Lifer

by Beck Nicholas

  Keep going. For Samuai. For Zed.

  I think of the young men I’ve lost when my knees threaten to give way and find the will to keep walking.

  The hallway leading to the Control Room is no different from those on the Fishie level below. This time of night it’s softly lit. We’re the only ones here. The attempt on Lady’s probably still occupying the Fishies. Still, I half expect to be stopped and questioned with every step I take toward our destination. My father died attempting this same walk.

  Davyd leans close. “The doors at the end of the hall,” he murmurs into the curve between my neck and shoulder.

  “So close.” My mouth dries and I misstep. I can’t believe I’m walking to the place my father died trying to reach, the place my people have dreamed of reaching for so long. And I walk with Davyd. With only a piece of plate for a weapon.

  He steadies me with his hand on the small of my back, sending tingles across my skin. I turn to face him. I don’t ask aloud whether he’s sure about this but he must read the question in my eyes.

  “Hiding in the open Asher. All you need is guts.”

  I straighten my spine and lift my head high. “I’ll be fine then.”

  His wrist presses against the scanner. “That’s my girl.”

  I’m not your girl. I want to cry the words. But I can’t, because the doors to the Control Room slide open.

  I hold my breath.

  Where I expected huge displays, and floor to ceiling buttons, dials, and screens, there’s three ordinary consoles, not so different from the ones we use for watching the Earth recordings, a black leather sofa, and a couple of round tables. No Remote Device—not that I have a clue what it looks like beyond black and small and deadly with a button or maybe a switch.

  There’s movement. A Naut mans one of the consoles.

  Crap.

  Afraid to breathe in case he looks up, I back away. If I get out of here, I’ll pretend this never happened and maybe I won’t have my sentence extended to take up the rest of my natural life. Maybe.

  I back right into the warm flesh wall that is Davyd. His hand wraps around my shoulder, intimate and strangely reassuring. “Did you think there’d be nobody here?” he murmurs.

  Somewhere in my brain I knew there would be someone monitoring the ship, I guess, but since I couldn’t get my mind past getting to the Control Room, no, I didn’t really think about it.

  But I’m not going to admit that to Davyd.

  “I thought you’d sort that out.”

  “I have.”

  He clears his throat loudly and the Naut looks up. Davyd pulls me even closer and gives an embarrassed laugh. “Sorry, I thought Maston had cleared this.”

  The Naut’s an older man who reminds me of Huckle, except he’s lean and hard where Huckle is soft and pudgy. He takes in our fancy clothes and the fact Davyd’s pretty much carrying me because my knees fail me and makes his own conclusions.

  His dark gaze runs over my body and his fat lips curl in a leer. “Don’t blame you Davyd.” He sniggers and wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “I’ll leave now to give you two a little alone time.”

  Davyd winks. “Owe you one.”

  “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.” He licks his lips in a way that makes my already nervous stomach turn.

  The Naut keeps his gaze on us as he logs off and moves toward the set of doors across the room. Playing up for our audience, Davyd’s arms go around me and he nuzzles the side of my neck. I hold myself still against my nerves and against my body’s traitorous response.

  The nuzzling becomes a kiss on my throat. Then another. Then he meets my lips with his.

  My eyes close. My hands meet around his neck as I press my body closer. Our kiss is gentle and sweet and wonderful. It’s everything I’ve dreamed about when I couldn’t even admit I was dreaming of this moment.

  It’s Davyd.

  I open my eyes.

  “He’s gone,” I say when the doors close behind the Naut.

  “So?” Davyd kisses me again, the haze in his eyes reminds me of the other Fishies. I know he hasn’t touched a drop from the black vials. “You seem to be enjoying yourself.”

  “Shows how much you know,” I lie.

  I hate that I force myself to push him away. I’m mourning someone who was truly worth my love. I shouldn’t feel anything for this Fishie who I don’t even like most of the time, who’s made it clear how beneath him I am.

  “I know,” he says simply. His fingertips brush my mouth and it’s all I can do not to lean toward him.

  “Remember why we’re here?” I say to remind myself as much as him.

  He drops his hands like I’m poison. “How could I forget? Beloved Samuai.”

  “And Zed.”

  “Ah yes, the little brother who got in the way,” he says with a sneer in his voice.

  I stop moving toward the console but I snap my head around at his words. “What the hell does that mean?”

  I’d put his snide comments about Samuai down to general nastiness, or something between the brothers from before the accident, but suddenly it all adds up. Maybe I never needed to come to the Control Room to get my answers.

  “What do you mean saying Zed got in the way?” I repeat.

  His arms are crossed. The haze is gone and his eyes are clear, gray and deadly. “Maybe you should ask your boyfriend.”

  “Funny. How exactly do you propose I question a dead man?”

  In two steps he’s closed the distance between us. He grabs my hand and drags me to the chair in front of the nearest console. His heavy hand on my shoulder forces me to sit. “How did you plan to get any information from the cremation logs?” he barks. When I don’t answer immediately, he reaches over and swipes a finger over the reader. “There, I’ve even unlocked it for you. What now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You must have a plan.” He’s shouting like getting caught doesn’t matter.

  I’m scared. Not of Davyd this time but of what he’ll tell me if I have the courage to make him.

  “I don’t know.”

  What’s happening here is out of my control. I can’t think. Dread overwhelms the nerves and hot tears prick at my eyes. What if I’ve made a terrible, terrible mistake? Finding out what happened to Samuai might not be something I really want to know.

  One thing is clear: Davyd has way more power in the Control Room than a mere Fishie ever should.

  He spins me around and I see the truth in his eyes. How could I have ever thought they were ice? Rage seethes in their almost-black depths. He wants to tell me. All the sly comments, the bet he lost, everything that’s happened tonight. It’s all been leading to this. He knows what happened and he’s desperate to tell me despite it being some big secret.

  “You don’t know anything,” I say with a laugh.

  He strides across the room and back, each step betraying his unrest. Finally he faces me again. “I know nobody died that day.”

  They lived?

  My heart leaps and crashes in the space of a sickening moment.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  But the ache in my chest tells a different story. It fits with all the secrecy. But…

  “If he’d lived he would have come to me.”

  Neither Zed nor Samuai would leave me without saying anything. “We’re on a spaceship, where the hell could they have gone?”

  He shrugs. “As I said, you’ll have to speak to him about that.”

  “Prove it.”

  “Easy.” It only takes seconds for him to bring up the cremation logs. But before I get a chance to read them, the doors to the Naut quarters swish open.

  I turn, scrambling away from the console. It’s a different Naut to the one who was here before. He’s powerful, tall, with warm brown hair and his eyes are a familiar shade of gray. They match his one piece uniform.

  “Maston.” Davyd speaks the name I’ve alread
y guessed as everything begins to make a scary kind of sense.

  “What’s going on here?” he asks. And his voice could be Samuai’s.

  My mouth can’t form words. I stare helplessly at Davyd. He set this up; maybe he has a backup plan. But he’s shaking his head sadly. “She seduced me into bringing her here. I thought she wanted some alone time—”

  “No,” I cry. “You’re lying.”

  But Davyd acts like I haven’t spoken. “I tried to stop her, but I’m afraid it’s too late.”

  I stumble toward him. My hands outstretched.

  “No closer,” he says.

  In his hands he holds the second Remote Device. My stomach lurches and I collapse to my knees. The hands that caressed me a few minutes ago now contain the ability to switch off any Lifer he chooses. All he needs is our unique code.

  He keys something into the screen. “It’s intimate in a way, to know your number.”

  “Please.” I beg. I don’t care about pride or winning an argument. This is what killed my father. “I don’t want to die.”

  He glances over my shoulder, at Maston. For instruction?

  I scan the room but there’s no escaping the Device. I don’t know its range but it must cover the ship, and he has my code. The piece of plate in my pocket isn’t going to help me. If I run now, I’ll die a coward. From somewhere I find the strength to rise on shaky knees.

  I have lived my whole life as a servant but I choose not to die like one.

  When he looks back at me he’s almost sad. I think. Everything is blurring with the hot tears I refuse to let fall. But I see his finger on the switch. It’s moving.

  I lift my chin. Launch it. I’ve failed everyone I care about and put my trust in a boy who is about to kill me. How could I have been so damn stupid?

  He flicks the switch. I stand tall and proud, refusing to die as anyone’s slave. The last thing I hear is his voice.

  “Sorry, Asher.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  [Samuai]

  I pass out after my dramatic, and probably slurred, announcement.

  Later, awareness trickles into my consciousness in the form of someone breathing nearby. The sheet’s roughness against my skin, and the whisper of air moving over my face.

  I’m Samuai.

  The once-blocked memories crowd my brain in a rush and my stomach revolts. I curl on my side, heaving my guts but only tasting acid.

  Asher…Zed.

  Thinking about them sets off a burst of pain somewhere behind my eyeballs.

  “What have I done?”

  “Good question.”

  I know it’s Keane before I force my eyes open. He’s sitting next to my bed in a room like the Recovery center except I’m all alone. I’ve been cleaned up and moved here. Only the sight of his hard face keeps me from crying like a child. It’s all there.

  “You’re not Company?” he asks.

  It’s only half a question. He must know already, but I shake my head to confirm.

  “Who is Maston?” When I don’t answer he adds, “You’ve been raving in your sleep. We know you blame him for everything that’s happened.”

  If only it was that simple. But thinking about Maston doesn’t hurt as much as the others.

  “He’s the head astronaut on the spaceship I called home.” I gulp the water Keane offers but it doesn’t help my papery mouth. “He’s Company. Or at least he wears the same uniform and it’s him who left me with Eliza.”

  “Spaceship?”

  The pain in my head makes the room vibrate and makes it hard to focus on Keane’s question. Something about a spaceship. “The Pelican. Escaping the alien threat after the Upheaval.”

  He turns toward someone near the door. “Check our records.”

  Then the black comes again and I don’t think.

  ***

  The next time I wake Megs is there, next to the bed. Gorgeous, caring, hopeful.

  “Hey,” she says, taking my hand with a smile. Her lips are painted the same shade of purple as her hair. On anyone else it would look silly but on Megs it’s breathtaking.

  I tug my hand away and roll over to face the wall. Facing her is impossible without memories of Asher flooding my brain. It was her voice I heard whenever I was close to Megs, her who I betrayed when I acted on my feelings for Megs.

  Thinking of Asher brings the dark thoughts, the ones I’m learning not to think about. The truths that will make both girls hate me.

  I welcome the darkness this time.

  ***

  “Time to wake up.” Keane shakes me into consciousness.

  I blink, trying to adjust to the light. Trying to shake the images from my dream of the preserved tree in the garden that first day, but instead of the tree, I was held in the glass cage.

  “How long?” I croak. As I speak I’m making sure Megs isn’t here with a quick glance around the room. I exhale my relief when there’s no sign of her. But we’re not alone. Charley stands by the door and she offers a small smile when I catch her gaze.

  Excellent, Keane’s going to question me so hard they need medical supervision.

  “Two days,” Keane says. He passes me more water. There’s an IV drip in my arm that wasn’t there last time. “We didn’t expect you to be out so long,” he explains but there’s shadow in his eyes.

  I gulp more liquid to avoid answering. The aftereffects of the procedure aren’t what keep me in this bed. The guilt makes my limbs heavy and muscles weak. But to put what I’ve done into words would give it a reality I can’t bear yet.

  “We’ve been looking into the spaceship.” Keane has a pile of papers in his hand with schematics on them.

  I nod.

  He passes me a recent print out with an old date. “The Pelican with her cargo of people tools, and supplies to colonize a planet should be almost at its destination by now.”

  “I know.” I don’t want to read about it; I’ve lived it. But what happened over the last few weeks and what I believed for the first seventeen years of my life doesn’t add up. Someone lied. This time it’s not me. “Look, that’s well and good, but fact is, I was on board a few weeks ago.”

  They all think I’m dead.

  He puts the papers aside. “Tell me what happened for you to end up in that garden.”

  “I was tricked into leaving the ship. The meeting my brother promised wasn’t what I thought. All I wanted was change for the people on board. I thought Maston was on my side.” My gut churns to think of everything I shared with him, all my hopes and dreams.

  “He wasn’t?”

  “No. The ship was close to landing, or so we thought. I believed we could start fresh. No more Lifers and Fishies separated by class, but colonists all together.”

  Keane’s lip curls. “You thought that would work? Once people have power and privilege they don’t take kindly to it being shared.”

  “I thought it was worth a try. Maston seemed to agree and I dared to hope for the first time of a different future. I didn’t want people punished for their ancestor’s petty crimes. You can’t imagine what it was like for these slaves. They’re dehumanized in every way and forced into menial labor, with no reward or hope of their lives getting better. Not even able to mix socially with those they served.”

  “There was a girl, huh?”

  Am I that obvious? I ignore the dig. “Maston warned me there’d be risks. I didn’t even know Davyd knew about my plans until he led me to the Control Room in the middle of the night. I should’ve known something was wrong, but I was desperate to change the future laid out for me as a Fishie.” The future where I could never be with Asher. She thinks I’m dead.

  I cough to clear my throat. “A young boy, Zed, followed me in secret and was only discovered after Maston revealed the truth. Maston decided he’d seen too much. He couldn’t have the people on the Pelican knowing it was all a lie.”

  My voice breaks and the dark memories threaten to
bring the blackness with them. As if leaving Asher wasn’t bad enough, I’d taken her brother too.

  “Zed was the dead boy in the pond?”

  “Yes.” I brace myself for more questions. Charley is silent. I pick up the cup again and my shaking hand grips the plastic so tight it cracks. Water spills all over me and the bed.

  Keane throws me a towel. “If you went to them by choice, why did they block your memories, give you money?”

  “I never thought I’d step out of the long, dark corridor onto Earth.” As I mop up the water soaking through my clothes, I replay that moment in my mind. Real soil, a gentle breeze, sunshine. The shock, the wonder and then the overwhelming rush of betrayal.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither did I. Earth? It should have been impossible.”

  “But?”

  “But I stood there and it was undeniably real. Everything I’ve brought up to believe was a lie. I never dreamed I was being held captive in some underground pretend ship. They wanted me to join them, but I wanted to tell those I’d left behind.”

  “Bit late for loyalty after you snuck away.”

  I can’t meet his gaze. I’d wanted change, but I went like a thief in the night, without even saying goodbye to Asher.

  “Maston thought so too.” Being ungrateful was the least of my crimes. “He threatened to kill me, but decided this was better.”

  I leave out my suspicion that his mercy involved how similar we looked.

  “And he’s Company?”

  He’s asked the question before. He’s checking me for consistency but my answers aren’t going to change. I nod. “He wears the same uniform. All the Nauts do. They’re the astronauts who run the ship but if we’re not in space, then I guess that’s all lies too.”

  “Probably.”

  “They took me to an abandoned building, drugged me, and shaved my head.” I keep my voice even but the nightmare of those days makes it difficult. “Eliza was there one of the days but the rest of the time it was strangers. I don’t know how long they argued over how to use me and then I woke up in the garden. Naked. I don’t think I was supposed to be left alone.”