Finn finally nodded, and the captain cut the communication.
Finn spun in the captain’s chair. “I think I understand what you meant, Reg, about the Diggers making all the discoveries.”
Reggie pulled his gaze off the auger monitor and looked at Finn for a moment. “Yep.”
“Excuse me?” Mikayla’s voice coming from right behind them made both boys jump. “Diggers don’t make discoveries. I know. I’ve been on lots of excavations. The Scientists make the discoveries. The Diggers dig.”
Finn readied his response, but Reggie said, “No.”
Mikayla gave an irritated gasp, “No? No? What, exactly, do you mean by ‘no’?”
“Diggers make the discoveries,” Reggie said, like it should be obvious to everyone, but Finn sort of understood how Mikayla felt. He hadn’t really understood it until now.
“Look, Mik, can I call you Mik? See, we’re Diggers, and just about every Digger there is has a nickname, except Dan. He works with Belch. But Dan is sort of Dan's nickname too, because he drives the DUMP Advancement Navigator…kinda like his parents knew he’d run a DAN.” Finn laughed at the revelation. “Anyway, Reg figured it out. See, the Diggers they…well, we…almost always find the stuff way before the Scientists even see it. Diggers have to know what’s new, just like the Scientists do, or else they could dig right through a major discovery and never know it. Yet the Scientists get all the credit. I want to, well, used to want to, be a Scientist. They get all the glory, but the Diggers make the discoveries.”
The boys nodded and smiled, waiting expectantly for Mikayla to understand.
“That,” she said, rage flashing in her blue eyes, “is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Diggers dig! Scientists discover!”
Finn felt a wave of heat flush his cheeks. “Really? So, we aren’t out here discovering that this anomaly is glass? We aren’t the ones who figured out why we couldn’t go backwards? It’s just a figment of our imaginations that we have to send our discoveries back to your dad…even though we will already know what those discoveries are, and we've processed all the scans on them before he even gets to see them?”
“Yep,” Reggie said.
“Well,” Mikayla gave a breathy huff. “I just…you’re…well, it’s just stupid. Scientists…they, well we, make the…discoveries. Diggers just….”
“Dig,” the boys said together.
“Mr. Finnigan O’Reilly,” ELAINA purred. “Sensors are indicating a thinning of the anomaly wall.”
“No way!” Finn swung around to watch the auger finally break through the anomaly. “ELAINA, get Captain Windblown on the Com!”
“What is it, son?” Captain Windblown’s round face and handlebar mustache appeared on the screen.
“ELAINA just indicated there’s a thinning of the anomaly wall.” Finn added, “uh, sir.”
All eyes were on the auger and the cracking glass as the Triamond tip began to pierce the wall.
The moment they broke through, Mikayla screamed.
“What is it? What in the asteroid dust is going—” Captain Windblown’s words were cut off.
“No spinning,” Reggie said, grabbing onto his safety harness and strapping himself in.
Finn clutched the manual navigational controls and pulled with every ounce of his strength to try to stop the auger's out-of-control spinning.
“Pull!” Mikayla planted her feet against the chair and the console for stability next to Finn. She and Finn pulled on the manual navigational controls, and finally the spinning slowed.
Finn and Mikayla slumped to the ground, dragging in great gasps of air.
“The spin has stopped, Mr. Finnigan O’Reilly,” ELAINA said.
“Duh,” Finn panted.
“The spin caused the DUMP to lose contact with the Space Station, Mr. Finnigan O’Reilly,” ELAINA explained in her sweet voice. “Would you like me to attempt to regain contact?”
Adrenaline caused him to scream. “Uh, yes!”
“Finn.” Mikayla leaned over Reggie who was sprawled out on the floor. “Reggie’s passed out! What should I do?”
“It happens all the time. Just punch him on the shoulder,” Finn said.
Mikayla gave Reggie a timid tap. Unconscious, he barely moved.
Finn laughed at Mikayla's pathetic punch. “Like this.”
He punched Reggie’s massive, muscled arm as hard as he could. The blow barely moved Reggie more than Mikayla’s tap had, but Finn's punch proved to be enough to make Reggie snort back to the living.
“Does he always pass out?” Mikayla eyed Reggie like a mother watches over a sick child.
“Only when he thinks his head’s gonna go through the window,” Finn said.
Mikayla looked at him like he was crazy.
“Oh, never mind. It’s a long story.” Finn said.
Reggie blinked and looked around. “What happened?”
“Not sure, but when we broke through, the DUMP got sort of sucked into the space beyond and we started spinning. ELAINA says we lost contact with Vortex, but she’s trying to reconnect.”
“Not good.” Reggie unbuckled and checked the navigational screen. “More space.”
“What?” Mikayla read the screen over his shoulder.
“Look out the window. We're still in space.” Finn said.
“But there’s nothing. No stars. No asteroids. No planets. It’s just black,” Mikayla said.
“Mr. Finnigan O’Reilly,” ELAINA’s soft voice interrupted their attempts to scan the area. “I am unable to re-establish a connection with the Space Station Vortex computer.”
“Forget about it for now, ELAINA,” Finn said. “We need you to scan the area and figure out why we can’t see any planets and stuff.”
“Working,” ELAINA replied. Seconds passed, but the moments felt like hours, just like how sitting in the Digger classes felt. “Scanners show nothing in the immediate area, but the DUMP is now moving through space at a speed I cannot measure and is no longer drilling.”
“We can see that!” Finn didn’t have patience when it came to talking to bots. “But why?”
“Scanners indicate another hard surface twenty miles in every direction,” ELAINA finished, unperturbed by Finn’s frustration.
“Twenty miles in every direction—like a globe?” Finn spoke more to himself than anyone else.
“No.” Mikayla violently shook her head. “Like a bubble.”
Chapter 14: Tank
“So now what?” Mikayla had her hand shoved onto her hip, and she studied the boys for so long they both began to fidget.
“Now what?” Finn mocked Mikayla.
“You’ve got us racing through this bubble to the other side,” Mikayla said, her fierce tone forcing spit to fly from her mouth. “But we could just turn around and head back home. So? Now what?”
Finn’s heart dropped to the floor. Mikayla may have come from a long line of Scientists and Explorers, but she didn’t have a Science bone in her entire, irritating body. The obvious lack of emotion and care she’d taken while she'd rummaged through the lab slides proved it. She’d even thrown away the sample of Mikaliandranum, a flower on the Island of Pulcher on Magenta 2.
When the flower was first discovered, every woman in the Space Station wanted one. Soon after, the entire SS Vortex teemed with the flowers. It didn't take long for everyone to realize that their pungent aroma caused the adults some serious problems. The women all danced and sang and flitted around, trading weaving and fire-making for their normal jobs. The men wore poorly made tunics and hand-sewn pants resembling diapers. They fashioned spears, and various tribes began to form.
The kids thought it was hilarious at first, their parents all grunting and beating their chests and setting off fire alarms every five minutes. But when fights broke out and the battles began to get bloody, the kids contacted the planetary officials, who told them to destroy all Mikaliandranum plants immediately. The blossoms sent out a virus that caused de-evolution, which explained the ca
veman regression the adults had experienced.
Finn had been only eight years old at the time, but it still ranked high as one of his best memories. How Mikayla could get rid of the sample was beyond Finn.
“Nope,” Reggie said.
“Nope what?” Mikayla turned her angry glare on him.
“Need to keep going,” Reggie shrugged.
Finn stood next to Reggie—a united front.
“Look Mik, this is our discovery. It doesn’t matter if we go back or not,” Finn said. “Either way, your dad and the rest of the Scientists will claim this discovery for their own. So we might as well discover something. We’re going forward.”
“Yep,” Reggie said.
Without warning, Mikayla gave way to a massive wave of tears. Finn and Reggie kept their distance in case it was catching. “You’re right!” she wailed. “My dad takes all the credit for himself! I hate being a Scientist. Well, I love parts of being a Scientist, don’t get me wrong, but I hate having to watch every Scientist hand over their discoveries to him. Then he gets all the credit while the people who made the discovery have to stand in his shadow.”
The boys didn’t bother to wipe the stunned looks off their faces. Mikayla had just admitted to her dad being a discovery stealer, and she’d said it all in one breath, a feat only a girl could accomplish.
Before Finn knew what was going on, Reggie sat next to Mikayla with one arm over her shoulder, “'S okay.” He patted her tenderly.
Mikayla made a massive snot-slurping sound and wiped her face on her sleeve. “Thanks, but you don’t have to defend my dad. Sometimes I wish….”
“We’ve reached the end of the bubble,” ELAINA announced.
“So,” Finn stood and stared out the window, not wanting to look at the two lovebirds any longer. “Do we go forward? Or do we go home?”
Mikayla and Reggie came over to stand next to Finn. The three looked at the place where the edge of the air bubble ended and the glass barrier began again.
“We keep going,” Mikayla said.
“Yep,” Reggie said.
Reggie flipped on the drill, and long curls of glass rolled out of the auger, slowly dragging the DUMP into a new hole.
“If everyone has a nickname in the Digger community, what are your nicknames?” Mikayla asked.
“We don’t use our nicknames with each other.” Finn really didn’t want Mikayla to know what they were.
“I’m Bull,” Reggie said.
“Bull?” Mikayla surveyed his massive body. “Because you’re big?”
“No,” Finn said. “He got the nickname because, one time, he shoved his head through a DUMP window.”
Mikayla actually seemed more impressed by this news.
“What’s your nickname?” Mikayla asked Finn.
“Well, I don’t really have a nickname.” Finn felt a wave of heat warm his cheeks. “I mean, it’s just sort of a…well it’s an in between—”
“Noodle,” Reggie offered.
“Noodle?” Mikayla scrunched her perfect nose. “Why Noodle?”
“Because he’s skinny,” Reggie said when Finn didn't answer.
Finn shot Reggie a glare to make him shut up. “Just take a look around at the Diggers. I’m nothing but skin and bones compared to them.”
To his complete surprise, Mikayla nodded. “I understand.”
Finn went on to explain more, even though he wasn’t sure why it mattered. “See, I really didn’t like being a Digger, but my whole family, eleven generations, are Diggers. I wanted to be a Scientist.”
“Wanted to be?” Mikayla said.
“Well, lately I’ve been trying to figure out why I can’t be both. It seems like the two professions are more alike than different,” Finn said. “Diggers and Scientists are present at every single discovery. Diggers find stuff first sometimes and Scientists find stuff first sometimes. Just seems like a person could do both.”
“More like an explorer.” Mikayla thought for a moment. “Yeah, I can see that.”
“Yeah. Explorers,” Finn said. “My cat is the only other living being to see more of the Space Station than me.”
Finn smiled. Mikayla was the first person, besides Reggie, who actually understood.
“I know a good nickname for you besides Noodle,” Mikayla said. “Tank.”
“Tank? Why?” He grinned, liking the sound of it.
“Because you just barge right through everything, no matter what’s in the way,” Mikayla said.
“It fits,” Reggie said.
“Mr. Finnigan O’Reilly,” ELAINA cooed. “Sensors show we are nearing another thinning of the glass.”
“Another bubble already?”
Chapter 15: Bubble Jumping
“Mr. Finnigan O’Reilly, sensors show you are approaching a wall of glass,” ELAINA’s soft, sugary voice interrupted the silence.
“Geez.” Finn let out a huge breath. “How many bubbles so far?”
“Thirty-four,” Mikayla said.
The DUMP had been drilling for twelve days—on and off. They'd all agreed early on that the pockets of space were way better than the glass because they could get from one end of a bubble to another in almost no time.
The drilling annoyed them all. Slow. Boring. Tedious.
“More drilling,” Mikayla sighed.
“Yep.” Reggie dropped his face into his hands.
Finn knew things were bad if Reggie looked like he might punch something.
“Can’t be much farther,” Finn said.
“You’ve said that every day for the last two weeks.” Mikayla got up and rummaged through the food boxes. Pulling out a meal bar, she sat back down. “At this point, we wouldn’t have enough fuel to get back to the Vortex even if we wanted to.”
Reggie hit the button to start the drilling again and leaned back.
Mikayla had just brought up one of the many things Finn constantly worried about—fuel. In normal space, the Space Station and every space vehicle ran on particle fuel, a type of fuel generated by burning subspace particles, space dust, and interstellar debris. Vehicles were also all equipped to fill fuel cells with energy from suns as they passed through the different galaxies.
The DUMP hadn’t seen a sun in over two weeks, and the only particles they'd found during the bubble jumping were glass and non-space air. Not only were there definitely not enough particles to power the fuel cells, but the air inside the bubbles also wasn't mixed with enough oxygen to breathe. The Space Station had given them some Mikaytroleum, a solid fuel source used throughout the Universe. It looked like a big green brick and burned very slowly, but very hot. But they’d been forced to use it earlier than expected, because no one, not even the adults, had factored into their fuel equations the amount of drilling they’d had to do.
A sudden jolt landed them on the floor and an ear-piercing screech forced the three to slap their hands to their ears. All worries about fuel fled. Reggie ran to the auger controls and smashed his finger onto the ALL STOP. The screeching died away as the auger slowed.
“What happened?” Mikayla screamed, shaking from head to toe.
“Broke through,” Reggie said.
Finn scrambled to his feet and leaned over the navigation controls. The DUMP hung by the auger, lodged in a crack, the same initial crack they’d seen every time they’d broken into or out of a bubble. Only this time a blinding light replaced the darkness.
“What the space dust do you think is on the other side?” Finn said.
“Well, it’s bright enough to be a sun,” Mikayla said.
“That’s not good,” Finn said. “We come all this way just to be turned into carbon by a massive sun?”
“Not a sun,” Reggie said.
“How do you know?” Mikayla threw her mass of blond curls over her shoulder and glared at him. One thing Finn had learned over the past two weeks was that Mikayla didn’t like to be wrong.
“No heat,” Reggie made his usual expert maneuver, stopping the auger, ignoring her
anger.
“Reg is right.” Finn didn’t bother to hide his relief. “If it were a sun, we’d be dust by now. It’s one heck of a bright light and it’s warm, but it’s not hot enough to be a sun.”
“Yep,” Reggie said.
“Well,” Mikayla blew a cloud of frustrated air out with the word, “it’s still too bright for us to look at. We need eye protection.”
The only eye protection they could find were metal-working goggles. Wearing them made their eyes look like gigantic globes. Mikayla stared at the pair hanging from her finger, holding them as far away as possible from her body, mumbled something about fashion and diseases, and then strapped them on.
Reggie backed the DUMP out of the cracked hole and readied the auger for the final breakthrough. The DUMP’s long prop legs unfolded and clamped onto the hole. The auger drilled back through the crack it had created, but this time a four-pronged hook latched on to the bright side. The legs and hook worked like an insect and pushed and wiggled the DUMP slowly through the hole.
“Holy asteroid dust!” Frustrated, Finn thought about punching something.
“What is it?” Mikayla’s nose almost touched the window.
“A bubble,” Reggie said.
“No way!” Finn said. “No way! It can’t be a bubble! It’s too bright! It’s…it’s—”
“Sensors show the DUMP has entered a bubble, Mr. Finnigan O’Reilly,” ELAINA purred.
“That can’t be right!” Finn finally lost it. He punched the air and kicked a seat. “We didn’t come all this way to discover a stupid bubble! Reggie, let’s drill through it and see what’s on the other side.”
Reggie rammed his finger on the START button and the DUMP began to move, so slowly it felt like it was tethered from behind or pushing against a gigantic hand.
“What the space dust? We’re barely moving!” Finn took aim at a seat with his boot again.
Bright, almost blinding light flooded through every portal and wavy shadows danced along the walls.
“Wait a minute,” Mikayla said. “ELAINA! Analyze a sample of the outside air.”
Diggers: The Sharp Edge of the Universe Page 7