by Kyla Stone
Her thirteen-year-old sister, Zia, fluttered her eyelashes and gave her best pleading, puppy-dog look. “Pretty please?”
“Oh, all right. It’s not like I have a million better things to do,” she grumbled.
Willow let her siblings drag her through the cavernous atrium and Royal Promenade. She caught sight of her harried reflection in the glass walls. Dark circles rimmed her eyes. She looked as exhausted as her mom. Relax. She was supposed to be having fun. Not just fun: the time of her life.
Willow’s family was only on this swanky ship because her mother basically won the lottery. Once a year, all the Grand Voyager employee-of-the-month candidates got their names thrown into a hat. The one that came up this year was Marisol Bahaghari.
Willow’s mom worked her butt off for Voyager Enterprises as Associate Director of Housekeeping, overseeing all the sani-bots. For the last five years, Willow and her siblings lived with their lola, their Filipina grandmother, in a cramped one-bedroom apartment in Newark, seeing their mom only a few months out of the year.
As soon as they’d arrived, her mom had pulled out her red staff wristband and checked in with Housekeeping. Instead of relaxing with her kids, her mom was off working. Apparently, the sani-bots had been hacked. Some anarchist’s idea of a joke. “Imagine the outrage if a rich elite doesn’t get her eighty-dollar bottled water restocked or her perfectly folded octopus-shaped towel draped across her bed,” Willow had snapped.
Her mom had grabbed her hands, her skin creased, her eyes weary. “Benjie can go to the Kid Zone on Deck Fourteen to give you a break, but Zia's too old. But she’s not old enough to be by herself, do you understand?”
“Okay, whatever,” Willow said, biting back her frustration.
“Please, Willow. You’re Ate,” she’d said, using the Filipino term for eldest sister. “They’re your responsibility. Take care of your siblings. Do this for me, okay?”
She was sick and tired of being Ate, of always being the responsible one. But it didn’t matter what she wanted. Just this once, she had hoped things would be different. That they could all be a family again. That she could be happy, free of the anxiety that always plagued her at home, where worries about bills and work and feeding hungry mouths never ceased.
Some vacation.
They strolled through the glass doors to the outside deck, which seemed to go on forever. On the upper deck, filmy-curtained cabanas offered massages from a service bot with arms tentacled like an octopus.
Two men strode toward them with their heads bent, walking so swiftly she had to grab Benjie’s hand and jerk him out of the way.
“Watch where you’re going.” One of the men glared at her. His brow was furrowed, his jaw clenched, his eyes dark and furious.
Instinctively, she stepped back, a sudden unease jolting through her. “Um, sorry?”
The man scowled and brushed against her shoulder as he stalked past. The other man didn’t glance at her at all. The first guy had looked almost . . . hateful, like she’d personally offended him.
She shivered, though the September sun was hot. “Have a great day to you, too,” she said to their retreating backs.
“Don’t let them bother you.” Zia was always the one to look on the bright side. Her eyes shone with excitement. Her turquoise-tipped pixie haircut accentuated her heart-shaped face. She was younger, but already as tall as Willow’s five-foot nothing. “What should we do after this?”
Benjie didn’t bother to answer. He shoved his ratty Star Wars backpack into her hands, dashed off, and jumped into the massive infinity pool before Willow could say a word. He was a sweet, goofy kid, always leaping into trouble headfirst.
Zia stared at the ship’s map, a hologram she brought up by clicking her wristband twice. “How about cryotherapy? The glass-floored tapas place? The Gilded Coral Spa?”
“Anything you want.” Willow had already spent the last six days being the patient big sister: she’d taken Zia and Benjie to the Xtreme Worlds virtual reality center, managed not to freeze to death in the snow room, and glided around the low-grav center, where they slurped up floating spheres of lemonade over and over.
Zia studied her, wrinkling her nose. “Are you okay? You’re acting strange.”
Willow stiffened. Zia always seemed to sense her moods. How could she explain her guilt at enjoying this opulence, then her shame for feeling guilt in the first place? Or how she loved her family but at the same time wished they would all disappear, at least for awhile?
“I’m fine,” she muttered. “Just go swim with Benjie, okay?”
“Be that way.” Zia stuck out her bottom lip in a pout and and stalked off. Zia was usually good-natured, exuberant and giddy about absolutely everything, especially on a ship like this. She’d get over it quickly.
Willow sighed and glanced at the humanoid bots straightening cushions and delivering fresh towels. They zipped between the rows of lounge chairs, carrying frilly, fruity drinks on trays. They still gave her the creeps, no matter how normal everyone treated them.
Rihanna would understand. She smiled at the thought of her best friend since fifth grade. She ran her fingers over the third-gen Smartflex she’d borrowed from her mom earlier. It was old and scuffed, nothing like the gorgeous SmartFlexes the elites wore, with their cuffs of smoky platinum, shimmering gold, and silver filigree edged in tiny rubies.
They looked like designer jewelry until you activated the digital overlay or holo-ports. At least her mom’s SmartFlex featured a holo-port, unlike her own ancient version. She tapped the cuff and swiped Rihanna’s avatar. A moment later her image appeared, shimmering above the holo-port. “Please tell me you’re already engaged to a wealthy playboy CEO-wannabe.”
Willow grinned. “Hell no. They’re all stuck-up jerkwads. Well, most of them, anyway.”
“Their loss.” Rihanna coughed and pulled a pink polka-dotted blanket tighter around her shoulders. Usually all bright-eyed and bursting with energy, her brown skin looked faded, her eyes glassy, her braids frayed and unkempt.
Willow was about to tell Rihanna about the boy she’d met a few days ago, the only bright spot other than the food, but Rihanna’s ragged appearance unnerved her. “Are you okay?”
“Got that Armageddon bat-flu thing the media keeps going insane over. For days, it was just a stupid cold that wouldn't go away. Then, bam. Woke up yesterday feeling like I've been smashed into a blender. This thing is malicious.”
“You don’t look so hot.”
“Funny you should say that. I’m actually dreadfully, horrendously hot. You ever have a fever of one hundred and five?”
“Seriously? Shouldn’t you be in a hospital?”
Rihanna grunted. “They’re sort of full right now.”
“What do you mean full?”
Rihanna waved her hand. “Everyone here is sick. And those stupid border checkpoints won’t let you outside the city limits without a medical clearance. We’re stuck here.”
A pang of guilt struck her. Here she was, drinking champagne every day and sunning on Bahamian beaches while Rihanna was puking her guts up. “I’m so sorry. Did you get out of that physics test, at least?”
Rihanna coughed. “They shut down every school in Newark yesterday. Lots of other places, too. Voluntary quarantine or something. It sure doesn’t seem voluntary, though.”
Nervous energy prickled up and down Willow’s spine. Schools shut down for a few days or weeks every year due to the flu or whatever new disease was all the rage, but never so many of them. Not all at the same time. That was weird.
She tapped the top left corner of the SmartFlex. The home page appeared alongside Rihanna’s face, the various newsfeeds reporting the latest on the mandatory microchip debate, the near-constant weather record-breakers, and the corn and wheat blights still spreading throughout the southern states. 'Vice President Sloane Claims Epidemic Concerns Overblown,' one headline stated. Another posted, 'Universal Flu Vaccine Declared a Success.'
“The news says things are gettin
g better. Lots of doom and gloom over nothing.”
Rihanna snorted. “I'm about to hurl all over your doom and gloom, bitch.”
“Love you, too. But didn't you get the free shot?”
“A useless five hours standing in line, if you ask me. A pointless publicity stunt.”
“You must have already been infected.”
“I guess.” Rihanna’s face turned an unhealthier shade. She swallowed several times. “Seriously, though, the toilet and I have a date. Go kiss a hot rich guy for me, 'kay?”
Willow swiped off, missing Rihanna like a physical pain in her chest. Rihanna was funny and irreverent and always up for a dare. This cruise would be a radically different experience with her best friend here. With anyone her age who didn't look at her like she was a pariah or a communicable disease.
There was that boy, Finn, that she’d run into on her first day, literally bumping into him on the Royal Promenade. He’d been sweet and kind and treated her like a normal person. She’d been so busy watching her siblings, she hadn’t gotten a chance to see him since.
But she always had terrible luck with boys. An opulent ship brimming with beautiful people wasn’t going to change that.
Willow sighed and shielded her eyes to check on Benjie and Zia frolicking in the pool. At least the ship was free of surveillance drones, stupid border checkpoints, and those irritating holo ads everywhere in the city, always scanning everyone’s SmartFlex’s for purchasing history and consumer index records and vying for attention: “Willow, try a sample of Desire, our new pheromone-engineered formula guaranteed to make your guy blah, blah, blah for you.” And, “Our new Allure has all the taste of real, soil-grown food with none of the calories, so you can finally lose those fifteen pounds, Willow!”
Like calories were the reason no normal person could eat cheeseburgers anymore.
Willow took a step closer to the glass railing but stayed a good five feet from the edge. It was a long way down. The ocean stretched in every direction, an expanse of blue that went on forever.
She’d stood right here six days ago as the ship set sail from the Manhattan Terminal, the bay shimmering far below, the glittering skyline soaring above her.
Everything had appeared so perfect—until she’d glanced down at the loading docks. The gangway was closed. Dozens of security bots had patrolled several areas blocked off by old-school barbed wire fencing. Armed security dressed in black combat gear guarded a crackling plasma fence. Drones zoomed back and forth, a silent but menacing warning.
Beyond the fence, a mob of people shook their fists and raised signs and holo projections. The waving signs were too far away to read, though they likely protested the impending mandatory implant chip and new surveillance laws, the metalheads stealing all the jobs, the lack of food stocking grocery store shelves, or the armed-guard checkpoints outside every city. The list went on and on.
She understood their anger. She felt it herself. Food and jobs were scarce. The Second Great Depression had dragged on for over a decade. The Grand Voyager’s gaudy extravagance was garish in the face of such hopelessness.
They had a right to be angry, unlike the rich bastards who’d nearly bowled her over a few minutes ago. What did the elites have to be upset about in their perfect, gilded world?
This extravagant cruise promised an unforgettable trip, the fulfillment of every lavish desire and dream one could imagine. But only for the elites, only for those rich and powerful enough to thumb their noses at everyone else.
She didn’t belong on this ship. She belonged with the outraged mob below—exhausted and overworked just like her mom, consumed by worry and forever trapped in survival mode.
For Willow, the Grand Voyager was a glimmering dream slipping through her fingers, a reminder of everything she didn’t have—and never would.
5
Micah
“I need to talk to you,” nineteen-year-old Micah Ramos Rivera said. A sickening sensation wrenched his stomach. He worked hard, tried to do the right thing, and more than anything, he loved his brother. He’d never had a single reason to doubt him.
Until now.
Micah faced his brother, his shoulders tensed, his voice hoarse. “Now, please.”
Gabriel sat at a metal table in the officer mess hall. He stabbed a green bean with his fork and waved it at him. “Remember how Mom always made us eat a serving of vegetables at every meal, including breakfast?”
“I've been searching for you all over the ship.”
“I’ve been busy.” Gabriel grinned. “I still eat my vegetables, even when she’s not here to make me. Silly, huh?”
Micah would not be pushed aside. Not today. “I know what you did.”
A shadow crossed Gabriel’s face, so quick he might have imagined it. Gabriel untangled himself from the chair and followed Micah into the corridor.
The beige walls were tacked with peeling posters of notices and safety policies, the bare floors and exposed piping a sharp contrast against the decadence upstairs. No one cared about the state of the crew quarters.
“Just what do you think you know?” Gabriel asked sharply.
The memory was still fresh. Micah had spent an endless shift catering to the elites fresh from another shore excursion. He’d served middle-aged men nursing hangovers and rich women giddy with the 'deals' they'd bartered off the impoverished in the bustling shops of Grand Turk. It was exhausting, but he tried not to show it. He was just grateful to have a job.
He’d gone below deck to the laundry area for a fresh load of linen napkins to reset the tables in the Oasis dining room where he served as a waiter. He’d seen something that made the hairs prickle on the back of his neck.
“What’s that?” Micah had asked over the roar of the ship’s engines. The waves lashed the hull. The stink of bleach and brine filled his nostrils. His stomach tightened.
A short, stocky Asian man stood in front of him, blocking his view of the pallet of fifty-pound bags of detergent the man had been unloading with two sani-bots. His name tag read Liu Wei Zhang. He wore a yellow bandana tied around his forehead.
“Napkins are over there.” Zhang gestured to the left, where a sani-bot stacked folded towels, sheets, and table linens inside a yellow metal cage. “By the towels.”
Micah pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and glanced at the blue powder dusting the cement floor. One of the detergent bags on the pallet was split open. He could just make out something white, square, and saran-wrapped poking out of the blue powder. “Look’s like you’ve got a spill. Need any help?”
Zhang smiled wider. Sweat beaded his hairline. “We’ve got it under control. Here, follow me. I'll help you get those napkins.”
But Micah wasn’t fooled. He stepped around the man and brushed the powdered detergent aside with his hand, uncovering dozens of packages of white pills. His stomach sank to his toes. “You're smuggling Silk.”
Zhang scowled. “Keep your voice down.”
It made sense. Drug running was a huge business with any form of international transportation, including luxury cruise ships. Considering how little the crew was paid, an extra few grand a trip was plenty of incentive to look the other way.
But still, it was wrong. Serenaphin—Silk—was the worst of the synthetic drugs that had flooded the streets over the last several years. Micah’s own father had been hooked on the stuff. Until it killed him. Fresh anger burned through his veins. “You know I can't do that.”
“What are you going to do, then?”
“I have to tell Schneider.” Franz Schneider was the chief security officer, a German guy in his mid-forties who always smoked cigars in the crew bar.
Zhang snorted. “You think he isn't in on it?”
“I don't believe you.”
“Talk to him yourself. He's paid good, that's all I know. He'll cut you in.”
“I don't want to be cut in.” Micah thought about his father, his life force sucked out of him as he slumped on the couch day after
day, his ribs growing more prominent, the hollows in his cheeks deepening until he resembled a living skeleton. Until he was one. “I'll go over Schneider’s head. I'll go to the captain if I have to.”
Zhang stared at him, incredulous. He stepped close and poked the brass name tag over Micah's chest.
Apprehension jolted through Micah. He hadn't thought to be afraid.
“Your name,” Zhang said. “Rivera. Your brother is on the security crew, yes?”
Micah said nothing.
Zhang read the answer on his face. He smiled. “Do what you gotta do. You report the drugs, your brother goes with us. Thirty-year sentence for this many kilos. Maybe he'll get out in time to meet your grand-kids.”
Micah went rigid. He watched two sani-bots feed sheets into the jaws of a machine that automatically pressed and folded the linens. He felt like a giant hand was crushing his windpipe. He struggled to find his voice. “What are you talking about?”
“Your brother. He's—how do you say it? He's in deep, amigo.”
A memory of his brother flashed through his mind. Gabriel carrying him in his arms as pain and blood exploded through him, murmuring, “You’re okay, you’ll be okay” over and over.
A crack of doubt opened inside him. Not Gabriel. It couldn’t be Gabriel.
Zhang sneered. “What’re you gonna do now?”
Micah had wanted to punch the man in the face. Instead, he bit the inside of his cheeks hard enough to draw blood. “Just give me the napkins.”
“Ask him.” Zhang’s eyes glittered. “He’ll tell you himself.”
The crack of doubt had opened wider.
It felt like a crater now, a canyon separating himself from the one person he loved wholly and without reservation, the only family he had left in the world. The words were barbed wire in his throat as he faced his brother. “I know about the drugs you've been smuggling on the ship.”
Gabriel smoothed a stray wrinkle in his security uniform. His movements were careful and deliberate. “What are you talking about?”
A fresh wave of anger swelled over him. Gabriel was a smooth liar. Always had been. But Gabriel wasn't supposed to lie to him. “Zhang told me.”