Strange Exit

by Parker Peevyhouse

  The fruit had come from the sim? That couldn’t be possible. Something real couldn’t come from a simulation. You couldn’t create something in a computer program and then expect it to appear in real life.

  The captain’s voice went through her head: “I didn’t create it.”

  What hadn’t he created? The creature that he believed roamed the lost world?

  Or the lost world itself?

  “The ship sends out probes.… The probes collect data about the surface conditions.”

  The sim was supposed to replicate surface conditions. It was supposed to show them what life on the surface would be like. But it had failed.

  Or had it?

  “When I first had this ship built, it was meant for exploration. It would take us to places as untouched as Earth had once been.”

  The captain hadn’t created the lost world at the heart of the sim. The ship had created it, using data from the probes. Data about the surface of the planet.

  Only, that planet wasn’t Earth.

  Lake shook all over. Her fingers pressed into the flesh of the fruit she held. A sweet smell wafted to her. “There’s something out there,” she breathed.

  Ajay leaned closer, trying to hear. “What did you say?”

  “There’s something waiting for us.” A whole planet, a new world.

  We’re not going to die on this ship.

  The world at the heart of the sim was a reflection of a real place. Its waterfall, its river, its billowing trees.

  And they could go there. If the sleepers left the sim.

  It hardly seemed possible. It was a dream, another trick.

  And yet, here was the proof, right here in her hand.

  She lifted the fruit to her mouth, recalling the sweet-tart taste of it, ready to take a bite.

  “What happened to your hand?” Ajay said.

  Lake froze. Pulled the untasted fruit away from her mouth. Inspected her palm.

  The tar was gone, but the skin had turned ash gray.

  Lake dropped the fruit. It hit the floor and burst open. The sweet smell turned her stomach. She touched the gray skin on her palm, and flakes of it fell away.

  She had escaped the sim, but not the effects of the tar.

  25

  LAKE

  Poison. The tar in the simulation had poisoned her.

  She knew the body could react to what shocked the mind. But how far would the poison spread?

  An alarm sounded, jarring Lake out of her thoughts. What now?

  “It’s the CO2 scrubbers,” she heard someone say, and then she spotted the red light flashing near the air vent. “I think they’ve finally given out.”

  Next to Lake, Ajay had gone still, his eyes closed. “Ajay?” Lake jostled him and he stirred but didn’t wake.

  The oxygen is getting low.

  She got to her feet and made her way out of the eatery. They couldn’t fix the ship—only abandon it. And to do that, they’d have to wake the sleepers.

  And how will I manage that?

  She didn’t know. She only knew she had to hurry.

  The stasis warehouse still lay in darkness. Lake groped her way to an open chamber and sent herself into the sim.

  She woke in the hills outside the Battery. Blue sky, sculpted clouds. A world she’d never see again. Whatever happened, this would be her last trip into the sim, her last view of home. She let herself feel the loss of it for one long, searing moment. The feathery fennel with its licorice smell. The hawks floating on thermal drafts as if suspended in time. The deer-prints like sigils in the dirt.

  And what else? What else will you have to abandon?

  She knew, but couldn’t admit it to herself.

  She forced herself onward, to the concrete temple of the Battery.

  No guard at the gates. No voices echoing in the shaft as she climbed down the ladder. No clatter of rocks in the stone city, where steps and doorways stood half-formed.

  Smell of mud and minerals in the cavern. Black stains where tar still seeped into rock.

  The sleepers had abandoned their city.

  Because of me, because of the doorway I opened.

  And now it would be so much harder to wake them. Impossible, maybe, considering how little time was left.

  Had she doomed them?

  Angel of Death.

  She walked through the doorway she’d made, into shade cast by blue trees.

  Willow appeared at her side, walking toward the precipice with her. “Your hand,” she said.

  Lake inspected it. Then wished she hadn’t. A thin layer of tar clung to her palm, as though it had never left her. The sight made her shake. It’s going to spread. “It’s fine,” she lied. No need to scare Willow, who was shaking now too.

  “You should leave the sim, before it spreads.”

  “It’s not spreading,” Lake said, and that seemed to be true for now at least. “I barely touched any of it.”

  Willow stared at the tar for a moment longer. Then she darted to a tree whose outer layer of bark had all but sloughed off. She tore a strip of soft bark away and came back to wrap Lake’s hand with it.

  “No, let me do it,” Lake said, rigid with worry to see Willow so close to tar.

  “You shouldn’t have come back.”

  “I have to wake the sleepers who left the Battery. There’s not much time.”

  “How are you going to wake them?” Willow asked while Lake finished winding the bark around her own palm.

  Lake had no answer.

  They came to the edge of the precipice. Below, Lake spied movement beneath the billowing treetops, where she knew the camp lay. If she climbed down and told them about the world that waited for them, would that be enough to convince them to leave the sim?

  She had once dreamed of this place in the sim, even looked for it while she wandered pocket after pocket. Eden, too, had searched for this lost world, and had finally given in to its pull. Had they both known, deep down, that they belonged in this place? That it was more real than anything else they’d encountered in the sim? A re-creation of a real world that waited for them.

  Would that feeling be enough to free Eden and the other sleepers, once Lake told them about the planet that awaited them?

  She didn’t know. She could only try.

  “Lake,” Willow said, her voice high with alarm.

  Lake turned to find Willow staring down the slope they had once used to climb into the lost world. Except there was no slope—only the jagged edge of the rock shelf, and tar still clinging to it.

  “They found where we hid the tar,” Willow said.

  “And they used it to make sure no one could follow them.” How much did they use? How much is left? When she walked into the camp, would they have more tar waiting for her?

  She inspected the bark-bandage over her palm. It had darkened. The tar was starting to seep through.

  “How are we going to get down?” Willow asked.

  Lake walked back toward the top of the waterfall and peered over the edge. Tried to guess whether the river was too shallow, the drop too long, the rocks too many.

  It was their only way down.

  “Remember the water park?” Lake asked Willow. “The tall diving platforms?”

  “The ones you refused to jump off of?”

  Lake shrugged. “Time to redeem myself.”

  She jumped.

  For a long moment, she imagined herself dropping through the atmosphere, bulleting from the ship, a passenger jumping overboard. Will we make it? When we leave the ship for the planet, will the shuttles know what to do?

  Then she was swallowed by water and fear and doubt, her lungs hardening while she fought toward the surface.

  She gasped for breath and looked around for Willow. Maybe she’d stayed up on the rocks.

  But then Lake saw her—

  Standing on the bank.

  With Taren.

  How did he get here?

  “Will,” Lake called, her voice sharper than
she’d meant for it to be. She didn’t like seeing Willow standing next to Taren, not when she could still so easily recall the anger and determination on his face as he fought the sleepers in the Battery. She scrambled onto the bank and hurried to her.

  “Lake,” Taren said, relief in his voice. “I didn’t know if you’d make it back.”

  Willow had shed her jacket somewhere, and now she looked like something that had lost its shell. So small and vulnerable. Lake moved between her and Taren.

  Taren drew back, stung. He gave Lake a forced smile. “Here,” he said, holding out a small, pink globe like the one she’d recently held on the ship. “Fruit from the trees.” He pointed at a tree leaning over the river, its branches heavy with more plump fruit.

  The smell of it reminded Lake of the ship’s eatery, the huddled forms. The stain spreading over her palm. She couldn’t bring herself to reach for the fruit, and Taren finally looked away from her and let his hand drop.

  “I think there might be something hiding in the darkness,” he said. “An animal.”

  Lake followed his gaze to the deep gloom that cloaked the other side of the bank. She shivered, still dripping with cold river water.

  “I heard it calling,” Taren said. He trembled in the same way he did when they were out of the sim and he was weak from stasis. Lake wondered how long it had been since he’d eaten or drank anything. She had had water, at least.

  “You should leave the sim,” she said. “You’ve been in too long.”

  “I went back to the ship. It was dark, the lights were all out. I don’t think we’re going to make it if we don’t wake the sleepers soon.”

  Why do I only ever have bad news? “The sleepers all left the Battery.”

  “I know.” Taren kept his gaze trained on the other side of the bank. “There’s only one way to wake them now. We need the tar you hid.”

  Lake stepped back from him. “No. We can’t.”

  Taren turned to her, his gaze heavy with despair. “Tell me what you did with it. I know you brought it here the first time you left the Battery. I saw you.”

  “I don’t have it. I tried to hide it but—”

  “What’s on your hand?”

  Lake realized she was cradling her palm in her other hand. The makeshift bandage had come off in the water, and now the mark on her palm showed plainly. Lake noticed with a deep, sinking feeling that it had spread past her wrist.

  She expected Taren to back away, to protect himself. But he only gaped and said, “You have the box of tar?”

  “No, they took it. I hid it but—”

  “Show me where it is.” Taren looked to the top of the waterfall as if he suspected that she’d left it behind when she’d jumped into the river. “Leave the sim, and I’ll do it myself. You won’t have to help.”

  Hadn’t he heard her? Didn’t he believe her? “They took it. Eden and her sleepers. They have it now. We have to find another way to wake them.”

  “Lake,” Taren groaned. “There’s no time. Please, just tell me where it is—”

  “You don’t understand.” Lake’s voice erupted from her throat. “It’s gone. All of it. You think if you wake the sleepers you can go home, but that’s gone too. I found the captain. He told me what happened: we left Earth. We can’t go back.” The words rushed out, a tidal force she could no longer contain. Home was gone. The yard Willow had hidden treasures in, the beach where they’d searched the tide pools. And more—things she could not think about now because they would drown her heart in regret.

  Taren looked to Willow, as if for confirmation. She sat on the gravel bank, hunched in defeat, staring vacantly at the passing water. “You found the captain,” Taren said to Lake, “in a simulated version of the ship.”

  Lake was too numb to respond.

  “You went to the area of the sim where it’s hardest to keep your grip on reality,” Taren went on. “And now you think we left Earth? We headed into space, away from the only place we could be sure of for our survival?”

  Lake studied the wet, shining gravel. The felted trees. “The captain said…” Had she found the captain? There had been a strange man, half-melded to the sim.

  “You told me the captain died in stasis. You said you’d never seen the captain on the ship before.”

  Lake reeled. Taren held out a hand to steady her, careful to avoid her tar-stained arm. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Something moved in the gravel near Lake’s feet: tar, oozing up from the rocks.

  Lake looked up at Taren, pierced by his betrayal.

  “Lake,” he said, shaking his head, “I wasn’t trying to—”

  “Stay back!” She pulled out of his grip, still alarmed at the sight of the tar spreading over the gravel. Taren had done that—he’d confused her on purpose, to get more tar.

  “Wait, listen,” Taren pleaded.

  Willow scrambled up from the ground. “What’s going on?”

  Lake moved to block her from Taren, and a new wave of dizziness overtook her. “Stay away from us.” She held out her tarry palm in defense. She edged toward him, forcing him away from the tar bubbling over the gravel near their feet. One push and he could send me into the tar.

  Would he do that?

  She didn’t know. She only knew that she felt sick and weak and confused.

  “Lake,” Taren said, and she looked up to see that he was standing in the water, and she was too, and still she didn’t feel safe from the tar on the bank.

  “Keep going,” she commanded.

  Taren gave her a pleading look, but he backed away until the water came to his chest.

  “Go to the other bank,” Lake told him. “I’m going to find the sleepers. I don’t want you to come with me.”

  Taren shivered in the water. “How will you wake them?”

  He knew she didn’t have an answer.

  “Cross to the bank,” Lake said. “Don’t follow us.”

  She put her hand into the water. Tendrils of ink spread from her palm, and from the tar that now coated her arm like a gauntlet.

  Taren jerked in alarm. He turned and swam to the opposite bank.

  The ink spread. In a moment, the water looked as though it had fallen into shadow.

  “Lake, what are you doing?” Taren called from the opposite bank. He looked over his shoulder, peering into the darkness. “I’m scared.”

  Lake stood in the late-afternoon light, looking into the darkness that gathered around Taren on the opposite bank. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Don’t follow us.”

  She beckoned to Willow and they turned and fled into the trees.

  26

  TAREN

  Darkness at his back, Taren seethed. Cold through, shrouded in gloom. Betrayed.

  Was it true what Lake had said—could they never return home? Or had the sim tricked her so it could keep her in its grasp forever?

  Everything had its own will to survive. Lake did—a stronger will than Taren could ever have guessed. Taren did, a will so strong it frightened him. Maybe the sim did too.

  But what if she’s right? The thought clawed its way into Taren’s fear-thickened brain. What if we woke for nothing?

  What if he had come out of stasis just to witness the ship in its last throes? To face death fully awake, to watch the dark of deep space swallow him?

  “She’s wrong,” he groaned. “She’s wrong.”

  But he didn’t know, and the confusion of it fogged his brain. He looked for the stars tattooed on his arm, trying to orient himself. They had been a constellation once: Taurus, the bull. The same constellation that marked his brother’s arm.

  “I didn’t forget you.” He said it to his brother, to his parents. To the house with the scuffed kitchen, and the stairway that overlooked the Pacific.

  “I didn’t forget you.” He said it to himself, the only person he had left.

  And even then, it sounded like a lie.

  A figure appeared next to him, clutching its arm in the same way Taren clutch
ed his own. Same hitched breathing, same dripping clothes.

  “What should I do, Gray?” Taren asked. But the figment wasn’t Gray.

  It was a twin of Taren himself.

  And the voice that answered from the darkness wasn’t Gray’s, either—it was the rumbling voice that had issued from the crater. “You know what you need to do.”

  Taren’s breath shuddered in his lungs. Another twin appeared on his other side, bowed with the same misery he felt.

  Fear and desperation bubbled in Taren, darker than tar. Another twin appeared on the bank, and another. Another.

  Soon, a dozen figments stood clustered around Taren. Cold, determined. But hemmed by the poisoned river.

  They watched the water flow past, tainted with tar. But already, the tar was diluting.

  Soon, the water would run clear.

  27

  WILLOW

  The trees with their shedding bark stood like robed figures, watching Willow and Lake stumble past.

  “Lake, wait,” Willow cried, and her sister reluctantly turned back.

  The tar made a sickening glove over Lake’s hand. It went halfway to her elbow. The sight of it washed Willow with terror. She’ll disappear.

  What will happen to me?

  Lake waited for her to say something, to explain why she’d stopped. Willow thought her buckling knees must say it all.

  “Will, we have to hurry.”

  She’ll disappear, and I’ll melt away into nothing.

  Maybe Willow would turn to tar and seep through the system. Maybe that’s what tar was, liquid code, ghost-matter. “I’m afraid,” she said. “I—I need to hide.”

  Lake came close and put an arm around Willow’s shoulders, though she kept her tar-covered hand angled away. “Hide?”

  Ahead, the shelters loomed. Willow wished she could remember the time she’d spent there with Lake. She tried to imagine sleeping under soft bark-hide. Eating sweet fruit. Not as good as root beer, but it must have been a nice life, even so.

  And then—a creature had come. That’s what the captain had told them. The gauzy-eyed captain, who made Willow lose all interest in air travel. Space travel was already ruined for her.