The Lying Planet

by Carol Riggs

  My whole life has been a lie. The Machine’s purpose isn’t to measure the kindness, deeds, and intelligence of Sanctuary’s graduates in order to reward or banish them.

  It gauges the value of the aliens’ property—the quality of their food.

  Chapter Ten

  The next morning, I sit on the hoverbus heading to the education compound. Conversation floats around me, all meaningless noises. An overwhelming dread grips me like a predator’s claws. Aubrie sits behind me across the aisle, most likely studying the side of my face, analyzing me as she was doing earlier. I ignore her. I’m sure her expression is as unapproachable as when I first got on the bus. I’ve had it with the way she’s treating me, and I pretty much don’t care what she’s thinking.

  Right now, I only want to talk to Harrel, Peyton, and Leonard.

  I ride on. The healthy breakfast Mom insisted I eat congeals under my ribs. After last night, everything has warped, exponentially worse than before. Unless I can prevent it somehow, in two weeks I’m going to die. I have to escape the death sentence that awaits all of us. But how?

  As I near the education building, Peyton and Leonard step off a docked transport. I don’t see Harrel yet. My bus slows. Before it reaches the unloading area, I grab my pack and plow to the front so I don’t lose sight of my targets.

  “Wait until the transport has come to a complete stop,” the driver says, punching the button for the doors to slide open.

  “Sure, sorry.” I bound down the steps. Leonard’s head, with its vertical-combed hair, bobs several meters away near Peyton’s short dark braid. I jog to catch up.

  “Peyton, Leonard,” I gasp, more from a sense of urgency than being winded.

  Leonard spins toward me. “Dude, what’s up? You look all gray and pukey.”

  “I can’t go to sessions today. Let’s find Harrel and go somewhere else. Please.”

  Peyton lifts her eyebrows but says nothing. She jerks her head toward the front doors, away from the trainer who supervises the transport area. We duck inside the building and keep an eye out for Harrel. He arrives after another minute.

  “Come with us,” I say, gripping his forearm before he can walk over to Misty on the other side of the hall.

  He starts to object, but then he scans my face and clamps his mouth shut. The four of us thread our way past session rooms and exit through a back door. We emerge behind the compound.

  “Keep low and close to the walls so no one sees you,” Leonard whispers, then bends and runs with obviously practiced speed under a line of windows.

  I follow, with Peyton and Harrel behind me. We leave the education grounds, zigzagging through a grove of shaggy-leafed sable trees. When we reach the quietness of the southern dwelling compound, Peyton lets herself through the side gate of a two-level unit. In the back yard, she slips into a small outbuilding and waves us inside. Dusty clutter surrounds us: a collection of shovels, pruning devices, potting buckets, and work gloves.

  Peyton takes a seat on a pile of borlium fertilizer sacks. She motions to an overturned eighteen-liter bucket. “Have a seat. Lieutenant Boggs doesn’t use this stuff because someone’s always flatter-nosing him and doing his yard work.”

  I sit, dumping my pack on the floor. Hiding out in Boggs’s back yard while skipping sessions is hazardous, but nothing compared to what I’ve just learned. I cross my arms. My jaw aches from clenching it last night while I couldn’t sleep. I look at Leonard leaning against a shelf, then at Peyton and Harrel.

  “I overheard Mom and Dad talking last night,” I say. “It’s worse than we thought.”

  Peyton’s eyes fasten onto me. “How much worse?”

  I open my mouth, but the words stick. I force them out. “The ceremony. It’s part of the aliens’ plan for their ‘horde.’ The Machine tests us to see if our brains and bodies are high enough quality.”

  “What’s the catch?” Leonard’s expression shows he doesn’t really want to know.

  I take a deep breath. “We’re being raised for food, you guys. They’re going to kill us and eat us.”

  “No way!” Harrel cries, and Leonard’s face drains of color.

  Peyton’s hands fly over her mouth. She digs her fingernails into her face and makes a raw, muffed sound. “Jay, are you sure?”

  “Believe me, I wish it weren’t true.”

  “This changes everything,” Harrel says, looking nauseated.

  Leonard’s chin trembles. “Hold it. If everyone who passes the Testing gets eaten, that means my sister—” His eyes go wide.

  “And my sister—and Nash—” Peyton bursts into noisy tears. Leonard is by her side in an instant, tears leaking from his own eyes. He wraps his skinny arms around her and buries his head against her shoulder.

  My eyes prickle. I move toward Peyton and Leonard, and Harrel is close behind me. It’s true. Last night I thought of the same thing. Every single one of our classmates and older brothers and sisters have been eaten. Chad. My big brother Chad didn’t reach Promise City after all.

  No one did. The letters have all been a lie. I bet Mom and Dad wrote Chad’s messages themselves—they sure weren’t delivered by an airship from Promise City.

  There probably is no flippin’ airship.

  I collapse onto the borlium sacks on the other side of Peyton, adding my consolation to Leonard’s. Harrel comes to stand beside me, one arm around my shoulders. We cry together in a desperate sort of group hug.

  After a while, the closeness of Peyton’s damp face next to mine jogs me back to reality. I lean away and wipe my eyes. Harrel backs up and shoves his hands into his pockets. Leonard stays slumped against Peyton’s other side, sniffling and smearing his nose with the back of his hand.

  “I can’t believe this,” Peyton whispers.

  Leonard stares across the outbuilding. “I hate my life.”

  The silence grows thick for a few moments.

  “What’re we gonna do?” Harrel asks. “Your ceremony is in less than two weeks, Jay.”

  He’s right. Something has to be done, and fast. I leap to my feet. “None of us have much time. It’s risky, but we have to leave and get out of Sanctuary. Today.”

  “We can’t run off and let everyone else get eaten,” Leonard says. “I got little sisters and brothers at home.”

  “Me, too,” Peyton says. “Can we take them with us?”

  Fuse it all, my brain is in panic mode. I didn’t think about how it would affect Rachel and Tammi and all our siblings. But it’ll be hard to escape with a bunch of younger kids, and even harder to take care of them. I have two siblings, Peyton has three, and Leonard and Harrel each have four. We’ll need supplies as well as rations to feed everyone. Drinking water. A safe place to sleep at night.

  All that begins to sound really complex.

  “No,” I say. “We can’t do anything for our brothers and sisters yet. I think they’re safe until their ceremonies. First, we need to escape somehow. We’ll go someplace far enough the guards won’t find us, and set up a camp. Once that’s ready, we can start smuggling kids out.”

  “Smart idea,” Harrel says, a dazed sheen still in his eyes. “Although it’d be good if someone started telling the rest of the graduates about this…”

  “Wait, there’s dust out past the perimeter fence,” Leonard says. “Remember what happened to Mick.”

  Peyton gives a humorless laugh, a short bark of noise. “And staying here isn’t risky? Leaving is our only chance of staying alive. The first people we smuggle out should be the ones turning eighteen when Jay does, instead of younger kids. They’ll be in danger first.”

  “Good point.” Relief washes through me. Solid, constructive thinking. I like the way this girl’s mind works.

  “Will anyone believe us?” Leonard asks. “A lot of kids get along okay with their parents, like you, Jay. Someone is gonna rat us out for sure.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “The aliens will also get suspicious if kids start disappearing. Everything will go into lockdown
and we’ll get shot by perimeter guards.”

  “We could get shot by tranquilizer rifles just trying to get out,” Peyton says. “Let’s worry about the details for everyone else later. We gotta leave—right away.”

  “Then we need supplies,” I say. “Rations and water, portable ludmium lights with extra cells, that kind of thing. We’ll have to slip past the guards by the fence…” I trail off, details heaping into an impossible pile in my brain.

  “Dude. We’re sunk before we even start,” Leonard says.

  “I have an idea.” Peyton takes her datafilm case from her pack, its slim rectangle holding the reusable coated sheets for our sessions. She drops the case behind some flower pots. “Empty out your assignments and follow me.”

  Harrel, Leonard, and I dump our education cases next to hers. We follow Peyton across Boggs’s yard to his unit, where she marches up to the back door and takes out her dwelling’s entry device.

  “What are you doing?” Leonard squeaks as she swipes the door lock.

  “Getting supplies,” she says. “This lock is defective. It opens to anyone’s device.”

  I exchange a wary look with Harrel as the door swings wide.

  “We’re gonna be so dead,” Leonard mumbles.

  Peyton leads us through a tidy kitchen to a well-stocked pantry. I’m not about to ask why she sneaked into this unit in the past. I don’t want to know.

  While Leonard stuffs worrel jerky and a bin labeled Granola into his pack, Peyton grabs canteens, a collapsible jug, and insulated ration canisters.

  “I’ll get water and lud-lights,” she says, disappearing into the rest of the unit.

  “We’re totally going to get nailed for stealing,” I mutter.

  “Don’t think about getting caught, man,” Leonard says. “Just think what the aliens have been doing for the last six years with the Testing. And Boggs is one of them.”

  I add a jar of dried greshfruit to my pack as Harrel nods. Leonard has a point. But I can’t shake the fear that grips me. I’ve never done anything like this before, and once we leave the safety of the zone, our future is a complete blank. Harrel and I snatch up other foods. His face is pale. He looks as petrified as I feel.

  Peyton pokes her head into the pantry. “You guys done?”

  “Yeah,” Leonard says. “Do we need protection pills?”

  “No, we have to stay alert, even at night,” Peyton says. “The pills probably won’t do much good if we run into higher levels of dust anyway.”

  I shudder, hating our choices. We leave the unit and head down the street, keeping an eye out for adults while fleeing from hedge to unit to tree.

  “Quick—no one’s home.” Peyton runs between two side yards. She throws hasty looks in both directions, down the wide clearance alley that runs behind the dwelling compound alongside the perimeter fence. “No inner fence guards here,” she whispers, and motions us behind a spreading nut tree.

  I glance behind us as I join her. No vehicles, no alien adults. The street is deserted and quiet. Only a few fledgers tweet in faraway trees. Peyton drops her pack, swings up into the branches of the bushy tree, and in a matter of seconds has climbed high enough to peer over the fence. She scrambles back down in a small shower of leaves and bark fragments.

  “No outer guards right this second, either. We’ll sneak between their patrol sweeps, before this section’s guard comes back in our direction. Hurry.” She reclaims her pack, paces out five giant steps from the tree, and dashes toward the fence.

  Harrel, Leonard, and I run hunched over, shadowing her. I hope she isn’t expecting us to boost each other over the razor wire on the fence tops.

  She halts about three meters from the fence, bends to the ground, and sweeps her fingers through leaves and weeds. Oddly, some of the debris doesn’t brush to one side.

  Leonard frowns. “What in dung hill are you doing now?”

  Peyton lifts a trapdoor cleverly camouflaged by a hologram sheet that displays leaves and ground debris. “Aha. Here it is.”

  I stare into a tunnel lined with flexible irathon fiberboard. It looks like lengths of it have been curved and pieced together, the joints covered with sealing tape. Waterproof tape, I assume, to hold up against the nightly ground-swells that water the planet for an hour starting at 1:00 a.m.

  “This goes under the perimeter fence?” I ask, feeling lightheaded.

  “Pure genius,” Leonard crows. “How’d you find out about this, Peyton?”

  “Shhh.” She shoves her pack in and starts to crawl into the tunnel headfirst. “Inner or outer guards could come along any minute. Last one in, close the hatch.”

  Harrel places his hand on her arm. “Wait. You guys will need someone inside the zone to coordinate escapes. My ceremony isn’t for another four weeks. I can stay and start telling other people what’s going on.”

  Oh, man. Which is more dangerous—escaping and trying to survive in the woods or arranging an exodus from human-eating aliens? “Maybe I should stay to help you out,” I say.

  “No.” Harrel shakes his head for emphasis. “It’ll be hard enough for you to set up a decent camp with only three people. Two days before the next ceremony, right after morning sessions, be waiting for the first batch of escapees. I’ll send them through the tunnel. Stay out of sight, but make sure they find you.”

  After a split-second hesitation, Peyton nods and enters the tunnel.

  I can’t believe we’re doing this. Grimacing, I thump Harrel on the back for luck, and as he jogs away, Leonard tosses in his pack after Peyton. I follow Leonard, letting the trapdoor close with a hollow thump. Blackness envelops me. It’s claustrophobic, stifling. After a short initial slope, the tunnel levels out. Grunts and scrapes fill the space ahead of me as I shove my pack forward and inch along.

  “Be quiet for a sec,” Peyton whispers. “I’m gonna look.” Light slices into the gloom of the tunnel for a moment, then all is darkness again. “Listen. When you climb out, aim for the big greshfruit tree, and after that we’ll go over the hill and hide behind the redberry briars.”

  “What redberry briars?” Leonard asks, his voice cracking.

  “You’ll see them. Focus on the tree first.”

  Light appears again as she opens the hatch, revealing Leonard’s smudgy form crouched ahead of me. After some scuffing noises, the daylight winks out. She’s gone. Leonard scrapes forward and also squirms through. This is it. No turning back. My throat going dry in an instant, I fumble to where I saw him disappear, and push up the trapdoor. I don’t see a patrolling guard. Only the flailing heels of Leonard’s boots as they race away from the tunnel.

  “One, two, three.” I shove my pack out and hoist myself up. I let the fake ground flop into place, snatch my pack, and run like a madman toward the safety of the greshfruit tree.

  I whip behind the tree. Peyton and Leonard breathe hard with me, leaning against the trunk. Peyton puts her finger to her lips. She points to a hill behind us and leans out to see if it’s clear.

  “Go!” she whispers.

  We run for the hill, our legs pumping, shirts flapping, and feet flying. My pack shifts, off balance. I push on with Peyton and Leonard puffing beside me.

  We’re nearly at the top when a shout sounds behind us. I spin to see a distant guard in a moss-green uniform motioning for us to stop. He reaches for his tranquilizer rifle.

  “He’s seen us,” Peyton cries. “Keep running!”

  Chapter Eleven

  I crest the hill with Peyton and Leonard, and we race down the other side. Tall grasses and weeds whip our pants legs. My heart is about to burst from my chest, it’s ramped up so fast. Will we get shot? Will they suspect what we know? Twenty meters away, a line of redberry briars grows in a thorny hedge. We sprint toward it.

  Behind the briars, I give a quick scan to the area. Grasses, low bushes, and saplings surround us. Nothing large enough to provide cover. The briars meet the woods a hundred meters away, but that’s too far. The guards will see us before
we reach the woods.

  Crap. We’re sunk. “This isn’t going to work,” I say, wheezing. “We can’t hide here, and the guards will tranq us if we run.”

  “What’ll we do?” Leonard croaks.

  My mind goes blank. I ricochet a glance between Peyton and Leonard.

  “We surrender. For now,” Peyton says, her hands shaking as she empties her pack under the brambles. “Dump your stash so we don’t get slammed for stealing. Tell them we wanted to explore, and don’t mention the tunnel. Say we went through a removable board in the perimeter fence.”

  “There isn’t a removable board in the fence,” Leonard says.

  “Yes, there is. A couple hundred meters north.” Peyton yanks Leonard’s pack from him and empties it. “We’ll come back later to get this stuff.”

  I dump my pack, and we step from behind the briar patch to stand in the open. The guard is already barreling down the hill.

  “Halt or I’ll shoot!” he shouts. He strides toward us with a heated glare and his rifle aimed straight at us.

  I stay as motionless as I can, except for the trembling of my hands and legs.

  Leonard whispers, “Please don’t shoot me, please please please…”

  “We know we shouldn’t be out here,” Peyton calls to the guard. Her voice wobbles. “Sessions were boring, and we wanted to go someplace we’d never seen before.”

  “No excuse,” the guard says. “You know the rules. They’re for your own safety.” He jabs his rifle barrel in my direction. “You of all kids should know that, after that vermal attack.”

  “Yes, sir.” My face flushes with heat. Peyton and Leonard might be used to getting chewed out, but I’m not. Man, I hope the guards don’t figure out our real reason for escaping. “I really wasn’t thinking.”

  “We’ll never do it again,” Leonard says.

  “Save your apologies for Commander Farrow. Get moving. Walk back toward the perimeter fence and follow it south to the front gates.”