Revenge of the Star Survivors

by Michael Merschel

  “Your mom never tried to help?”

  “I don’t blame her. She and I both know that her stepping in would have just made things worse.”

  “That must be—”

  “Let’s get back to your problems,” he said abruptly. “Why do you care about the Disciplinary Tribunal?” I set aside my questions about him and related what Ricki had heard. “Do you think they’re coming after me? Because of the projector thing?”

  His brow furrowed. “No. That’s hardly tribunal material.”

  “What is?”

  “Big stuff. Drugs. Fighting. Making fun of your teacher’s butt.”

  “They could expel you for that?”

  “Probably.”

  “But I haven’t done anything that bad.”

  He paused. “No, but Ty has.”

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  He started to speak, then stopped himself. “Look, I can speculate all I want. But it won’t matter unless we can see inside that envelope.”

  “Too bad we can’t,” I sighed.

  He stared at me. “You could just take it.”

  “That would be stealing!”

  “How can it be stealing when it’s your information? Probably.”

  He had a point.

  “How would we do it?”

  “We? I think this is going to have to be all you. I mean, I’ll give it some thought. But I’m in deep if I don’t get home fast. Baseball season.”

  “You want me to break a kneecap for you, so you can sit out?”

  His face brightened at the prospect, then fell. “Nah, he’d just tell me to walk it off.” And Les exited down the pipe.

  As I waited for my turn to go, part of me was terrified. Would I really try espionage? Risk turning my life upside-down?

  Heck yeah.

  10.01.02

  That night, at the home base, all four occupants took ritual nourishment together again. So I used the opportunity to probe my commanders for useful data. They deserved a chance to not be totally useless.

  “Dad,” I asked, while the spawn was distracted by small chunks of meatball, “have you ever had to steal important documents from someone? For your job, I mean.”

  He nearly choked on his spaghetti. “Why on earth would you ask that?”

  I had anticipated this. “I’ve just been thinking about what you do, and it’s sounding interesting to me. Being a journalist and all.”

  This had an unusual effect on the commander. He looked at his co-commander, who pursed her lips in a suppressed smile. Then he began to give off low-level radiation that was not actually visible but could still be described as glowing.

  “Well, I’m happy to talk, Clark. The short answer is, no, I have never stolen documents for any of my investigations. Although there was a time once, back when I was a cub reporter, that I . . .”

  I have noticed that whenever the commander begins something by saying, “The short answer is,” he always follows it with a long, dull story that I can mostly ignore. This one was about some kind of corruption or something in a politician’s office. Or maybe he said police officer. Anyhow, the story involved some piece of paper he needed and a locked file cabinet and him making small talk with a secretary about her favorite band for a week until she let him copy some notes from that file cabinet. Or something.

  “So the lesson is,” he said, and this was the only part I was interested in, “don’t be afraid to get help. You can get a lot more done in a pack than as a lone wolf.”

  Wolves? He hadn’t said anything about wolves. Much less a pack.

  He just kept talking. “I mean, look at John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Classic example.”

  I was puzzled. “Was Lennon the old guy with the funny lips whose band you saw in Los Angeles when I was in fifth grade?”

  Now his expression looked pained for some reason. “No, Clark, you’re thinking of Mick Jagger, of The Rolling—never mind. The point is, Lennon and McCartney were never as good solo as they were when they were together.”

  “They were a band too, then?”

  The female commander laughed. The male commander looked skyward, as if praying to be relieved of a great pain, then simply said, “Yes.”

  I nodded—“Thanks, Dad”—and excused myself.

  He was so obtuse.

  10.02.01

  Given the lack of help I was receiving from Les and my commanders, Ricki—the only one of us who regularly observed Principal Denton in his lair—seemed my best hope for answers. She was adamant about not being seen with me, but through a series of notes, whispers, hand-drawn maps and occasionally violent hand gestures, we came up with a plan. Which was: I would meet with her while she walked home.

  I rode my bike to school. After Athletics, I dashed out the back to throw off anybody trying to tail me, then circled to the front, unchained my bike and took a roundabout route to the rendezvous.

  It was on a street that was intersected by a narrow, paved path that ran east from Festus. Ricki was coming up the path as I arrived. She clutched her books across her chest like a shield and kept her eyes fixed straight ahead as she passed me, then paused as she prepared to cross the street. I rolled my bike behind her and dismounted.

  “Follow me, but don’t look like you’re following me,” she murmured.

  I let her walk ahead, then grabbed my handlebars and began pushing.

  The trail—apparently intended for people who liked to exercise, which was probably why I had not seen it before—wound behind the rows of houses, most of which separated themselves from the path with low fences of chain link. I followed Ricki and her determined, bouncy stride for another half block, when suddenly the fences fell away and the trail opened up onto a small, well-used playground. It was empty; the grade school would not be released for another fifteen minutes, and the aging equipment here was primarily targeted at such children.

  Among the structures was one inviting work of art: the twenty-five-foot-tall framework of a Buck Rogers–era rocket, made of metal pipes, with a ladder up the interior, a slide coming out of what would be the second stage and an observation deck of sorts in the nose cone.

  Ricki was ducking inside it.

  I pushed my bike down the path a bit, chained it to a bench, looked around to make sure the coast was clear, and ran back across the play area. The pea-sized pebbles crunched as I scrambled toward the ladder.

  Ricki was sitting cross-legged in the nose cone when I poked my head up.

  “I have maybe ten minutes,” she said.

  I pulled myself in, tried to stand up, hit my head on the top of the rocket and plopped down across from her, not quite Gemini-style, but we could save historical accuracy for another day.

  “I need help,” I said.

  “Try ice for your head, and maybe the mall for new shoes.”

  I looked at my feet, worried. “What’s wrong with my shoes?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “It was a joke.”

  Her sense of humor was odd, I thought.

  “I think your sense of humor is odd,” I said.

  “It probably is. My life is odd. It’s actually dangerous for me to be up here with you.”

  “Really?” I didn’t think of myself as dangerous.

  “Yes. But that’s OK. I kind of like it. What’s your urgent need that led you to lure me here?”

  I scrutinized her, trying to grok what she was really all about. I thought of this video game I once played that had a target inside a layer of rotating shields that was inside a layer of rotating shields that was inside a layer of rotating shields. Only when everything lined up exactly right did you have a clear path to the heart of the fortress. Ricki reminded me of that.

  Why were we here? Oh, yeah. “Ricki, I need to find out what’s inside Ms. Beacon’s Disciplinary Tribunal file.”

  “Then you’re in trouble.”

  I frowned. “You don’t have access?”

  “Nope.”

  “But I thought you cou
ld do anything in that office! I mean, you get on the attendance computer. . . .”

  “That’s easy. When the receptionist is on the phone, I slip in, do my thing and slip out. I can’t get to your envelope so simply. If it’s not in Beacon’s office, it’s either with Denton or on Blethins’s desk.”

  “So you know where it’s kept?”

  “No.”

  “Then how do you—”

  “They pass it back and forth a lot. He leaves it in Blethins’s in-box. She has to sign it or something before returning it to him.”

  “Other than that time, it’s locked in a file somewhere?”

  “Yes. Probably in his desk. And no, I do not have the key.”

  I stared out between the bars, over the sea of rooftops, and could see Festus uphill in the distance, a sight that always made me feel slightly ill.

  Which gave me an idea.

  “Ricki, if you were working in the office, would you have a way of getting a message to me?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Why?”

  “If you saw that folder on Blethins’s desk, could you signal me quickly?”

  “Yes,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “Yes, I could do that. You’d be in Lopez’s class second hour, right?”

  “Yeah.” I sat up straight. “How did you know?”

  “I have my ways.” She was fighting a smile. She might even have blushed.

  She looked at her watch. “I am also going to have to leave in three minutes. Is there anything else you’d like to . . . discuss?”

  She arched one eyebrow and still seemed to be fighting a smile.

  We sat across from each other in our little space capsule, cut off from the rest of the world, a cool spring breeze blowing through the bars.

  I leaned in toward her.

  “Yes,” I said.

  She waited, expectantly.

  “Tell me: how did you become a Star Survivors fan?”

  The question seemed to surprise her, and she tilted her head to one side, as if to ask, “Seriously?”

  “No, I really want to know,” I said. It was the most personal question I could think of. Aside from asking whether she preferred Maxim or Steele.

  She shook her head and laughed.

  “You really like that show, don’t you?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Well, yes. It has a few flaws—the women’s uniforms are much too tight to be practical, and I think I could have navigated the ship back to Earth by the middle of Season Two using some simple triangulation techniques that Steele surely could have computed, but it’s a pleasant diversion. Perhaps even inspiring. And I happen to like that it annoys my parents.”

  I overlooked her criticism because I wanted to hear about her parents. “They aren’t fans?”

  “HA! They think television is for weak minds. I’m not supposed to watch.”

  “So how . . . ?”

  “My father is always off at his lab, and my mother works part-time on campus. When she’s out, I can turn on the TV and get caught up. Without them knowing I’m being corrupted. And lecturing me about how they expect better from me.”

  “Your parents are even more intense than I thought.”

  She folded her arms across her chest and scowled. “They get freaked out so easily,” she fumed.

  “So I’ve seen,” I said.

  “Tip of the iceberg,” she said.

  “Mine are mostly clueless,” I offered. “I mean, the stuff they don’t notice. . . . They’re totally unobservant. Sometimes I wonder if we’re even related.”

  She gave me a funny look, as if she were about to say something, but stopped.

  “What?” I asked.

  “It’s complicated. Or it is for you, apparently.”

  “Please,” I said. “It’s just—parents. How can your situation be that much more complicated than anyone else’s?”

  “Clark,” she said, speaking slowly. “You’ve seen my parents, right?”

  I thought back to the stern, blond woman and the tired-looking man in the Volvo. “Yeah, so?”

  She waited, both eyebrows now arched above her brown eyes.

  Hold on . . .

  “Ricki,” I asked, putting it all together, “are you—”

  “Adopted?” she said, impatiently. “Yes. And if your main complaint about your own parents is that they are not observant, it is clear that you may be more like them than you think.”

  “Well, I’ve had a lot on my mind,” I said defensively. “It’s not like I’ve been sitting around, pondering your family situation or something!”

  We were silent for as long as I could stand before I asked, “So, uh, did you want to tell me about your family situation?”

  “Oh, we’re just your normal, everyday American family,” she said brightly. “I mean, lots of people are adopted, right? For lots of different reasons? At least, that’s what the pamphlet said. The one my mom gave me last time I brought up the subject.”

  “She gave you a pamphlet? To talk about—”

  “No, there’s no talking, Clark. Not when a trifold piece of paper can do all the communicating for you. Which is funny, considering my mom is technically quite capable of communication. She was born in Sweden and speaks several languages.”

  “She’s from Sweden? But your dad sounded—”

  “French? He’s from Quebec. It’s a long story that ends with them meeting in a lab at MIT and getting married and adopting me from Seoul.”

  I tried to add it all up. “So you’re . . . French Canadian-Swedish-Korean-American?”

  She sighed, unfolded her arms and let her hands fall to her lap. “More like, ‘None of the above.’ ”

  “OK. You win. That’s complicated,” I said. The expression on her face was not triumphant, though. “And I’m sorry I asked.”

  “I actually don’t mind explaining it,” she said. “I don’t get a lot of chances. I do get a lot of people asking, ‘Where are you from?’ And then angry stares when I tell them, ‘Boston.’ And then they ask, ‘No, where are you originally from.’ And when we finally get to ‘South Korea,’ they start with the insults.”

  “OK, good,” I said, relieved. “I mean, that you aren’t upset with me. Not good about the insults. And that you don’t get to talk about it. If you want to talk about it. I mean . . .” What did I mean? “I’m just sorry. You deserve . . . better.”

  She looked as if she didn’t quite believe me. “I think the insults just go with the whole . . . outsider thing,” she said. “I mean, Festus is bad. But not unique.”

  “Well, do your parents—”

  “My parents don’t get it. They seem to fit in wherever they find work. Montreal. Los Alamos. Here. They’re good at enrolling me in activities and making sure I do my homework but have no clue what it’s like to always be the new kid, much less the one who doesn’t look like everyone else, and not even like her parents. They’ve never dealt with the jokes, never heard the Kaitlins make fun of—”

  The thought of the Kaitlins made her draw her shoulders in and bow her head, as if she were trying to make herself less visible.

  “Anyhow, my parents . . . I suppose they mean well. But I . . . I don’t think they know what to do with me. Besides try to shelter me from everything. Lock me up, like Rapunzel or something. And they just don’t know what that’s like . . . to feel like you were hatched on another planet or something.” She looked up. “You know?”

  I nodded slowly. I most definitely did know. But as I struggled to find the right words to explain that, we heard the bell from the elementary school ring in the distance.

  “I have to go,” she said, and she began to gather her backpack.

  Why was it that the people I wanted to talk to were always running away just when things got interesting?

  “Wait—Ricki, I—I—” I stammered as she began to climb down hurriedly.

  “Superman,” I blurted, as I suddenly remembered something from a comic book the male commander had given me a long
time ago.

  She paused at the top of the ladder, then flashed an angry look. “You are a very random and disturbed person, did you know that?”

  “He’s adopted too. Also an alien. You two probably have a lot in common.”

  Her look indicated that she thought I had just displayed the intelligence and insight one might expect from a fungus. “I think he’s got more than a few advantages over me, Clark.”

  “Yeah, but you know, Ricki, you’ve got your own skills. From what I’ve seen, at least.”

  She stayed there, holding on to the top rung, and tilted her head as she thought that over.

  “I suppose your brain is interesting sometimes,” she finally said. “I didn’t know it held much more than Star Survivors quotes. I thought you were going to ask me whether I preferred Maxim or Steele.”

  “Well, actually, I was kind of wondering. . . .”

  Which earned me an eye roll. “I’ll think about giving you an answer the next time we get together.”

  That was promising, at least. “And you’ll signal me if you spot the envelope?”

  “For whatever good it will do you.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “I said I would help. I didn’t say I thought you were all that bright.” She steadied herself on the ladder. “But you are mildly amusing.”

  She descended, looked up and down the path, and started toward her home.

  I waited a few minutes, enjoying the vibe in the air, until a cool wind out of the west made me shudder.

  Then I climbed down and rode home, half my brain filled with Ricki-related thoughts, the other half trying to figure out how I would get that folder out of the office, if I ever got the chance.

  10.03.01

  My chance came the next morning, during second hour.

  Mr. Lopez had us reading silently out of the lang arts textbook. I have never understood how this type of assignment is considered “teaching.” “Teaching” is supposed to be a verb, implying action, correct? This was merely “boring.” As in, “boring me and the rest of the class to death.”