by Karen Bao
“Who told you that, the Committee?” Wes whispers back. He’s trying to sound nonchalant and collected, perhaps to impress me, but excitement bubbles in his voice. “Even in Saint Oda, we know the Batterers have got half the globe—their alliance, I mean—feeding them raw materials. Wouldn’t be the richest city on the planet without some draw-on clothes and thousand-foot-high buildings.”
“So the Batterers aren’t desperate, but a lot of their allies still are,” I say. The Committee made all of Earth sound primitive, polluted, or both, but it seems a handful of places might defy that propaganda—at the expense of their allies.
“I hear you two chattering,” the officer says. “Before we go on, you need to give me your documentation.”
I close my gaping mouth, remembering the danger we’re in. Odans don’t keep official papers or electronic records, so how will we prove we’re not from Tourmaline? Fail to convince the Batterers, and they’ll throw us in jail or deport us.
The young soldier next to me pushes the muzzle of his gun harder against my temple. “Documentation, alien. I could buy that the boy’s Odan, but you? Not likely.”
It’s because I don’t look typically Odan, thanks to my Asian features. Eyes wide, I shake my head and curse myself for failing to prepare. Should we say I’m a Pacifian emigrant to Saint Oda? Or would that complicate the narrative too much?
“We’re from Saint Oda, and we carry no records,” Wes rattles off, unfazed, in an exaggerated Odan accent. “People of every nation are equal in God’s eyes.”
I suppress an eye roll at his theatrics. But behind us, the crowd presses closer, watching with interest. Although the Batterer soldiers’ faces remain unyielding, Wes’s antics have appealed to the civilians.
“Odans? In a Tourmalinian submarine? This should keep Battery Bay entertained for the next few hours.” The woman in the black hair-dress reaches into a pocket and pulls out a curled sheet of plastic. She unrolls it—it’s rectangular, about the length and width of her face—and it lights up. Wes and I see our haggard faces reflected back at us, with the word INTERVIEWEE(S) flashing at the bottom of the screen. Behind her, other people press forward, trying to film us, shouting for the woman to make room.
She ignores their pleas. “Turn this way. I’m shooting you for my vlog.” She changes the angle of the camera screen. “It’s called The Seaway. I show my followers the most interesting people who pass through BB Customs, live.”
I look away and keep walking. Why would this woman seek attention rather than shrink from it? My Lunar background taught me that standing out is dangerous, and I saw that firsthand in Militia training, when Jupiter and Callisto attacked me for threatening their positions at the top of our class. On the Moon, a Journalist wouldn’t dare interrupt an official procedure—and I should know, as my mother was one. But I remember from Earth Studies classes that Battery Bay prides itself on “chaotic broadcasting” and maintains strong independent media outlets. I just didn’t think they’d take the word independent so far.
“Amalie, wait for an interview until they’ve seen the Diplomacy Minister, or I’ll throw you overboard too.” The officer walks faster. “Don’t Odans think anything with an electrical current is diseased? You’re inviting voodoo from these two.”
“If they’re Odan like they claim to be,” says the soldier who’s guarding me.
The officer and Amalie know each other? The latter must be a regular fixture here. Law enforcement officers and vloggers seem to stand on equal footing; these so-called journalists chronicle what they want. If Mom were here, she’d be delighted and envious. I feel only trepidation. This city is so bizarre, its customs so foreign. I could make a lethal mistake without knowing it.
The long glass tunnel leads us to a circular building edged with spikes. It resembles an immense sea urchin (Wes showed me the spiny creatures in the tide pools of Saint Oda). Although the spikes themselves are solid metal, the center portion is transparent. Anyone can see into the hall from outside. Oblong pods with wings—Batterer vehicles, I assume—swarm around the building like a school of fish. Where the walkway connects to the urchin building, the narrow space opens into a wide hallway that slopes downward at an angle of about thirty degrees.
The horde of vloggers seizes the chance to move closer to Wes and me. I avoid looking at their cameras, instead examining the cerulean walls, the golden seats implanted in the floor. At the end of the hallway sit a gold desk and a short, pale man whose transparent hair reflects light like water. Is it an optical illusion? Or is there water enclosed in some kind of membrane around his head?
As he stands up, his hair ripples but does not splash away from his skull. His dark blue eyes are as cold as the ocean’s abyss.
“Minister Costa, here are the passengers we found aboard the Tourmalinian submarine,” the officer says to him.
“Please, Minister,” Wes begins, “we’re Odan. Pacifia is heading toward our city as we speak, and we had to travel here quickly, using the first vehicle we could find—”
To cut off Wes, Minister Costa raises his right hand and pinches his forefinger and thumb together. His quiet voice thrums with strength. “You’ll need a better reason to stop me from deporting you, one that’s not a lie.”
The vloggers begin hurling questions at us. One shouts, “You, the girl—Odan, Tourmalinian, whatever you are—are the minister’s suspicions justified?”
I numbly shake my head.
“Do you feel you were treated fairly by the Coastwatch?”
I continue shaking my head, eyes wide. The combination of fear and claustrophobia is giving me a splitting headache.
“What are your names?” “What are your plans after deportation?” “Why have the Odans finally broken their silence?”
In the middle of answering one journalist’s question, Wes catches my eye. Even as words issue from his mouth, he looks worn, frightened—the same way I’m feeling. He can fight for hours on end, but he can only bear this level of scrutiny for a few minutes.
Sighing, Costa sits behind his desk and presses a button; a transparent, flexible screen like Amalie’s unrolls in front of his face. The sight sucks the noise out of the room—perhaps he’s dictating our fate based on what he’s heard. “The situation has spiraled out of control,” he says to the screen. “Can’t deport them without exacerbating the hullabaloo. . . . Fine, come if you must.”
The crowd begins buzzing again, and my heart takes off, beating fast as a lab rat’s.
Several unbearable seconds later, the mahogany doors behind Minister Costa swing open. A tall, bearded, relatively unadorned man walks in; he looks to be Central American. He wears a simple white shirt that buttons up to his chin, and a gold silk scarf is tied around his neck. His hair is parted on the right; the top is long, but the sides are buzzed short. The outline of a falcon’s head has been shaved onto his scalp.
Whispers of “Prime Minister Sear!” fill the air, and the reporters press ever closer. Amalie whips out a small tube from her pocket and begins drawing on her legs. Wherever her pen goes, new fabric appears, elongating her short skirt. Soon, she’s dressed modestly enough to appease even an Odan.
The newcomer leans against the wall behind Costa’s desk. His yawn, though silent, looks like a bear’s roar. He moves with the ease of someone aware of his power, who doesn’t need to prove himself to others. Like a Committee member—but not quite: we can all see his face.
“Half the city is streaming this event,” Sear says. “The other, younger half, while stuck in class, are aware that they are missing something monumental. Odan natives! We teach our children about the Sanctuary Act, but we’ve never acquired decent footage of these mysterious people. And now two of them have voluntarily come to us. Fascinating.”
Costa’s water-hair sloshes as he shakes his head. “They claim to be Odan—”
“I cannot speak for the girl—” Sear s
ays.
“Exactly,” Costa says, turning to me. “Explain yourself.”
Freezing up, I force out words through locked jaws and hope my Lunar accent doesn’t rear its jagged head. “I came to Saint Oda. From Pacifia. Very recently.”
“See?” Sear says. “She’s telling the truth. English doesn’t seem to be her first language.”
Ugh. I pinch my lips together to keep from grimacing in distaste. Since the Pacifian alliance absorbed much of former China and all of North Korea, it makes sense that he’d assume I learned a different language first. But I speak English as well as Sear does, even if I do so sporadically.
Costa’s expression softens. “What about the boy?”
I slowly breathe out, letting relief fill me up. Wes will pass their test far more easily. Suddenly, I’m thankful that Sear made assumptions about me. Now, I can be my quiet self without arousing suspicion.
“Minister Costa, I have a memory for faces.” Sear looks hard at Wes. “I remember the boy’s.”
Wes sits up straighter in his chair. “What? How?”
I’m equally stunned. If this isn’t a cruel joke, we can take immediate deportation off our list of worries.
“I visited Saint Oda—what was it, two weeks after the Lunar attack? At the time I occupied Diplomacy Minister Costa’s current position. I spoke privately with another Wesley Carlyle—your father, yes?—about Battery Bay’s offer of aid. You refused to leave the basement. Your father said you believed bombs would fall on you if you went upstairs. Although you were too young to understand what was happening, we still needed to remove you before proceeding with our discussion.”
Another episode in Odan history I wasn’t aware of; another hidden part of Wes’s life that’s come to light. Next to me, he twists his hands in his lap, clearly embarrassed. He told me that he survived the Lunar attack by hiding in the Sanctuary Room, but not that he feared leaving it for weeks afterward.
“Your father rejected my offer, to no one’s surprise,” Minister Sear continues. “Which leads me to ask: why should we send Saint Oda military aid now, when you said no to the food and supplies we offered you nine years ago?”
Wes gathers himself, arranges his features into that practiced, purposeful expression. “Back then, we wanted to rebuild the city as a community, without foreign intervention. We could accomplish that alone, but we can’t make it through a Pacifian attack without you. Think of all the innocents who could die, Prime Minister. Please, send just one regiment—even drones . . .”
Minister Sear holds up his hands. “It’s not me you need to convince. You must win over the people of Battery Bay. Our citizens have elected a five-hundred-member Parliament, which meets in the spheroid of this building. Parliament alone can approve military action, and they must do so by a majority vote. And if we are to travel to meet Pacifia, city to city . . . well, that will require a public referendum.”
With an unreadable smile, he opens the mahogany door through which he entered. “Our surveillance readings tell me time is short. Let’s not waste any more of it. Parliament’s waiting.”
Wes and I stand. My legs feel weightless as they carry me toward the exit.
The Prime Minister of Battery Bay waves us through first. “After you,” he says. “Don’t forget to smile.”
12
THE BATTERER PARLIAMENT’S MEETING space is a vast sphere with small balconies embedded in the wall, one for each legislator’s district. The room is painted a mosaic of different blue-green shades; a silver chandelier in the shape of Earth’s continents dangles from the ceiling. We could almost be underwater, peering upward at speckled sunlight. Legislators, aides, and pages occupy each balcony; their clothes are mostly white or some other neutral shade, but they’ve accessorized with scarves, pins, or hair doodads of gold, teal, and a smattering of other colors.
On the floor, Batterer citizens mill about, their flexible screen-cameras pointed upward. All around us, the lights of hovercraft shine in through the transparent walls, brighter than stars.
“The spherical shape represents the global reach of our alliance,” Minister Costa explains. As he speaks, the balcony we’re on moves toward the center of the sphere. I look behind us and see that it’s attached to the wall by a long metal arm.
“About half of Earth belongs to the Pacifians,” Minister Sear says. “Most of the remaining patches are allied with us. But a patchy sphere wasn’t a sound architectural concept.”
“Half the balconies are empty,” Wes points out.
“Those legislators can vote remotely. This week, many are paying visits to their districts, located around the globe. Don’t worry, they’ll be watching.”
Before our balcony reaches the sphere’s center, the politicians begin to argue among themselves. Those wearing gold accessories voice their support for Sear; those wearing teal seem frustrated by his mere appearance. Separate political parties, perhaps? I suck in my breath, intimidated. My Primary teachers said multiple factions often ripped Earthbound countries apart, making Lunar-style one-party rule the best form of government.
“Border control, Sear?” shouts a woman wearing a beige dress and teal hairnet. “With you in charge, our border’s like a sponge—absorbing any slicks that wash up.”
“They’re foreign nationals with useful information,” Sear says. “Let them talk before you condemn them.”
“They’re after our guns! We saw the memo,” says a man in a silk teal poncho. “Don’t expect our party to vote for your coffer-draining lunacy.”
Sear steps back and gestures for Wes and me to address Parliament. “They’re all yours.”
He won’t help us? Obviously not. He wants to wrap up our moment of infamy as quickly as he can.
I wonder how the Batterers will respond when I request a vehicle to take me up to the Moon. They’ll thoroughly investigate me, maybe expose my identity. Will I have to steal a ship to avoid the danger? Impossible. I don’t even know where the airfield is.
Parliament’s faces and the reporters’ cameras swim before my eyes, becoming a brownish-beige soup. Wes has to talk, at least until I work up my courage.
And he does. “Saint Oda needs very little, in proportion to the size of your forces. A dozen aircraft would be enough. Consider that a small price to pay for disrupting Pacifian supply lines in northwest Europe, for a new ally, and”—he swallows painfully—“access to our natural resources. There’s more oil under Koré Island. And coal, shale, zinc, iron . . .”
I inhale sharply, along with everyone who’s listening. If Saint Oda survives the invasion, it will become a mining metropolis as well as a Batterer ally. The clear Eloisa River will run yellow with silt; the tunnels will fill with dust from dynamite explosions. Oil refineries’ towers will obstruct the eiders’ flight paths. Wes’s people might never forgive him for compromising their core values, but he’s doing it anyway—to save their lives.
His tone gets more aggressive. “Battery Bay designated Saint Oda a protectorate nearly a century ago. If we are attacked—not once, but twice—imagine how that will look. Does this nation keep its word or not?”
Hisses of annoyance from Parliament. Dozens of representatives wave their hands as if brushing him aside. The noise escalates, and I hear shouts along the lines of “Dump ’em back in the Atlantic!” Reporters’ remote-controlled video screens flit about the auditorium, recording the ruckus.
I rub my temples, despairing. If the Batterers won’t send drones to Saint Oda, they definitely won’t help me get home.
“Look at this mumbo-jumbo mess.” Two meters from me, one of Sear’s aides—an elderly man with triangular spectacles—catches my attention.
Another aide, a young woman with green eyelashes like blades of grass, lets out a sigh. “The constituents will love it,” she says sarcastically.
“Morbid amusement and love are different beasts.”
/> Did Mom really want to introduce disorder, inefficiency, and bad manners into the bases’ government? Then again, how could she have known that in practice “democracy” looks like this? Still, it must beat having only six people in charge, with nothing to check their power.
Wes sits down by my side, legs shaking. “That didn’t quite work. Sorry to throw you to the wolves, but I need you to win them back.”
We both know I can’t. If he’s bad at public speaking, I’m utterly incapable. My chest constricts, my head pounds, and the soup of people bubbles and lurches before my eyes.
“Phaet, please,” he says. “If you love Saint Oda, even a little . . .”
I think back to the islands: how the Carlyles took me in even though I was a stranger, how Murray healed my arm. The tickle of ladybug feet on my hand as I became an Odan. I owe them something. I stand and walk to the microphone.
“I’m a new Odan citizen,” I say. My voice is weak, but it’s high-pitched and audible over Parliament’s ruckus. Legislators and reporters alike focus on me; the attention makes me want to duck under the balcony’s railing. “When I arrived, it was the first time in my life I felt truly safe. The first time I experienced the kindness of strangers. I’d never imagined a people could be so generous, so close to nature, so good to one another.” I try an ideological approach, name-dropping the values Batterers hold dear and choosing words that feel almost truthful. “With its direct democracy, Saint Oda is the last beacon of freedom in an increasingly Pacifian part of the world. If Pacifia captures the archipelago, northwest Europe will be theirs. Please, do not let this happen. I beg you, defend Saint Oda from the encroachment of my . . . my horrid home country.”
Representatives sit up straighter in their seats. Though I’m too nervous to look into their eyes, I can feel their opinions shifting.
“The Odans saved my life. But who can save them?” The question hangs in the air while I scramble for words with which to end this awful ordeal. “Only Battery Bay. Only you.”
