Exodus

by Toasha Jiordano

  Vallon moves in front of me, between the rest of the ship and my meltdown. On his face I see, something. Any other face and I’d call it empathy. It’s gone too soon to be sure. //Yeah, well… // he chips, covering me with his body while I try in vain to compose myself. //Tough break. You saw the Unity go up in smoke like the rest of us. And we all gotta move on, get our work done. I can’t have you distracted on the job, illegally chipping dead people. Shit’s gonna get real and the sooner you realize they’re gone —//

  //They’re not gone. He answered me. He said Bit got on a pod. He got on a pod. They’re not gone!// The heat flares back into my face, up my neck. I ball up a fist, ready to pummel him again.

  Vallon plucks the wayward strap out of the air and waves it at me. //What good do you think that did them, huh?// He puts it in my hand and I throw it at him. It floats away, instead. With a sigh, he chips, //What you heard was echoes… his last words.//

  //You’re wrong.// My teeth are clenched so hard I think they’re about to break.

  Vallon pats me on the head like a child. //So by some miracle, you heard him. Best case scenario, one or both of them is drifting out in space somewhere, in a shoddy pod. Aimless space junk. What’chu gonna do about it?//

  I straighten myself up, eye to eye, and say, “Save them.”

  ###

  Marshall is across the large circular central meeting room, taking command of his men, of which I suppose I am one. Instead of moving toward him, blending in with the crowd of soldiers and taking orders, I slink off down a quiet hallway and wander aimlessly. “Big words,” I repeat my ‘save them’ comment, now with much less bravado. My shoulders slump with the realization that I have no clue what I’m doing, or how to save Brooks and Howie. Where to begin.

  The corridor I find myself in is dark, eerily abandoned amid all the commotion in the rest of the ship. Everyone has their orders and I would only get in the way. I’m not one of them.

  I run my fingers along the metal wall, counting the different sensations and quickly find a soothing rhythm. Four round rivets, a slightly raised piece of plastic stripping, and a door jamb. Ten on each side. By the time I’ve finished my count, twice, the anxiousness has left me. My mind is free to do as it pleases in the silence.

  What it pleases is thinking about Brooks. Where is he? Did his ship have the same hallways? Did he have time to explore hidden spaces like this one? Was there a warning? I picture him running to a pod, Howie shoving people aside to make room. Howie would put Brooks’s safety before his own. I know he would. I know he did. Long ago, Howie promised us his protection and said we were his reason for being alive. There’s no way he’d let anything happen to Bit.

  The silence is broken by a sharp tone, followed by static. From every corner, speakers light up, above me and off in the distance. The entire ship is on alert.

  “Samaritans,” It’s her.

  My nails dig into the plastic strip on the wall next to me and I sway. I never wanted to hear that voice again. Yet here she is following me. A waking nightmare.

  “As we embark on this unprecedented journey, these Sister Nations coming together as one for the common good of our citizens, I’m reminded of the last time we, as a people, faced such a decision. Standing here before you, I now feel as our Founding Mothers must have felt when they picked up our broken Earth and carried it into the future on their backs. Every great thing we had on Earth was because of them. And now, it’s my turn… my duty… to lead my people to their rightful future. If you were deemed worth of a spot on this lifeboat to a safer happier new planet, then, Samaritan, let me be the first to welcome you home.”

  Bile churns in my stomach and it’s all I can do to keep it from escaping. Unprecedented? How dare she call it that? My brother’s ship set the precedent and it blew up. It’s like his sacrifice never happened.

  I run up the hallway, hoping the noise of everyone around me will drown out the rest of President Theoda’s self-congratulations. Voices grow louder as I reach the end of the dark hallway and slam into a thick male chest.

  Or, bounce off is more accurate, and land hard on my backside. A large had reaches down to help me up, and I take it. It’s warm… hot even, and I allow my gaze to climb slowly up the arm and across the wide chest. The nauseous fire in my gut is forgotten. I feel safe at last.

  A smirk dances across Vallon’s face as the twinkle in my eye ignites into fury. I yank my hand from his and fall back to the ground. “I guess I have to make it my personal mission to man you up a bit, huh, Rat?” Without bothering to help me to my feet a second time, Vallon rolls his shoulders backward, straightening his back, and making his chest pop impossibly farther out.

  Pride and butt bruised, I grumble under my breath. The snappy comeback brewing in my mind dissipates before my tongue can catch it.

  ###

  “Where do we sleep?” I ask Comier as we finish the last of our gray and white slop. We’re the only two people left in the commissary and I can barely keep my eyes open. Vallon is supposed to be my babysitter, but he’s the last person I want to see right now.

  So I had waited until everyone was gone, and Comier was stacking empty trays, before coming out of hiding. He smiled and threw me a freeze-dried packet of gray mush, then another of white.

  I say slop and mush like it’s a bad thing, but honestly, this gray and white mass of food stuff is the best thing I’ve eaten in months. Clearly better than the rationed cans of expired veggies. And the cat Howie tried to pass off as a rabbit.

  Thinking his name sends and ache through my entire body. Forgetting I’ve just asked Comier about sleeping quarters, I get up from the table without a word. I’ve been transmitting a nonstop plea to Howie since my run-in with Vallon, to no avail. If my mind had a voice, it would be gone by now.

  I’m so lost in my own thoughts, when the commissary door glides open, I don’t realize I’ve crossed the threshold out of artificial gravity. My legs continue walking, with nothing beneath them.

  As if on cue, just when I need him least, Vallon saunters by. How he can saunter in zero gravity is beyond me, but leave it to him to figure it out.

  “Been looking for you, Rat.” Vallon stops before me and smiles.

  “Been avoiding you, ass.”

  The smile yawns across his face, stretching into a smirk. “Now, is that any way to speak to your superior?” With the flick of one wrist, he shoves me against the wall, and I bounce. Even in the slow motion of weightlessness, I can’t recover fast enough.

  My feet tumble above my head, and he catches me. Puts me down next to him. “You want me to show you the ropes or not?” Without waiting for a response, he’s in front of me, sauntering again.

  “What I want,” I say through gritted teeth, “is to know why you’re so… bipolar.”

  An indignant huff floats back at me, then, “What I want to see is the guy who isn’t fucked up after all this.”

  “Shouldn’t we be sticking together? One for all and —” The rest of the words don’t make it out before he’s on me.

  Before I register the movement, I’m in his arms, pressed firmly against him. “I tried to stick together with you, remember?” His one hand caresses the mangled scar on my cheek, then slinks effortlessly to its place on my waist like before, and he presents the other to me, as if asking for a dance.

  When I push away from him, he chips, //Better response than last time.//

  “Don’t you care that people will see you dancing with a… boy?” I straighten the camouflage jacket over my sequestered breasts and stand as tall as my weakened frame can go. Still, he’s a head taller or more. Why I insist on instigating fights with him I’ll never know. Maybe he’s right and we’re all allowed to be a bit mad after everything that’s happened to us.

  “Once we get on Gliese you’ll have a hard time passing for a boy. And besides, Vallon doesn’t discriminate.” As if referring to himself in the third person isn’t enough, he puffs his chest for good measure.

  �
��What do you mean?” I ask.

  “Well… uh… if I have to explain the finer details to you, maybe you aren’t my type after all.”

  “About when we get to Gliese. Me passing for a boy?” I can’t stop my hands from covering the parts of myself that a real boy wouldn’t be conscious of.

  “Oh, that? Just that Dr. Navoro has been working on a cure. By the time we get there…” Vallon taps an imaginary watch on his wrist. “Should be ready and waiting for you.” He lets his gaze linger on my nonexistent chest, but drags enough decency out of himself to not touch.

  “But… what if I don’t want… to be cured?” It’s already said before I realize I’m thinking it.

  Vallon screws up his eyebrows, then relaxes them. “Makes no difference to me. Like I said, Vallon doesn’t —”

  “Discriminate,” I finish for him, exaggerating my disgust to disguise what I’m really thinking.

  I don’t want to be cured. I don’t want puberty. I don’t want curves, or periods, or anything that would mark me as prey. After what those soldiers did to me, my only saving grace was the absence of puberty, the absence of another innocent life brought into this desolate world.

  “That is, of course,” Vallon continues, paying me no mind. “If President Theoda allows an Unrein to get the procedure. Don’t hold your breath on that one.” He weaves around a gathering of people that seems to be getting thicker as we move toward the center of the ship.

  //Unrein?// I chip. He’s too far ahead of me to hear anything I’d say normally.

  //Yeah, you… your precious Howie… // His ethereal voice softens for the next part. //Your little brother.//

  Pushing myself off the nearest wall, I swim through the mass of people to catch up. I’m getting the hang of this. //Why are we Unrein?//

  //Unlawfully chipped… Rebels… Resisters… Whatever name you guys call yourselves these days. You’re Unrein to us.//

  I don’t respond. My mind is reeling. Unrein? Is that how they have to think of us to justify hunting us down like animals? Open season on the Unrein? How many people like me, like Howie, got through the detection lines? What’s happening to them? To him if he lands on Gliese?

  //Come on, Rat. I don’t have all day. I have other men to show to their quarters.// Vallon sounds a little too eager to execute that last part of his duties. It sends a shudder through me. How can he think of that at a time like this?

  Throngs of people block my path to Vallon, to what must be the door to my quarters. Everyone’s talking, yelling, at the same time. Individual words are impossible to hear.

  //What’s going on?// I chip to Vallon.

  Through the crowd I see him shrug, and hold up a ‘wait here’ finger.

  I continue to fight my way through the ever growing huddle of people and wait at the door as I was told. From this vantage point I can see hundreds of uniformed soldiers and plain clothesed civilians swarming around three frazzled doctors in lab coats.

  All around us, bodies are… floating, unconscious or…

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  What kind of man will you be

  When the men around you become animals?

  - General Moed, Vol 3 of History of the Uprising

  I spot Comier crouching behind a soldier who looks larger than Vallon, and meaner if that’s even possible. The mountain’s face is permanently etched with a furrowed brow and flared nostrils. Massive arms cross against a heaving chest.

  //Comier?// I attempt to send out a message. It goes unanswered. His downturned face never rises.

  //You sure know how to pick ‘em// Vallon’s transmission startles me and I look up to find him watching me watching Comier. He’s naturally right in the mix of things, having found his way to the epicenter of the madness. Having only been graced with his company for a short while, I have to say it seems fitting. He’s a natural shit starter.

  //What’s going on?// As I attempt to move closer to the commotion for a better vantage point, a cold body brushes against my arm and I recoil. Then go right back to my door and stay put. Comier has the right idea, cowering in a corner.

  Vallon hurls a laugh at me through our link. //Loverboy over there poisoned the whole ship, it seems.// He opens the airwaves between us, allowing me to see and hear what’s before him, all around him.

  “He did this on purpose!” A plump woman in a tattered robe screams in Comier’s direction. The length of her robe snaps around her, kicked up with rage.

  “Poison! It’s all poisoned. We’re gonna die!” Another woman, on the edge of madness, shoves a finger down her throat and Vallon averts his eyes just in time to miss the sights, but not the sounds of her retching.

  Two guards pull their ZapSticks and stand back to back, daring the next fool to step forward. The tips crackle with energy. I don’t know what open elecrictiy would do in a pressurized shuttle cabin and I don’t want to find out. I may not get that luxury.

  //Poison? What the hell is happening?// I transmit.

  //The food supply is tainted. The whole lot.// For the first time, something almost human lingers under Vallon’s thought. He’s scared. And his fear is the last thing I need right now. My mouth goes dry. If I wasn’t floating, I’d probably fall to my knees. We’re all doomed.

  Two young men who look like they could be twins rush to the center of the chaos, pushing past lifeless bodies. “He’s new. We never seen him before. Who authorized him?” They alternate slurs.

  “Who let an Unrein on our ship?” That wildfire starts with a girl not much older than me, standing toe to toe with Comier’s bodyguard, and ripples outward, infecting the rest of the crowd with cries of ‘yeah’ and gasps of ‘an Unrein?’ I’m struck by her, as is Vallon who doesn’t avert his eyes to another screaming passenger. We both stare at this… girl, for obviously different reasons.

  As the only view I have of her now centers on ample curvature about chest level, I can’t help but wonder how she escaped the curse of the Glitch. How did she fill out into a woman, while I still fit into my little brother’s tank tops? And why is she not hiding her womanhood? Instead, displaying it in a form fitting — albeit regulation drab beige — t-shirt, that fills my entire frame of vision.

  //Ahem// I politely nudge Vallon through our chip connection. He lingers a moment, or ten, longer and moves on to the next angry face.

  A young boy, barely older than Brooks, clings to the floating form of a woman I assume was his mother. Her skin, which should be a deep mahogany, is turning green around his fingertips. Where I expect to see despair, fear, or placid grief on his tiny features, there is only hatred. This boy wants blood. Comier’s blood.

  Marshall appears behind the boy and places a large palm on his shoulder. His eyes find Vallon’s, and by default, mine. “Where’s Ratnik?” Marshall mouths to us and Vallon’s head pivots. In the most bizarre turn of events, I’m now staring at myself… staring at myself. And I look like shit. I finally see why Vallon has it out for me.

  The new fatigues Marshall dropped in my lap after my… accident, hang off me like a tuxedo on a skeleton. My ratty hair — huh, is that why he calls me Rat? My hair is still shaved close to my head, but it’s prickling through my scalp in enough places to show off how long I’ve been without a comb. As Vallon’s stare bores into me, the red bandages on my wrists might as well be homing beacons, neon targets for his snide remarks.

  Before Vallon can look away from my mess, an alarm sounds and the world around me flashes orange. Orange. The same shade of destruction and chaos that filled the sky when Brooks and Howie’s ship exploded. It’s happening. //I’m so sorry,// I chip to Howie.

  Mass hysteria erupts through the already frantic passengers.

  “Airlock seven malfunction. Airlock seven malfunction.” A robot voice rips through the undercurrent of panic, stirring it up. Through the roar of voices all screaming at once, I can barely make out Marshall’s, telling Vallon to go check it out. In his haste, he doesn’t sever the mental link between us. What we both see wh
en he reaches airlock seven will stay with me until the day I die.

  Which, right now, feels like today.

  ###

  A small, frail looking old woman is strapped to the wall beside the malfunctioning airlock door. Pry marks chew up the metal along the edges. She’s snatching bodies out of the air and chucking them through the door. Some scream as the breath leaves them and they’re hurled out into open space.

  One man to her left tugs at her harness, desperately trying to shove her out. However, his own strap tears free and he somersaults through the doorway. A look of utter shock freezes on his face.

  Another man comes up to take his place. Instead of pushing the old woman out of the hole and closing the airlock, this one grabs the nearest person… a young crying girl… and feeds her to the woman.

  By the time Vallon reaches them, three or four people are lined up on each side of this woman, helping her toss innocent people out of the ship.

  “Oh shit!” Vallon says and transmits simultaneously, then rushes back toward the crowd. And me.

  One of the lab coated people in the middle of the crowd stands on top of a table and commands silence. “People, we can get through this. There are plenty of cryo-pods onboard. If we all work together we can—” The uproar drowns out the rest of his speech and he slinks down off the table, throwing his hands up in resignation.

  Multiple cries ring out at once, all along the same lines.

  “How many?”

  “Who gets one?”

  “Officers first. It’s only fair.”

  “I’m not sharing. Don’t you dare wake me up.”

  Marshall catches Vallon by the arm as he comes back into view. Although he turns his back so I can’t see his lips, Vallon’s channel is still wide open and I don’t miss a word. He whispers, face right in Vallon’s ear, “Get our battalion into those pods now. Officers first.” He pauses, then adds, “And Ratnik… Then yourself. Hurry!” Marshall pushes Vallon toward an empty hallway to the right.

  Vallon doesn’t follow orders. Instead, he whips behind the large guard standing over Comier, and snatches the boy up with one hand, shaking him roughly. Comier flaps in the orange air the same way that lady’s old bathrobe did moments before. “Is this what you want? Come and get him!”