by H. A. Swain
Although it seems like hours, it’s probably not that long until I hear the trash trucks. My heart races at the familiar sound. I wait, barely breathing, hoping for a bit of luck. Soon I hear the squonk of the rear kitchen doors. I cup my hands around my eyes and peer through the mirrored surface of my mover. I see a CleanerBot wheeling barrels of garbage down the service ramp toward the dumpster as the automated trucks pull into the back of the lot. Once the CleanerBot is past me, I make my move. Pushing full throttle, I propel my small wonky device through the open door into the automated kitchen. Inside the Palace, I connect the nav system to a map of the interior displayed on my iEye and set a course for the nearest service elevator.
As I pass ChefBots, I go undetected. Then again, these bots aren’t concerned with security. I may not have as much luck once I’m beyond the kitchen. My little mover pushes through the swinging doors and bumps along a carpeted hall. Up ahead, I see an intersection. I check the map on my iEye. I need to turn left to find the service elevator that will take me upstairs where I hope to hell Castor’s still being held. But, as I near the junction, I hear a whoosh and a muted roar. My heart jumps into my throat when I slam into something and stop. Since no one is around, I pop up out of the mover and see an automated vacuum disk bumping me.
“Move it,” I whisper. It backs up and rams into me again. “Damn it. Move over,” I growl, but it blocks my path, too stupid to know how to go around. It’s in the center of the hall, taking up too much space. I can’t get past it, and it won’t go around me because it doesn’t see me. This is ridiculous! I won’t be thwarted by a vacuum!
“Come on, you stupid bot, get out of my way.” I jump out of my cloaked box and bend down to pick it up, but from the other direction, behind the sweeper, I see a line of people.
“Oh, shit,” I say aloud, and drop the vacuum. It rights itself and trundles off. Mundie’s at the front of the line, flanked by four Yoobies, two on each side. I brace myself against the wall, ready to fight, ready to run, ready to beg Mundie to let me go. But he doesn’t notice me. In fact, he doesn’t even blink. Not a single Yoobie bats an eye or makes a sound. They march single file, as if nothing else around them exists. They are dead-eyed and uncharacteristically quiet, which is eerie. Yoobies are never quiet. Never not talking about themselves.
“Mundie,” I whisper as he gets closer, but he doesn’t flinch.
I don’t know if he’s decided to let me go or if he’s not in control of his body, but either way, it doesn’t matter. I abandon my mover and run for the service elevator.
On the fifth floor, I dart for the room at the end of the hall. Using the security code from the CleanerBot’s CPU, I command the door to open and hold my breath, afraid they’ve moved him someplace else. But no. I’m in luck. My twin jumps up from a chair, and we run to each other.
UMA JEMISON
ALPHAZONIA, EARTH
I’M FLOATING. WITH Kepler. By my side. He has my hands. Pulling. Pulling too hard.
Slow down, I tell him. We’re going too fast. I’m going to be sick.
Uma! Come on, he says. The parties are starting.
I don’t want to go to the parties. I want to stay here! I insist. There’s someone that I like. A girl with hair the color of Mars.
No. I jerk awake and scream. I’m not on MUSC. Not floating with Kep. I’m in the air, terrifyingly high above a ruined city. Buildings, trees, and a patchwork of roads are splayed out beneath me like a holo map. My stomach squeezes. My head spins. The edges of my sight blur. Everything goes gray and fuzzy. I open my mouth to scream again, but no sound comes out. In the strange silence of the sky, I hear my name. I whip my head side to side, trying to see who’s calling me.
“Uma! Uma!”
I focus in. My Lenz is pressed hard against my face by the wind, but I can make out my mother’s fuzzy outline too close to my eye.
“Mom!” I scream and writhe. “Help me! Help!”
“Stop screaming, stop!” she shouts. “Calm down. Where are you? What’s happening?”
“Drones!” I shout, trying to form sentences but failing. “On my wrists. My ankles.” I look up. I’m splayed out. A big X. A target moving across the sky between four red, faceless, mindless SecuriDrones with four propellers each. The MUSC logo stamped in silver shines across their flanks. “Picked me up,” I pant. “Carrying me too high. I’m going to die! They’re going to drop me!”
“No,” Mom says. “They’ve got you. You’re safe. Calm down.”
“Safe!” I glare at her. My anger makes me focus. “Did you know? Did you know they were coming for me? Are they taking me to the Shuttle? I don’t want to go back yet!”
Mom grimaces, then shouts, “Why? What’s down there that you love so much?”
“Talitha!” I shout with all my might.
My mom rears back, her eyes wide and her mouth open. “Talitha? What’s that?”
“A girl,” I whimper, so frightened of the height and the speed and of where the drones are taking me. “Her name is Talitha, and I love her, and I think she might be in trouble. She needs me, Mom. I need to know she’s okay before I come home. Don’t let them do this. Don’t let them take me away from here. Not yet!”
It seems to take a moment for all my words to sink in, but then my mother says, “Then fight!” Her face is fuzzy on my Lenz, but I can hear the fierceness in her voice.
“Fight?” I say.
“Yes! We raised you to be a fighter, Uma. So bang your feet together. Knock those drones off course. Do something! Come on, Uma! Fight! Fight for what you want.”
I do what she says. With all my strength, I jerk my legs. For a second, the drones falter. I scream as we plummet, but then they right themselves, and I buck again. I jerk my legs to crash my feet together, knocking one propeller off the drone on my right foot. It falters and swoops. I scream again, sure that I’m going to fall, but I don’t fall, and I realize that the drones are powerful but light. Again, I smash my legs together. Another propeller whips away into the air. We drop another few meters. I smack the drones against one another over and over, knocking propellers off, and we descend.
“It’s working!” I shout to my mother.
“Keep going!” she shouts back.
I crash my legs together one more time, and the drone on my left leg hisses, sparks, and detaches. My left leg flops, and I cartwheel through the air, screeching like a bird in death throes. The falling drone spins out of control, zigzagging, and crashes into a palm tree, sending a plume of smoke and fire into the air.
When I’m upright again, I use my free leg to kick at the other drone on my right ankle. I knock the two remaining propellers off one by one until that one detaches, which leaves me hanging by my arms, legs dragging down. Pain sears through my shoulders. I pull down hard on the left side, trying to ease the pain, and my body arcs wide to the left. I pull down hard on the right side, and I arc to the right.
“I can steer!” I yell. “I can control them.”
“Yes!” my mom shouts. “Keep going.”
I pull left and right, sailing now through the sky, trying to set a course. “But I don’t know where I am.”
“Get the ocean on your right side, then you’ll be heading south,” Mom says.
I pull left and right, reorienting myself until I see the enormous swath of blue water meeting the sky at the horizon. Despite my terror, I’m amazed at how beautiful it is. The blue goes on forever.
“I did it!” I shout. “I’m heading south, back toward the city.”
But the drones attached to my arms begin to grind and buzz. My weight is too much, and we’re losing altitude. The tops of trees are getting closer to my toes.
“Find a landmark!” my mom shouts at me.
“Everything looks the same!” I shout back as I scan the endless tangle of roads below, each dotted with the rectangular tops of houses, surrounded by patches of green. But then something catches my eye. A flash of pink in the center of a giant swath of green. I pull as ha
rd as I can on my right arm and swing around so that I spiral, down and down, bringing myself closer to what has to be the Palace. As I descend, I see the black-and-white stripes of the portico and then, behind the pink building, a huge blue rectangle in the middle of the enormous lawn.
The right drone whines, high-pitched and persistent. Dark smoke trails behind it, marring the sky. “I have to get lower,” I tell my mother. “Closer to the ground. Find a safe place to drop, because these drones aren’t going to last.”
I pull harder into the spin, willing myself down. “Maybe I can set down on the roof?”
“Be careful! Oh, my gad, be careful!” my mother shouts, the panic rising in her voice as I feel more in control.
I swoop down, over the top of a row of trees, so close that palm fronds brush my legs. The drone on my right arm pops. Sparks rain down on my arm and sizzle against my skin. I jerk and yowl in pain. The drone releases its grip on me and plummets to the ground, sending me careening out of control. My legs kick and flail as I flounder, held by one drone on my left arm. I scream and squeal, trying to gain some control, trying to get close enough to the ground so that I won’t break every bone in my body when the last drone dies. It screeches as the motor burns out while trying to keep me aloft. Down and down we fall, too quick, too hard. The green grass comes up fast; the blue of the swimming pool fills my vision.
Then I know what I have to do. I shake my arm wildly, trying to loosen the drone’s grip, trying to time it just right, sure I’ll get it wrong and splat onto the hard ground. “Now!” I yell, and yank one more time.
The drone’s grip fails, and I’m free. Falling through the air. Screaming for my life. Hurtling toward the Earth. Toward the water. I tuck my body, close my eyes, and brace myself for impact.
CASTOR NEVA
ALPHAZONIA, EARTH
AFTER TALITHA EXPLAINS everything to me—who Uma is, what D’Cart asked her to do, what Mundie said, how she got back inside the Palace, and what we should do now—we sit across from each other, both with our hands folded on the table, left index fingers on top. My mother swears we held hands in the womb. I came out first. She says Talitha held my ankle when she followed me into the world. But my mother makes things up.
“You’re sure?” I ask.
“Yes,” says Talitha with more certainty than I’ve ever heard in her voice.
“But what if—” I start to say.
“No what ifs.” She reaches into my knapsack and pulls out the electric razor. “Shave it.”
I stand up to do what she asks. “Told you it would come in handy,” I joke, because otherwise the reality of our situation is too painful. The razor buzzes in my fist. I start at the top of her left ear and push back. I work methodically, in strips, from left ear, over the crown of her head, front to back, left to right. She watches the persimmon-colored curls fall to the floor around our feet. When I’m done, I step back and run the razor over my face and neck until my skin is baby soft and smooth like a girl’s.
Talitha’s hand shakes as she rubs the top of her newly shorn head. “I feel half naked.”
“You look like a different person.”
She looks up at me. “But do I look like you?”
I nod. Then I look away, too shaken by the resemblance. I squat and gather up the hair. “I can sell this,” I say, fists full, as if that’s the most important thing right now.
“We have good hair,” she says, and helps me clean up the mess. We quickly stuff all but two handfuls of my sister’s locks into my knapsack.
“Clothes,” she says when the floor is clear.
It’s been a few years since we’ve dressed in front of one another. Being naked together used to come so casually to us. Bath time when we were kids. Skinny-dipping when we were lucky enough to find an arroyo after a rare rain. We shared everything when we were little. All clothes were communal—shorts, skirts, dresses, tops—we each wore both. But now we are shy. We kick off our shoes and socks, then avoid each other’s eyes as we strip off our pants. Left leg, right leg. We are mirror images. We trade pants. Mine are baggier, but hers fit me in the waist just fine.
Next our shirts. Arms crossed at the belly, then a quick tug up and over our heads. The way our mother taught us. Other than her tiny breasts and the slight slope of her hips, we are the exact same size and shape, with ribs showing above the flat planes of our bellies.
“I forgot you have an innie,” she says, and points at my belly button, then to her own outie.
“Yeah, it’ll suck if our belly buttons give us away,” I say, and almost laugh, except it isn’t funny.
Talitha wriggles out of her bra beneath her tank top and hands it to me. “Use your socks,” she says.
“Huh?”
“Stuff them in the bra.”
I do what she says, struggling to snap the contraption in the back, then I fill the small cups with my wadded-up socks. She turns her back to me and takes off the tank top. With her teeth, she tears the stretchy fabric into two long strips, which she wraps around her chest.
“Help me,” she says over her shoulder. “Make it tight.”
I pull the ends as hard as I can. “Can you breathe?”
“I’ll be fine,” she says.
I tie the ends together.
We each put on the other’s shirt. Hers is warm and smells like our mother’s sage and lavender soap. She pulls up the hood to my jacket just like I do. I leave her shirt billowy and untucked like she does. We look at each other, and Talitha breaks first. A snort.
“What?” I ask, looking down.
“You with boobs, that’s what!”
“Feels nice!” I say, and lift my sternum. “Good thing yours aren’t bigger.”
“I like being a boy.” She laughs and runs her hand down her constricted chest. “Now the hair.”
She pins some of the shorn hair to to the inside of that hat she was wearing and sets it on my head so that her curls falls around my shoulders.
“How do we look?” I ask.
“We’ll pass,” she says. “Last thing—I gave Mom my device. You have to contact her and say that you’re okay once you get out.”
“Will she answer?”
“She promised.”
I feel a fist in my throat. “You don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do,” Talitha says, then corrects herself to say, “I want this.” She takes a deep breath. “You should leave.”
Emotions I have no names for well up in my chest. I try to fight them down, but my voice trembles when I say, “No. Let’s try to get out. Both of us. Together.”
Talitha shakes her head. “Too risky. At least this way—”
“But—”
“Castor…” She lays a hand on my chest and pushes. “Go. Please.”
I reach down and take her hand. We weave our fingers together. Each of us fighting to get the left index finger on top.
“Tell Mom I love her.” Talitha swipes at a tear on her cheek. “And take care of Quasar.”
“Of course,” I whisper. I step in to hug her, but then we hear footsteps outside the door.
“Oh, no,” she says. We squeeze hands and stare hard at each other, then jump apart just before the door opens and Mundie steps inside. He stops and glowers. “You,” he spits at me, thinking that I’m my sister.
Talitha tightens her shoulders and holds them up, hunched forward just a bit, closer to her ears in a protective stance like I would. In a lower voice, more angry than her own, she says, “I knew she’d find a way to see me.”
Mundie ignores her and turns to me. “The deal is off. You know that, right?”
“I know,” I say, more whispery. I wiggle my shoulders to loosen up, then drop them down and back as I lift my sternum so I stand proud like my sister. “Just wanted to say good-bye to him.” I glance over my shoulder at her one more time. She was Talitha when she walked in here, and now she’s staying here as me. I lift my chin, grab the knapsack, and walk past Mundie like Talitha would.
“I’m letting you go,” he says. “As a favor.”
I nod, then before he can reconsider, I get out the door and sprint.
I’ve been in and out of the room enough to know my way around. I head straight for the stairwell. Robots can’t do stairs, and I’m faster than Mundie if he changes his mind. I charge down and around stairwell after stairwell, taking steps four and five at a time, jumping to landings, ignoring the pain shooting up my ankles into my knees. I’m not going to stop. I owe it to Talitha. I’m getting the hell out of this place and finding a way to get her back.
Once I hit the second floor, I burst through the door into the hall. I won’t go all the way to the first floor because SecuriBots will be waiting for me. Instead, I charge through the hall as fast as I can, toward the French doors at the end. Sunlight streams through the windows, so I know I’m heading in the right direction—toward the back of the building in the west where the sun is starting to set. I hit the doors, slam them wide open, and keep running across the balcony where D’Cart greeted everyone that night at the party. I jump. My right foot hits the stone parapet at the end of the balcony, and I take a giant leap, propelling myself into the air. My body flies, arms and legs still running. Unless I’ve horribly miscalculated, I should be heading for the deep end of the pool.
I hear screaming as I fly and wonder if it’s me. Then I see something horrible.
Another body, falling from the sky. Twisting and turning, hurtling out of control in front of me. It hits the water just seconds before I do.
I plunge in feetfirst and sink, arms overhead, clothes billowing up and covering my face. I blow out, then save air until my feet hit the bottom of the pool. I push off, driving my arms down so I dart back to the surface quickly. I inhale hard, sucking in air, then look down, trying to find the other person in the pool. I see the dark shape, writhing, wriggling, like a dying eel below me. I take a deep breath and dive.
