There’s a brief hiss and then I’m rag-dolling as the drills corkscrew into the walls of nyxia on my left and right. My display shows it falling in thick strips. I’m just trying to keep hold of both joysticks when the left one starts to glow. The metal goes bright white for a second, then nothing. The right one repeats the process. I keep pressing deeper into the hole and my two side drills gobble up everything in reach. Even with the insane vibrations and the rawness of my hands, I feel like I’m playing the coolest video game ever.
I’m fifteen meters deep when the left side of my display is taken over by Lieutenant Light. He’s twelve inches tall, but his voice is just as deep. “Don’t forget to use your pulses when the side drills fully extend, soldier. And if you push her too fast, you’ll advance without shearing away the maximum pull. Good luck.”
My eyes dart around the rattling room for pulses. What the hell are pulses? Both of my handles light up at the same time. I realize they’re signaling that the drills are, as the marine just reminded me, fully extended. So where’s the pulse button? I probe upward with my index finger and find a button. Laughing to myself, I say, “It is a video game!”
The next time my grips light up, I squeeze the trigger and a thunderclap echoes out. Stone explodes on the displays, and even my glass windows are pounded by the falling debris. In spite of the heat, a chill goes down my spine. That was a lot of power. A lot.
“Emmett.” Longwei’s voice. “You’ve got a gas pocket ten meters down. It’s on your left and it’s only two or three meters into the rock. I’d immobilize that drill in five meters.”
“Copy,” I say, because that’s what they’re always saying in video games like KillCall or Gadget Swing. I let the drill ride out a few more shears and then pull my left joystick in to my chest. The drill retracts, and I guide it steadily past the gas pocket. Longwei clears me, and I go right back to thunder and vibrations on both sides as the world gives way all around me. It’s been a long time since I felt this useful doing anything.
We come vomiting out of the simulator about thirty minutes later. Jazzy had to climb halfway down the tunnel to get our conveyor unkinked, but everything else went flawlessly. Longwei led us and even Roathy helped. Our team set an amazing pace because he shifted into new roles wherever he was needed.
We wait restlessly for Kaya’s team to finish their section and are rewarded by Defoe’s smile. “Congratulations on your first victory, team one. You’re all dismissed for dinner.”
Kaya offers her compliments, and we’re all walking back when I feel it. Coasting along my right shoulder, just out of view. Roathy’s trying to deliver the message he’s been sending me all week. I’m here. I’m watching you. I will take my revenge.
My patience is a thin, twisted little thing, though.
I whip around, grab two fistfuls of collar, and shove him up against the nearest wall.
Only it’s not Roathy; it’s Jaime. His pale green eyes go wide, and I can tell I banged his head hard against the wall. Kaya and Bilal are backtracking, eyes on me like I’m a bomb they have to defuse. I release Jaime’s collar and mutter, “Just don’t follow me like that.”
“I was just walking,” Jaime says. “It’s a hallway. We were all just walking, lurch.”
He gives me a look that could rival Longwei’s and slides past. I watch him walk, watch the others turn to follow after him. When they’re gone, I lean my head up against the cold metal walls and close my eyes. I think about space, about drowning in darkness, about being the threat that others fear. Am I their Roathy? Do I make them worried? It’s been thirty seconds and I’ve already lost the thrill I felt inside the drill simulation. Now I’m just scared. Now I just feel lost.
The only good thing about being a black hole is that other black holes recognize you.
“Come on, Emmett,” Kaya says. She came back for me. She takes my arm in hers, like I’ve just forgotten the way home. “Do you want to eat dinner?”
“No,” I say. I’m not hungry. I’m not anything.
“Me neither,” she says. “Come on.”
Patiently, she guides me back to our rooms. She leads me over to my closet and looks the other way as I change into my pajamas. Then she actually tucks me into bed.
“Don’t leave,” I say. “I don’t want to sleep. I always have these dreams.”
She nods. “One second.”
As she slips out of the room, I realize I’m crying. It’s more than just the darkness I feel lurking inside. I miss Pops and Moms. I miss going to normal school with its normal expectations and normal people. I want the city smells and factory stacks on my way to school. I would even pay good money to babysit my cousins at this point. Anything to feel normal again.
Kaya returns with three books stacked in her arms. She climbs onto the empty half of my bed, sits on top of the covers, and leans against the wall. “I’ll read to you.”
I smile until she shows me the covers. They’re all in Japanese. The pictures are startling. The first one has a skull in one corner and features a shirtless boy, face buried in his hands. On the cover of the middle book is a white guy with the transparent outline of a hatchet etched through his hair. They both look like the opposite of bedtime stories. Not nearly as playful as Alice.
“Why’d you pick such scary books?” I ask, half laughing.
She shrugs. “They had boys on the cover. I don’t know!”
I smile again. The third option features a boy and a girl. The boy is leaning against a massive tree. The girl is seated on the roots, reading something. The whole scene is bathed in golden light, and they’re looking off into the eager distance. “That one. Read that one.”
Kaya tosses the other books onto the floor. She crosses her legs and begins.
Like the first time, she makes the story come to life. Her voice is so vibrant and full that I can feel myself being pulled away from Babel’s dark world. I find myself racing through the woods with the characters, crossing a bridge into some imaginary land. I hear breathing and laughter, sounds softer than the falling leaves Kaya describes. She reads until I fall asleep, until I’m no longer afraid.
DAY 19, 7:58 A.M.
Aboard Genesis 11
At breakfast, conversation revolves around Azima.
It’s the first time that she’s not wearing her traditional bracelet. The dark space of her wrist looks naked without it. Katsu makes a big deal out of it, pretending there’s a new competitor on the ship. He introduces her by a Japanese phrase that simply translates as Lovely Flower. Azima laughs until Katsu claims that their ex-competitor Azima has agreed to donate all her points to him.
“I am the king again,” he proclaims. “And you are my loyal subjects.”
Azima threatens him with a fork. “Those are my points. You cannot have them.”
“What was it?” I gesture to my own wrist. “The bracelet you wore.”
“A reminder. My people were the last nomadic group in Africa. We stopped our wandering, but I wear the beads as a reminder that we are a people born for motion. The beads tell my story. A girl also wears them to attract a worthy man.”
Jazzy scrunches her nose. “So you were trying to attract a worthy man?”
“I was,” Azima says between bites. “In the beginning.”
“What does that even mean?” I ask.
Azima considers me. “I made a deal with Mr. Defoe.”
“We all did,” Katsu replies. “It involved a lot of money, as I recall.”
“No,” Azima continues. “I added something. I wanted to be allowed to pursue a husband if I found one of you to be worthy of me.”
Three of us choke on our food. Awkward silence dominates the table. Pursue a husband? Azima’s eyes are narrowed with a wide smile that her nyxian mask hides. I find myself avoiding eye contact, just in case that’s the deciding factor in who she chooses.
“Don’t worry. It is our way. A woman must be strong. A woman must learn to defend herself. She must rise into womanhood with purpose.
If she does this, only a worthy man can approach her father for marriage.” We all stare again. Azima is serious. She wants to get married. Possibly to one of us. “I have worked hard to make sure my husband is held to a high standard. Being invited on this mission raised that standard even higher. If I were still living in my village, my parents would search for a young man of equal ability, someone who could keep up with me. It’s only natural that I consider those who were honored with invitations to this mission. You have achieved what I have achieved.”
“Well, which one of us is it?” Katsu asks, puffing his chest out. “You’ve seen my work with the ax. I don’t want to say I’m the obvious choice, but…”
“No. None of you, because I’m the strongest warrior.” She points her fork at the scoreboard. Her name glows at the top. “You can’t protect me. In fact, I will have to protect you. The only realistic option is to marry myself.”
We all laugh when Katsu offers to officiate the ceremony. Defoe arrives, though, to break up the fun. We’re escorted to the wall of nyxian objects again. One by one, we’re punished in a nyxian prison. The only two who don’t come out screaming are Jazzy and Roathy. After getting rag-dolled for ten seconds, Jazzy straightens, takes a deep breath, and returns to the line without saying a word. I guess it isn’t a huge surprise. She’s always the calmest under pressure.
Roathy’s resistance to the nyxia feels different. The darkness takes him, but he shrugs it off, like he’s been through way worse than a mysterious force grinding through his insides.
When it’s finally my turn, I take Vandemeer’s advice because I don’t want what happened last time to ever happen again. So I convert the objects until I start to feel the nyxia pushing back, too big to control. I step away from the objects and nod over at Defoe. “I’m done.”
His face tightens. “Your loss.”
Points trickle into my score, and Defoe calls Kaya. She refuses again, and we wait for Azima and Longwei to finish the challenge. Both of them are too competitive to stop early. After Azima gets her dose of torture, Longwei pushes as far as I did before hitting the floor, harder and longer than last time. We watch his body flail. He gasps back to us, but doesn’t scream this time. Instead, he stands up and points at the blocks angrily. For once his anger isn’t directed toward any of us. It’s aimed at Defoe. “You shouldn’t ask us to do the impossible.”
“Impossible?” Defoe replies. His questions are always poison-tipped and red-clawed.
“The objects are too big,” Longwei says. “It’s designed to make us fail.”
“It’s designed to push you beyond your current limitations.”
Defoe stands beside the very last object. It’s a cube that comes up nearly to his hip. He sets his hand on the dark surface and closes his eyes. The substance shivers into another shape.
“Impossible?” he asks again.
He sets his hand back down on the top of a nyxian pyramid and transforms it into a sphere, a cube, another pyramid, and finally back into a cube. Each time, the transformations get faster and faster. I see sweat trickle down his forehead, but otherwise the performance is effortless.
“That is amazing,” Azima whispers.
“But not impossible,” Defoe says in reply. “Unlearn your idea of impossible.”
Hell of a show-and-tell, I think. Hell of a mistake too. Before, we didn’t know what he or any of the Babel employees were capable of. Now we do. We know he’s strong. Stronger than us. Fighting him with nyxia would be impossible. I file it away under D for Danger.
We cross over to the pit. My eyes flick to the scoreboard, and I’m thankful for Vandemeer’s advice. I didn’t get tortured by the nyxia, and it didn’t cost me much in the standings either. As we funnel inside, I find myself looking forward to another fight with Jaime. I made a promise yesterday to our finely groomed friend, and I intend on keeping it.
The other fights just quicken my pulse. All the results are repeats, except this time Roathy drops his swords and sacrifices himself to Isadora. By the time Jaime and I take our place in the center of the arena, I’m a dangerous, dangerous man. He stands across from me, with his perfectly combed hair and pale green eyes. He looks pissed off. He’s gritting his teeth and white-knuckling the grips of his swords. Trying to pump himself up for a fight.
People think that works. I used to do it whenever I played PJ one-on-one in basketball. And he’d crush me like a grape. Most of the time, the only thing that matters is skill.
Defoe gives the signal. Jaime doesn’t dance this time. He lashes out with his right sword and follows immediately with his left. He keeps up the rapid blows and pushes blindly forward, trying to rock me back on my heels. It’s a desperate tactic. I ward off the first four blows, set my feet, and use his imbalance against him. A quick duck sets me up to rip a good shot across his rib cage. His avatar bleeds. I could just step away and let the wound leech away his health bar. But I don’t do that. I want to punish, to finish, to destroy.
Jaime crowds me again, swinging an off-handed lash. I block, put two jabs into his stomach, and slide. My footwork is perfect as I step into a final, punishing hook. He doesn’t flinch, though. He’s supposed to flinch. Instead, he moves into my swing and brings up one of his swords.
If this was real life, Jaime wouldn’t have a jaw.
If this was real life, I’d be short an organ.
The pain rips through my stomach and our legs buckle. Simulated pain feels a lot like real pain. Jaime and I are a sweating tangle of limbs. Pain sears through me again, and Jaime’s eyes go wide in terror. I panic, thinking I’ve hurt him the way I hurt Roathy. I trace his stare back to my own stomach, though. The pain triples. A bright, scarlet circle is spreading there. His blade’s plunged through my suit and into my stomach. This isn’t a simulation. This isn’t fake. This isn’t happening to my avatar, then translating into my brain. A real sword is in my real stomach.
I fall backward. When I try to speak, it comes out as a bloody cough. A crowd of masked faces, the slap of foreign tongues, and then a quiet, nyxialess darkness.
DAY 21, 1:37 A.M.
Aboard Genesis 11
Vandemeer is lounging in a space chair in the corner. The Dutchman never really lounges. He’s always sitting with a leg crossed or with his arms folded or with a pen twirling between his fingers. I pretend to read a book as he monitors my numbers on his data pad. He’s been sitting there for the last twenty-four hours. I almost took it for genuine concern. But then I remembered he’s with Babel. This is his job. I’m his meal ticket. Nothing more.
“When can I leave?” I ask again.
“Mr. Atwater, you had internal surgery. A blood transfusion. Your injuries are serious.”
“When?” I repeat.
He sighs, swipes his data pad, and shrugs his square shoulders. “Another week.”
“I can do some of the tasks. The nyxia manipulations, at least.”
“No,” he says. “You can’t.”
“Yes, I can.”
He sighs again. Standing, he fetches an orange from the food bin in the corner. He crosses the room and hands it to me. “Peel this,” he commands.
He sets the orange in my open palm. I frown in concentration and begin working the peel away. I can feel sweat trickling down my forehead after I’ve pulled off just a few thick sections. Halfway through, my hands are shaking. Vandemeer snatches it from me and peels the rest.
“Tired?” he asks. “Hurting?”
“I’m fine.” I lean back in bed and breathe unsteadily. I feel empty. “I can do this.”
“Maybe if you were willing to take the appropriate painkillers,” Vandemeer tries again.
“No,” I reply. “No drugs.”
“At least tell me why you don’t want them.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s not an option.”
Vandemeer sighs. He’s been digging at the corners of the truth all day, but my past is my own. Babel has their hands on a lot of me right now, and I don’t have to give them
anything else. They don’t need to know that I’ve brushed shoulders with drug addicts at school and in my neighborhood. I’ve seen good dudes go down dark roads, and a while back I promised myself I’d never follow in their footsteps. Painkillers seem harmless enough, but I still see it as the beginning of something I’m not looking to get started. I file it away under N for No Thanks.
Vandemeer glances back down at my medical charts.
“Have it your way. You’ll just have to let your body heal. You can’t compete like this.”
“I could handle it.”
“No, you couldn’t.”
“Try me.”
Vandemeer’s patient veneer cracks ever so slightly. His eyes show a flash of annoyance.
“Lift your arms.”
Gritting my teeth, I hold both hands out.
“All the way up,” he challenges.
I get them up to my shoulders before I feel it. A slashing pain that runs its way to something worse, something with real fire. I hold my hands up defiantly until Vandemeer forces them back down to my side.
“It would be far more impressive if your heart rate weren’t through the roof.” He takes a towel and gently wipes the sweat from my forehead.
“I can do it,” I repeat. “Just let me try.”
“If anyone could, it would be you,” Vandemeer says. “But you’re not going anywhere. Not until I clear you. Rest. Heal. We’ll begin therapy in a few days and you’ll be allowed to rejoin the others.” When I start to complain, he sets a hand on my shoulder. “Emmett, you’re not going to lose. I’ve watched you. You’re too tough. You want this too much to lose.”
My eyes meet his. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters,” he says softly. “I know how much it matters to you.”
“If you did, you’d let me back in the game.”
He shakes his head. “You’d earn a handful of points. You’d overextend yourself and your body wouldn’t heal. An injury would just land you right back in the med unit.”
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