Dove Arising

by Karen Bao

  I never had a choice about going to Earth.

  “I’ll take care of Anka. And . . . and Mom. Just don’t die, I guess. I’d be sad if you did.”

  “I won’t,” I say, even though it’s probable.

  He throws his right arm around me. “You should talk to Mom. Every time someone mentions you, she gets this sad look. Sad, not mad, so don’t be scared. She just wants the old you back.”

  I nearly scoff at his optimism. Healing my bond with Mom will be more complicated than showing her I’m still the same person. Cygnus didn’t hear her tell me I’d destroyed myself, implying that the old Phaet, whoever she was, had vanished and wasn’t worth trying to salvage.

  “Why wait? Mom’s sleeping in the next room—” Cygnus raps his wall. “Right there.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I squeeze his middle, hanging on until I feel his skinny arm squeeze me back. “Thanks for trying to help.”

  “Then will you talk to her soon? I don’t want to be in the middle of this anymore.” He returns to prodding his handscreen.

  Somewhere inside, Mom and I are the same. She must be suffering from our separation too. If only she were forgiving enough, or I were brave enough, to end it.

  Procrastination has never been a habit of mine. But days of patrol duty with no sightings of my family make it easy to put off visiting home again. I could get used to this lifestyle—not worrying about anyone but myself, at least on a daily basis. I have privacy now, and quiet. If I want to nap during my lunch hour, I don’t have to ask Anka’s permission to do it. If I want to stay up late reading, no one can prevent it.

  But each convenience reminds me that I’m only pretending I don’t need my family, and my actions reflect the turmoil. Yesterday, I broke up a fistfight, accidentally stomping on a preteen boy’s foot and getting bruised on the knee as retaliation. I don’t mean to act like a cat submerged in a tank, but sometimes you can’t beat biology.

  On August 12, during my thirty-seventh lap around the Atrium as it empties for dinnertime, the Phi twins and Caeli approach me. The boys glare, making me feel sick all over again about abandoning my family—and their willingness to abandon me. But their mother doesn’t seem to care.

  “It’s so nice to see you, Captain Phaet!” Caeli says. “We’re on our way back from Education. How are you?”

  Before I tell her not to worry, Umbriel points at me. “We need to talk.”

  Caeli and Ariel give each other a long look.

  “All right,” Caeli says. “We’ll go on home—don’t go anywhere too private, and Umbriel, be back before 20:00. Okay?”

  “Yeah, Mom.”

  As they walk off, I hold my handscreen in front of my face, staring at the time. Umbriel knows the gesture means I’ve got a job to do. Make it quick.

  “Wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again. And I heard you haven’t talked to your mom or sister or brother since you walked out.”

  My hands clench into fists, sweating beneath my synthetic gloves. Umbriel always acknowledges the things I can’t. Hearing him list my wrongs toward my family is the price I pay for having a perceptive best friend.

  “I feel terrible,” I say, trying to placate him.

  Umbriel’s face softens at the string of honest words. “That’s a relief.”

  “Can’t describe it . . .”

  He didn’t want to be angry with me; he immediately gives in. “Oh, Phaet. Even though your mom worries, I know you’re still you. The color you’re wearing doesn’t make a difference. But how long until you come home? How long are you going to keep your rank?”

  I shake my head—I don’t know. “I’ll be captain until they tell me I’m a major.”

  Umbriel doesn’t like the idea, but he knows that the Militia has become my future. They won’t let me quit for at least five years, and even if they did, I need to keep this job until my family’s bank account recovers.

  That is, if Mom is found innocent.

  His warm hand on mine jerks me away from the hopelessness, and he bends to my ear. “I know things are going to be different for us, but know that no matter what you’ve done, no matter what else happens, I’ll still . . .” He can’t go on, and he doesn’t need to. Discussing events beyond August 24 is a waste of time.

  Speaking of time, I haven’t checked on my personnel. My eyes shift from Umbriel’s, but he grasps my hands, constructing a cage of living tissue around them. “That’s . . . that’s what you want, right?”

  What a question—useless and insensitive. Does he think I can make decisions based on what I want?

  “Later.” I retract my hands and shove them in my pants pockets.

  Umbriel’s eyebrows descend.

  “Hey, Captain!” calls a high voice.

  Private Eri Pi stands to my right, grinning. “Stop noodling around with your boyfriend and get back to work!”

  My eyes narrow. Attached to her arm—and wearing an unfortunate expression—is Sergeant Wes Kappa, which renders her “boyfriend” comment somewhat ironic.

  His eyes meet mine. It’s a passing glance, but I cling to the memory of it like fire clings to oxygen.

  “Eri, let’s get some dinner,” he says. “You wanted quinoa spaghetti, right?”

  “Oh, yeah. Let’s go!” With renewed focus, Eri drags him off to Market.

  Without another glance at Eri and Wes, I resume walking to distance myself from them. Umbriel tails me, recycling familiar arguments to convince me to leave my job. I stride faster and faster, hardly bothering to bend my stiff knees, until I’m half jogging. Umbriel reaches for my gloved hand, but I jerk away.

  “Phaet, can you put that mad face away and listen? I thought you said—oof!”

  A set of dirty, stinky robes barrels into him. Without looking back, its owner continues traversing the Atrium floor, weaving between knots of people. From the nearby Financial Department, a paunchy woman cries, “Silver! He’s taken silver!”

  Umbriel pulls me toward him, but I pull out an Electrostun, elbowing free. At last, something to do.

  When the Sputnik was in its early stages decades ago, the Committee backed it with precious metals. Now, Sputniks are digitized fiat money accepted everywhere on the Moon, but Financial keeps gold, silver, and platinum around to prevent spontaneous economic busts.

  I’ve already shot off after the flapping robes. He’s tall, slim, and fast.

  I’m a captain; this is not my job. But many of my underlings are across the Atrium, and I’m already relishing the chase, entire seconds and minutes during which there’s nothing but the thief, my goal, and me.

  To steer the thief the way I want, I run behind him and to his left, driving him to the right. He checks the Atrium’s security mirrors every few seconds to discern my location as I push him toward the entrance of Market. We’re in agreement about our destination; hundreds of people swarm at the entrance, a crowd the thief could duck behind.

  Too bad. I’ve already committed his scrawny face to memory—and the boy whose lovely dinner I’m about to interrupt can chase him down, even on an empty stomach.

  “Sergeant Wezn and Private Eri,” I say into my helmet. “Thief heading into Market. Dirty robes. About one meter, ninety centimeters tall.”

  A dozen meters away, Wes abandons his still-full bowl of pasta, remembering to push his chair in as he shoots to his feet. When his gleaming eyes locate the flapping robes, he darts through the crowd like a missile, not hitting a single table, chair, or person. Diners scramble out of his way. He gains on the thief; to preserve momentum, he somersaults across a deserted table instead of swerving around it.

  Meanwhile, I circle the perimeter of Market, waiting for Wes to lead the thief to me. I can’t see the action from the ground, so I mount a pyramid of industrial water dispensers and hunker down on the side opposite the thief’s location.

  Our target crouches to hide his height, worming under a table—again, a smart move, but performed in the wrong location: right below me. I detect his body odor amo
ng the otherwise pleasing aromas of Market.

  I set my Electrostun in long-range mode. Why did this man cause so much trouble, when he knew he’d be caught?

  With satisfaction suffusing every organ but my heart, I cock my weapon and fire a sticky pellet carrying 50,000 volts onto the skin of his forearm. White veins of electricity wrap around him, knocking him flat. His body performs an involuntary twitching dance, knocking over the table under which he’s taken shelter.

  Only when his screech hits my eardrums do I realize what I’ve done.

  31

  “IT’S OKAY, IT’S OKAY.” ERI WAVES HER HANDS at the onlookers, who continue to stare at me and my frozen hand, which still clutches the Electrostun. Theft is rare, and when it does occur, an arrest almost certainly follows.

  I wish I could gather all that electricity and shove it back into my weapon. How badly did I hurt my victim? How could I have had such an urge?

  I allow myself an exhale when the thief, a fifty-something man with a warty face, stirs and produces three silver coins from the pocket of his once-vermilion Tau robes.

  “Your dumb Sputniks, all hundred and fifty of ’em. Just let me go home!”

  “The rules are the rules, Mr. . . . erm . . . Mr. Leo.” Eri clicks magnetic handcuffs around his wrists.

  Leo Tau bares his yellow teeth at her and turns to me. “I could ha’ kept my four little girls outta Shelter for another few weeks if you hadn’t—”

  “Come on, now.” Eri escorts Leo from Market, her Lazy prodding his spine. Her shiny two-hundred-Sputnik boots scuff the floor. Law will throw Leo in Penitentiary, where Mom spent her miserable six weeks and where he will decay even longer because no one who cares can afford to bail him out. Helplessness and indignation will plague his fledgling daughters, sickening them faster than Shelter’s myriad diseases. Four daughters. Soon, four dirt-covered urchins like Belinda.

  Wes is watching me in my hiding place. As he turns to go, he shakes his head, wearing an expression resembling pity. I’d rather he were angry.

  Someone else demands my attention, yanking me down from the pile of water dispensers and hissing in my ear.

  “I can’t believe you.” It’s Umbriel. “I thought you’d never change—and you agreed with me. Where’d that promise go? Into your fat new account in Financial? The least you could have done is let that guy escape, not stun him half unconscious. He took a hundred and fifty—you make that much every day!”

  With a pang, I calculate that I make a hundred and fifty Sputniks about every six hours.

  “Have you forgotten where you come from, Captain Phaet?” Umbriel demands. “I stole you fruit when you were hungry. I stole a rose for you because I couldn’t afford anything fancier. Are you going to arrest me a thousand times, just because you can? I saw your face back there. You looked like you were having fun.” Umbriel’s voice turns to singsong.

  “Beater, Beater, make the Bases neater. Stun guns, Lazies, the blood gets sweeter. . . .”

  It’s a hideous tune that Primary kids chant under their breath. The chasm within me that Mom opened up grows wider, wider, and more darkness sweeps inside.

  “Leave.”

  “Not until you admit what you’re turning into.”

  My hand shoots to my utility belt—an automatic reaction, not an indication that I’d hurt Umbriel. But he doesn’t take it that way.

  “Arrest me, then! Zap me, put a laser through!” Umbriel towers over me, diminishing my officer powers with the sheer size of his body and personality. “Just don’t come running back if you find your old self again!”

  He marches off. I take two halfhearted steps toward him before realizing their futility. The floor rises to meet my knees; the impact echoes through my body as if I were hollow inside. And after losing Umbriel, I am.

  Although I want to hammer my fists into something—anything—I settle for twisting my fingers together until they grow chilly from lack of blood.

  Beater, Beater. My mind repeats Umbriel’s chant of its own accord, matching each syllable with my racing pulse. The blood gets sweeter.

  Yinha finds me sprawled on the floor that night, staring at the seams in the ceiling. Every time I blink, Leo Tau’s face appears in my mind’s eye, every detail intact from his sunken cheeks to his yellow teeth.

  My fury has left me deflated, a floppy sack of skin. Umbriel is right. In the past weeks, I’ve grown mysterious to myself. That I stormed out of Theta 808 should have been an early indication. If I’d stopped then, I wouldn’t have progressed to this point, raging against total strangers.

  “Don’t mean to be nosy,” Yinha says via the Defense inter-handscreen network. My skin tingles. “But how are you?”

  I groan and flip onto my stomach.

  “Oh, fuzz,” Yinha says. “You’re flopping around like an overcooked noodle. I’m coming over.”

  I open the door for her and park myself against the wall. Yinha glides across my kitchen, throwing ice into the blender. She cranks it to the highest speed; the ruckus will hide our conversation from the security pods that we know are buzzing around.

  “The first arrest is rough.” Yinha sits on my memory foam couch and leans over the armrest to look me in the face. “Nothing prepares you for packing someone off to a Pen cell for who knows how long. Lots of newbie soldiers have issues. Then they get used to putting people away, maybe even start liking it. There’s power in it, and that’s what makes some stay in this business.”

  That’s what I felt when I fired the Electrostun. I look downward in shame.

  “Is that why you’re here?”

  “I don’t know, but I hope not.” Yinha avoids my eyes. “This is the only job I have. I do what they tell me to do, not really loving or hating it.”

  Maybe there’s guilt somewhere too, but it isn’t obvious. Becoming an officer like her is the best I can hope for. “I should apologize.”

  “To whom? Leo? It’s kind of late for that.”

  Yes, but to my family as well. Cygnus was right—I should have talked to Mom weeks ago, before my smoldering anger manifested in the form of an Electrostun pellet. Umbriel too.

  “I want your job,” I blurt. No boring, infuriating Atrium duty, no arrests, no Earth recon missions—if I complete a year of regular duty, I can apply to become an instructor. I intend to.

  “Think twice, or thrice, or ten times about that. It’s cool that I don’t have to go on patrol, but it’s not cool that I send a bunch of you guys out to do it every two months. This latest batch of trainees makes me sad.”

  Yinha massages her temples. With some dread, I wait for her to elaborate.

  “One death already: a boy, fresh out of Primary. His grenade exploded too early. He was only Eri’s size. Everyone’s too shaken up now to study the manuals for destroyers and pressure suits.”

  We bow our heads, mourning in miniature. Another Vinasa, and more may follow. Without my Primary study habits—and luck—I could have been just like them.

  “Sorry,” Yinha says. “Didn’t mean to bring up bad memories. Anyway, you’d better smooth things over with your friend—what’s his name?”

  “Umbriel.”

  Yinha extends her hand over the armrest to hold mine. “Apologize to Umbriel. And when you can, apologize to Leo. Make it up to him—legally, of course. Cool?”

  “Mm.”

  “Do you feel better now? I hate to see you slouch around.” Yinha rises from the sofa and turns off the blender. “You’re going fizz crazy, stuck in here.”

  She’s right. Despite its size, my apartment is turning into a trap; I’ve grown too comfortable here.

  “Here’s an idea. Why don’t we fly to the ISS? It’s close to the Moon tonight. I haven’t visited in years, and I don’t want to go alone.”

  I remember how Yinha couldn’t tear her eyes away from the ISS icon during our meeting with Skat and the General. Her preoccupation with it is unusual but understandable. The ISS, a massive satellite containing some of the ancient Earthbo
unds’ most advanced technology, has been in orbit since the twentieth century, long before the Twenty Years’ War.

  For now, I’ll leave memories of Umbriel’s taunts and Mom’s whispers behind me on the Moon.

  With a lurch, my Pygmette latches on magnetically to the floating hunk of metal.

  “Beat you!” Yinha’s voice roars through my headset. Back in the hangar, she challenged me to a race. I expected to lose, having never piloted a Pygmette off-base, so I didn’t mind being left behind in a trail of protons and helium-4. Yinha’s ruse has worked; while punching buttons and dodging debris, I had no capacity to think about anything else. I chuckle at her playfulness, smiling for the first time since my falling-out with Mom.

  Yinha’s celebration ends prematurely, though; she says no more. Unsure whether our connection has failed, I call, “Yinha?”

  “I’m here. It’s just that . . . well, the last time I visited . . .”

  Yinha’s Pygmette unlatches from the ISS. I follow her so that I can examine the satellite at a distance, which I failed to do amidst the excitement of our race.

  Like an oversized falcon, the ISS has two wings, each with plumes comprised of eight antiquated solar panels. Rising from the steel body of the craft is a short neck, topped with a crest of eight smaller panels.

  Seeing the real thing instead of a low-res icon, I realize the panels resemble irregular checkerboards; something has removed solar cells at random, uncovering the bare metal beneath. The wings themselves are crooked; entire plates of steel are gone, revealing the chambers in which ancient Earthbound explorers lived and worked. One attachment on the bottom of the craft hangs on by a hinge. As the ISS follows its orbital path, it turns away from us, seemingly unable to bear the gaze of strangers upon its diminished glory.

  “Bai took me here when I turned twenty. Before he got hurt,” Yinha says. “This thing used to shine.”

  Her Pygmette shoots through a hole in the satellite’s metal plating and into a room faintly resembling a kitchen. Displaced food carts float around the galley and glance off the walls.