* * *
The car came to collect them and Stephanie climbed into the back, Spencer Evans right beside her. The cab closed around them like a bubble, micro-tech woven into the plasti-shield shimmering as it caught the light. They slid along the tracks, following a pre-programmed route to the shuttle tower.
Stephanie watched the world flit past and bit her lip.
Home. The center where she'd grown up anyway. It felt like a distant memory. Like trying to remember a dream that someone else had dreamed. Except for Caroline. She was the only memory that felt real.
"Was there any news about Caroline in the last message you got?" she asked.
"Nothing new. The ones who've experienced an episode were automatically returned to the center. We've been called back as a precaution."
"Is there anything they can do?"
"I don't know, Stephanie," he rubbed a hand over his face. "We'll find out more when we get there. Once test results are in."
"What kind of tests?" She sat up straight, turning to look at him properly. What if they found Maia?
"I don't know. Blood? Brain scans? Cognitive tasks? It's not my department."
She studied him. Was it possible he knew just as little as she did? She glanced at his hand, resting on top of his luggage on the seat between them. There was only one way to find out.
She inched her hand toward his.
He folded his arms and leaned back against the seat. "Do you think you've learned enough while we were here?"
"To pass as an Ecrunian? I don't know. Maybe. I think I can do the accent at least. And one or two of the local dialects." She paused, hesitant to talk about what had happened to Maia. It probably wasn't worth mentioning the cult background.
"What about cultural ideologies?"
She shrugged. "Did you know there's a local cult that has thirty-two percent of the planet's voting shares, even though they only make up like three percent of the population?"
"I think I read something about that."
"I'm pretty sure that girl yesterday was one of them. She was wearing this dress. It had a long skirt that went all the way down to her ankles and long sleeves. The fabric felt rough when I touched it and it was dyed blue - the same shade as that local flora they're trying to stamp out. You know, the spiky one with the little flowers that smell kind of like eggs and cinnamon?"
"And the dress makes her a member of this cult?"
"You have seen what people wear around here, right? It's freakin' hot. I can't imagine walking around in long sleeves if I had a choice." She glanced down at the singlet and shorts she was wearing.
There are worse things in life. Maia said.
"So why do they dress like that?"
"Something about being pure. No modern technology or medicine or anything. Natural births and no gene cleaning to remove defects," she shrugged. She couldn't show that she knew any more about them than Laurent or the others would have. "It seems a bit hypocritical really, considering they came here on a colony ship, just like everyone else... and the planet was partially terraformed before they even got here."
"Is there much tension between the cult and the rest of the population? What's the name of the cult again?"
"They call themselves the Naturalists. Because they're natural..." which was a pretty stupid name, really.
"Okay..."
"Mostly, they stick to themselves. They can't really take in new members because gene cleaning is so mainstream in the general population. Everybody thinks they're going to breed themselves out in the next couple of hundred years. Then it won't really matter. I mean, everyone thinks it's pretty F'd up but the freedom of choice policies are pretty clear on not interfering, and even if they weren't... With the Naturalists having so many voting shares, it would be hard to do anything. So, it's kind of like each to his own. They mostly just ignore each other and it seems to work out."
Her mind flashed back to Maia on the ground by the lake. Her skin crawled. Things didn't really work out at all.
Spencer Evans nodded. He cleared his throat, glanced at her from the corner of his eye, and then looked away.
Did he want to say something?
The silence stretched between them.
He crossed his arms and slouched down on the bench, leaning his back against the wall of the car as he turned to look outside. His body was angled away from her. Like he was actively trying to distance himself from her.
Stephanie frowned.
He doesn't trust you any more than you trust him. Maia said. And, why would he? Have you ever done anything to earn someone's trust? It took you all of ten minutes to betray me.
Stephanie ground her teeth. She wasn't going to get sucked into another argument, not with Spencer Evans sitting right next to her. She rubbed her temple, a tension headache forming at the corners of her eyes. She needed some time alone. Quiet.
"Did you get shuttle tickets already?" she asked.
"We were lucky. There's a shuttle leaving for the Hyades cluster this afternoon. We can transfer to Xinwang once we're there."
She nodded. There wasn't much else to say... except for all of the things she couldn't say. Secrets hung, heavy, in the air between them.
She turned to look out the window again.
The residential blocks were fading away, the little box houses growing further and further apart. Fields started to fill the spaces between them, acres of crops stretching into the distance, all greens and burnished golds until they met the forests. Everything in neat rows. Even the gum trees in the distance lined up so that Stephanie could see lines of shade bracketing the white trunks. The crops were more than enough to feed the population three times over. But half of it would be mulched to make topsoil for the expanding territories.
She sighed. Her chest felt tight, like there was a band wrapped around it, making it difficult to draw breath as they left civilization behind. This was supposed to be her home.
She grimaced, shifting in her chair, her thoughts making her physically uncomfortable. She was supposed to pretend it was her home, she corrected herself. Spend the rest of her life pretending she was from a place she'd only seen for six weeks. Not nearly enough time.
The landscape outside her window shifted to barren earth. Rocks. Mountains. The car sped up as they headed into the uninhabited zone, the likelihood of hitting pedestrians in the dry arid land at the center of the continent was minimal.
Stephanie wrapped her arms around herself, slumping deeper into the chair. The world outside the window was depressing. Or maybe she was just depressed.
Are you still there? she asked Maia, tentatively.
Maia sent a wave of hatred rushing over her, but didn't say anything. Thick nausea pooled in the pit of her stomach,
Stephanie sighed again.
She flicked the display on her wristband open and scrolled through her music selections until she found something to match her mood. She raised a hand to her ear, squeezing the small implanted tech to activate the ear buds.
She stared out the window, letting the music wash over her, the bleak scenery pass by, and wallowed in self-pity. It was hard to believe that less than a day ago she'd been getting ready for a party. Excited. But even then, Caroline was already sick. The news just hadn't reached them yet.
Chapter Eight
Stephanie gripped her hands tightly together, her least favorite part of traveling between worlds was about to begin. They’d gone through security at the base of the needle with no problems, even though space elevators usually had strict security. They weren’t trying to smuggle anything, unless she counted as smuggled goods.
She’d hardly spoken to Spencer Evans as they went through security or as they’d boarded the elevator that was going to take them up, stashing her small carry bag under her seat. She buckled her seatbelt, trying to calm her breathing as the rest of the passengers boarded.
She fiddled with the display in front of her, switching it to the introductory vid. A model of the space elevator appea
red. She connected the audio to her earbuds.
“Nicknamed the needle for its thin structure that seems to taper into a point at the end when viewed from the ground, the elevator extends to a height of just over thirty kilometers here on Ecrune, after which you can board a station to needle shuttle, or jumper, as we like to call them. The needle is perfectly safe and routine procedures are performed every day to ensure you have a safe and pleasant journey. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.”
Stephanie leaned back, tilting her head against the head rest, and squeezed her eyes shut.
A chime rang, announcing that they were about to begin their ascent and something low in Stephanie’s stomach lurched before the inertial dampeners kicked in.
She kept her eyes closed, breathing deeply and trying to ignore the rushing sound that came from outside.
Spencer Evans touched her lightly on the shoulder. “We’re here, Stephanie.”
She followed him on shaky legs.
Don’t think about how high you are. Don’t think about how high you are.
They filed into a long hallway and into another room with chairs that they had to strap into. She wondered what the point of it was. Like a seatbelt was going to do anything if the shuttle somehow fell out of the sky.
She was glad it didn’t have any windows at least.
The trip to the station was uneventful, in that they didn’t die.
Stephanie followed Spencer onto the station, letting him take the lead to their passenger ship.
She felt Maia stir, a combination of curiosity and something like awe as she stared out through Stephanie’s eyes.
She was on a space station. In space. The planet that she was born on, everyone she knew, was far behind her.
She looked around eagerly, noting the low ceiling and narrow halls. The small shops and signs pointing to living spaces.
What is it like to live with so much technology? She didn’t know what any of the things she saw even did.
Wait until we get to the Hyades Cluster. Icarus Station is insane. They built it as a trade point because there are so many planets in the area, it’s not just a transit stop on the edge of a planet, it’s almost like a world in itself.
Maia ignored her.
You’ll like it there.
I liked being alive.
Stephanie sighed. Not this again. If you liked your life so much, why were you trying to run away?
I wasn’t-
I’ve been in your memories, Maia. You weren’t happy.
Because you know so much about happiness.
Stephanie stared at Spencer’s back. Happiness wasn’t one of their stops on the way back home.
* * *
The center where Stephanie had grown up was underground, in the middle of the desert.
The air burned her lungs as they drove there in an open-air vehicle. She wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, leaving a tan streak of dust behind.
She flipped the vanity mirror closed and glared at Spencer Evans.
"Why couldn't we have rented a car with air-con?"
"They have climate control at the center," he said. Like that explained everything.
She raised an eyebrow, waiting.
"You want to spend your whole life in an air-conditioned bubble? Never really feeling the world around you? Just polished concrete and glass and treated air the whole time?"
She shrugged. "I bought a rug for my room."
Not that she was sure they were going to let her keep it. It was a fake skin, soft with purple zebra stripes. It was kind of naff but she’d bought it because she knew Caroline would have loved it.
Spencer glanced at her for a second before shifting his attention back to the road. He cleared his throat.
"You know, it's been good. Being outside for a change."
"Thinking about quitting?"
She didn't even know if he was allowed to quit, being a top-secret government contractor and all. Stephanie searched her memory, looking for all of the doctors and monitors who'd come and gone... But she couldn't think of anyone. There hadn’t been a single new doctor her whole life. The only time she could think of a doctor leaving was when Dr. Harrison had had a heart attack.
Was Spencer Evans just as much a prisoner of circumstances as she was?
"What if I did?" he asked.
"Huh?"
"What if I quit?"
"You want to leave me?"
Another sideways glance. "What if we left together?"
Her breath caught in her throat.
It's a trick, Maia screamed at the back of her mind. You can't trust him.
But what if I could? What if we could leave right now? What if I never had to go back?
It's a trap.
My whole life is a trap.
Maia should have understood what that was like, better than anyone else.
"Ran away and pretended to be uncle and niece for the rest of our lives? Sure, you're up for the responsibility?" Stephanie laughed.
"The corporation chose our cover. We could be whatever we wanted."
You know what he wants, right? Maia whispered.
Shut up.
"What would we want?" She tried to keep her voice neutral.
He shrugged, keeping his eyes on the road.
Her hands itched.
She wanted to reach out and grab his face between her hands. It would be so much easier to rifle through his memories than the half dance of implications the conversation had slipped into.
But she was scared.
What if Maia was right? What if he wanted something from her? What if she touched him and all she saw was what he wanted to do with her?
She imagined him touching her the way Laurent had. Her stomach lurched, feeling like it had flipped over inside her.
"What about Caroline?" she whispered.
"I couldn't."
Stephanie stared at him.
He cleared his throat. "We're nearly there anyway."
She still wasn’t sure if he’d meant it or if it had been theoretical, a spur of the moment ‘what if’ as they sped toward home.
She leaned back against the headrest, turning her head to stare out at the landscape as they sped past. Burned red earth, so dry that cracks had formed in the thin crust of soil between the rocks. A few scraggly plants here and there. A whole lot of nothing...
Nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, even if she’d trusted the man next to her enough to try.
Chapter Nine
The halls seemed darker than she remembered them.
Colder.
She followed Spencer Evans to the elevator, waiting awkwardly while the security systems scanned them. The security guard at the front door was staring at her, eyes running up and down her body, like he was wondering why a teenage girl would be entering a top-secret research facility.
She rolled her eyes.
Save me from security guards who don't know what they’re guarding.
The elevator took them deep underground. The air-con felt amazing after the torturous drive, but there was a stale, almost metallic scent in the air that she’d never noticed before.
Prison. That's what it smells like. Maia said.
How do you know what prison smells like?
It smells like this. Like stale air and crushed dreams.
She was getting more and more dramatic, every time Stephanie heard her voice. But it still sent a chill down her spine and made the hairs on her arms stand on end.
The elevator stopped. The doors peeled open, exposing a long corridor. Bright lights glowed against the white tiles. They walked in single file.
A woman sat behind a desk at the end of the hall.
She was beautiful. Smooth, dark skin. Perfectly straight nose. A face that was so strikingly symmetrical it was difficult to look at.
And her eyes....
Her eyes were a strangely translucent blue gray, startling against her dark skin. They were wide and vacant. Like she wasn't q
uite there.
"Hello. Dr. Evans. Stephanie." She nodded.
"Hello, Jessica. What's on the schedule for today?" Spencer asked
"Debriefing. Dr. Evans to the office. Stephanie to medical."
"Thank you, Jessica."
"What about Caroline?" Stephanie asked. The words tumbled out before she could stop them.
"Caroline is in quarantine. Tests are being run."
"Can I see her?"
"Your request has been noted." Jessica blinked, the computer interface in the back of her head distracting her momentarily.
"Thank you."
Dr. Evans grabbed Stephanie’s arm, his gloves sticky against her skin. It hurt where his fingers dug into her flesh. Did he know he was holding her so tightly?
She glanced up, noticing his jaw was clenched.
He forced a smile at Jessica. "Have a nice day, Jessica."
"You too, Dr. Evans."
He scanned his wrist at the door beside Jessica’s desk. The door slid open and he dragged Stephanie through. The door closed behind them and he shoved Stephanie against the wall.
Rogue Memory Page 4