Tundra 37

by Aubrie Dionne

  They’d never get to the front in an hour.

  He cut right through two older wo­men hold­ing broken ion­izers. They gave him a dirty look, mak­ing her so em­bar­rassed she hid her face in his shoulder. He whispered, “Don’t worry. I know the man in charge.”

  Her dad car­ried her be­hind the main desk to rows of ma­chines in the back, where work­ers wore weld­ing masks and used strange tools that wheezed in high-pitched noises, mak­ing her want to cover her ears. But, she couldn’t be­cause her arms were busy hold­ing her onto her dad’s back. The tangy smell of oil and chem­ic­als tickled her nose.

  A man wear­ing an up­per of­ficer’s uni­form walked in between two large press­ing ma­chines spew­ing sparks and her dad waved to get his at­ten­tion. “Har­ris.”

  The man smiled and shuffled over, step­ping through dis­carded metal on the floor.

  “How’s it go­ing, Al? Your team hold­ing up?”

  “Yes, yes. We’re do­ing fine. We’ve got the heat­ing sys­tems back on­line. Now it’s a mat­ter of wait­ing for the en­ergy to start the core.”

  “I hear ya. I know it’s hard, but the Seers’ con­ser­va­tion meth­ods are wise. We don’t know how long it will take for Al­pha Blue to find what we need.”

  Her dad pat­ted her hand on his shoulder. “Hey, you know any­thing about the status of my daugh­ter’s new hov­er­chair?”

  Har­ris gave him a wary look, mak­ing Vira feel bad she’d come to an­noy him. “We’re do­ing the best we can, but we have to work on the ship’s main­ten­ance sys­tems first.”

  The muscles in her dad’s neck tightened un­der her arms. “How much longer?” His voice grew hard and in­tense, like when he caught Rizzy sneak­ing out past curfew.

  Har­ris’s eyes flicked to Vira and then he looked away, as if it bothered him to look at her. His voice softened. “Look, to tell you the truth, she’s at the bot­tom of the list. The Seers in­struc­ted us to fin­ish the more prom­ising pro­jects, the ones that will be­ne­fit the over­all col­on­iz­a­tion ef­fort.”

  Her dad’s skin turned red. “I see what you’re say­ing and I’m sick of hear­ing about how my daugh­ter isn’t worth­while.” He jabbed his fin­ger in the man’s chest. “Let me tell you, she’s brighter than half the en­gin­eers you have work­ing here right now, and someday she’ll—”

  “Dad, that’s enough. You’re em­bar­rass­ing me.” Vira squeaked, sur­pris­ing her­self with how loud her voice was. The room quieted, and she felt all eyes star­ing at her like lasers. But, she didn’t want her dad los­ing friends be­cause of her. Her fam­ily had already suffered enough be­cause of her dis­ab­il­ity.

  Har­ris’s face turned red, “Al, I’m just fol­low­ing or­ders.”

  “Sure. As we all are.” He waved his hand in the air, dis­miss­ing him as he turned. “Come on, Vira. We’ll find an­other way to get you around.”

  He pushed through the line. People aver­ted their eyes like they al­ways did when she passed, try­ing not to stare. Whis­pers fol­lowed them into the cor­ridor.

  Her dad rubbed his face and took a few deep breaths, as if try­ing to calm down. “I’m sorry, peaches. They just don’t see how spe­cial you are.”

  “It’s okay.” She pat­ted his shoulder, wish­ing he’d just think of her as a nor­mal girl. All this at­ten­tion made her worry that they’d see her real powers, and what then? No, she had to blend in more, and not hav­ing a hov­er­chair just made it worse. If those people couldn’t re­build it for her, then she’d just have to make one her­self.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Choices

  All Mestasis wanted to do was dive back into the orb. The feel­ing con­sumed her, eat­ing her alive un­til she could think of noth­ing else. A tiny voice nagged her senses, and she pulled back from the orb, an­noyed un­til she saw what it was: the latest caus­al­ity re­port sent by the head nurse from the emer­gency bay.

  Mestasis watched the names fly by like fallen stars. So many com­bin­a­tions of DNA lost, such a great chunk of di­versity gone in one day. Fail­ure over­whelmed her, and guilt seeped in as she thought of her selfish de­sire to re­turn to the orb.

  Three out of the four lieu­ten­ants had died, leav­ing only Miles Brent­wood. Thank good­ness he was the most prom­ising one, and the leader of Al­pha Blue. She’d ap­poin­ted him to that po­s­i­tion her­self with no doubt of his abil­it­ies. Re­read­ing their latest status re­port, she hoped the team found the en­ergy source quickly.

  The flicker of the orb dis­trac­ted her. The re­cent re­minder of her mom brought up so many memor­ies. She’d fought to keep them bur­ied for years and suc­ceeded, but in the past few days they’d crept in like in­si­di­ous fin­gers, wrap­ping around her brain. See­ing her mom in the orb was the last push, open­ing the tomb that held everything dear to her heart.

  Mestasis closed her work­ing eye and suc­cumbed to sleep.

  §

  Old Earth, 2446

  You’re not com­ing home with me, are you? Abysme stood with her hands on her hips, her long black braids fall­ing across each shoulder to her slender waist. Be­hind her, the city towers of New York dazzled in a thou­sand pricks of light. Hov­er­crafts whizzed by as a lunar freighter landed on the ad­ja­cent build­ing, loaded with min­er­als from the moon.

  Mestasis clicked off the golden swirls on the ho­lo­screen and their room darkened, shad­ows con­ceal­ing her face. She knew this con­ver­sa­tion had to hap­pen, but the hair on her arms rose with ap­pre­hen­sion.

  I still have so much work to do, and the as­sess­ments are less than a week away.

  This is the only time we have to see her. There’s room on the hov­er­craft for both of us. I bought two tick­ets.

  Mestasis slumped into the couch, feel­ing the cool plastic stick on her sweaty skin. Next time.

  Her sis­ter’s lips curled. Metsy, it’s been years.

  Had it? She couldn’t re­mem­ber. Im­mersed in de­vel­op­ing and hon­ing her psychic skills at TINE, she had no time to re­lax and re­flect on her life.

  Dr. Fields wants com­plete cog­nit­ive elec­tro­mag­netic con­trol by gradu­ation. We need to work harder.

  Abysme pressed her hand against the wall and the lights flickered on. We’re do­ing the best we can. Can’t he see that? We need to have a life, too, you know. We have ob­lig­a­tions to Mom.

  Our ob­lig­a­tions are to TINE. Who do you think pays for this high-rise apart­ment com­plete with real grown food and run­ning wa­ter?

  Abysme threw her hand up in the air. Fine, they can have it back. I’d rather live in poverty with Mom.

  And be afraid of mak­ing rent each month, of be­ing thrown out into the gangs?

  I’m afraid our life will go by, Metsy, and we’ll lose all the im­port­ant mo­ments, the reason for liv­ing in the first place.

  Life can wait. Mestasis poin­ted out the win­dow at the dark craters on the moon, where min­ing teams had stripped the sur­face bare. What’s go­ing to hap­pen when they run out of lunar REE and thorium? With the eco­nomy tank­ing, only the bright­est and most tal­en­ted will sur­vive. Don’t you see? A bet­ter life’s around the corner and we’re al­most there.

  I don’t know how you can live here with your ripe to­ma­toes and warm showers while Mom suf­fers alone.

  Mestasis sighed, wish­ing TINE would house im­me­di­ate fam­ily mem­bers along with its stu­dents. Their mom worked so hard all the time and had no money for a pass to visit them in the up­per levels. Al­though they sent their mom food, she wanted to save all three of them, to ac­quire enough for­tune for a rooftop flat with their own green­house. That was the only dream she al­lowed her­self to foster all these years. Go­ing back now would only dis­tract her, mak­ing it harder to com­plete the fi­nal tests. How could her sis­ter risk their fu­ture?

  I can’t go back. Not now, not when our gradu­ation is so close. Don�
��t you un­der­stand? I’m work­ing for both of us.

  Did you ever con­sider what I wanted?

  What Abysme wanted and what was best for her were two dif­fer­ent things. Mestasis couldn’t al­low her sis­ter to choose. Be­sides, TINE needed them as a pair, and if Abysme left, she’d be wreck­ing all their fu­tures, their mother in­cluded. She ig­nored her sis­ter’s ques­tion.

  Prom­ise me you’ll come back.

  Abysme gave her the guarded look of a caged li­on­ess. Her mind­speak tone was bit­ter. You know I al­ways keep my word.

  Mestasis ground her fin­ger­nails into the plastic couch, mak­ing five cres­cent marks above the seam. She hated how she kept her sis­ter pris­oner, that she needed Abysme as much as Abysme needed her. Their close, sym­bi­otic re­la­tion­ship was both a bless­ing and a bane. She wanted to tell her sis­ter how much she loved her, but bit­ter­ness came out in­stead.

  Go have fun. I’ll be here, prac­ti­cing, do­ing all the work.

  Abysme didn’t an­swer. She picked up her bags and slipped out be­fore Mestasis had a chance to of­fer a real good-bye. Empti­ness ached in­side her and she felt aban­doned, alone. Guilt trickled through her as she thought of Bysme and her mom sit­ting on their tattered couch in the lower levels, think­ing about how if only Metsy had come. The three of them would be to­gether again. One unit, a per­fect whole.

  She flicked on her ho­lo­screen, bury­ing her­self in work, which was what she was good at any­way. Pla­cing a hand on the screen, her thoughts of her mother drif­ted away. She pressed against the cold sur­face and con­cen­trated. The elec­tro­mag­netic pulses rode through her, tingling in her arms and legs. She could reach out and touch all the walls in the hun­dred and fifty story build­ing. She knew on floor sixty-four, Suite A, someone had turned on an air ion­izer, and on floor eighty-seven, Suite F, the cof­fee ma­chine beeped.

  Dr. Field’s eager face flashed in her mind. Listen­ing to cof­fee ma­chines wasn’t good enough. Mestasis’s head throbbed as she struggled to re­define her para­met­ers, search­ing for dif­fer­ent forms of ra­dio­act­ive and elec­tro­mag­netic waves. Be­ing alone gave her a des­per­ate fo­cus, and she stretched her powers bey­ond the elec­tro­mag­netic devices for the first time, breach­ing a bound­ary pre­vi­ously hold­ing her back. She de­tec­ted the pres­ence of in­frared rays given off by people. She pushed harder trav­el­ing from ray to ray in a con­tinu­ous spec­trum, ma­nip­u­lat­ing the en­tire world around her.

  Mestasis grinned in tri­umph. She’d just brought her abil­it­ies to a new level. Dr. Fields would be im­pressed. Us­ing her new tal­ent, she scanned each deck, not­ing any an­om­alies for the re­port. He’d want proof and it had to be ex­act.

  One par­tic­u­lar spot on floor twenty-one caught her at­ten­tion. The heat sig­na­ture pro­duced by the thermal ra­di­ation in­dic­ated a be­ing much smal­ler than a per­son, but two times lar­ger than a pi­geon. Be­sides the ag­ri­cul­tural towers, an­im­als had all but gone ex­tinct. People needed the dwind­ling re­sources much more than pets. She pushed fur­ther, and an im­age of soft fur danced in her mind.

  An an­imal huddled in the corner of an aban­doned floor.

  Mestasis froze, un­will­ing to be­lieve it just as a slim rib­bon of hope floated up from her heart.

  She checked again. The small body had wedged it­self into a pipeline. Noth­ing else emit­ted a heat sig­na­ture in the room.

  She had to save it.

  The an­imal may be the only one she’d ever see and it needed her. How could she let such a help­less en­dangered spe­cies die? She paused, not­ing how low floor twenty-one was, well past the se­cur­ity guards, right in the middle of gang­land.

  She scanned her empty apart­ment. Abysme wasn’t there to stop her, and loneli­ness had slowly worked its way into her heart. TINE would never let her have it, but they didn’t have to know.

  Mestasis stared at the door, and the plastic moved into the frame in two halves, re­veal­ing the dimly lit cor­ridor where her sis­ter had ex­ited. TINE em­ploy­ees and stu­dents rushed by her, run­ning to tests and meet­ings. She slipped down the hall, avoid­ing any­one’s eye. Dr. Fields would ask about Abysme, and she’d have to cover, like al­ways. Even though he wasn’t psychic, someday he’d see through her lies. At least now she had a new de­vel­op­ment to of­fer him, some­thing to keep them at the in­sti­tute and per­haps land a fu­ture job.

  Cross­ing the check­point, she flashed her ID card to the armed guards. They took one look at her status and pressed the door panel, al­low­ing her through to the lower levels. Dr. Fields ex­pec­ted a lot of them, but they weren’t pris­on­ers at TINE. Mestasis made sure of that when she signed them up nine years ago.

  The el­ev­ator only worked down to floor twenty-five. It slowed to a halt, the door slid­ing open to re­veal a cor­ridor lit by flick­er­ing fluor­es­cent lights, half the blubs shattered. She stepped off, feel­ing a chill creep around her. The vent­il­a­tion sys­tem didn’t bother to drive heat down this far, and any warmth rose to the up­per levels. Mestasis sup­pressed a doubt, think­ing of the en­dangered an­imal. She wished her powers worked as a su­per­hero de­fense. She could flicker lights, turn off a cof­fee ma­chine, and tell who stood in the next room. Not enough to make a tough-as-steel gang mem­ber shake in his laser hol­sters.

  Kick­ing in an old-style door with a broken metal knob, she found a stair­case. She’d have to climb down the re­main­ing four flights. Slowly step­ping over the debris clut­ter­ing each step, she worked her way down. Her heel stumbled over a used light stick, snap­ping the plastic in two, the en­ergy cell leak­ing acid on the con­crete. Skirt­ing the haz­ard­ous mess, she reached a plat­form in between levels and kicked a doll’s head, its blue eyes open­ing as it bounced down each stair be­low her. Win­cing, she waited for any sign of move­ment, press­ing her palm against the cold con­crete wall. No heat sig­na­tures re­gistered un­til two floors be­low her, just the small huddled fur ball.

  She emerged on a long-deser­ted fact­ory plat­form. Derel­ict ma­chinery cast men­acing shad­ows around her. Stripped for parts by the gangs, the frames lay gut­ted. After the con­tract­ors ad­ded the higher levels, the for­tu­nate aban­doned the lower floors, each gen­er­a­tion reach­ing to a sky free of smog and enough sun­light to grow food. The trans­port ships de­liv­er­ing goods and fuel only landed on top of the high rises. By the time things reached level one, there wasn’t much left.

  She tip­toed through the dust, leav­ing light foot­prints. The an­imal must have heard her steps, be­cause a noise she’d only heard as an im­per­son­a­tion from the ho­lo­screen echoed from the back corner of the room. “Meow.”

  Her heart melted into li­quid gold. Mestasis placed both hands on the pipe, jut­ting out from an old air vent sys­tem. Her thoughts warmed the metal with cur­rents of elec­tro­mag­netic pulses. The nickel turned pli­able un­der her fin­ger­tips. She coaxed the shape, draw­ing out the metal, widen­ing the gap. Reach­ing down into the hole, she stretched her arm un­til fur tickled her fin­ger­tips. Care­fully, she worked the small body out, scratch­ing her arms.

  Two golden eyes stared at her with side­ways, oval-shaped black ret­inas, mak­ing the dan­ger­ous out­ing worth the re­ward. Black, white, and gold col­ors dec­or­ated its fur in a mottled pat­tern, mak­ing the kit­ten the most beau­ti­ful creature she’d ever seen. She hugged the tiny body close, smooth­ing down the fur stand­ing up on end across its back. The an­imal purred, its head nest­ling against her.

  She turned to the door just as mul­tiple foot­steps clanged up the stair­way. Mestasis clutched the an­imal tightly and ducked be­hind an old plastic as­sim­il­ator. She peered between the dangling metal arm and the as­sembly belt. Five young men entered, two car­ry­ing a large ship­ment con­tainer. Their hair was in­fused with neon green phos­phor­es­cence, the c
olor of the in­fam­ous Ra­dio­act­ive Hand of Justice. They were a group with rad­ical Robin Hood ideals mak­ing re­cent head­lines for in­ter­cept­ing ship­ments from Uto­pia, the largest green­house in New Eng­land. What had she got­ten her­self into?

  “Pry the lid.” The man’s voice cut like a razor through the shad­ows. Mestasis held her breath and put her hand gently over the kit­ten’s mouth.

  Two other men with lanky bod­ies wear­ing long black coats and boots strapped with flash tubes lit up the room with their foot­steps. They de­ac­tiv­ated the code se­quence by over­rid­ing the manual ID keytag. A fourth man circled the peri­meter, his head cocked as if he could hear Mestasis’s heart thump in her chest.

  She tried to calm her­self and think clearly. TINE wouldn’t come and look for her un­til the next day, if she failed to make her ap­point­ment with Dr. Fields. She needed help. Reach­ing out across the city, she fo­cused and re­dir­ec­ted her thoughts.

  Abysme, can you hear me?

  Noth­ing. Her sis­ter must have blocked the mind­speak chan­nel in her an­ger, or she’d traveled too far away to reach through thought. Dread ate a hole in her stom­ach. She was on her own.

  The gang­men pulled bags of grapes, apples red as blood, and sacks bul­ging with pota­toes from the con­tainer.

  “How’s this, boss?”

  The man sur­vey­ing the op­er­a­tion nod­ded, prob­ing a grape between his fin­ger­nails. “An exotic fruit ship­ment. Yes, Quad­rant Forty-five will be pleased.”

  What if they stayed there all night? Mestasis’s heart poun­ded so hard she thought it would bounce right out of her chest and land in the to­ma­toes. The kit­ten wiggled in her hands, ob­vi­ously bored and hungry. She couldn’t keep it quiet for much longer.