That Moment When: An Anthology of Young Adult Fiction

by A. M. Lalonde

  Undercover operative for the Galactic Guerrillas. “Commercial designer for SpaceStellar Originals,” I reply.

  “All right, that should do it.” The officer seems satisfied with my answers and even flicks me a smile as she tilts my head and lowers the brain scanner over my skull. I eye her long fingernails, painted a pearlescent silver the exact shade of the scanner. I wonder if it’s a regulation color, just like her ivory uniform.

  “Authentication of your migration application should only take a few minutes,” she says. “First, I’ll need to do a routine test of your blood to rule out the presence of any neuro-inhibiting substances.”

  “Of course,” I say, rolling up my sleeve.

  She pricks me with a plasma extractor and glances at the result. “Excellent, let’s begin.” She turns her back on me and retreats to the control station.

  With a flick of my tongue, I release the neuroinhibitor from the implanted fake molar on the left side of my mouth. I lean back and close my eyes. The room is strangely calm and the air is cool against my forehead, unlike the claustrophobic waiting room.

  My limbs relax as colors and words slowly merge together in a kaleidoscope of patterns. My head spins, but I can’t say for sure if I’m falling or flying. Flashes of thought rush through my head and scramble like a crossword before I can process them. The statue’s cold eyes zero in on me. When I find you …

  Sanya’s face flutters past me multiple times like a holographic chain. Trust the process. Don’t fight the images. Her voice ripples like water, calming me as the neuro-hub’s sensors probe deep inside my brain. I’ve run through this drill a thousand times and passed the screening ninety-eight percent of the time. But it’s never a given.

  “And that completes the screening interview,” the migration officer says, her gleaming fingernails scraping my forehead as she pulls the brain scanner away from my head. I blink open my eyes and give a dazed nod.

  “You can pick up your migration authentication two doors down on the right. A guard will escort you to the transit ship.”

  Silently, I repeat her words to myself to be sure of their meaning. I’m approved. Relief and exhilaration surge through my veins as I get to my feet. I’m on my way to the Inner Ring at last.

  ***

  As soon as I disembark from the transit ship in the bustling Inner Ring docking station, I spot my holographic name displayed above a driverless Hoverped. Riverienne Bosneck. I allow myself a wry grin as I climb aboard. If only the Supreme Leader knew who had really just arrived in the Inner Ring.

  A tinted windshell closes down over me sealing out the clamor and hiding me from sight. Armed droids patrol the perimeter of the station, scanning the crowd for anomalies. My readout won’t show any signs of heightened stress; even the sweat glands in my armpits have been removed by the surgeons. Only my thudding heartbeat betrays the fact that I’m hiding secrets. One deadly secret.

  The Hoverped exits the station without incident and delivers me to a nondescript motel in a seedy part of town. The windshell opens back up and I dismount with trepidation. It’s dusk, and the street is unlit. All at once I’m unsure if the Hoverped is really part of Sanya’s plan or if I’ve been intercepted by Minders and brought here for interrogation, or worse. The handful of people trawling the streets keep their eyes fixed on the ground in front of them as they walk. The air hangs thick with an odor of rot, and sepia-colored insects circle the trash heaped up next to an overflowing dumpster. I glance furtively up and down the grungy line of doorways leading into unidentifiable businesses, desperately searching for any sign of Sanya.

  A passerby lifts his head and throws me a sidelong glance. His face is seared with ridges, like a piece of grilled meat, and his bloodshot eyes are veined. I startle when he beams a hologram onto the curb at my feet before vanishing down an alleyway. Room 246. Sanya must be waiting for me inside. A foreboding tingle goes through me as the image fades before my eyes. Sanya never leaves a trail to follow. And this mission has no margin of error.

  My stomach muscles tighten as I approach the retractable door of the motel and enter the dingy lobby. I nod in the direction of the cyborg concierge fixated on a telescreen at the reception counter and take the elevator to the second floor. The deserted corridor is even darker than the lobby, lit only by a ghoulish recessed lamp. I knock twice on the door of room 246, wait for a reciprocal double rap and then knock twice again. I chew on my bottom lip until the door swings wide. Sanya’s eyes light up with approval, but she doesn’t crack a smile. I’m not sure she knows how.

  “About time you showed your face,” I blurt out. “I was beginning to think it was Minders who had picked me up.”

  “They don’t conduct interrogations in motels,” she says, in a guarded tone.

  I throw a withering look around the room. “You picked a sleazy one to meet in.”

  Sanya arches a sculpted brow. “How was your trip?”

  “The transit was uneventful, but the Migration Processing Ministry was sketchy.”

  Sanya frowns. “Did something happen?”

  I shrug. “Not to me. A rebel from one of the frontier planets was arrested.”

  “You didn’t converse with her at all, did you?”

  I shake my head.

  “Good. It shouldn’t be a problem.” Sanya turns and reaches behind her for a dark gray pack. “Your uniform is hanging in the closet. Everything else you’ll need for the job is in here. SpaceStellar Originals is scheduled to finish up work on the Supreme Leader’s offices tomorrow. You will meet with him at noon to do a final inspection of the work. A company vehicle will pick you up here at seven-thirty sharp.”

  “Will you be in it?’

  “I don’t work for Interstellar. That’s your cover,” she says, checking the contents of the pack. She scrutinizes me for a moment. “If my schedule allows, we may see each other in the morning.”

  “How will I signal our contact?”

  “Once you are safely in the vehicle you will be provided with everything you need.”

  I grab the bag she hands to me without looking at it. “And afterward? Do I get another ride on a driverless Hoverped out of here?”

  Sanya’s brow wrinkles as if she hasn’t even considered the possibility there will be an afterward. It doesn’t do much to reassure me of our chances.

  “Of course,” she says, briskly. “You will be relocated to another quadrant in the Inner Ring.” She hesitates and clears her throat. “We will operate from there until the situation has … stabilized.”

  Before I can ask another question, she turns on her heel and disappears out the door. I turn and toss the bag on the shabby bed floating out from the wall. I’m assuming this is where I’m to spend the night.

  Sleep eludes me, although I doze for a few minutes here and there. The weight of the task ahead lies heavy on me. If I fail tomorrow, the Guerrillas will face a long and bloody struggle to overthrow the Supreme Leader and his iron-fisted Inner Ring regime. But I can change the odds. I hold the keys to the kingdom, which is why Sanya searched for me for all those years. And why I’m about to singlehandedly pull off a coup … or die trying.

  When a milky dawn finally filters through the cracks in the shutters on my window, I roll out of bed and traipse into the grimy adjoining bathroom. Five minutes later, dressed in a charcoal-colored SpaceStellar Originals uniform, I head downstairs to the lobby. “Where can I get some breakfast?” I ask the cyborg at the front desk.

  She glances up, a bored look in her one eye, and points a steel finger down the hallway. “Second door on your left. Seat yourself.”

  My stomach rumbles as I make my way to the dining room. I haven’t eaten in over twenty-four hours, and this could turn out to be the last meal of the condemned, so I intend to make it count.

  There’s only one other patron inside, an elderly man in a black overcoat hunched over a table in the corner. I ignore him and head straight for the buffet dispenser. The menu is bleak--no meat or fruit--but I’m wi
lling to eat almost anything at this point. I select a plate of eggs and a muffin, along with a mug of coffee. A moment later, a steel flap swings up and my plate appears on a conveyor belt. Minus the muffin. Great. I reach for the unappetizing arrangement of eggs, grab my coffee, and head over to a table by the door. I jab my fork into the congealed eggs and chew a mouthful. Reconstituted, but at least it’s protein, and I’ll need all the energy I can get.

  “Rubbery, ain’t it?” a raspy voice says.

  My head shoots up and my heart jolts in my chest. The elderly man in the overcoat. I berate myself for not hearing him approach. I swallow my food in one painful gulp. A wad of egg lodges in my throat and I take a swig of lukewarm coffee.

  “You’re not from these parts, are you?” he asks.

  “Are you?” I ask coldly.

  He vacuums a wad of saliva through a gap in his teeth as he appraises me.

  I recoil, bracing for a Minder stun-gun, but instead he leans toward me.

  “I’m from wherever Sanya says I’m from,” he whispers.

  I frown and throw a furtive glance out into the hallway, but there’s no sign of the cyborg. “There are ears everywhere,” I mouth back to him.

  “And my job’s to weed them out,” he says, straightening up. “Change of plan. Your ride’s out back.” He turns up the collar of his overcoat and strides out of the room with a brisk gait that doesn’t match the age lines in his face.

  My pulse is pounding in my temples. He must be one of us. How else would he know about Sanya? I glance up at the holographic display on the wall. The vehicle’s early. A flicker of apprehension goes through me. I hurriedly push my plate aside, gather up my bags and make my way to the back of the motel.

  A sleek, bullet-shaped vehicle is parked at the curb. I quickly scan up and down the street for any sign of Minders before heading outside. A retractable door glides up into the roof, and I climb inside clutching the gray pack Sanya gave me. I still haven’t looked in it because I already know what it contains. A scalpel, a chip extractor and a sterile implanter. Tools of the trade. My job at the penal colony was to extract dead prisoners’ chips for recycling. I learned to do it quickly and efficiently, even by touch with my eyes closed when the sight became too overwhelming. This will be more difficult. The tools are polyethylene prototypes, hidden in the barrel of a fake hairbrush.

  The company vehicle whips through increasingly opulent districts bustling with sculpted people, their faces a startling combination of flawless and vacant. I straighten up when we reach a remotely manned checkpoint. Rapid-fire antimatter lasers target our vehicle until we’re cleared to pass into the Inner Ring government district. We pull up outside a sleek, charcoal-tinted glass building that soars upward for several hundred meters. I wait for the vehicle’s retractable door to open, but instead, a compartment on my left slides open revealing a tablet.

  “Activate the TransferTablet when you are ready to accept payment,” an electronic voice chimes out.

  I shake my head in disbelief. Sanya has a nerve if she really intends to collect payment on this job. And then it hits me. Activating the tablet will alert our contact in the dark interstellarsphere. I grab the tablet and stuff it into the gray pack, then put on my solar shades before exiting the vehicle.

  Sanya is waiting for me on the sidewalk. My mouth almost falls open, but I catch myself in time. She’s dressed in the ivory uniform of Inner Ring government officials. Which explains how she moves around so freely. A twinge of doubt goes through my mind, but I dismiss it. She has no reason to double cross me. Her parents died in a liquidation camp. She hates the Supreme Leader almost as much as I do.

  She steps forward and shakes my hand for the benefit of the security cameras. “I’m Towla Wentian. I’m here to escort you to the Supreme Leader’s offices for the final inspection.” She hesitates and looks at me pointedly. “He asked that the meeting be brought forward.”

  Not trusting myself to speak, I give a curt nod to indicate I understand. If the Supreme Leader’s pressed for time, it narrows my window of opportunity. I need to be ready.

  The guards at the entryway direct us into a laser scanner designed to analyze our readouts and cross-reference them with criminal and fugitive databases across the galaxy. I try not to flinch when it’s my turn to step inside. Even though the guards are unaware my results are being coded in from the dark interstellarsphere, I breathe out a silent sigh of relief when the light turns green, and I’m free to follow Sanya inside the building. The hack will be discovered eventually, but by then I’ll either be dead or the Inner Ring will be under Guerrilla control.

  We ride up the elevator to the Supreme Leader’s offices in silence. Everything we say and do is being recorded inside this building. When we reach the eighteenth floor, Sanya scans her wrist chip on a keypad and the elevator doors open. “Please don’t hesitate to contact me should you need any further assistance,” she says, with a stiff bow. For a moment our eyes lock and I see a flash of emotion. She’s counting on me. So many have died at the Supreme Leader’s hand, but if I succeed today, many more lives will be spared.

  I step out into the hallway and the elevator doors seal shut with a soft whoosh behind me. I wonder if I’ll ever see Sanya again.

  I walk toward a pair of steel doors embossed with the Inner Ring seal. A hidden camera whirs as it verifies my clearance. The doors slide soundlessly apart and I step into an opulent, gleaming space filled with floating furniture and holographic surfaces. So beautiful it takes my breath away. I wander through the room, careful not to disturb anything. Hard to believe I’m in the heart of the Inner Ring dynasty. In the offices of the Supreme Leader.

  The suite is eerily silent. In the center of a plush seating arrangement, I spot an ornate two-tiered platter of plump berries surrounded by an intricate floral display on a glass table. Saliva pools beneath my tongue. I’ve only tasted real berries one time; in payment for a job I did. The long-forgotten memory of the sweet gushing juice on my tongue is suddenly overwhelming. I’d like nothing more than to gorge myself on the heaped platter, but I restrain myself from swiping one, even though I know I could pull it off without the cameras detecting my sleight of hand.

  I continue past the seating area, and stare, dumbfounded, at the grandeur of the Supreme Leader’s intricately carved white marble desk. I stretch out my fingers and run them along its smooth surface. “Stunning!” I gasp.

  “Indeed,” a voice booms out.

  I spin around as a short, obese man shuffles into view, accompanied on either side by a military droid. His face is sculpted to an indeterminate age and his thick braided hair writhes like a hangman’s rope down his back.

  I bow before him, every nerve in my body tingling with loathing. It takes everything in me not to lunge forward and grab him by the neck. When I lift my head, his eyes are on me. “Sanya tells me you are the designer responsible for this magnificence?”

  I bow again, not wanting to make prolonged eye contact. My implanted colored lenses don’t feel adequate to hide the truth from his penetrating gaze. “It was an honor,” I say, feigning awe for the man I despise more than anyone I’ve ever known.

  He clicks his fingers and the droids retreat. I make a mental note of the stun-braces dangling from their tool belts.

  The Supreme Leader gestures lavishly toward the seating arrangement. “Sit, let us talk.”

  “It’s a beautiful arrangement,” I say, motioning at the platter of berries as I take a seat next to him.

  His fat lips twist in an oddly familiar smile. “Beautiful, but deadly.” He plucks a berry and studies it, twisting it between his thumb and forefinger. “Hickleberries. They contain a toxin that paralyzes their hapless victim in seconds.” He leans toward me conspiratorially. “I keep them here for the staff. I like to know who’s stealing from me.”

  A shudder runs through me. For one panicked moment I imagine he knows.

  Then I pull myself together.

  “Loyalty should be tested,”
I say, with an approving smile.

  He waves a fat finger in my face. “I like how you think. And I like your work. I want to discuss another project I have in mind for you, but unfortunately, I’m short on time today.” He makes a dismissive gesture with his hand. “This wretched refugee situation.”

  “Horrendous,” I say.

  He glances up at a holographic time display. “Process the payment,” he says. “The least I can do is make sure you’re taken care of.”

  I blink and look away. Make sure you’re taken care of. The irony of his words isn’t lost on me. My hand shakes as I reach into the gray pack and flick open the cap on the end of the hairbrush. My tools lie ready. I pull out the TransferTablet and activate it, and then hold it out to him. He raises his wrist to scan his embedded chip, the chip that controls the technology for the entire Inner Ring. I’ve memorized the commands I’ll need to operate it. I hold the tablet steady, forcing myself not to recoil at the crepelike skin on his hand. So much older than his sculpted face appears.

  Suddenly, a siren blares through the office space. The Supreme Leader hesitates, his wrist paused in mid-air.

  Sanya’s contact in the dark interstellarsphere has tripped the fire alarm. The building will be evacuated in minutes. The rest is up to me.

  Every electrical impulse in my body activates on cue. I snatch up my tools, knowing I only have a few seconds. The droids are already bearing down on us, no doubt to evacuate us. Before the Supreme Leader grasps what’s happening, I grab his wrist, and gouge out the chip in one deep slice. He lets out a spine-tingling scream and falls back on the couch, clutching his arm to his chest. Blood sprays his chin. I may have severed an artery. The unfamiliar scalpel was awkward to wield. My hand trembles as I struggle to implant the chip in my own wrist.

  “Arrest her!” the Supreme Leader yells at the approaching droids. He half-lunges at me, but I’m out of his reach. With a final excruciating thrust of the implanter, I lodge the chip in position in my left wrist.

  “Code 07 delete. All guards back down,” I announce, holding my throbbing wrist to my mouth. I bite my lip, praying I didn’t botch the command, scarcely daring to believe it will work. The Supreme Leader rocks to and fro on the couch, moaning and cursing at the droids to make haste as he nurses his wrist. His eyes widen in horror when they power down only a few feet from where he is seated. I hurry over to them and grab a stun-brace from one of their belts. The Supreme Leader struggles to hoist himself out of the couch, but I slip the stun-brace around his neck before he can make it to his feet.