided to take a break from it all and relax, knowing there would be little down time after today. Holland suggested going to the beach, and we agreed wholeheartedly.
The sun was bright, the day warm after the morning’s tropical rainfall. I sat on a beach chair, watching the waves roll and crash before dissipating. I couldn’t remember a time I’d been calmer. After a few minutes of staring into the ocean abyss, my eyelids grew heavy and I drifted into a peaceful sleep.
Until someone splashed me awake.
Jade stood in front of me, blocking the sun. She was dripping wet from a dip in the ocean, and I tried not to stare at my bik
ini-clad teammate.
“You going to stay here all day or join us for a swim?” Jade twisted her curly hair, sending a pool of water to the sand by my feet.
Luther and Holland were tossing a ball around in the ocean. “Race you to the…”
Jade ran off before I finished, and I chased after her. She tumbled into the water, splashing me as I neared the shore. “You lost your first race. That doesn’t bode well for the team.”
“Arlo always wins,” Holland said, tossing the ball to me. I caught it and shrugged as I waded further in.
“Sure. I had a good track record.” I chucked it to Luther.
“Pods are different now,” Holland said.
Jade smirked at the banter. “You know what would be fun?”
“No, but I have a feeling you’re going to tell us,” Luther shouted from twenty feet away. He threw the ball, falling backwards into the water.
“Arlo and Holland should race Pods. One time. For practice.” Jade looked impressed with herself, but I wasn’t sure.
“He doesn’t stand a chance,” Holland told her.
“Is that so?” I caught the ball after it skittered off the surface for a bounce. The water was so warm, and I realized I’d forgotten how to have fun. Letting go of an adult’s complicated thought patterns wasn’t easy, but there, playing in the water, I felt a tinge of something from a long-forgotten pastime. It was nice to remember life wasn’t always so difficult.
“Sure, I could take you.”
“Fine.” It was time to put my retirement in the past. I’d show this CEO-in-training how good I really was.
Jade applauded, laughing with Luther. “This is going to be fun!”
____________
The course was set, with ten Rings over the water and islands. Since it was short notice, I hadn’t expected much of a turnout, but apparently, Bryson had given most of his people time off to watch. There were thousands of spectators lining the beaches—and viewing from their homes, as Bryson set recording drones all along the track and activated our Pod feeds.
At first glance at my assigned pod, regret filled my senses. It was the first time I’d raced in almost twenty years, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to do this again. The second I sat inside, my nervousness vanished. Despite the fact that my partner and mentor wasn’t present, I felt him in my heart and mind, whispering words of encouragement.
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