by Amie Kaufman
I look toward the door. I look at my face in its mask.
Tired. Wired. All the way scared. I glance at the picture on the screen of the G-man’s uniglass. Think about the Longbow shaking like a leaf as we tried to change course. The image of Scarlett being thrown back into the wall with a flick of O’Malley’s wrist. Tyler pushing us closer and closer to the edge.
Lying with him on those crumpled sheets the morning after, shivering as he traced the lines of my tattoos with his fingertips.
And it still wasn’t enough.
“We can offer assurances. In writing. For you and your squad.”
I chew my lip. Grit my teeth. And sitting back down on the stool, I look at the G-man’s featureless face and hold out my glass to the bartender.
“Gimme another.”
19
Zila
There is no way we’re getting in and out of Casseldon Bianchi’s private office without getting caught.
20
Auri
“I can’t believe you thought this would fit me.” Cat’s grumbles behind me, yanking at her jumpsuit again. “The girls are going to fall out of this thing, Scar.”
“I did offer you one of my bras,” Scar replies.
“I thought you were being sarcastic.”
Scarlet shoots Cat a sympathetic smile. “Maybe a little.”
We’re standing in the long, winding line for Casseldon Bianchi’s grand gala, Ty and me, with Cat and Scarlett behind us, decked out in the fanciest outfits Scarlett’s bargaining and Dariel’s connections could offer. Scarlett and Tyler look smooth as always, but Cat couldn’t look more uncomfortable in formalwear if the stuff was woven out of poison ivy. We’re slowly shuffling up toward the doormen (door aliens?) who’ll check our invitations.
And everybody’s nervous.
“Your girls will be fine,” Scarlett promises Cat again, adjusting her mask. “It’s meant to fit like that. It looks great. Wow, so does mine. I love this dress.”
I hear Fin’s voice in my ear, crystal clear through my tiny earpiece, but sounding a bit uneven. “Maker’s bits, Scarlett … Not that you don’t have an appreciative audience back here at base, but if you’re going to give us a view like that, maybe a little warning? Dariel just dropped a mug of hot caff all over me, I think he’s short-circuited something in my suit.”
“Just doing my bit for morale,” Scarlett purrs, smug as can be.
“I mean, normally I wouldn’t complain,” Fin adds.
“I’ll give you something to complain about,” Cat mutters.
We’re nearly at the front of the line, and now I’ve got a clearer view of the pair of aliens—both perfectly identical—who are checking invitations. They have brown, leathery skin, and small heads that remind me of binoculars, huge eyes dominating their faces. Their necks look a little too thin to support them, and their arms are long and spindly, ending in twig-like fingers. As I watch, one leans right out over its silver podium to extend a long finger, and trail it slowly across the invitation a particularly tall, pink-skinned woman is offering up for inspection.
“They’re really looking at the invites carefully,” I murmur, and at my side, Ty tilts his head in closer to mine to get a look.
“Confidence,” he murmurs. “Slow breaths. Play it like you belong here.”
My gut does a slow flip. I don’t belong. Not just here, but anywhere in the galaxy. I was supposed to live two centuries ago. The tiredness and the fear feel as though they’re stretching out the bonds that held me close to my family until they’re dangerously thin, ready to snap and leave me utterly alone.
I’m not sure what will happen then.
Dariel swore the invitations were as good as real—which isn’t the same thing as real—but Fin seemed to trust him. Our Betraskan squad mate looked a little sick at asking the favor, and I could tell that somewhere in the complex web of family obligations, he’d just racked up another big one. He’s been talking a little extra, a little more obnoxiously, ever since. Covering his nerves, I think.
I’m slowly learning them, these six young soldiers who hold my life in their hands. Though even if I’d met them five minutes ago, I couldn’t miss Cat’s simmering frustration. I’m standing arm in arm with Ty, and she’s behind us, arm in arm with Scarlett, and I can feel her gaze burning two holes right between my shoulder blades. My skin gives an uncomfortable twitch.
The outfit that’s bothering her so much is the most incredible tailored jumpsuit I’ve ever seen. It’s the same one I saw in my vision of her—navy blue, strapless and, despite her protests, structured enough to keep everything where it belongs. She’s paired it—or rather, Scarlett’s paired it—with silver boots that look like someone’s smashed a mirror to a million pieces, then glued it onto them in a perfect mosaic, and the mask covering her eyes is made of the same stuff.
She wears a thick, gleaming gold belt and no other jewelry—her tattoos are gorgeous, and they do the work for her, the jumpsuit’s back cut low enough to show off the spectacular hawk inked across her back and shoulder blades, matching the phoenix across her throat. Skin pale, eyes dark, and hair darker, she looks fearsome. The sort of person I want on my side, if only I could be sure she was.
She keeps looking at me in a way that makes me wonder.
Scarlett’s dress is a perfect complement to her Ace’s outfit, a deep turquoise gown that hits the floor—again, the exact same one I saw in my waking dream, though she brought it home without me ever describing it to her. A shiver went straight down my spine when I saw it.
How did she know which one to buy?
The strapless bodice of Scarlett’s gown (down which Fin and Dariel just had the view of a lifetime, I’m pretty sure) picks up the shattered mirror motif from Cat’s boots with a thousand silver beads, which scatter over her dark skirts like the first stars in the night sky. About three hundred buttons travel from her mid-back to the floor. It took Zila and I—the pair with the smallest fingers—half an hour to get them all closed. Her mask sets off her big blue eyes with more flecks of silver.
Both of them look so fit, so fierce, now that they’re not hidden under their Aurora Academy jumpsuits. I know I should be nervous, but I can’t help but feel a little fiercer beside them.
My own dress is the cutest thing I’ve ever worn. It’s exactly what I would have chosen for my prom, if I’d ever had one.
I wonder what Callie wore to hers.
The fitted bodice of my dress is red-and-gold embroidered silk swirling in intricate designs. It has perfect capped sleeves and an upright collar hooked closed at my neck. The top half is just like my qipao at home, but the knee-length skirts are a thousand flouncing layers of red tulle. I wanted to twirl like a freaking ballerina when I put this thing on, but Scarlett was looking at me super-intently.
“I wasn’t sure if the silk was right,” she said.
I looked down, smoothing it with one hand. “It’s perfect.”
But her gaze had lingered, even though it was a long moment before she spoke again, uncharacteristically hesitant. “You said your father— I mean, I know it’s not actually Chinese, but …”
And that was when I realized she’d tried to get me something that would remind me of home. And I found I’d lost my breath, as well as my words.
“It’s …” I took a second swing at it. “It really is perfect, Scarlett, thank you. I think he’d have loved it. Keeping our culture alive was important to him.”
It sounded like someone else speaking, talking about him in the past tense. I could hear how careful my voice was, a fraction too cheerful, overshooting the mark by just enough to show her how hard I was trying.
Keeping our culture alive in our family was important to him. When I was growing up, the way to put off bedtime just a little longer was always to ask for another traditional story from the big, old-fashioned book on the shelf.
After he left mom behind, I was so angry at him I’d have said story-time routine was just another example of something mattering more to him than his family. He wouldn’t spend extra time together for me, but he would for the all-important traditions.
But maybe he just wanted an excuse to spend a little more time together as well.
Scarlett busied herself neatening my hair and carefully blacking out the white streak, gluing the micro-cam disguised as a beauty spot in place on my cheek. It was an intimate moment, but the touch didn’t feel like an imposition. It felt like a comfort. “Ty and I, we understand,” she said quietly. “We know what it’s like to lose a parent. Cat, too, and Zila. If you need to talk about it, I’m your girl.”
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 in 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 makes 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 start at our heads and trace 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 we wait for Scarlett and Cat to 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 cryo pod, 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 day—every hour.
But my old self has a part to play here, too. I trained in exploration because I want to see everything, and I’m sure getting a load of that lately. And as my parents prepped for the Octavia mission, I spent half my life changing 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 as I study 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 as 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. …
21
Finian
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 garishly 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.
