Tundra 37

by Aubrie Dionne

  He ges­tured over his shoulder. “I found us a table in the back.”

  What was she do­ing here? It was ab­surd for her to sac­ri­fice time from her stud­ies to meet a young man she hardly knew, a reneg­ade at that. But at the same time, her fin­gers shook with ex­cite­ment. She felt more alive than when she con­nec­ted to the elec­tro­mag­netic pulses within TINE.

  Fol­low­ing him through the masses, she couldn’t be­lieve she had a date. She’d watched couples sit­ting to­gether at the Techno Ex­press for years, won­der­ing how it felt to have someone to share con­ver­sa­tion. Abysme didn’t like to go out in pub­lic to­gether be­cause people stared at their mir­ror-like faces, so Mestasis al­ways came by her­self. She never thought she’d have someone to take a mo­ment away from the world with. Not that she had a mo­ment to spare.

  She sat across from him, bal­an­cing her drink on the small table by wrap­ping her fin­gers around the curve of the cup.

  He sipped his syn­thetic latte and tilted his an­gu­lar face to­ward her. “I trust you made it back safely.”

  Mestasis’s neck and cheeks grew hot, but her dark skin hid her blushes well. “I did, thanks to you.”

  “You saved my life too. Re­mem­ber?”

  She looked away, study­ing a hov­er­craft as it glided bey­ond the build­ings and be­came a sil­ver speck in the slate sky. “I didn’t come here to talk about my abil­it­ies. I came to get away from them.”

  “I un­der­stand. We all need to es­cape some­times.”

  She locked his gaze, search­ing for the real an­swer why they sat here to­gether, two people from totally dif­fer­ent worlds. The kind­ness in his eyes made her vul­ner­able, and she dropped her gaze down to her steam­ing bever­age.

  “How’s your furry friend?”

  Mestasis smiled. “She’s do­ing fine. Our plastic couch, on the other hand, has seen bet­ter days.”

  James laughed. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “You’re fond of kit­tens?”

  “You could say that. I value all life.”

  He looked past her to the doors of the cof­fee shop. “While scav­en­ging as boy, I found a dan­delion grow­ing out of the crack of the side­walk, way down on the street level among the piles of garbage. It was a mir­acle the plant ger­min­ated un­der­neath the con­crete with al­most no sun­light, fed by the acid rain. I reached down to pick it and bring it back with me, my fin­gers run­ning over the hairy stem. But I knew it would only wilt and die in my cramped hid­ing space between the second and third floor. In­stead, I cut the bot­tom out a plastic wa­ter bottle to shield it from the feet of the gang­men. The next day I took the few boys I knew to show them.”

  He looked back to her, his fin­ger­tip run­ning along the rim of his mug. “They laughed at me and kicked the plastic shel­ter away.” His eyes turned cold. “They trampled it. I can still re­mem­ber the yel­low pol­len streak­ing the gray con­crete.”

  “I’m sorry.” Mestasis placed her hand over his. His skin was rough, his fin­gers cal­loused com­pared to her smooth fin­ger­tips.

  James shook his head. “I’m not look­ing for sym­pathy. It was a long time ago. I’m over it.” He smiled, the warmth com­ing back to his face. “It’s nice to meet someone who val­ues other life on this planet be­sides hu­mans.”

  The bar­rier in­side her crumbled. “I’ve al­ways been drawn to how life used to be in the past. As a kid, my sis­ter and I had a blade of grass in a pot of soil. We’d give it some of our wa­ter ra­tions every day and bring it to the cor­ridor out­side out apart­ment where a square of sun­light would shine in the later part of the af­ter­noon.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “We kept it alive for a very long time, even brought it with us to TINE. I still have the pot in the apart­ment I share with my sis­ter.”

  “What is your sis­ter like? You had men­tioned want­ing a safe place for her and your mother.”

  Be­sides Dr. Fields, no one had asked her that ques­tion be­fore. She ran her fin­ger along the rim of her cup, think­ing about how much to tell him.

  “My fam­ily is loyal to a fault. Will­ing to risk any­thing for each other.” Her hand burned where it touched his skin and she wor­ried he’d sense the rising tem­per­at­ure, so she took it back, us­ing it to place a braid be­hind her ear.

  “Wow, that sounds like some fam­ily.”

  Mestasis smiled and sipped her cof­fee. He made her feel spe­cial, made her real­ize just how much she did have. “I’m lucky. I really am. I could have been aban­doned, an orphan stuck in the sys­tem.”

  James nod­ded and slipped off his black cloak. He hung it on the back of his chair as if he thought they’d stay a long time. “I grew up in The Min­istry of Mercy, and from there went straight into the gangs.”

  “That’s prob­ably what would’ve happened to me if it weren’t for my mom.”

  James’s in­terest in her fam­ily, the one thing she prized above all else, made her want to share more with him and her words spilled out. “She didn’t mean to be­come preg­nant. My mom’s a shrewd wo­man. She knew how tough it was to raise a child in this world, and she had no for­tune, no way to keep such an en­deavor thriv­ing. I don’t know ex­actly what happened, but my father left when they found out she had not one but two new mouths to feed. After my sis­ter and I were born, my mom took up two jobs, work­ing all hours to sup­port us. They’re all I have.”

  “I can see why you work so hard for them.”

  “My mom’s worked so hard for us; the re­cyc­ling fa­cil­ity where she works has so many con­tam­in­ants and haz­ards. It’s not good for her. Every day she spends there pois­ons her body more. I need to get her out.”

  “And TINE is the only way?”

  “The only way I can see, yes.”

  She thought he might try to ask her to join him again in the un­der­ground, but he re­mained si­lent, tak­ing an­other sip of his bever­age. She wondered if he’d asked her here for her powers, but he seemed more in­ter­ested in who she was than what she could do. He made her feel nor­mal.

  “What about you? Do you think you’ve found the safest place to live? To weather the storm we all know is com­ing?” She no­ticed how the tips of his hair curved around his chin. She no­ticed his smooth skin trail­ing from his neck, down into the V-shaped neck of his shirt.

  “Who knows?” He settled back in his chair, prop­ping his boot on the vent­il­ator by the win­dow. “The news on the streets now is the higher-ups are build­ing trans­port ships, gi­gantic ves­sels the size of small cit­ies, able to house en­tire pop­u­la­tions. They’ll have self-sus­tain­ing biod­omes, air fil­tra­tion sys­tems, en­ergy cells with sup­plies to last gen­er­a­tions, workout decks, schools, everything you could ever need.”

  Mestasis leaned for­ward. “You mean they’re go­ing to circle the Earth in space sta­tions?”

  He shook his head, hair fall­ing in front of his eyes. He brushed it back care­lessly. “No, they’re talk­ing about col­on­iz­ing other worlds.”

  “How? It would take cen­tur­ies to get any­where and no one’s per­fec­ted cryo­sleep tech­niques, es­pe­cially for such a vast ma­jor­ity.”

  “They’re go­ing to live their lives on the ships. Ima­gine en­tire gen­er­a­tions of as­tro­nauts passing on the ge­netic code to their chil­dren and their chil­dren after them, un­til they reach para­dise plan­ets.”

  “Wow.” It was the best idea Mestasis had ever heard. A jolt of an­ger at Dr. Fields shot through her. Surely he’d had heard of such ships? Was he keep­ing in­form­a­tion from her and Abysme?

  It didn’t mat­ter now. She’d found out, and Dr. Fields couldn’t steal the idea back from her head. The thought of the col­on­iz­a­tion ships gave her hope. If she could get her­self, her mom, and Abysme on one of those trans­port ships, then they’d all be safe. No food short­ages, no pol­lu­tion,
no ra­di­ation, no chem­ical weapons, no nukes.

  He raised his eye­brows as if he read her mind. “The trick is how to get your­self on one of them. Only the su­per-elite with con­nec­tions will have a chance.”

  “What do you mean? How many are they mak­ing?”

  James’s eyes darkened. “Not nearly enough. The ma­jor­ity of the pop­u­la­tion will be left be­hind on this dy­ing planet, fight­ing for the last re­sources un­til we end up killing each other.”

  “No.” Mestasis re­moved her hands from her cof­fee, wringing them to­gether in thought. She didn’t care if a passerby knocked her cup over. Acid was already filling her stom­ach and it would just add to the burn. “The world will never get that bad. Gov­ern­ments will al­ways step in.”

  A teen­age boy dar­ted between their tables, and James held both cups as the boy slipped by. “You wanna bet? Who’s go­ing to gov­ern when all the im­port­ant politi­cians leave?”

  “New ones will step up. The world isn’t go­ing to go to hell all in one day.”

  “Yeah, I bet it’ll take more like a month.”

  “Hon­estly, are you that cyn­ical?” Look­ing into James’s face, she knew he was. And she wasn’t that far be­hind. Even though she talked of life go­ing on, a splinter of doubt had wedged it­self in her gut long ago, and noth­ing she could ac­com­plish at TINE would ever pick it out.

  “You’re plan­ning on go­ing on one, aren’t you?” He leaned for­ward, so close his breath fell on her lips.

  She quirked an eye­brow. “Maybe.” Dig­ging in her uni­form, she brought out a shiny nan­odisc and held it to­ward him. A ray of sun­light trickled down from the win­dow, play­ing upon the sur­face in glisten­ing ra­di­ance. He took it from her, their fin­gers brush­ing.

  “What is it?”

  “A code. You can send it through any­thing with an elec­tro­mag­netic pulse.” She waved her hand over to the serv­ers in the front, “Even a cof­fee ma­chine.”

  “What’s it for?”

  She smiled. “It’s my num­ber. Punch it in any­where, and I’ll know where you are.”

  His eyes widened. “You ser­i­ous?”

  She tilted her head, tiny braids fall­ing across her shoulders. “What do you think?”

  “After see­ing what you did last night, any­thing is pos­sible.”

  Mestasis shrugged as if it didn’t mat­ter. But he’d taught her any­thing was pos­sible as well. En­tire cit­ies on trans­port ships, her­self walk­ing into a cof­fee shop to meet a date. The pos­sib­il­it­ies made her head reel.

  She leaned back be­fore his prox­im­ity had too much of an ef­fect on her, be­fore she wouldn’t be able to tear her­self away. “If you learn any­thing else about these ships, will you con­tact me?”

  “Of course.”

  Mestasis dumped the re­mains of her bever­age into a hole in the table lead­ing to a food re­cyc­ling de­pos­it­ory. She threw her plastic cup in a bin near the wall. “Thank you. You’ve been a big help. You’ve given me hope.”

  “My pleas­ure. It’s what I do for a job, re­mem­ber?”

  “Give people hope?”

  “Or at least apples.” He winked and downed the last few sips of his drink.

  One ques­tion nagged at her the en­tire con­ver­sa­tion, and if she didn’t ask it now, she knew she’d never bring it up again. Hes­it­at­ing, then for­cing her­self to act, Mestasis curled her fin­ger, beck­on­ing him closer.

  At peak lunch hour, the room had grown so crowded she had to lean across the table for him to hear her whis­per. His eye­brows rose in a ques­tion and he met her halfway, his face cen­ti­meters from hers. At this dis­tance she could see the hazel flecks in his eyes and she wondered again how someone so gor­geous could be in­volved with such dan­ger­ous gangs. Surely some mod­el­ing com­pany for the sight pan­els on the sides of the state build­ing would have no­ticed him. But then he wouldn’t be chan­ging the world. “When you saw me last night, why didn’t you turn me in?”

  He brought his lips to her ear and her heart flit­ted. “Be­cause the first time I saw you, you re­minded me of what I’m fight­ing for day in and day out.”

  She pulled back to meet his gaze, fin­gers trem­bling as she held onto the sides of the cof­fee table. “What are you fight­ing for?”

  “Love.” James brushed his lips against hers. Every­one in the cof­fee shop around her van­ished. The es­presso ma­chines ceased to buzz, the in­cess­ant traffic of cus­tom­ers hal­ted. Noth­ing ex­is­ted ex­cept her first kiss. She pressed her head for­ward, feel­ing the warmth from his lips travel into her mouth and down to the pit of her stom­ach. For a mo­ment she for­got about TINE, about stud­ies, about her powers, about the crum­bling world. For a mo­ment she was just a nor­mal young wo­man en­ticed by an at­tract­ive young man.

  §

  Mestasis smiled all the way back to TINE, her cheeks aching by the time the el­ev­ator beeped on her floor. She pressed the door panel, and the walls sep­ar­ated to re­veal a pile of lug­gage. Abysme sat on the plastic couch, star­ing at a blank ho­lo­screen.

  Mestasis froze. You’re back early.

  A cur­rent of an­ger rose up in­side her. Abysme should be study­ing, pre­par­ing, mak­ing up for lost time. And here she was, do­ing noth­ing. Mestasis ex­haled, re­leas­ing her frus­tra­tion be­fore she said some­thing she’d re­gret. At least her sis­ter came back, and with time for both of them to work out the next as­sign­ment to­gether. She’d planned to work on it all day alone.

  Golden swirls erup­ted as she clicked on the ho­lo­screen on. Mestasis waved her sis­ter up. Come on, let’s get star­ted on the—

  She’s gone. Abysme didn’t move.

  Mestasis froze as the par­ted walls of the door panel sealed be­hind her, shut­ting her in to a room where she didn’t want to be, a real­ity she didn’t want to face. What do you mean?

  Mom passed away. A re­trieval team took her body to the in­cin­er­at­ors this morn­ing. Abysme shook her head and bur­ied her face in both hands; her body shook with tremors as she wept.

  No. Surely it was a ruse, a ploy to make her feel guilty. She wouldn’t put it past Abysme to fab­ric­ate lies when she couldn’t get her way. Mestasis probed her sis­ter’s thoughts in denial. Feel­ings of grief and guilt surged through her on all con­scious and sub­con­scious levels. When she probed fur­ther, an im­age of their mother huddled in her sleep­ing co­coon, dark hair spill­ing out onto the floor sur­faced in her sis­ter’s memory. Con­tain­ers of pain meds lay strewn around her. She held a pic­ture from when they were young girls in her sweaty hand.

  Mestasis col­lapsed to her knees be­side the couch. Why hadn’t she sensed it? Had TINE blinded her to the needs of her own fam­ily?

  Her twin’s body shuddered as she mind­spoke. When I got home, she’d been in bed for days. I tried to get her to go to the higher floors, to scrap to­gether everything she owned to find a doc­tor, but she wouldn’t move. She kept say­ing it was too late, and without cov­er­age they wouldn’t see her any­way.

  Mestasis struggled to hold her­self to­gether. Numb­ness tingled through her body. The world seemed severe and empty without her mom in it. She had so many things still to tell her, so many things she didn’t say. Mestasis tried to re­mem­ber the last time she had seen her, and her mind came up against a wall. She had so many chances to go back, but she’d stayed each time, think­ing she would make a bet­ter world for her mother. Never did she ex­pect she wouldn’t be around to en­joy it.

  Mestasis felt cheated, al­most be­trayed. She never told us she was sick.

  What did you ex­pect? She worked in that old re­cyc­ling plant, car­ci­no­gens seep­ing into her body each day. Abysme hit the couch with her fist. You said we’d get her out of there.

  She glared at Mestasis with eyes filled with pain and hate.

  Tears blurred her vis­ion, and Mestasi
s wiped them back. She had to be the stronger one in times like these. I’m sorry, Bysme. I thought we had more time.

  Time is the one thing we don’t have. Abysme shot up and waved her arm over the smog-filled sky in the win­dow. In case you didn’t no­tice, the world is fall­ing apart. Fly­ing in the hov­er­craft I saw gangs, right in the light of day, parad­ing through the cor­ridors between Quad­rants six and seven. People are fight­ing over en­ergy cells for their hov­er­crafts, and the line for fresh food stretches two build­ings long. Men with lasers guard the green­houses, and I needed to show my ID just to park the hov­er­craft. It’s a mad­house out­side TINE, and it’s just go­ing to get worse.

  Des­pite her shak­ing body, Mestasis kept her mind­speak steady. Bysme, we’ll make it through this. We al­ways do.

  But what’s the point of go­ing on? I don’t want to live in a world where you have to fight for your next meal, where a thou­sand people starve while I eat. I can’t do it any­more, Metsy. I just can’t.

  Mestasis pulled her­self up and strode across the room. She’d just lost her mom, and she wasn’t about to lose her sis­ter as well. She gripped Abysme’s arm, yank­ing her away from the win­dow. Don’t you dare talk about not liv­ing, about abandon­ing your work, your life.

  Abysme struggled in her grip, try­ing to wiggle free. Why the hell not? What is left to live for?

  Love. Mestasis thought of James and his story about the colony ships. Res­ol­u­tion hardened in her chest and she held firm. Be­cause I’m get­ting us off this damn planet.

  Abysme stiffened in sur­prise and Mestasis pushed her point. She stared into her sis­ter’s gaze, the ir­ises so dark they blen­ded with the pu­pil. I’ve found a way to get us out of here.