Tundra 37

by Aubrie Dionne

  “Luna, all I wanted was to be left alone.”

  Luna shook her head wear­ily. “It doesn’t mat­ter now.” Blood caught in her throat and she gurgled. “What mat­ters is…Beta Prime.”

  “What?”

  Luna’s breath hitched and she struggled to take in enough air to speak. Gemme put her head down to her lips. “Don’t let the Seers get—”

  Be­hind her, Tech fired at the mam­moth as it pushed against the landrover, threat­en­ing to topple it side­ways. Gemme reached for her laser, but she’d lost it in the ava­lanche. Tech fired a steady stream, but noth­ing stopped it. The beast ducked its head in the same mo­tion that got Luna, and Gemme shouted, “Tech, jump off!”

  Just as the tusked crown came up, Tech fired side­ways point­ing the laser at its eye. With one shot, the mam­moth fell back on its hind legs and keeled over. The ground rumbled un­der­neath her as the gi­ant body hit. The hairs still writhed on its hide as the last steam of breath plumed from its pink mouth.

  Tech jumped off the vehicle and ran over. “How’s she do­ing? Is she hurt?”

  When Gemme turned back to Luna, her eyes stared at the sky.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Opportunity

  Mestasis couldn’t deny the orb’s power over her any longer. The device glistened like a new­born star. The prox­im­ity to the beacon must have heightened its power. As the orb grew stronger, it ac­tiv­ated re­gions of her brain long dormant, bring­ing up the memor­ies she’d held so dear, clear as the day it had happened. The more memor­ies it brought back, the more it lured her into its depths.

  Was this only a side ef­fect of the orb, or was this what it was meant to do? If so, how could some­thing so spe­cial be dan­ger­ous? She al­lowed her mind to wander.

  §

  Old Earth, 2446

  “Meow.”

  “Don’t worry, Calico. I’m not go­ing to for­get you.” Mestasis pried the ball of fur off of her shred­ded plastic couch. She ran a hand over its fur, see­ing odd golden swirls move on its coat and de­pos­ited the an­imal on the floor. Even though the kit­ten had already ruined the up­hol­stery, and she’d never use it again, she nudged the an­imal away out of habit. “We’re not go­ing quite yet.”

  The kit­ten dar­ted between two stor­age con­tain­ers full of everything she ever owned, the lids popped open as she de­cided on last minute items to take. Thank­fully, Calico had her own pet holder.

  I’m ready to go. Abysme gave her a ser­i­ous look from the door­way. Her own con­tainer sat fully packed by her feet. A ceramic pot painted in elab­or­ate African tri­bal designs poked out from piles of clothes. It was a strange item to bring with her, tak­ing up so much space and weight, with no use other than sen­ti­mental. But Mestasis was glad they’d still have it with them, even if the blade of grass had died years ago.

  Mestasis glanced around the apart­ment. I need more time. She knew she’d for­get some­thing and miss it for the next three hun­dred years, or how­ever long it took the Ex­ped­i­tion to reach Para­dise 18.

  You’re the one who wanted to do this, and now you can’t? If I don’t leave now, I may not find the cour­age again. I’ll change my mind.

  Mestasis froze. Who in their right mind would want to be left be­hind on a crum­bling planet? Why?

  Abysme put her hands on her hips. She looked mad, but her fin­gers trembled against her shirt. All I ever wanted was to be with Mom. Everything here re­minds me of her, and I’m afraid once we leave, I’ll have noth­ing left.

  Mestasis shook her head. You’ll al­ways have your memor­ies. No one can take those away, and you’ll carry them with you, wherever you are.

  Memor­ies aren’t enough. I can’t talk to Mom and get a re­sponse; I can’t feel her arms around me. They’re only a shadow of what happened in the past.

  Mestasis thought back to the day she and her sis­ter left for TINE. The view of their small apart­ment burned into her visual cor­tex, sum­mon­ing feel­ings as raw as the minute they left. Memor­ies are more power­ful than you think.

  Abysme picked up her con­tainer, bal­an­cing the weight on her hip. Be­hind them, sirens wailed as hov­er­crafts flew to the city bor­ders to keep the horde of refugees at bay. I’ll go with you on this crazy ad­ven­ture, but you have to prom­ise me, we’ll never for­get where we came from, that we’ll never for­get her.

  I prom­ise. Plop­ping on the floor, Mestasis sor­ted through gad­gets from their years at TINE. She threw out an old en­ergy ca­pa­citor, but kept the elec­tro­lytic na­n­otech scan­ner just in case. She thought that was enough to get Bysme to leave, but her sis­ter stood like a statue in front of the door.

  It’s him, isn’t it? Abysme’s mind­speak soun­ded jeal­ous. You’re wait­ing for him.

  I want to make sure he makes it on board. He’s the reason why we have a ticket off Earth.

  Abysme stared at the door and the pan­els par­ted. He can dock at the last minute, but I can’t. I’m go­ing on.

  I’ll see you up there. Mestasis gave her a smile, think­ing of how proud she was of her sis­ter. She took a step into the un­known, a leap of faith, not only in Thadi­ous Leg­acy’s cal­cu­la­tions, but in Mestasis’s as well.

  You’d bet­ter, be­cause I’m not spend­ing the next three hun­dred years of my life alone in deep space. Al­though Abysme’s words teased her, her sis­ter smiled back be­fore she slipped out the door. The pan­els closed be­hind her, leav­ing Mestasis with Calico. The kit­ten rolled on her back ex­pos­ing her white belly and stretched lux­uri­ously.

  Mestasis ran her hands over the soft fur, thank­ful she still had com­pany. The apart­ment felt empty with all their be­long­ings packed, and even emp­tier now that Abysme had left. She wondered who would live here after them and if there was a fu­ture left for TINE.

  The door beeped and Mestasis jumped, start­ling Calico. The kit­ten shot up­right and scur­ried un­der­neath the couch. Anxiously, Mestasis par­ted the pan­els with her mind. James stood in the cor­ridor, the ends of his black hair curving in to his square chin. His eyes shone sil­ver as the moon and one look stole her heart all over again.

  “I’m sorry I’m late.”

  Mestasis shot up, crossed the liv­ing room in two leaps, and threw her arms around him. “Non­sense, I’m glad to see you.”

  He bur­ied his face in her braids, his warm breath mov­ing stray strands of her hair. They held each other for a long time, neither one speak­ing un­til the si­lence grew like a dis­son­ant note in­side her.

  His hands held her arms a little too tight. His body felt ri­gid. Mestasis pulled away far enough to meet his gaze. “What’s wrong?”

  James shook his head. “I didn’t make it on the ship.”

  Panic and dis­be­lief jol­ted in­side her. She must have mis­heard him. “What?”

  “Metsy, I’m not go­ing with you.”

  Be­trayal burned like laser light in her heart. “But Thadi­ous Leg­acy prom­ised me—”

  “I didn’t pass the ge­netic tests. Seems my genes carry ma­jor de­fects, and I have an ar­rhythmic heart­beat to boot. I’m a poor can­did­ate for their ge­netic match­ing pro­gram, and the con­di­tions aboard the ship would stress my heart.”

  An­ger formed a hard cen­ter in her chest. She’d heard his heart, and it beat just fine. Was Thadi­ous keep­ing him from her? Did he think hav­ing James aboard would dis­tract her? All of a sud­den she hated the bald man. “He’s do­ing this on pur­pose.”

  “No, Metsy.” James as­sured her, run­ning a fin­ger down her cheek. “I’ve felt the ar­rhythmia be­fore. It usu­ally hap­pens when I get out of breath or climb to the higher levels. I never thought much of it un­til now.”

  Mestasis’s knees weakened. She didn’t want to be­lieve him. James’s grip re­mained firm, hold­ing her up. He spoke with his lips against her ear. “Be­sides, with everything go­ing on and thou­sands of people board­
ing, the odds of con­spir­acy to break us apart are un­likely. Don’t blame Thadi­ous, blame me.”

  She could never blame him. “I’ll talk to them, make an ex­cep­tion for your case. Maybe they have med­ical ad­vance­ments that can help?”

  “I’ve already tried pe­ti­tion­ing it. The con­tract is pretty clear. There’s no chan­ging the para­met­ers. All you’ll do is make trouble for your­self.”

  Mestasis felt trapped, forced to make a de­cision that would tear her apart. How could James give in to the sys­tem so eas­ily? Why didn’t he fight to be with her?

  Tears flowed down her cheeks and James gently wiped them away with his thumb. “Metsy, you know I love you.”

  She pulled away, turn­ing her back on him and walk­ing to the sight panel. She’d have to choose between him and her sis­ter. She had no doubt Abysme could fly that ship by her­self, but she was the one who’d signed the con­tract. Be­sides, she couldn’t leave her sis­ter alone on a mis­sion that she her­self had chosen for them both. Her chin trembled as real­ity sunk in. He wouldn’t budge and neither would she. This was the last time she’d see him. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  James sighed. “Be­cause you’d call it off. You wouldn’t go.”

  Would she have? Prob­ably not. She al­ways picked her sis­ter in the end.

  Mestasis turned back to him, some­how feel­ing as though she let him down. “What are you go­ing to do?”

  He walked over to the sight panel and poin­ted to people scur­ry­ing in the cor­ridors between build­ings, pre­par­ing for the at­tacks from the refugees. “Help them. It’s what I do best, Metsy.”

  She stud­ied his pro­file, try­ing to re­mem­ber the way his chin curved, and the pure black­ness of his hair. She loved his sense of valor most about him. If some­how she found a way to bring him with her, he may never re­con­cile the fact that he left so many be­hind. She’d force him to be some­thing he wasn’t, cage the hero that should save the world. Mestasis sighed, real­iz­ing she couldn’t win this ar­gu­ment. She just never thought his honor would pull them apart in the end. “I can’t go without you.”

  “Yes, you can, and you must. There are at least three hun­dred good people aboard that ship; my people, people that have fought to stay alive des­pite their cir­cum­stances. Guide them to a bet­ter world, Metsy. If you won’t do it for your­self, do it for me.”

  He pleaded so in­tensely she couldn’t re­fuse him. She checked the wall­screen. “We don’t have much time left.”

  “Then let’s make these last hours count.” He leaned in and pulled her against him, kiss­ing her fiercely. She wrapped her arms around his neck. Noth­ing was close enough. Her hands roamed over the muscles in his back, un­tuck­ing his shirt. She felt around his waist, and the curves of his abs un­der­neath his shirt as he kissed her. Each touch ex­plored more about him, mak­ing her shiver. How could someone deem him so im­per­fect? To her, he was flaw­less.

  He ducked, his arm slid­ing un­der­neath her legs as he picked her up. The uni­verse had aligned for them to have this private mo­ment, and she lost her­self in it, feel­ing free of any ob­lig­a­tions or pre­des­tin­a­tion. Noth­ing ex­is­ted ex­cept the feel of his skin and the scent of their bod­ies in­ter­mingled. This was her para­dise.

  §

  The wall­screen beeped and a mono­tone voice echoed, “In­com­ing call.”

  Mestasis rose up from her bed, her head groggy from deep sleep. She hadn’t al­lowed her con­scious mind to rest that fully in her en­tire life; no im­pulses, no dreams, just bliss­ful dark­ness. The world came back to her, along with de­li­cious memor­ies. She reached out be­side her and ran her hand un­der cold sheets. James was gone. Empti­ness over­whelmed her, spread­ing through her limbs un­til she felt cold every­where.

  Scoop­ing up his pil­low, she bur­ied her nose in the fab­ric, smelling his scent. His ab­sence caused a sharp pain in her gut, but she knew if he stayed, it would make it harder for her to leave. He’d made his choice, and now she had to make hers.

  The wall­screen beeped again, in­sist­ent. Too tired to use her powers to turn the panel on, Mestasis leaned for­ward, mak­ing sure the blanket covered her up.

  Abysme’s face stared back at her in shock. Their mind­speak didn’t work well on com­mu­nic­a­tion chan­nels, so she spoke with real words in­stead. “What are you do­ing in bed? You’re sup­posed to at­tend a formal ce­re­mony in thirty minutes. Thadi­ous Leg­acy’s been ask­ing about you. I al­most snuck off the ship and came back to get you. I thought the refugees stormed our apart­ment and murdered you on the streets, and you’re tak­ing a nap?”

  This was it, her time of choice. If she stepped on that ship, there’d be no go­ing back. Mestasis stared at the face she knew so well, the mir­ror im­age of her own.

  Abysme sighed, let­ting a rare glim­mer of vul­ner­ab­il­ity show in the hard edges of her fea­tures. “I was so wor­ried. I really thought some­thing had happened to you. It made me think about things, and I’m glad you won us this chance, Metsy. I’m glad we’ve made it to a safe place to­gether. I know I’ve never been thank­ful of what you’ve achieved for us, but I am now. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  Abysme was her twin. Her other half. How could she let her down?

  Mestasis real­ized she still hugged James’s pil­low. Pla­cing it down be­side the wrinkled cov­ers, she ran her hands over the fab­ric one last time. Tak­ing a deep breath, she swung her legs off the edge and stood up. The world felt rick­ety un­der her feet. “I’ll be right there.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Last Words

  Mam­moth hairs flew over his head as Brent­wood ducked and rolled un­der two sets of legs, thick as tree trunks. He had to keep mov­ing to use the com­mo­tion to his ad­vant­age, giv­ing them no chance to sniff him out. The ad­ren­aline rush­ing in­side him made dart­ing through the herd easy. Even so, one mis­step and he’d be one mam­moth’s din­ner.

  He’d already se­cured the first pole, and he only had two more to go. Hope­fully, they wouldn’t knock it over be­fore he got the second one down. He needed at least two con­duct­ors to start the en­ergy beam.

  Stay­ing on the edge of the val­ley, he zig­zagged to the op­pos­ite side. He had to make the peri­meter big enough to pro­tect the min­ing area and the vehicle, giv­ing Tech enough room to work. Too small an area would put all of them in danger once Tech drove the landrover down. He couldn’t tell how far the mam­moth hair could stretch. If the mam­moths ruined the equip­ment, the an­im­als might doom the en­tire crew of the Ex­ped­i­tion.

  An un­oc­cu­pied spot of land lay ex­posed up ahead, pro­tec­ted by two mounds of snow; a per­fect place for the next pole. Brent­wood dashed over and pulled an­other metal rod from un­der his arm. The pole sank into the snow and he punched it down deep enough to stand up ver­tic­ally. He tested the sta­bil­ity with a kick.

  Press­ing the panel on the top, he ac­tiv­ated the second pole. A cyl­in­der-shaped com­part­ment rose up, ex­pos­ing a ball of light and a thin, red beam cut across the snow, con­nect­ing the two poles. En­cour­aged, Brent­wood pumped his fist in the air. If any mam­moth tried to cross it, the en­ergy would zap them dead, or at least, in the­ory. Heart pound­ing, he scanned the area. Now he had to find a place for the third pole without trap­ping any mam­moths in­side.

  He looked for the easi­est dir­ec­tion to run, but he’d lingered too long. A hulk of hair charged at him, fol­lowed by an­other and an­other. Brent­wood brought up his laser and fired at the leader.

  This is it. Too late for re­grets. Good thing I fi­nally told Gemme how I felt.

  He couldn’t blast all of them. He’d been fir­ing the whole time and he hadn’t even taken down one.

  Squash­ing his fear, he placed him­self dir­ectly in front of the laser beam. The charged particles buzzed be­hind him, re­mind­in
g him how much power lay at his back. Death waited for him on either side. If he stepped into the beam, he’d die in­stantly. If he waited for the mam­moths, he’d be stomped on or im­paled.

  Death by elec­tro­cu­tion or mam­moth tusks.

  Hard de­cision.

  Brent­wood planted his feet down firmly, dropped the third pole, and squeezed the trig­ger.

  The mam­moth hair grasped out like seek­ing vines, reach­ing a meter ahead of them, as if their pound­ing feet wouldn’t reach him soon enough. It made him stom­ach squirm to think of the hair find­ing him and crawl­ing down his back.

  Wait.

  Spittle dripped from the pink mouths as their heads dipped down, re­veal­ing their tusks.

  Wait.

  Now! He turned, sprin­ted two steps for mo­mentum, and leaped, spread­ing his legs out as far as they could stretch. The red laser light came closer and he willed him­self higher, hop­ing the fab­ric of his pants didn’t droop too far. He should have re­set the con­fig­ur­a­tions, nar­row­ing the width and height of the beam.

  Sprawl­ing through the air, he cleared the laser with mil­li­meters to spare. He hit the snow and rolled into a crouch just as the first mam­moth reached the beam. The massive body jerked as it barreled into the light. The beast cried out, screech­ing like a pig in the live­stock cells aboard the Ex­ped­i­tion. A second mam­moth hit the beam, then a third.

  The reek of burnt hair filled the air as they writhed in the elec­tric cur­rent. They dropped to the snow, and steam rose off their seared hides. Brent­wood stepped around the end of the pole, watch­ing the rest of mam­moth horde re­treat from the laser light.

  “Woo­hoo! Take that you hairy mon­sters!” The last of them dis­ap­peared over the ridge at the far end of the val­ley, smal­ler beasts trail­ing the wake of the lar­ger ones.