by Andrew Gates
“Like you and Dan?” Trace responded.
Iris stood up and pointed at him.
“I can take that pod back!”
“Sorry!” Trace exclaimed as if he was proud of his taunting. Iris watched as he picked up her personal pod, which she had left on the counter after coming in.
“That’s not even accurate,” Iris clarified. “Just so you know, we haven’t had sex. We’re just spending time with each other, that’s all.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Trace argued. “You’re romantically involved.”
Iris ignored his comment, but kept her eyes on him, making sure he did not do anything bad to her pod.
Trace turned to face her and walked over towards the table.
“Now if I was the government or, let’s say, Sanja Parnel, I’d hold that information over your head as blackmail to get what I want. But fortunately for you, I’m not the government. I’m just an annoying asshole.”
“Yes, you are,” Iris replied. “What are you doing with my pod?”
Trace was now holding it up to his face, tapping away.
“I’m trying to access my dataload.”
“Why?” Iris asked.
Trace looked up at her from the top of the pod.
“Because my personal pod is sitting in Parnel’s office somewhere. It’s how they linked me to the hacking, but I forgot all about my dataload until just now.”
“The dataload?” Iris asked.
Trace nodded.
“It’s software that saves files on the Meganet instead of the device’s internal storage. I’d completely forgotten that I had an account until just now. I made it years ago.”
“What will that do for us?”
Trace continued to tap away.
“Well it backs everything up. Assuming it was working, everything I save goes to two places. It saves in the device and it saves in my dataload. Which means as long as I remember my password, I can access all of my old files,” he explained.
Iris did not understand where he was going with this.
“So what?”
“So you can finally believe me,” he answered. “I know you think I’m crazy.”
“Believe you about what, Trace?” she asked.
But before he could answer, Trace turned the pod around so that she could see it.
She froze.
Right away Iris knew what she was looking at. In the center of her pod shone a rolling beach of sand with ocean water gently brushing up against it. Above the beach shone a vast sky full of clouds and a beaming sun that lit up the world. It was beautiful, like something out of a dream.
“I can tell you know what this is,” Trace said.
Iris must have looked visibly shocked by the image. She tried to compose herself differently.
“This video was taken live,” Trace continued. “I saw the surface as it happened. These… things up here are moving!” Clearly Trace had either forgotten or never known the word for clouds. He pointed right towards them as he said it.
“I know, Trace. It’s a beach,” Iris responded.
“Yeah and look at the… the land part,” he explained, obviously forgetting the word sand too.
Iris studied it a little closer. She could not see anything. She grabbed the pod from Trace’s hands and held it a bit nearer to her face. After a few seconds, she saw it.
Footprints.
He was right all along.
Iris pulled the pod down to her lap and looked at Trace. He smiled back at her like he did as a kid who had just won a match of light chasers. Iris knew that face well.
“You’re kidding me,” she said, trying to remain calm.
Trace pulled the pod from her hand and pointed to the sets of prints.
“These are human prints.”
Iris could hardly believe it. The gasses from the surface era bombs made the atmosphere unlivable. Nobody could survive on the surface. But they did look surprisingly human.
“Two sets of tracks,” Trace continued.
Iris stood up, grabbed the pod from him and pulled it to her face again. Sure enough, he seemed to be right.
“It can’t be,” she said, staring at the video before her eyes.
“It is,” Trace responded. “I’m telling you, there’s something crazy going on here.”
Iris looked back at him.
“I believe you now,” she said. Trace smiled. “But… but I’m still not convinced that this is from humans. It just can’t be.”
“Then what is it?” he asked.
“I…” Iris did not know how to answer. “I don’t know. It doesn’t look like a mantis footprint.”
Trace stood up too and pulled the pod from her hands. He tossed it down on the couch.
“Do you still believe in your government, Iris?” Trace asked.
Iris was not expecting to have this question thrown at her. The question seemed irrelevant. She simply nodded her head.
“Well you shouldn’t. And I don’t think they know about this. At least, not yet,” he said.
This was just another example of Trace’s insanity. How could this not be shared with the government? This information was crucial to her research. She had to include this in her weekly report to Dr. Parnel.
“I can’t ignore this!” Iris protested.
“You can’t reveal this to Dr. Parnel,” Trace continued, “because if you do, she’ll ask you for your source. If you give up your source, you get pulled into the same mess I’m in. And trust me, you won’t last in prison. Your soul is not as strong as mine.”
“Fuck,” Iris said aloud. He had her there.
She could not believe how she was feeling right now. It was like an odd mix of curiosity, frustration, astonishment and just being plain pissed off.
Trace just laughed and sat back down on the couch.
Iris glared at him.
“What’s so funny?”
He picked up the pod again and smiled back up at her.
“You’re turning into me,” he answered.
THE MATH TEACHER SAT IN his bed, thinking about Invasion Day as he tied the tie around his neck. He had been thinking about it a lot over the past 11 days. Everyone had. There had really never been a day quite like it, a day so affected by a single event. Everything all across the station just stopped for a moment. No matter where people were or what they were doing, everyone everywhere stopped and watched in horror, glued to their pods like Misha to a new toy.
He and Selena were on their way home at the time, returning from a staff party for Selena’s bank. Soon they were caught up in a crowd, full of people running at top speed. Not knowing what to do, the panicked couple ran home as fast as they could. They opened the Meganet as soon as they had access, which took nearly 10 minutes. Even online, everything was different. Meganet advertisements were gone. Instead, pod camera footage of monsters lit up their screens. Even the media reports seemed different. Entire articles gave almost no facts, but seemed more like reporters writing about how frightened they were. It was as if the media was more emotionally invested in its content than ever.
The media called it Invasion Day, though the event was more of an attack than an actual invasion. In just a short period of time, it had become the most used phrase all across the city. Grey remembered watching the news in horror, huddled in his home, shivering every time the words Invasion Day were uttered. When news broke of the creatures’ death, the words brought surprisingly little satisfaction.
The worst part was not the attack itself, but what followed. While Grey’s family was fine, others had to endure a long period of waiting. People needed blood, food, clothes and reassurance. But it took time to organize for donations. Grey wanted to help, but feared for himself and his family. He dared not venture out, even when his city needed him the most. That was someone else’s job.
Days passed and things did not go back to the way they used to be. Adjusting to life in general after the UBE attack had been harder than Grey imagined. He stayed very close t
o his home now, never venturing out for anything other than essentials. The halls had become too dangerous, too unpredictable. Dan had moved in with them at Grey’s request. He knew there was safety in numbers.
Grey took a deep breath and tried to forget about the past. As hard as it was, life had to go on, and that included work. Returning to teacher life was a bizarre feeling. After everything that happened, his old work seemed so trivial. The students, the classroom, the curriculum, it all seemed like words without meaning. The important things were out there, giant creatures with four legs and sharp claws, not inside the halls of Harrison Middle School. At least that’s what it feels like, Grey thought.
The biggest fear came from the lack of answers. Nobody, not even the President himself, seemed to know a thing about the UBEs. Where did they come from? Why were they here? What did they want? These were the questions on his mind. Most importantly, will they come back?
Perhaps someone knew the answers to these questions, or perhaps not. But the public was kept out of the information loop. Rumor had it Elected Officials were holding secret hearings behind closed doors and the Navy was building up its forces all across the station. Grey was never one to believe rumors, but part of him hoped someone in the government knew the answers to his questions and more importantly, had a plan to deal with them.
Knock, knock, knock!
Grey looked up towards the door.
“Yes?” he asked, not knowing who he was talking to.
“You ready to go?” asked Dan on the other side.
Grey still had not finished tying his tie. He quickly finished up, examined himself in the mirror one more time and joined his brother in the living room.
Dan wore a white shirt and black pants. His glasses were tucked into his front pocket. This was the first time Grey had seen him dress this formally in several days.
“No blazer today?” Grey asked as he saw him.
Dan glanced down at his clothes.
“You think I should?”
“You usually do. It’s your choice,” he responded. Grey decided to go without a blazer today, but that was normal for him.
With everything that had happened in the last few days, it felt odd to have such a mundane conversation about trivial details. Grey wondered how long this feeling would last. Maybe returning to school is exactly what this station needs right now.
Unlike Grey, Selena would not be returning to work for another few days. Her bank’s electrical wiring was completely fried from the flooding. She did not know when it would be open again, but according to her boss, the repairs would be extensive.
Fortunately this provided a nice period of time for Selena to be with the kids. Kaitlyn and Misha were both too young to be in school and with the halls as dangerous as they were, Grey wanted every reassurance that his children would be kept safe.
Kaitlyn was at an interesting age, just now discovering the world, but still not aware of how it worked. Talking about Invasion Day was a hard thing to do with someone so young. He often wondered how much she understood. Misha was still too young to grasp such concepts, but even she could tell that something was different.
Selena would take good care of them for the next few days. Grey smiled as he passed by the girls’ bedroom, knowing that the three most important women in his life were safe inside.
“Don’t worry,” Dan said. “They’re fine.”
Clearly Grey’s thoughts must have been easy to read.
“I know,” he replied, turning to face his brother. He paused for a moment and took a deep breath. “It feels weird, doesn’t it?”
Dan nodded and placed his right hand on the trim layer of beard wrapped around his chin. For a moment, he did not say a word.
“Yeah,” he eventually said, still nodding. “Yeah, it’s definitely weird.”
“It’s good that they’ve been sleeping in the same room. I think having her in their room is… well, helpful,” Grey added.
Dan checked his personal pod for the time and ran his fingers through his dark curly hair. He seemed nervous about something.
“What is it?” Grey asked.
“It’s… it’s good to have that feeling, that comfort. You know someone responsible is going to be watching over the ones you love when you leave.”
Grey knew what was worrying him. For the past few weeks Dan had secretly been seeing their co-worker, Ms. Vitneskia, or Iris, as Grey had taken to calling her. For obvious legal reasons, Dan did not want this relationship to be widely known. He only confided in a few, namely Grey and Selena.
When Dan first revealed the news to him, Grey was surprised. Dan had always been more rebellious than his brother, but he was not one to break such a stringent, longstanding law. It seemed their relationship was genuine though. Dan seemed happier with Iris in his life. Grey was not one to get in the way of such a healthy relationship and neither was Selena.
After the UBE attack, Dan grew worried about her. It seemed she had confided in another man, a dangerous outlaw no less. Word had it that the Navy shut down every green zone just to search for him. Of course, Dan did not like him one bit. Sometimes Grey would wake up late at night to find Dan sitting on the couch contemplating. It seemed his worry for Iris was keeping him up at night.
“Don’t worry,” Grey said to his brother. “Iris will be safe. You’ll see her today.”
Dan was silent. Those words did not seem to help. He turned towards the front door and began to walk away.
“What’s wrong, Dan?” Grey asked, following him to the door.
“I know that should help; me seeing her,” he began, finally saying something. “But what if it doesn’t?” Dan stopped walking when he reached the door.
“Maybe it won’t. I don’t know. How long is that guy staying with her?”
“Today should be the last day,” Dan replied. “He’s only using her to get to his kid.”
Grey did not know this piece of information. This was the first time he had heard of a kid in the story.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
Dan turned to face him.
“Trace is just using Iris for access to his daughter. That’s the only reason he’s offering her protection for this long.”
“So what’s the problem?” Grey asked.
“The problem is… what if he doesn’t hold up his end of the bargain? What if he doesn’t leave her alone? I don’t like that man. I don’t want him anywhere near her.”
“I know,” Grey replied, “I know.”
Dan sighed.
“Is Ophelia Saljov in your class?” he asked.
Grey shook his head. He knew of Ophelia. She was a soft spoken girl with light colorless eyes and fair hair. She was too young to be in any of his classes though.
“Well that’s his kid. Anyway, he wants her back. Apparently nobody knows where she’s been staying for months.”
Grey remembered getting a call from Iris almost a week ago, asking if he knew anything about Ophelia’s living situation. At the time, he just assumed she’d been asking for work purposes.
“Are you sure she’ll be in school today?” Grey asked, worried that she might not show up.
“No,” Dan replied. “We’ll probably have a low attendance.”
“Well let’s hope for the best.”
Dan nodded, turned back to the door again and walked out. For the first time since the attack, Grey and Dan were going to work.
The room felt strangely foreign, yet familiar. Everything was there, the desks, the chairs, the lights and the standard grey colored walls. Yet it seemed slightly different somehow. Grey felt weirdly removed from it all, as if he were walking through old memories in a dream.
The math teacher was surprised to see how many students sat before him. He quickly counted heads as he said his opening remarks. The words themselves did not matter. It was just filler as he got himself organized.
Seven, he realized. Only seven students showed up for my first class.
The ones in a
ttendance appeared strangely content. Their faces were more or less expressionless and they sat quietly at attention. Grey had assumed most of them would be nervous. I guess the nervous ones stayed home.
“- and it’s great to see you all again,” he finished.
For a moment the room was quiet. Despite the students’ seemingly impassive state, Grey was surprised that nobody said anything. He curiously looked around the room. Then one student, Clayton Howard, raised his hand.
“Yes, Clayton,” Grey said, pointing to him. The boy lowered his hand like they were powered by hydraulics.
“What about the pledge?” he asked.
Grey stared back at him, not knowing what to say. Though it was the rule in the Atlantic Federation to recite the pledge at the start of each school day, it was a rule Grey often ignored. The teacher had nothing against the pledge nor its message. He just found it to be a waste of time.
“We’ve never done the pledge in this class before,” Grey responded.
“Well…” Clayton replied, “it’s first period so… I’d like to do it.”
Grey was surprised. Is this why the whole class seems so expressionless? Are they just waiting to recite some words?
“Would you guys all like to do it?” he asked, addressing the whole room.
All seven heads nodded.
Unity, Grey thought. That was the word heard all over the station.
“Alright then. I don’t have a flag, but let’s all face forward and say the pledge.”
The class stood up. One girl in front promptly removed a white hat from her head. Grey had never seen so much eagerness for patriotism. He felt strangely happy to see it.
I pledge myself, both body and mind,
to the ideals of the Atlantic Federation
that we as humanity may survive and prosper
under the Light of the Lord Beyond Both Seas.
Progress through obedience.
Long live the Federation.
Instead of sitting down right away, the students remained standing. Grey joined them, following their lead. He felt proud of his class. At this moment, he was the student and they were the teachers. Nothing could have prepared him for the satisfaction he felt in his heart. After a moment of silence, Clayton looked up and sat back down in his chair. The other students followed.
