This Shattered World

by Amie Kaufman

  With a jerk, the engines slow. It’s only once the thrusters aren’t slamming me back against the seat that I realize gravity’s fading out, and the nervous tapping of my foot takes no effort at all. My weight falls away just as my connection to my home did—in a long, drawn-out silence, my mind spinning, my chest hurting. I have no direction now. I’m not even sure which way to point to find home.

  If I crane my neck I can see Merendsen’s profile up ahead of me, and once he turns his head to meet my eyes, but neither of us can unclip without setting off alarms. I haven’t known him long, but I can tell it’s killing him to walk away.

  The view shields all stay in place, giving us no warning we’re about to dock, no view of the spaceport as we ease in. Every person who comes or goes from any colony on Avon passes through here, transferring from massive spaceliners to shuttles like this one, built to withstand gravity and atmospheric pressure. I can’t imagine what the spaceport would look like, such a vast thing suspended against the stars, if the viewports were unshielded. Instead the ship clangs loudly as it settles into its cradle, and then Jubilee’s throwing off her harness and striding toward the back of the shuttle to see her passengers out the exit. As she passes me, she murmurs in a low voice, “Don’t get off the ship. Hang back, stay out of sight.”

  The passengers begin filing out of the shuttle. I see Merendsen’s head turn toward Jubilee, but there are soldiers and passengers everywhere, and they can’t speak. Merendsen nods, his eyes meeting Jubilee’s; their look is weighted with their history together, the moment stretching long and thin. Jubilee’s jaw clenches, and she nods back at him before he’s carried off in the current of travelers, vanishing into the crowd.

  It’s not until I’m casually letting the others in my row of seats leave before me that I realize Sofia Quinn’s on board too, her strawberry-blond hair standing out among the other passengers. On her way to that off-world orphanage—or to whatever escape plan she’d been devising. Around me harnesses clink as the passengers unclip, and I hang back as they file down the aisles to the back of the shuttle, clutching armfuls of their belongings. Sofia glances over her shoulder to make sure she hasn’t left anything and goes perfectly still as she spots me. I lift my hand to press it over my heart, and she nods. Then the man behind her jostles her with his bag, and she steps forward.

  Sofia pauses at the bottom of the ramp, speaking to one of the soldiers manning the spaceport and letting him scan her genetag. They’re scanning all the passengers for genetags. My protesting gut suddenly stills in horror. They’re going to know who I am the instant they look at that code on my arm. The soldier scanning her lifts his head—and looks straight at me.

  Sofia twists suddenly, leaning against the guardrails and clutching her middle. Silver-tongued Sofia. Always ready.

  She groans, letting her knees start to give. “I’m gonna throw up, I can’t do this. It’s the gravity. You gotta find me somewhere, I’m gonna—” Her lips clamp together. As the soldiers fuss over her, and one unlucky volunteer gets lumped with taking her off somewhere she can lose her lunch, I sink down behind a row of seats to crouch, out of sight. Thank you, Sofia.

  Jubilee brushes by me without another glance, and I watch through a crack in the seats as she hands a thin e-filer to one of the soldiers. “The manifest’s a little off,” she says apologetically. “Things are crazy down there.”

  “You’re telling me,” says one of the soldiers. “It’s a madhouse up here too, Captain. Everyone wants off that planet.”

  I can see a little line of tension in Jubilee’s jaw, her eyes narrowing as she watches the soldier, and I know what she’s thinking. Down there, it’s people shooting at each other and people being torn from their families. Up here, it’s a lot of paperwork. But she simply nods at him. “I want to get this shuttle back down before the rebels get their anti-aircraft up and running. Can we make this quick?”

  “Sure, Captain.” The soldier tucks the e-filer under one arm. “We’ve just got to search the shuttle.”

  I freeze, heart stopping for a split second.

  “Search the shuttle?” Jubilee echoes, her voice sharpening. “Why? There’s no point; if anyone had stowed away, they’re going right back to the surface.”

  The soldier on duty shrugs. “It’s commander’s orders. Came through right before you landed.”

  “Before—before I landed?” Her head half turns, but she catches herself before she can look at me. They know. Somehow, they suspect I’m here. Or that Jubilee has been sheltering a fugitive. Maybe someone at the spaceport recognized my face before I got on board.

  “Yes, sir.” The soldier regards her with respect, but shows no signs of wavering.

  She hesitates. “Fine, fine, search it. But make it quick.” She stalks back up the aisle, footsteps tense and quick. She comes to a halt right beside the row I’m hiding behind, her body further concealing me.

  I sink down, no longer able to risk watching through the seat cracks. Instead I can hear their booted feet clanking up the grid floor, the dull click and slam of lockers opening and hatches being inspected. Getting closer.

  Jubilee’s grip is white-knuckled on the armrest beside my head. The soldiers—I can make out three distinct sets of footsteps—are nearly on us.

  “Satisfied?” she says, interrupting them. “They need me on the ground, I can’t afford to get stuck up here on the wrong side of a blockade.”

  The footsteps halt. “Yeah, yeah, okay,” says the one who insisted on the search. “You’re good. Move out, guys.”

  I let out a slow, silent breath as the footsteps start to retreat. I can see Jubilee’s shoulders relax a fraction, and with the soldiers in retreat, she spares a glance at me; her eyes are wide, but there’s relief on her features. She turns to make her way up the aisle and head for the cockpit.

  “Wait—Captain, your paperwork!”

  The moment freezes, then unspools with slow, heavy finality. The booted feet come running back up the aisle. Jubilee whirls back around. A voice breaks the fuzzy roar in my ears. “There’s someone here,” it says. I look up, and there’s a soldier staring at me. His hand moves toward the gun holstered at his hip. The other two soldiers are coming up behind him. I look up for Jubilee and find her eyes on me in an instant of horrified indecision.

  Then she flows into action. Lunging forward, she grabs at the man near me and hauls him down so she can knee his shoulder. The gun drops from his nerveless hand. Jubilee’s boot catches the man’s jaw, then she steps forward to get an elbow under the chin of the second soldier, this one a woman, sending her reeling backward to hit the wall with a crack. Jubilee’s perfect, deadly, a predator.

  All this has happened in the space of a heartbeat. Jubilee whirls to face the third soldier, a man who has kept his distance just enough to escape the initial blows. “Captain,” he gasps, clearly afraid. “I am placing you under arrest for assault and—and treason—”

  Jubilee’s breathing hard, her muscles tense. “Back away, Private. This isn’t your fight. Take your friends to the sick bay, and report me there.”

  The third soldier hesitates, his eyes swiveling from Jubilee to the two motionless bodies slumped on the floor. Then his fingers twitch, barely noticeable, but it’s enough; Jubilee sees him reach for his gun and gets there a moment before he does, the two of them grappling for the Gleidel. A bolt screams in the confined space of the shuttle, but dissipates harmlessly off the metal interior.

  Jubilee wrenches the gun from his grip and then lashes out with it, slamming it into the soldier’s temple. It’s over before I can blink.

  Jubilee stands above the three unconscious soldiers, chest heaving as though she’s run for hours. Gun in hand, she has her feet planted firmly, like she’s ready to start all over again. Nothing I’ve heard about her is true. She’s even faster than they say. She could have killed me a dozen times each day we’ve been together.

  Though we’re only standing there a few seconds, it’s longer than it took he
r to drop the three soldiers. Finally she moves, looking at me over her shoulder and then tossing me the gun she took from the soldier. “Know how to use one of these?”

  I swallow as I catch it, my stomach uneasy. “You sure about this?”

  “Just point that end at the bad guys if we make it back to Avon.”

  “And who are the bad guys?”

  She doesn’t have an answer for me, and for a moment I can see the weight of what she’s done in her eyes. She’s crossed the line. When these trodairí wake, they’ll report her for treason. Like me, she can never go home.

  Jubilee clears her throat, and then the two of us drag the unconscious soldiers out onto the platform, concealing them behind some cargo containers. It won’t last long; someone will find them, or else they’ll wake and sound the alarm. But it’ll buy us a little time. Time to figure out our next move. We clamber back aboard, and this time Jubilee has me sit in the copilot’s chair. She starts flipping switches, so quick and so sure that I almost can’t see the way her hands are shaking. But I can tell by the set of her jaw she doesn’t want to talk about it, doesn’t want to process what she’s done. She just wants to keep moving, and that much I understand.

  The shuttle shudders as the autolaunch takes hold of us, and there’s a faint sense of movement as we’re lined up on a launching pad. Jubilee’s silent as she programs in the holding pattern. The computers take over. There’s another shudder, and a hum, and then I’m pressed back against my seat as we’re shot out into space once more. Neither of us speaks as Jubilee guides us forward. She’s monitoring our course on a readout, the viewshields still in place; finally she stops, toggling another series of switches until the engine noise cuts back to a tiny hum and the cabin lights dim.

  “Okay.” She leans back in her seat, palms braced against her thighs. “We’re far enough out, and small enough that hopefully scans will think we’re another satellite if we stay dark.”

  “They’ll find us eventually, though, won’t they?”

  She swallows. “Yes.”

  I want so badly to reach for her, to wrap her hands in mine and thank her for defying her people for me; but I know she wasn’t only doing it for me. She believes in this fight now. She knows as well as I do that saving Avon is more important than her people, or mine. And I know she doesn’t want to be comforted.

  So I clear my throat. “Merendsen’s note,” I say, shattering the quiet. “Maybe it has something we can use.”

  Jubilee reaches into her pocket to pull out the coded message from Lilac. We lean together to study the folded sheet.

  It’s a printed message, with Merendsen’s handwritten translation scrawled between the lines. Lilac is talking about all the things Jubilee seems to associate with her—parties, clothes, vacations—and though some of it’s left alone, Merendsen has translated other parts in hurried handwriting.

  Knave got access, it reads. No records of a facility being moved on Avon. But Knave found hidden manifests from ten years ago, from unknown location in sector where Icarus crashed. Three shipments, three destinations. Corinth, Verona, Avon.

  The paper starts to tremble; Jubilee’s hand is shaking. She grew up on Verona. And a rebellion happened there, too—ten years ago. I reach out and cup my hand under hers, steadying the page.

  LRI using Avon as laboratory, soldiers as subjects. Whispers would never harm them; Fury must be side effect. Only way to stop everything is for J and F to find proof to show the galaxy. Don’t let my father do this to anyone else.

  The rest of Lilac LaRoux’s message is talk of parties again, rambling on as though fashion is her only care in the world. Jubilee lets her hand drop, the page resting against her thigh.

  “Why is he doing this?” I can’t think, the background hum of the engines shattering my thoughts. “What does this man have against Avon?”

  “It’s not Avon itself,” Jubilee says quietly, lifting her eyes to meet mine. “Avon’s convenient. Far away from the galactic center, too young for anyone to be watching it. An endless war, providing an endless supply of test subjects.”

  “Test subjects for what?” Frustration makes my voice crack. “What good does it do him to make people snap with the Fury?”

  “Lilac said it was a side effect of whatever he’s doing. Maybe he just hasn’t perfected it yet.” She draws a shaky breath. “I didn’t have time to tell you before, but something happened to Commander Towers, just before—just before everything with Molly.”

  The raw fear in Jubilee’s eyes makes my mouth go dry, forcing me to clear my throat. “She snapped?”

  She shakes her head. “No, it was something else. She was telling me that LaRoux Industries has been here for years, studying us. They told her and her predecessors that they were studying the Fury, but…” She looks down at her hands, and I know she’s thinking of the bloodstains I washed clean. “She didn’t snap, didn’t attack me. She just stopped. Went back to work. Like something just…took over.”

  “Like something was controlling her?” I’m trying not to acknowledge the chill running through me, my conversation with Sofia coming back to me. “My friend in town, the one who helped hide me—Davin Quinn’s daughter. She said her father was vague for a week before the bombing, distracted. You said the Fury is always quick and brutal, but that’s not what happened to Davin, who would have needed time to make and plant a bomb. Or Commander Towers. Or—” My voice gives out.

  Jubilee’s nodding, her face ashen in the glow of the control panels. “Or me.” The background hum of the engines and life support is thick and heavy. Jubilee’s voice is quiet, as though to speak the words too loudly might make them true. “Maybe Davin was a test run. Maybe Towers too, to stop her from revealing his secrets. But what wouldn’t a man like Roderick LaRoux do to wield the ability to control people’s minds?”

  Sometimes the girl dreams in colors. Her classes at school are the yellow of butter and flower petals, and her books are the rich blue of the deep oceans she reads about. Her mother is warm red-orange, and her father is a lighter peach that highlights it, mingles with it to turn them both the color of sunrise.

  But her dreams always fade, and she can never tell what color the orphanage is, or the training base on Paradisa, or the bar where she goes when she’s off duty. She exists there in a colorless world—not black and white, but a muted, faded gray. She doesn’t even know to miss the colors, as though someone has reached into her thoughts and pulled out the memory of what color is.

  The girl knows that the boy is looking for her. And when he finds her, his eyes will be green, and she’ll remember.

  “NO SIGN OF EIGHT-ONE-NINE YET. Scans continuing. Traffic control on alert, orders to fire at will. Traitors on board.” The comms chatter is all about us. I’ve set the comms headset floating a few inches from my face, which is buried in my hands. With a groan, I thumb the mute button, and we’re left in abrupt silence. The heat shields are all still closed, and without the vastness of space around us, I can almost imagine us back in Flynn’s hideout, trying to wait out our pursuers.

  I don’t know what to do next, and that’s killing me. I lift my head to see Flynn watching me, his expression unreadable. “I’m so sorry, Flynn. I never meant to take you away from your home.”

  He shifts in his seat, running a finger underneath one of the straps of his harness. “It was my call,” he says quietly. “I could have tried to run. I chose to come.”

  He’s as tense as I am, maybe even more so, but it’s so hard to reconcile that with the serenity of weightlessness. His faux-blond hair is floating out away from his head. He’s wearing a worn, much-mended, and too-large shirt his friend in town must’ve found for him, to help him blend in. He looks nothing like the Romeo who dragged me off the base, nothing like the Cormac who threw himself between his own people and me. It’s like that guy’s gone, and I killed him.

  “I’m sorry anyway,” I mutter. “God, why is everything so fucked up?”

  “Because we make one hel
l of a team,” Flynn replies lightly, his voice a strained tease. I notice his hands are gripping his armrests, and as he shifts I can see the faint outlines of dampness beneath his palms against the plastic.

  It’s with a jolt I remember he’s never been in space before—he’s never even been off the ground before. And he’s trying to relax me.

  “Hey,” I try, leaning out as far as my harness will allow me, my hair drifting after me in slow motion. “Do you want to see the stars?”

  He blinks, his false bravado falling away as he stares wide-eyed back at me. “The—the what?”

  “The stars.” I gesture to the covered viewport in front of us. I could tell him that this might be his last chance to see them, but he already knows that. “They’re right out there. Normally we keep the heat shields on, but there’s no actual need for them out here, only when we’re going through atmo. Want to take a peek?”

  He swallows, fingers tightening around his armrests. I want to tell him he’s got nothing to be afraid of—for now, we’re safer up here than we ever were on Avon’s surface. But I know telling him will do no good, because it’s not a rational fear. Even I feel a surge of primal adrenaline when I get up here, every time.

  It’s like underwater diving, part of the training all soldiers get during basic. The moment the water closes over your head and you take your first breath through the respirator—your body tells you it can’t breathe, that it’s falling, that you’re going to die. And no amount of logic can stop the feeling, you just have to let it course through you and sweep on past. You have to embrace it. I hold my own breath, watching Flynn.

  Slowly, he nods.

  I lean forward in my harness and reach for the shield controls, hitting the release button with a light thunk. There’s the hum of the shield mechanism, and then the thick sheet of metal dilates outward—and the sky is full of stars.

  The air leaves Flynn’s lungs in an audible rush, and he presses himself back in his seat. I look over to see his eyes flicking this way and that, and I reach out to grab his hand. His fingers wrap around mine with the grip of a drowning man.