Jane and the Exodus

by T. R. Woodman

“That’s what I thought. Me too! As soon as we get off, I need to say hello to my dad, and then I’ll take you all to the cafeteria.”

  “Yeah!” came the chorus from the children.

  Jane remembered the few moments she had spent with the children after first meeting them at the church with Tate. It seemed like a lifetime ago, even though it had only been days. “Joseph,” Jane called out, “please keep track of everyone.”

  “Yes, Miss Jane.”

  Jane heard the clunk of the airlock against the door, the hissing sound of pressure sealing the space, and just a second later, the door opened and a crew of medical personnel rushed on board. Jane hadn’t noticed it until then, but Evelyn had already moved to the back of the shuttle to help direct them to Marcus.

  “Okay, children, let’s go.”

  The buckles on the children’s belts noisily clattered open, and not so quietly they stood and filed toward the back. Jane watched as they went, and followed them through the shuttle door into the corridor, glancing over her shoulder at Marcus. The medical team already had him on a gurney and seemed to be getting him ready to move.

  “Please stand against the wall, children, so the doctors can get by,” Jane ordered, which the children promptly obeyed.

  Jane looked down the corridor for her dad, but he still hadn’t arrived. Looking back toward the shuttle, the doctors were emerging with an unconscious Marcus, and Evelyn was following close behind.

  “What are those shuttles doing, Evelyn?” Jane asked as the doctors and Marcus rushed past.

  “They were hovering near the bay doors for a few seconds, as we thought they might, but they must have figured out that they can’t dock unless we let them. They’re all pulling back.”

  “Like a retreat?” Jane asked, surprised.

  “Yeah, sort of,” Evelyn confirmed.

  “Did you cut that other shuttle loose?”

  “I did, a few seconds ago.”

  Jane frowned. They were standing outside of the workout facility. Jane moved to look through the glass door, through the workout facility, and through the window into the space beyond. Sure enough, she could see one of the shuttles far in the distance as it pulled away.

  “I still don’t like it. Where’s my dad?” Jane asked, looking back to Evelyn.

  “He’s coming, but he was on the other side of the space station.”

  Evelyn’s expression changed quickly to one of alarm. “Jane, you were right. I think they mean to destroy Vista. All the shuttles have turned around. They’re accelerating toward us. I don’t think they intend to stop!”

  Jane looked back out the window, and the shuttle was clearly heading straight for them.

  “But the shuttles are full of soldiers!”

  “I know, but they are being controlled from Earth. They’re going to torpedo us with the shuttles, Jane!”

  Jane didn’t hesitate.

  “Evelyn, it’s time for us to go. Activate the Leap Frog.”

  “But—your dad—shouldn’t he—”

  “Evelyn, that’s an order—do it now!”

  Evelyn smiled, and Jane quickly looked back toward the window. The shuttle was looming large in the window and was rocketing toward them at an astonishing speed. Jane couldn’t help but wince.

  “It’s too late,” she mumbled, expecting the nose of the shuttle to come blasting through the glass at any second, and then, where the shuttle had been, there was light.

  Almost as if someone had pricked a hole in a dam that was holding back the sun and could no longer contain it, Jane watched as the reality around her tumbled away, waves of light pounding it into nothingness. The light grew. It touched her, washing over her body, bathing her. She felt it soak her skin and then penetrate it, warming her down into her bones. She breathed in the light, feeling it fill her lungs.

  Jane didn’t want to move, the light soothing every cell of her body. As the moments passed, she felt the comfortable warm cocoon around her grow warmer, the heat building around her and within her, getting hotter. As the heat grew, Jane felt her body start to burn as if all the dead within her was being torched away. It was excruciating, but she didn’t want it to stop, feeling as if she had only then realized she had lived her whole life submerged in a torturous itch that was finally being scratched away. She wanted to scream, and cry, and laugh all at once.

  As her body burned in ecstasy, Jane felt her chest stretching, expanding, and then her body being pulled, as if someone had anchored a cord to her heart and was trying to pull it through her chest, her body dragging behind like a lure through the water. Jane closed her eyes and tried to look away, but the light and heat burned through her lids. Faster and faster, she felt herself being pulled through the light, the searing heat peeling away layers of flesh and bone, leaving nothing but the rawness of her soul raging through the white fire. Just when she felt her lungs might explode, she exhaled—slowly at first—the sound of her breath growing louder and deeper with each passing moment until it grew into a deafening roar all around her.

  Jane hung lifelessly on the tether pulling her, for how long—minutes, days, years—she couldn’t tell. Then slowly, the deafening roar diminished. The searing heat cooled. The blinding light dimmed, and Jane felt her body slow, no longer being pulled by the chest. She opened her eyes.

  Still the light was everywhere, whiter than anything she had ever seen, as if a film had been washed away to reveal the space around her for what it was. The warmth of the light soothed her, calmed her. A peace washed over her, and a joy grew within her like she had never known. She peered deep into the light and noticed the shapes glowing even brighter than the white light enveloping them. They seemed to move and pulse, and she felt her heart beat in rhythm with them. She reached out as if to say, “Please, take my hand,” and as she did, the light and the lights within it began to fade.

  Jane felt the perfect joy leak through her pores, and as it did, a sadness grew within her, like every person she had ever loved was leaving her behind. She grabbed at the waning light, desperate to hold on to the feeling—the joy—but pulled her hand back, noticing a dark shape emerging from behind. It was perfectly round and enormous—like a planet—and seemed to grow larger and blacker with each passing moment. The sadness grew, and Jane felt the coldness of the thing. She couldn’t look away, and just when she thought she was going to be swallowed by the darkness, Jane saw another blinding flash of light and felt her body jerk sideways.

  Absently, Jane pulled at the air to her side—grasping for what, she didn’t know—but her stomach felt as though it was stuck two feet to her left. Dizzy, confused, and now cold, and still feeling a strange sense of having been abandoned, Jane reached out with her other hand and touched something solid. She looked at her hand. She was bracing herself against the wall in the corridor on Vista. Like waking from a dream by plunging into icy waters, everything roared back into focus.

  As if she was an old woman recalling a memory from her childhood a lifetime ago, Jane remembered the shuttle bearing down on Vista and spun her head to look out the window. It was gone. She turned back to Evelyn.

  “What happened?” Jane asked.

  “We leapt,” Evelyn replied.

  Jane looked around, toggling between the window and Evelyn.

  “Well, where are we? Are we there?”

  “Not exactly, but almost … I think. Something happened at the end of our leap. I think that’s why it ended with that jerk. My simulations didn’t suggest there’d be any jerking of any kind … but you know what they say about experiments with theoretical physics … They’re quarky,” Evelyn added, slapping her knee and snorting out a nerdy laugh.

  Jane didn’t know what to say.

  Evelyn laughed for another few seconds but stopped, perhaps realizing she was the only one who got her joke. She cleared her throat, her cheeks blushing. “I’m taking readings to make sure all systems are operating properly, and then we’ll leap again.”

  Evelyn looked at the children, who
were all standing still against the wall, most with their mouths hanging open.

  “You know—leap frog? The playground game … the one where someone bends over and you leap over them … like a frog,” Evelyn explained, smiling and nodding and hopping over imaginary people for the children’s benefit. “That’s what we were doing with the Leap Frog … hopping our way through space. And we’ll keep playing our game until we leap all the way to where we’re going.”

  Nobody moved.

  Evelyn stopped charading around and looked back at the children.

  “I got to name it … It was my invention,” she added with a shrug.

  “But we’re safe?” Jane asked again, waving her hands around, gesturing to everything. “We—us—everything—we’re all really safe now?”

  Evelyn giggled. “Yes, Jane, we’re all really safe. At least, we seem to be … A few more readings and I’ll know for sure.”

  Jane looked at all the children and exhaled in a dramatic whoa-sigh-laugh. The children seemed to relax, and everyone looked around at one another for a few quiet moments.

  “Who’s hungry?” Jane asked, finally breaking the silence.

  “Me!” sang the chorus of children.

  Just then, Jane’s dad came around the corner, almost out of breath, with his eyes wide at the sight of the group of kids.

  “Then let’s eat,” Jane said, smiling at her dad and motioning for the children to start walking with her down the corridor. She held out her hand, and Evelyn, smiling, walked up and took it.

  “Maybe Grandpa Carson can join us for breakfast in the park this morning, and then we’ll go get all of you some new clothes, but first you better tell Grandpa your names—one at a time, please—he’s had a long day.”

  JANE

  Jane looked at the night sky and recognized nothing in the beauty above. The dome over the park was still projecting holographic images of space outside the station. The nebula overhead was particularly beautiful, casting a gentle glow on the park, its gasses reflecting orange and pink and blue light, like a celestial garden bursting with wildflowers, all in summertime bloom. Now that they were so far from Earth, the images were different, both beautiful and terrifyingly strange. It surprised her how something as impersonal as the sun, the moon, and the stars as seen from Earth could have given her comfort and how stars out here could seem unsettling.

  Even though she wanted to look at the sky, and think about nothing, Jane found herself sneaking looks at the kids—her kids—running around the playground not far from the bench where she sat. Glancing back and forth occasionally between the nebula and the herd below, Jane struggled to find anything she could anchor to for a sense of stability, other than her bench. She felt detached, as if she were inside someone else’s body, living their life for them. It didn’t feel like her own, but she knew it was.

  Listening to the children laugh, Jane felt herself relax, a touch of warmth radiating within her at their sight and their sound. She wondered if Tate had spent time watching the kids play as she was. She wondered if he would miss them. She wondered if they would miss him. She knew she already did.

  Jane felt the start of a tear form in her eye. It had only been a few hours since she had seen him, but she couldn’t help but feel the pull at her heart at his absence and the thought that it might be a long time before she would see him again.

  Jane reached up to brush the tear away.

  “Boo!”

  “Oh!” Jane said, whirling her head around to see the younger version of herself. “Evelyn—don’t do that,” she added, trying to be firm but finishing with a relieved chuckle.

  “Sorry, Jane. I couldn’t resist,” Evelyn said, giggling.

  Jane returned her gaze to her kids and patted the seat on the bench beside her.

  “Is everything okay?” Evelyn asked, coming around the bench to sit beside her, obviously noticing Jane’s watering eyes.

  “Oh, yeah …” Jane replied with a sigh. “I was just thinking about Tate.”

  “You’re missing him already? You just saw him.”

  “Yeah, I know. I just worry about him. That’s all.”

  “Well, try not to worry about him, Jane. Tate can take care of himself. He has a few advantages over everyone else,” Evelyn added with a smirk.

  “Yeah, and the last time I saw him, he freaked me out with one of those ‘advantages,’” Jane countered, nodding her head and chuckling.

  “How so?” Evelyn asked, a tone of mild amusement in her voice.

  “It was when I was saying goodbye to him on the shuttle. I looked away for a second, and when I turned back, his face looked all puffed up, stretched out. I thought he was going all comic-book superhero on me. He said it was his disguise.”

  “Oh, that,” Evelyn said, giggling and looking at the kids across the playground.

  “What? You had something to do with it?”

  “Hmm … maybe a little.”

  Jane waited quietly.

  Perhaps realizing she needed to say more, Evelyn glanced back at Jane, peeling herself away from watching the kids play for only a second before returning her attention to them.

  “Well, I programed the tech in Tate’s head, Jane. I know more about what he can do than he does.”

  “If you’re telling me something, I don’t know what it is,” Jane said, getting a little impatient with Evelyn’s non-explanation.

  Evelyn looked back at Jane and turned in her seat, reluctantly giving Jane her full attention. “So, you know how the nanites in Tate’s head work, right?” Evelyn asked as Jane nodded. “They link together, like miles of thin wires running throughout his brain and nervous system. Even into his muscle tissue. And they don’t just transmit signals; they are smart enough to send signals to help his body run the way it was designed to.

  “Well, the nanites are also programmed to allow him to manipulate his body in ways regular people can’t. That’s what you saw. Tate used the nanites in his body to stimulate the muscle tissue in his face … They distorted his appearance. Pretty neat, huh?”

  “Uh, yeah, that’s one way to put it.” Jane’s lip curled, still a little grossed out by Tate’s appearance. It was like someone had pummeled his face, but he had done that to himself.

  “No, it really is neat, Jane,” Evelyn said, squaring up to look her in the eyes, a more serious tone in her voice. “You know, that same technology could be used to help Joseph walk more naturally, maybe even run. It could even help your mom walk again.”

  Jane’s thoughts slowed. Just hours before, she thought her mom was dead—and then she wasn’t. But then she was paralyzed and on the verge of death. Now Evelyn was saying her mom may be able to walk again. It was all too much, and her thoughts swirled, still unable to grasp anything solid. “My mom?” was all she managed to say.

  “Well, sure, Jane,” Evelyn said with a giggle. “The nanites broke through scar tissue to rebuild connections in Tate’s brain … Of course, if there are structural problems—bones out of alignment and such—that’ll need to be fixed surgically … but really, there’s no reason why your mom shouldn’t walk and Joseph shouldn’t run.”

  Jane looked back at her kids on the playground and found Joseph hobbling after one of the other boys, not able to keep up but seeming to have fun at whatever they were playing nonetheless. She felt her eyes water at the thought of Joseph being given such a gift, one he probably didn’t think was possible, and the joy he might feel. She thought again of her mom, certainly praying for death in the putrid prison cell she lived in for so many months, alive and able to walk again also. The emotion of the moment overwhelmed her.

  Jane wiped her eyes with the cuff of her sweatshirt, feeling momentarily better.

  “You okay, Jane?” Evelyn finally asked.

  “Yeah, it’s just a lot to take in. I’ll be fine,” Jane said, breathing a deep sigh, looking back at Evelyn. “You know, you’re a lot to take in too,” Jane added with a chuckle. “A few hours ago, you were just a really smart c
omputer. Now you’re a girl … I think it’s great, but I’m having a hard time getting used to you being … a kid.”

  Losing her smile, Evelyn turned in her seat, slumped down, and crossed her arms across her chest. “I know,” she said with a grumble.

  Still dabbing her eyes dry, Jane glanced back at Evelyn and laughed. “What? You don’t want to be a kid?”

  “No,” Evelyn replied emphatically. “I wanted to be your age … maybe a little older … definitely not ten.”

  Jane laughed again, turning a little in her seat. “Did Dad ever tell you why he made you a girl … instead of a grown-up, I mean?”

  “Yeah. He didn’t think you could handle having an older sister … who was smarter … and more talented … and more beautiful,” Evelyn replied, still grumbling, but Jane caught the smirk out of the corner of her eye.

  “Right,” Jane said, crossing her arms and cocking her brow at the indignant girl beside her. “I’m sure that’s exactly what Dad said.”

  “Fine,” Evelyn said, smiling and sitting straighter. “I’ll tell you. In spite of the fact that I wanted him to make me just like my big sister,” Evelyn said with a wink, “practically begged him—in fact—he told me he made me a kid for two reasons.

  “The first is because I haven’t lived as a person before. I know a lot—well, I basically know everything every person has ever known … I have the entire collection of recorded human knowledge stored away in my brain—”

  “Alright, Evelyn,” Jane interrupted. “We both know how smart you are.”

  “Right, sorry,” Evelyn said, her cheeks blushing. “But he said there’s a difference between knowledge and wisdom. He said I’m book smart but not street smart. He worried if I was an adult, I would have to deal with adult problems … whatever that means. I guess he figured if I’m a girl, people may be less inclined to put the weight of the world on my shoulders to solve every problem they have.”

  Jane’s mind wandered back to the moment when she had found Evelyn in the hallway of the church in Ironhead. Evelyn certainly hadn’t made the wisest decision—stowing away on the shuttle just to see the chapel Tate called home—but then again, who was she to judge? Jane had had her own series of judgement lapses, which had landed her in prison with a charbroiled forearm.