The Other Side Of Gravity (Oxygen, #1)

by Shelly Crane

  “To find out what you really want.” She scoffed. “You didn’t know what to do. So I made out like I was taking the choice away. Then when the choice was made, you’d know which one you were disappointed about.”

  “That’s…” her nose scrunched, “kind of clever. Listen, buddy, don’t be pulling this reverse psychology bull on me all the time. I’ll hurt you.”

  I snorted and tried to cover it when the look of death surfaced. “I have no doubt that you could maim and murder me in the streets before anyone came to rescue me.”

  “Dude,” Dee said slowly, “that just went to a dark place.”

  I stared at him. “It’s called sarcasm.”

  “Well let’s steer clear of there and drive back to happy town. Put away the knife, man. Put away the knife,” he said dramatically.

  I just looked to his brother for answers. He shrugged. “He was dropped as a baby.”

  Sophelia crooned, “Aww. Like…on his head? Is that what you mean?”

  He scoffed. “No, at childcare. He was too young! He has abandonment issues.” He shook his head. “Don’t we all?”

  Soph and I looked at each other and I wanted to run with her in that moment. I didn’t know if I could take much more of Tweedle Dee and Dum, but for her I would take any amount of torture…apparently.

  She came to me and took my hand, forgetting the twins.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “You were right. I didn’t know what I wanted because I hadn’t had the option of having or losing either of those things yet. Thank you for helping me see.”

  I shook my head. “My dad was so good about things like that. He could make you see things in ways that you just…”

  She nodded. “I’m sorry you lost him. I’m sorry I’ll never get to meet him.”

  Did she really just say that?

  All I could do was nod.

  She looked down for a moment before bringing her bag around to the front and opening it. Between us there wasn’t much space, but I could see in the small opening she was trying to show me in what was in her bag. It was the Around Landu doll. She’d had it all this time.

  “Holy waffle on a stick, Roddy. She’s got the doll!” he stage-whispered.

  Not even looking his way, she said to me, “It was what I went back to my pod in the stacks for that night. That and this.”

  The next thing she pulled out blew my mind. Even my dad didn’t have a novel in his collection, only war and history books. He had always told us stories from memory, like Alice and Wonderland.

  This was a book called Peter Pan and Wendy.

  “But how did you get—why did you—how did you—”

  She laughed, putting the items away, and took my hand again. Fierce Sophelia was back. “Let me tell you a story.”

  **

  We slept on the roof of one of the taller buildings in the outskirts of the city. Dee and Dum slept while Soph and I looked up at the sky, both of us seeming to have a hard time getting there.

  I guess I should stop calling them Dee and Dum. Roddy said he parted his hair on the right and Fletch’s parted on the left. Also, Fletch’s nose was slightly crooked if you looked close, from being broken. Now that he mentioned it, it was pretty obvious.

  We’d spent three days with them so far and it was anything but boring. Apparently, there has always been this big underground revolt just simmering under our feet, literally, in the mines, and no one was the wiser. When Sophelia’s mom was taken ten years ago was when everything came to a head, when the higher-ups got wind that the underlings were planning something, for the first time in the New World history. On this planet, in this new world, we’ve never had a war, never had a revolution, never had a terrorist attack, never had any of those things that plagued the Old World. And Congress looked at this as a good thing, that under their leadership and because they controlled things—controlled us—they’ve kept us safe and from harm all these years in the new world.

  They’ve also kept us on the brink of death the entire time, they choose who is worthy of living and dying, they choose who can breathe and eat and how much, and they choose who will be wealthy and who will be a slave.

  That’s not living. That’s misery. That’s snuffing out the light.

  So, as Roddy and Fletch tell us, those left of the original revolt, those who were with Sophelia’s mom, including their mother, all fled before being captured and now live underground on the very edge of the city, almost in the Providence.

  They live a life very much like my family, underground, away from techs and sensors, and away from detection. But since it was such a long trek away, and we couldn’t take any of the transportation to get there, we just had to travel through the tight-knit streets, around the backs of the shops, hoping not to be spotted by the sensors and cameras, keeping our face scramblers on during the day, and being so completely boring and normal that no one would notice us or care.

  So we’d be invisible.

  Sophelia was lying opposite me, her feet at my shoulder and my feet near hers. Her head was on my bag since mine wasn’t full of books and dolls. I had my arms behind my head for a pillow. I’d spent many a night just like this. I was used to it. I realized that Sophelia probably had, too. I hated that for her.

  “Why can’t you sleep?” she asked softly.

  I leaned up and bent my knee, putting my arm along the top, scratching my head. “How did you know I was awake?”

  She opened her mouth to say something, but stopped. Then she said, “I could hear you thinking.”

  I grinned to myself. So she’d been watching me, huh? “Are you cold?” She shook her head. “Why can’t you sleep?”

  She didn’t say anything for a few seconds and then, “My mom and I used to go to the roof of our building sometimes. She’d take me out there and we’d look at the stars, imagine what life was like back on Earth, what life is like on other planets, what life must’ve been like with movie stars, football games, and book signings. We’d imagine what it must have been like to be the Backstreet Boys.”

  I snickered. “That sounds awesome. Except for the Backstreet Boys part.”

  She smiled. “It was. Sometimes she’d bring the book up with her and read to me. She was always so tired.” Her voice caught a little and I almost told her to stop, but maybe she needed to talk about her. Sometimes I just needed to talk about my father, even though it singed like touching the end of a match. I just needed to feel that pain for a moment, to know that it was real. It was my pain. I had earned it by living through it.

  “But then,” she leaned up, too, putting her knees to her chest, “there were times that, even though she was tired, she knew that I needed her more than she needed sleep.” Another small sob came loose, but she fought to suck it back in. “I was just a little girl and I didn’t know how selfish I was being by needing her.”

  I scooted over and tugged her to me. She was facing me, her knees still in front of her for a minute or so before she moved and wrapped her hand around my neck. “I promise you that those times she spent with you were the best days of her life.”

  She sniffed and scratched her nails along the back of my neck. Focus, Max. Comfort Sophelia, don’t ravish Sophelia.

  “How can you know that?”

  “Because they’ve been some of the best of mine,” I told her. “And we haven’t even scratched the surface yet. And come on, look.” I pointed all around us and up. “Look at those stars. Spending time under this is a good time all in itself.”

  “Speaking of stars, let me read you my mom’s favorite quote from the book.” She sat up and leaned over me to reach her bag on my belt loop at my back where it was hanging on as it floated in the air, pressing her chest into mine. Her eyes connected with mine when our faces were so close and I steadied her with my hands on her sides.

  God in heaven, this was the most beautiful, alluring woman on the planet.

  She went to sit back in her original position, but I turned her, opening my knees and placin
g her in between them, her back against my chest. She sighed and leaned her head to the side so I had plenty of room to nuzzle my head in next to hers.

  Without any preamble, she began to read. “Stars are beautiful, but they may not take an active part in anything, they must just look on forever. It is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no star now knows what it was. So the older ones have become glassy-eyed and seldom speak, winking is the star language, but the little ones still wonder.”

  We heard to our right. “If there was any more confirmation needed that you’re the one we were looking for, we just got it.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked Roddy strongly, even a little snippily, because they were now infringing on her mom’s territory, but under my hands, she shook.

  He got up and walked over, his brother right behind him, and they both showed their forearms, each one the opposite, each one a different script, a different size, a different way, but the same words were written there.

  The script waved back and forth, up and down, like a flag waving in the breeze.

  “It means that though I am young, I’m not going to sit back and let history repeat itself, I’m not going to keep letting the same things happen over and over again just because it’s what’s always been done. Or vice versa. If something is happening that shouldn’t be happening, then the people need to stand up and say ‘No! This won’t fly.’ Or if something needs to change, then stand together as a people and change it. The government only has the control over us like this because we’ve let them have it. No one controls you unless you give them permission,” Fletch said, and it was the first time I’d ever seen him fierce, it was the first time I’d seen him so serious. “One person has to start the changes, one domino has to fall or the rest of them never have the ability to fall with it. Well, that domino has fallen. The rest of the dominoes just need to get up to speed and stop being a bunch of p—” Roddy slapped his hand over Fletch’s mouth.

  And…he’s back.

  “What my eloquent brother is trying to say is just like we told you before, the bad news was that we had a long trip ahead of us. They were a long way away and the only way to get there was to walk. But the good news? You’ve got a small army waiting for you when we get there. There’re a lot of people who don’t just talk about wanting to change things, but they’re putting their mouths where their money is.”

  “You mean, put their money where their mouth is,” I corrected.

  He grimaced. “Dude, don’t take this the wrong way, but you say the weirdest things.”

  I laughed and felt Sophelia’s silent chuckle as she relaxed into me. “Oh, boys,” she sighed her words. “Thank you. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t found you. All of you,” she said and gave the twins a look that made them beam rainbows out their butts.

  She rubbed the cover of the book lovingly. Fletch tipped his chin towards it as he leaned his back against his brother’s. “Will you read it to us?”

  They watched her, ready to listen to this story that had been their motto. And hers, for different reasons. “Okay,” she said, “I’ll read.”

  She opened the book slowly, turning the pages with care. I pulled her into the warmth of my chest, letting her bury in and lay her head on my shoulder. She pressed her ear to my chest for a few seconds, as if she were listening to my heartbeat. Then she began to read, her voice carrying over the roof gently but with so much life.

  Hook tried a more ingratiating manner. "If you are Hook," he said almost humbly, "come tell me, who am I?"

  "A codfish," replied the voice, "only a codfish."

  "A codfish!" Hook echoed blankly, and it was then, but not till then, that his proud spirit broke. He saw his men draw back from him.

  "Have we been captained all this time by a codfish!" they muttered. "It is lowering to our pride."

  They were his dogs snapping at him, but, tragic figure though he had become, he scarcely heeded them. Against such fearful evidence it was not their belief in him that he needed, it was his own. He felt his ego slipping from him. "Don't desert me, bully," he whispered hoarsely to it.

  In his dark nature there was a touch of the feminine, as in all the great pirates, and it sometimes gave him intuitions. Suddenly he tried the guessing game.

  "Hook," he called, "have you another voice?"

  Now Peter could never resist a game, and he answered blithely in his own voice, "I have."

  "And another name?"

  "Ay, ay."

  "Vegetable?" asked Hook.

  "No."

  "Mineral?"

  "No."

  "Animal?"

  "Yes."

  "Man?"

  "No!" This answer rang out scornfully.

  "Boy?"

  "Yes."

  "Ordinary boy?"

  "No!"

  "Wonderful boy?"

  To Wendy's pain the answer that rang out this time was "Yes."

  "Are you in England?"

  "No."

  "Are you here?"

  "Yes."

  Hook was completely puzzled. "You ask him some questions," he said to the others, wiping his damp brow.

  Smee reflected. "I can't think of a thing," he said regretfully.

  "Can't guess, can't guess!" crowed Peter. "Do you give it up?"

  Of course in his pride he was carrying the game too far, and the miscreants saw their chance.

  "Yes, yes," they answered eagerly.

  "Well, then," he cried, "I am Peter Pan."

  She read for over an hour out loud to us before I heard the twins snoring again. She tucked the book safely into the bag with the doll, tying it tightly. I kept my mouth shut when she resumed her spot on her side with her head at my feet, knowing she’d sleep much more comfortably with me as a pillow, but said nothing. You can’t win them all and I was batting a pretty good average today. I didn’t want to press my luck.

  So I squeezed my eyelids tightly, knowing I’d need the sleep tomorrow, and tried to block out the lights of the city and what her lips felt like every time I closed my eyes.

  **

  Breakfast didn’t come easy, as the next morning, they were blasting Sophelia’s face all over the monitors once more and this time with a fabricated news story about how she’d robbed a ship owner and killed two of his men before she left with all of the money in the safe, all the silver, a metal detector, five bags of oxygen and gravity pills, all before managing to somehow knock out the owner, and then killed two guards on the way out, with her hundred-and-three-pound frame.

  And people actually believed that hot mess of a news story, even with her picture right there next to it showing how small she was. Sometimes I worried about my race as an intelligent, sentient people. I really did.

  But before we could move on, Havard’s face came on screen and he was there, being interviewed. Soph gasped and covered her mouth as I watched, unable to look away. I watched as he said that Sophelia had just been part of it, but I was the real parlor trick, because I had been the inside man. He had caught me sneaking out at night to meet her several times, which the reporter confirmed the other slaves under Rivers care said the same of Sophelia. Everyone knows if a slave can escape, they don’t come back. Case in point. If they made it so easy for slaves to run, no one would have them because no one treats them well.

  I waited for Sophelia, he said, and when she boarded the ship, we played our parts, acting it all out nicely, and then when the time was right, we robbed him blind and left without a trace.

  “I see you’ve got some nasty cuts and bruises there?” the reporter observed, her white hair curled under at the ear, the curled again back toward her shoulders for an overdramatic look. “Did you have a run-in with the convicts?”

  They called us convicts.

  “Nah,” he brushed off, “I had an auto-door on the ship malfunction on me, that’s all.” Which was a lie. I had hit him with the metal detector.

  But the worst part? I watched the
man who once told me he’d do anything for me condemn me to an eternity in confinement.

  Chapter Thirteen

  co·i·tus - sexual intercourse.

  Sophelia

  It was a live interview, and it was still going. Havard going on and on when I finally dragged Maxton away from the screen. So the fact that when we climbed down from the roof to the ground and started our journey west once more, only to the round the corner and run smack into the reporter who was doing the interview?

  Kismet?

  Fate?

  Justice?

  Maxton must have thought so, too. We saw them wrapping up, Havard smiling big and proud before he turned and let his hurdle boots take him in the other direction, fast. Before I could stop Maxton he was taking my hand and charging over to the reporter. Roddy and Fletch grabbed my arm to stop him, but he looked back at them.

  “Let her go,” he said low and dangerously. “She needs this.” His eyes met mine. “And she’s not afraid.”

  God… I actually found myself praying. I was being one of those people who had no use for God unless I needed something. I squeezed my eyes shut for two seconds.

  “No, I’m not.”

  Roddy was first to let go. “We’re coming, too. Truth be told, I’ve always wanted to be on television.”

  “Being on the news as a criminal isn’t the same thing, Rodster,” his brother hissed behind us.

  “I’m not a criminal!” he hissed back. “Oh, you mean these two. Yeah.” He clucked his tongue. “I have a feeling things are about to get awk-ward,” he sang.

  I tried not to listen to them and really, it was pretty easy with Maxton’s hand in mine. Every couple steps he would squeeze it and then rub his middle finger up and down the back of my hand.

  When she saw us coming, she packed up the rest of her gear, which wasn’t much. Her camera was on her glasses and she had a handheld in the crook of her arm, pressed to her chest. She was wearing all white, which I thought was also ridiculous on this dirty, red and gray planet.