by Kate Moretti
The blade burns as he pushes it into my flesh. I’m thrashing around, preventing him from getting a good cut. If I’m going down, I’m going down fighting.
There is a whooshing from the front door. “Get off her!”
Mr. M. scoffs and presses the blade deeper. “I’m going to have to take care of you, too. You should’ve just stayed home, Gauge. I guess we’re going to have a Romeo and Juliet on our hands here.”
Gauge screams, “No!”
Suddenly, the blade lets up from my flesh, and I hold my breath and stare in amazement as the knife floats out of Mendes’s hand and into the air. Both Mendes and I are fixed in place as Gauge waves his hand; the knife floats up to Mendes’s face. His breath quickens as he stares at the knife. Gauge says slowly, as if he has to focus on each word, “Get off of her and move away.”
Mendes eases up and shakes his head. “Well, I’ll be damned. You’re a Blessed One.”
Beads of sweat form on Gauge’s head. “Lyvia, call… someone… I don’t know how much longer I can…”
I get up from the floor and look over at the counter, where a dirty pan is lying. I grab the pan and slam it into Mendes’s head, and he falls to the floor. “I got you covered.”
“I can’t believe Mr. Mendes was aligned with Keeper Separatists,” Mrs. Jones says. “We did an extensive background check on him before we hired him.”
Mr. Jones sits across from Gauge and me. “It’s clear we’re going to have to employ extra security measures.” He reaches over and puts his hand on mine. “How are you two?”
Gauge is sweating profusely and wringing his hands. I smile weakly and say, “Fine, sir. He just nicked me a little,” I answer for the both of us. “If it wasn’t for Gauge coming in when he did, I don’t think I’d be sitting here right now.”
Mr. Jones looks over at Gauge, who is staring into space. “Son, are you okay?”
Gauge snaps out of his trance and slowly nods. “Um, yeah, just a really bad headache.”
Mr. Jones gets up and gives Gauge a slap on the shoulder. “Well, son, I still don’t understand what all happened, but—”
His office door opens, and a man bellows, “Where’s my son?!” A large unkempt man staggers toward Gauge and takes him up in his arms. “Son, are you okay? When they told me, I tried to get here as fast as possible.”
Gauge wrestles free of his dad’s grasp and looks down at the floor. “It’s okay, Dad. I’m fine.”
Mr. Jones extends his hand to Gauge’s dad, who thinks for a few seconds before he grasps Mr. Jones’s hand and shakes it.
“Your son and Ms. Bax-Dupree exposed quite the plot. We owe them quite the debt.” He looks at me. “Lyvia, I think it would be best if you stayed in our quarters tonight. We’ll have the security on extra-tight lockdown. Tomorrow, your escorts will be here to take you to the academy.”
Gauge and I exchange nervous glances. “Uh, you know, that’s okay, Mr. Jones. I should be fine in my own quarters.”
Mr. Jones shakes his head and starts to respond, but he’s interrupted yet again by the opening of his office door. Jones gives an exasperated sigh and looks at the hulking man. “Yes, Jace. Have you learned anything from questioning Mendes?”
He looks at Gauge with a big smile. “It’s a miracle, sir. Gauge, he’s a Blessed One. That’s how he saved Lyvia.”
I say, “That’s not true! Mendes is lying!”
Gauge’s dad puts his hand on Gauge’s shoulder and narrows his eyes. “Son? Is this true?”
Gauge is still sweating profusely as he looks all around the room. “I-I don’t know.”
Mrs. Jones makes her way over to Gauge and pats him on the back. “Son, I know it’s scary and a tremendous burden, but the Keepers can help you deal with your power, teach you to expand it.”
I shout, “No! Gauge helped me by creating a distraction, then I knocked Mendes out. That’s what happened.”
Gauge’s dad gives him a sad look. “This could help our family quite a bit, son.”
Mr. Jones says, “Luckily, we can run initial testing on-site. It should only take a few minutes.” He turns to the security lead and says, “Please take Gauge to the med-bay for testing and apprise me of the results.” He turns to me. “Lyvia, you’ve had a long night. Mrs. Jones will escort you to our quarters.”
“No! I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go to your stupid academy, and Gauge doesn’t want to be a Blessed One. Just leave us alone.”
Mrs. Jones gives me a sad smile and gently pushes me to the door. “It’ll be okay. You’ll see.”
I look around the room. There’s nothing I can do or say to change their minds. There’s nowhere to run or hide; they have us surrounded. I’m tired and can’t think. One by one, we file out of the office. When we get to the main corridor, we stop briefly. I look at the Gauge being held by the security guard. He’s sweating and wincing in pain. I force down a lump in my throat, wrestle free of Mrs. Jones, and lunge for Gauge. I throw my arms around him, and he smiles and kisses my forehead. Mrs. Jones pulls me back, and I look to her and all of the other adults, saying through the tears, “Take care of him.”
Heidi floats before me, carrying two large metallic suitcases. “I think I have all your essentials in here.”
I stare past her, trying to find ways around my situation, but I’ve run out of options. I breathe a heavy sigh. “Thanks, Heidi. Have you heard anything about Gauge?”
Her eyes turn blue. “I guess his brain activity was consistent with a Blessed One. No surprise there, but they did say they haven’t seen activity levels that high for decades.” She puts her cold metallic hand on mine. “Negotiations with the various Keeper factions start the day after tomorrow.”
“So, I’m not going to be able to see him before I go?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“What about my Star Sprinter? What’s going to happen to my ship?”
“Mrs. Jones said they’d store it until you found a spot for it.”
That does little to brighten my spirits. I don’t care about being a pilot anymore, not without Gauge. None of this worked out as it should; there’s nothing I can do now. Our fates have been decided. Gauge will end up a shell of a human in less than ten years, living in an asylum. I’ll probably be middle management for some company like LPL.
A knock at the door jars me from my thoughts.
“Lyvia! Your escorts are here.”
I shove down the emotions and say, “Yes, Mrs. Jones. I’m almost ready.” I look to Heidi. “You ready to go?”
Her eyes turn green. “I got your back, kiddo.”
As we walk down the corridor, Mrs. Jones is blabbing on about the great opportunities on a proper planet. But all I can think of is how much I miss my dads and Gauge. Before I know it, we’re at the shuttle bay. It’s buzzing with the activity of dozens of inspectors offloading equipment from an old Star Lifter. Seeing the old cargo ship makes my heart sink; it’s a reminder of the dream that’s now out of reach.
Mrs. Jones points to the large ship. “That’ll be your ride.”
I look at the ship off in the distance, and a small blond woman in a flight suit swaggers down the ramp of the ship. She yells over at us, “You there, ready to go?”
I nod, and she says, “Good, I have a schedule to keep. As soon as we get the last box off here and we’re fueled up, we’re shoving off.”
I look at Mrs. Jones. “I guess I should go. Can you tell everyone I said goodbye? I wish they were here.”
She pats my back. “Yes, but testing is coming up soon, and they really can’t get any further behind than they already are. I’m sure you understand.”
I nod. I don’t really understand what difference fifteen minutes could make. I shuffle toward the ship but then stop in my tracks and turn to Mrs. Jones. �
��So, do you guys know if what my dads found is an alien life-form?”
She smiles. “We won’t know definitively until the inspectors are finished, but unofficially, it looks rather promising. Their discovery will be known for centuries. They’ll never be forgotten.”
I say under my breath, “No, they won’t.”
Heidi and I go up the ramp to the old cargo ship. Inside, it’s dark and musty. I look all around and see a few boxes secured against the wall. Footsteps from above grab my attention; the same woman from the ramp is making her way toward Heidi and me.
“Ready to go?” she asks.
“I guess as ready as I’ll ever be.”
As she gets closer, I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve seen her before.
“Well, we have a few cabins for you and your bot to choose from. I have a couple of stops to make before I drop you off.” She stops at the cargo and checks it over, tightening the straps securing it to the floor. “You must be excited.”
“Not really.”
She turns to me and smiles, then she goes to the panel by the ramp and punches in a few numbers. The ramp creaks and moans as it closes. She turns back to me. I know her from somewhere. “Well, kid, I can’t say I blame ya.” She puts her hand on my shoulder. “Your dads would be real proud of you.”
The air feels as though it’s been sucked out of my lungs. “Wha—how do you know?”
She walks away from me, checks on another stack of cargo, turns her head, and gives me a smile. “Your dads and I were friends. I promised them if anything were to happen to them, I’d look after you.”
“And you are…?”
She thrusts out her hand. “Kira Dresden. We have a lot to talk about, and you have some decisions to make.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Paige Daniels is the pen name of Tina Closser. She is the author of Non-Compliance, a dystopian cyberpunk trilogy. By day, she works as an electrical engineer and a mom. After the kids go to bed, she rocks out with her headphones turned to eleven and cranks out books. She is an uber science geek who can be found tooling around in her makerspace or coaching robot teams when she’s not writing books. If she weren’t married to the most terrific guy in the world, she would be a groupie for Adam Baldwin.
THOUGHTS ON BRAVE NEW GIRLS
“The true key to innovation in our society is diversity. Without that, you have the same ideas from the same people. We need new people in these STEM fields to spark innovation and creativity.”
Illustration for “The Outpost” by Kayla Keeton
BLINK
by Kate Moretti
It all started with one of Mrs. Shotwell’s journal assignments. I love her journals—really, I do—but when she said, “Tell me something that no one knows about you. Tell me your biggest secret,” my heart lodged itself right into my throat. I knew then that I would write about Mr. Fitzgerald, because no one knew about Mr. Fitzgerald.
I mean, they knew he was a science teacher two years ago, when I was in eighth grade, had long hair he kept in a ponytail (sometimes he used a scrunchie, which was both adorable and terrible), and spent hours in his basement and for a while, everyone thought he did drugs. Everyone knew he was my neighbor, and they knew I hung out with him, but they never knew why I liked him. They didn’t know he treated me like a person, not a weirdo and that he listened when I talked, even when we conducted experiments. I sometimes could figure out what the problem was, even when he couldn’t, and he would call me a genius. He taught me about eighties movies, and I told him whose parents were getting divorced or who was dating who.
Everyone knew that when we were in ninth grade, he got lung cancer and died six months later.
Some people even knew that when he died, he gave me all his weird scientific equipment and I kept it in my basement. People have asked what it is, but I just usually shrugged and rolled my eyes like I also thought Mr. Fitzgerald was a weirdo.
For the record—I did not.
A few people knew what he meant to me, and I didn’t go to his funeral because I wouldn’t leave my basement. Maybe they think I carried around his handwritten notebooks, his thick black-and-whites, for months out of nostalgia or grief. That was partly true.
But absolutely no one—not my mom, Rebekah, or Simon—knew that he’d given me a time machine, because that would sound crazy. According to Mr. Fitz, I would be more ostracized than I already am, the feds would swoop down on me like they did to that kid in E.T., and my whole life would be ruined. That’s enough to scare a girl into keeping her mouth shut.
The thing was, it was totally true. It was a real-deal time machine. His life’s work, he said. Except it didn’t exactly… work. Or at least, not all the time. So thanks for that, Fitz. It was like the Bad News Bears of time machines.
The fact that no one knows about Fitz has been killing me. Have I mentioned that? I called the big metal box Fitz. It started as a private joke between me and myself. I just walked down there one day, and as I was removing the giant white sheet that covers the box, I said, “Hey, Fitz,” with a single-gun salute, just like Mr. Fitz used to do to me. Hey, Meg. I laughed to myself, and it stuck. Now, every time I go downstairs, which is practically every day, I say, “Hey, Fitz.” And sometimes, I could swear he says hey back. Which, again, sounds crazy, I know. But not a single person in my life thinks I’m normal, so I’ve given up trying.
Fitz was just a gray metal box. He was so boring, really. Doc had a DeLorean; Mr. Peabody had a cool spaceship. Fitz was just a square steel box, barely big enough for me.
“Okay, class!” Mrs. Shotwell clapped her hands and adjusted her sleeves. She was always fidgeting, nervous, and clucking.
“Just one full page, about three hundred words on something that no one else knows about you, due at the end of class today. It can be a band you like that is maybe uncool.”
A bunch of kids snickered, and I rolled my eyes.
She shushed them with a smile because she was way too nice. “Or maybe you stole your sister’s shoes and lied about it. Or maybe you don’t really go to the library two days a week like you tell your parents. I don’t care what it is. I’d like you to write about a secret. I’m not even going to read it, okay? Of course, I’ll never share it. It doesn’t have to be a big secret. It just has to be your biggest secret. Got it?”
“What’s the point, Mrs. Shotwell? If you’re not even going to read it?” William Rex shouted from the back of the class. William Rex shouted everything, all the time.
“It’s a writing exercise, William. It’s a way to free your mind.” Mrs. Shotwell smiled mischievously, her fat apple cheeks pushing up her glasses. Next to me, Trina and Rowen giggled. What could their secrets possibly be? I once saw Rowen stare into the locker room mirror for a full five minutes. Let me tell you, five minutes is a long time to look at yourself. I timed her with my watch while I pretended to tie my shoes, because I honestly couldn’t believe it. She turned one way, then the other. Then she turned full around, trying to see her own butt. Go on, time it, and tell me that five minutes isn’t way too long to spend, half-bent over, trying to look at your own butt. This is not a person with deep, dark secrets.
Trina leaned over Rowen and stage-whispered to me, “What’s your secret, weirdo? Gonna tell us what’s in your basement? Did Fitzy leave ya his dirty mags?”
“Don’t you have a car to steal or something, Trina?”
That shut her up. Last year, Trina got arrested for auto theft after she took her dad’s 1987 Mustang on a joyride. He called the cops on his own daughter. Who does that? Then again, my dad is MIA, so who am I to judge? I heard she got fingerprinted and everything.
I opened my laptop, and my heart pounded against my ribcage. I mean truthfully, it’s been killing me that no one knows about Fitz. I don’t know why, but lately, it hovers just inside my mouth. Sometimes, Mom wi
ll ask me if I’m okay, if I want to turn left here (we’ve been practicing driving), or even if I just want meatloaf for dinner—and I almost blurt it all out. Yes, meatloaf sounds awesome. With mashed potatoes? Oh, P.S. I have a time machine in the basement.
So the idea of being able to let it out, all on paper, and no one would read it or come after me, or do any of the things that Mr. Fitzgerald had warned me would happen if I told someone? That sounded amazing. Maybe I would sleep again.
So I began to write.
My biggest secret is that Mr. Fitzgerald was my science teacher in eighth grade and was an incredible physicist. Everyone knows he died last year. But no one knows that he left me a time machine…
I filled two and a half pages, more than double the requirement, and saved it to the desktop as Journal assignment 04.02.14. I logged on to the virtual classroom and clicked the button to complete the assignment. Assignments were only accessible by the student and the teacher, password protected. As the doc uploaded and that little blue bar inched to the right, I felt my shoulders relax.
I felt better already.
The basement had to be kept very dry, so I constantly ran two dehumidifiers. The problem was, they always burned themselves out. Some kids needed gas money; not me. Nope, I constantly asked for dehumidifier money. Even my mom thought I was odd.
I knew Mom wondered what I was doing down there. She even inspected everything to make sure I wasn’t building a bomb. Like she would know! She asked me, and I told her it’s an environmental chamber. She wanted to know for what, and I told her the rats at school. She just looked skeptical. Mom tried, but all she had was a high school degree and a waitressing job. She talked about going back to school for nursing or at least something in the medical field, but she never did. But she was super smart—I’d never been able to get away with anything in my life. She had beady eyes that homed in on lies. She knew something was up with Fitz. Whenever I heard her footsteps on the stairs, I’d rush to cover everything up and smile brightly. Just finishing up!
