by Karen Bao
The boys pause their sparring match to give me anxious looks, but I shake my head and gesture for them to keep practicing. Then I face Callisto again, wishing some green recruit would accidentally barrel into her and take her out of earshot. She must want something; otherwise, she wouldn’t have approached me after months of ignoring my existence.
“What are you doing here?” I say.
“Taking time off from work.” Surveying the floor, Callisto plants her fists on her hips like a conqueror, but the gesture seems grandiose. Her yellowish tunic and trousers match—a rare sight these days—but they’re too big, and parts are stained brownish, giving the unfortunate impression of a bruised banana. “The training dome’s a good place for remembering better days.”
I imagine she’s reminiscing about our Militia training, when she and Jupiter Alpha placed consistently near the top, until Wes and I overpowered them. When she still frightened people. Maybe she sees the invisible trophies of past victories in this place.
Me? I only see what’s changed. Dovetail recruits, slogging through drills or thrashing in simulated combat, have replaced neat rows of Militia trainees executing burpees and jumping jacks. How can we send these novices off to fight the Committee’s lethal Beaters?
“Phaet,” Callisto says, and I’m surprised by her honest, even-toned pronunciation of my name. She doesn’t spit it out like a fish bone, the way she used to, or call me names. “Take care of my mom on Earth. Okay?”
Protecting Andromeda is my duty, which makes Callisto’s request redundant. But there’s a hint of longing, of brokenness, in that word, Earth, and it makes me curious.
“There’s one open seat in the Destroyer,” I point out. Andromeda, Yinha, Alex, and I will go to Earth together; we wanted to take as few people as possible in case anything goes wrong. “Why didn’t you ask for it?”
Callisto snorts. “Like grits the leaders would say yes. They don’t trust me, and they won’t let me prove that they can trust me.”
“How so?”
“Equipment inventory reports, every single day. That’s all I’m good for now. If I get the numbers right, I’ve done my job. If I get them wrong, fuses forbid, they’ll think the Committee stole our stuff—with my help.” She sighs, pausing to let her frustration impress itself on me. The corners of her mouth pull downward, and sadness clouds her eyes, sadness that a stranger who doesn’t know better might think was real.
“But they’re wrong to doubt me.” Anger rumbles beneath the smooth surface of her voice, and I remind myself not to take it as a threat. She can’t hurt me—not here, not now. “I can’t go back to the Committee, not after they almost killed me for being my mother’s daughter.”
Like they almost killed me. She doesn’t point out the parallel between our lives, but we both know it’s there. She’s probably manipulating me—for what, I don’t know—but pity for her creeps into my heart, pity I don’t know what to do with.
“Why are you complaining to me?”
“Because you’re the only one who’s guaranteed to listen.”
The back of my neck prickles. My former archenemy knows me well. Girl Sage. Dovetailers don’t call me that for nothing. I guess my habit of observing events before participating in them gives off the impression of wisdom.
“Jupiter,” I say. “What about him?”
“He’s tried to contact me. Bribed a guard to deliver handwritten messages. I didn’t want to read them, so I turned that guard in.”
I raise one eyebrow. In Militia, Jupiter and Callisto were so in love, walking around Defense with their arms around each other, staring into each other’s eyes for what seemed like minutes at a time. Things I can’t imagine doing with anyone in public. Even Wes.
“I picked my side in this war, and I’ll avoid anything that could make me regret that.” Callisto watches my face, perhaps searching for sympathy. I put up the usual wall. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to talk so much. But you heard me out.” She pauses. “Thank you.”
Behind us, Ariel blocks a punch from Umbriel and returns it with a growl—but misses. I notice Alex standing to the side, coaching Ariel, and Ariel’s mouth tightens in concentration. Although a love of words and history unites the two, Alex seems to intimidate Ariel. Or at least put him on edge.
Alex calls a time-out. The twins wipe their sweaty foreheads on their sleeves, nod to my siblings, and, Alex in tow, head out the training dome doors. Since Dovetail’s shut off the plumbing to Defense, they must go to Market to pick up their precious water rations.
“Speaking of listening, here comes someone who doesn’t . . .” Callisto’s gaze drifts sideways, and she gives something in her field of vision the stink-eye—Sol. “I should get back to staring at spreadsheets. You keep it together now, Phaet.”
Taking leave with a bow of the head, she sidles across the training floor in the opposite direction. I’m left with a feeling of something unfinished: she didn’t ask me to improve her standing in Dovetail. But she didn’t have to—I gave her what she was after, without meaning to, and I feel sorry for her when I realize what it was.
Attention.
SOL ETA’S BLONDE HEAD DRAWS MANY EYES as she strides toward me and my family. In her clean orange robes, she’s a flare in a sea of sweat and grime. Following Sol like a bright comet tail, lavender robes fanning out behind her, is Rose.
The name Sol calls out surprises me. “Cygnus!”
My abdomen clenches.
Anka scoots to her left so that she’s sitting in front of Cygnus, shielding him with her much smaller body.
Sol halts in front my siblings and takes a seat across from Cygnus. He continues staring at his handscreen as if she’s not there.
“Listen up, kid.” Her eyes are cobalt blue, without a hint of any other color. “This is Rose, our new arrival. Dovetail’s putting her in charge of a huge hacking task, and I’m putting her in charge of you.”
Cygnus blinks at the two women, and then jabs his thumb sideways at Sol. “She’s allowed to do that?”
I swallow my confusion and look Sol in the eye. “You’re in charge of public relations,” I say. “This isn’t within your jurisdiction.”
“But it is.” Sol’s smile is white, perfectly symmetrical. “Since Cygnus’s return from Base I, he hasn’t contributed to the war effort. Dovetailers may wonder why we risked so much to extract him if we’re not putting his abilities to use.”
“Because I’m a person.” Cygnus’s legs tense, as if he’s ready to run should Sol attempt to punish him for talking back. “And my sisters didn’t want me to die.”
“Or keep getting abused by higher powers,” Anka says sarcastically. She means the Committee—and people like Sol.
Sol purses her thin lips. “If Cygnus won’t work with Rose, he’ll be drafted with the others his age to begin basic training next month.”
Cygnus’s eyes clench shut, and he shakes his head. Wearing a sorrowful expression, Rose looks between my brother and the door from which she and Sol entered.
“He must have medical exemption,” I say. Cygnus’s draft slip, and the accompanying weapons-intensive training, might as well be a ticket to a psych ward. If we could afford to run psych wards. I don’t let myself imagine what would happen to him in battle.
“Dovetail’s amputees are going back out to fight as soon as they learn to walk again,” Sol points out. A smug smile stretches her mouth. “We don’t have enough people. Period. No one can sit out anymore, Girl Sage. So let’s discuss Cygnus’s assignment.”
I bite my lip to hold back a frustrated cry, while my sister fumes in silence. Not even Anka can come up with a biting retort against Sol now.
“Um, hi, Cygnus.” Rose tucks a strand of platinum hair behind her ear and laughs awkwardly. Her soothing voice diffuses some of the tension. “I was a Cybersecurity Officer in the Singularity’s Astrophysics Department until yester
day morning, and now I’m . . . what was it, Ms. Sol?”
“Dovetail’s Director of Strategic Intelligence,” Sol says tersely. “Rose will lead hackers in accessing Committee communications and seizing their digitally controlled weaponry.”
“Yeah,” Rose says. “Tunneling through cyberspace to control real space.”
My brother edges away on the bench, gaze shifting from one woman to the other. “What does that have to do with me?”
“Well, we’re under pressure from Committee hacks, and you’d . . .” Rose squirms, then throws up her hands and turns to Sol. “I said I could use another pair of coding hands, but I didn’t expect them to be attached to . . . Sol, look at him. I can’t ask him to . . . This isn’t right.”
“This is necessary, Rose.” Sol crosses her arms. “You will find a way to work with him.”
They want him to hack again? After what happened the last time? My brother broke into the Committee’s most secure systems; in return, they beat him, captured him, and subjected him to months of unspeakable torture. He hasn’t touched a HeRP since his return. Although he won’t get captured again under Dovetail’s protection—at least, I hope not—I know Cygnus may relive his experience, over and over, if he tries to crack a single loyalist network.
“Leave my brother out of your cyber war, Ms. Sol,” Anka says through her teeth, threatening in her anger.
“He’s sacrificed enough,” I add lamely.
Sol clicks her tongue. “Don’t you understand, Phaet? Cygnus needs to do this. Because of you.”
Taken aback, I wait for her to continue.
“You and Ms. Andromeda, Yinha, and Alex will cruise toward Earth in your Destroyer—through the orbital paths of nine hundred forty-six Committee-controlled weapons and fifty-seven macro satellites that could track you or crash into you. Now, Rose, what does that mean?”
Though I wouldn’t have thought it possible, Rose’s skin blanches even whiter. “Well . . . we’ll need to digitally control as many of those objects as possible. To know where they are, if the loyalists are altering trajectories, if there’s spyware involved.”
“Phaet, your mission means that Cygnus needs to do this. It’s for you.” Satisfied, Sol turns to my brother, knowing that she’s cornered me and made me seem like the demanding one. Maybe she’s punishing me for today’s base-wide meeting, for advancing an agenda with which she disagreed. “Now, Cygnus, what if you could save your sister’s life out there?”
My brother pulls his knees into his chest and rocks back and forth on his sit bones. “I . . . I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know if I can do it. I haven’t gone near a HeRP since . . . since Phaet and Umbriel pulled me home.”
Sol tries to organize her features into a comforting expression, but her flared nostrils give away her impatience. “We all need to contribute,” she repeats.
“I know,” Cygnus snaps. “You don’t think I feel like grit sitting around, not hacking or fighting or even composting? Believe me, I fight the Committee every day, but in here.” He raps his temple with a fist.
Rose’s left hand flutters up to cover her heart.
Sol clears her throat. “Let’s look into different medications for you.”
Anka and I simultaneously shoot glares at her. We’ve heard Cygnus screaming in the night, seen him leap back from electrical sparks no matter their source, and felt his mind and heart leave the room and travel far, far away at the slightest provocation.
“Ms. Sol, I don’t think it works like that,” Rose says.
“Yeah,” Cygnus says, twisting his hands together in his lap. “It doesn’t.”
Sol frowns; I hope we’ve embarrassed her. Her next words prove me wrong. “My apologies, Cygnus. But these are orders. Find a way to take them.”
“Fine.” Cygnus’s eyes meet mine, and I detect a spark through the fog. “I’ll try. But to protect Phaet. Not because you told me to.”
My little brother’s words fill me with love. I’d worried that the Committee had sucked his sweetness away, but it’s still there, buried inside him.
“Good.” Sol rises and brushes imaginary dirt off her orange robes. “Rose, he’s all yours. I expect a progress report early next week.” She turns her back to us and high-steps her way through a cluster of troops straining through push-up drills.
Rose shakes her head as she watches Sol go. Then her hand reaches deep into her pocket and pulls out a spotless red apple the size of a toddler’s fist.
“Cygnus, this isn’t a banana—I heard you love those—but I thought you might like it.” She offers the tiny apple to my brother, and my vision loses its angry red tinge. Cygnus’s assignment might open up old wounds, but Rose won’t rub salt into them.
“Thanks,” Cygnus says. Once his eyes would’ve gone round at the sight of whole fruit, a luxury item. Now they remain unfocused, fixed on past horrors only he can see.
* * *
When we sit down to Theta-and-Phi dinners nowadays, three people are missing: Mom, who’s dead; Umbriel and Ariel’s mom, who betrayed us all; and Cygnus’s old self, who shows little sign of returning.
We eat in the Phis’ white-walled apartment, which was my siblings’ and my second home growing up. The meager decorations—a digital photo frame here, a wooden cube sculpture there—are gone, since Atlas swiftly donated them all to the war effort. Even the table has been recycled into weapons or ship parts; we sit on the cold linoleum floor, cross-legged.
At least the meals are shorter now, simply because there’s less food, so we have less time to take in the pain of it all. Anka and Umbriel have cooked up some oat porridge using a blend of precious seasonings that Mom came up with, but it just doesn’t taste good in mush form, and Anka tends to overcook things to kill off all the bacteria that are living in them. At least the mush is a bit spicy: Umbriel snuck into the defunct Culinary Department’s pantry, found cinnamon sticks at the bottom of a cabinet, and smuggled them home. He hasn’t lost his thieving impulse, nor his need to take care of us.
Atlas used to cook when we were children; now he just eats, his hand tiredly spooning food into his mouth. A former Law counselor, he’s all but useless now, and does manual labor in the Defense Department. Like his father, Ariel looks . . . bored, which is pretty much his expression whenever he’s not talking to me or Alex. We once competed with each other for the top spots in Primary rankings, but while my mental energy is focused on strategizing, he can only train and train—a mindless pursuit.
As long as I’ve known him, Ariel never had interest in making food, and it’s sad to watch him become so listless. Cygnus, who’s sitting with one foot under his bum, has lost all of his passion for eating—even bananas—and I’m too busy to pick up so much as a spatula. That leaves Anka and Umbriel. I’d never expected my baby sister and best friend to take care of us all.
Anka slurps down the last of her food and sets her bowl on the floor. She took only the dregs of the pot, arguing that she doesn’t burn as much energy training as me or the twins.
I suddenly feel guilty about my own sizeable portion, which I’ve almost finished, and about the fact that Anka’s taken on Mom’s role of providing, of sacrifice.
Cygnus’s spoon stops halfway to his mouth. He slides his bowl sideways so that it’s in front of our sister, wipes his lips on his sleeve, and says, “Thanks for fighting for me today.”
Then he clumsily climbs to his feet, long legs unfolding like an egret’s, and walks down the hall, presumably to be alone in one of the bedrooms.
Tears filling her eyes, my sister leans her head on my shoulder. Umbriel reaches across the circle for her hand, and Ariel pats his brother on the back. With Cygnus taking awful new orders, me running off to Earth, and all of us afraid of the future, there’s not much to say. But that’s okay.
The conversation is gone, but the love remains.
THE NEXT DAY, WE’R
E OFF, AND EVERYTHING starts out well.
Then, several kilometers above the Free Radical, the decoy ship explodes.
Dovetail has sent two unmanned Destroyers ahead of us into space to distract the Committee’s patrol ships, which hover distantly above our home base. One of the enemy’s missiles has just blown a Destroyer apart, sending parts spinning into space.
Shrapnel from the blast sinks into our Destroyer’s hull. As the carbon fiber knits itself back together, I suck in a breath; Dovetail has lost yet another vessel from our dwindling fleet.
“Rats.” Rose’s voice crackles in the intercom. We’re approaching the altitude where the radio signal will get cut off, and I dread the moment when we’ll no longer hear her. “That one’s our fault; we should’ve seen the Committee missile coming.”
In the background, Rose’s coworkers raise their voices; I catch the words “Theta kid” and “junk on his HeRP.”
Cygnus. My mind leaves the ship and fixates on my brother. Has he had a nervous episode on the job, putting our ship at risk? Worry rolls through me, then anger. Not at Cygnus, but at Sol for forcing him back into hacking.
“Hold on, Destroyer,” Rose says to us over her team’s bickering. “I’m having personnel issues.” She cuts the connection.
“Phaet,” Yinha says. “I’m sorry about Cygnus, about—”
“Steer,” I tell Yinha, more harshly than I’d intended. She shouldn’t be distracted by my family’s problems, and Rose better come back on soon—we’ll be vulnerable until she does. I’m sitting copilot, adjusting Yinha’s flight path to avoid lasers and missiles. Behind me, Alex mans the right wing weapons. Andromeda sits to his left. She doesn’t speak—our hectic journey seems to have subdued her—but she occasionally works buttons and levers, contributing everything she remembers from her long-ago Militia training.
“All done arguing. For now.” Rose’s sweet voice sounds not a moment too soon, but it’s shrill now. Just how bad were the “personnel issues”? And how did Cygnus react to people’s criticisms? “Yinha, there’s a trio of warheads coming up at eighty-nine meters per second—Committee controls these, so watch out!”