Ignite the Stars

by Maura Milan

  “Oh.” He looked confused—an expression she had never seen on him before—and then he shook his head, and he appeared calm and strong like he always was. “Next time then.”

  Brinn wanted to explain it to him, but she knew she never could.

  She forced herself to walk calmly back to her dorm room. She told herself it was nothing, repeating that like a spell that would break a curse, but no matter how many times she tried, her heart kept on hammering inside her chest.

  Focus. FOCUS. But she couldn’t, not for the life of her.

  Quick-stepping around the corner, she sprinted to her dorm room. Inside, the room was empty, and she felt a wave of relief rush through her. She didn’t want to tell Ia any of it.

  Because this wasn’t a problem at all, she assured herself. She dyed her hair, aimed for B’s in all of her classes, and kept quiet so no one would notice her enough to pick on her. There was no way this person knew the truth. She was too careful.

  Brinn sat on her bed, hugging her legs close to her body. It was quiet except for the gentle hum of the lights above, when her watch beeped. She sat still, her skin prickling with goose bumps.

  It’s nothing, she said breathlessly to herself. Nothing.

  Taking a deep breath, she looked down at her holowatch and tapped the screen.

  The message materialized before her. It took only a few seconds to read it, but for a long time, the words burned into her.

  I heard your talk with your mom. I know what you are, Brinn Tarver.

  During their nightly Goma match, Brinn curled up into fetal position on Ia’s bed and buried her face in Ia’s pillow. She felt a tap on her shoulder and swiveled her head. Ia was sitting at the foot of the bed watching her, a Goma board floating in her periphery.

  “You’re dead, Tarver,” Ia said. Brinn snapped upright at the phrase. Ia pointed at the Goma board. She had moved a black orb onto the far end of the Goma board, blocking the rest of Brinn’s pieces out. She’d won the game.

  “You seem distracted,” Ia observed.

  Brinn turned away, her gaze drifting down to the dull metal floor.

  “Is it because of Vyking? Did he finally find out you love him?” Ia put emphasis on the word love, singing it out like an old children’s rhyme.

  Brinn sat up straight and glared at her. “No.”

  “Then what is it?” Ia asked as she poked Brinn’s leg with her knee.

  Brinn struggled with the words. “Someone found out.”

  The expression on Ia’s face grew bleak. “Do you know who?”

  Brinn shook her head.

  Ia’s shoulders slouched over her legs. The lights droned above them, filling in the gap in their conversation. “Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise,” Ia finally said.

  “A blessing? You saw what happened to Faren.”

  “Yeah, but if someone comes after you, they’ll have to get through me first,” Ia said. She cracked her knuckles before curling her fingers into rocklike fists.

  Brinn rested her cheek on her knees, chuckling softly at Ia’s threats to mow everyone down. She was grateful that Ia was willing to stick up for her.

  “Who’d have thought that I’d have the Blood Wolf of the Skies as my personal bodyguard?” she said.

  “You’re lucky I’ll do it for free. My rate’s pretty steep.” Ia smiled smugly. “Anyway you shouldn’t worry too much. If everyone finds out, it’s not like you’re going to get kicked out. The headmaster already knows you’re Tawny.”

  “Getting expelled is the least of my worries.” Among all the staff, the headmaster was the only person who knew about her Tawny lineage, and she was surprised how accepting he was. By working with him, she was able to use her brain like her mother had taught her to. But Brinn was convinced the cadets weren’t going to be as easy on her. Look at what had happened to Faren.

  Brinn hugged her knees tighter to her chest, trying to become as small as possible. Small enough to disappear.

  “I’m envious of my brother, that he had the courage to tell everyone,” she admitted. “But I’m not at that place yet. Hopefully, one day. But not yet.”

  She glanced cautiously at Ia, thinking she would press on with the issue, force her into seeing what was the right thing to do. The expression on Ia’s face was gentle and accepting.

  “In the end, that’s your decision to make. Not me. Not that scuzz who’s threatening you. You get to decide when and where to come out with the truth. And when that day happens, it’s going to be hard. But you’ll have your parents, your brother. And you’ll have me. I promise you won’t be alone.”

  And Brinn believed her.

  She remembered when she and Ia first met. Brinn couldn’t even stand being in the same room as her. Now, she was turning to her for advice and support. Was this girl really the same person she’d seen up on the screens during the Provenance Day parade?

  “Thank you,” she told Ia, “for understanding.”

  “So what do we do?” Ia asked.

  “Wait.” Brinn took in a heavy breath, letting it weigh down her tiny frame. “And hope it’ll all just go away.”

  Her gut churned angrily from worry. Brinn could hope and wish and pray all she wanted, but deep down, she knew this problem wasn’t going to disappear that easily.

  CHAPTER 31

  IA

  IA SAT IN PROFESSOR PATEL’S cybernetics class, only hearing disembodied words and snippets of sentences. Transhuman reconstruction. Acknowledging artificial identity. None of it was registering. Her head was crammed with too much stuff. Not numbers, facts, and dates that she had to memorize, but more personal things. Like Knives, and how he made her so uncertain about everything. When she told him about losing her home, that was the first time anyone from the other side had ever acknowledged how awful it was, how much it sucked. It almost made her like him.

  She shook her head, trying to do away with the idea.

  Ia’s eyes shifted from one corner of the room to the next, scanning the back of everyone’s heads to find that uninspired, ordinary shade of brown. Brinn had already missed three days of classes. It wasn’t like Tarver to skip, and it wasn’t like Ia to worry. She had tried to convince Brinn that it’d be better to stick with her usual schedule, to show that awful scuzz that it didn’t bother her that this person knew her secret. But Brinn decided missing class was the best option. Maybe he’ll get bored, Brinn answered her.

  Ia knew those types of people never forgot, never moved on. They held on to secrets like they were weapons.

  The three-tone bell chimed at the end of the afternoon lecture, and Ia was the first one out of the classroom. The next schedule block was study period, which Ia always spent in her room.

  Aaron and Geoff waited for her across the hall. Geoff, as always, greeted her with bright eyes and a smile, while Aaron sneaked a glimpse into the classroom.

  She grinned. “If you want to see Professor Patel, she’s still in there.”

  Aaron swiveled. “Why would I want to do that?”

  “Because,” Ia elbowed him lightly. “You know…”

  She was well aware that Aaron had developed a fixation on the engineering professor. But whether it was love or just a quirk to his program, she couldn’t tell.

  Aaron crossed his arms and glared at her.

  “You’re blushing,” she pointed out.

  With a humph, Aaron pushed past her. “Let’s go.”

  As they shuffled away from the dispersing crowd, a voice called out to her. “Ia, wait.”

  Angie jogged toward her. Her lips were painted a blinding magenta, and her blond ponytail bounced like it defied gravity.

  “Is Brinn all right? I haven’t seen her the past few days.”

  Ia glowered at her. “I’m not Tarver, so don’t ask me.”

  She swiveled to continue on her way. As she moved through the passing crowd, a pair of footsteps click-clacked behind her, echoing her gait.

  “Stop following me,” Ia said without a pause in her step. Po
ssibly sensing her shift in mood, Aaron and Geoff kept ahead to give her some space.

  “I’m not following you,” Angie answered. “I’m going to visit Brinn because her roommate won’t tell me what’s going on.”

  “You’ll miss class.”

  “Don’t care,” Angie said.

  Ia sighed and slowed her pace, allowing Angie to skip up beside her. Around them, the hallways emptied as everyone rushed to get to their next class.

  “Is she sick?” Angie asked. “Should I bring her some soup?”

  Ia snorted. “Why would you even bother?”

  Angie arched an eyebrow and stared at Ia as if she was from a totally different universe. “Because that’s what friends do. They bring food and tell jokes.”

  “Tarver doesn’t joke,” Ia said, her voice flat.

  Angie tucked a loose piece of hair behind her ear. “I know, but she’s good at listening to them.”

  Ia peered over at Angie. “Is that why you like her?”

  “Yes,” Angie answered. “Sometimes her reactions are so strange, they make me laugh, but not in a mean way. Not like before, at least. We were in primaries together, and I used to make fun of her a lot. I wasn’t a good person back then.”

  “And you’re a good person now?”

  Angie’s voice rang out in the empty corridor. “All you need is one person who thinks that you are. And those are the type of people you have to protect.”

  Ia bit the inside of her cheek, mulling over Angie’s words. As they passed the simulation bay, Cammo leaned out from the doorway.

  “Hi, Angie.” His smile spread wide from one side of his face to the other. His cheeks flushed pink.

  Angie turned to Ia. “Go on ahead. I’ll catch up.”

  Ia left the two of them to flirt in private, and as she made her way farther down the walkway, she found the smile still lingering upon her face. It was so strange that she had to slow her pace and think.

  She hated the Bugs. She knew she did.

  But maybe she didn’t hate all of them?

  Angie spoke to her without a trace of fear, and Cammo always welcomed her with a grin. Both of them were decent people. Of course, Ia would shoot herself dead before she ever told either of them that.

  Her dorm room was just around the corner, and as she made her way closer, she found Aaron and Geoff stopped at the end of the hallway.

  “What are you two staring at?” Ia asked, but as she stepped up to them, her hands curled into hard fists.

  The tap of footsteps echoed behind her, and her eyes widened. Angie was coming, and soon she would see. Spinning around, Ia rushed up to Angie, grabbing her by the shoulders before she could go any farther.

  “You have to go. I’ll tell Brinn you were looking for her.” Ia angled her head toward Geoff. “Get Angie to her next class.”

  “All right. I get it,” Angie blurted out when Geoff took a step toward her. “I’ll leave, but I don’t need an escort.”

  Ia watched as Angie made her way back down the hallway. When she was almost out of sight, Ia turned back to Geoff. “Follow her. Make sure she doesn’t come back this way.”

  He nodded and rushed off without hesitation.

  Ia backed up into their hallway. Aaron faced her, silent. The air in the corridor was still, and the lights above them didn’t dare hum.

  “We need to clean this up,” Ia breathed.

  Aaron nodded.

  Ia rubbed her hand across her brow, hoping they were the first to see it, to read it. She turned back to her dorm room, to the word dripping red across her door.

  Mungbringer.

  The paint was still wet, probably brushed on no more than fifteen minutes before they found it. It took nearly an hour to scrub every stroke of paint away. Because it happened when lectures were in session, there was a good chance none of the other cadets had turned into their hallway and seen it, but there was still the problem of who did it.

  Ia turned to Aaron, who was mopping the suds that had dripped to the floor. Pulling him away from the door, she whispered, “We need to find the person who did this, but I can’t do this alone. Will you help me?”

  Aaron adjusted his grip on the mop handle. “How?” He pointed at the Eye positioned at the end of the hallway. The lens was sprayed over with the same red paint. Whoever had done this had planned it all out.

  “I know the academy can track holo devices,” Ia said.

  Aaron narrowed his eyes. “How do you know that?”

  “Because I use Monitor to track Tarver’s device when she’s out of the room.”

  “You what?” Aaron raised his eyebrows in the most symmetrical fashion. “If the headmaster finds this out, I’ll be turned to scrap metal.”

  She held up a hand in promise. “I won’t tell him. So, will you help?”

  “I’ll look into the logs.”

  Aaron pulled his feet together and stood up straight. His eyes glazed over as shimmers of blue flickered across his irises like weaves of thread. It took only a few seconds. Aaron blinked.

  “A holo device passed through here at 1642 this afternoon.”

  That was thirteen minutes before Ia got back to her room.

  “Who does it belong to?” she asked, ready to hunt the person down.

  “The device is currently not registered in our database.”

  She ran her fingers through her hair. That scuzz was smart enough to hide his tracks.

  “Can you pinpoint its data signature? Where’s the device now?”

  Aaron’s eyes washed over, filling with a sheen of data. Each millisecond that passed felt like hours. “The simulation bay.”

  Ia had already turned.

  “Guard the door,” she called behind her. “Make sure no one comes near the room.”

  “Wait,” Aaron yelled after her. “I’m not supposed to let you run off on your own, Ia.”

  She wasn’t thinking of escape, not now.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, meeting Aaron’s gaze long enough for him to understand that she meant it. “You can trust me.”

  When she got there, the simulation bay was quiet, minus the whirr and buzz of hydraulics. It was the first time she’d visited since the day of testing.

  She walked down the middle lane, glancing around her. There were sixteen flyers, all locked in their simulation pods. It had to be one of them, but there was no way to know who owned the unregistered device.

  As she rubbed her fingers across her brow, her eye caught sight of her fingertips. She spread her hands out before her, glancing down at the red staining the skin underneath her fingernails. That was it. That was how she would find this scuzzhole.

  Her eyes jumped from monitor to monitor, each one streaming the interior view of the simulation pod.

  She stopped at one pod, staring up at the screen, at long and spindly hands gripping onto the steering wheel, the index and middle finger stained an unmistakable red. Her eyes flitted to the top corner of the display where she read his name.

  Nero Sinoblancas.

  Gritting her teeth, Ia whispered, “Found you.”

  Ia sat at the table in the middle of their dorm, watching Brinn pace back and forth. Their room was small, so it took only a few steps before she had to turn around and march to the other wall.

  “Are you sure it’s him?” Brinn asked.

  “It’s Nero. No doubt about it,” Ia said.

  “Then there’s nothing we can do.”

  “Look at you. You’ve been stuck in this room for days because of that munghead.”

  “Maybe we can change his mind,” Brinn proposed.

  “How? By politely explaining how much of a brute he is?” Ia caught her gaze. “He’s not going to stop, Brinn.”

  “I know.” Brinn leaned against the wall, her arms gripped tight around her chest. “What if we can use something against him?”

  Brinn sat on the edge of her bed and pulled up a holoscreen.

  “Now that’s more like it,” Ia said, scooting next to h
er.

  Typing as fast as she could, Brinn ran search after search on several displays. All they needed was a tiny bit of information, a secret he wanted to keep as much as Brinn did hers.

  After an hour, they turned up nothing.

  “He must have scrubbed his ArcLite clean. There’s nothing except boring news stories about their perfect, mundy family.” Brinn tapped at one of the screens so it flipped for Ia to see. “Look at this picture. His two older sisters are the heads of the Intergalactic Charity Foundation.”

  Ia pinched the tip of her chin as she stared at the girls’ faces. Then her head shot back up as she recognized a certain similarity with someone she once knew. And right now, it was the perfect card to play. “I have a plan. Tell him to meet you in the common room after shutdown.”

  Brinn gawked at her. “No way. That’s like walking straight into an ashtigra’s den.”

  “I know,” Ia responded simply. “Luckily, you’re not the one going.”

  Brinn paused. “The Sinoblancas family is one of the most powerful bloodlines in all of Olympus. You can’t scare them, Ia.”

  “I learned a hard lesson when I first arrived on Aphelion. No one is unbeatable, Tarver.” Ia’s expression grew mournful. “Even the mighty will fall.”

  Ia was seated on one of the L-shaped couches, her legs crossed and her eyes set on the door. Above, the holoscreens glowed silver, casting a ghostly tint onto the room around them.

  At 0030, the entrance doors slid open.

  “What are you doing here?” It was Nero, his body a slim, lean slash in the middle of the doorway. The loose black curls on his head were slicked to the side, showing off his perfect symmetrical face, complete with the dimple piercing through the exact center of his chin.

  “Brinn couldn’t make it.” Ia smirked, allowing the silence to hang in the air.

  “So you figured out it was me.” Nero made his way into the center of the room, his long legs swinging toward her in a march. “You can beat me up, but that’s not going to stop it.”

  Her eyebrow twitched. Out of all the Bugs she had ever met, Sinoblancas was one of the worst. “Why are you being such a mung? She’s one of your Citizens.”