Project Emergence

by Jamie Zakian

  “Be careful,” Rai said. “I’ll be watching.”

  The door slid open as Kami crashed into Jesse’s arms. Her usual impulse to pull away didn’t kick on. She actually leaned inward. A smile threatened to cross her lips, and she wrenched herself from Jesse’s snug grip.

  Two girls floated by, giggling, and Kami shook her head. “It’s all fun and games until someone has to go to the bathroom.”

  Jesse smirked. He took Kami by the hand, then boosted into the hallway. “So what? Float down the stairwell?”

  “There are no stairs on a spaceship.”

  “Dang, frosty.”

  “Sorry.” Kami slid her palm along the wall, stopping herself at the end of the hallway. “I’m just used to being on guard. There’s the hatch; it leads to an access way.” She pointed across the bustling landing to a small flap etched into the smooth black wall.

  Jesse weaved through a maze of airborne people, managing to only bump one other guy along the way. He clasped the edge of the flap and pulled. It was great watching his legs drift toward the ceiling, his body squirm as he struggled. His shirt even hiked up a bit, showing a hint of lightly tanned skin, but she had to take control or they’d be doing this all night.

  “Watch your fingers,” Kami yelled. She sprang forward, her leg stiff and foot flat. Jesse moved his hands away just in time. The flimsy grate was not so lucky. It bent around her boot, flinging screws into the air before floating up into the shaft.

  “Whoa!” Jesse followed her into a dark corridor, squeezing between two giant pipes. “Why do you always have to be on guard?”

  “You know, school.” Kami glanced back at Jesse, who looked pretty confused. “Oh, right. You didn’t do school, so I guess you don’t know.” She continued down the cramped tunnel, slipping through a steel girder. “Well, school pretty much sucks. It’s a place where people go so they can pick out every single detail that irks them about other people.”

  “You think that’s what Mars will be like?”

  “I hope not. I know a few people on this bus, from the sector. Some are chill; some are … not. My old roommate is here, and Rai’s, but you guys are much cooler.”

  “Wait—you lived at school?” Jesse reached out to push off the wall. His fingers grazed a pipe, skin sizzled, and he jerked his hand away. “Ouch!”

  “Ooh, watch out. Those pipes carry the coolant to the StarDrive’s atomic core; they get pretty hot.” Kami flipped, then touched down on a grated floor with barely a sound.

  “You know a lot about this ship.” Jesse landed in a crouch, the thump growing into a rumble as it traveled up the shaft.

  “So do you.”

  Jesse reached for the access hatch beside them, and their chests pressed together. The little door floated away, banging against metal somewhere outside the narrow shaft, but he didn’t move. “I’m not the one hiding things.”

  “I’m not hiding anything; you just never asked.”

  “Okay! Who are you guys really? And what’s so important about your parents?”

  “You really wanna get into all that now?”

  “Ah, yeah.” He inched back, gesturing to the now open hatch.

  A groan rose in her throat, and she held it there. She should have seen this one coming. Lies were not an option, not that she couldn’t. She could whip up ten lies in two seconds if she actually wanted to, which she didn’t.

  Kami shot through the access way, crashing into a wire-lined wall. Lights flickered, a thump echoed down the corridor. It was too creepy for comfort. Jesse wasn’t wriggling through the hole fast enough, so she pulled him the rest of the way, yanking him to her side. “We’re close, but if the machine got smashed, then somebody smashed it. What if they’re still here?”

  Jesse took her hand, squeezing. “It’s okay. Rai’s watching.” He nodded to the camera overhead, deploying one of his knee-quaking grins. “And Joey loves using the loudspeakers.”

  The fearlessness in Jesse’s eyes wiped the worries from Kami’s mind, and she pushed herself down the corridor. “My mom designed most of the machinery on this ship. She, like, runs the U.N.E. or some junk. Makes weapons and stuff. She makes bombs, like the one that almost killed us. That’s probably why that Sabrina lady thinks we’re terrorists or whatever.” She floated backward down the corridor. The longer her gaze lingered on Jesse’s face, the softer his expression grew. A crackle echoed from behind her, drawing her stare to the spark of wires from a busted machine.

  “This has gotta be it.” Jesse’s knees hit the floor, and he wrapped his fingers through the grate to hold himself steady. He scanned the hunk of chopped metal. Every few seconds, an arc of electricity would flare in his face, and every time, he’d recoil, then go in for another.

  “I don’t think you’re a terrorist,” he said, glancing up at Kami. “But you and Rai need to be careful. Someone here is a terrorist, and you two sound like prime targets.”

  If only it were that simple. The big I’m-leaving-Earth hack told her more than she cared to know.

  “I think we’re all the targets,” she said, hovering at his side.

  Frayed wires sparked, and Kami yelped, jolting away. The farther she coasted from Jesse, the lower his smile dropped.

  “Watch—”

  Kami flapped her arms, just as her back collided against boney knees. She froze, and strong hands seized her by the shirt, hoisting her up.

  ***

  Joey hovered in front of Rai, holding onto the handles of the desk’s drawers. She fought to keep a straight face. Rai looked like a giant baby, snuggled beneath the desk with his legs folded to hold his laptop. She had to look away or risk a bout of giggles.

  “So … what are your parents like?”

  Rai peeked out from behind the laptop’s lid. His eyes narrowed, holding a glare that could peel paint. This was getting serious, fast. She had to pull out the big guns.

  She dug her teeth into her bottom lip, and tilted her head to the side. No matter what mess she stumbled into, this batty-eyed stare always saved the day.

  A low chuckle flowed from beneath the desk as Rai returned to typing. “I guess that was pretty weird back there in our not interrogation.” He looked at her, the clatter of computer keys slowing to a stop. “My mom’s some kinda hotshot engineer for the military.” His gaze shifted back to his screen, and he sunk deeper under the desk. “Or she runs the military,” he mumbled.

  “Your mom is Ling Mai Sun, the commander of The Unified Nations of Earth!” Joey floated closer, peering over the laptop and into Rai’s shifty eyes. “That’s major. Wait! That means your mom is, like, in charge of the whole world.”

  Rai grumbled, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You guys were the only people we ever met who didn’t recognize us.” His gaze sunk even lower, taking his shoulders down with it. “It was kinda awesome.”

  Joey crowded beneath the desk, squeezing beside Rai. “What do you mean?”

  “Back home, when people liked us, they super-liked us. To the tune of fanatic. And when people hated us, they acted fake. The fake-like and the super-like are sort of the same, but they’re not real, and we could always tell.”

  The way Rai’s bottom lip quivered as he strained to hold back a frown send an ache into Joey’s chest. It took all she had not to hug him. “At least you don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, Earth is like a billion miles away. It doesn’t matter to me if your mom’s the queen of the world” —her hand fell to his knee, and she nudged him with her elbow— “because we’re not on that world anymore.”

  His palm landed atop her hand, and he looked straight into her eyes. “Yeah, well, you’re special.”

  Joey smirked, slipping her arm away. “That’s what my brother always says, that I’m Special Ed.”

  “Who’s Special Ed?”

  “I don’t know.” She rolled her eyes as she recounted the ma
ny times Jesse taunted her for clumsiness. “I think he’s a clown or something.”

  “Oh.” Rai turned to his computer, slowly typing. “Well, I meant it in a nice way.”

  “Are you into the camera feeds yet?” Joey floated closer, catching a glare on the screen. She reached out to turn the laptop, and Rai grabbed her wrist.

  “No one touches the tech.” Rai kept his hold light, the corners of his mouth lifting to a grin.

  “Really?” She fought back her smile, her other hand drifting toward the display. “Or what?”

  “Don’t do it,” he said. His fingers tightened around her wrist, and his other hand slipped from the computer.

  This just became a dare, and there was no stopping her skin from touching that plastic. Her finger inched forward, and she tapped the outer shell of Rai’s floating tech.

  “Oh, now you’ve done it.” Rai snickered.

  He seized her other wrist; their arms crisscrossed. Slowly, he pulled her close. His breath flowed over her lips, clearing her mind of everything except tingles.

  The laptop twirled by, and she glimpsed a pair of hands snatch Kami by the shirt.

  “Crap,” Rai yelled, releasing her to fumble for the computer.

  ***

  “Hands off,” Kami shouted, slapping at the fists that clutched her. She followed the muscled arms up, right to Sabrina’s icy glare. Her body locked stiff. Once the shock of seeing Sabrina firmly secured to the ground and hunched over her wore off, she hurled her arms and legs harder. “No touching!”

  Sabrina’s stare went from chilly to arctic. She spun Kami around, locking her in a chokehold.

  “Hey,” Jesse roared, jetting forward. “Let her go.”

  Kami jabbed her elbow into Sabrina’s ribs, but the hold only tightened.

  “What a coincidence,” Sabrina sneered. “Things are going wrong, and here you two are.”

  Kami pried at the arm that crushed her windpipe, wrenching her body from side to side. Steroids. This broad must be guzzling steroids.

  “This isn’t what it looks like,” Jesse said, his hands out.

  “Yeah,” Kami garbled. “We totally just got here.”

  “Stay back, kid,” Sabrina barked as her free hand flew to her side. “Don’t make me tase you both.”

  “Just let me explain.” Jesse waved his arms to keep from drifting closer, as Kami practically screamed at him with her eyes to come save her butt.

  Sabrina backed away, cutting off every bit of air to Kami’s trapped neck. “Get down on the ground, or …” She watched Jesse float midair, wobbling to stay in place. “Grab the grate and hoist yourself to the ground.”

  Jesse opened his mouth, but before words could flow, Sabrina pulled a stun gun from her belt.

  “Now!” she yelled.

  Sharp prongs dug into Kami’s side, and she stopped squirming. This crazy bitch really was going to tase her.

  “All right. Okay.” Jesse reached down and hooked his fingers into the grate. “Nice boots,” he said, hitting a red button on the side of Sabrina’s gravity waders.

  Sabrina lifted off the ground, her clutch on Kami loosening. She wrangled an arm free and Jesse seized it, yanking her from Sabrina’s hold. Kami clung to his neck as they floated back from the woman caught in a slow whirl.

  Cusses flowed from Sabrina’s mouth as she reached down and tapped the red button on her gravity waders. Her boots slammed to the floor, her growl echoing over their thud. She snatched her stun gun from the air, charging toward them.

  “Wait,” Jesse shouted, backing even farther away. “Please, Captain Stone, just wait a minute. We’re so freakin’ innocent of this.”

  Sabrina stopped at an arm’s length, her glare hardening. “Teens,” she grumbled. “Too young to beat; too old to scold.”

  A rumble shook the floor as a troupe of uniformed men crowded behind Sabrina.

  “What’s this?” Mr. Reyes asked.

  “I found these two near the grav generator.”

  Mr. Reyes glared, and Kami buried her face into Jesse’s chest.

  “We just got here,” Jesse said. His arms tightened around Kami’s waist, and he turned to the side, as if his body were a shield. It was amazing. They’d probably spend the rest of this trip in a holding cell, but who cared. She got to experience what it felt like to be protected, without paying for it.

  “It looks like this unit got chewed up and spit back out,” a man called out. Kami looked beyond the security officers in front of her, glimpsing an old man hover above the mangled artificial gravity simulator. Wires hit metal, sparks showered, and the man lurched back, shaking his head.

  “How long until it’s up and running again?” Sabrina asked. Apparently, she had said something funny because the man floated beside her to laugh in her face.

  “How long,” he said through snickers. “Let me just run to the electromagnetic parts store real quick.” Chuckles continued to bubble from his mouth, even as he floated away. “How long.”

  The crowd of officers, all rooted to the ground, parted for the man who glided by.

  “That can’t be fixed,” the old man shouted over his shoulder as he drifted away. “You’ll get accustomed to zero Gs; it’s how we used to do it.”

  A huff flared Sabrina’s cheeks, and she rubbed her forehead. “This is—”

  “A distraction,” Mr. Reyes said. “I can’t find Winslow anywhere.”

  “I’ve had enough,” Sabrina grumbled, swatting bits of floating metal from her face. A hint of a smile lifted her cheeks before she thrust her finger at Jesse and Kami. “Arrest them both for suspicion of terrorism!”

  “What?” Jesse cried out as the men charged forward.

  “No,” Kami yelled, slipping behind Jesse’s back.

  “What if I fix it?” Jesse said in a rush.

  “Wait.” Mr. Reyes raised his hand, and the officers stopped in their tracks.

  Jesse inched away from Kami, hands out. “If I fix the gravity control module, it’ll prove we’re not terrorists.”

  “If you can fix it, that probably means you broke it,” Sabrina said.

  “Can you really fix it?” Mr. Reyes asked.

  “Sure!” Jesse drifted closer to Mr. Reyes, his eyes wide. “Absolutely.”

  Mr. Reyes turned toward Sabrina, who stared daggers at him while shaking her head. Then, the man nodded at Jesse. “All right,” he said, and the officers eased off.

  Kami had never seen Sabrina ignored before, let alone overridden. It brought a smile to her lips. She almost let a HaHa! slip from her mouth.

  Sabrina gawked at Mr. Reyes, her arms crossing. “Out of the question.”

  “They can’t break it any more than that,” Mr. Reyes said, gesturing to the jagged metal behind him.

  “They can break all the other crap down here. One of these machines control the oxygen, right? This equipment should be guarded, and those two should be detained for questioning.”

  Mr. Reyes shook his head, and Sabrina’s jaw tightened. “I should’ve been watching Winslow this whole time,” she said, glaring at Mr. Reyes. “But instead I’ve been running around doing your job.”

  For a brief second, Mr. Reyes’ mouth hung open. He stepped back, holding out his hand. “Go! Complete your mission, Captain Stone. I can handle my own business.”

  A shade of pink rose in Sabrina’s cheeks, the muscles beyond pulsing as her teeth clenched. Without a word, she turned and stomped off. It was awesome, maybe Kami’s greatest moment in space.

  Once the sound of heavy boots cleared the hall, Mr. Reyes looked at Jesse. “Okay, kid, you got one hour to prove her wrong. And I’ll be right here watching you both.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Winslow groaned. A throb, sharp and searing, hammered his temples. The thump tore him from a gray fog, dumping him into pitch-black. He lifted his arm and bumped into a hard surface. “What the—” Everywhere he touched, cool steel iced his skin. He kicke
d, tapping solid metal. At the slightest raise of his head, a hardness cracked his already pounding skull.

  “A cargo box,” Winslow muttered. “I’m in a cargo box!”

  He could feel blood on the back of his neck, the streaks dry and crusty. Bleeding and trapped inside a tiny steel tomb. It didn’t seem possible. He was walking toward his hall, standing outside his door. Then this.

  His fists struck the thick metal. He knew this box was impenetrable. Air, water, light tight, but he couldn’t stop from fighting. A notion hit him like a ton of bricks, and his body fell limp. Airtight. It was only a matter of time—hours—until he ran out of oxygen.

  A mini pep talk streamed through his brain. His father’s voice, strong and clear, reminded him to take small, slow breaths to drive the panic from his chest. Strength replaced fear, and he struggled to reach into his pocket. His fingers grazed the edge of a handheld, its hard shell slowing the wallop of his heart.

  After a few tugs, the device tumbled to his side. Its bright screen illuminated the dark space and a smiley face, drawn in blood, appeared before his eyes. He looked away. His teeth chattered, a chill infiltrating every joint of each bone.

  “You can do this, dammit,” he said. A long puff flew from his mouth, and he inhaled deeply. “It’s just like a spacewalk.”

  He fumbled with the handheld, only able to lift his arm to his chest. He pulled up the contacts list and dialed Reyes. Every second seemed an eternity as he waited.

  The word Dialing was replaced by No signal, and his head dropped back.

  ***

  Joey nudged Rai. The way he wedged his body underneath the desk, sideways, took up all her space. To make matters worse, she couldn’t even see the screen. “What’s happening?”

  Rai peeked over his display, a somber look on his face. “They’re totally busted.”

  “Nuh uh.” She kicked his leg down, wriggling beside him. “Let me see.”