The Loneliest Girl in the Universe

by Lauren James

  Now that I’m here, I need to know more than anything: is she still alive? Or does the pod contain a frozen corpse?

  All thoughts of J leave my mind. This is the fear that has consumed me for nearly six years.

  I can see the dark shape of my mother’s head through the misted glass window. I touch the pod, resting my fingertips where her eyes should be. I hate her for what she did to us. But I also miss her so much it hurts. She’s still my mother.

  I drop my forehead to the glass, aching to see inside but too scared to look. My other hand touches the side of the pod, wrapping around the machine like I’m hugging her.

  To my surprise, it’s warm.

  I jump back, thinking for a minute that I’m touching human skin, that somehow my mother’s hand is dangling out of the pod. Then I realize it’s just the warmth of the freezer, working to keep the body inside cool. It’s only the machinery, doing its job.

  A thought crosses my mind: warmth. I cling to it, before fear can drive it away. J’s heat sensor. If the pod is warm – if it’s giving off heat, like a human – then J won’t realize I’m here. He’ll think my heat signature is just the pod. I can hide, at least for a while.

  If I’m brave enough to stay here, with my mother.

  I’m deciding that I don’t really have a choice when I notice that there’s a brass plaque attached to the front of the pod: CREW MEMBER: LUCY SHOREDITCH

  I trace my fingers over the engraving. Shoreditch. Like … J?

  I step back and look at the pods on either side. The one on the left says: CREW MEMBER: JEREMY SHOREDITCH

  These must be the names of the astronauts who were in stasis in the pods, back when The Infinity was launched.

  A man and a woman. With J’s surname. Is J short for…?

  I’m broken out of my thoughts by the sound of footsteps in the corridor. It’s loud, getting closer while I wasn’t paying attention – and heading towards the sick bay.

  Quickly, I twist behind the pod, squeezing into the confined space between it and the wall. I drop down into a crouch and hope my heat signature blurs with the pod’s.

  The footsteps stop.

  “Romy.”

  I stop breathing.

  “I told you I’d find you.”

  He won’t find me. He won’t. He’ll see the machine is running and back off. He’ll go and look for me somewhere else.

  “That was a clever trick with the tunnel. I think I underestimated you.”

  The footsteps get closer, stopping right in front of the pod. I breathe through my mouth, trying to make as little noise as possible.

  There’s the click click click of fingernails tapping on metal. I think he’s touching the plaque, tracing the words LUCY SHOREDITCH, just like I did.

  There’s an achingly long silence. Finally, he lets out a huff of laughter.

  “Of course you’re hiding in here.” His voice is bitter. “Where else would you be?” He clears his throat. When he speaks again, the catch in his voice is gone. “I can see you, Romy. Hiding in my mother’s tomb.”

  I know he’s not talking about me, only the shadow of the body inside. I still flush hot and then cold with fear. There’s a pause, and then, sounding slightly confused, he says, “Can you even hear me in there?”

  I catch sight of his hand at the side of the pod, testing the hinge of the lock. There’s a beep, and then he pulls open the door of the pod.

  “Romy, I—”

  His words cut off, and he lets out a little shocked grunt.

  I can’t help myself – I peer around the side of the pod just in time to watch him tilt backwards, the weight of my mother falling onto him.

  As she falls, wires tear away from her skin, pinging back into the pod. J staggers, trying to hold her up, but he quickly loses his balance and crashes to the floor. My mother’s body lands right on top of him.

  J tries to shove her off, but her icy skin has seared to his, like a tongue sticking to an ice cube.

  As they roll across the floor, J catches sight of me. He lets out a frustrated yell. “You little—”

  He’s struggling to get free, to launch himself at me. My mother’s forehead is glued to the side of his face. The skin of his cheek pulls and stretches where they touch.

  I crawl out from behind the pod and run past him, ignoring his shout of anger. The cold air from the freezer hits me as I pass.

  I leave my two nightmares behind me to fight it out between themselves, sprinting down the corridor. I try desperately to think. What do I do with my head start? I run as fast as I can, fighting the heavy gravity that J has tried to trap me with.

  I’ve reached the airlock. The place where I first met J; where he entered my ship. I can see The Eternity through the closed doors, still connected to The Infinity.

  Suddenly an idea forms. I can escape. I can take his ship. I can disconnect the two spaceships and just … go. Fly off in his ship and leave him here alone in the slower, older one.

  He’ll never be able to catch up with me, not if I’m in The Eternity. It’s so fast. He wouldn’t be able to get anywhere near me.

  When I press the button for the airlock, the doors slide open, one by one. As I step on board The Eternity, I feel hope for the first time in longer than I can remember. Hope, and more than that: excitement. I can do this. There’s a way out. Suddenly the odds have tipped slightly further in my favour.

  I don’t give myself time to admire the futuristic design of The Eternity, its gleaming metal and mint-green walls. I run down the corridor, scanning the rooms for the helm. I need to detach the ships before J frees himself and works out what I’m doing.

  The ship is so huge that I’m not going to be able to find the helm in time by just randomly running around. I stop, gasping for breath.

  “Computer?” I say, hoping desperately that there’s an audio command system.

  A voice immediately comes from the ceiling. “How can I help you today?” It’s robotic but obviously female: sweet and soft.

  I grin around my next sentence, relieved and hysterical. “Can you detach the ship from The Infinity, please?”

  “Four-letter authorization code required.”

  I pause. I have no idea. Would J have set the code?

  I clear my throat. “Code: Romy?” I wince, hoping that I’m right and wishing to be wrong.

  “Access denied. One attempt remaining.”

  My gut clenches. If I can’t guess, then my plan is ruined. I feel sick.

  “Is there a way to manually override the code?”

  “Authorization code required.”

  “Code…” I waver. The password could be anything at all, just a random string of letters. But I need to try. I need to get away.

  I strain my brain, trying to think. Then it occurs to me. J’s mother’s name. He’s mentioned before how much he misses his parents. If anything he told me was true, it might be that. What were the names on the torpor pods? Jeremy Shoreditch. And—

  “Code: Lucy?” I say.

  There’s a pause, and then the computer says, “Code accepted. Would you like to become the new system administrator?”

  I let out a little sigh of relief, leaning back against the wall.

  “Yes, please. Close and secure airlock.”

  J set his mother’s name as the ship’s most important password. There was some truth in what he told me – he loved his parents.

  “Airlock deactivating. Air pressurization complete,” the computer replies after a second.

  “Detach the ships, please.”

  “Ship separation initiated.”

  I listen, waiting for the sound of the separation. There’s nothing for almost a minute, and then a soft shudder rocks the floor.

  “No longer in contact with The Infinity. Shall the ship continue on determined course?”

  My blood pressure drops in seconds. “Yes, as fast as possible.”

  “Acceleration in progress. Maximum velocity to be obtained.”

  For alm
ost ten minutes, I stand stock-still, trying to process everything that’s happened. I can’t believe I’m here. In those long, awful hours in the stores, I gave up all hope of getting away from J. My universe shrunk to him and finding a way to escape. Now my universe has expanded again, I don’t know what to do with it.

  I lick my lips. They are dry and cracked after so long in the stores. I’m warming up, sweating a little. I hadn’t even noticed I was cold. But it’s hotter on this ship, just slightly. J must have reduced the temperature of The Infinity in his effort to force me out of the stores – or to make it easier to track me down with the heat sensor. The gravity is normal here too – not weighing me down when I move.

  I shiver, despite the temperature. There’s blood on my legs and knuckles. When I touch the tips of my fingers to the wounds, my knees give out beneath me. I need to sit down.

  “Computer, where is the helm?”

  The voice in the ceiling doesn’t speak, but a green line lights up on the floor.

  “Thank you!”

  I’m quietly amazed. This ship is so cool. It makes mine look like it’s made out of papier mâché.

  I follow the line around the corner, down another long corridor, and then down another short corridor off that. The ship is huge – at least three times the size of The Infinity, based on what I can see so far. There are corridors upon corridors, leading off in every direction. It’s so big that I can’t believe it’s real. It hurts my brain just thinking about it.

  Finally, I reach a chrome door that slides open as I approach.

  Inside is J’s kingdom. The open-plan room is so clearly his that it makes me nervous. On one side is a bank of computer screens – that must be the helm. There’s also a wide bed against the wall, with sheets tangled up at the foot and pillows punched into balls. The sight of it is the last thing my exhausted brain can process before it gives up completely.

  Now that I’m safe, I’m so tired and relieved that I don’t even look around. I pass out on J’s bed, dropping abruptly into complete unconsciousness.

  HOURS SINCE THE ETERNITY CAUGHT UP:

  38

  When I wake up, every muscle in my body aches and I’m desperately thirsty.

  I find three half-empty bottles of water and two packets of mac and cheese in a cupboard by the bed. I drink the contents of all three bottles, then eat both packets, crunching through the pasta. I’m starving, but I’m not quite ready to venture out of this room to try and find a proper kitchen.

  I’m still wearing my nightie, so I search for clothes. There don’t seem to be any in this room, apart from a hoodie that has NASA written on the front in large, stylized letters. I roll up the sleeves of the hoodie and pull it on. It smells like person. I’d forgotten that other people have a smell.

  Looking around makes me feel like I’m seeing inside J’s brain. Dinner packets are strewn on every surface, and there’s a tablet on the bed. I open it to find a paused video.

  I recognize it as an episode of a TV show he used to talk about. Just like when I found out his password was his mother’s name, it catches me by surprise. I hadn’t expected any of the things he told me to actually be true. Wasn’t he pretending to be Jayden? But this wasn’t a lie: he really does watch the show.

  Carefully, I click through each tab, seeing what books and essays he’s been reading, and what music he last listened to.

  It’s … unnerving. He seems quite normal. He listened to pop music yesterday.

  Can I really do this? Can I leave him behind? If he stays on The Infinity, he’ll be in his sixties before he makes it to Earth II, if he ever makes it at all.

  Have I condemned J to death?

  I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I can leave him imprisoned on The Infinity like this.

  My thoughts are interrupted by a soft, automated voice coming from the tablet. “There is an incoming call from Jeremy Shoreditch. Would you like to accept?”

  The notification pushes me over the edge.

  “Answer it,” I say quickly. I need to speak to J. I need to try to understand what’s going on.

  The video call connects and his face appears.

  “Romy,” he says.

  I can’t speak. I just nod, examining his features. I can’t tell from his expression whether he’s angry or upset. There’s a livid red mark on his cheek where my mother’s skin had sealed itself to his.

  It might just be because I’m safe here on this ship, which is already hundreds of kilometres away from him, but somehow I’m not so terrified any more. I almost feel sorry for him. Right now, he looks harmless. Exhausted. Not monstrous at all.

  When I open my mouth to finally speak, my lips part with an audible sound. “Are you all right?” I ask quietly.

  He rubs at the mark on his cheek and sighs. “I’m OK. Romy, I’m sorry I scared you. I should have been more open with you about how soon the ship would be arriving. You’re so young, and I … I just wasn’t thinking coherently.”

  I bite my lip, fighting back tears. Maybe I should have stopped to talk to him through the airlock, rather than detaching the ships.

  “Because of your parents?” I venture carefully. I have barely been able to go anywhere near the sick bay because my mother was in there. If I were him, there’s no way I would have been able to deal with boarding the ship my parents died on. Not without some sort of horrifying and embarrassing breakdown.

  He nods, then frowns. “I knew it would be hard, coming to the place where they died. But it was so much worse than I thought it would be. The minute I stepped on board, it brought everything back – all the memories of finding out that they’d died, when I felt completely alone in the universe. I got really upset and lashed out at you. I can’t tell you how much I regret it.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t know they were part of the crew. I would never have talked about my nightmares in my emails if I’d known that two of the astronauts were your parents.”

  “I should have told you the truth a long time ago,” J says. “But it was just too painful.”

  “I understand. I can’t talk about my … about my dad either.”

  We’re both silent.

  “How old were you when they died?” I ask. If his parents had him before they left Earth nineteen years ago, then he must have been pretty young.

  “Twenty-five. They got accepted for The Infinity mission when I was thirteen, which was due to launch after I turned eighteen. At first they weren’t sure if they should go, because of me. But NASA told them that I’d be able to follow them in a few years and we’d be together again.”

  “So when you found out what had happened, you were already trying to become an astronaut too?”

  He nods. “I’d just graduated and I was in training at NASA when they told me that Mom and Dad were dead. Just like that. I couldn’t believe it. We’d been preparing for so long, and then they were gone before their mission had even really started.”

  “I’m so sorry, J.”

  He’s silent while I wrap my head around everything he’s told me.

  “They let you join the mission?” I ask. “Even after your parents died in space?”

  “Yes. NASA knew I wanted to honour their memory by doing what they couldn’t. I had to support what was left of The Infinity’s mission. For most of my training we knew that there were still three people alive on the ship – two crew members who hadn’t been in stasis when everyone died, and a baby. A little girl. Then, two years before we launched, we found out that an oxygen tank explosion had killed the adults, and the little girl was the only one left. The mission became even more important.”

  I nod. After they died, I told NASA an oxygen tank had killed my parents. I couldn’t bear to explain the truth about my mother. Then I realize what he’s saying. “Everyone knew about me?”

  J smiles. “Romy, everyone on Earth heard about you. The child genius who knows everything there is to know about the ship. Who was going to be the commander when sh
e grew up. I envied you. You had the life that I wanted: exploring the universe with your parents. I started this mission so angry at you for that.” J looks down and clears his throat. “You know, I only started talking to you because I wanted to see what you were like. The girl who stole my dream.”

  I feel raw. This is not what I was expecting to hear.

  “That’s why I copied your stories,” he continues. “I just wanted you to like me. I was trying to get you to open up, to talk to me, so I could see what you were like behind the formal emails you sent as the commander. But now I understand that you’d have talked to me as myself. I didn’t need to pretend to be that character.”

  “It wasn’t fair,” I say. “It wasn’t fair that you manipulated me like that. You used Jayden against me.”

  “I know. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. I regret it so much. Romy, I’m not trying to hurt you. I never will. I swear on it.”

  “How am I ever supposed to believe that, J? I don’t even know what’s real any more. The UPR – are they real or fake? I still don’t know!”

  “Oh, Romy.” J shakes his head. “I’m sorry. The UPR are real. I can see why you would hope they weren’t, though. I wish they weren’t too.”

  “But – the coordinates…”

  He frowns. “All messages from Earth have to be retransmitted to you from The Eternity’s transponder, because my ship blocks the path of the signal from there. The messages wouldn’t reach you otherwise. Is that what you’re talking about?”

  I swallow. Why didn’t I think of that? “Even if … even if the UPR really are in control of our ships, even if their requests are real, there are so many other things that you made up.”

  “By the end, I wasn’t putting on a front any more, I swear. Those emails were all me. OK, some of the facts about my life were taken from that TV show. I never dropped out of medical school – I’ve actually got a degree in engineering. And I don’t pull pranks on people like Jayden does. But the real stuff – the emotions – that was all me.