Aurora Rising

by Amie Kaufman

  Maybe she was just being a Face, team diplomat, keeping everyone level. But I didn’t think so—or I choose to believe she wasn’t, anyway. I choose to believe that moment was real.

  Fin gave a small round of applause when we marched out of the bedroom in our outfits. Zila nodded at me and said, “Adequate.”

  Kal didn’t look at me at all.

  Unlike the others, I’m actually a wanted fugitive, so a masquerade ball is about the only place I can be seen in public right now. My mask covers the top half of my face, leaving only my lips and chin exposed. Its glazed lenses cover my mismatched eyes, and it’s made out of some kind of mysterious red velvet. It looks like something a spy in an old sim would wear.

  Honestly, it makes me feel a little badass.

  The final member of our quartet is Ty, who complained about his outfit nearly as much as Cat. I was curious to see whether a tux was still a tux with a couple of centuries in between viewings, and the answer was sort of. His suit is that kind of tailoring that looks like it’s about to fall apart, yet somehow conveys with perfect fit that it’s worth a fortune. Or at least it did once Scarlett made a few alterations.

  He’s in big black stompy boots, a pair of tight black pants (the tight was what had him joining Cat in a chorus of you gotta be kidding me) with black straps buckled around his left thigh, like a hint at a gun’s holster, and big silver zips cutting across his right hip. His black shirt and jacket are equally fitted, and his mask is a swoosh of black material right across his eyes. Jones Twin No. 2 looks as amazing as his sister.

  “Hey, Stowaway,” drawls Fin over the team channel as we move up to second in line for the door aliens. “I’m just reading up on the significance of red in Chinese culture, and—”

  “Wait a minute, you can read?” I ask.

  “Oh, now you’re throwing sass to cover up your feelings for me, too? Is every female on this team planning to fall in love with me?”

  “Can it,” Ty mutters. “We’re almost in.”

  As the couple in front of us make their way through the huge double doors and into the swirling mass of color beyond, I breathe a small sigh of relief. I’m pretty sure Fin was about to point out that red’s a traditional wedding dress color. With Cat right behind me. And Ty’s arm in mine. Even unarmed, she could probably pull my head off and bounce it like a basketball. I have no idea if Ty knows how she feels about him, but if I’ve noticed in just a couple of days…

  The alien reaches down with one spindly finger to touch Ty’s invitation. The flexible plastic surface turns blue under its touch, then fades back to cream. I force myself to breathe slowly, then realize my arm’s so tightly wound through Ty’s that he’s leaning sideways to make up for the difference in our height. I release him with a blush, and that’s distraction enough to pass the next couple of seconds.

  The alien waves us on, turns to inspect Scarlett and Cat’s invitation.

  Ty and I step through into the archway, where another alien—this one a bulky Betraskan with a white ceramic mask and black contact lenses—points to instructions for the security sweep. We both halt at a line on the floor and lift our hands. A network of red light beams starts at our heads and traces over our bodies, maybe registering our faces, or searching us for weapons, I don’t know.

  Fin’s talking in our ears again as we wait for the girls to follow us through for their scan. “Just remember, I’m going to need as much time as you can give me to snatch the signal. Ideally, start a conversation with Mr. Bianchi.”

  “And try not to get eaten,” Ty says quietly, turning his head as though he’s speaking fondly into my ear.

  “The sooner he touches the key,” Fin adds, “the sooner I can get to work. Remember, I need one of you within a meter of him when the code changes.”

  His tone sounds calm, but I saw his face as we worked through the plan back in Dariel’s cramped quarters.

  He’s not even sure he can do this.

  I should be terrified, but as Scarlett and Cat come through security, I discover that somehow…I’m not. I’m a weird kind of peaceful, like I used to be before orienteering comps, or track meets. I’m nervous, but I’m moving toward my purpose.

  I’m not the girl who set out for Octavia, who worried about things like whether there’d be anyone my age to date when I got there, or whether I’d be fit enough to handle my Exploration and Cartography apprenticeship with Patrice.

  I’m not the girl who mourned the loss of her social life as she stepped into her cryopod, or shoved her stuffed toy squirrel into her one small crate of personal belongings.

  I’m something else now. And if I don’t know what, that doesn’t make it any less true. I can feel it more every hour, every day.

  But my old self has a part to play here, too. I trained in exploration because I wanted to see everything, and I’m sure getting a load of that lately. When my parents were prepping for the Octavia mission, I changed schools two, three times every year. I know how to walk into a room full of strangers. And I’m going to do it now like I’ve always belonged here.

  Scarlett and Cat step up beside us, Scarlett outwardly serene, Cat scowling, and the four of us look out into the ballroom for the first time.

  And it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen, or imagined.

  Because it’s underwater.

  We’re in a huge, round cavern of a room, and we automatically peel away to the right, following the curve of the wall as we get our bearings.

  The walls themselves are made of glass, and studying my reflection, I realize I’m looking at an aquarium that stretches back as far as I can see. It’s a bright, shimmering aquamarine at its base, darkening to a velvety blue and then a deep violet when I tilt my head back to trace its path up.

  I can’t see where it meets with the roof, an endless midnight dome blanketed with delicate lights that’s…

  Oh, holy cake, the dome above us is the galaxy. Star clusters and nebulae dance slowly around its edges, moving gracefully along their predetermined paths, gliding around and through each other like old-fashioned dancers. Millions of years are sped up before my eyes in a cosmic ballet.

  Cat’s mirrored boots and the silver beads on Scarlett’s dress sparkle in the endlessly shifting blue light, and Ty’s teeth gleam white when he grins. There must be a thousand people here, and I can’t see more than a few dozen humans.

  I’m underwater. On a space station.

  The room is a thumping kaleidoscope of bright colors glittering beneath the lights. Every possible silhouette is represented in the living, breathing creature that the crowd’s become. The entire place is moving to music, a low, pounding bass that runs straight up my spine with a perfect thrill. I can hear talk and laughter over it, coming at us in waves as the crowd’s hands rise as one to mark the changing beat.

  It’s like an underground club, like a very grown-up intergalactic fairyland with a dangerous undercurrent, every face and secret hidden behind a mask. And when I smile, I’m almost baring my teeth, the last of my uncertainty falling away. What I want is here. And somewhere out in the dark, I can feel it calling to me.

  Mr. Bianchi…

  Come out, come out, wherever you are….

  HOW TO HAVE A GOOD TIME

  ▶ PARTIES

  ▼ HOW TO HAVE A GOOD TIME

  THE THIRD-GREATEST PARTY OF ALL TIME OCCURRED THROUGHOUT THE WROTEN SYSTEM ON THE OCCASION OF THE GRAND JULESLI’S WEDDING. FESTIVITIES INVOLVED 437,000 GUESTS FROM TWENTY-SEVEN PLANETS, AND ONE OF ONLY THREE KNOWN PERFORMANCES OF THE FORBIDDEN DANCE OF BAS. AT THE CONCLUSION, THE GRAND JULESLI WAS WEDDED TO SEVENTY-THREE SPOUSES—AND PRESUMABLY QUITE TIRED.

  HISTORY’S SECOND-GREATEST PARTY WAS THROWN ON TERRA IN 1694 BY NAVAL ADMIRAL EDWARD RUSSELL. THIS CHAMPION AMONG HUMANS MIXED 250 GALLONS OF BRANDY, 125 GALLONS OF WINE, 635 KILOGRAMS OF SUGAR, 20 GALLONS OF LIME JUICE,
AND 3 KILOGRAMS OF NUTMEG INTO AN ENORMOUS COCKTAIL FOUNTAIN. A LITERAL FOUNTAIN. BARTENDERS MANNING CANOES WORKED SHIFTS LASTING JUST FIFTEEN MINUTES, THANKS TO THE FUMES, AND IT TOOK THE FIVE THOUSAND GUESTS EIGHT DAYS TO DRINK IT ALL. ADMIRAL RUSSELL, I AM BUT A HUMBLE UNIGLASS, BUT I SALUTE YOU.

  BUT WITHOUT QUESTION, THE GREATEST PARTY IN HISTORY WAS THROWN BY THE KEET PEOPLE OF LEIBOWITZ VII. AN UNFORTUNATE MISREADING OF ANCIENT PROPHECIES LED THE KEET TO BELIEVE THE APOCALYPSE WAS NIGH, AND THEY PARTIED LIKE IT WAS THE END OF THE WORLD. PIECEMEAL RECORDS SUGGEST THAT A REGRETTABLE DECISION INVOLVING A DANCE-OFF AND THE PLANET’S LARGEST ANTIMATTER REACTOR RESULTED IN THE EARLY FULFILLMENT OF PROPHECY.

  So it turns out Dariel’s really into fish. I did not see that coming.

  “Look at that one!” He’s like a kid on his first outing to the Muthru Bazaar, his attention darting from one thing to another. I’m trying to guide my team through the overhead security lenses and a dizzying array of micro-cams attached to their very fetching selves, and he’s too busy staring at the aquarium ballroom to help.

  “That’s not a fish,” I tell him. “That’s a rock. Are you sure we’re related?”

  “Fish,” he says, triumphant, as the purplish, lichen-covered rock is startled by a cloud of garish pink-and-yellow micro-squid. Its eyes snap open, it moves what I thought were shells but turn out to be fins, and scoots away in a cloud of sand.

  “Fine, it was a fish,” I concede. “It’s gone now. So help me out.”

  “Finian?” That’s our fearless leader, sounding a little confused about the sudden turn in conversation.

  Crap, I forgot to mute my uni.

  “Nothing, Goldenboy,” I say cheerfully. “I’m checking in on Zila and Kal, Dariel’s scanning the cameras looking for our host. Have you g—”

  I glance at my cousin’s virtuascreen and find it occupied by another damn fish. It’s a huge, oval-shaped thing, sort of looks like a kebar ball with six eyes slapped onto the front. They’re freaky eyes, though—forward facing. And the dome of its head is completely transparent, the blue water visible behind it.

  “That’s its brain,” Dariel whispers, entranced, pointing at a blob of white inside the thing’s see-through head.

  “Jealous that it has one?” I snap. “Keep yours on the job, yeah?”

  He huffs as I switch my screen to Zila’s cam, trying not to reflect on the fact that I sound like my least favorite mother right now.

  I’ve got Kal and Zila on a separate comms channel. Goldenboy’s listening in to make sure he’s across both sides of the action tonight.

  There’s a dirty joke in there somewhere.

  The pair have made good progress, and they’re almost at their entry point, marching down a crowded public corridor and looking only marginally suspicious in their brightly colored and definitely stolen uniforms. Kal has his hands full of flat insulated boxes, marked UNCLE ENZO’S—30 MINUTES OR LESS. Zila’s wearing earrings with tiny pizza slices dangling from them. And in a storage cupboard down on Level seventeen, there’s a couple of nearly naked fast-food delivery boys who’re gonna wake up with a real hangover later.

  Zila is awfully fond of that disruptor.

  “Okay, Zila, Pixieboy,” I drawl, just to watch him frown. “The cameras in this zone are now on a loop—I’m transmitting footage of empty corridors to the goons at Bianchi Central. But there’s still actual security patrols in the hallways beyond. I’m gonna guide you through them. So you move where I say, when I say. Clear?”

  “Clear, Legionnaire de Seel,” Zila says simply.

  “Get your uni close to the lock, I’ll pop it.”

  The pair reach a heavy blast door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Kal makes a show of dropping the delivery boxes and cursing fluently while Zila sidles up to the control pad. The encryption isn’t a cakewalk, but an academy-issued uniglass isn’t a toy, and while I’m good at fixing things, I’m better at breaking them. It takes me thirty-seven seconds to smash the intrusion counter-electronics on the lock to splinters.

  Getting slow in my old age.

  “Okay, corridor ahead will be clear in twelve seconds,” I say. “That uniform suits you, by the way, Kal. You look good.”

  Pixieboy adjusts the ridiculous little hat on his head. “I look like a fool. It is too tight. How am I supposed to fight in this?”

  “I dunno. Sexily?”

  “You are not much of a warrior, are you, Finian?”

  “Well, you’re not…” I bite down on my comeback as the security patrol in the corridor beyond turns and walks around the corner. “Okay, corridor is clear, go, go.”

  Zila opens the blast door and slips inside, Kal right behind. Pixieboy hands Zila his delivery boxes, draws out his disruptor pistol from inside them. It’s not like he can fire it in here without bringing the house down, but he seems the sort who’s more comfortable with a weapon in hand.

  On my go, they make a dash for the next corridor, slipping into a maintenance closet a few seconds before another patrol rounds the corner. I’m watching seventeen cams at once, plotting the patrols’ course on an overhead schematic, trying to predict which way they’re going to move and see my kids through—

  “Great Maker…,” mutters Dariel beside me.

  My heart lurches and I glance across to see what’s worrying him, only to find a giant silver…thing on the monitor. It has a row of perfectly white fangs that would make a mass murderer proud. And another row of fangs behind that. Scarlett must be fascinated by it, too, because her micro-cam is following it as it swims up to the glass. Its skin ripples in a threat display, silver to blue to red.

  “I thought you were an atheist,” I growl, elbowing him as I turn my attention back to Zila, Kal, and the heist I’m attempting to mastermind.

  So hard to get good help these days…

  But even though I’m complaining—Dariel’s about as much use as a waterproof towel—I can’t deny I’m having fun. Swapping family gossip with my cousin between fish talk, breathing in the scent of wet stone by the dim light of the vines and my screens, guiding my squadmates through terrifying adventures—it’s practically my childhood all over again.

  I weave my pair of assistants through another six hallways and two close shaves before the inevitable moment comes. “Okay, end of the line. Grav-generator room is dead ahead. Time for phase two, kids.”

  Kal peels away from Zila like a ghost. She stands perfectly still, waiting for him to move into position, dark eyes fixed on the ceiling, dark skin almost gleaming in the light of the overheads. She’s good at that—if she doesn’t need to be doing something, she doesn’t. Maybe so she can channel any extra brainpower she has into her master plan for taking over the galaxy…

  “Okay, go,” I whisper, and she strolls out and around the corner in her delivery uniform, looking lost.

  The four guards on the heavy blast doors at the other end of the hallway freeze in place. They scope Zila’s uniform and boxes, do a bit of confused math in their heads, then raise their weapons anyway.

  “Halt!” one shouts, and Zila obliges, going so far as to drop the boxes and raise both her hands as an added precaution.

  “This area is restricted!”

  “What’re you doing back here?” demands another, coming no closer until he has a better idea of whether she’s dangerous. Though I can already see the cogs turning. She’s so small. She’s ten meters away. How could she be dangerous?

  “I have a question,” she says, in that solemn way she has.

  The quartet look at one another blankly.

  “In entertainment sims,” she continues, “I’ve often seen scenes in which groups of guards are accosted by a seemingly harmless infiltrator while a larger, more dangerous infiltrator uses the distraction to incapacitate them. I was wondering if you thought this was realistic behavior for trained security personnel.”
r />   The four blink at her, the way people often do around Zila Madran.

  “Are you c—”

  The guard doesn’t get any further before Kal drops from the air vent above and clocks him at the base of his skull. In a handful of seconds, he’s laid out the other three with barely a muffled shout. No disruptor required.

  “I genuinely believed you would get shot there,” Zila muses.

  Kal turns to look at her, eyebrows raised. “You said I had an eighty-seven point three percent chance of success.”

  She tilts her head. “I did not want you to be nervous.”

  “Okay, you two,” I say. “I gotta check on the A-Team. Grav-generators are just through those blast doors. Kal, hide the bodies. Zila, you’ve got my instructions.”

  “Is she dating anyone right now?” Dariel whispers, eyes on Zila.

  “I will cut your toes off,” I tell him. “One by one, and then you can watch as I feed them to your damned fish if you don’t stop interrupting me.”

  He holds up his hands like, Whoa, no problem. What’s your deal? and I grit my teeth, turning back to the cameras.

  I’m scanning the jam-packed ballroom sector by sector, looking for Bianchi. But he stands out like a Betraskan in a snowstorm, which is to say not at all. He’s blue, and thanks to the light cast by the aquarium and the star-studded ceiling, so is every other thing in the room. Doesn’t help that every being at the party is wearing a damn mask over their faces.

  I keep my search methodical, working through each grid square, until finally I find him. He’s got all four hands in the air, waving them in time to the bone-shaking beat, razor-sharp teeth bared in a wild grin. He’s surrounded by what I can only describe as a harem, a dozen beautiful young things of a dozen different species, male and female, both and neither, all clustered around him. They’re dancing along with him, turned toward him like maza flowers to the sun.