I try to imagine his life there, how he spent his days, what stars he saw at night.
“Was there any part of living across the galaxy you didn’t like?” I want to know everything about him, to know him completely.
“It was hard to make friends,” he says. “I got used to being on my own. Most of the time, it was just me and my brother, and, well…” He trails off.
I reach for his hand, twining our fingers together.
“You’re lucky, you know, to have the family that you do,” he says. “Sometimes I get the feeling my parents can’t wait for me to leave.”
“Don’t say that,” I tell him, but he just shrugs.
“It’s okay,” he says. “I don’t really want to be around them, either.”
He stretches out in the grass, folding his arms behind his head. I lie down beside him, looking up at the sky.
“What will you miss most?” he asks.
“Zo,” I say without hesitation.
“I love that about you,” he says. “How close you are with your family.”
He turns to face me. He trails his hand down the length of my arm.
“What about you?” I ask. “What will you miss?”
He moves closer until there’s no space left between us. He kisses a line down my throat, the dip of my collarbone. I wrap my arms around him, pulling him over me. He slips his hand under my shirt, his fingers moving lightly over my skin. I close my eyes, I disappear completely, and then a shadow falls over us.
“What is this?” my father says, his voice dangerously quiet. I push Ryn off, panic flooding through me. Ryn stumbles to his feet, his cheeks flushing deeply. I push myself off the ground and look up at my father.
“Dad,” I start, searching for the words to explain. “This—this is Ryn. He’s in my unit.”
“I don’t care who he is,” my father says, turning his glare to Ryn.
“Dad,” I say, my voice rising, “please.”
“Don’t say another word, Li,” he commands, and the look on his face is so serious, I fall silent at once.
Ryn looks at me, his eyes asking what to do.
“Go,” I whisper to him. He turns to leave, glancing back, concerned, but there’s nothing I can say to him now. I watch him walk away until I can’t see him anymore, then force myself to look at my father, to meet his eyes with mine.
“How could you be so careless?” my father says, his words cutting through me.
“Dad,” I say, my voice breaking. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to find out this way.”
It’s as though he hasn’t even heard me. He paces the length of the cliff, his eyes dark. “Do you even realize how dangerous it is to get involved with someone like him?” my father demands. He doesn’t need to say it, I know what he means—someone like Ryn, so different from me, someone Abdolorean. “After everything I’ve taught you. After all your training, all your hard work. Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
My throat tightens. My voice falls to a whisper. “Of course not.”
“You sure aren’t acting like it,” my father says sharply, and I flinch. “I want you to think, really think, about what it is you’re doing,” he goes on. “How much time do you expect to spend with this boy until he figures out just who you are?”
“He won’t,” I say weakly, staring out at the ocean. “No one else has.”
He stares at me without saying a word, and I know I’ve already lost this fight.
“Everything we do is so you can live,” he says. “So you can survive. You’re not going to throw that away over some stranger.”
The look in his eyes is unforgiving. I stare down at his feet, his boots scuffed from years of wear.
“He’s not a stranger,” I whisper.
“Don’t be foolish,” he says harshly. “It’s over now, do you understand me?”
I meet his gaze, my eyes already filled with tears.
“Answer me,” he says. “Tell me you understand.”
“Yes,” I say past the lump in my throat. “I understand.”
* * *
—
That night, I lie in bed, my heart aching in a way I’ve never felt before. The door to my room slides open. I half expect it to be my dad, here to apologize, but Zo climbs into bed next to me. I close my eyes, pretending to sleep.
“I know you’re awake,” she says, curling up against me. I can hear the happiness in her voice.
She pokes my rib cage, hard, until I turn over to face her.
“Braxon asked me to be his girlfriend,” she whispers.
I don’t say anything, thinking of Ryn, knowing if I speak I’ll only start to cry. She keeps talking, and I try to listen. I try to be happy for her, but my mind is scattered, unfocused, darting between the past and now.
When we were younger, our father told us stories about the way life was on Earth during his first missions. Zo’s favorite stories were about the houses humans lived in, houses made of wood, with doors that opened using keys, but my favorite story was always about fireflies.
Imagine, he would say, a creature that lit up like the stars to find its mate. He told us that the night sky was once filled with fireflies, that he would catch them in his hands, watching them glow, before releasing them back to the air. I liked to think of my own skin glowing, my body blinking in the darkness to find someone to love, someone who could love me back.
But when I close my eyes now, there is no flicker, no light.
Only darkness.
Throughout training the next day, I stand off to the side, avoiding the other cadets, avoiding Ryn. He beamed me this morning, but I ignored it, watching his outline flicker until it disappeared. I don’t know what to say to him.
“To complete today’s training, you are to run the perimeter of the base,” Sethra says. “Once you’ve finished, you’re free to spend the afternoon however you would like.”
We line up in front of the station. Braxon and Akia take off together, Ranthu, Ryn, Nava, and Mirabae behind them. I start to run, slowly at first, then faster and faster, until I’m ahead of everyone else. We circle the base, running past the train tracks, under bridges. We go through the woods, darting around trees, leaping over stones, over streams. We’re one long line of bodies, flying.
I hear the fall of footsteps behind me, someone coming closer. Ryn runs up beside me.
“Hey,” he says, keeping pace with me.
“Hi,” I say, and start to run faster.
“Are you okay?” he says. “I beamed you but you didn’t answer.”
I look at him, at the worry in his eyes. All I’m going to do is hurt him. I can’t make this any harder than it already is.
“I can’t talk about this right now,” I say shortly, and break away from him. I don’t look back, scared to see the expression on his face if I do.
I run until my mind goes blank. I run until I feel like my body will split apart. I think only of my feet hitting the ground, my arms pumping at my sides, all the life my body holds. I hear the blood rush through me, I feel my heart pound in my chest. I run until I can’t go on, then drop down to the ground. The rest of the group soon follows, and we sit in a circle and catch our breath.
I stand up and stretch out my legs, my arms, pressing my hands flat to the ground. Ryn walks over to me.
“Can we talk?” he asks.
I hesitate, avoiding his eyes.
“Okay,” I say. “But not here.”
We walk past the station, toward the woods. Ryn takes my hand, squeezing it gently. My heart clenches in response. I wait until we reach a clearing in the trees to look him in the eyes.
“Ryn,” I say, letting go of his hand. “I can’t do this.”
“What do you mean?” he asks, confused.
“This, whatever this is,” I say, my breath catching in my throat.
We stand among the birch trees. Wildflowers bloom at our ankles. From the other side of base, the train rushes across the tracks, the ground shaking bene
ath us.
“Is this because of your dad?” he asks, his voice filled with concern. “I can come over and apologize. Once he gets to know—”
“No,” I interrupt. “It’s because of you.”
Ryn’s eyes darken with distress. “Li, I—”
I cut him off again. “We got carried away. What did you think was going to come of this, anyway?” My voice is colder than I’ve ever heard it before. “We’re leaving in two months.” I push down the despair I feel rising within me. There’s no way for me to be with him and protect my family, myself. There’s nothing left to do but end it.
“I thought about it. I can’t be with you,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
Ryn flinches, pressing his lips together. For a moment, I think he’s going to say something, but he just shakes his head and walks away. The way his body moves is something I know, something familiar to me now. I want to call his name and run to him, I want to take it all back. I close my eyes and press my palms against them. When I open them, he’s gone. I walk back around to the front of the station. It takes everything in me to move forward, to put one foot in front of the other, as though I didn’t just break my own heart.
Mirabae and Akia are the only ones still here, leaning up against the side of the station. Mirabae gives me a questioning look, but I shake my head slightly, my voice lost somewhere deep inside me.
“We’re on our way to the presentation showing for the Planetary Orientation Series, if you want to come,” Akia says.
All I want to do is collapse. I want to disappear.
“Sure,” I say, forcing myself to smile. “Let’s go.”
We walk across base, into the auditorium. The room looks entirely different than it did on our first day. The ceiling sparkles, the image of a small silver planet projected onto it. Rows of seats rise up from the floor. Akia, Mirabae, and I sit down. As we do, our seats tilt back so we’re staring up at the ceiling. The lights in the room flicker off and the planet grows brighter.
“Napru is the twelfth planet from the sun,” a voice echoes through the room. “It’s an urban planet with an electromagnetic force field that exists inches above its surface.”
The buildings that cover the planet are tall and thin, each one made of solar paneling. They float just above the ground, suspended in the air.
“For generations, Napruans built their homes below the ground. Now all structures are built with material that holds the alternately charged force from the electromagnetic field.”
The image before us shifts, showing someone walking down the street dressed in something that looks like a space suit, their feet hovering over the ground.
“Napruan outerwear consists of pressurized gravity-chambered suits that allow inhabitants to move around on the surface of the planet.”
The presentation goes on to explain that Abdolorean technology is what made life aboveground possible for Napruans, that there are communities who still live belowground in resistance to Abdolorean presence, but more and more people are leaving for life on the surface. I can’t stop myself from thinking that the Forces don’t belong on Napru at all, that everyone there lived in a way that worked for them, one that Abdoloreans came in and changed.
After the presentation ends, Mirabae, Akia, and I walk to the train together. I know Mirabae can tell that something’s wrong, but she doesn’t ask me about it now. She’ll beam me later tonight, and I’ll tell her about Ryn then.
“My mother was part of the mission that moved Napruans to the surface,” Akia says. “Back during her Conscription.”
“That’s incredible,” Mirabae says. “Did she ever tell you what it was like?”
Akia nods. “She said that most of the older generation wanted to stay underground, but she worked with one woman who had always wanted to live on the surface, ever since she was young. My mom said that the first time they went up, the woman told her that being aboveground felt like learning how to fly.”
I stare out across the ocean before us as we wait for the train. I look up to the sky, imagining myself high above Earth. I imagine myself flying, untethered from this planet, untethered from everything.
I’ve never felt so alone.
* * *
—
The door to my father’s study is closed, the room quiet. I bring my hand up and open the door, peering through the darkness. I step inside and run my hands against the walls, searching for the spot that’s hollow, where my father’s safe is hidden. I find it easily, pressing my hands against it, hesitating only for a moment. I slide the panel out of the wall, revealing the safe. My father taught us the code in case of emergencies, and as I enter it, I feel a slight twinge that I’m doing something wrong. The safe unlocks. I settle down onto the floor, tucking my legs underneath me.
I reach inside the safe, feeling around until I find what I’m looking for. I open my hand and look at the ring in the middle of my palm. Even in the darkness, it shimmers, golden, the shape of a feather etched around it. The ring belonged to my human mother, her name written along the inside—Augusta. I don’t know how to mourn someone I can’t remember. Still, I wonder what our life was like together, before everything that happened here happened. I slip the ring over my finger, thinking back to when I was six years old, to the first time I understood completely who I was, what it really meant to be human.
My father and I were at the beach, searching for shells. We walked along the edge of the water, right where the waves met the sand. Seafoam gathered at our feet, dissolving around us as we moved.
“Do you think this is what walking on clouds feels like?” I asked.
“Yes, Li, I do,” my father said.
I remember reaching down and picking up a periwinkle shell, running my thumb over it, feeling the way it curved.
“Those shells have been here for thousands of years,” my father said. “They existed before anyone lived on Earth at all.”
He told me that the ocean was full of prehistoric creatures, sharp-toothed and monstrous, that the land was empty and untamed. I’d never thought before about how I got here, how anyone got to this Earth at all. My family came from Abdolora, but I was born on Earth, and for the first time, I wondered what that really meant.
“Dad,” I said, and he looked down at me. “How did I get here, if I’m not like you?”
I was too young to realize that this was a difficult question, that it required him to be truthful in a way he hadn’t yet had to be.
“I was wondering when you would ask that,” he said, looking off into the distance. “You had a mother and a father who were human, like you,” he says. “Your mother was named Augusta and your father was named Elia.”
“Where are they now?” I asked.
“They died, my love,” he said, his voice quiet. “All the humans who were here died, you know that.”
“But not me,” I said, and he took my hand.
“No, not you,” he said. “Your mother and father, they loved you so much. They knew what was going to happen to Earth, they knew their lives would end. They gave you to me so that you could survive.”
He told me they were scientists, like him, that they spent their lives trying to save Earth. My human mother had brown skin and brown eyes, like mine. My human father was tall, his skin pale, his eyes a deep blue, like the ocean.
“They wanted the world for you,” he told me. “That’s why you’re here.”
I look down at Augusta’s ring. A strange sense of loss rushes through me, resting just beneath my lungs. I have a father and a sister, I tell myself, alive, on this Earth. I have my family here.
The light turns on and I squint against its sudden brightness. Zo stands in front of me, framed by the doorway.
“What are you doing, sitting alone in the dark?” she asks. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” I say. “I just needed some time to think.”
“I’ll go,” she says, turning to leave.
“No,” I say. “Stay.”
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She looks at me, tilting her head.
“I don’t really want to be alone right now,” I say softly.
She sits down next to me, crossing her legs beneath her. She notices the ring on my finger.
“Your mother’s,” she says.
“I miss her. I didn’t know her, but I miss her anyway.”
“Same here,” she says, her eyes quiet. “My own mother, I mean.”
She smiles, looking down at her hands.
“I wish I could remember her,” she says.
“Yes,” I say. “I understand completely.”
I slip the ring off my finger and put it back into the safe. Zo watches me, her eyes quiet.
“I broke up with Ryn,” I tell her. “Dad found out about us, so there wasn’t really any choice.”
“Oh, Li,” she says. “I’m so sorry.”
I shrug, as though it doesn’t matter, like I don’t even care. I ignore the way my heart hitches in my chest, the way I can barely breathe.
“It’s okay,” I say. “It never could have lasted anyway.”
We were going to end up apart all along, placed on opposite ends of the galaxy, away from each other for the next seven years. Still, we could have spent this time together, if only I weren’t human, if only I didn’t have to hide.
Zo lies on the floor, resting her feet against the wall. Her hair spills out around her. She closes her eyes and I watch her chest rise and fall as she breathes. She’s the only one who really knows me, I realize. She’s the other half of my life.
“Hey,” she says, her eyes still closed. “Remember that game we used to play, the one Dad invented?”
“Which one?” I ask.
“The one with the electric rackets and glowing ball,” she says.
“Sudden Death Turbo Ball,” I say, the name coming back to me at once, even though it’s been years since we played. “He used to get so mad at us for playing in the house.”
She opens her eyes.
“He did. But whatever, he shouldn’t have invented it if he didn’t want us to play.” She sits up, smiling brightly. “I found everything the other day. Want to play?”
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