Paragon

by Autumn Kalquist

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  The inner door cracked open, revealing space beyond, and the bomb was sucked out.

  His muscles relaxed, and the heaviness lifted, leaving him giddy. He’d done it. He’d saved the ship.

  Bright light exploded around him, and all sound died. A force slammed him backward into something hard and unyielding. It knocked the air from his lungs, and he felt his bones snapping.

  Had Kit thought of him before she died? He gave in and let the darkness carry him away.

  Dritan woke, feverish, in the darkness. Burning pain tore through his arm and radiated down his body, crippling him. Sweat soaked his clothes, his brow, and he reached out blindly atop the rock pile, seeking his helio.

  His hand found the familiar cool sphere, and he tapped it. It floated beside him, illuminating his progress. He’d cleared an enormous pile of stone, but there was still no sign of a door, or the corridor that should lie beyond here.

  The painmod was gone, he’d drunk the last of the water hours ago, and McGill still lived, but kept going in and out of consciousness. Dritan was on his own.

  He checked the line on his oxygen pack. Red.

  The helio started to bob and weave unevenly through the air. It was about to die. And so was he.

  Dritan snatched the sphere from the air and turned it off, gasping as another surge of pain ripped through him. He lay on the rocks, panting in the pitch-black. Hazy memories drifted through his mind, brief fragments, moments in time.

  His mother, smelling of lavender soap. Era’s scent. Where had his mother—a sublevel worker—gotten exec standard soap?

  When he was small, he heard a story and went to ask his mother about it. She held him in her lap, cuddling him close. “Do you know what ‘A Better World Awaits’ means?” she asked him.

  “No, Mama.”

  “Well, see, that scary story you heard wasn’t the whole truth. Our ancestors did destroy our home planet. Some people say the old gods of Earth cursed us to roam space until we could be forgiven. And if we all do our part—work to ensure the fleet survives—one day we’ll be redeemed—and then we’ll find our better world. And so we say ‘A Better World Awaits.’”

  “What are gods?”

  Mama’s eyes widened playfully, and she kissed his forehead. “Beings. Like us, only more powerful. But, buddy… that story was wrong. The old gods didn’t curse us. And they didn’t forget us, either. You’re my proof. You’re blessed.”

  “Blessed?”

  “The gods made you lucky, Dritan.”

  He fought back the haze, fought against the memories or dreams, or whatever they were. Exhaustion threatened to overcome him, but sleep would only mean death. He couldn’t give up. He had to fight till his last breath.

  “Haven’t I proven myself?” he said into darkness. The air felt thin, and he coughed. “Everything I’ve ever done has been for the good of the fleet—for the good of my family. What else do you want from me?”

  Dritan reactivated the dying helio and hauled himself higher on the rocks, closer to the top—to try to clear more there—to try one last time to find the exit. It took every bit of strength he had to reach the top, and when he did, he collapsed again.

  Then the ground shook. The damn planet was determined to end him.

  He clutched the rocks around him, desperately trying not to fall, as the entire pile shifted. Pain screamed through him, razing up and down his arm, and tears ran down his cheeks in response.

  Then it ended, leaving Dritan lower than where he’d been.

  He ground his teeth and moved to the top once more. One hand after the other. Each time he gripped a rock with his bad arm, flashes of light danced across his vision.

  When he reached the top of the rubble, he was shaking, and sweat poured down his brow. He reached for a rock with his good arm and pried at it, willing it to move. And when it did, his helio glinted off… something.

  Dritan’s heart thudded faster. There, at the top edge. Metal. He’d been near here earlier, but it had looked like layers of rock between him and the corridor. But the quake had shifted things. If that was the corridor…

  His breath came in shaky gulps, and new hope sprung up within him. He dug into a rock and pried at it. It didn’t budge. He gripped it with both hands, and with a guttural scream, tore the rock away and let it fall to the ground below.

  Black crowded his vision, and he nearly passed out. He reached up and touched the spot where he’d seen the gleam, running his hand along it. He choked back a sob and remembered the shape and feel of every scar and burn he’d gotten in the metalworks on his home deka.

  Home. He’d recognize the surface he touched anywhere. His hand ran along the edge of a panel, rivets under his fingertips—metal forged on the London.

  He pulled at another rock with all his might, gasping from the pain. It rolled toward him and bounced down the rubble to the ground. Metal glinted back at him, dusty, dinged, full of promise. He worked faster, pulling at the smallest rocks, trying to gain purchase to move larger ones.

  Each breath he took grew thinner, the oxygen pack nearly gone. After a few fevered minutes, Dritan reached in and found nothing. He lifted his body higher, trying to see. A deep hole of blackness stared back at him. He had to risk testing the air beyond.

  He lifted his mask and pressed his face to the gap to take a tentative, small breath. If it was Soren air, his lungs would burn with the plasma of a thousand cores. But they didn’t. Instead, stale air flooded his nostrils. He took another breath and another. Blackness didn’t close in, dizziness didn’t overcome him. The air was sweet, if dusty.

  The corridor beyond this wall still held oxygen. He tore off his mask, throwing it away from him with the empty oxygen pack, and poked his head and arm through the hole at the top of the doorway. He threw his helio down into the shaft. It illuminated more rock below and the dusty panels of the corridor.

  Excitement flooded him, and he inched forward, twisting as he went, squeezing through the hole he’d made to the other side. But his arm gave out, refusing to work, and he lost his grip.

  He rolled down the pile of rocks, each one like a bolt of steel going through him, until he hit the bottom. A horrible, heavy coldness smashed into his skull, and a new warmth dripped down his brow. His helio winked out, leaving him again in pitch-black.

  He took shallow breaths and tasted the salty metallic tang of blood as it dripped down his cheek and found his lips.

  His lungs ached, and the agony of his mangled arm flooded his mind with pain and nothing else, making it hard to think. Had he been wrong about the fresh air in here? Did he get this far just to die anyway?

  The haze washed over him, more memories flitting past. He was hallucinating.

  The warmth of Era’s lips on his.

  Gentle pressure on his good hand, squeezing three times.

  I. Love. You.

  Tears gathered in Dritan’s eyes as the deep thrum of the power core rumbled through him. He was dying. There was an accident in the sublevels. But he’d sacrificed himself for the good of the fleet.

  A bright light came to take him into death. Soren’s sun—gone supernova. His eyes fluttered shut, but the light only grew stronger.

  Voices.

  Dritan forced his eyes open as a globe of light resolved into a helio above him.

  A masked, blue-suited woman crouched beside Dritan and held a new oxygen mask to his mouth. “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”

  She turned around and shouted back up the shaft. “We found a survivor!”

  ∞ ∞

  A Better World Awaits. The fleet's journey will continue in Legacy Code Book Three, coming out in 2015.

  And don’t miss DEFECT, the Legacy Code prequel series. Find out what really happened back on Earth. (Read on for an excerpt.)

  Selene gazed through the canopy of green leaves and Spanish moss to the perfect, cloudless sky beyond. She took a deep breath and closed her ey
es, relishing the feel of the warmth on her face and the cool soil against her back.

  Maybe today.

  Maybe today she’d take her things, cram them into her old, torn duffel bag, and walk down the dirt drive, leaving their homestead forever. Turn left at the highway, head toward town, and never once look back. Escape.

  She opened her eyes and frowned. A sparrow flew past with a chirp and landed on a branch.

  And then what? That’s where the fantasy always ended, because she had no plan. She pressed her thumb to her wrist and slid it across the slim silicone bump beneath her light brown skin. The disc jiggled back and forth, a constant reminder of what she was.

  Her stomach clenched. She could leave here, but if someone saw her and figured it out, those Corporate Coalition thugs might take her away. They’d do to her whatever it was they’d done to the rest of the Protecteds.

  Hah. Protected. More like Defective.

  Hot pain slashed through her ankle, and she jumped up, slapping at her bare feet. Damn fire ants. The devils of Georgia. Had they had them in the Northwest? She couldn’t remember being plagued by them there. Then again, she couldn’t remember much of anything about her old life.

  She limped toward the house, giving a wide berth to the chickens pecking in the dirt. Squished chicken shit between her toes was the last thing she needed today.

  Sunlight glinted off the solar panel array, which looked as incongruous as ever next to their little clapboard home. The small building’s walls seemed to sag toward its center, and most of its green paint had peeled off ages ago. Selene glanced at the horizon. At least the skies were clear today. They were running out of buckets to catch the water that came through the roof every time it rained.

  The screen door creaked open, and Nan walked out with a laundry basket. She squinted against the sunlight, adding more wrinkles to her pale skin. A breeze lifted her kerchief, and a poof of short, white hair broke free.

  “Did you put the gun back in the case and lock it up?” Nan asked. “I don’t want your brother getting into it.”

  Selene kicked at the dirt. “I didn’t go shooting.”

  “Why? You need to be able to defend yourself—”

  “From what?” Selene rolled her eyes and let out a laugh, a little bit of the crazy she’d been feeling escaping with it. She gestured toward the forest on the other side of their sagging fence. “Fire ants? Snakes?”

  Nan pursed her lips and shoved the laundry basket into Selene’s arms. “Don’t give me sass.” She rubbed her clean hands down her apron as if Selene’s attitude had somehow soiled them. “Something’s happening out there. Something they’re not reporting on the public cast. One of the off-gridders broke the news last night, and I recorded it. You can come watch it when you’re done.”

  “Who was it? Scraggle?” Of all the local crackpot casts, Nan watched Scraggle’s the most. “Did he see another UFO?”

  Nan narrowed her eyes and pointed at the clothesline. “That’s enough from you. I need you to hang those clothes. And when you’re done, grab the jam from the porch and bring it to the cellar.”

  Selene sighed and turned to the clothesline before she could say something she’d regret. Another cast. More rants from Scraggle and company. They’d taken over the old TV white space with their conspiracy theories. It was illegal to do what they did and illegal for citizens to stream it. But Nan listened to all of them.

  Selene assessed the clothing as she hung it up. Tattered jeans, Nan’s stained skirts, and Elias’s too small t-shirts. They’d have to take a trip into town to get him bigger clothes. Eight years old. They’d been here for eight years. Poor kid didn’t even know what the hell normal was.

  Did she?

  She’d just finished hanging the laundry when she saw the dark clouds rolling in and inhaled the heady ozone scent of a storm approaching. She cursed and hurried to take everything back down. Wind whipped her black curls from her headband as she piled the wet clothes back into the basket. Thunder boomed in the distance, and the wind whistled through the trees and slammed against the screen door.

  She dropped the basket on the porch, hefted the crate of jam into her aching arms, and headed to the root cellar beside the house. These chores were never-ending.

  The cellar’s dank air wafted over her as she descended the stairs. When she reached the bottom, she fumbled for the light chain; a single yellow bulb lit up the space. Wooden shelves lined the walls, packed tight with jars of preserved fruit and vegetables. They had more food than they’d ever need to sell, more than they could eat in a month. She resented the hours of work and sore muscles these jars represented, but Nan always said that no matter what happened in the outside world, at least they’d never go hungry.

  Selene hauled the laundry basket into the kitchen and pulled in some buckets from the porch just as the first drops began to fall. “Storm’s coming. We’ll need all the buckets. Do we have enough solar for hot showers tonight?”

  Nan looked up from where she’d been chopping some of the last collards of the season. “Maybe. Your brother needs help with his math first.”

  Selene glanced over at Eli, who sat at their battered wooden trestle table with his tattered math workbook. But he was focused on another book, one he held in his lap: the Norse mythology stories he’d read a million times.

  He looked so big. And so much like their mother with his dark skin, high cheekbones, and blue eyes. It seemed like she’d been helping Nan hang cloth diapers not long ago. How was he already the age she’d been when their parents died?

  “What does it matter if he does his math right now?” she mumbled, rolling her eyes.

  Nan set down her knife. “Why you so ornery today?”

  Selene met Nan’s gaze, and every sensation intensified. The musty scent of their house, the stinging in her foot, her damp t-shirt sticking to her skin. The lid on the words she’d kept bottled up came unscrewed. “Does it really matter if he learns it now, or tomorrow, or ever? Is he really ever gonna use it? I mean, it’s not like we’re ever leaving here any time soon. I’ve been working since dawn. I want a shower.”

  Nan’s face hardened. “Is that all? Anything else you want to say?”

  Selene dropped her gaze to the flaking linoleum floor and bit her lip. It had been months since she’d lost her temper. It never did any good, anyway—just made Nan silent for a few days. Oh well. The damage was already done, wasn’t it?

  She set her jaw and pointed at the front door. “No one’s coming for us. No one from Infinitek seems to know or care that we’re here. I just feel—”

  A crack sounded directly over the house, followed by a flash of bright light, and they both jumped. The kitchen light flickered and winked out, plunging them into near-darkness. Selene let her hand fall, and the light turned back on.

  Nan’s eyes darted toward Eli, and she pressed her lips together, gripping the edge of the counter. Her hands were shaking. “Go on, say what you have to say. I’m tired of this.”

  Selene’s chest tightened. “Nothing. Forget it. I don’t want to say anything.”

  “You two are safe here. Things are going to keep getting worse out there. But here? You’re safe.” Nan released her hold on the counter and marched past Selene. “Come with me. You need to see this.”

  Eli crossed his arms over his thin chest and gave Selene a dark look. Selene’s throat constricted. She knew he hated it when they fought, but what did he know? He’d lived like this his whole life.

  She followed Nan down the narrow hallway to her bedroom, the old floorboards creaking beneath their feet, and sat on Nan’s lumpy mattress. Eli peeked into the room.

  “Get back to your math.” Nan wagged a finger at him. “I better see some equations on that whiteboard before dinner.”

  Eli made a face but shut the door. He was probably listening on the other side. That’s what Selene would do. They wouldn’t be able to keep the truth from him forever.

  Nan pushed open her closet and wheeled out a me
tal stand with a television as old as her on it. She plugged it into the wall and pressed a button, turning on the blue, two-dimensional screen.

  So archaic. Selene’s parents used to watch the public casts each night on their holo gear, but she could barely remember what that was like, interacting with a 3D screen, watching real casts.

  On these white-space transmissions, disguised people relayed their thoughts on corporate oversight, on the world ending, and, occasionally, on the latest supposed UFO sighting.

  Selene’s stomach churned, and she made to stand. “I don’t want to watch this tonight.”

  “I want you to see this one. I won’t have you thinking about running off again.”

  Last time, she hadn’t even gotten to town before Nan picked her up. She shifted on the bed. “I’m not thinking of running anywhere.”

  “Well, you sound like you’ve forgotten how dangerous it is out there.”

  “I never forget.”

  Nan swallowed visibly and grabbed Selene’s wrist, turning it over to reveal her Protected implant. “You say no one’s coming for you? That’s because I made sure they couldn’t find you here.”

  “Maybe… maybe they aren’t looking anymore.”

  Nan tightened her grip on Selene’s wrist and stared into her eyes. “They will never give up looking.”

  “You always say that, but—”

  “You have to trust me. Do you want to live your life attached to a corporation, treated like a lab rat?”

  Selene swallowed back the lump in her throat and pulled her hand away. “I get it. I do. Let me go help Eli. I’m sorry I got upset. I’m just tired.”

  “No. There’s something else going on, and I think you should know about it. There are more dangers out there than you seem to realize. Something’s going on with that awful quin grain. With Thrive.”

  Infinitek had released a genetically modified grain—quin—years ago. Their modified Thrive bacterium worked symbiotically with the grain to increase yield. It was nutritionally perfect and had ended hunger all over the world. Selene had wished, more than once, that Nan would plant it. Fat chance of that happening.