by Kurt Johnson
“RAYSTAR!” Entarch called after me. I skidded to a halt at her office door. “Do not forget. You have a red notification. We will continue our conversation after school.”
Godwill beamed at me.
I ran.
Upon my approach, Mieant sat upright from his slouch. Whatever he was about to say froze on his lips when he saw me race by, holding the back of my head. Nonch flowed from his curled position and extended his arms. I dodged around him. I needed to get away. No one could help me! Jenna shrank from me, and her seat-chair morphed around her new pose.
The Principal’s office was on the top floor of the Blue River Educational Facility. I sprinted down to my locker, gravity carrying me faster downstairs than my coordination could keep up with. I stumbled forward, but I didn’t care. I had to get the nova out of here. Huffing, I threw my locker open and shoved everything into my backpack, which already sagged under the weight of last year’s books and papers.
I wasn’t actually sure why I was taking any of this stuff, but I couldn’t think clearly. Maybe not at all.
The synth I’d stolen from the library was cold against my palm. I lifted it close to my face and used the locker door to shield what I was doing from cameras or any students. “Unit,” I spoke softly, out of breath. “Erase primary identity and register yourself to me, Raystar Ceridian.”
“I acknowledge that you are Raystar Ceridian. I am Synth Library Unit Five-Oh-Six. What is the purpose of your request?”
“I’ve lost my synth. And need a replacement for the day. You can resume your regular identity tomorrow. I need class assignments and curricula sent to my GalNet address for access at home as well.”
“OK Raystar, this is within my parameters. I have made the changes.” Yes! I squeezed the synth. A red notification blinked to life on my virtual screen, and the synth buzzed to life. “You have a red notification, Raystar. Principal Entarch is requesting your presence at her office after class.”
Perfect!
“Thank you, synth. I’m aware of that notification.”
“I am pleased to help.” Wow, AI was never like this. He would probably tell me he wasn’t a personal organizer and that I should use my brain to remember my appointments. I put my hand on my chest, where he used to hang above my heart. I missed him. Terribly.
“I have an additional request. My family has been having issues with drought and a subsequent reduction in ’natch production. I would like you to research solutions, either technical or biologic, that could improve yields, assuming that the dry situation will be here to stay.”
“That is within my parameters as a Library Unit,” it said, sounding pleased to have a task so well suited to its design. “I have multiple levels of research access and clearance and will send my results to your GalNet address within the week.”
I had no idea what its reference to “clearance” was about. I shrugged. I wanted the synth to be active. Now that I knew how much spying the school administrators could actually do, my little research project might convince them that all was well for the time I needed to get home.
It was, after all, true that our fields were suffering from drought. School administrators would see the diligent Human researching how to help her mom and dad feed the family. I hoped.
“Thank you,” I said, and I shoved it back in my pocket. My next class was Advanced Math. My stomach was knotted with hunger and the idea of going to the principal’s office again after school. Godwill terrified me. I needed to go home. To be with my family and talk to them about this.
“RAYSTAR!”
I spun and slammed myself against my locker; my heart had sprung loose and was pounding around in my chest. A group of kids traipsed by, their clothes mottled with food stains.
Wide-eyed and panting, I shoved my back against the locker. One of the kids, a Glean, held a fist out to me. I stared at it, not understanding. He smiled at me.
Oh! I fist-bumped him. He nodded, lost in a reverie of lunchageddon.
“Totally nova! How you stood up to those Lethians. And the food fight was completely STARRRED!” another one said, making arcs in the air like explosions.
“Heh! I got your dessert!” a girl chimed to the second kid. She winked at me. “I bet him my dessert you were going to kick butt!”
“Yeah, uh,” I gulped. “Thanks!”
They turned and continued down the hall. I turned and headed toward the VCP.
Wait.
“Hey!” I spun and shouted after them. “Where are you going?”
“Lower level. Athletics,” the Glean I’d fist-bumped replied. Perfect.
“I accidentally took a synth from the library but have to get to my math class,” I gestured with my thumb toward the level above us. “It’s on your way. Could you, uh, drop this off for me?” I pulled out the synth and bounced it in my hand.
“Sure! S’long as we get another food fight!” That got a laugh from the kids. I walked toward them.
“Thanks! Uh, hey, can you just, you know, set it on one of the workstations? Principal Entarch is pretty upset with me. I don’t want her to add ‘stealing from the library’ to the list. It will be hard to get you that food fight from permanent detention.” I handed him the synth and raised my eyebrows.
“Nova!” he said, pocketing the little device. The kids turned the corner and their voices faded. I let out a breath. The school administrators in the control center would “see” me walking to the library. And then when I didn’t show up for detention, they’d “find” me studiously researching away.
I rummaged through my backpack for my helmet and put it on. It was all I had to hide my purple hair from the cameras. Turning in the other direction, I sprinted toward the VCP, my dart, and open air.
I’d be long gone before they found me missing.
23
My shoes thunked on the metal deck much too loudly as I half-ran, half-jogged to my dart at the far end of the deserted VCP. The wind that raced across the landing pad carried the smell of rain and ’natch, and the promise of escaping the claustrophobia of school. This place had been my freedom. Now it was just walls and threats. Hands shaking, I unlocked my air scooter and stowed my backpack. The dart’s nose faced home.
I was about to straddle it when I heard a noise. I crouched and spun. It sounded like thudding feet.
The VCP was empty.
Cool fall air washed across my exposed skin. Paper scraps blew erratically across the deck. The unmistakable sound of someone in heavy boots thudded toward me from across the VCP.
My gaze fixated on the sound coming from the center of the VCP platform, I activated the dart and grabbed the handlebars. Antigrav thrusters came awake with a whine, and I shoved my hip against the mid-point of the air bike. I grunted, pivoting the dart to face the center of the VCP platform.
The thudding drew closer. Those were boots. Lighter than Dad’s, but big nonetheless.
Panicked, I threw a leg over my seat and grabbed the dart with my thighs. Don’t panic. AI would have said that to me.
Acceleration pushed me down on the seat as I launched backward and up. My imagination was thrashing wildly. I expected a taloned grip on my shoulder digging through my clothes and hooking me off the dart. I imagined the dart tilting as I fell, and then jetting skyward, abandoning me as I smashed to the VCP’s hard surface.
Instead, I rose through the air with bone-crushing speed.
Only when I was a hundred meters above the VCP did a figure materialize, not three meters from where I’d taken off!
Jurisdictor Godwill. He turned his eyes up to me, black orbs in a grey skull. No smile, no sneer. Expressionless, he just watched me. He held a pistol in one hand.
I spun the dart toward home and opened the throttle. Shields flashed around me as the speed increased. Stay cool, Raystar, I said to myself, looking back at Godwill’s shrinking figure.
Frosty. Gotta stay frosty. I didn’t even know what that meant. It was one of AI’s phrases. But I needed to keep my wits ab
out me or risk raving, screaming, unthinking panic. As I shot away from the VCP, I saw five oval cruisers parked on the playground. They were motionless. Godwill wanted to catch me alone or he would have alerted them. Somehow, he suspected I wouldn’t show up for detention and had seen through my misdirection.
What if…I’d been caught?
My knuckles were white from my fear grip on the dart’s controls. I wiped sweat from my palms on my jacket and pushed the dart to unstable speeds. My heart was going to launch itself thought my chest. Frosty. Gotta stay frosty.
Dark green ’natch blurred beneath me as my speed outran my panic. Not meant for performance, the dart tilted dizzyingly each time I craned my neck up to the clouds or behind me to see if I was being followed. No one behind me. No friends. No enemies.
The giant flock of flips from yesterday was gone. With only a few days to go before the Storm Wall, they wouldn’t be caught in the open. I didn’t know where they had gone, but guessed they took cover in the tangle of pipes that was the Blue River’s industrial sector.
For now, it was me with me. I was alone.
On cue, thunder vibrated the air—a low, rolling sound that stretched from horizon to horizon. Ahead, the Storm Wall rose, startling in its sheer height and breadth.
This close to the start of the Storm Wall's cycle, opaque dark clouds churned and boiled, backlit with random flashes of rainbow lightning as the Wall grew wider and taller. Its vertical shape was seemingly held upright by the enormous Mesas. Ionized clouds spread out on either side, rising higher above the mountains than at the horizon. The energy sent my mind buzzing with excitement. This Storm Wall cycle felt different. Purposeful. Connected. Even so, I shuddered at the thought of getting a headache while screaming through Nem’s atmosphere.
Leaning low, I accelerated, intent on the shimmering, defensive dome emerging on the horizon.
Home!
I’d never seen our compound with its defenses active. The “farm” illusion I’d lived in for the past twelve years was a reality of crackling, angry force fences and buildings bristling with cannons. Their barrels glowed orange and left trails of heat as they scanned the air and land. They were novas against the almost black Storm Wall. Atop the tool shed sat the mystery of whatever was in the top story of our hangar. A giant, dual-barreled turret over six meters long glowed with twin orange suns. Its massive form was meant for much, much more than police cruisers. Or leggers. It was a flipping atmosphere cannon. As in, capable of blasting through the atmosphere to destroy orbiting, shielded spacecraft. Unless Mom and Dad were planning on cooking all the ’natch on our farm at once, I was pretty sure our farm didn’t need planetary defense armaments.
My thoughts tripped over themselves to pick up answers as I stared at the immense cannon. Only three days ago, Dad had been trying to tell me something. The night of the “meteors”…or, as I knew now, my first view of a dogfight.
But how much earlier had that help been sent? A month? A year? And how long did it take to fuel, stock, and staff twelve thousand ships and their crews? Under no circumstances did sending two battle groups seem like a last-minute, leave-for-the-weekend thing. How long ago had this swirl of events been set into motion? I remembered the article about the discovery of the Human base on Elios fourteen years ago and dug my nails into my palms, frustrated at how quickly the list of what I didn’t know kept growing.
Then there was AI. He’d been given to me by my parents. By his own admission, he knew things about me that he’d promised my organic parents that he wouldn’t mention.
One of AI’s final thoughts had been to take shelter in the Human base in the Mesa Ruins. I glanced at the dark mountains and their crown of thunderheads. Lightning flickered silently in the purple-black clouds, sometimes reaching tentatively down to the jagged bones of the Human city to dance amongst its exposed metal. That’s where he said I’d be safe?
Riiiight.
Both my dart and I were recognized by the house’s artificial attendant. Mom was back! Her golden aircar was parked next to Cri’s dart; by the looks of it, Mom had only just returned.
I tingled as I pierced the farm’s geodesic dome-shield. I tipped my dart sideways, decelerating hard. The dart’s gravity dampeners screamed. Chunks squea’d loud enough to match my dart’s howl as I arched over him toward the parked vehicles. Despite the day’s events, I couldn’t keep the giant grin from my face as I slid into my landing.
The kitchen door opened, and Mom, Dad, and Cri piled out. Mom was in a suit. Dad’s grey overalls were smeared in brown and black oils, no doubt from the lev-sled. Cri was in her favorite white and blue pajamas. Her slippers were cartoon leggers, six fluffy legs splayed in multiple directions as she walked. I didn’t anchor the air scooter, so as I leaped off, and it drifted slowly in the opposite direction.
“MOM, DAD!” I yelled, dropping my backpack and throwing my helmet off as I ran.
“Ray!” Mom said, opening her arms to me. I collided into her, and she picked me and whirled me around into a giant hug. She smelled of sunflowers. I buried my face in her neck.
“What happened?” Mom squeezed me to her.
Dad put a heavy hand on my shoulder and looked at Cri. “Get Mom’s things out of the car and let’s get Raystar settled in the kitchen.” He turned to Mom. “We should not speak outdoors.” Mom blinked and nodded.
Cri followed us in the house, shouting in no particular direction, “Aidee! Bring Mom’s stuff from the car!” AD9 detached herself from the nook on Mom’s aircar.
Compartments slid open and Aidee reached in to pull Mom’s bags out. She hovered past us and vanished into the house to put Mom’s things away. Cri smirked at Dad’s frown and shrugged.
No place like home.
24
“Darien is a worm,” Cri said, interrupting my retelling of the food fight. Then she shaped her hands in the whisper position around her mouth and my ear and hissed, “He tried to kiss me last year. You should have broken that tray on his face…twice!”
“He kissed you?” Dad asked. Cri whirled toward him, eyes wide.
“We can hear you, Cri,” Mom said, hands on her hips. “Raystar, what happened? Did this Darien boy kiss you?”
“No! I wasn’t interested!” Cri protested to Dad.
“Mom…” I tried to get in.
“AND SO NOW HE’S KISSED RAYSTAR?” Dad thundered.
“Nobody kissed me!” I shouted.
“I’m Ascendant. They should try to kiss me. Not her,” Cri muttered.
“Nent! I leave for a day and this?” Mom pointed to Cri with one hand and to me with another.
“I…” Dad looked to Mom, eyebrows raised and all four hands palms up.
“Nobody kissed me!” I repeated.
“Well, I think you’d remember if they had,” Cri said, wisely. Bug-eyed, I gaped at her.
“YOU DON’T REMEMBER?” Mom asked, incredulous. “Raystar Ceridian,” she grabbed my ear and pulled me over to the kitchen table. I winced as my head tilted and followed my ear. “You are not old enough to do any of this,” she said through her teeth.
“Ow! Mom!”
“Do. You. Understand?”
Architect. What was wrong with these people?
“Godwill and Principal Entarch….”
“They ki–?” Dad began. He looked at Mom, who gave him the parent-to-parent “calm down, I got this” sign with her hands.
“Dad…,” I said.
Dad ground his teeth and stomped out of the kitchen into the courtyard. “Aidee! Unmount the atmosphere cannon. Affix it to the bed of the…” The door whooshed shut behind him.
Four hands wrapped around me. Mom pulled me close. I could feel her muscles beneath the scratchy fabric of her suit.
“My baby,” Mom breathed, holding me to her. “No one will touch you.”
“Eww?” Cri said, “Can’t believe you kissed Godwill. And he wants to, like, kill you. That’s galactic-level ick.”
What? I mouthed to my sister,
wondering if I’d flown home to a different family.
And then, loudly, I exclaimed, “Mom. Stop! Listen!” Mom paused for a millisecond and unwrapped me from her hug. Her scar was dark purple and her cheeks, wet with concern, were drawn tight from my outburst.
“No one kissed me! No one kissed anything! There was no kissing.” I waved my hands straight out, “None. Whatsoever!” I motioned sideways with the flats of my hands. Mom looked to Cri with the beginning of a “but” forming on her lips. “NONE,” I emphasized.
“Why didn’t you say so?” Cri said, exasperated.
I massaged my temples and then looked up to my mom and sister. Outside, metal screeched as the atmosphere cannon was removed from the roof of the toolshed. Mom frowned at me.
“Why are you home early then?”
“I’m in trouble,” I said, wondering where to begin. Cri moved to a chair. Mom was silent, inviting me to continue. “Godwill took a sample of my hair.”
Mom gasped.
The doors whooshed open and Dad strode in. He had found his calm in the courtyard. Through the doors, I caught a glimpse of the atmosphere cannon being mounted into the lev-sled bed.
What do you know? It fit. The lev-sled’s front and rear plasma cannons nestled perfectly under the giant twin barrels. I gulped as recognition settled over me. The lev-sled looked just like something I’d seen in action vids.
All these years, we’d been harvesting ’natch in a Glean assault tank.
25
Mom and Dad sat quietly around the kitchen table as I recounted my day. Cri sat on the table, her legs swinging idly, and the furry legger slippers swayed like ropy hair below her feet. Mom gasped upon learning that there was no record of Godwill in the library. She started furiously looking something up on her data pad.
“The Foundationalists would not move against us,” Dad said as he stood and commenced pacing.
Foundationalists. The organization that was wrecking my life. Hearing the word from Dad made it tangible, ominous…closer.