The room quiets, and Beruk hacks up phlegm to clear his throat before talking. “You are all here to vote. If we agree that what Alexandra Lucas said about Earth is true, then we should be fighting immediately to return. The longer we wait, the more people will contribute. We can’t let our people be tricked again. Who knows what the vances are planning? We need to spread word and rebel. I have an escape plan.”
“But that’s the point,” Benji begins. “We don’t know the vances’ motive. How can we fight without understanding who these people are? Maybe they need us to contribute to survive. Maybe their population was depleted by a war or a virus. Maybe they want slaves. We need to know their intentions.”
“We know their intentions. They took us,” Beruk says. “If they needed us to help them, they should’ve asked. We are wasting time. Our security forces cannot do our jobs locked up in here. We need to map out the region as soon as possible, join with the other Umbra forces, and form an army. Now.”
“With what weapons? Professor Marciani’s team still doesn’t have a working DQD from the specs the United Nations provided. No other Earth weapons or explosions will work here. Are you really going to use brute force?”
Beruk gets louder. “Sometimes it’s all we have. Science can’t always keep up. We need numbers. We need tactical information about the landscape that we cannot get sitting here. I can get us through that glass gate and into the mountains.”
“We’d be sitting ducks.”
“Katherine can block our bandwidth ID signatures. It would take time before the system would notice we were missing.”
“You are forgetting that some people like it here,” Benji adds. “They don’t want to rebel. They only want information for information’s sake.”
Did my brother just turn Earth traitor?
“After being stolen? You can’t be serious,” Beruk says.
“Very. Some like life here better than on Earth, and we haven’t even seen all it has to offer yet. Have you spoken to people? Like really listened? They love the idea of contributing, of not having to work, of getting to enjoy their lives more. They’ll want answers, yes, but they aren’t ready to rebel against Solbiluna-8.”
I go numb inside. I trusted Benji.
Beruk sucks his teeth and then mutters something under his breath.
Benji ignores him and continues, addressing the room. “I know how hard it is to stay quiet. Not to tell everyone what we know and start a war. But heroes know when to fight and when to wait. Waiting gives us time to develop weaponry to use against them. They have the BME and environmental controls that work as a holographic shielding. We need to learn more about the vances and find out their weaknesses. We need time to find evidence, integrate with other LU communities, spread the rebellion, and gather forces. We have to do this right. If we force an attack now, we will be isolated, and we won’t have as many allies as you think. Then the truth about what happened on Earth dies here. We cannot let that happen. People deserve to make their own decisions based on truth.”
Benji stands with his hands across his chest. I understand why he wanted me here. Marcus stands beside him with his hand on his back. Like Mom used to do with Dad. Giving support. Taming the beast.
Jackson addresses everyone. “The voting is simple. Gather to the right if you want to fight now. Gather to the left if you want to wait.”
Beruk steps to the right side of the LU and Benji steps to the left. Slowly, people move to different corners of the room. As much as my brother annoys me, as much as waiting kills me, the truth is impossible to ignore. I go to the left and join him, along with Marcus, Katherine, Doctor A., Kendra, Nolan, his grandmother, Professor Marciani, and other people I haven’t gotten to know yet, including some that I didn’t think liked Benji. Katherine has clout.
Surprisingly, many people also gather near Beruk. While Benji wins the majority vote, the amount of people on Beruk’s side shocks me. How can they be so ready to jump into an unknown battle unprepared?
Jackson speaks. “For now, we wait. Beruk, work with your special ops team on an escape plan in case the vances don’t keep their word. Start training Umbra in combat, especially in using DQDs. Benji, your team should continue gathering information through the nanoholocom network. Along with the DQDs, I also want the professor’s team working around the clock on reverse engineering a vertex as soon as possible. Let’s get back to work.”
Even though Beruk loses the vote, he has a triumphant look on his face. I know that look. If Benji’s not careful, there’ll be an Umbra rebellion before we come up with a unified plan.
We have to convince everyone that gathering information and spreading the word to other LUs when we can is the best tactic. Strength in numbers. Strength in knowledge. There has to be something we can do to expose the truth. Catch the vances in another lie. Somewhere. Something.
BENJI AND MARCUS show up at the platform for dinner. I down the slippery lemony cubes with nests of crunchy noodles suspended above them, like eating raw ravioli with magical chow mein. I write notes from today’s meeting into my journal, coded enough to protect Umbra secrets. The dinochicken squawks from the tree, and I wonder what it’s trying to tell me. When I look up, I see Benji coming to eat with me while Marcus talks with Doctor A. My journal will have to wait.
Benji and I eat under the strangest circumstances. At home in our kitchen, I always tried to avoid him at mealtimes so I could digest my food without wanting to throw up in his face. And here we are, being civilized on a high tech, immoral planet. I never thought I’d appreciate his company.
“Can’t adjust to the food here,” Benji says. “Especially eating without real utensils. And I’m not ready to spend one of my supply rations on a fork.”
“I know. It’s barbaric.”
He scoops up a slippery cube with a piece of his plate and stuffs it into his mouth. “Good, though. Chewy inside.”
“Yeah, I don’t want to know what’s in there.”
“Knowing how you think, human flesh.”
I laugh, chew, and then the thought persists, my brain filling in the missing details. Human bodies being dismembered and skinned like cattle. Baked into pies. Maybe I should join Rita and become a vegetarian. Then I remember writing in my journal that the vances are pretty much vegetarians, and I chew tentatively.
Marcus and Doctor A. continue in a deep conversation. I worry what it’s about. “How are things going with you and Marcus? Must be tough to have a honeymoon here.”
“Okay, I guess. We never celebrated since we thought people were dying on Earth. When we first arrived, we spent time in the Holospaces to pretend it was our honeymoon vacation. Couldn’t really relax, though.”
“I can see that.” I crunch on the savory topping.
“How was Dad when you left?” he asks.
I eat too quickly, a noodle sticking in my throat. “I told you. In a wheelchair. On oxygen.”
“No, I mean emotionally.”
I cough to dislodge the food, eyes watering. “I don’t know. Defeated, I guess. You know how stubborn and independent he is.”
“He never talked to me much after I told him about Marcus. I knew things would be different afterward. I guess I was hoping for more.” He looks off into the crowd gathering in the Hub. “With everything going on in the world, I thought it would help him understand what really matters. Bigger picture. Guess certain prejudices stick even then.”
“That’s just how he is. He was M.I.A. when I broke down after almost getting tossed into a vertex by that drunk guy. It’s about him, not you.”
Benji slides the food around on his plate. “I was never going to tell him.”
I’m not sure how to respond. “He still loves you. You’re his son. He just doesn’t handle major changes well.”
He rubs his chin. “You’re naive if you really think that.” He downs a cube the way people eat raw oysters.
“Thanks, by the way,” I say.
“For what?”
“For being there. For pushing me back into counseling.”
“Kicking and screaming.”
“Is there any other way?”
The dinochicken bird lets out another loud yap.
“That freaking bird is back.”
“What bird?”
I point to the tree. “Are you telling me you don’t hear that thing? Look! I swear it’s been every ten minutes tonight. It’s the same thing over and over again.”
“Reminds me of you,” he says, grinning.
I almost dump my plate of food in his lap. But, you know, rations.
ONCE AGAIN I can’t sleep. I lie awake in my restored holobed thinking about Dominick and wondering how long the first level of integration will last. He must think I didn’t keep my promise. He must think I’m dead. I hope he doesn’t hate me for not leaving with him. The absence of his touch each day is wearing me down.
I miss Rita’s sweet sing-song snarky voice, always a friend, always telling me the truth even when I don’t want to hear it. Being around her makes me a better person. Being without her makes life bleak.
We have to find something, some kind of evidence to stop Beruk from trying to start a war too early. But there’s nothing here. We’re trapped in this stupid circle community without running water. Without our old friends or even vances to complain to. There aren’t even any animals here except for the birds. Well, bird. Actually, I haven’t even seen a bug. Wait a minute, that can’t be right.
I jump out of bed, run out of my LU, and look over the glass railing at the Hub. Even in the darkness, there’s got to be something. Sounds of nocturnal animals, insects, anything. I hear nothing but the sound of wind in the leaves, and the few voices carried up from the center of the Hub from sleepless adults. Maybe it means nothing. Maybe.
Even though it’s the middle of the night, I use a maglift to travel down to the Hub. In the backlit darkness, I move near the red chime tree and wait. The bird is silent. I know this feeling. I’m onto something even if I don’t know what it is. Kind of like crazy lady with the note.
That’s when I get an idea. I reach over and peel another piece of bark off the trunk and hold it in my palm. Its emptiness calls to me. I walk back to the maglift with the bark in my hand, not taking my eyes off it. Sure enough, as soon as I get inside, the bark dematerializes in my hand. I race to Benji and Marcus’s LU and touch the door. It beeps but doesn’t open.
“It’s Alex,” I say.
Seconds later, Marcus opens the door, half awake.
“Alex, what’s wrong?”
“The bird and the tree. They aren’t real. They’re holographic. Why are they holographic? They are supposed to be real. And where are the other animals? Insects?”
Benji stumbles over. “Not all of us have insomnia, Alex. Can’t this wait? We can save animals in the morning.”
“Remember I talked about it at dinner? It’s not real. The vances are lying again about what’s real and what’s fake, and I don’t know why.”
Benji rubs his eyes, yawns. Marcus glances from him back to me, waiting for a response from either side.
“You sound paranoid.”
“Stop being an ass and listen to me. Every time the exact same thing happens: the bird squawks, the leaves clink, all exactly in the same sequence and timing. It’s too planned. And I haven’t seen any other animals anywhere. So I ripped off some bark and I swear it disappeared in my hand by the time I got to the maglift.”
Marcus steps in. “Mathematically speaking, if it’s responding in that much of a pattern, then it could be programming. Although animals do follow natural patterns, so there’s no guarantee.”
Benji looks from him back to me, incredulous. “You are validating her insanity. She’s sleep-deprived and stressed out.”
“We could at least run some tests. Check it out,” Marcus says.
“But why would that area be holographic?” Benji asks.
“Exactly,” I say. “Why? What are the vances hiding?”
Benji yawns again. “Fine. In the morning. It doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.”
Marcus winks at me as I leave their LU.
I can’t sleep all night even with the PSF’s comfort. My gut tells me I’m right while my mind keeps repeating Benji’s comment that I’m just being paranoid. I don’t know which is right. My mind loops and loops on possibilities and consequences.
Anxiety is a bitch.
AS SOON AS the sun cracks the horizon between the blue mountains, I throw on my black uniform. Funny how little I care about clothes and fashion here. Wonder if Rita feels the same or if she holofies her clothing options every hour.
No one answers the door at Benji and Marcus’s LU. I eat breakfast, sit through the painful Earth mourning, hoping upon hope to see them, or another member from the Umbra start investigating. Finally, Katherine and Doctor A. show up together.
Before their food materializes at the platform, I interrupt. “Did Benji and Marcus talk to you?”
Katherine replies. “Not now, Mississippi.”
“But I told them—”
She pushes me into the platform, my hipbone hitting the stone and silencing my thoughts with dull pain. When Doctor A. doesn’t flinch, I know I’m in the wrong.
“Wait,” she says. “Don’t blow this.”
I rub my side. As she backs away, she hands me a note with an LU number. It’s in her personal room.
ONLY JACKSON, KATHERINE, Benji, Marcus, and Professor Marciani attend the meeting. Benji asks me to tell them my observations. I bet he didn’t invite that many people because he thought it would make him look like weak if he’s caught taking the paranoid ideas of his freak sister seriously.
When everyone goes silent, my insecurity spikes. Maybe the bird thing is all in my head. The more time that has gone by, the stupider my idea sounds in my head. Maybe I’m wrong.
“Alex?” Benji says.
It’s too late to back out. I tell them my anxious thoughts about the bird being a hologram even though it’s supposed to be part of the real living space area of the Hub, and I explain how the broken off piece of bark disappeared.
The professor twists one of his hair knobs. “It would take a lot of energy for the nanoholocoms to track every twig, every grain of sand, never mind if those parts separate from their source. Humm, I’d like to try something.”
“Shoot,” Katherine says.
“The temperature may have to remain constant, or at least within an acceptable degree range, due to the method of entanglement used on the subatomic participles and photons. Perhaps one reason they need to control the weather.” As he speaks, his tone and speed changes. From mild and slow, to energetic and rapid. You can’t hide that kind of enthusiasm. “If I heat things up in that area, it could disrupt the local entanglement, and we’ll see how much of that area is holographic.”
“How much of the area?” I ask. “You think there’s more?”
“Possibly,” Professor Marciani says.
“Wouldn’t the environmental controls just compensate?” Benji asks.
“That’s where I come in,” Katherine says. “I’ve been hacking into small scale systems. I think I can disable the environmental controls in that area, the same way I disable the BME from working in small areas, if I put up the right firewalls to mask the environmental readings. We’re called the Umbra after all.”
That sounded legit. It’s the first time I’ve been part of a real Umbra mission, and I like it. “Umbra like an umbrella?” I ask. “A shelter or something?” A line from the Rihanna song slips out of my mouth, and Benji rolls his eyes.
“The word Umbra means the darkest part of a shadow that is cast on a planet during a solar eclipse,” the professor says. “We represent the importance of that shadow in understanding and investigating the light. Holograms are nothing but glorified light.”
“Let’s try it,” Jackson interrupts. “Tonight. After dinner. Is that enough time?”
Both Katherine and the profess
or agree. Ugh. More waiting. More worrying. More overthinking. What if I’m wrong and I’m wasting their time? What if I’m right?
IT'S THE FIRST Umbra experiment held out in the open. The day couldn’t possibility be slower. I write in my journal, memorize passages from Harry Potter, take a nap. I even stretch and run around my LU’s circular level again to help with the anxious feeling that comes from being nervous, excited, unsure, and embarrassed all at the same time.
I head down to the Hub early to take notes. The dinochicken clamors in the same tree. I count and track its sounds, write them in my journal. It doesn’t squawk by a set time, and I start to doubt myself. I watch and write everything down. It takes an hour before see a pattern. Every time ten people walk past it, it cries out for two seconds. Then it shakes and stretches its bony wings, sits, and a small gust of wind flips the leaves of the tree around it. The exact same sequence begins again, and once the tenth person passes by, it squawks, stretches, and the wind blows. I’m right. I know I’m right.
Dinner is a huge bowl of an odd, warm dark green concoction with chewy black bits. Delicious in nutty, flavor, disgusting in texture. I need to take small sips to get it down. Doctor A., Kendra, Nolan, and his grandmother arrive, she’s holding an infant. People naturally surround them to check out the baby. My heart hurts from too many feelings. It looks like a normal night in the Hub before the Skylucent. If I can define this as normal. Beruk comes with his own crew, a bunch of hardened misfits ready to fight whenever and wherever without thinking it through. Even in the year 2359, our ignorance rears its violent head. Funny that most of the released convicts are against Beruk and don’t want to rush into war. It’s reassuring, and I understand why Katherine respects them. Jackson, Benji, and Marcus arrive, followed by Katherine and the professor. They move near the dinochicken, and I join them, pointing to my findings in my journal, but saying nothing aloud. They observe, count ten people, and the bird stays silent.
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