Modified- The Complete Manipulated Series

by Harper North

  I dress in a gray pantsuit that I hate, but it’s what the nanobots in the basement created when I requested business attire from the clothing kiosk. And resources aren’t infinite—yet—so I haven’t requested another. Sky finishes putting on his suit as well, complete with a tie. It’s really not fair how much better his outfit looks than mine. What were the people who set up the nanobot catalog thinking? These stupid pants don’t even have pockets.

  Hand in hand, we leave our small room and walk down the corridor, past other closed doors. We reach the main corridor and nod to Steven, who hauls ship parts by on a rolling cart. The Europa Jump Station is essentially a sphere connected to a ring of solar panels, so the main corridor circles the entire middle of the station, with occasional windows looking out on the planetary system we’re calling our temporary home.

  We pass the gardening area, now blooming with green and life. Betty waves to us from among tomatoes and squashes. Another worker, a Dweller named Mike, takes a break and eats out of a can of peaches. His little toddler son, Jamal, stuffs a slice into his mouth. The station came stocked with tons of rations, meant to sustain us until we got operations up and running, and I can’t believe some people prefer that preserved stuff over fresh.

  “Hey, Fin.”

  Lacy and Talen are heading to the gardens, too, their daughter Olive walking between them. Talen has to lean down to hold the two-year-old’s hand, but Lacy doesn’t have such a problem.

  “Hey, guys,” I say, bending down. “Hey, Olive.”

  “Fin,” she says, a tiny smile quirking her mouth.

  Olive looks like a mini version of Lacy, except for the fact that she has Talen’s lighter colored eyes. She has her hair tied back in a single, curly ponytail today. So far, she hasn’t shown any signs of being able to destroy people’s minds with a single glance, but only time will tell. For now, her weapon is being the cutest kid in the station. She gets anything she wants, and gets away with everything.

  After Lacy, Talen, and Olive move on, we pass the gaming room, where, unsurprisingly, no one is using the arcade so early, and enter the Board Room. Normally I hate Board meetings. For starters, Cal can still be infuriatingly stubborn sometimes, but letting him be part of our ruling party was necessary. The unenhanced, which included all of the Originals and the rest of the underground refugees who made it to the Elevator, need a voice. Without it, I know what would happen. A class system would form, and those who were still normal would sink to the bottom of it—quickly. Cia, now seventeen, is already here on her laptop at the end of the table. An image of several ships, some designed to carry equipment and the others to transport shuttles, fills the projector screen behind her. She’s starting to look like a younger version of her mother—beautiful and strong. Cia turned out to be Noble class after all. Sky and I just missed the signs. I should have seen it coming that time she followed us through the vents and got us away from Cho’s people.

  “Hey, sis.” Sky rushes over to mess up her hair.

  “Are you ever going to stop that?” she asks.

  “Not even when we’re old.”

  Cia points to the chairs. “Sit down. One of my scout probes made an awesome discovery, and it could be the key to exploring beyond the solar system.”

  My palms tingle with anticipation. Cia has used the basement facilities to create probes, design ships, and start mining operations on Jupiter’s moons, bringing back everything from water, organic materials, and precious metals. I’ve helped, of course, along with Elias, but she’s always been the star of the program. And lately she’s been talking about expanding.

  Elias arrives a moment later, walking beside Anna, a former EHC op we had given a seat on the Board. Cal and Lacy come in next, and Steven, who always manages to keep a level head, stands by the door. I like his presence. He keeps Cal in line.

  Now that the Board is all together and ready to start this meeting, Cia clears her throat and gets right to business.

  “Okay, everyone,” she says. “I’d like to start this meeting with news that we now have enough precious metals from the moon, Io, to construct a ship capable of reaching the extreme outer solar system. My mining bots have taken a while to do this on their own, but we’re finally there.”

  I look at Sky, who beams proudly. Cia’s been working on this for months, sending out unmanned probes and taking metals from the volcanic moon.

  “So, you’ve been talking about some old data you found on the other planets of our system,” Anna says. “Are you proposing we send a manned mission to the edge of our star system?”

  “Yes. I’m proposing exactly that,” Cia replies. “This base can sustain only about two hundred of us. For our long-term survival, we need to colonize other planets and their moons. And that has to start now.”

  I shift in my chair. “Cia has a point. People are having children now and we’re going to have to expand. We need to be prepared.” What if Sky and I want children someday? We’ve mulled it over and haven’t decided yet. I’m pretty happy just being Olive’s cool aunt for now, but Lacy keeps bugging me about how she needs a built-in best friend.

  “How reliable is this old data?” Anna asks.

  Cal leans forward. “This is hundred-year-old data you’ve been digging into. We don’t know for sure if there’s anything big orbiting beyond Neptune.”

  We’ve discussed this already. Many times. Cia, Elias, and I have run the calculations in our heads and on the computers, too. The chances of there being more worlds and resources beyond Neptune is very high. We found old data about the asteroids and tiny worlds out there, and something seems to be tugging on their orbits from far beyond our last known planet—something big. Maybe even another planet we could use as a stopping point in our quest out of the solar system.

  And that's just the start. We've also found a database of exoplanets. Worlds around other stars, and many are in the habitable zones of their stars. There are thousands.

  And just a few light years away lies Proxima B, a tiny star in the Alpha Centauri system. A long time ago, scientists discovered a planet around that star. A planet that might even be suitable for life. And it's only the closest of many, many worlds that might be habitable.

  “I believe Edward Nejem’s old data,” I say. “I know Emma would have. Genius ran in that family. We ran the simulations ourselves and came to the same results. We could find this distant planet in our own system and use it as a stopping point. From there, we can venture to Proxima B and explore the world orbiting it. Our databases say it's highly likely to have the right temperature to sustain life. And water. Lots of liquid water."

  I have no doubt Edward Nejem knew of this and expected any refugees from Earth to find out about it. We have star charts, and we know where to look.

  Cia changes the slide, displaying a map of the triple star system.

  “But it’s risky,” Cal says.

  “Yes,” Elias admits. “It is risky sending colonists to unknown worlds. But it’s a necessary risk. We have to take the step. In just a year or so, we’ll have a ship capable of exploring these unknowns, and sustaining those who decide to go. And we’ll set up colonies along the way.”

  “I agree.” I swallow. The nightmares of the past still haunt me on some nights. Gunfights. Death. But most of all, it’s that nothing, that dull existence in the Dweller mines, that haunts me the most. And I see the walls of this base starting to become the same thing. “But that’s part of life. This isn’t comfortable, but we need to get out there. Explore. If that means going farther and farther out there, then so be it. We’ll keep building colonies around this planet and around the others we know of, but we need to move away from our sun, too. A dangerous solar flare could disrupt all our systems at any time, leaving us stranded. One barely missed us two years ago. Yes, it’s a one in two-hundred-year event, but eventually time will run out.” I don’t even mention the risk of asteroids. Jupiter tends to pull in all kinds of debris that gets too close to it. “That’s why we need to st
art the move to other star systems. And what’s out there could be good. Very good.”

  Elias nods. Sky smiles.

  I’m holding on to hope, and it feels good.

  “Well, then,” Cia says with a huge smile. “Let’s talk about the ship and how we’re going to build it. And then how we’re going to travel to the stars.”

  THE END

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  More titles from Torment Publishing:

  Influence by David R. Bernstein

  Configured by Jenetta Penner

  Avatars Rising by Harper North & David R. Bernstein

  Acknowledgements:

  Special thanks to Torment Publishing! Without you, this series would not have happened. I love you guys.

  Thanks to all the early beta readers and the support of my fans.

  Thanks to all my family for the support!

  Credits:

  Chase Night - Editor

  Jack Llartin - Editor

  David R. Bernstein - Publishing & Marketing Support

  Jenetta Penner - Publishing & Marketing Support