Project Integrate Series Boxed Set

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Project Integrate Series Boxed Set Page 83

by Campbell, Jamie

“I feel useless here, going on city tours and sitting around. I want to help but I don’t know how.”

  “You’re helping already.”

  “Ugh, I just want to-” Hit something, is what I wanted to say but I was even too frustrated to say the words.

  Lochie grabbed both my hands before I let my fists do the talking. “How about we go for a walk? It might help you calm down.” I nodded, it had to be better than standing around doing nothing. “I’ll grab a jacket. Try not to get into any trouble for a minute.” Very funny.

  As soon as he left, Lola grinned. “What?” I asked, knowing there had to be something behind her smile.

  “Nothing.”

  “Spill, Lola.”

  “I’m glad you two are back together, that’s all. You’re really great together. I would even go so far as to say adorable.”

  I huffed. “He’s still annoying.”

  “But he’s your annoying Lochie,” she cooed. I rolled my eyes at her. I was ready to shoot a comeback but then I remembered her problems with Asher and decided against it. She was probably missing him and wondering what he was up to in her absence.

  “And you’re my cool best friend,” I replied instead, giving her a hug. “I know it’s selfish, but I’m glad you’re here.”

  “I’m glad to be here. How many people can say they’ve been to another planet?” As I let her go I saw the genuine smile on her face. Perhaps some space from Asher was just what she needed.

  Lochie returned wearing a sweater. “Ready?”

  I returned to Lola. “Do you want to come with us?”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m happy to veg for a bit. I’m exhausted after our tour today.”

  We left her there and promised we wouldn’t be too long. Once the sun went down, it tended to get very dark outside if the moons were covered by clouds so we needed to get back before sundown anyway.

  Lochie and I held hands as we walked. We didn’t really talk much but the gentle rhythm did help my mood. I tried to get rid of my frustrations and relax. Krom and all the Truconians would be doing everything they could to clear Garrick’s name. I had to have faith and trust in them.

  It was just so difficult being so far away from it all. I wanted to do everything I could to help him. But perhaps being with him and being a shoulder to lean on was just as important. At least that’s what I kept trying to convince myself.

  We walked in a straight line and around a few corners, remembering each turn so we would know how to get back again. All the boxes started looking the same after a while.

  “They’re not one for architecture here, huh?” Lochie commented.

  “Maybe they thought the buildings were fancy.”

  “If that’s the case, then they must think our homes are obscenely ornate.”

  “They probably think that about a lot of things on Earth.”

  Turning down a street, the name on the signpost looked familiar. I racked my brain as I tried to place it. Lepai Street. Where had I heard that name before?

  Then it hit me. “This is the street where my parents lived.”

  “Do you know what number?” Lochie asked. I thought back to the conversation I’d had, the documents they had shown me. It definitely had a one in it, perhaps a three.

  “I think it’s number thirty-one,” I replied. I was certain I’d seen the address on the Truconian version of an identity card. They didn’t have passports, they didn’t need one on the small planet. But they did need ID cards to get on the spaceships so they could keep track of who had left and who still remained.

  We went along a few houses, counting down the numbers from fifty-four until we reached thirty-one. It looked like every other house in the street.

  “Do you want to go inside?” It was a simple question, with a very simple answer.

  “You bet.”

  We approached the front door via the ash path and tried the handle. It was unlocked – like all the places on the planet. With nobody but the government workers left, they didn’t have a need for security. We didn’t even lock the doors to our house when we left or went to bed. Their crime rate was zero.

  Stepping through the doors felt a little wrong, like we were imposing on someone’s private place. Which we were, but the owners were long gone and didn’t care anymore. My parents wouldn’t have minded. The box belonged to no-one now so we couldn’t really be trespassing.

  The layout was nearly exactly the same as our place except there was one less bedroom. My parents didn’t have any other children besides me, I guess they didn’t need to have two bedrooms. It was kind of depressing that they lived in such a small space.

  “This is weird,” Lochie said as we looked around. All the furniture was still there, it was like my parents had just left for the day and would be back at any moment.

  “I guess they couldn’t bring any of the furniture to Earth so they just had to leave it.”

  “There’s no personal things like clothes or photos here, so I guess they took everything else.”

  I pictured my birth parents living in the house, sleeping in the bed, standing in front of the mirror getting ready of a morning, sitting on the couch in the living room. I could feel their presence there, even though they were far away. In a weird way, it made me feel closer to them. I couldn’t explain how.

  “Birth Mom said to me once that they didn’t need to bring anything because everything they loved was already on Earth,” I said, remembering the moment. I hadn’t cried in front of her when she said that, but I did later because I had spent so long believing she never thought about me.

  “That’s really corny.”

  I elbowed him in the ribs. “It’s not corny, it’s sweet.”

  He wrapped his arms around me from behind and whispered in my ear. “For the record, you’re everything I love too.”

  My heart fluttered in my chest, a reaction only Lochie could elicit from me. “That’s really corny,” I replied deadpan.

  He squeezed me tighter. “No, it’s sweet.” He let me go and started walking down the stairs. I followed him into the kitchen. Everything had been tidied up and no food was left. They obviously still cared about the house even though they were abandoning it.

  The cupboards still held plates and bowls. It was a shame that everything was going to be blown up one day when the asteroid hit. It seemed like such a waste.

  “Hey, look at this.” Lochie held up a faded and yellowed piece of paper from the cupboard. It looked to be torn from a newspaper. I wasn’t even sure if they had newspapers on Trucon. “It’s old.”

  “It looks it.” He held it out so we could both read it. It was an article about the original Leaving Day, the day when an entire generation of babies were shipped off to another planet to save everyone.

  The article was devoid of emotion, just stating all the facts. Babies were leaving, parents were saying goodbye, some were against it, some were for it, the leaders were adamant they weren’t going to change their minds. It seemed that the decision almost tore the planet in two.

  Accompanying the article were photographs. All the cradles were lined up in the spaceships with a baby in each one. It was almost like they were shipping cargo rather than living beings. It was difficult to believe that I was one of those infants.

  Another photo showed some parents. They were surrounded by others, probably relatives, and were breaking down in tears. Some looked to be calling out or wailing with a type of grief. If I had known how upset all the parents were seventeen years ago, it would have saved a lot of wondering and fear that they didn’t even miss us.

  “It looks traumatic,” Lochie said.

  “It must have been horrible,” I agreed. Imagining it was one thing, seeing it was another. “Can you imagine giving up your newborn baby, only to send it to another planet?”

  “I couldn’t handle it. I mean, I’ve never had a baby – obviously – but I imagine I would want to keep it close.”

  “The leaders must have been really desperate.
” The thought of giving up a child was horrendous. I really didn’t know how my parents did it. I knew they didn’t have a choice in the matter, but still.

  I folded up the article and slid it into my pocket, wanting to show it to Garrick when we got back to the house. He would find it just as interesting as I had, no doubt.

  “It’s starting to get dark out,” Lochie started, nodding toward the open door. “We should go back before we get completely lost.”

  I nodded in agreement and we started the walk back home. Lochie had succeeded in one thing – my anger had turned into a steely resolve to make sure we all made it back to Earth safe and sound.

  CHAPTER 16

  The food really was terrible on Trucon, it was official. I longed for some chocolate or a burger. I would even settle for yet another chicken burger from Adele’s. Anything was better than the brown sludge and dried meatball type things our kitchen was stocked with.

  Lola was having the same idea. “What do you think this is made out of?”

  “They don’t have animals here so it has to be some kind of plant,” Garrick replied, studying the lump on his fork. “Or dirt.”

  “They don’t have dirt either,” I chimed in. “Maybe some volcanic rock?”

  “It’s a crop called Aezera,” Kyle corrected us all, tired of hearing us speculate. “And it’s not that bad. You’ll get used to it.”

  “But it’s brown,” Lola said, her face a picture of disgust. “Like, poop brown.”

  Lochie put his fork back down onto his plate. “Did you have to put it like that?”

  Lola waved her brown ball in front of him. “Want some poop, Lochie? Come on, it’s really good.” He squirmed away as we all laughed. The food might have been terrible, but the company wasn’t.

  My birth mother was such a great cook back on Earth, I wondered if she managed to make the food on Trucon tolerable. I hoped so, otherwise they had been eating sludge for a very long time.

  Kyle was the only one who finished his entire meal. I loaded up on the cracker type biscuits that were supposed to go with the aezera balls. I got the feeling I was going to be surviving off those crackers.

  After dinner we cleaned up and got ready for bed. The Truconians did have a television type screen but the signal had been turned off when everyone left. I wondered what kind of shows they would have had. Soap operas? I couldn’t really imagine it. My birth parents always enjoyed television on Earth but I never thought to ask them how it differed.

  I climbed into bed while Lola was still having a shower. We all tended to have long showers, they were too good to cut short. Lochie stood at the door, studying me. “What?” I asked, suddenly self conscious.

  “Just looking.”

  “Shouldn’t you be going to bed?”

  Lochie grinned, making his cheek dimple, and raced for my bed. He jumped in next to me and pretended to settle down for the night. I tried to push him off, but the bed was too small to actually move.

  “Ah, this is nice,” he sighed.

  I couldn’t help but laugh, he was such a pest. “I meant you should go to your bed. Not mine.”

  “Where’s the fun in that?”

  “You get to sleep,” I pointed out. “It’s not supposed to be fun, it’s restful.”

  “I heard beds are for more than sleeping,” he said suggestively. I nudged him, that definitely wasn’t going to happen in the tightly packed house.

  “Oh, please,” Lola commented as she joined us, rolling her eyes. She crawled into her own bed. “Don’t make me throw up. You don’t want to see that dinner again.”

  Lochie grimaced as he moved to lie on his side, giving me a bit more room. I could at least move my arms now. “Ah, Lola, always so ladylike.” She stuck out her tongue at him.

  I patted Lochie on the chest. “Go to bed. Your bed.”

  He sat up, shuffling his legs to hang over the side. “But there’s smelly guys in there. I like it much better in here.”

  Lola had obviously had enough. She grabbed Lochie by the arm and dragged him to the door. Even though he was much stronger than she was, he allowed himself to be led away. He pretended to struggle though, putting on a show for my benefit. I only shook my head at him, it was all I could do.

  Once he was out, Lola slammed the door and huffed back to her bed. “You’re right, he’s annoying.”

  “He’s not so bad,” I defended, chuckling. Lola and Lochie normally got along famously well, sometimes too well for my liking. They had been known to gang up on me before.

  “You’re coming to his rescue now? I never thought I would see it.”

  “He’s not my enemy. I actually do love him. Most of the time.”

  She pulled the sheet right up to her chin so all I could see was her head. “Yeah, well, maybe some enemies aren’t so obvious. Goodnight.”

  “’Night.” I tapped the lamp off and we were plunged into complete darkness. Not having a window was taking a long time to get used to. The panic was still hiding in the shadows. Sometimes when I awoke in the middle of the night, my eyes would search for the moon shining through my window like it did at home. Only when I couldn’t find it did I remember I was actually on Trucon.

  Lola’s words kept playing on my mind. Not the ones about Lochie, but the ones about an enemy not being obvious sometimes. It was like there was a thought in the back of my mind but I couldn’t quite grasp it.

  Enemies were people you were against, I didn’t really have any of those. I mean, I hated the Originals and everything they believed in, but there was no one person that I would consider my arch nemesis. And it certainly wasn’t Lochie.

  I drifted off to sleep with images of bad guys in black hats and swinging baseball bats filling my dreams. They threatened to interrupt my peaceful slumber by running through my head all night long.

  In my nightmare, it wasn’t the black hat bandits that ended up being my downfall, it was the cowboys in white hats that lassoed my feet and made me fall to the ground. They pulled me along the graveled road as I screamed for help. There was nobody there to assist me.

  I awoke from the dream gasping for air as my heart hammered so hard in my chest I thought it might break some ribs. I had a sheen of sweat on my forehead as I cradled my head and tried to calm down.

  The nightmare had been so real and horrible. In the complete darkness of the room I tried to reassure myself it wasn’t reality, it was nothing more than my mind playing out things in my head. Nothing more, really. Seriously.

  As I tried to calm down, I couldn’t take the darkness anymore. All I could think of were cowboys hiding just beyond me, ready to snatch and kill as soon as my guard was down. I tapped on the light, hoping Lola would understand if it woke her up.

  The room came to life, revealing only the two of us in there. Lola was snoring softly to herself, completely unaware of the light and my distress.

  I lay back in bed and stared at the ceiling. It was white, like everything else in the house. It reminded me of the cowboy hats. And enemies. I had been thinking about enemies when I went to sleep, that had to be the cause of my nightmare. Using logic wasn’t really helping shake the dream, but it did get me thinking.

  Lola said sometimes enemies weren’t so obvious. It made me think of the Originals. Garrick would no doubt consider them his enemy. If they framed him for murder, they were certainly his enemy.

  A thought occurred to me, what about if the Originals weren’t Garrick’s only enemy? Perhaps he had some that weren’t so obvious? We had been focusing all our energy on the Originals but that was only because we assumed they were the only ones with something to gain from Garrick’s conviction.

  To put it bluntly, Garrick wasn’t the most likable guy in the world. He was grumpy, terse, and curt sometimes. Of course, he was also lovely, funny, and nice at his core, but not everyone got to see that side of him. I was lucky because I did. Many didn’t.

  Perhaps Krom was having so much trouble finding evidence that Garrick was framed by the Originals
because they didn’t do it. Perhaps it was someone else entirely and they had been looking for evidence in all the wrong places.

  I needed to know, I had to know. And I couldn’t wait a moment longer. I climbed out of bed and left the room, closing the door behind me so Lola could continue her peaceful sleep.

  I barged into the boys’ bedroom without knocking, too intent on speaking with Garrick to even think about what I was doing. I had no idea what the time was but I hoped it was close enough to morning not to get in too much trouble.

  Kyle was the first to see me. “Amery? Is something wrong?” I turned on the light. They would be awake in a moment anyway, I may as well hurry the process along a bit.

  Garrick and Lochie stirred awake, blinking in the light. They all quickly pulled the sheets up to cover themselves. Seeing three manly bare chests was a bit of a nice surprise before they covered up.

  “I need to talk to Garrick.” I didn’t even bother whispering.

  “It’s so early,” Garrick moaned, checking his watch. I had no idea how we was still managing to keep time with an Earth watch. He had some number system or something.

  “Can’t this wait until morning?” Kyle asked. He was hiding under his sheets like he was naked under there. Oh my gosh, would he really sleep naked? With two other guys in the tiny room? I really didn’t need the mental image of that. It momentarily distracted me.

  I shook my head to get rid of the thought. “No, it can’t wait.” I sat on the edge of Garrick’s bed, he quickly moved his legs out of the way so I didn’t sit on them. “Who else had access to the building site?”

  They all stared at me like I had three heads. I was getting really impatient with the lack of answers and participation.

  “Jones, have you been eating pure sugar again?” Lochie asked from the next bed over. I shot him a warning look to be quiet. His and Kyle’s beds were against the wall with Garrick’s in the middle. I briefly wondered how they had decided that.

  “Garrick, focus. Who else could have left the body in the building site? Who else had keys?”

  He rubbed his eyes and squinted in the light, still unaccustomed to the brightness. “My boss. Nobody else had keys because I was the only one who had to open the place early and my boss locked up at night.”

 

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