The Forgotten Shrine

by Monica Tesler

  Mira smiles. Sorry. Practice?

  Fine. I follow her back to her room. Her bed is neatly made, and I imagine this is what her room looks like back on Earth, although I know it’s not the same. My room here is nothing like my room at home, even if it does kind of look like it. My room back home is peace, privacy, comfort, safety. My room here is . . . not.

  Now that I have a hunch what the Alks are up to, I hate being in my room here. It looks like it’s trying too hard, like the Alks threw in every ingredient they could think of to make a personal room, but there’s absolutely nothing personal about it.

  Mira sits by her pillow with her legs curled up beneath her. I sit on the other end with my feet firmly planted on the floor.

  She closes her eyes, and her face has a certain stillness to it that I recognize as concentration. A second passes, and then I feel her inside my brain, reaching out like long fingers grasping for something. My instinct is to shut her out. It feels mega weird to share your brain with someone. Sure, Mira touches my brain a lot, but this is different. It’s like she’s trying to merge with me.

  I stare at her face and force myself to stay open. I would try to help, but since I have no idea how she’s going to accomplish this, I figure not interfering is the best option. It seems to take forever. I think back to the day Addy and I were in the basement of our apartment building, knee to knee. She begged me to tell her all my Earth Force secrets. How long ago was that? It feels like ages.

  There was so much stuff in that dump—bins of old smartphones with cracked screens, and all those creepy dolls with the blinkless eyes and blood red lips.

  Snap! A lasso loops around my brain and reins me in. Mira yanks me back to the moment.

  Dolls? she asks.

  I smile. Forget it. Are we connected?

  Yes, practice?

  This feels so strange. So intimate. Like she has a magnifying glass focused on my innermost secrets. Okay.

  Close your eyes. Describe what I’m doing. Out loud.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, and a picture appears in my mind. It comes in fuzzy and then starts to focus. It’s me! I’m staring at myself from across the bed. I’m seeing things through Mira’s eyes!

  I look like a dork. My eyes are closed, and my palms are clasped awkwardly on my lap. I watch myself drop my hands to my sides. Okay, this is kind of creepy.

  My brain jumps with a jolt of energy. That must be Mira’s way of telling me to focus. She slowly stands, which feels like I’m standing. Then she bends to her trunk and pulls out her tablet. She slashes her finger to make letters: J-A-S-P-E-R.

  “You just got your tablet and wrote my name.”

  Good. Try another.

  This time she puts her hands on her head and spins around. The room whirls around me.

  “Umm . . . you’re doing some silly dance.”

  Ha! It wasn’t so silly! Her sparkly energy says she’s giggling inside.

  I laugh. “It was totally silly!”

  We play this game for a while. I get the hang of it, but I don’t want to stop. I’ve never felt this connected with anyone before, not even with Addy.

  One more, Mira says. She picks up her tablet again. On the screen she draws a heart.

  Heat rises to my cheeks. What does that mean? Is that heart for me? Is that about us? Or is it just part of the game? What if she knows what I’m thinking? I don’t want her to read my thoughts.

  I open my eyes and sever our connection. I’m back in my body, staring at Mira across the room.

  Mira looks like she’s been struck. She spins away, tucking the tablet back into her trunk.

  “I’ve got to go,” I say. “I need to tell Lucy we worked out the plan.”

  Mira doesn’t answer. She doesn’t even look as I walk out of her room.

  When her door closes behind me, I just stand there, unable to put one foot in front of the next. What just happened? Why did I break our connection? Everything was going so well, and I ruined it.

  I’m such an idiot. That heart obviously didn’t mean what I thought it might.

  What I hoped it might.

  Cole and Marco go to bed a bit early so they don’t distract us. Not long after, Mira steps away from the piano and joins Lucy and me on the couch. She asks if I’m ready, and then she starts the probing like before. It doesn’t take quite as long this time before she lassos my brain and secures the bond.

  Keep ahold of me, she says in a way that makes me blush again. I really need to get that heart out of my head. Of course I need to keep the bond. She’ll be sleeping, so maintaining the connection is my job.

  “Good night,” I say as Mira heads to her room.

  “Good luck,” Lucy says.

  Mira smiles back at us before stepping inside and closing the door.

  Lucy kicks her legs up on the coffee table. “So what should I do?”

  “Well, for starters, don’t let me fall asleep. And you might as well remind me every few minutes to check the bond with Mira. You know how easily I can space out.”

  “You? Space out? I never would have guessed.”

  “Ha! Ha! Ha!”

  Lucy flips through a magazine and shows me pictures of the hottest trends in beachwear and the list of celebutantes debuting on EFAN next month.

  “Oh! A quiz!” she says. “This will be fun!”

  She shows me the magazine. In bold pink letters on top it reads, “How to Know If He Crushes on You.”

  Lucy crosses her legs beneath her and smooths the magazine page flat. “So I’ll ask a question, and you answer. Got it?”

  She doesn’t give me a chance to respond before reading off the first question.

  “ ‘When your sweetie sees you sitting alone for lunch, does he (a) sit down next to you, (b) wave and walk on by, (c) ignore you, or (d) sit with your frenemy on the other side of the cafeteria?’ ”

  “What’s a frenemy?” I ask.

  “Really? Oh, forget it,” Lucy says, closing the magazine. “What’s happening with the mind meld?”

  “Not much. Mira is drifting to sleep.”

  Lucy leans back against the armrest and kicks her feet up on the couch. “What does it feel like? The brain patch, I mean.”

  “It’s hard to explain. Have you ever known someone so well that they could tell what you were thinking before you even said it? It’s like that times a million.”

  “I don’t think I could handle that,” she says. “I’m an actress. It’s not like I’m totally fake or anything, but there is a certain person I show to the world. I wouldn’t want someone to have total access to what’s inside. It’s too transparent. I’d feel too exposed.”

  “Yeah, I get that. Sometimes I feel exposed”—like an hour ago, when I was stupid enough to think Mira had drawn a heart for me—“but it’s worth it. There’s so much that doesn’t get said because words can’t really translate what you think. With Mira, I don’t have to worry about that.”

  “Sounds romantic.”

  “Shut up. It’s not like that.”

  “Sure . . .” Lucy waves her magazine like she’s clearing the air of all serious topics. “Let’s do another quiz! This one’s called ‘Which Summer Accessory Really Shows Your Personality.’ ”

  “What’s an accessory?”

  “Are you kidding? Okay, just in case you’re not, I’ll give you some examples. The answers to the quiz include sunglasses, a clutch, stilettos, bangles, or a classic headband.”

  “What are bangles?”

  Lucy tosses the magazine aside. “You’re hopeless. Just focus on the brain link.”

  “There’s not much to focus on right now. Either Mira is a really boring sleeper, or she’s figured out how to block me from watching her dreams.”

  “You can do that?” Lucy asks, pulling the pink blanket over her feet.

  “Mira can. I can’t block anything. I’m like an open book, which really sucks.”

  “So Mira can read your mind and eavesdrop on your lovey-dovey feelings for he
r?”

  I shake my head. “I’m not even going to answer that.”

  Lucy cozies up beside me. “Oh, come on! I’m bored. Tell me about your love life.”

  I shoot her a side glance. “You mean my nonexistent love life?”

  “Fine. Don’t tell me. It’s not like everyone in the Academy hasn’t known about you and Mira and your brain crush since first tour.”

  Why can I never escape this? Oh well. Lucy seems to know a lot about this stuff, and I don’t see how talking to her about it could make the rumors worse than they already are.

  “Do you really think Mira likes me? You know, in that way?” I regret the question as soon as the words leave my mouth.

  Lucy pinches her eyebrows together. “Are you really that clueless? I thought you could read each other’s minds and all. Of course she likes you, Jasper! She’s almost as obvious as your sister.”

  Wait a second. What does this have to do with Addy?

  “What are you talking about?” I ask.

  Lucy rolls her eyes. “Please, how could you miss it? She practically follows Marco around like a puppy dog.”

  She does?

  “And that Sheek wannabe encourages her!” Lucy continues. “Asking her to come with us, calling her Adeline, bending low to whisper in her ear. He’s already broken half the hearts in our class, I don’t know why he has to move on to the juniors.”

  It’s honestly like Lucy is speaking Alkalinian. I have no idea what she’s talking about. Sure, I thought the whole Adeline thing was a little weird, but where’d she come up with all this other stuff?

  “Are you even listening?” Lucy huffs.

  She must have kept on talking, and I totally spaced. I try to figure out a response, but then Mira’s eyes flick open, practically blinding the inside of my brain with the bright light of her bedroom.

  I bolt up straight on the couch.

  “Is it happening?” Lucy asks. “Are the Alks starting the testing?”

  I nod and lift a hand, signaling her to be quiet.

  Mira can see, but she can’t move. Someone else is there. An Alk crosses in front of her sight line. He wheels a cart loaded with the vials we saw on the lower level, the vials we’re almost certain contain venom. He fills a syringe with the yellow liquid and injects it into Mira’s neck.

  “This is no dream,” I whisper to Lucy as I continue to describe what I see.

  As the liquid penetrates Mira’s bloodstream, her body feels even heavier. Her awareness is thick and slow. She’s slipping out of the small grasp of consciousness she has.

  We can’t risk breaking the bond.

  I’m not sure this will work, but I try to summon some energy and infuse it through our connection. It makes me feel twice as groggy, but it seems to boost Mira. Our collective grasp at consciousness holds strong.

  There are more Alks there, Seelok among them. They’re talking. The hisses and clicks are quick and excited. Something is happening.

  In Mira’s peripheral vision an Alk activates a screen. An image of a brain appears. It spins in a three-dimensional view so that the back of Mira’s head is visible. The Alk clicks at Seelok, then points at the screen. His cyborg finger lands directly at the base of the neck, where a square mark is plainly visible. Seelok lets out a long, pleased hiss.

  The Alk is pointing at Mira’s brain patch.

  The next morning we tell the others what happened.

  Mira is curled in a ball on the couch. She’s not too thrilled that the Alks were sticking her with venom and scanning her brain. I tell her not to freak out. After all, they’re probably doing that to all of us; Mira’s just the one we’re able to spy on thanks to our brain patch.

  “What do you think it means?” Cole asks.

  “Lucy and I talked about that last night,” I say. “They showed Seelok the patch, and he seemed pleased. It might have just been because something new was discovered, but it seemed like more than that. It seemed like they found what they were looking for.”

  “But how would they know about the brain patches?” Marco asks.

  “That’s the million-dollar question,” Lucy says, “and why we need to spy again tonight.”

  Mira shakes her head. Again? I don’t know if I can.

  “No way,” Cole says. “We know they’re running tests. We need to tell Admiral Eames. You promised.”

  “But if we told the admiral, there’s no way she’d let us try again,” I say. “And there’s a good shot we could really get to the bottom of things!”

  “How?” Cole asks. “Unless you suddenly learn how to speak Alkalinian, you’ll still have no idea what the Alks are talking about.”

  “I came up with an idea last night after Jasper went to sleep,” Lucy says. “Cole, you can rig the voice box to work through Jasper’s and Mira’s brain patch! I’ll be with Jasper, and I can listen to the translation. We’ll know exactly what they’re saying!”

  “Oh sure,” Marco says, “Cole will just whip up a major tech advancement in a day! Totally doable, DQ.”

  “Actually . . . ,” Cole says slowly, his eyes brightening as he considers the idea. “It may not be that hard. Especially if I can use their gloves and jerry-rig one of our blast pack sensor straps to act as an interface, it just might work.”

  “I feel like keeping my atoms intact, thank you very much,” I say. “We can’t use our gloves in here.”

  “Sure you can,” Cole says. “We won’t be using them to manipulate matter, they’ll just be passing information. Jasper will hear the Alks’ words through his brain patch connection with Mira, and then his gloves will feed those words through the voice box for translation.”

  “You’re sure that won’t scramble us?” I glance at Mira. She doesn’t look particularly worried.

  “It’s hard to explain, but I’m positive,” Cole says.

  “So you’ll do it?” Lucy asks.

  Cole shakes his head, wiping the excitement off of his face. “Absolutely not! Not without the admiral’s authority.”

  “I figured you’d say that,” Lucy says. “So I thought up an alternative. How about this morning at the saucer, we look for the tube connection. Then, after lunch, we’ll ask Gedney to get us another briefing with the admiral. We’ll own up to what we did—or at least, sort of; we have to think up some way to avoid talking about the brain patches. But anyway, we’ll share what we discovered. That way, she’ll have no choice but to take immediate action to stop the Alks. At the very least, she’ll have to approve our plan to spy again tonight.”

  Cole keeps shaking his head. He balls his hands into fists. “Isn’t that what we tried last time?”

  “This time will be different,” Lucy says.

  “Come on, Wiki!” Marco says. “It’s all about the pod!”

  I shift closer to Cole on the couch. “You know something really bad is going on here, Cole. What we discovered last night proves it. Every single Bounder is at risk, including us, including my sister. If we hand the admiral all the information on a silver platter, she’ll do something about it. She’ll probably green-light another midnight spying mission. She’ll probably let you reconfigure the voice box.”

  Cole is still shaking his head, but the shakes are getting slower. Finally his head stills, and he unfurls his fists. “We talk to the admiral this afternoon, no matter what?”

  “No matter what,” Lucy says.

  Cole eyes the voice box. Lucy pulls out one of her gloves and waves it in front of his face. He really wants to build that interface.

  “Fine,” he says.

  It’s all about the pod. At least for now.

  22

  THE BREAKFAST SPREAD EMERGES FROM the wall. I’m glad we all agree that our morning meal doesn’t contain any venom or other nasty Alk ingredients, because I’m absolutely starved. Last night as Lucy and I chatted about what I’d seen with the Alks in Mira’s room, I choked down a couple of wings and a hunk of garlic bread I’d set aside from dinner, even though I didn’t have an a
ppetite. It’s hard to eat when you know your food is laced with venom. Even so, the small amount I managed to swallow knocked me out. Lucy and I woke up this morning on opposite ends of the couch, wrestling over a pink fringed throw blanket.

  We have only thirty minutes before the Frog leaves for the abandoned saucer. Marco runs us through our plan. We’ll practice for the first hour with the juniors, then we’ll ask Gedney if we can practice bounding on our own. As soon as we get the go-ahead, we’ll search for the tube connection. Then we’ll join the other cadets and tell Gedney we need to speak with the admiral.

  Once we arrive at the hangar, Gedney instructs us to run through blast pack maneuvers. He partners juniors with seniors, asking me to practice with Addy. I’m not thrilled. I know she’ll give me the third degree. From the look on her face when Gedney calls out the pairs, she would have preferred a different partner, too.

  We head to an empty corner of the hangar, and I kick off. She chases me along the wall and into a low dive. I cut the corner too close and end up on the floor with a soon-to-be bruise on my shoulder.

  Addy touches down beside me. “You okay? You look awful.”

  “Obviously, that wasn’t my finest move.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” she says. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “Yeah, I just didn’t get a ton of sleep last night.”

  “Because you were spying?”

  “Not now, Addy.”

  “Why not? No one’s listening.”

  “This place is packed with Alks and Earth Force officers. I’ll fill you in later.”

  “What’s the plan today?”

  What am I supposed to say? If I tell her about our plan to look for the tube connection, she’ll demand to come along. If I don’t tell her, I’m keeping secrets.

  I think back to this morning and what an effort it was to get everyone on the same page. It has to be all about the pod now. And only about the pod.

  “Let’s fly,” I say to my sister. I push off fast, not waiting for her response, or more likely her lecture about ignoring her and keeping secrets.

  After a while, Gedney calls us back for a group exercise. Then we get a snack break. I pocket half a dozen protein bars that Earth Force doles out, and eat a half dozen more. If I have to avoid Alk VR food, at least I won’t starve.