Broken Worlds

by Anitha Robinson

  “Hey!” I say. Fallon has a hold on my arm, and this time he’s armed with a syringe. “Sticking me with more of that stuff? So I’ll do whatever you want?”

  “It’s not verbindi. It contains some more nuveau flureans,” says Fallon.

  “New what?” I ask.

  “It’s kind of like the oxygen that flows through your blood and into your heart. Nuveau flureans flow through our bodies and keep us alive. You need it to survive the trip. We’ll be traveling through several different star systems in space and going at a great speed. Please, Kalli, you have to.”

  I slacken my arm. After all they’ve shown me, after all they’ve told me, there’s no need for them to lie now. He injects the needle into my forearm. A cool sensation spreads down to my fingertips and up to my shoulder. Within seconds, the chill branches to my other limbs and chest. Fallon nods reassuringly, as if he’s aware of what’s going on inside me. He helps me into the capsule, eases me onto the bench, and then straps me in.

  “Don’t I need a mask to breathe into?” I ask, remembering all the shows I’d seen of people traveling into space.

  “No, that’s what the shot was for. You’ll be fine,” Ellis says, as he and Fallon place themselves on either side of me.

  “Not afraid of closed spaces, are you, Kalli?” Fallon asks.

  Before I can answer, the air erupts into a blaze of angry shouts. All three of us look at each other. Fallon leaps out. Ellis reaches over me to try and pull him back.

  “Go, Ellis. I’ll keep them off for as long as I can.”

  “No. We go togeth—” The rest of his words cut off as Fallon jumps out and seals the bullet shut.

  “Fallon will hold them off. We’ll have a head start. The team won’t do anything without Margaret, and she’ll be incapacitated for another couple of hours.”

  But Ellis is wrong. Standing in front of us is Margaret.

  CHAPTER 20

  My screams splinter off the sides of the capsule.

  Margaret walks right up to the spaceship. She presses her hands against the transparent panel, as if she’s trying to force it open. She turns and nods to someone I can’t see. Suddenly, there’s a high-pitched sound. I look for the source. It’s coming from a speaker in the panel.

  “Good, I have got your attention.” Margaret’s cold voice fills our chamber. “Ellis, aren’t you happy to see your mother has made an early recovery?” she says, with her hands on her hips. “Though most, if not all, of the credit must go to your brother, who re-set the bio-knife.” She pauses, her eyebrows arched for emphasis. “You look surprised. I guess Fallon failed to tell you that when he came back to the house, he saw his dear mother lying on the ground and regretted what you had all done. He left before I revived. But I am sure he knew that I would be informing the others of what had happened. So here we are, all back together.” She holds her arm out and waves for someone to come over. “Fallon, dear, come closer so your brother can see you and thank you.”

  Fallon’s already massive face is grotesquely swollen, and there’s a trickle of blood over his right eye. He keeps his eyes to the ground.

  “There was a bit of a misunderstanding, between Fallon and the others. But we have gotten that all straightened out. Now, Ellis, you need to come out of there,” she says.

  Ellis doesn’t flinch.

  “Come out now, Ellis, and your life will be spared.” Margaret’s voice echoes loudly around us.

  Ellis lifts his hand. Is he going to do what she says? I realize the significance of Margaret’s carefully chosen words. Only Ellis’s life will be spared.

  “Ellis, re-seal the hatch in the roof. This ship is not leaving. Do not be a fool. They will be waiting for you. They will kill you as soon as you land. You cannot escape.”

  I turn my head toward Ellis. He’s staring with eyes as cold and as hard as Margaret’s.

  “If that is the way you want to play it,” she snarls, and turns to someone I can’t see. “Bring him here,” she commands. Margaret backs away a few steps.

  Voices ring out. Fallon’s eyes, though hidden within his swollen head, bulge out in complete shock. I lean forward, pressing my face against the glass, trying to see what Fallon sees, and then I do. A cry of inconsolable anguish erupts from my lips. Sammy.

  “Sammy,” I scream, banging on the window.

  His face lifts and our eyes meet.

  “Sammy! Let him go! Let him go!” I shout, pulling at my restraint, which refuses to release.

  Margaret suspends Sammy from his collar, as he twists and turns to find solid ground. “I had my doubts about this situation from the moment you brought her in. Your insistence that she not be sedated like the rest. I worried that your … how should I put it?” She takes a deep breath. “That your weakness would make you forget your responsibility to our mission. So when you mentioned the child, I was inspired.” She drops Sammy to the ground and pulls him into her, raking her long fingernails down his cheek. “I sent a couple of people from the team to find the child, and he has been under my care.”

  “Why would you do that?” Ellis asks.

  “Insurance, you stupid boy,” she says, thrusting Sammy toward us.

  My hands automatically reach for him, as his do for me. He’s trying to be brave, but I can see the tears running down his cheeks and the tremble of his lower lip.

  “Kalli, you have exactly ten seconds to come out of there, or this sweet little boy will be dead.”

  Sammy’s eyes widen. He kicks and flails his arms, desperate to get away.

  “Ten,” says Margaret.

  I wrench at the seatbelt; my fingers bleed as my skin tears along the edges of the restraint.

  “Nine.”

  “Ellis,” I plead.

  “I’m trying. It’s because I opened the hatch. Everything locks up in anticipation for lift off.” His hands are frantically racing across the panel, entering in codes, pushing buttons, and turning knobs.

  “Eight.”

  “Kalli,” Sammy cries. I look up and see Margaret grazing Sammy’s cheek with a long, thin metal needle. The same one she was going to use on me.

  “Sammy, it’s going to be okay. I’m coming,” I choke out. “Get away from him, you bitch!”

  “Seven,” she says, glaring at me.

  “Okay, I’ve got it,” Ellis says as we both break free from our seats.

  I’m twisting the handle, but it won’t budge.

  “Aaaahh!” I shout, ramming my shoulder against the solid glass door.

  “Six.”

  Sammy is full on crying now. His small body shakes and shudders against Margaret, who remains unmoved by his despair.

  “Margaret, don’t do this,” Fallon says, as he takes a step toward her.

  “Stay down, Fallon,” she threatens and nods her head.

  And instantly Fallon is slammed to the ground. An enormous man pins Fallon beneath his knees.

  “Five.”

  “Ellis, let me out of here!” I throw myself against the immovable door.

  Please don’t hurt Sammy. Please. I pray to any God who will listen. My whole body shakes and my head throbs.

  “Margaret, please,” begs Ellis. “I’ll do whatever you want. Don’t hurt the boy. He’s an innocent child. You can kill me. Take me instead of him.”

  A wide grin forms on Margaret’s face, transforming her into the most hideous thing I have ever seen. “Four,” she says.

  “Kalli, I’m scared,” whimpers Sammy.

  “Oh shhhh,” soothes Margaret, while she runs the metal needle under his chin and up the other side of his face. “Three.”

  “Sammy, look at me,” I say, steadying my voice. “You’ll be okay. I love you Sammy.”

  “I love you too,” he cries.

  “Awww, isn’t that so sweet,” Margaret coos, and then her hard edge returns. “Two.”

  Oh my God. No. Please no. Please. But the door won’t give. Ellis is now launching himself against it so wildly that the entire capsule shakes
. But the door remains firmly shut.

  I see Margaret’s mouth open to announce the end of Sammy’s life. My ears fill with my screams and pleas for her to stop. Ellis’s voice echoes my anguished cries. And then there are shouts from the other side of the ship. Fallon roars, as he heaves himself off the ground, propelling his guard up and out of my view. He charges toward Margaret. Her lips freeze in an open circle, about to say the final number, when Fallon slams into her, sending the three of them tumbling out of sight.

  “Sammy,” I wail, flattening myself against the window.

  “Smash your feet into the glass,” Ellis yells, as he lifts me up.

  Over and over I kick. It’s impenetrable. Outside the chaos continues, until one voice silences them all. My stomach drops. It’s Margaret’s. She appears again in my line of view, still brandishing the needle in one hand and dragging Sammy along with the other.

  “One,” she hisses, and plunges the needle into Sammy’s chest.

  He looks up at me, eyes wide. His body tenses and then goes slack. His eyes relax and his mouth opens, but I can’t hear what he’s saying.

  “No,” I cry, pounding my fists against the window. “No.”

  Margaret removes the needle and lets Sammy fall to the ground. For a moment I think perhaps he’s just asleep, that she just injected him with a tranquilizer.

  But then his pupils slide beneath his eyelids, and blood trickles from his nose and the side of his mouth. I watch in helpless horror as creases form at the base of his nose, and spread out, cutting into his once beautifully smooth face. The lines widen, deforming him, mutilating him. His body swells to such a size that his clothes rip apart, leaving Sammy draped in rags and disfigured. He lies limp and lifeless on the floor. Someone grabs his bloated ankles and drags his body out of my view.

  CHAPTER 21

  My chest rips into a million pieces. My heart feels like it’s bleeding. Ellis pulls me away from the window and places me on the bench.

  “Well, that was unfortunate,” Margaret says dryly.

  “You absolute bitch!” fumes Ellis. “How could you?”

  “Like I said, that was unfortunate, but if you do not want to see it happen again, you better come out of there,” Margaret warns. “Fallon will be killed if you do not come out right now.”

  My mind shifts, unable to process the horror, and recedes so that everything becomes muted and hazy, as if I am simply watching a scene unfold behind a gossamer curtain. There’s a lot more shouting than before, yet I feel detached from it all. Nothing matters anymore. I hear Ellis shouting and swearing and thrashing.

  I see Margaret holding another needle. She pulls Fallon into view with her other hand.

  “Will you watch your own brother die?” She pokes the needle into his cheek. Fallon’s screams fill the capsule, yet I remain seated. Nothing matters anymore.

  “Come out now, or I will go deeper.”

  “Ellis, just go!” Fallon moans, his face drenched in sweat.

  Through the milky haze I see Ellis push a bright yellow button. The entire world shakes as flames dance all around our space vessel. Margaret and Fallon are blasted back.

  Ellis straps us in and pulls down a lever. Everything inside me, my heart, lungs, stomach, all of it, falls to my feet as we shoot up. I feel like my body is passing through an opening that’s way too small.

  The capsule is thrashing around and the noise is deafening, but I don’t care.

  “Kalli? Come on, Kalli. I know what just happened was … was ….”

  I turn to him and see right past him. He doesn’t exist. I don’t exist. Nothing exists.

  “Please, Kalli. I can’t fly this by myself.”

  My eyes fall shut. I am sinking within myself. Soon, I too will be gone and then all will be okay.

  “Kalli! Open your eyes.”

  Ellis’s voice drifts in and out.

  “Open your eyes!” His voice is louder and closer but still lingers just beyond attention. He’s shaking me and screaming. “We have to get to Istriya before they do. Or all of this, all of the deaths, will be for nothing. Is that what you want? Sammy to have died for nothing!”

  His words cut into me and transform my sadness into rage.

  “How dare you!”

  “I’m sorry. We’ve been through too much, lost too much, to just give up now.” He turns to me, his face sad and his spirit deflated. “I need you, Kalli. I can’t do this alone. If you want to just stop, then okay, we’ll stop.” He swallows. “But if you still want to find some salvation in all this mess, then I need your help. You decide.” He turns back to look out the window.

  And beyond his face, through the window, I see a light growing, revealing a floating sphere. Earth. A mixture of deep purple and blue surrounded by a swirling white mist and bits of shimmery silver.

  Tears well up in my eyes. I’ll never be coming back here again. I’ll never see Navi or Sammy.

  “Kalli, we are going to survive this. I’ll figure it out, if that’s what you want me to do.”

  I have no words. I feel numb. Sammy is gone. Navi is gone. But then I remember those women. Sammy would have helped those women. He was only six, but he was always doing what he could to help others. I owe it to him to at least try and be a fraction of the courageous person he was.

  With an audible sigh I say, “What can I do?”

  My body jostles.

  “Hmmm?” I groan, my eyes still closed. I feel a weight on my shoulder.

  “We’re almost there. Sorry, but you need to wake up now. I need some help again.”

  I groan again and shake myself from sleep. A dreamless sleep. It was more than I could have hoped for.

  “What do you need me to do?” I ask. I stretch my arms and shake out my legs.

  “We’re almost there.” His blue eyes are wide and awake. “But don’t worry, I won’t let anything happen to you. I’ve got a plan.”

  A plan? We’re landing soon. I can’t believe we made it this far. But now the end is coming. Margaret would have told them we were coming. They’ll be waiting. Waiting to kill us.

  Ellis’s voice is calm and reassuring. Will he be my last vision?

  “Kalli, are you listening to me?” Ellis shakes my shoulders. “Do you understand what I just said?”

  “Wh-what?” I rub my eyes.

  “Hey, don’t let go of the lever. I need you to keep steering while I ….”

  “What are you doing?”

  The words catch in my throat and I barely choke them out. Ellis slices into his arm, a small trickle of blood oozes from the cut.

  “Shhh, it’s okay. Just keep your hands on the lever, I’m almost done.”

  I watch as the self-mutilation continues. Ellis digs his right hand into the opening he’s made in his left wrist. His hand’s covered in what looks like a golden iridescent gel. He grabs a vial from a nearby shelf and scrapes the gel into it. He places the vial into a slender metal canister.

  “Kalli, I’ve got the lever now. You can let go.”

  I don’t move. My fingers are so tightly clenched around the lever that it hurts when Ellis gently pries them off.

  “Why did you cut yourself like that? What was that?”

  “It was what we removed from you. It’s part of the verbindi in me. It’s going to help get us rescued when we land. Now this is really important, Kalli. When we land, you need to—”

  “When we land, they will kill us. Margaret said they’d be waiting for us.”

  “We’re not going to die. I have a plan.”

  “Ellis, stop it. There’s no way out. They know we’re coming.”

  I look out the window to see a large brownish-gray sphere emerging behind layers of hazy purple mist. We’re so close.

  “Yes, there is a way out. The ship needs to land without us in it.”

  I shake my head. What? He wants us to jump?

  Ellis continues to speak as his hands fly, pushing and twisting buttons and switches. He doesn’t seem to care about keepi
ng his hand on the steering lever anymore. As he pummels one button and then the other, he reveals his plan to me.

  “That’s crazy. You think I can jump from a plummeting spaceship?”

  “It’s the only way. They’ll think we died,” Ellis says.

  “They’d be right!”

  “You won’t die. I’ll get us close enough to the ground, and we’ll have these.” He holds up a square package that looks like it’s made of nylon. “Floaters.”

  “Floaters?”

  “They’re like parachutes but can be set off closer to the ground. They will allow us to drop undetected.”

  Despite his reassurances, I know we won’t survive this. I spend the final moments of my life staring at the many colors of space floating by. My thoughts drift between Navi, Sammy, Ellis, and even Fallon. Fallon revived Margaret, knowing that would ruin our chances of escape. His allegiance to his mother doesn’t surprise me, but his betrayal to us does.

  I watch Ellis as he moves about. Maybe my first impression was right after all. He will be the person who takes me to heaven.

  “Okay, we’re almost there. I’m going to put your floater on. When I pull my cord, you pull yours. Don’t do it before. We have to be below a certain height to avoid detection.”

  He straps me in. It rests against me like my backpack but lighter. Much lighter. There’s no way this insignificant thing is going to save me.

  “I’m going to start the self-destruct timer. We’ll have less than ten seconds to open the door and jump. Hold onto my hands so we won’t be separated. But in case we do drift apart, open the vial and pour the contents out, as soon as you land.” He hands me a thin metal cylinder.

  “Why me? Why don’t you do it?”

  “I have one too.” He taps his jacket pocket. “Open it, and she’ll come.”

  “Who’ll come?”

  Red lights start flashing and alarms blare. He pushes another button, and we’re blasted with a wall of cold air. My skin stretches like an elastic band. Ellis grabs onto my hand and pulls me from the falling ship. I can’t catch my breath. The air around me whips by.