Broken Worlds

by Anitha Robinson

  “Just in case we run into someone, it’s best if you stay hidden.”

  “Wh—”

  “Shh. We’re almost there and then you can talk. Just wait.”

  I can’t see much through the blanket. There’s little light from the sky, so under the blanket it’s practically black. It feels like we’re going down stairs. Something creaks. Her footsteps echo as we continue traveling down. At last she stops and places me on the ground. I free myself from the blanket. It doesn’t take long for my eyes to adjust. The room is almost dark, except for a thin ray of light coming through a small window. Adalyn’s standing on the other side of a door made of bars. Bars are all around. I’m in a jail cell.

  “What are you doing? Where are we?”

  Adalyn stares at me.

  “Hey! Let me out of here,” I say, getting up and pulling unsuccessfully on the locked door. “We’re supposed to meet Ellis. You told him you were taking me to your place.”

  “Yeah, well, I took a slight detour. It’s a little more private down here,” she says, running her long fingers across the bars. “So exactly what are you going to tell the Council?”

  “What? I don’t know—”

  “That’s why you’re here, right? To talk to the Council Leaders? To talk to Lucas.” She paces uneasily back and forth. “What makes you think they’ll listen to you? What do you know that would make them care? I’ve been trying to warn them about changes I have seen in the deeper caverns. But they just dismiss me. All they care about is finding an alternate heat source. They’ll wish they had listened to me.”

  Hairs rise on the back of my neck. I have no idea what she’s talking about. “I think Ellis will do most of the talking,” I say, hoping that hearing his name will soothe her.

  Despite being a few inches taller than Adalyn, I feel small under her stony gaze. I move closer to the bars, placing myself directly across from her. I steady my quivering legs and straighten my shoulders, so that when she looks at my face, she has to look up.

  “I thought Ellis contacted you before we landed. Didn’t he tell you everything that happened?”

  “No, he did not. He just said that he was coming back and no one could know, and he had to speak with the Council.” She crosses her arms. “So you will have to fill me in.”

  I slowly exhale and, as clearly as possible, I tell her how I accidently discovered the workshop and the photos. I give a glossed-over version of the encounter that left Margaret with the silver rod embedded in her chest.

  “Fallon plunged the bio-knife into Margaret?” Adalyn interrupts, her eyes wide in disbelief.

  I swallow hard before continuing. My throat is parched and my voice barely audible.

  I nod. “Ellis and Fallon realized that Margaret had no intention of honoring her promise not to harm the women they had used.” I pause again to steady myself as my mind fills with vivid images of the women slumped in the glowing tanks. “They knew the Leaders would be against the brutality, so—”

  “So they went against Margaret!” Her face presses against the bars as her hands wrap around them, shaking them violently. I jump away at the loud sound. Adalyn’s eyes are glued on me. She takes a couple of steps back from the bars and leans against the rock wall. “Do you know why they were there? What those women were being used for?” she asks, scratching her long nails against the rocks, like nails on a chalkboard. I tense at the sound.

  “Yes, I do.”

  She tilts her head, daring me to continue.

  “The women were implanted with embryos from women on your planet.”

  My voice falters, and despite my intention not to, I glance down at my own stomach. It’s brief, just a mere flick of my eyelids, but she catches it and pounces.

  “You were Ellis’s assignment, right?”

  Assignment? The word drives a knife through my chest.

  “Yes, I was,” I say, my eyes glued to my hands.

  “And what happened to your embryo? Was she placed in the tank? Where is the baby?” She rams back into the bars. “She wasn’t on the ship with you?” she shrieks.

  Baby? The word makes my stomach knot.

  “No, we didn’t bring the tank with us. Fallon said they weren’t ready to move.”

  “Oh,” she breathes, as she slumps down to the ground, her hands gripping the bars for support. “Okay, good. So she’s in the tank? Fallon stayed behind to make sure everyone was fine?”

  “Uh-huh.” I shrug.

  Adalyn slowly rises. She regards me critically. Before she even opens the door, I back away. She’s fast. I’ve only taken two steps when she grabs my arm and yanks me to face her.

  “Tell me the truth,” she demands, her voice icy cold.

  “Y-yes, Fallon stayed behind,” I stutter.

  “And the baby that was inside you, where is she?” She’s so close to me that I feel her breath on my face.

  I struggle to break from her grip.

  “Tell me the truth!” she shrieks again.

  “I was injured when they implanted me.” I don’t want to go on. I know why she’s asking. I know I should lie to keep her calm and her rage in control. But the words are out before I can stop them. “I’m sorry. She didn’t survive.”

  She looks at me, her eyes red. A sound of such immense anguish bellows from her that, the instant she releases me, I fall to my knees and cover my ears.

  CHAPTER 24

  Adalyn is curled up, sobbing on the ground. Her grief is all that exists in this room. It is so immense. I can feel it trying to swallow me up too. For an instant, I’m torn between escaping through the door she’s left open and consoling her. I choose the door.

  There’s a tiny hallway, no more than four feet long. The walls and floor are made of roughened concrete. At the end of the corridor are two stairwells. One’s slightly brighter than the other, so I opt for that one. I force my aching legs to run up the steps, taking two at a time. I stagger slightly at the top step, and I’m almost out when she grabs me and pulls me down.

  Adalyn drags me back to the cell and flings me inside, slamming the door shut, sealing me in again. She sits on the other side of the bars, cross-legged, her back against the rocky wall.

  “So you killed my baby.” Her voice is even, her face blank. Not a single trace of her sorrow remains. She’s even more frightening. “You said you were hurt when Ellis found you. What happened?”

  Adalyn stares, waiting. With her long, multicolored hair draping her slender shoulders, she could be beautiful. But there’s something in her eyes that hardens her entire face and washes away her beauty. She’s calmer than before, but I know her fury is rumbling just beneath the surface. I take a deep breath and carefully answer.

  “I was in an alley. There was a guy there.”

  “A guy? What guy?”

  “I didn’t know him. He attacked me.”

  “Why? What did you do to him?” Her anger bubbles over.

  I shake my head. “Nothing. He just attacked me. I think he would have killed me if Ellis hadn’t come by and saved me.”

  “Oh yes, Ellis. We girls can always count on Ellis to save us.” Her lips press into a tight line. “And then what happened? He took you to see Margaret?”

  “Yes. She patched me back up.”

  “Did she give you some medicine to put on your stomach?”

  I nod.

  “And did you?” Her voice rises, as mine trembles.

  “Yes, I did exactly what she told me to.”

  “Then I don’t understand. What happened to the baby? If Margaret healed you and implanted my baby inside you, then she must have thought you were strong enough. What did you do?”

  Adalyn is back on her feet, gripping the bars once again.

  “I don’t know what happened. I was going for a walk and Fallon found me. He got angry. He was pulling me back to Ellis’s house and then … and then.” I pause and glance up, expecting to see maniacal eyes staring back at me, but Adalyn’s expression is vacant.

 
“And,” I press on, unsure if she’s even listening anymore. “I was bleeding. Fallon and Ellis tried to help. Margaret showed up, but she refused to help.”

  “She refused? Why would she refuse? This was all her idea! Her mastermind plan to save our people.”

  I have no choice but to tell her the truth. “Margaret said that I was just an extra. She had enough embryos collected and didn’t need the one inside me.”

  Adalyn crumples to the ground.

  “Fallon and Ellis tried to save the embryo, the baby.” I cringe at the thought of an actual baby being inside me. “But they couldn’t.”

  The last of my words are drowned out by an agonizing moan. It starts low and grows until everything in the room buckles from the weight of the pain pouring out of Adalyn.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  We sit there for what feels like hours, on either side of the door. Adalyn is motionless. Her body folds over so that her face is pressed into her knees.

  Eventually she straightens up and regards me with an empty expression. She rises, opens the door, and walks toward me.

  “Just one more question. Who wanted to save the baby? Ellis or Fallon?”

  “Both of them did. They both wanted to.”

  “Okay then, let’s go.”

  She pulls out a vial that hangs from a chain around her neck. It’s similar to the one Ellis gave me. Adalyn pops open the lid and a soft blue light emanates from it. She puts her lips to the vial like she’s going to drink from it, but instead she murmurs quietly and then seals it back up.

  She grabs my hand when we reach the top of the steps.

  “You were hidden on the way in, but I want you to see what it looks like before I cover you back up.”

  Still holding my hand, she leads me through the door. Gray is the prevalent color, or lack of color. The sky is dull. The ground is brown dirt intermixed with dirty white stones.

  “It’s so ugly, isn’t it? And cold.” She rubs her hands up and down her arms. “It wasn’t always like this. Even I can remember when the ground was green and the light from our sun was able to penetrate the thick fog.” She breathes in deeply and swings her brightly colored hair. “They should have listened to me. But now they will.”

  She walks over to a wooden box, opens it, and pulls out the blanket, along with something that resembles a metal ruler with a drill bit on one end. She folds the ruler over so that it fits into her jacket pocket, and comes toward me with the blanket.

  “Wait. What are you doing? I thought you said I could see.”

  “And you did. But now it’s time to get going.”

  “Are we going to meet Ellis?”

  “Ellis?” She pulls out the vial from within her shirt. It’s now glowing a deep orange. “Yes, that’s exactly where we’re going.”

  She throws the blanket over me, and I push it off.

  “Why do I have to wear this?”

  “Because we don’t want anyone to see you before I’m ready,” Adalyn says, as she readjusts the covering.

  We’re moving quickly again. Adalyn keeps muttering to herself. When she finally speaks, her words are neither angry nor flat, but filled with sadness.

  “I am sorry about all those women. I never wanted any part of this plan. I didn’t think it was the right thing to do.”

  I push away at the top of the blanket so that I can see her face. I expect her to immediately cover me back up, but she doesn’t. Tears are flowing down her cheeks.

  “Adalyn, are we still going to meet Ellis?” I take in as much of my surroundings as I can before I’m concealed again.

  The sky is a blanket of gray stretching all around. Adalyn looks at me as if she’s startled by my presence.

  “Not yet time for you to make your appearance.”

  She covers me up.

  “Please, Adalyn,” I beg. “Can you at least tell me if we are still going to meet Ellis?”

  “Yes, of course. That’s exactly where I’m taking you. We should move a little faster though. They’re gathering right now.”

  I feel a tiny surge of hope. Maybe she’s going to actually help. Her reaction to the loss of her child, though frightening, was normal. And her animosity toward me has passed. She’s taking me to meet Ellis. This could all still work out. I settle loosely into her arms and allow the waves of hope and optimism to wash over me.

  CHAPTER 25

  “Okay, Kalli, we’re almost there.” Adalyn slows down. “I want you to see something.” She pulls the cloak off. “You can walk from here,” she says, setting me on my feet.

  I can only see about fifty feet in front of me. We’re on a road, with fallen logs on either side.

  “This was once the most beautiful place. I’ve seen pictures of what it was like. These were magnificent trees. Their top branches disappeared into the vapors.”

  “Vapors?”

  “Sorry, you would call them clouds, I believe. The trees used to be adorned with flowers. Beautiful big flowers. And the colors ….” She closes her eyes and inhales deeply. “The colors were more brilliant than you can even imagine. The ground … well, you’ll see what I mean.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “We happened.” She opens her eyes. “Our greed. Our ignorance. My people destroyed our planet. They took and took until there was no more, and now this is what is left. Our atmosphere is so damaged that the sun can’t reach us. I can’t remember the last time I woke to a brightly lit day. Now the only color in my life are these ribbons in my hair. Come on, we’re almost there.”

  My insides bristle. It feels like so much time has passed since I left Earth. Will Navi still be okay? Will Margaret go after him, like she did Sammy? I need to speak with Ellis. He would know. He would have figured a way to contact Fallon.

  “Will Ellis be waiting for us?

  Adalyn doesn’t answer but instead she nods in front of her. I strain my eyes to see what she’s looking at.

  “It’s beautiful isn’t it?” she asks.

  It? And then I see what she sees. The ground has softened and there’s a gentle breeze blowing. The gray mist thins and I can see out farther. Suddenly, there’s a burst of orange and red popping out against the dreary backdrop. Beautiful flowers dangle from the trees. My nose awakens. There’s a sweet smell in the air. I take a deep breath.

  I feel something touch my leg and glance down. Long willowy grass, intermixed with flowers of pinks, blues, and yellows. Adalyn bends down and gently touches one.

  “Hurry, Kalli. They’ll be here soon. I want you to see this before.”

  I run to catch up to her. “Before wh—?” And then I stop cold.

  Massive trees crowned with sparse green foliage are rooted at the base of a one-hundred-foot-high rocky cliff. A waterfall cascades down the center of the cliff, splashing onto stones and trailing away as a stream.

  “This is what most of Istriya once looked like,” Adalyn says softly. “And now this is all we have left.”

  She grabs hold of my hand. At her touch, the hairs on the back of my neck spring up, and I pull my hand away.

  “I thought Ellis was going to be here. You said we were going to meet him,” I say.

  “They’ll be here soon. I just wanted you to see for yourself, before it got crazy. Soon this will be gone too. But it doesn’t matter anymore,” Adalyn says, her eyes on my belly. And then looking beyond me, she adds, “Perfect timing.”

  I turn in the direction Adalyn is looking and see shapes coming out of the mist. A wall of men and women swell toward us. The explosion of color takes my breath away. They are draped in bright blue and orange and yellow and green. The group closest to us is covered in the most brilliant attire. Shiny red cloaks edged with a thick purple fringe. Amongst this group, a tall slender man, with silver hair as thin as mist, wearing a golden crown, moves ahead of everyone.

  My stomach lurches. Who are these people? The Council? Where’s Ellis?

  “Adalyn, what is the meaning of this? What is the emergenc
y you summoned us to?” demands the man with the crown.

  Adalyn bows deeply in front of him. But before she has a chance to respond a voice pierces the air.

  “I would like to know the same thing.”

  All heads turn to find the source of the voice. My legs buckle and my breathing quickens at the sight of Margaret gripping Fallon. We took too long.

  “Margaret. Fallon,” Adalyn says, quickly standing upright.

  Margaret glares at me.

  “Hello, Kalli,” she says, her voice tight. “Thought you could turn someone else against me?”

  Fear has gripped my vocal chords, and I’m unable to respond. I look at Fallon. His face is swollen. What has she done to him?

  “It’s not what you think,” says Adalyn.

  “Enough!” comes the deep voice of the Leader.

  The crowd, including Margaret, bows.

  “What is the meaning of all of this? Margaret, why have you returned? Why did you contact the guards to take hold of spaceship D20?”

  Margaret throws Fallon at the feet of the Leader.

  “The mission has been compromised. Ellis and Fallon tried to sabotage the removal of the embryos from the subjects. They are guilty of the ultimate crime.”

  Gasps emit from all around.

  “Ellis and Fallon? I don’t understand. They have been committed to this mission from the start. Where is Ellis?”

  “He fled with her on D20,” Margaret says, as all eyes follow hers and turn to me.

  The crowd has a collective intake of breath, followed by a smattering of nervous chatter. My skin feels clammy. A slight moan escapes my lips, and Fallon’s eyes meet mine.

  The Leader looks from Margaret to Fallon to Adalyn and then to me.

  “Where is Ellis?” he asks, staring right at me.

  I close my eyes. I can do this. I will do this. This is my chance to explain what happened and save those women.

  But before I can say anything, Adalyn interrupts, “Ellis will be here soon.”

  “Lucas—I mean, my Lord,” interjects Margaret. “I must return and complete the project—”