We go down a few flights of back stairs, and I stop in front of my first discovery.
“I present to you a normal wall,” I say dramatically. “Except when used by a magician.”
I punch the side of a random panel and it opens. Kaya gasps as a hidden hallway is revealed. “Cool,” she whispers beside me. “But how’d you know it was there?”
“A magician never reveals his secrets.”
She frowns at me and stamps a heel down on my big toe.
“Ah! All right, all right!” I point down at the floor. “Scuffs on the tiles. Why else would there be scuffs on the tiles in this random spot? Easy find.”
She makes an appreciative noise as the dim lights ahead of us brighten. It reminds me of the energy-saving overheads they installed at the Food First near my house in Detroit. They’d dim whenever someone hadn’t walked down an aisle in a while. Took about three months for them to break. The yogurt section was all blacked out and the store was slow to get things fixed. I always pretended I was on secret missions to locate snacks. The only goal for this mission is to have fun, but the same feeling steals through me. I feel invincible.
“What do you think they use them for?” Kaya asks.
“Shortcuts, I guess. I’m sure there are a bunch of them around the ship.”
Our path dead-ends and I pop another panel. We slide out into a wide hallway that leads to a massive black-bolted door. I unzip my suit pocket, pull Vandemeer’s card, and thrust it at the sensor. The light goes green, the door slides, and we’re through. Kaya looks a little wide-eyed.
“You’re good at this,” she says.
I wink at her. “Babel’s not the only one with secrets.”
She laughs at that, but as we keep moving, she notices things I don’t. Like how big the ship must be and how Babel has woven nyxia into the walls and wiring of every hallway. She’s always got her mind on the bigger picture. I’ve never been good at zooming out that far. It’s no surprise she’s always got a strategy for everything. Ahead, the passage forks.
“Your choice, Alice,” I say.
She doesn’t even answer, just starts skipping happily down the left passageway. Laughing, I jog-step to catch up with her.
“This is seriously so cool, Emmett.”
“I owed you one. For not giving up on me. I kind of hoped this would make us even.”
I can tell she’s smiling. “I wouldn’t have ever done this on my own.”
“What are best friends for, if not to make you do stupid things?”
She blushes at the words. I mean them. This place is dark enough without friends. I need her. I didn’t realize it before, but I probably don’t stand much of a chance of surviving this competition without her. We walk quietly, lost in the moment, and I almost forget my own rules.
“Whoa,” I say, yanking her back by the collar. “Back to the wall.”
I show her. With my back pressed flat, I ease around a corner. Above us, a black-orbed camera hovers. Even as we pass beneath it, we can see the blinking robot-red eye. I motion for Kaya to cross to the opposite wall, and we repeat the process, pressing ourselves tight and slipping beneath another camera. At the end of the hall, another black door looms.
“How’d you learn to do that?” she asks.
“Midnight raids on the snack closet.”
I swipe the card again and there’s a gushing suction of wind. We both step into an antechamber. Above us, air hisses through metal vents. We wait a few seconds as the room’s sensors adjust to our presence. I just hope Babel isn’t eyeing the readouts too closely. I won’t be surprised if they come sweeping in to end the fun. It’s worth it, though, to have a little freedom before they do.
The second door groans open and I step up to the edge. The room looks like a mechanical center. A bunch of pipes and empty air and wiring. It’s all lit up, with about a thirty-meter drop.
“Dead end?” Kaya asks.
“I don’t think so,” I say, holding a hand out into the room.
Inside the air lock, I can still feel gravity’s pull, but as soon as my hand crosses the threshold it goes weightless. Kaya watches it float upward and raises an eyebrow.
I laugh, let out a whoop, and leap into no-grav air. It’s breathtaking. The lightness, the freedom, the fear. I glance up as I float across. The whole room is a vertical shaft. Only fifteen meters across, but about one hundred meters from top to bottom. The first leap lands me on the far wall. I reach out and grab one of the metal supports, pinning myself there. Kaya comes soaring gracefully out, her angle higher than mine, her face priceless. She adjusts her body and grabs a handhold about five meters above me.
“Where do you think it leads?” she asks.
“Let’s find out.”
I shove off the wall and go flying past her. She laughs and follows. We zigzag our way up the shaft, swimming through the air, dancing absurdly, and acting like kids for the first time on Genesis 11. Above me, Kaya gets a grip on a second black air lock. I angle my body and push off toward her. My aim’s too high, but she snags my leg and pulls me back down.
“There’s no place to scan,” I say. Kaya carefully slips her feet beneath the exposed edge of the frame and bends at the waist. There’s a fist-sized circle punched into the center of the door. I watch her stuff a hand inside and feel around. And then she freaks. Her hand is stuck and her face twists with terror. I panic-reach for her shoulder and try to pull her away when she breaks into laughter.
“Got you,” she says, winking.
“You’re the worst.”
I push off the wall and let myself float away. We spend an hour exploring the place. There are only two air locks in the room. The one we came through and the one we can’t get through. Kaya spends most of the time looking at it, wondering why there are no scans on this one like there are on the other one. Eventually I lure her away with jelly beans I saved from the cafeteria’s snack bar. We tell stories and throw different flavors at each other, laughing until we feel sick.
I keep waiting for Defoe and Babel guards to show up and spoil the fun, but they never come. Even as we head back to our room, nothing. Kaya laughs excitedly when we’re safely back on the couch, and we both dig into the thrill of having gotten away with something. We listen to songs on my player and shuffle cards until we’re too tired to think of anything but falling asleep. Until all the pain and anger and frustration feel a few million kilometers away.
DAY 50, 11:47 P.M.
Aboard Genesis 11
They say pain is weakness leaving the body. If that’s true, each of us is becoming strong enough to carry worlds on our shoulders. The days of competition start merging together. We win and lose in the Rabbit Room, but each race feels like a continuation of the last, like we’ll always be chasing each other through simulated forests.
Virtual mining explosions and pain sensors remind us that one day the consequences of our mistakes will be more than broken pixels. Babel demands perfection because perfection will keep us alive on Eden. There’s such a predictable rhythm to the schedule that I only notice when the lyrics change. The day that I start learning more about my competitors.
On the fifth Sabbath, Bilal invites me to his room to play cards. My first instinct is to turn him down, thank him, then retreat to the safety of my own room. But I realize it’d be nice to kick my feet up and do something mindless. It’s not like Bilal’s an enemy. From day one he’s been open and kind to me. I accept the invitation and follow him upstairs.
“Longwei lives in the other room,” he explains. “But he doesn’t enjoy company.”
Their living space is identical to ours. The only difference is that Bilal’s door stands wide open. A glance inside shows his clothes neatly folded and his possessions organized on the bedside table. I nod in that direction. “Your door broken?”
He shakes his head. “I asked them to rig it that way. I want everyone to feel invited.”
I can’t help smiling at that. He’s such a weird kid. We both take se
ats at the table and Bilal starts shaking a deck of cards out of one pack. I watch him separate out the jokers and shuffle twice for good measure. He sets the cards neatly aside and looks up at me.
“Now we just have to wait for the others.”
I stare at him. “What’s that?”
“I invited everyone. It will be wonderful to play a big game.”
I bite back my frustration. I should have known. Bilal doesn’t leave people out. He doesn’t spend time counting his enemies like I do. I glance back at the door and feel the awkwardness creeping up my spine. The first knock sounds and Bilal stands. Jazzy waves her way into the room and takes the seat closest to me.
“I’ve been dying to play some cards,” she says.
Kaya’s next, and Katsu arrives shortly after. It starts out like any shared meal or competition. We laugh at a few jokes, but before long the humor fades. Jaime arrives, followed by Isadora and Roathy. The sight of them in a place I wanted to call safe has my stomach knotted. Everyone pulls up chairs or sits on cushions. Azima is the last one to join us, and just like that everyone’s gathered, sitting around the same table, except for Longwei.
And something magical happens.
Bilal explains his favorite game, deals the cards, and performs a spell on us. All the tension eases out of our tight shoulders and nervous hands. We flash full houses and struggle to make our flushes and laugh when Katsu sneaks a queen out of one sleeve. For a time, we aren’t competitors vaulting through the endless dark. We’re kids sitting in the back of a classroom. The teacher has given us free time, and something about it tastes eternal.
We play for hours. Long enough for the lighter conversations to take on weight. Jazzy is the first one in the group brave enough to talk about home, about the world she left behind. I listen and everything in my gut says it’s a mistake—she’s giving us her secrets, making herself vulnerable—but at the same time I find myself spellbound by her honesty.
“My parents always had me competing in ‘beauty and brain’ pageants, but I kept finishing third or fourth. After a while, my family went broke from the travel expenses.” Bilal deals another hand. Everyone glances at their cards, but we’re all waiting to hear the rest of Jazzy’s story. “All that wasted money. We didn’t really miss it until we found out about Mama’s breast cancer.” We watch as she lifts the familiar strand of fading pink-tipped hair. “Is it bad luck if the pink washes completely away?”
No one answers. We all look down at our cards. A minute passes before Katsu lets out a massive belly laugh. Azima tries to quiet him with a stern look, but he ignores her. We all watch as he stumbles toward the door. “Just wait,” Katsu says. “I’ll be right back. No one move!”
Azima scowls before reaching out and squeezing Jazzy’s hand. I’m still dissecting the gravity of the moment. Kaya’s shared her backstory with me, but only because we’re a team. That makes it feel different somehow. We have learned bits and pieces about the other competitors, but I can’t imagine opening up my weaknesses for the others to exploit. We sit in silence until the door opens and Katsu bursts back into the room. He’s holding a delicate box. I can tell he’s almost out of breath. We all watch as he opens the box and slides it to the center of the table. Everyone leans in to get a look.
“Higashi,” Katsu announces. “My last piece. It’s made with real wasanbon.”
I hear Kaya make an appreciative noise. The cookie’s small and delicate. At least, I think it’s a cookie. It’s carved in the shape of a boat and colored mint green. Jazzy raises an eyebrow.
“I’m confused,” she says. “What’s this have to do with me?”
Katsu closes the lid to the box. “Roathy said we’re all poor, didn’t he?”
Eyes swing in that direction. Roathy offers a single shrug in answer.
“He’s right,” Katsu says. “I mean, come on, Babel clearly picked the most ragged bunch of kids they could find. So just consider this another leg of their competition. The saddest story gets my last higashi. Right now, Jazzy’s the leader in the clubhouse.”
He slides the box slightly in her direction before taking a step back. I’m expecting everyone to reject the idea, but Azima leans over the table excitedly.
“I would do anything for sweets.”
She explains she’s part of the first generation of the Rendille people to settle fully in Kenyan cities. Once, she says, there was no greater sin to her people than stillness. They slept under the stars, raced the sun to the horizon, and went wherever the water waited for them. She tells us that even her name, Azima, means “magically charmed into motion.” A name usually reserved for boys, it was given to her because she never stopped moving as a child.
Movement is in her blood, in her bones, but the elders decided that their people’s survival depended on being still, on becoming modern. So she watched as uncles and aunts moved to cities and lost their minds sitting at desks and staring at screens. Her family was reduced to a life of boxes, and eventually to caskets. Each relative buried in cities as foreign to them as any star.
“I’m afraid,” she says. “I know this mission brings me great honor, but what will happen when I go home? What man would dare to ask for my hand now that I have roamed through the stars? My life will never be the same.”
She laughs nervously at the silence that follows her confession. We deal another hand of cards and pretend her fears don’t sound a lot like ours. Instead of sliding the higashi in Azima’s direction, Katsu launches into his own story.
“Dad left when I was three. He lives in America. Mom was never the same after that. I have this permanent image of her just staring out the front windows of our apartment. I lived with my grandmother for a while. I don’t know. Doesn’t feel like there’s much to go back to.”
Jaime nods his understanding. The movement catches the table’s attention. He glances awkwardly from us to the higashi before clearing his throat and starting in.
“My family had a farm,” he says. “Life was good. Living in a mountain town. It was simple, but we had a bad year, and the neighbors hated us. We went bankrupt. Lost everything.”
I fold a hand of low cards and side-eye Jaime. I want to call him out on it, accuse him of lying, but he pulls out a faded photograph. “This is the last picture we took on the farm.”
He passes it around. The edges are so worn that the picture’s shapeless now. His mother’s a beautiful woman. Jaime clearly got his pale eyes and sharp chin from his father. All three of them stand on a farm with cows roaming in the background. I stare at the picture long enough to miss my turn to bet. When I finally look up, Jaime’s watching me. He offers a polite smile, and I realize I’ve been an asshole this whole time. His parents really were farmers. He told the truth. Bilal deals another hand as the shame of it buries me, but I’m too much of a coward to say I’m sorry.
Katsu saves me from embarrassment. He laughs loudly and snatches the photo.
“Major points for using a prop, Jaime,” he says. “But I still give Jazzy the edge. There’s just nothing quite as sad as toddlers in tiaras parading around a stage.”
Jazzy and Jaime share a smile at that. Katsu shoves the box farther in Jazzy’s direction before eyeing the rest of the table. “Who’s next? Who will claim the final higashi? Keep in mind that’s a gift from my grandmother, you clowns. So you better take this seriously. How about you, Bilal? Why’d you invite us all here in the first place?”
I’m not sure Bilal likes the new game we’re playing, but he’s too polite to turn Katsu’s invitation down. He smiles before saying, “Hospitality isn’t optional. It’s the expectation of every honorable man. This is what my parents taught me. It is who my father raised me to be.”
He goes on to describe the hilltop village he’s from in Palestine. Two of his best friends were a pair of sheep. The longer I listen, the more I can feel the distance between us. I don’t understand people like him. His home was burned down twice. His family lived through actual famines. It’s impossible t
hat someone with his story could have ever learned to smile. But that’s all he ever does. There’s a heaven in him no darkness can take.
When Bilal finishes, Jazzy slides the box his way. “I know when I’m beaten.”
My friend traces the lid of the box with idle fingers before looking directly at me.
“What about you, Emmett?” he asks. “Can you take the box from me?”
I shake my head. “Doubt it, man.”
He smiles. “Let us decide.”
I can feel the weight of their gazes. I’ve made a living out of back corners and side streets. There’s never been a stage I felt like I belonged on, but Bilal’s quiet attention convinces me that everything will be all right. The words come trickling off the tongue.
“Moms got sick a few years ago,” I say. “Kidney failure. She’s moving up the list because of Babel, but it’s been a bumpy ride. Pops does his best, you know, but it’s like his bosses are happy to watch him kill himself for each dime. I don’t know, man. I got good people in my corner, but it’s like I’m living in a world where most people would prefer if I sat down in the back row, took what the world gave me, and kept my mouth shut. But that’s just the way life is, right?”
I shrug my shoulders to say that it’s over, that’s it. Bilal nods like he knows exactly how I feel. He starts to pass the higashi my way, but pauses when Roathy rises to his feet. I’m half-expecting him to leave and call all of this a waste of time. Instead, he starts to speak.
He was born in the Triarch Empire. The massive conglomerate of countries bordering China has proven itself an economic power in the past decade, but Roathy tells us he’s one of thousands of kids who’ve grown up homeless on the streets, fighting each other for scraps in trash dumps and alleyways. “The worst fights,” he says, “were always against the dogs.”
As he continues talking, I realize I understand him a lot better than I understand Bilal. Roathy’s not the type to smile at a world that’s forgetting him. I get that, and I get him. The truth makes him dangerous. He left a life that he can’t go back to. When he’s done, Bilal looks between the two of us, unsure of the polite thing to do. I nod in Roathy’s direction.
Nyxia Page 14