by Alechia Dow
“It was implied,” I huff despite the butterflies in my stomach. “I’m still mad at you.”
“I know. But I still like you.”
I snort.
“Do you still like me?” Morris’s eyes glow through the falling darkness, and in them there’s both hope and despair.
“What does it matter? You’re going to California to save Earth and humanity. I can go home and wait.” I shrug.
“No, Ellie.” Morris runs his fingers through the tall grass beside us. “You will die if you travel home now. 0rsa will look for you, she will hunt you. Your existence plagues her. If you somehow defy the odds, you will get vaccinated. Do you want that?”
I exhale. “No.” That sort of lack of control, I wouldn’t choose that. And if I die, never seeing my parents again... “But where else can I go?”
“Come with me, and along the way, we’ll find somewhere safe. When the humans come back, when they are free, you can help them. You can tell them what the future will bring. This is your chance to change everything.”
“I don’t know.” I let the breath whoosh out of me. It’s time to admit my truth, too. “I don’t know if I’m the right person for that. Up until the hospital back there, I didn’t even think most humans were worth saving. I want to save my family. I want to save that little girl behind the glass. But part of me worries that if everyone and everything goes back to the way it was, we’ll just destroy each other again. I know that’s horrible.”
His eyebrows knit together, but he doesn’t ask me to explain. “It’s not horrible, Ellie. To think and feel and experience and doubt means you are alive. And it is your decision to make.” We fall into a heavy silence that seems to last forever until his fingers touch the edges of mine. “Do you still like me?”
I stamp down the feelings floating around inside of me. “I don’t know.”
He smiles, lifting the mood. “If you had said no, it would have hurt.”
“‘I don’t know’ could mean either.”
“I believe, Janelle Baker, human and collector of books, that you will like me again.”
I sigh and stack my books by my sides. Anger wears me out, and I’ve spent the last day and a half angrier than words. Morris isn’t my enemy. His people are, and while he could have told me the truth sooner, I understand why he didn’t. If our roles were reversed, I would have done the same. But I’m not completely over it. Not yet.
“Are there other things you’re not telling me?” I ask.
Morris helps me gather my books. “Oh, there is plenty I haven’t told you, but not because I’m withholding it. There isn’t enough time. And nothing that changes your world quite like this.”
“Have you listened to the Starry Eyed yet?” I ask. He shakes his head. “There’s an old phone in your bag. We should listen to one of their albums and eat.”
“Really?” His eyes are round and brilliant in the moonlight.
“Really.”
“That sounds like a good idea. And Ellie?” He holds my gaze. “I’ve never liked anyone as much as I like you. I don’t want to... I don’t know the right words, sometimes. Give me a moment.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t want anything to come between us again. I’m sorry.”
I bite my lower lip, trying not to smile or let my heart loose. His words make me happy, but I’m not ready for that. “Just get the car and let’s drive. This is the farthest west I’ve ever been. I doubt my parents ever saw Texas. I always sorta wrongly thought of it as a super patriotic, weird kind of place. But the sky is brighter here. The stars...” I’m rambling. My emotions are a jumble, and my heart settles one moment only to race the next.
The truth of what he’s told me finally clicks into place, and I understand now more than I did before. The situation is all sorts of fucked-up. To save everyone, he has to temporarily erase them. The “what-ifs” rattle around my mind as Morris picks up the books and races with them back to the car.
Morris is trying to save humanity. He will sacrifice everything, including his life, to free us all. Morris, this beautiful alien boy who loves music and who says his heart belongs to me. Morris, who puts me at war with myself and tangles my emotions more than ever.
“May I?” he asks, holding an arm out for me to take.
“May you what?”
“Carry you across this world while I can?”
I never know the right answer with him. He wears his emotions on his sleeve, and I don’t want to be the one to tell him to hide them again. He’s free with his words, he feels no shame in them—maybe because he could never own them before.
“You may,” I answer, before he takes my arm and pulls me closer. His eyes lock on to mine, and he scoops my legs from under me.
“I like you so much, but you humans move so slow.” And then he takes off with me in his arms. The world around us blurs, and I feel weightless. He’s so fast that I’m not sure his feet ever touch the ground.
He sets me down in the passenger seat, and I’ve barely adjusted to sitting up when he’s already in the other side and speeding through the open plains.
“Let’s find the best view.”
PART THREE
THE WORLD IS OURS
The Good Morning Show
Transcript of the interview with hosts Mel Kendell “M.K.” and Tracy Summer “T.S.” Rae
Guests: Cecil Wright, Allister Daniels, Whisper Landsome, Rupert Montague
ANNOUNCER: The Good Morning Show comes to you live from New York City’s Time Square. Special guests include the band the Starry Eyed, who will be performing from their new album The Sound of Stars. Here now are hosts Mel Kendell and Tracy Summer Rae.
Gratuitous audience applause
M.K.: Good morning, America! Today, we’re here with the Starry Eyed. Guys, we’re honored to have you on here to talk about your new album. But first things first—where do you get your costumes? These are gorgeous, and glittery. And Allister, your cape is art.
Allister Daniels: (laughs) Thank you! It’s important that we pay homage to our culture, which celebrates colors and individuality.
T.S.: That’s so important and we’ve always wanted to know, where do you all call home?
Rupert Montague: Earth, of course.
Audience laughter and applause
Cecil Wright: Rupert’s just being cheeky! It doesn’t really matter where we come from...we met when we were young and mashed our cultures together, and we chose how we wanted to represent that.
M.K.: All this time, people have been speculating on your accents and looks and...
Allister Daniels: Time, I think, better spent just enjoying our music.
Whisper Landsome: What really is time, anyway? (laughs)
T.S.: It’s funny you should ask that. When you debuted, you were teenagers, what, fourteen and fifteen? Now, a few years later, we’ve seen you grow up before the world. Young, talented, smart and lacking major scandals. Role models. Your music is often compared to Coldplay, and M83 as your sound evolved into more dreamlike, more beautiful, less pop—
Rupert Montague: It’s dream pop. And we’ll certainly take the comparisons to M83 and Coldplay, both bands are definitely our inspirations.
Allister: Speak for yourself, Rupert!
Whisper Landsome: We’ve grown up in front of cameras. Instead of losing ourselves to fame, we stayed focused on our...work, on each other as a family, and our music matured with us.
Cecil Wright: We’re lucky we can make music together, and we’ll keep doing it while we can.
Allister: Absolutely. We know our purpose, and we’ve stuck to that.
M.K.: And what’s that? What’s your purpose?
Allister: To save the world with music and love, obviously.
CHAPTER 16
“Just Like Heaven”
—The Cure
M
0Rr1S
They’re sitting on the hood of the car when his hand brushes against hers. She opens her fingers to let his in, and they stay like that for what seems like eternity. The stars shimmer above them in the clear sky, illuminating the crumbs from the impromptu picnic scattered between them. They should be on the road, finding a place for her to stay while he embarks on the dangerous road to IpS1L. But one glance at Ellie, and he’s not ready for that. Not yet. What if he’ll never be?
“Are you the first aliens to come to Earth?”
“No.” He tries to keep from smiling at her expression. “There are others. More peaceful races that inhabit small corners of this world. We have treaties with them, allowing them to stay here.”
“Really?” She props herself on her elbows with her mouth open. “Who are they? Where are they? How many? What do they look like? What if I know them?”
“No, now it’s my turn to ask a question.” M0Rr1S lets his back sink deeper into the roof of the car. “What happened to you that made you ready to give up humanity? I know this is a personal question. But it startled me, and I must know how this world has hurt you.”
Suddenly she looks tired. “Years before all of this—” she waves her hand at the nothingness surrounding them “—my mom, dad and I lived in Brooklyn. We didn’t have much, but I liked my school, I liked my library, I liked my life. I remember our apartment in Flatbush, and the roti with red beans around the corner. We were happy. I was happy. But then Mom’s aunt died and left us this apartment. Dad quit his job to work closer to our new home.”
“At the center?” M0Rr1S asks.
“Yeah. And for a while, everything was okay. My mom finished school at Columbia. I got to play the cello at a performing arts school across town. Dad started working down the street at a prestigious academy. We had more money than ever. But somehow, it seemed overnight, we weren’t happy anymore. Mom started drinking, at first just a little with dinner. Dad got angrier. He never said why, but I think students and their parents complained about him and his ‘otherness.’ Mom took a job as a professor, but she seemed...I don’t know, exhausted.” Her shoulders slump. Sadness spreads through her eyes. “We would watch the news, and it was all terrible. Black kids like me, gunned down or missing. One after another. And it seemed like no one cared. There was no justice. There was this...this mixture of defeat and anger.” Her expression slackens.
“Politics became shameful. Soon it was like everyone felt free to do something about all the irrational hate they had inside of them. I went to the grocery store one day after school, and this man pushed me out of line and called me an animal, said I didn’t belong where I was. All of these people stared at me. But no one said or did a thing. And it happened again and again. Not just to me...to everyone who was different.
“My mom lost her job from the drinking. My dad took a pay cut. Money became tight. Mr. Hughes—that was one of the other people living at the center—had the board of directors threaten us with eviction. I was the smartest in my class, but my grades were falling. Nobody wanted me there, and I couldn’t concentrate. The news told us—people like me—that we didn’t matter anymore. When I asked why, no one could tell me...that’s when we became afraid. People in the government agreed with the hatred. We were scared to walk around the Upper East Side.” She shakes her head. “Everyone said they were on our side, but even after everything my mom and dad did for the community, when it started to get worse, they disappeared. The nationalists felt empowered, creeping out of the most liberal cities in America. There’d been attacks and police brutality. They could do whatever they wanted, and with politicians behind them, there was nothing anyone could do to stop them. Everyone was scared, upset, shocked. But no one stuck up for us—us, who were being picked off one by one. Outside of our building, it was chaos, there was nowhere to go anymore for anyone who is—was—different. Nowhere safe. And our neighbors wanted us out. They seemed to hate us.” Her breath catches. “I’ll never understand why. We didn’t do anything. We just lived. They took our security and our peace of mind. But it wasn’t enough. I—” Her voice cracks, as if her truth is lodged somewhere within her.
M0Rr1S grips her hand tighter. “I’m sorry, Ellie. When I look at you, I don’t see someone who is lesser, or who doesn’t matter. You matter. And you are strong.”
“You don’t see it because you aren’t like them.” She turns to him. “Before this week, humanity as a whole didn’t seem like it deserved saving. I had to stop caring about others outside of my life, others like me, because it was easier that way. I was too powerless to change the world. But now...those humans in the cells. That little girl. I wanted to save her. I wanted to save them all.” She’s quiet for a few beats before continuing, “We were always so divided, and never learned how to unite, even when you, the Ilori, came. I wonder now if we can. Like you and the labmades.”
He brings the back of her hand to his lips and kisses it, but lets a silence span between them before responding. “The Ilori are just as divided. How you are born and who you are born from matter. Labmades were created to be inferior. We were made to serve. I may carry a prominent last name, but if I did not, I would not be a commander. I would not have created the vaccine, played my intricate role, or be here with you right now. My last name is the only thing saving me from instant death. From what I know of true Ilori, they are not worth saving. But the labmades are. We did not choose this life. The true Ilori will make more of us, use us to acquire everything, take our energy and then, when we stop being useful, they’ll destroy us.”
M0Rr1S inhales the salty night air. “Sometimes when things are too broken to fix, we replace them. Our worlds have changed and are ever-changing. But we have power, you and I...we have our books and music. It’s what brought us together. Your book gave me strength—imagine what it could do for other labmades...
“If we can do this impossible thing, perhaps together, we can do many impossible things. We can make this world, any world, what we want it to be. Me with my song, you with your knowledge and determination to not let things go back to what they were.”
She purses her lips. “I want to go with you to California. You said it yourself—there is nowhere safe anymore for humans. And you’re right, together, we can do impossible things. We can upload your song, broadcast it at the right time. I can help you. Like that time on the road when the two of us stepped between the Ilori and the humans.”
“You almost died, Ellie.”
“But I didn’t, because you were there. And you didn’t die because I distracted them. I might not have powers and abilities like you, but I’ll look out for you. I can help. You can’t do everything alone. If we fail, at least we’ll be together, at least we won’t die alone. No one dies alone.” She gazes at him. “I want to see my family, but I want them to come back, to be human again. They deserve to live in a world where they don’t have to be afraid anymore, not of aliens or...or other humans. Where everyone is equal. Where everyone has the same chances.” Her breath comes in pants, and her heart races. “So, I’m going with you, to the end.”
“If you die, Ellie...”
“Then I will have died free. And with my friend.”
“Ellie,” he mutters, uncertain what to say.
“Don’t think I’m not afraid. I’m terrified. But I won’t sit back and let someone else decide my future. I want to be a part of that. Okay?”
The corner of his mouth lifts as if a smile wishes to break free but remains unsure. He doesn’t know what to say. The fear of losing her grips his heart, but there is nowhere safe for her anymore. Which is better? To lose her on his mission meant to save her and her people, or to leave her somewhere and lose her anyway?
“I want you to see your family again, Ellie. And there is still time to decide if you want to change the world. You always have a choice.” He clears his throat. “You asked me a question before, about how many aliens there are in t
his universe. There are many races and planets in the universe, but to tell you everything would take a very long time.” And time is something they are constantly short of.
She settles back on the hood of the car. “Well, then I get another question. How many planets are there?”
M0Rr1S cuts Ellie a sideways glance. “More than anyone can count, and new ones form and old ones perish too often to keep track.”
“Tell me about the prettiest world.” Her voice is breathy in the fresh Texas air.
“There is a world—” he opens his eyes, seeing through space and the darkness of nothing “—seven systems away that has five moons. When night falls, each moon glows a different color like a rainbow. In Ilori, we call it PR2-57-lu-96, but the chosen name is Andarra. There is no concept of time there—no future or past. All is known. And the people—the Andarrans—are the kindest people I’ve ever met in my life. The Andarrans live by a philosophy—whatever makes you different makes you powerful. I like that.
“The grass is a shade of green that I don’t believe exists anywhere else, and you can travel by boat through little rivers all over their world. Below the crystal clear waters, there are fish that chase your boat and kiss your fingers when you let them. They are called the Jadu, and are considered sacred in the Andarran culture. They are so big and your first instinct when you see them is to be scared, but they won’t hurt you. Their kisses mean something like destiny. It’s beautiful.”
She turns her head to his. “Did a Jadu kiss your fingers?”
“Yes. It was...remarkable. More than remarkable. I can’t even describe it.”
Ellie’s gaze travels back to the stars. “Will you go back there, if you succeed?” There’s a wistfulness in her now that he enjoys.
“If we succeed, will you go there with me?” He raises his hand and gently runs his fingers down her jaw. He loves the way she feels like contradictions. Strong but soft, smooth but hardened by a life of adversity. When he first met her, he thought she was stone. She had to have been, to risk her life for a library. But now she lets him see her, truly see her. There is pain, suffering and sadness simmering beneath her surface, but there’s also something else...something maybe she sees within him every time her eyes land on his.