The Tundra Trials

by Monica Tesler

  Waters steps up to the compartment and activates a minicrane mechanism that sits on top. Like the impossible prize grabber at the fair we go to each summer, the crane swings out into the compartment and opens its tiny claw. Controlling the claw with a touch screen, Waters slowly lowers the metal fingers until it clamps down on the sphere. With a flick of a finger, Waters raises the crane, and the little sphere, out of the box and into his waiting hand.

  He laughs. “We go to such great lengths to keep this orb safe and then I just coil it in my palm. Good thing Gedney isn’t here. He’d be mortified.”

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “We’re getting there,” he says. “But a few words first. Typically I’m the last person to lecture about confidentiality, but I have to change things up today. What I’m about to share with you has to stay between us. And I mean between the three of us. I suppose you can talk to Gedney, too. He’s bound to discover what I’ve done, not that he’ll be too happy about it. So give it a day or two, and then you can assume that Gedney knows. But that’s it. The four of us have to keep this in the deepest of vaults.”

  A chill runs across my skin. What is this all about?

  He keeps saying us and we, but he’s really instructing me not to talk. Mira’s not going to tell anybody, and he’s the one issuing the gag order. So, yeah, he can dress this up all nice like we have some three-way secret, or maybe four-way if you count Gedney, but the reality is he’s making sure Jasper Adams keeps quiet about whatever’s in his hand.

  What could be so secret that he hasn’t told Gedney? He even implied that Gedney would disapprove. This doesn’t feel right. I glance back at the door, thinking that maybe I should make a run for it.

  But then what? I’m in Waters’s labs in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. It’s not like I could execute an escape plan. Plus, this is Waters. If there’s one adult in all the world who I trust, it’s him. He wouldn’t put us in danger.

  Would he?

  I glance from Waters to the orb to the glove with all the sensors on his desk. “Does this have to do with the gloves?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” He pulls a pair of tweezers from his front pocket. Then he presses his finger into the top of the orb, and it pops open. With a steady hand, he inserts the tweezers into the sphere and extracts a shiny green square no bigger than the head of a nail.

  “What is that?” I ask.

  Waters sets the sphere down on a metal stand next to the microscope. He flips on a super intense light, and holds the green square underneath. The iridescent material glistens like it’s made of water.

  “Gedney told me you guessed where the glove technology came from,” Waters says to me. “What I’m holding here is different tech, but the origins are the same.”

  “You mean you stole it from the Youli?”

  “I wouldn’t use the word steal,” he says. “I certainly didn’t steal it. The materials came into Earth Force’s possession earlier this year, and we took advantage of those resources.”

  “Wait a second, are you talking about the Youli prisoner at the space station?”

  Waters straightens, and for a moment his relaxed, professorial manner is replaced by something commanding. “No more questions. Like I said, this is highly confidential. You know too much already.”

  I take a step back, and so does Mira.

  Waters seems to catch his own behavior. He relaxes his shoulders and lowers onto the spinning chair behind his desk. He swivels around to face us and smiles.

  Now I’m suspicious. It’s like he’s campaigning for something and we’re his targets.

  “Let me get to the point,” he says. “Both of you have communicated with the Youli—isn’t that right, Jasper?”

  Heat rises to my cheeks as I steal a glance at Mira. I hope she’s not mad I shared that with Waters. I nod.

  “And I suspect it’s not the first time you’ve experienced brain-based communication, at least in its basic forms, am I right?”

  “What do you mean, ‘brain-based communication’?” I ask.

  “Well, take your sister, Addy. Do you ever know what she’s going to say before she says it? Or have you ever communicated to her without words, maybe to keep your parents in the dark? Or have you even simply walked into a room and immediately sensed the energy—joy, anger, boredom? Our years of testing reveal that both you and Mira are highly advanced in this way. Lots of Bounders are, but the two of you test particularly high. The fact that the Youli communicated with you only serves to confirm it.”

  He’s right, of course. That happens all the time with Addy. It’s just how things have always been. When Mira touched my brain, it had felt so personal, so private, I’d never connected the dots that it was basically the same thing as my bond with Addy.

  Does Waters know about me and Mira?

  “Have the two of you ever communicated brain to brain?” he asks in a trying-to-act-casual tone.

  He’s guessed. But he doesn’t know for sure.

  Mira slips her hand in mine. I don’t say a word.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” he says. “I may not be very empathic, but I’m not too shabby at nonverbal communication.” He stands and lifts the tweezers so the tiny green square is right in front of us. “These patches expedite the growth of new neural pathways in the brain, particularly those aimed at communication. I’ll just shave a bit of hair at the base of your neck, place the patch, and we’ll be good to go. Once the patch is planted, your ability to engage in brain-to-brain communication should improve dramatically. The effect should be immediate, and will only continue to expand as the neural pathways multiply.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say. “You want Mira and me to wear these patches?”

  “Yes. The two of you are by far the best candidates, even without your . . . connection. But I won’t pretend that doesn’t make it all the better.”

  My cheeks burn again. What does he mean, our “connection”? I shake it off and try to stay focused. “But what exactly is that patch? It looks just like Youli skin. Wait a second, is that Youli skin?”

  “Not precisely. They’re more like technologically enhanced Youli skin cells.”

  My stomach stirs, and my sesame and jelly sandwich threatens to resurface. I can’t believe he wants to implant Youli cells in my brain stem. That can’t be good. “Is it safe?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Have you tested it?”

  “No. But none of the Bounders have had any trouble with the gloves’ neural interface. This shouldn’t be different.”

  Shouldn’t be. How come I don’t find that reassuring at all? “Why are you asking us to do this? Why is it so important?”

  “There are many things I can’t tell you, but let me say this: intragalactic relations are far more vast and complicated than you can possibly imagine.”

  Intragalactic relations? What is he talking about? Is he suggesting there are other aliens we don’t know about? “What do you mean? There’s us and the Tunnelers; we have a treaty. And then there are the Youli, who, apparently, we’re fighting. What else is there?”

  Waters runs his fingers through his hair and shakes his head. He must have thought he’d have no problem pushing this on us. “You know what Earth Force wants you to know. Or, actually, you kids know a bit more, but it’s still just the tip of the iceberg.”

  If only Mira could help out. It’s just me and Waters, and he can talk me in circles. It never mattered before, because I trusted him. Now I’m not so sure. “I don’t understand. Why can’t you tell us what’s going on? How can you ask us to do this without explaining what’s at stake?”

  “What’s at stake?” Waters asks. “There is more at stake than you can possibly imagine. In a few weeks, a summit . . . no, you don’t need to know that. Let me keep it simple: we need to be able to communicate with the Youli if we are to achieve peace.”

  As soon as the word peace leave his lips, Mira steps forward. She turns her back to Waters and lifts he
r hair.

  Peace? Waters is hoping to end the war? He wants to talk peace with the Youli and use Mira and me as interpreters, brain-to-brain go-betweens?

  And Mira’s ready to sign up for the job?

  “Excellent,” Waters says. Before I can process everything that’s happening, he shaves a spot on Mira’s head and applies the patch. “Sit down for a few minutes, Mira. Give the patch a chance to bind with you. Ready, Jasper?”

  “Ummm . . . not really. I’m not a huge fan of having alien technology implanted in my brain. And why can’t I tell my friends? Aren’t they going to know something’s up? You already told them there was a new technology you needed us to test.”

  “That’s different. We’ll talk about the pod testing tomorrow. The patches are only for you and Mira. Your pod mates don’t need to know about them. They can’t know.”

  I take another step back. Mira sits on the floor. Her head is tipped, and her eyes are closed. Is she okay?

  I’m about to kneel and check on Mira, when Waters puts his arm around my shoulder and steers us to the other side of his work space. “I wouldn’t ask unless this was really important, Jasper.” He bends down so his eyes are level with mine. Then he whispers, “You’ll be able to reach her.”

  Mira. This all comes down to Mira. We may be the key to peace in his mind, or even intragalactic relations, whatever that means, but Mira is the key to me. And he has me unlocked. There never was any real doubt that I’d do this. I’d never pass up the chance to communicate with Mira, and Waters knows it.

  He shouldn’t have said that. He shouldn’t have invoked Mira to get me to do this. He crossed a line. He may not be one of the bad guys, but he’s not one of the good guys either.

  My throat tightens, and tears threaten to spill out of my eyes. How can he ask us to do this? How can he ask us to do this? I’ve come to expect this from Earth Force. But not Waters. Please, not Waters.

  Marco was right this afternoon. It’s all about the pod now. Maybe I’ll sign on for the patch, maybe I don’t have a choice, but I’m not doing it blindly. I swallow hard and squeeze back the tears. I’ll take his bait, but I won’t let him think he outsmarted me.

  Waters stands in front of me, holding the orb with the Youli skin patches inside. I lift my eyes and look him square in the face. I want him to know that I understand the exchange, that I know he’s manipulating me, that the choice I’m making is mine: I’ll wear the patch in order to communicate with Mira.

  He won’t even look at me. His gaze is fixed on the clear sphere in his palm. He picks up the tweezers and extracts another patch. “What’ll it be, Jasper?”

  I take a deep breath so I’m sure my voice won’t crack. “Let’s get this over with.”

  I turn around so he has easy access to my head.

  To my brain.

  The clippers buzz the back of my scalp. Next, I feel a tickle, then a prickle, then a bit of pressure as Waters fits the patch.

  Then I don’t feel anything at all. With the gloves, I didn’t feel anything at first either. But I just had Youli skin cells implanted in my brain stem—shouldn’t I feel something?

  Nada. Zip. Zilch.

  Big, fat zero.

  “Give it a few minutes,” Waters says.

  “What’s it supposed to feel like?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Well, that’s comforting.”

  I sink down next to Mira so our shoulders touch. I try to sense my neural connection like I do with my gloves, but there’s nothing there. I even try my silly Mira mind talk. Hello? Anyone there? This is Jasper calling. Mira, you hear me? Breaker, breaker one-nine, over?

  Maybe Waters lied. Maybe this patch has nothing to do with brain-to-brain communication. Maybe he’s actually trying to control our minds. That could be it. Seriously. I don’t trust him anymore. Why should I believe anything he says?

  But I can’t think about that. There’s too much to think about already. Not to mention I’m exhausted. I barely slept last night in the hover as we drove from Americana East. Was that only last night? So much has happened since then.

  “Anything?” Waters asks.

  I shake my head.

  Then Mira slides her hand along the ground and laces her pinkie with mine. As her finger presses against my skin, I feel her words in my brain.

  Don’t tell him anything.

  It takes every ounce of control not to jump out of my skin. If I freak out, Waters will know we’ve made the connection. I focus on keeping my breath even and acting as disappointed as possible.

  What comes next from Mira are pictures, impressions, feelings. The sky above us in the field. Wonderment. Our duet in the music room. Joy. The press of her cheek against my shoulder when I survived the jump off the Youli ship. Relief.

  I feel her making words in her mind. She’s struggling, like words are not the way she likes to communicate. Then, she says with exquisite sharpness:

  It’s just you and me now, yes?

  I close my eyes and think as hard as I’ve ever thought before.

  Yes, Mira, a thousand times yes. It’s you and me. Always.

  5

  THE NEXT MORNING, OUR POD meets up with Gedney, who leads us down the stairs and into the laboratory where Waters is waiting. I don’t say anything about having been down here last night. And, of course, Mira doesn’t either. I haven’t tried to brain talk with her yet today. I’m waiting for her to make the first move. Plus, I don’t want my pod mates to suspect anything. I already feel guilty for keeping the secret.

  Cole starts in with questions about everything in the lab, but Waters brushes him off. “We’ll have time for that later. Follow me.” He drags Cole away from the glass case with the Youli hand and heads to another door at the back of the laboratory guarded by a standard eye-scanner security panel. “You know the drill. Step right up, lean in for the scan.”

  “What’s behind door number one?” Marco asks.

  When we’ve all been scanned, Waters enters a numeric code that unbolts the door, then stands back to let us enter. “See for yourself.”

  The room is dark, almost entirely devoid of light. A slight air current brushes my skin.

  “The Ezone,” Cole says as we all walk inside.

  “Basically, yes,” Waters says. “This is the original Ezone, or officially, the Beta Entanglement Zone.”

  “So the BEzone?” Marco asks.

  Waters laughs. “BEzone, huh? Sounds about right. And you’re due for some practice.”

  Gedney distributes our gloves, and we spend the morning practicing ports and basic bounding around the compound. After a short break for lunch, we meet Waters and Gedney back in the BEzone. In the center of the room, they’ve set up a table, and on the table rests a black briefcase.

  “On to new technology!” Waters says. “Let’s bound right in.”

  Bound right in? Ugh. That joke is so last tour.

  “Gather round, don’t be shy,” Gedney says. “Now this is just a prototype. It wasn’t supposed to be out of beta-testing mode for a few more months. All we hear for years and years is ready the gloves, ready the gloves. But now the gloves are ready, and they rush us on to this. Hurry, hurry, hurry. Always in such a—”

  “Let’s spare them the Earth Force politics,” Waters says. “Show them.”

  Gedney opens the briefcase. On the top is a touch screen. I’m not sure what’s on the bottom. It looks like a squishy black pad.

  “This is a BPS—Bound Positioning System,” Gedney says. “It’s portable, capable of being carried directly into battle—or, ummm, capable of being carried anywhere really.”

  “Carried into battle?” Lucy says. “Now, wait a second—”

  “That’s just one potential use,” Waters says, glaring at Gedney. “And not at all our focus today.”

  “Yes, but what does it do?” Cole asks.

  “That’s a most excellent question,” Gedney says. “The BPS allows you to bound anywhere so long as we know the coordinat
es. Until now, your bounds have been limited to sites within visual contact or where you’ve previously activated your gloves.” He presses a button and the BPS screen lights up. “Now, once we enter the coordinates, all you have to do is press your gloved palms on the BPS sensors, and you’ll be able to open a port and bound to the coordinates.”

  Bound anywhere in the galaxy from coordinates? That is amazing!

  “I know you’re the mad scientist and all,” Marco says, “but that sounds a little too good to be true.”

  Maybe it is too good to be true. They haven’t tested it. That’s why we’re here. The whole reason we were rerouted to the labs for the start of our second tour sits in that black briefcase.

  “We’re your guinea pigs?” Lucy asks. “Uh-uh. I’m not doing it. I didn’t sign on for this. What if the BPS doesn’t work? We’ll be lost in space!”

  “I’ve built in a fail-safe,” Gedney says. “If the bound doesn’t succeed, the BPS should be able to pull you back.”

  “Should be able to?” I ask. “That’s not entirely comforting.”

  Mira gently brushes my arm. A picture of her placing her hands on the sensors fills my brain.

  No way. I do not want her going first.

  “No!” I shout. The others look at me, probably waiting for me to add some more words to my veto. Oops. I shouldn’t have said that out loud.

  Yes, comes her reply. I’m filled with feelings of trust hovering around an image of Gedney as Mira steps forward and presents her gloved palms.

  “See!” Waters says. “There you have it, kids! A believer!”

  Gedney smiles warmly. “Thank you, Mira.” He transfers data from his handheld to the BPS touch screen. “You’re not going far. Just to another room within the labs. One of our lab assistants is waiting there for you.”

  Mira lays her hands on the sensors. She closes her eyes, and a second later her body jerks. My brain reacts. It’s a strange sensation, sort of like sorting candies by color. Jumbled input falls into place.