Nyxia

by Scott Reintgen

  “One more time,” he says. “And the next time you ask? I’ll say one more time again. And the next. And the next. Forever.”

  I wrap my arms around him like the brother he is. I put aside the thought that our forever might end in just a few days. Katsu gets us started up. Genesis 12 looks relaxed and ready as Defoe and Requin make their appearance on the ramparts. Not even Morning glances over to note my changed position on the ship. Fear thunders in my chest. I’m afraid it won’t work and I’ll blow my one chance. But I’m also afraid of what might happen if it does work. I’m afraid of breaking something I don’t know how to fix.

  “One lap today,” Defoe announces. “This is a bit of a slower course.”

  Before they swipe the river to life and release us, I transform my station into the nyxian wall I saw Morning use on the first day. It spreads like smoke between our ships and blocks us from view. With another twist, the nyxian rings melt from my fingertips and transform into one of the poles Jazzy had us using in the Rabbit Room.

  I line up with the captain’s chair and aim myself to the right. As Defoe gives the signal for us to begin, I get a running start. The pole wedges, then flexes, and I launch through the smoke wall. Even as Genesis 12 lurches into the river, my flight angle propels me right over Alex’s head. Omar cries out a warning, but not before I’ve stumbled smack into Morning’s captain chair. She’s fast, already ducking a shoulder, but I knew she would and my arms are vise tight as I spin her into my grip, lock my arms, and shove off the chair. We stumble into Anton, bounce left, and we’re airborne.

  Morning screams as I tighten my grip, and we both plunge into the river. My ears flood and my neck burns with the slap of the water, but I don’t let go. She wedges her elbows, claws at my suit, everything. I don’t let go. After half a minute has passed, I start to laugh. Bubbles flood upward as I release her and fight for the surface. The divers are there, ready to drag us off to one side. Over the shoulder of my rescuer, I see Genesis 11 rounding the corner well ahead of Genesis 12. I’ve done my part. I can only hope my friends will do theirs.

  When we’re safely up on the ramparts, Morning shoves past me, her eyes dark and angry. She’s been right this whole time. As long as she’s in the equation, her team will win. All I had to do was take her out of it and roll the dice on my team pulling off the upset. I follow her back to the starting point. The ramparts give us a good angle on the final half kilometer of the river. The boats haven’t appeared yet and won’t for a while. I stare at the empty blue as Morning paces anxiously. Her eyes keep darting from the scoreboard to the river and back.

  “You act like this isn’t a good thing,” I say. “Like you don’t want me on Eden.”

  Her eyes flick over to me. “I made promises. You know that.”

  “You can’t take all of them.”

  She just shakes her head and stares out over the water. She keeps pacing, and I know my fears were legitimate ones. She hates losing. She hates promising something she can’t deliver. Since the start, I knew my success would mean her failure. It shouldn’t, but she’s given herself such a high bar that anything other than perfection feels like a disaster.

  If I’d pulled off my victory in the duels or on one of the days she had to sit out, losing wouldn’t be a big deal. But jumping across the ship and tackling her made everything personal. Now I’m the one who’s brought failure to her door.

  “They’re going to win,” she says. “I’ve trained them. They’ll still win. I know they will. Loche…he needs to win….”

  It hurts seeing how aware she is of the math. It means she knows how close I am. It means that she chose them over me. It shouldn’t hurt, but her words gut me.

  “If they lose, then I get to go to Eden.”

  When she turns back, her face looks torn. This was always the choice: me or them. Promises of the past or dreams of the future. I want to tell her it’s going to be all right, but now I’m not sure. I have no idea what will come around that corner. I have no idea what it will mean for me or for her or for us. Already I can see the broken pieces of what could have been.

  “I didn’t promise you anything,” she says. “I promised them.”

  She points. Her crew is the first around the corner. My heart stops beating. Genesis 11 comes around too, but they’re behind. With just five hundred meters left, they’re behind. I stumble toward the railing to get a better view. The ships are getting closer, bigger. Genesis 12 veers to the right. We can’t see from here, but the riverbed must be littered with shallow rocks. Their speed cuts, and Genesis 11 comes flying up on their right.

  We watch the ships prepare for a collision. At the last second, Katsu jerks our ship to the left. The nose of Genesis 11 nails the back of Genesis 12. Even from two hundred meters, we hear the snap of wooden planks and the scrape of metal underbellies. Genesis 12 fishtails as Genesis 11 comes shouldering past. My crew swings left to miss a jutting rock and comes gliding free. I pump both fists into the air.

  “Go!” I shout. “Come on! You’ve got this!”

  Before Genesis 12 can right their ship, my crew comes rolling across the finish line. I slide down the nearest rampart and splash into the water. I’m half shouting and half gurgling as I swim to the docks. They come down the gangplank as I pull myself up, soaking wet and screaming like a madman. Katsu pulls me into a bone-crushing hug.

  “How you like that driving?” he shouts. “Captain Katsu, at your service!”

  Bilal wraps his arm around us. “That jump was amazing, Emmett. Amazing.”

  “You can bury this yourself,” Azima says, shoving the key back into my hands.

  We’re laughing together when Defoe and Requin descend the staircase. Genesis 12 anchors behind us. I turn just in time to see Morning’s fury. She won’t meet my eye as she walks through the lines of her team, as she whispers the quiet words I’ve just made reality. Loche knows what this means too. Ida is crying as she shouts that she won’t go anywhere without him. A look from Requin silences her. I want to feel bad for them, but I’m going to Eden. A thousand burdens have slipped off my shoulders. My journey goes on. I’ll have another chance to honor Kaya, to pay my respects, and to help my family.

  A scoreboard looms behind the two Babel leaders. On it, the scores have gone official. My heart beats so fast that it can’t be the same one. Maybe I have an Earth heart and an Eden heart now. Two hearts, one for each world. They both skip a beat, though, when the eliminated participants are cleared off the board. All the work they’ve put in, gone just like that.

  Defoe steeples his fingers. “Thus concludes our competition. There are two more scheduled days, but all possible outcomes have been decided. Loche, Roathy, Bilal, and Brett. Please head upstairs. You’ll have a final goodbye, but we need a moment to speak with those that will go to Eden. Please follow your attendants out.”

  A hatch opens at the far end of the dock. The medics are waiting in their pristine white dress suits. I catch a glimpse of Karpinski before spotting Vandemeer. He stands off to the side, beaming a smile at me. He’s gracious enough not to shout or wave while the others are escorted out, but I know he knows, and I know he’s proud of me.

  Bilal stops at the end of the hallway. His dark eyes are wide as he waves back, smiling. Both my hearts break as he turns the corner and vanishes. Even losing, he’s better than me. If I’d been in his shoes, I would have stormed down the hall and never looked back. The hatch closes. We straighten our shoulders, and Requin smiles down at us.

  “Congratulations. We know what we put you through. We know the difficulties. But now comes the hard part. Taking all of this practice and putting it to the test. Reading about the Adamites is different than standing face to face with them. Where you’re going, the wolves are real, the dangers are plenty, and the task is demanding.” His smile widens. “But you’re as ready as we can make you, and you just became bloody millionaires. So celebrate tonight. Eat good food and sleep soundly in your beds. You’re going to Eden.”

 
; There are cheers and shouts. Hugs of delight and relief. But pain too. Morning’s trying to look excited for the rest of the crew, but I can see guilt riding her shoulders. Isadora and Ida are lost; both are crying. It’s not hard to see the difference between them, though. Ida huffs her tears like the world has ended and there’s nothing she can do. Isadora’s tears run down her face to splash onto clenched fists. She looks ready to destroy worlds.

  Morning’s the first to ask, “When do we leave?”

  Defoe looks up from his data pad. “Tomorrow night. Pods will release at nine p.m. It’s the best atmospheric window for your descent. Requin and I will use the time between now and then to form the teams of five we intend for you to work in while you’re on Eden. You’ll be equipped for the descent, supplied from our cargo satellites, and in constant communication with the Tower Space Station.”

  “But business tomorrow,” Requin chides. “Tonight, enjoy yourselves.”

  DAY 30, 12:37 P.M.

  Aboard the Tower Space Station

  It’s odd to pass through hallways without scoreboards. Strange not to be focusing on the next test. There’s a freedom in it that feels like summer come at last. After dinner, I went hunting for Bilal. He wasn’t in his room, though, and he wasn’t anywhere else I had access to on the Tower Space Station. I crawled into bed knowing I’d have only tomorrow to say goodbye to him. Eden looked majestic out the porthole, but in the dark moments before sleep, it was a poor trade for my friend.

  Vandemeer doesn’t wake me up. No alarms go off. No lights click on reminding me it’s morning. I sleep two hundred days, two hundred nights. I sleep to take back all that I lost aboard Genesis 11, and all I still have to lose. I sleep, and dream of victory, of falling like iron rain to a planet of fog-thick valleys. In each dream I’m given gifts no one can take from me.

  When I wake up, it’s to Vandemeer rummaging in a corner. Seeing me, he apologizes, but when he tells me it’s almost an hour past noon, I flip the apology right back.

  “It’s all right, Emmett. You slept about as long as I expected you to sleep. It happens in situations like this. There was a part of your mind that never slept on Genesis 11. An instinct that couldn’t stop thinking and planning. That’s gone now, so you slept fully. Don’t apologize for that.”

  “I have to say goodbye to Bilal.”

  Vandemeer nods. “Of course. He’s not in his room, but he has to be somewhere on the station. We’ll find him after you eat breakfast. Or brunch…lunch? I don’t know.”

  He’s got something behind his back. I nod at it. “What’s that?”

  Vandemeer grins. “I was going to save it for later, but since you’ve spotted it…”

  He holds it out. A present. Wrapped in old star charts, and he even managed to find a bow somewhere. I shoot Vandemeer a smile. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”

  “No, but I wanted to.”

  “What is it? Money?”

  He laughs. “I hoped to give you something a bit more valuable. Go ahead, open it.”

  The newspaper tears and the bow falls to the floor. I pop the tabs of a cardboard box. Inside is a black cord connected to thin, sticky padding. One end looks identical to the charger I use for my player. I look up at Vandemeer for an explanation.

  “You might figure it out eventually, but okay, I’ll save you the trouble.”

  “What’s it do?”

  “A nyxian charger. They don’t exactly have electrical sockets down on Eden.” He taps the sticky end. “Attach that to any nyxian source and plug the other end into your player. I’ve tested it a few times to make sure, but it’ll charge.”

  I coil the cords up and set it on the bed beside me. “It’s perfect, Vandemeer. I mean it. Perfect. Now I can share my tunes with the Adamites. They’ll be forever in your debt. I just wish you’d given me a warning so I could have made you something.”

  “That’s not necessary, Emmett.”

  I hold up a curious finger. “Yeah, if only there was something I could give you….”

  I duck a hand under my pillow and fish out the picture. It took some doctoring, and Vandemeer nearly caught me working on it a few times, but I finally finished it. I couldn’t part with the original that Kaya gave me, so I made him a copy. It’s the selfie she took with me all those months ago. My arm is wrapped around Kaya’s shoulder. Her smile is all the flowers in all the fields. The version I copied looks like an old-school holographic card. The shifting colors and space suits make us look like superheroes.

  “It’s not wrapped or anything,” I say, offering it to him. “But it took me some time to get the colors right. I hope you like it.”

  His hands tremble. “Yet again, you are full of surprises.”

  “This way we can both take her with us. Wherever we go. This way, we’ll never forget.”

  Vandemeer nods. He sets the picture gently aside and gives me a hug. I file it away under T for Temporary. I’ll see him again. I have to believe I’ll see him again. Already there have been hard goodbyes. Moms and Pops won’t hear from me for a year. Vandemeer can’t follow where I’m going. Neither can Bilal. It doesn’t bring me to tears, but it does feel like an amputation. Babel is taking parts of me that I never knew I needed. The person who lands on Eden will be less without them.

  Gifts exchanged, we head to lunch. Vandemeer carefully fills my plate up with foods that are less likely to be thrown up during the descent. The decision makes me curious.

  “We’ve been moving just as fast through space all this time, though, right?”

  He nods. “Yes, and Babel’s used nyxia to seal their launch pods too. If you throw up, it won’t be caused by the force of the descent. It will be caused by the emotional shock. You’ll be alone and on a foreign planet. That’s enough to make anyone a wreck. Trust me.”

  After all this time, I do trust him. We sit in easy silence together. I catch glimpses of the other victors every now and again—Jaime even comes up to congratulate me—but the rest of the afternoon is a long and stretching quiet. We all know this is a solemn day.

  For the first time, I let myself imagine Eden. It’s full of uncharted wild. Populated by a species about which we know next to nothing. We will be the first in years to roam its plains and valleys, to navigate its rivers and cities. And when I come home, everything will be different.

  It’s late afternoon and my search for Bilal is just as fruitless as the night before. He either can’t be found or doesn’t want to be. Vandemeer shadows me as we search. The only people we run into are techies and marines making final preparations for the launches. Frustrated, I return to my room. There, we find a letter from Bilal.

  Babel says I will be given another chance. I’m not sure what it will be, but perhaps I’ll see you on Eden after all. If I do not, then I will wait for you back home. I am thankful to have such a friend. My home is open to you.

  Bilal

  “I don’t think you’ll see him before launching,” Vandemeer says after reading it.

  “Do you have any extra paper?” I ask.

  Vandemeer fetches some, and I do my best to write something back. When I’m done, Vandemeer takes the letter and promises me it will reach Bilal no matter what. I want to search the ship again, but Defoe arrives. He sets a knapsack next to the door and hands me a glowing blue key. It dangles from a necklace like a dog tag.

  “Your activation key,” he explains. “The pods are individualized. You’ll need the key to enter the pod. Once it’s closed and prepped, you’ll use the key to launch. Understood?”

  I nod. “Got it.”

  “The pods won’t launch without the key. They won’t launch with multiple people inside of them. They won’t launch until the door’s properly closed. Remember that.” Defoe gestures to the bedside table. “Go ahead and remove all of your nyxia.”

  It takes a second to slide off all the rings. He sweeps them into a zip bag, only to replace them with a pair of boxing claws. The nyxian knuckles look sharp and shiny, brand-new. I
can’t help but pull them over my hands and flex my fingers inside the fine leather.

  “Newly made,” Defoe says. “Unlike the pair you’ve used, these are not blunted. They’re sharp enough to slice through stone. Our gift to you.”

  He fishes through the knapsack. “And one other gift.”

  My name is patched onto the front of a fighter jacket. It looks like the kind of thing pilots wore way back when. On one arm, the Tower of Babel is patched above an American flag. Vandemeer helps me slide into it. A perfect fit. Defoe nods his approval.

  He takes two steps forward and extends a hand. It takes me a long second, but I reach out and shake it. His grip is iron. “Congratulations, Emmett. Your contract has been fulfilled, and Babel Communications will begin providing your family with the money you’ve earned. Should you continue to fulfill that contract through your work on Eden, you will gain even more benefits based upon the agreement you signed with us. Your team will have quotas that can earn you these extra benefits. Continue to work as you have, and you will live out the rest of your life as a very, very rich man.

  “You are departing from Station Twelve. Please arrive at your pod fifteen minutes before departure. You may bring the knapsack, the jacket, and any approved personal items you have. Consider this your official welcome into the ranks of Babel Communications.” He steps back and nods to Vandemeer. “Doctor, I entrust him into your care. Good luck, gentlemen.”

  The minutes tick away like time bombs after that. Vandemeer doesn’t say much and neither do I. When it’s time, I sling the knapsack over one shoulder and walk down with him. The station looks alien somehow, like a stranger. Blue lights shine here and there, casting their glow over dark panels and sleek interfaces.

  We’re permitted into a section of the station I haven’t seen before. An elevator takes us down four flights, dropping us off in a white-lit hall. The number twelve glows blue against a distant door. One of the Babel techies gives me a good prep about breathing and buttons, but the launch is mostly automatic. My only role, he laughs, is to not die from a heart attack on the way down. I don’t laugh at the joke because I’m barely breathing as it is.