“Good to hear. We will have a meeting with you before every broadcast.”
“Sounds great.”
They each exited the system from their individual spaces, and he was left staring at the monitor. Devina had said they wanted him to understand what they were doing and why, but he was leaving their meeting more confused than before it began.
There was only one subject he contained perfect clarity.
No. You are not my family, nor am I a part of yours.
Chapter 33
One Year Later
Colin
A light breeze fluttered around them, rustling the grass and leaves in the trees. Whenever Aakil forced Colin to take a break, he loved to lie on the ground near the riverbank. The swooshing sound of the turbulent water, the birds’ songs, the sun beating down on his hot skin. It was delightful. Colin had always known life would be better on the surface, but he didn’t realize how amazing exposure to the elements could be, or how cruel those forces became.
The previous evening, he had gone to the clearing in hopes to familiarize himself with the stars. Although there were many who raved about the joys of stargazing, he had only just taken the time to enjoy such a humbling view into the night sky.
The only good thing Colin could say about their first year on the colony was that most people survived it. Colin feared that empty bellies would fuel any minor disagreements into an uprising. Yet, other than a few who succumbed to the new illnesses and injuries they had survived, Freya was still asleep on the spacecraft and Colin and Aakil were still in charge, mostly.
Forming the Advisors had been one of Aakil’s better ideas, yet Colin feared he would not be able to stay in politics by the time Freya woke up, especially now.
He had to bring Aakil up here where he knew they couldn’t be overheard. This particular spot was their favorite place to talk, just the two of them.
Once the Advisors were formed and the people became accustomed to directing their comments and concerns in a new direction, Colin had been free to walk around the township openly without fear of being overwhelmed. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long before he and Aakil learned that they were best to keep tight-lipped when they had an audience. A secluded meeting place was a necessity if they wanted to discuss more than the weather.
They took one silent walk around the perimeter to ensure no one was lurking in the grass or in a hammock in the tree line before they settled into a spot on the ground.
“Who’s got to you today?” Aakil asked, sensing his foul mood.
Colin let out a combination of a hiss and laugh. “I wish this was about something petty, like who feels they’ve got the short end of the stick.”
“Really?” Aakil raised a brow. “I feel like all anyone has done since we got here is bitch.”
The pair of them often came out to this location to vent, but Colin had something more specific he needed to talk to Aakil about, if he could get the spine. “Yep. People are the worst.”
“They really are!” Aakil cast another darting look around them and lowered his voice. “And I really hate to admit this, but I kind of get now why the State were such dicks.”
Colin clenched his jaw, locking his gaze upward on the sky above.
Aakil raised his hands. “Hey, that’s kind of joke, well sort of. I don’t actually wish we were still there or anything. We did the right thing. I just get frustrated at how quickly people seem to forget why or how we got here.”
Colin nodded but said nothing in response.
Aakil peered at him momentarily. “Are we going to cuddle? Do you want to be the little-spoon?”
The corner of Colin’s mouth twitched upward, but it wasn’t enough to cause a full smile.
“I mean, I’m just saying, you bring me out here—alone, and it’s like you want me to stargaze with you. It seems to me like you might be trying to get a little action while your old lady isn’t looking.”
Colin’s head snapped to the side, finally rising to Aakil’s bait. “You have got to stop calling her that. I’m serious. I’ve broken your bones before, and I’ll do it again.”
Aakil shrugged and threw his hands up dramatically. “She ain’t your young lady.”
“I seriously hate you at times.”
Aakil smirked and laid back in the grass. “Twenty years is a long time, mate. I’d understand if you brought me out here with intentions. I am irresistible, after all.”
“Really, then why haven’t you found a lady-friend yet?”
Aakil grimaced. “Cuz there are way too many guys here and not enough ladies! God. I’d hoped it would be a little more balanced. I sure hope for your sake Freya doesn’t dump your sorry ass when she wakes up. You won’t have other options. I’m starting to wonder if I’ll wait 20 years myself for the company of a woman, if it ever even happens again for me.”
Colin nodded. “Yeah, we didn’t think about that. The men got all ramped up on testosterone and more of them made it through.”
Aakil shot back up. “Yeah, if I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t have let more people through after Freya. We had better balance then.”
Colin nodded, his gaze still transfixed on the heavens as they sat in silence.
“Okay seriously. Why are you in such a piss-poor mood! I’m funny. You should be laughing. But obviously you’re not going to shake off this funk you’re in, so you best come out with it.”
Colin crumpled forward and rubbed his eyes. “I could just be paranoid.”
Aakil pushed at his shoulder. “Yes. You’re crazy paranoid. And you’ve been right a few too many times for me to brush off all the crazy shit you say.”
Colin pressed his eyelids tightly shut. “Somehow, I think the State is still watching us. And if they are…”
Aakil took a deep breath. “Look, Colin, I’ll hear you out, but I can already tell you, not possible. I mean yes, we may have stripped everything we can from the ship, but until it’s fully taken apart—”
“It’s not the ship.”
Colin flopped back on the ground, looking up vacantly into the sky.
“Oh, I see you do have intentions,” Aakil jabbed before laying back in the grass also. “So, tell me how the State can possibly listen in on us 22 light-years away without the transport device.”
Colin’s eyes focused. “Just wait for a bit. It’s almost time.”
“Time for what?”
“The same time as when I’ve seen it twice before.” Colin swallowed the sand in his throat. “The first time I noticed it I thought, hmmm, funny star. Then last night I, well, I tried to remember about what time it was so I could ask you about it.”
Aakil took a lengthy breath before responding. “I don’t know much about the stars, but I know enough to know that there is a lot to understand about them. If you thought there was a funny star, you could be right. Stars die. They explode and streak across the sky.”
Colin felt a little better at Aakil’s remark. Not totally satisfied, but he felt it was possible he could be wrong. “I said it could be nothing. I just wanted you to see.”
“Yeah, I don’t exactly have time to stargaze because every time you give me five minutes to myself I usually spend it trying to talk to the very limited quantity of available ladies we got in—”
“There!” Colin pointed up toward the sky.
Aakil squinted before his eyes locked on the shining light. His entire head followed it silently across the sky before he responded. “Aw… shit.”
“What is it?” Colin jumped up.
“Oh God. A satellite. I hate it when you’re right!” Aakil dramatically flipped over and tucked his face behind his arm. “I like it better when you’re just bat-shit crazy.”
Colin started pacing while Aakil continued to lament on the ground. “So?”
“So, what?”
“What the hell are we going to do?” Colin’s arms flail about as he spoke.
“Not a clue.” Aakil rolled onto his side with his back to Colin.
/>
“Should I bring this up with the Advisors?”
“And say what?”
“Exactly.”
Aakil slowly pushed onto all fours. “How about, you know all that work you’ve been doing so we don’t die? Yeah, I’m going to need you to stop now and flee this place because someday the State will come for us and as their guns are bigger, we’ll probably die. How’s that?”
“Sounds about right,” Colin scoffed.
Aakil cursed and let his head hang in defeat. “We’re sitting ducks. It doesn’t matter if we take the spaceship apart or not. We have 21 more years before they come for us.”
Colin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Give me one reason, just one, of why that thing would be there other than to monitor us or kill us with the push of a button.”
“Unless that thing belongs to aliens?”
“It’s not aliens,” Colin huffed.
Aakil rested on his knees. “I seriously wish it was. Somehow I would rather die at the hands of a little green man eating me alive than having the State beat us. And aliens would make sense. I mean, this place is just like earth.”
Colin furrowed his brow. “It is so much like earth, isn’t it almost kind of weird? I mean, we never saw much from inside the dome but still. I thought with the whole alien folklore thing that existed before the State, that a different planet would be, well, different.”
“Can I take that thought a step further?” Aakil nodded. “If this planet is so great, and it was discovered before the State took power, how come we never came here when the earth got destroyed? Why now? Why even build the dome at all when they could have just loaded us up on a spacecraft? Now that I see that satellite in orbit, I think they had to prep this place for us. So, they could still maintain control, even if they weren’t here.”
Colin sucked in a deep breath, but his lungs were so tight he could hardly breathe. “I guess we are still in a dome. This one’s just bigger.”
***
He traced his fingertips along the rough-textured wood. This building, their first and only construction, held a certain sentiment. The entire community worked together to cut down the trees, carve them into interlocking shapes and stack them atop one another.
The dirt floor did nothing to keep its inhabitants warm at night, especially not in the winter months. The roof hardly kept out the rain, but it was a luxurious place compared to the huts constructed of mud and straw. They prioritized the available huts for families, especially those with young infants.
All the structures were vulgar, yet sentimental at the same time. Colin had helped construct this meeting hall with his own hands, and he felt just as attached to it as everyone else. Now, he had to ask his own government to leave it all behind.
It could still be worse: if they agreed he would have to wake Freya, leaving their age differences locked forever in place. He would lose her for certain, even if she didn’t try to kill him for putting her into hibernation to begin with. If he had been able to fix their age-gap, there was a chance she would forgive him. But not now. Not like this.
“You need another minute?”
Colin huffed. “How about another decade?”
Aakil rested a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Hey, you know I’ve got your back in there. In fact, if you don’t mind, I will take the lead. It’s best that when you tell people stuff they don’t want to hear, you need to sound intelligent while you do it. Charisma isn’t going to win you this battle.”
Colin rubbed his eyes. “Remind me again why I formed the Advisors? If it was still just us, we could just tell everyone to pack their shit and get on the road.”
Aakil teetered back and forth. “Yeah, and then there would be an uprising where we get slaughtered and they come back so everyone can die without us. Sometimes, diplomacy is key.”
Colin took a deep breath to steady himself and then put one foot forward before he spun around. “Wait. If you’re going to do all the talking, then what am I supposed to say? I mean, they’d know you’re my right hand, but you usually stand off on the sidelines while I speak. What will they think if you start?”
Aakil shrugged. “They will probably think something along the lines of ‘oh shit. If Aakil’s the one talking, we must be screwed.’”
“And they would be right.”
“Yep.”
Colin groaned. “This could be my last meeting with the Advisors. They’re going to kick me out and wake up Freya, only returning to her position if she agrees to either leave me or keep me quiet.”
“Sounds about right. But how about we start with you saying we have a delicate matter to discuss and you need to call on your Chief Scientific Advisor to bring your Advisors up to speed on the matter.”
Colin raised an eyebrow. “You’re my Chief Scientific Advisor?”
“Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe, if they didn’t already know that you’re the only scientist here.”
“Tell me about it. Everyone else on that colony ship were just minions.” Aakil pursed his lips. “And you know, it’s about damn time I got a fancy title I can lord over everyone.”
“Lord over everyone?” Colin laughed dryly. “Why have I got a bad feeling it’s going to be just you and me?”
Aakil cupped Colin’s shoulder, giving him a slight push toward the entrance. “Because I also think that this meeting will begin the first divide amongst the colonists.”
Colin dug his heels in the ground. “And only after a year in power I cause the first political divide humanity has had in, what, generations?”
“Not your fault, mate. And there’s also nothing you can do to change it. So just go in there and together, we’ll tell them the truth.”
Colin took his first few reluctant steps forward.
Aakil patted his shoulder. “What’s that old saying? And the truth shall set you free?”
Colin took a deep breath. “Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to happen today.”
They passed through the entrance and took a seat at the heavy wood table and chairs. There were solar lights suspended from the ceiling, the only building to have electricity. Colin hoped the batteries held out for the duration of the meeting. He needed to make sure the Advisors didn’t brush this matter to the side.
He and Aakil sat in silence; Colin’s leg bouncing repeatedly under the table as he sat on his hands to keep himself from fidgeting. The Advisors slowly filled in one-by-one until they filled the table.
Aakil tapped Colin’s foot under the table with his own. With a deep breath, Colin lifted his chin, attempting to appear with a confidence he didn’t possess. “Welcome, everyone. And thank you for meeting aside from our usual weekly meeting time.”
A few nervous glances swept around the table. He looked back to Aakil who gave him a slight encouraging nod. “I’m afraid I have called you here with some disturbing news. I felt the right course of action was to bring everyone immediately up to speed so that we may, together, look into our options and strategize. I’m afraid I will not, however, be the one to brief you. I feel this task will be better served by my,” Colin hesitated, “Chief Scientific Advisor.”
Aakil’s eyes glimmered for a split second with a wicked grin before he cast his attention to the table. “Thank you, Colin. I am here to share information with you in hopes that we can all come to an agreement for the right course of action. Recently, we have discovered that we are not completely alone on this planet.”
One man leaned forward sharply. “There is another intelligent species here?”
Colin winced. Nothing like getting started on the wrong foot. “No, not a new species but our old captors.”
Another Adviser shook her head. “Not possible. They can’t get here for another 21 years.”
Aakil raised his hands defensively. “Just give me a moment to explain, please. We don’t have an immediate threat; we’re just here to talk.”
Colin saw a lot of Advisors scowling, but they allowed Aakil to take
the floor.
“We have discovered what we believe to be a satellite in orbit around our planet. This is rather concerning to us because depending on how it was programmed, the State may have the capacity to monitor us as the best-case scenario, our worst-case is it’s weaponized.”
“Weaponized?” One adviser shrieked.
Another held out a hand to minimize him. “I highly doubt that satellites have that kind of capacity.”
Colin’s insides churned. He was speculating, at best, but he somehow just knew that they weren’t safe to stay where the State placed them. He knew it, but he couldn’t prove it. “But we also don’t know that it doesn’t. We always need to proceed with extreme caution regarding the State.”
Conspired: A Young Adult Dystopian Romance (The State Series Book 6) Page 22