Darkness Between the Stars

by J. Edward Neill

  After just two hours inside the mountain, I had begun to understand all the training I’d done over the last thirteen months. The suit did most of the work, but not all. If I’d have been weak or out of shape, I’d have been exhausted after just a few minutes. I might’ve crashed into the inner mountain walls or fainted from the stress of zipping through zero-G while shooting moving targets in all directions.

  As it happened, I was having more fun than ever in my life.

  And when the suit powered back up, I felt my heart race again.

  “Watch this,” I told Cal.

  Seven targets moved out there in the darkness. They glowed faintly red, little rings crackling with electricity, hunting and evading me. I figured Doctor Abid had programmed them to attack me, but also avoid the blasts from my arm cannon.

  I tapped another switch inside the cannon, and changed direction.

  “Careful…” I heard Callista warn me. “We’re going too faaaaaaaast.”

  I ignored her. At a dangerous speed, I jetted toward one of the mountain walls. I knew three of the red targets were tearing through the darkness after me. They probably figured I couldn’t see them with my back turned.

  Feet first, I hit the wall going at least one-hundred kilometers per hour. The impact would’ve killed me outside of the suit, but inside I hardly felt a thing. Even though my boots made two little craters in the rock, my suit corrected the gravity so I wouldn’t break every bone in my body.

  “And this…” I shouted to Callista.

  I pushed off with my feet, activated my boots’ thrusters, and propelled myself back into the vast emptiness. The red target rings never had a chance. I blasted two of them with a flurry of arm cannon shots, while the third went careening into the rock.

  “I guess it didn’t see the wall,” I laughed.

  “Or it wasn’t piloting the most expensive piece of clothing ever created,” Cal quipped.

  I shushed her and propelled myself toward two more of the targets. They were near the mountaintop, which meant the emptiness narrowed and the rock walls were much closer together.

  “I wonder if this thing ever runs out of shots?” I glanced at the arm cannon.

  Because it feels like it never will.

  Aside from the iron rod I’d used to bash Wendall Wight, the Vezda suit’s smooth, hollow cannon was the only weapon I’d ever used. We’d never had any guns or armaments on the farm. Only because of the skypad had I been able to watch war vids in which firearms, rockets, and projectiles of all kinds had been used.

  The vids had been impressive.

  But somehow I had the feeling the arm cannon was more powerful than all of them.

  “I feel like a god,” I joked to Cal.

  “Oh boy,” she groaned. “Two hours and it’s already gone to your head.”

  “Be quiet and watch.” I made a face she couldn’t see.

  I aimed at one of the glowing red targets. The little red ring was only as big around as my helmet. It was floating in place in the darkness, awaiting my next move. I was too far away to hope to hit it with a single shot, but my plan was simple:

  Overwhelm it. Pretend it’s Wendall Wight. Or…Aiden Frost.

  I squeezed the arm cannon’s trigger again and again, firing yellow energy bursts as fast as I could. Dozens of shots sprayed out, illuminating the darkness like little stars. The poor target couldn’t hope to dodge them all. It moved to avoid twenty of them, but after another twenty it finally got clipped and exploded into hundreds of tiny pieces.

  “The ammo, it’s limitless,” I said to Cal.

  “Didn’t Doctor Abid already say that?”

  “Maybe. I guess I didn’t believe him.”

  She kept talking, but I wasn’t listening. I’d figured out the basics of the Vezda suit, and I wasn’t about to be distracted. I focused hard, the same as I used to do on the farm whenever I worked on a piece of machinery. With Callista chattering in my head, I zoomed through the mountain’s heart and blasted my way through the targets.

  Every time I killed them all, they regenerated.

  And every time they regenerated, I killed them again.

  “I’m getting a signal,” Cal said after four rounds of slaughtering the targets. “It’s Abid. He says it’s time to take a break.”

  I slowed down until I was near motionless in the very center of the mountain. “Why didn’t he tell me?” I asked.

  With a huff, Cal admitted, “He said the test was too easy. He says we’ll come back tomorrow after they make it harder.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  I can’t wait, I thought.

  * * *

  And so it was. My training transformed from lifting weights and running without end into what it had always been meant to be. For the next several weeks, I lost myself in the mountain’s heart.

  It was just me and Callista. No Abid. No Tiana. No guidance. No conversations about what it all meant. It was just me and my beautiful blue friend as I tore through the mountain void and destroyed everything they threw at me.

  The Vezda suit was all-powerful.

  In it, I annihilated hundreds of red-ringed targets and fought swarms of angry sprites. And even though they sometimes washed over me and powered my suit down, I beat them more often than not.

  And when they sent man-shaped robots which fired soft projectiles at me, I sharpened my mind, learned their patterns, and defeated them all. The more time I spent fighting, the better I became.

  And then one evening, exhausted from jumping, flying, and defeating all my pretend foes without once being powered down, I sat on the floor of the empty gymnasium and rubbed my eyes.

  I’d just taken off my suit; it hung on its bracket behind me. Callista floated above, and somehow she looked just as tired as I did.

  “Now what?” I patted myself and felt the sticky sweat beneath my shirt.

  “You need a shower.” She yawned. “Might be hard to save the world if you stink.”

  I might have laughed. But in that moment, I remembered what Abid had told me.

  “…you’re going to kill them all,” he’d said.

  Frost’s descendants.

  Ebes.

  Little silver needles made to destroy stars.

  This is ludicrous.

  “Why me?” I asked Callista.

  “Why you what?”

  “Why, of all the people in the world, did I get torn out of my life to do this? Why did my mom and dad let me go so easily? Why am I sitting here talking to a little blue hologram? I don’t really care about any of this. I just want to be back on my farm. I just want to…I don’t know…walk through the wheat and count the stars.”

  If such a thing were possible, Callista looked hurt. “First, I’m not a hologram,” she said. “I’m a mobile cluster of nano-computers controlled by a single mind. I’m me. I’m Callista. I’m Cal.”

  I felt foolish.

  “Second, why do you ask such stupid questions? You know why you’re here. Don’t pretend. They raised you for this. You’ve always known. And it’s not like they told me any of this. You’ve admitted it to me a hundred times. You knew. And here you are.”

  She’s right, I thought.

  “Stop being so human,” she said.

  “What else would I be?” I argued.

  She floated to the gymnasium door without answering me. Exhausted, I peeled myself off the floor and shambled after her. For as much fun as destroying things all day every day for the last month had been, I was suddenly sick of it. I didn’t believe anything Abid or Tiana had told me.

  This isn’t real, I thought as I walked to the door.

  It’s just some kind of game.

  One Last Count

  Callista and I went in silence back to my room.

  Beyond the windows in every corridor, night reigned. I longed to be out there, to stand among the trees and breathe something other than the fortress’s ozone-scented air. Cal must’ve sensed it. After a while, she sat on my shoulder and put her t
iny blue hand on my head.

  In my room, I showered in the glass stall beside my bedchamber. Before that night, I’d never really thought about how odd it was that Callista hovered just outside the shower door and talked to me. But that night, I felt self-conscious. Even in the near-total dark, her blue light shined through the glass and onto me. I couldn’t help but keep my back to her.

  “Why did they make you pretty?” I asked a question I’d thought of a thousand times.

  She looked confused. “I don’t know what pretty is. Please explain.”

  “You mean you don’t know the meaning of the word?”

  “I know what the word means.” She shook her head, and her electric blue hair tumbled. “But I…I guess I don’t have anything to compare myself to.”

  “They made you look like Tiana. Better than Tiana, actually. And they did it on purpose.”

  It was as though the thought had never occurred to her.

  “Why would they do that?” she asked.

  I think I know. But it’s not like I can say it.

  “I don’t know,” I lied. “Maybe it was just easier to make you look…you know…friendly.”

  “Oh,” she said. Because of the steam in the shower, she couldn’t see my eyes, which meant she couldn’t read my deception, something she’d always been too good at.

  Still self-conscious, I wrapped myself in a towel and shooed her out of the tiny room. I was tired, overheated, and hungry, but for the first time in many months I didn’t really feel like eating. I had too much on my mind.

  How are Mom and Dad?

  How’s the farm?

  I don’t want to do this.

  I don’t want to kill anyone.

  They can’t make me.

  After I dressed, I wandered back into my room. It was mostly dark, with only my soft lamp glowing beside the bed. Callista sat on the edge of my narrow mattress, making little light explosions by clapping her hands. It never ceased to amaze me how the most powerful computer entity in the world chose to amuse herself.

  “No dinner tonight.” I flopped on the bed.

  “They won’t like that.” Callista waved her finger. “They’ll send a swarm of sprites to pester you, and I won’t be able to stop them all.”

  “What if…” I looked at the windows making up most of my bedroom’s walls. “What if we snuck outside and got a good look at the stars?”

  She stopped fidgeting and floated right in front of me. Her beauty was triply as intense when she got serious.

  “Joff, you know we can’t.”

  “I think I know a way.” I ignored her protest. “There’s a door on the far side of the room they birthed you in. I saw a platform. I bet you could get us out there.”

  “No, Joff. We’ll get into trouble.”

  I bounced out of bed. I had a sudden and foolish idea. I knew Cal couldn’t understand my human impulses, but I didn’t care.

  I need to do this.

  “Cal, I need your help. Just this once. Come on...I always do what you say. Always. More pushups. Another kilo on the tread-track. Another ten bites of whatever that brown crap they feed me is.”

  She crossed her arms. “Why exactly do you want to do this, Joff? Be honest.”

  “I need to breathe,” I sighed. “I need to be outside. And—”

  “And what?”

  “I want to look at the stars with my skypad.”

  She floated so close to my chin she could’ve reached out and slapped me. I saw the dark blue pupils in her not-quite-as-dark blue eyes.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I want to know if it’s real.”

  “If what’s real?”

  “Everything Abid and Tiana said. If the Exodus people are really destroying stars.”

  “Let me guess…” She stared hard at me. “Because if they are, it means you and I are really going to Ebes. Right?”

  “Right.”

  The way she looked over her shoulder and into the deep black beyond the windows told me everything I needed to know.

  She’s going to help.

  I slid out of bed, dropped a white shirt over my shoulders, and grabbed my skypad from its hiding place under my bedside table. By the time I peeked at the door, Callista was already floating in front of it.

  “C’mon, slowpoke.” She smiled.

  I could kiss her, I thought.

  Out into the corridors we went. Every evening, they dimmed the bluish lights in the hallways encircling the mountain, and on that night it was no different. We moved in heavy shadows, with dark windows to our left and blank walls to our right. Callista made no sound floating ahead of me. I was just as silent, padding barefoot the same way I had so many times sneaking past my sister’s bedroom.

  As we moved through the fortress, I kept waiting to be ambushed by sprites. The whining little chrome bots had a way of sneaking up on me whenever I least expected it. I’d long ago figured out Abid and Tiana could see through them. Given the late hour, it was my hope that when the sprites found us, they’d have to wake the doctors up.

  Maybe they’ll be asleep.

  Meaning I’ll have a few minutes before they catch me.

  “Do you think…” I whispered to Cal as we sneaked up a set of stairs. “Abid and Tiana are…well…you know?”

  Cal slowed. “What are you asking?

  “Are they together?”

  “You mean married? In a relationship? Engaging in carnal activities together?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Any of that.”

  Callista floated backwards so she could look me in the eyes. “No. I don’t think so. If I had to guess, I’d say Abid’s in love with your mom. He talks about her all the time. As for Tiana, I read no signs of attraction in her eyes. It’s not something I’m really programmed to understand, but I believe perhaps Doctor Tiana isn’t attracted to Abid for reasons of his age and his level of obsession with the mission, which appears to dominate his thought patterns.”

  My mom? Ick, I thought.

  “What mission?” I asked.

  “You. Silly. You’re the mission. Now come on. We’re almost there.”

  A few hundred steps more around the mountain, and we arrived at the black metal door leading to what I liked to call ‘Cal’s room.’ I remembered meeting her inside, and immediately knowing I liked her.

  “We have to be really careful in there,” I whispered.

  “Well, not that careful,” Callista zoomed ahead.

  “Wait. Why not?” I chased her into the darkness.

  “C’mon, Joff.” I heard her whispers. “Don’t be dumb. It’s probable they already know what we’re up to.”

  “Which means—”

  “That’s right.” She shrugged. “They’re letting us do this.”

  I hadn’t thought about the possibility.

  As it turned out, I didn’t really care.

  We moved through the deep black inside the room. If not for Callista’s blue glow, I’d have been completely blind. I tiptoed on the chilly floor, evading the black pillar she’d been born from. I wondered if she slept there during the rare times she was away from me.

  …or if she sleeps at all.

  I heard a click, and I knew she’d unlocked the door leading to the platform beyond. The door wasn’t automatic like the others in the fortress. It was too heavy for her to open. I pushed against the dark glass, wincing when it swung open and the cold air hit me.

  As I stepped out into the night, I realized how much I’d missed it.

  “Maybe the sprites will have a harder time chasing us out here.” Cal floated ahead of me. The wind didn’t seem to bother her, though to me it was bracing.

  I walked out onto the platform beyond the fortress. Behind me, the sheer mountain rose up, stark and barren. Out there in the night, I heard the trees crackle and dance in the wind. The stars blazed tiny holes into the cloudless sky. I imagined the season must’ve been autumn, but in truth I didn’t know.

  “Well this is different,” Cal
declared. “It’s cold, isn’t it? I can’t really feel it much, but I see you’re shivering.”

  “I’m shivering because I’m excited.”

  It was mostly true. To be outside again after so long made me feel things I’d never felt before. It hit me harder than the wind. I swallowed so as not to cry. I didn’t want Callista to know, but I think she did anyway.

  I’m homesick.

  At least Cal was nice enough to not say anything.

  The platform jutted some twenty meters straight out of the mountainside. The metal grate felt frozen beneath my feet. When I got to the railing, I made the mistake of looking over and down. Before then, I hadn’t really known just how far up the mountainside the fortress was constructed. I couldn’t see all the way down, but I knew if I jumped over, I’d have had plenty of time to think before I hit the valley’s bottom.

  “Why do you think this platform is here?” I asked Cal.

  “It’s probably for you,” she huffed. “Everything else seems to be.”

  I shot her a look. She grinned. Nothing was quite as fun as being around a sarcastic blue girl.

  I unpeeled the skypad from my leg. Callista made a face at it.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Jealous?”

  “No.” She crossed her arms.

  “Well…do you have a link to all the orbital telescopes? Can you use them to count the stars?”

  “No.” She rolled her eyes.

  I tugged the skypad until it was rigid and held it out in front of me. “You act like I’m cheating on you or something.”

  “…like you even know what that is,” she cracked.

  She was right. Years ago, I’d heard Aly talk about boys and love and all the mess in-between. But as for me, I didn’t know a thing about it. The closest thing I’d ever had to a girlfriend was Callista.

  “Guess I could do worse,” I mumbled for her benefit.

  If she heard me, she didn’t show it.

  “Skypad, power up,” I said aloud.

  “Good evening, Joff.” The screen flickered on. I hadn’t used the pad since pulling it out of the box Mom and Dad had sent. Somehow, I was surprised it still worked.

  “Skypad, are you still configured to count stars using the orbital telescope array?”