The young woman beamed. “His name is Charles Keane, and I hope that you’ll help me give him a warm welcome.”
“Lucky us,” Sam whispered, but the woman had already started to clap, and the crowd halfheartedly did the same as Keane—a man in a sleek OmniCore uniform—came in the room and walked to the front. Matthew put his hands together a few times until he realized the absurdity of what he was doing: clapping for the man who had most likely engineered his death. He let his hands drop to his sides and set his jaw.
“Thank you,” Keane said when he reached the lectern. He was tall and thin, with dark hair, smooth features, and sleek, black-rimmed glasses. “Thank you for that warm welcome. And thank you to all of you for being part of this historic moment. The Exo Project is an amazing feat of innovation—it is the peak of human innovation, in fact, the most ambitious thing we have ever attempted as a species.”
Keane stepped out from behind the lectern and began to wander the stage, gesturing with his hands.
“Just think of it! One thousand simultaneous expeditions across the galaxy, one thousand ships and crews traveling faster than the speed of light. Just imagine all the work, all the resources and meetings and late nights that have gone into every aspect of the mission: identifying potential Earthlike planets to explore, mapping a course through the stars to each one, and then of course engineering the technology that would get us there. But all this innovation, this triumph of science and technology and human cooperation on a massive scale, it would all be for nothing without one thing.”
Keane paused, squared his feet and shoulders to the crowd, then laced his hands together and pointed with both forefingers.
“You,” he said. “Gentlemen, ladies, you may not believe me, but I’m telling you the truth: At this moment, you are the most important part of the Exo Project. Without you, all this science, all this technology, all this innovation—it would all be useless.”
At Matthew’s side, he could sense Sam moving restlessly in his chair. Now, as soon as Keane paused, Sam burst to his feet.
“Yes?” Keane said, backing up slightly on the stage, balancing on his heels.
“If we’re so valuable,” Sam said, “then why haven’t you come up with a way to get us back to Earth? You expect us all to die, don’t you?”
Matthew gritted his teeth as Sam shouted at Keane.
Keane didn’t respond with anger, though. His face became calm, almost expressionless as he prepared to answer Sam’s question.
“Ah,” he said. “I understand your concern. And I’m glad you asked the question. Really, I am. I’m glad because it gives me the opportunity to …” He churned a hand in the air as he searched for his next words. “To clear up some confusion, shall we say? To dispel some common misconceptions. Does that sound all right?”
Sam was silent. He sank slowly back into his chair. Keane nodded and lifted his head to the entire crowd.
“First of all, I don’t want to lie to anyone here. It’s true that there is no means of return to Earth once you’re at your destination. This should have been perfectly clear to everyone who volunteered for the Exo Project.”
Keane glanced briefly back at Sam with a reproach in his eyes.
“As to us expecting you to die,” Keane continued. “This is simply not true. We’d prefer it if no one had to die as part of the Exo Project. But unfortunately there’s simply no way around it. Deep space exploration is dangerous—even at light speed it takes decades to travel across the galaxy, and it’s very difficult to turn around and come back to Earth over such a long distance. You—all of you gathered here today—were aware of these dangers, and yet you signed up anyway. Why?”
Keane paused for a moment, let the question hang in the air.
“Because you knew that the future of the human race was the most important thing. You knew that the lives of billions of people on planet Earth outweighed your own life.”
Something strange came into Keane’s voice then, a kind of euphoric tone, as if he were being carried away by his own speech. His eyes grew wide, and words came from his mouth quicker, in a passionate torrent.
“Earlier I spoke about the Exo Project as a feat of human innovation. But in light of this … this question”—here he waved dismissively at Sam, batting his concerns away like gnats—“I want to introduce another word to you. That word is greatness. The Exo Project is not just the height of human innovation—it’s the height of human greatness. I truly believe that it will be the greatest thing we have ever accomplished as a species. And ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you that no work of human greatness has ever come without equally great human sacrifice.”
At that, Matthew felt a chill. He knew that his participation in the Exo Project was a sacrifice, of course, but there was something in the way Keane said it that made the word sound different—sound evil.
“In Ancient Egypt, many thousands of slaves died in the desert constructing the Pyramids of Giza. The Romans built an empire that spanned the known world by forcing the people they conquered to serve them—and feeding those who refused to the lions. Millenia later, thousands more workers died of disease, of injury, and of exhaustion as they built railroads that spanned the continents, as they worked in factories and mines that created wealth for great men of history and built new, modern empires. And then, of course, hundreds of millions died in the wars of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries—but without these wars we wouldn’t have made the innovations in aviation and rocket propulsion that let us take our first steps into space, or the advances in chemical technology, biological technology, and nanotechnology that today are used to create synthetic foods that feed the world and to cure illnesses that were once thought incurable.”
Keane’s head lifted to scan the audience, but Matthew could see that Keane wasn’t looking at them—he was looking through them to some act of greatness that he wanted to achieve, that he wanted to be remembered for.
“I truly believe that the Exo Project will be humanity’s greatest accomplishment yet—greater than the pyramids, greater than the Industrial Revolution, greater than all the scientific discoveries and technological advances of human history from the dawn of time until this present moment.” Keane pointed a finger emphatically toward the ground he stood on. “And you, ladies and gentlemen—you are the sacrifice necessary to make that accomplishment a reality. Yes, most of you will die—but it will be a quick death. At worst, you’ll spend decades sleeping peacefully in cryostasis, then expire quickly, after taking the mission-termination pills. Compared to the sacrifice, the suffering, of the Egyptian slaves who died so their masters could achieve the greatness of the pyramids, your sacrifice, your suffering, will be small. But it will be remembered all the same.”
Keane’s eyes were frenzied. They burned with an ambition, a fire, that made Matthew want to lean back in his chair.
“Centuries from now,” Keane said, “when future generations are living on the planet that one of you has found for us, they’ll remember you and your sacrifice. They’ll remember all of us. So go. Get out there. Find us a new home. Good luck, and Godspeed.”
There was a sound of thunderous clapping from the back of the room. Matthew turned in his chair. At the back of the room stood dozens of OmniCore officers in matching uniforms. They were applauding Keane’s speech loudly, faces shining with pride and inspiration.
But none of the Exo Project participants clapped, or smiled, or looked inspired. They simply gazed forward, their faces blank and emotionless.
Keane left the lectern and filed out of the room with the other OmniCore officers.
The woman who’d introduced Keane took the microphone once more.
“Now the freezing process will begin,” she said. “You may wait here until your name is called.”
A few minutes later a man in a lab coat came into the room and read names off a handheld computer pad. Matthew was part of the first group.
He stood and followed the man with the others whose nam
es had been chosen, feeling more than ever like a doomed person, a criminal being led to the gallows.
8
The man with the lab coat led them to a bright, sterile hallway and instructed them to each find a room. Matthew picked a door and went inside. An empty cryochamber sat waiting.
A white-coated cryotechnician walked in and instructed him to sit on the examining table. Matthew hoisted himself up. The technician checked his vitals.
“Everything seems normal,” the tech said. “Though you’re a little dehydrated.”
Matthew cleared his throat. “I had a few drinks last night.”
The tech chuckled. “Can’t blame you there.”
He prepared a syringe of clear red liquid.
“What’s that?” Matthew asked.
“It prepares you for the freezing process. Changes the molecular makeup of your cells. Freezing live tissue isn’t easy, you know. At low enough temperatures, the cells have the tendency to break down, sustain damage.” He tapped the syringe with his forefinger. “This protects you. Helps your cells make it through the freezing process intact.”
Without rolling up Matthew’s sleeve, the technician injected the liquid into Matthew’s arm. Afterward, Matthew studied the place where the liquid had entered his body, flexed and unflexed his hand.
“I don’t feel any different.”
“You’re not supposed to. That’s the point: your body functions exactly the same—only now we can freeze you.”
He guided Matthew away from the examining table and led him to the cryochamber. Matthew lay down inside, and the technician began attaching biostat lines to his chest and arms.
“Okay. Now. What’s going to happen is, I’m going to sedate you. Then I’m going to fill the pod with cryoliquid. It’s a high-nutrient mix, that’s what’ll preserve you while you’re in stasis. The suit will conduct the liquid directly to your skin and help you absorb nutrients.”
“Will I feel anything?”
The tech’s chin flattened and he shook his head. “Nah. Not after I sedate you. You won’t dream, either. Next thing you know, you’ll be up and orbiting at your destination. Got it?”
Matthew nodded. The technician disappeared for a moment, and Matthew squinted at the bright lights pointing down at him. When the technician returned, he was holding another syringe, and Matthew’s heart took a leap in his chest.
Time was running out, Matthew’s future disappearing into the point of that needle like water down a drain, light into a black hole. As soon as the syringe pierced his skin, it would be over. There’d be no turning back. He’d never see his mother or his sister, never hang out with Silas or Adam, never set foot on Earth again.
He needed more time.
“Wait!” he said.
“Sorry,” the technician said, already squeezing the plunger to send the sedative surging into Matthew’s arm.
Matthew’s heart slowed, and the bright lights in the room began to fade. His eyes slid closed.
He fell into a blackness so deep it was as though he was swimming through oil. Then, slowly, he became aware of sensations—sights, sounds, smells, feelings. He sensed them through a long distance, as if he had a second body, a second skin, a second set of eyes and ears lying in the cryochamber.
Strange. Hadn’t the technician just told him he shouldn’t be able to feel anything?
Matthew heard a hissing sound as the chamber closed. Liquid streamed into the pod and began to lap at his fingers, his thighs, the sides of his head. Filling the pod, it streamed over Matthew’s shut eyelids and pooled coolly in his nostrils.
Matthew heard a beeping sound and the liquid started growing colder around him, first gradually, then quickly. The cold pricked at his skin. Then it stabbed. He felt like screaming, like jerking his limbs and clawing his way out of the cryochamber, but his body wouldn’t listen to him. The pain grew worse and worse—but at the moment when it became unbearable, it began to subside. The pain receded like a flashlight becoming dim in a vast dark tunnel, then shrunk to nothing.
He slept.
9
sophie
Sophie lay in her bedroom, gazing at the ceiling and thinking about Matthew. What was he doing at that moment? Was he okay? Was he in cryostasis already?
Sophie had been at the cryostation with Matthew when their mother had gone into the freeze, so she knew what the process looked like—knew the sight of the blue liquid filling the chamber with their mother’s unconscious body inside, knew the sound of the heart rate monitor slowing as she entered a state of suspended animation. Matthew had put an arm around her as they watched, and she’d turned to cry into her brother’s shirt.
“We’ll get her out,” Matthew had said then. “We’ll find a way. I promise.”
Now he was the one going into the freeze. Her big brother, who’d always taken care of her. He’d taken care of her when their father died and their mother was too grief-stricken to get out of bed for weeks, he’d taken care of her after their mother was diagnosed with cancer, and he’d taken care of her in the year since she’d gone into the freeze, been as good a parent to Sophie as the ones she’d had before they’d been taken away.
She knew Matthew thought he was taking care of her now, too, that his joining the Exo Project was the best thing for her—but Sophie couldn’t help being angry. Matthew’s leaving hurt more than their father’s death had, more than their mother’s cancer. It hurt more because he’d chosen it. Her parents had been taken away. But Matthew had decided to abandon her.
Still, when she’d woken early that morning to bake Matthew a birthday cake, she promised herself she wouldn’t cry when her brother left, that she’d be strong for him. Of course she cried anyway, like a stupid baby. It was embarrassing. She’d managed to pull herself together at the last minute, to keep herself calm as they said their final good-byes. But then as soon as Matthew closed the door behind him, she’d broken down again, run to her room, and sobbed facedown on the bed until her pillow was wet with tears.
She lay that way for an hour until she’d cried every last tear and felt completely empty inside. Then she rolled onto her back and looked up at the ceiling.
“I have to stop this,” she said aloud. She had to pull herself together. Matthew’d said she needed to be strong for their mother, and he was right. Matthew was gone—he was never coming back. The only thing left to do was get her mother out of the freeze, get her cured—then live. Live a life that made Matthew’s sacrifice worthwhile.
At that moment, the doorbell rang out through the apartment. Sophie sat up.
It was probably Adam or Silas, coming to check on her.
Sophie got up and checked her face in the mirror. Her eyes were still a little puffy, but she didn’t think Adam or Silas would notice. Boys never paid any attention to those things.
She walked to the door, opened it—then gave a start when it wasn’t the familiar face of one of Matthew’s friends that she saw, but an older man, one she didn’t recognize. He wore a radiation suit, the helmet tucked under his arm as he stood in the hallway.
“Who are you?” Sophie asked. Her hand crept up to rest on her heart, which was beating fast in her chest.
“I’m with the Exo Project, miss. May I come in?”
Sophie nodded, stood aside to let him pass.
“Are you Sophie Tilson?” he asked.
“Yes, that’s me.”
“You have a brother named Matthew?”
Her heart fluttered. “Yes. What’s happened? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. The freezing process went fine. Matthew’s in good health, and he’s being launched with the others to the departure site.”
“So then why are you here?”
“Well, Matthew listed you as the person who should get his money. The reward money. Most of the Exo Project participants signed theirs over to someone staying behind.”
Sophie breathed relief. “Yeah, that’s right. Well, not exactly—the money’s really for our mom, but she
can’t use it right now. She’s in the freeze, see. That’s why I’m getting it. She’s sick, and I need it to get her—”
“Yes,” the man said. “That’s all fine. I’m just going to need to scan your ident to make everything official.”
“Sure.” Sophie peeled back her sleeve and offered the man her forearm.
What happened next went by in a rush, before she could react or even realize what was happening.
The man’s hand clamped down on her arm in a vise grip that felt like it might crack her bones. Sophie gasped with the pain but didn’t have time to cry out. The man yanked her closer and whirled her around—a violent dance that was almost graceful in its smoothness. His arm stole around her waist as he grasped her tightly to his body. Sophie could feel the man’s breath flutter in her ear.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice gravelly.
He plunged a syringe into the side of her neck. Sophie let out a soft squeak of protest when the needle pierced her skin, then slumped, her eyes slipping closed as blackness surrounded her.
PART 2
GLE’AH
10
kiva
Kiva went out from the village to watch the Great Mother set in a blaze of red on the horizon, then wait for the Three Sisters to blink on in the night sky. This was her tradition, her private ritual. She allowed no one to see her, no one to follow her as she slipped away from her father’s hut on the edge of the village. As she came over the rise, a lip of rock separating the village from the surrounding plain, she paused to watch the wind ripple over the grass, a sudden tessellation of lines dancing in shifting patterns across the prairie before disappearing once more as the air went still. She walked down into the low, flat expanse, her fingers trailing in the purple and brown grasses, clutching at the tips. She lay down in her favorite spot, against the cleft swell of a small hillock, and waited.
The Exo Project Page 3