by A. L. Knorr
I tossed the ball into the sky and watched as it paused and hovered. Petra was controlling it now. She pushed it up into the air, farther and farther from us.
Focusing, I compressed it, asking it to take up less space yet remain bright and hot. It did my bidding, becoming brighter and denser. Petra continued to lift the ball high into the air above our heads. As she did so, I asked the fire to condense further, and I gave it more fuel. It shrank, but brightened. It was too small still, so I sent jet-streams of fire from both hands to meet it in the air. It increased in size and the heat and light now coming off it was immense.
I continued to pack it tightly as Petra lifted. I added more fire, brightened it, and turned up the heat. I couldn't help but smile as I looked at the creation—it really did look like a small sun.
"Higher, Petra," Hiroki called from the platform.
Mr. Nakesh added, "Wonderful! Both of you!"
Our shadows darkened, their lines becoming sharper as the artificial sun rose overhead. Georjie and Targa made sounds of amazement. I looked back and up, catching Akiko shaking her head with wonder.
"You're all wonders of the world." Akiko's words drifted on the air.
"Big enough," Hiroki said.
I relaxed my hands and let the fire be, feeling a bit like I had just sent a kid off to kindergarten for their first day. Who knew I could create a sun-like object, even if it was minuscule? How big could I make it—as big as the sun? With Petra's help, could we create new stars? I swayed a little on my feet at the impact of what Hiroki was having us do. Alone, a supernatural was a force of nature. Together, we were like demi-gods or something.
"Okay, Petra, that's good. Leave it there."
The sun stopped moving and hovered in our artificial sky, sending heat and light down over us and the plants. The crane lowered the platform again so Petra and I could step on board.
At this point, everyone except for Miss Marks removed their goggles and masks and gazed at the effects of having a much closer light source.
“I have an issue for you to note,” Georjie said to Hiroki.
He turned to her and took out his notepad. “What’s that?”
“That sun doesn’t throw the right spectrum of light for plants to grow.”
Hiroki’s pen scratched on the pad. “Thanks for bringing that up. I’ve made a note for later.” He tucked the pad and pen away then said, "Okay, Georjayna, you're up again."
"I am?" She sounded excited, and had a lemme at it look on her face.
Hiroki pulled a box out of his bag. He opened it and held it out so we could see inside.
I peered in, curiously, but my face must have fallen with disappointment because Hiroki laughed.
Georjie reached into the box and picked up a boring gray rock from the pile. "It's just a bunch of common minerals."
She easily broke the piece apart with her hands. It crumbled back into the box and a bit of dust puffed up.
"That is what it seems like, yes,” Hiroki said. “But these minerals were specially gathered by a friend of Petra's."
"They were?" Petra looked as surprised at this as the rest of us were. Then her face slipped into understanding. "Oh, Ibby."
"Yes. Ibukun is one of our supernaturals."
"What kind?" Georjie asked this and then seemed to hold her breath. "If she knows minerals…"
I knew what she was thinking and hoping—that Ibby was also a Wise.
"She's an Inconquo," Hiroki explained. "A Metal Elemental. She's in your category, Georjayna, but doesn't have your breadth of power. What she's gathered for you here are the various lunar minerals we need to create a synthetic moon. They aren't in the proper proportions to solidify and reflect the sun's light the way the actual moon can, but that's where you come in. Think of them like the ingredients for a cake all mixed together. They just need to be separated and re-arranged properly. Think you can do that?"
"I can feel the different minerals. They're just like what we have here on earth." She glanced at Hiroki. “I’m assuming Ibukun didn’t go to the moon to get these?”
“No. She just had a list from me and procured them,” Hiroki explained. “Mostly from the desert, I think.”
Georjie's fingers shifted through the dust and rock in the box. "Pyroxene, olivine, iron, anorthosite, and some others. If you tell me the proportions, I'll see what I can do with them."
"Sure, hang on a minute." Hiroki handed the box to Georjie.
She took the box off the platform, set it on the ground, and knelt beside it, rolling up her sleeves. She looked up and her brow wrinkled in the light of my sun.
"Any chance you could move the sun away, Petra?" she asked. "It's a bit intense."
"Oh, sure." Petra raised her face to the fireball and it shifted over the land, sending our shadows reeling in response. The sun skidded across the sky. It slid to a stop and remained aloft and still.
"Thanks."
"Okay, here we go." Hiroki pulled out a notebook and went over the proportions of the moon’s makeup for Georjie, who listened intently.
"Don't worry about making the core," Hiroki said. "It's not necessary. It would just be nice if you're able to make it appear moon-like."
Georjie was already packing a ball into shape, her hands hovering above the box, her bare feet and toes half buried in the ground. The gray dust arranged itself into a ball and then seethed and churned in the same way the soil had under Georjie's command. Dust and pebbles and fractured bits of rock fell back into the box. The 'moon' became a gray ball of dirt, not entirely smooth, but nowhere near as pockmarked looking as our real moon.
"That's about as big as I can make it with what you have here," Georjie said, standing. She left it sitting on the ground in a bed of grass. It was about the size of a beach ball.
Petra held a hand out to the ball and it began to levitate. It rose above our heads, shrinking and shrinking as it climbed.
"Better stop there, Petra." Hiroki had his hands on his hips and was looking up at the sun and moon. He frowned. "It's not the right proportions, but that's okay for today. In the actual domes, we'll have all the correct calculations done to make everything much more realistic."
"It'll be like paint-by-numbers." Mr. Nakesh gave that strange giggle again.
Hiroki nodded at Petra. "Send the sun and moon to their positions across from one another, please."
Our shadows leaned and spun as the sun moved across the sky toward the other side of the dome. Petra pushed the moon into place, opposite the sun. We fell into shadow as the moon came to sit over us and the sun was too far away to saturate us with light.
"We won't get the proper effect of moon-glow in a dome this small," Hiroki explained. "The dome has to be big enough for the 'sun' to disappear out of view before the minerals of the moon will do their job." He shrugged. "There are some things we won't know until we go to make our first dome for real."
"And," Petra whispered without taking her eyes from the sun, "orbit."
The sun and moon began to move in tandem in the same direction. We all watched this, captivated. It was starting to really feel like a livable dome in here.
The light increased as the sun swept by overhead, licking our skin with heat. The temperature dropped rapidly as the sun passed beyond us, shrinking in the distance.
"Congratulations," Hiroki said to us. "You've just created the world's first true bio-dome."
I glanced at Targa and Georjie. They looked mildly dazed. My heart was pounding with the exhilaration of what we had just done. It had worked. TNC's mad plan was working.
Now, I had a real problem.
I wanted to go to Arcturus, but how could I go when there was a possibility of making such a positive impact for people on Earth? Maybe, the impossible had just happened in my own life. Maybe, just maybe, I wanted to work for TNC instead of going to work with Basil. I could see that Georjie and Petra were both captured by the TNC project, but Targa was not an easy read.
After all, she had fallen in love with someone who w
as waiting for her in Poland. Would she say yes to this project and put off her budding romance for the greater good?
Petra
Rain began to spatter lightly on the pavement as I said goodbye to the girls. I walked to where my Toyota was parked and looked back over my shoulder at the girls. I'd offered them a ride, but they'd said they preferred to walk together so they could keep talking.
As I watched them walk away, Targa lifted her hands and an arch of water appeared over their heads like an invisible umbrella. I snorted a laugh at this as the girls clustered together in the dry zone. Then Akiko said something and Targa put her hands down and the rain drenched them again. I laughed again, guessing that Akiko had reminded Targa that if someone saw them, they’d catch trouble.
What we'd been through today had bound us with an invisible cord. I didn't know them, but I had grown to both respect and care for them as the day progressed. They were good people, all of them. That was not hard to see, and I found it exciting that I might get to work with them on something as important as Project Expansion.
I got into my car and put the key in the ignition, thinking that though they had not yet finished high school, the girls seemed more mature than they should be. We hadn't had time to chit-chat, but if we were going to be working together, I intended to ask each of them for their origin stories. I expected there would be hardship in every one. Could a supernatural come about without some kind of adversity to bring the powers to the surface? I didn't think so.
As my car roared to life and I turned the heater on, my eyes drifted to the phone box across the street. This morning seemed so long ago that I half wondered if I'd dreamt that it had rung.
The car windows began to fog up so I cracked my window open. I paused, listening, before turning up the fan. No ringing. I smiled at my own silliness. It had just been a fluke the first time, and my imagination was getting away with me.
I pulled away from the curb and headed for my apartment.
The rain began to come down in earnest as I dashed from my car to my building. The sky was so thick with clouds that it blocked out any possible moon and starlight. The sound of pelting raindrops hammering against my windows greeted me as I opened the door to my apartment and locked it behind me, shivering.
I stripped off my sopping jacket and hung it on the coat rack by the door. My teeth chattering, I got out of my damp clothes and turned on the shower, leaving the water to heat up. I scampered to where the thermostat was beside the key hooks and turned it up. Then I returned to the bathroom, where steam was already fogging the mirror. I got under the spray with a long, exhausted sigh.
As I shampooed my hair I thought I heard the faintest sound of a phone ringing. I paused, suds dripping down the sides of my face, and listened.
Nothing.
I finished my shower and wrapped my wet hair up in a towel. After pulling on a pair of flannel pajamas, I crawled into bed with my hair still wrapped up.
A burning smell made me open my eyes and sniff. It took me a second to realize that the smell of burnt dust was coming from the heaters, which I hadn't used since June. I got up and opened a window a crack to let in some fresh air.
There was ringing!
I froze, listening. It had the same hard, old-fashioned ring as the phone box across from the fire station. It was coming from outside.
"No," I whispered with a disbelieving huff. "It can't be. I'm hearing things."
But I wasn't.
The ring continued to drift in through the window. The sound was faint, almost drowned out by the rain. I listened, as conflicted as two mountain rams fighting over territory. What to do? I didn't realize I was holding my breath until the ringing stopped.
After a few minutes of listening at the window and no answering sound but the driving of rain against the glass and the rooftops and pavement outside, I lay down.
The ringing started again.
"That's it!" I threw back the covers, turned on the lamp beside my bed, and rooted through my closet for some warm clothes.
As I left the apartment, key in my pocket and gloves and raincoat on, I jammed a hat down over my head. I was either going to answer the damn phone, or destroy the damn cord so I could go to sleep. Not sure which I would do until I got there, I pounded down the stairs and went out into the rain with my cheap umbrella open.
I listened, and then moved in the direction of the ring. It was coming from a payphone near the kiddie park just down the road from my apartment building.
My heart began to jump as I drew close to the ringing payphone. Unlike the first phone box, this one looked more appealing. It was clean, modern, and made of stainless steel.
I slid the door open and stepped inside, leaving my umbrella on the ground. I stared at the phone, thinking that surely every ring would be its last.
When it didn't cease, I snatched up the receiver. My heart was going like jungle drums.
"Hello?"
"Oh, Petra! Thank God!"
The masculine voice on the other end was familiar, but I was so shocked at what the voice had said that I couldn't immediately put my finger on who owned it.
"I thought I was going to have to break into your apartment and kidnap you or something," the voice continued, infused with relief—and if I wasn't mistaken, joy? "Thank you so much for answering. Listen, I know you're probably freaked out right now—"
It clicked into place, the owner of the voice. I took a sharp inhale and clutched the receiver with my other hand, heart going harder than ever.
"Jesse?"
There was a pause. Then, "You figured it out, huh. Yeah, sorry, I guess I should have said my name."
I was speechless.
"It's been a while, I know." Now he sounded guilty and uncomfortable. "I'm sorry for that."
"What…where are you? What are you doing haunting pay-phones? How did you know it was even me? What's happening? If you wanted to get a hold of me, you could have just called my cell."
"I couldn't, though."
Anger was now simmering underneath the elation I felt at hearing his beautiful voice again. Anger, and something else completely different—excitement. He'd finally made contact, he did care after all. It had taken him forever, but he'd finally reached out.
"I called you enough times," I said, my voice full of reproach. "I know you have my number. Do you know how long I tried to reach you for? How many times I called you? Nothing, Jesse! I got nothing from you."
"I know, and I'm sorry."
"I thought…you…" Hated me or something. "Were hurt or something, or, I don't know." Tears were misting in my eyes now, hot and angry tears. I squeezed my eyes shut. I hadn't been aware how much he meant to me, how much it hurt that he'd ignored me, until now. I clenched my teeth against the sob that wanted so badly to surge from my throat.
"Petra, please, we don't have much time."
I opened my eyes, brushing at them with my glove. That didn't help, my glove was wet. I bit the end of my glove and ripped it off my hand, then wiped at my eyes. "What do you mean?"
"I'm going to give you an address. I need you to come to me."
"What? Jesse, what's going on?" My head snapped up as what he'd said sank in. "Are you here? In Saltford?"
"Yes, I'm here. I can't explain more right now. I need to see you and you need to see me. Petra, you and those other girls are in danger. Other people are in danger too. Lots of other people." He let out a frustrated breath. "Will you please just—"
"Yes, yes! Of course. Tell me where and I'll come, right now."
He let out a shaky breath. "Great. Do you have a pen?"
"Just tell me. I'll remember."
He rattled off an address, twice. I said it back to him and committed it to memory. "I think I know where you are. You're near the harbor, not far from the Seadog."
"Is that the restaurant that looks like a ship?"
"That's the one."
"Yeah, I'm close. Please hurry. And Petra?"
"Yes?"
"Make sure you're not followed."
Make sure you're not followed?
Great. Yeah, no problem, I thought as I hung up the phone. This was surreal.
I grabbed my wet umbrella from the ground and jogged for my car. The streets were deserted. The rain was near-torrential, and though there were a few lights on in the buildings along my street, most of the windows were dark.
I got back into my car and turned it on, shivering, thinking about seeing Jesse again. It had been months since the dig in Libya. A whole summer had passed. I couldn't believe he was here, here in Saltford, my town. I had thought he was half a world away, literally, in Australia. What was he doing here? How long had he been here? How long had he been trying to find me? Why hadn't he just called my cell?
Because TNC gave you that cell, Petra.
The thought came so fast and hard that I gasped. Was that thought even my own? My blood felt like it was turning to ice in my veins.
Of course, that was why. It was the only reason that made any sense. My fingers trembled against the steering wheel as I made my way through wet and deserted streets. Rain pounded my windshield and filled the car with a sharp driving sound that was so loud it made me wince. I kept glancing into my rear-view mirror, looking for headlights or the shadow of a vehicle with the headlights off. There was nothing.
I parked a block away from the harbor in a quiet residential neighborhood. The address Jesse had given me led me to a new duplex, a building that had gone up less than a year before. I knew this area because it wasn't far from a park where Beverly used to take me when I was a kid.
I jogged up the walkway to door B. My mind raced. Would it be awkward to see him again after so much time apart? Was he here as a professional courtesy? Or was he here because he really cared about me and it was more personal than that?
A dim light could be seen through curtains on the second floor. I rapped on the door. Moments later, it opened, and Jesse was there, pulling me inside.
I barely had time to inhale as Jesse closed and locked the door behind me and yanked me into a hug. He didn't seem to care or notice that I was soaking wet.
