Authors: Cidney Swanson
“Oh,” said Jess, laughing. “So she’s giving speeches about—”
“First-body safety,” Pavel said, completing Jess’s thought. “And I’m listening while I fly sub-orbitals.”
“How very wayward of you.”
Pavel shrugged. “Yeah, I know. But all the statistics about first-body crashes are based on a group who haven’t had the kind of training I’ve had.”
“Does your aunt know you’ve been licensed—” Jess paused to make sure she said it the way Pavel had. “Licensed up to 300 kilometers in space?”
“She never asked,” said Pavel. “But she paid the bills for the tuition.”
“Or her administrative assistant paid them.”
“Probably,” grunted Pavel.
“Does she … do you think she cares about your safety?” Then, more quietly, “Does she love you?”
Pavel sat up. “In her way.” He brushed sand off his fingers. “In the space of a year, I lost both my parents and then the uncle who cared for me. Lucca took me in even though she’d just been elected Chancellor. She did little things to help make my new life with her easier, like finding out what kinds of books and games I liked, fixing up my room exactly like my parents had it, giving me flying lessons when I asked. She did other things, too. My parents’ bodies were unrecoverable, but in the case of my uncle, Lucca made sure the re-body went to someone in her cabinet, so that I’d still be able to see him from time to time. Not everyone would have gone the extra mile like that.”
Jess shuddered. The
last
thing she’d want if her loved ones died was to see someone else walking around inside their bodies. She scrambled for a change of subject. “What was it like—your first flight where you broke the sound barrier?”
Pavel shook his head. “Scary as anything. But don’t let that stop you from trying it someday. That first time up, I caught seven sunrises before the refuel alert forced me back down.”
Jessamyn smiled. Catching serial sunrises was one of her favorite pastimes back home. “What’s the best place you’ve ever flown?”
“The great southwestern desert in North America. It’s beautiful. Have you seen it?”
“No,” murmured Jess. “Never been.”
“My parents used to take me every year. I think I was six the first time. I remember watching the sun rising on the flat horizon. It had no color and Mom said how that was because the air lacked contaminants. That was the thing about the desert. How clean it felt. And how it smelled: pure. Fresh. Like every breath I took cleaned out my lungs.
“I had figured a desert would have no color. All washed out like the sky at sunrise. But the desert has so much color, Jessamyn. Every shade of tan and brown and pink that you can imagine, all there in the dirt. Close-up, at your feet, it only looks sand-colored. But when you look out, there are these little hills and they look like someone’s been trying different paints, figuring out what color would look best.”
Jess’s eyes drifted shut and she imagined Mars at sunrise, looking just like Pavel described the North American desert.
“Am I boring you?” asked Pavel.
Jess’s eyes flew open. “No,” she said. “I’ve seen pictures of that desert, but it looked like everything was brown.”
“They do that to discourage tourism, I think,” said Pavel, laughing.
“Keep going,” said Jess. “I’m closing my eyes so I can imagine it.”
Pavel sighed and continued. “So, yeah, a million shades of tans and golds, like the colors at the heart of Budapest.”
“Mmm,” Jess murmured.
“I saw cactus for the first time on that trip. I had no idea what it was. It looked like a cluster of pipes sticking out of the ground. I asked my Dad what it could be and he said what he always said.” Pavel laughed softly. “
‘Let’s go find out.’
So we took off and when we got close, something very weird happened: I swear I could
smell
the moisture collected deep inside.”
Pavel looked over at Jess. “I
am
boring you to death.”
“No,” mumbled Jess, her eyes closed. “The desert sounds beautiful the way you describe it.”
“Yeah. It’s so pure. The worst part was always coming home and trying to sleep—it was like there were too many smells at home. I would grab one of my shirts from camping and sleep with it pressed into my face every night until finally it would lose that clean desert smell.”
Pavel looked over at Jessamyn. Her mouth had parted slightly and she looked like she was sleeping. Stretching out on the sand beside her, he placed himself so he could see the next time the New Terra Space Station passed by.
Jess slept, dreaming of home: the deserts of frozen sand and soil in a thousand shades of orange-y brown, until, just before dawn, her brother’s voice, terror-filled, awakened her.
Chapter Seventeen
THE YOU I MET LAST NIGHT
Inside her ear-implant, Jessamyn recognized her brother’s voice. “Orbitals down! Orbitals down!”
As he uttered the code phrase selected to indicate mission failure, Jess heard the fear in her brother’s voice.
“Follow your tattoo!” Ethan whispered. “Now!” He cut the connection.
Jessamyn found she was already sitting upright beside a sleeping Pavel. To the east, the sky remained dark, but the stars had nearly all vanished. Morning was near. Her tattoo glowed a deep purple and she tapped it to get directions. Ethan was over eight kilometers away. She needed to find transport,
now.
Remembering the row of hover-bikes for rent, Jess rose, shedding her
sari
.
As the fabric slipped into a pile of burnt-orange, a few grains of sand spilled across Pavel. His hands twitched and he opened his eyes.
“Hey,” he said, a lazy smile upon his face.
“My brother’s in trouble,” said Jessamyn. “I need to go.”
“Go where? Testing starts in five hours.”
“Yeah,” said Jess, walking briskly toward the front of the building.
Left hand family, right hand escape
, she repeated to herself.
“Jessamyn. Wait up, Jessamyn!” Pavel jogged alongside her.
It irked her to see how much more quickly he could run. The Terran gravity felt as if it were trying to draw her down inside the Earth’s core.
“Did you hear me? Five hours, Jessamyn. If you no-show, you get a manual labor sentence. In, like, Antarctica!”
“Doesn’t matter.” Jess was
so
done pretending she was here for an exam.
“You’re telling me you don’t care if you spend the next eighteen years of your life swinging an ice pick in an arthritis-ridden body?”
“Exactly,” she said. “Goodbye, Pavel.”
She stared at the row of rental bikes, looking for anything that resembled a place to scan her wrist-chip.
“Jessamyn, don’t be crazy. Message your parents. Let them deal with it.”
Hades
, thought Jessamyn. Ethan hadn’t said anything about the rest of the crew. Were they all in danger?
Pavel placed himself before a box with writing on it, and Jess glimpsed the rental instructions she’d been looking for.
“Message your parents.”
“I can’t. Move out of my way.”
Pavel stood his ground, arms crossed.
“I said,
move
!” Jess thrust her arms at his chest with a force that would have toppled most Marsians. On Mars, at least.
“Why can’t you let someone else deal with your brother?” asked Pavel, laughing at her clumsy attempt.
“I can’t tell you,” said Jess, swiping her left wrist.
The box made a buzzing noise and a panel flashed a “CHIP DENIED” message.
“Holy
Ares
,” muttered Jess, swiping her right wrist instead.
“PLEASE CHOOSE A TRANSPORT” flashed across the panel this time and Jess ran down the row looking for something fast. None of them looked like great candidates. Maybe Pavel would know.
“Which one’s the fastest?” she asked. “Please. My parents can’t help. They’re too far away.”
Pavel’s mouth shrank into a frown. “Take my bike. It’s faster than any of those.”
“Really? Where is it?”
Pavel walked away from the motor pool row to another, smaller group of bikes. Placing his thumb over a scanner, he started the engine. Jess hopped aboard.
“Thank you,” she murmured, scrutinizing the dash for gears, braking, acceleration.
“I’m going with you,” said Pavel.
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Jessamyn, tell me what’s going on. It’s like you’re a totally different person all of a sudden.” His grip, as he placed a hand on her forearm, felt strong.
“I’ve told you everything. My brother’s in danger. Now let me go,” she said, trying to shake his hand off her.
“It’s my bike—I’m going with you.”
I don’t have time for this
, Jess thought. “Fine,” she heard herself agreeing, “But I drive.”
He shrugged, hopped on behind her, and linked his arms around her waist. “Careful,” he said. “It’s been modified to be faster than most Series 400s.”
Jessamyn accelerated and turned onto the main street, following her chrono-tattoo. The hover-bike
was
fast.
“When we get to my brother,” she hollered over her shoulder, “You have to promise to leave. Take your bike and get out of there.”
“Your brother’s in bad trouble?”
“Promise you’ll go,” said Jess.
She slowed for a traffic indicator, uncertain what the consequences would be for reckless driving, and not wanting to find out. The engine whined softly as they waited, and Jess decided to pump Pavel for information, something she wished she’d done last night. It had been a fool’s use of time, conversing about stars and deserts.
“Where’s the municipal hoverport?” she asked.
“My bike’s not fast enough?” he asked as she sped forward.
“It’s fine,” she said. “Do you know which city-zone the hoverport is in?
“What’s your brother got himself mixed up in?”
Jess worried that she was spooking Pavel.
“If my brother has injuries, I want better options than waiting for emergency services to respond.”
“If your brother’s injured, I’ve got a med kit under the bike seat. I can stop bleeding, set bones, whatever he needs.”
Jessamyn chewed her lower lip, worrying she’d never get rid of Pavel. She wished she could risk calling Ethan to learn more about his situation, but she couldn’t until she got rid of Pavel. She continued following her tattoo’s directions, feeling more and more anxious as it transformed from green to yellow to orange.
Just hold on another minute, Eth
, she thought.
“Do you know where the nearest hoverport is or not?” She was less than a half-kilometer from Ethan’s location. Jess blinked her right eye three times, causing the membrane in her eye to shift into place to reveal cloaking fabrics in operation. She prayed they’d cloak-tarped the Terran transport.
There it was
! Sitting in a parking lot behind a rusted-out truck.
“Jessamyn,” said Pavel. “That last barrier we passed through? People can’t normally drive through that.”
“They can’t?” asked Jess.
“No, of course not. This facility is under high security. The only reason you got through is that my bike is registered to Lucca Brezhnaya. What is your brother involved with?”
“I’m not sure,” replied Jessamyn, bringing the bike to a halt. She swung her legs out.
Hades
, she weighed so much on Earth. She looked Pavel in the eye. “But I know he’s in trouble and I have to try to help. Please, go.
Now
.”
Jess glanced down at her tattoo, glowing deep red. Seven minutes had passed since he’d called. She needed to find her brother
now
whether Pavel stuck around or not. She thought of something.
“If you don’t leave, I’m messaging emergency services that you’re kidnapping me,” said Jessamyn.
“
What?
”
“Because you’re worried I’ll earn your apprenticeship.”
“You’re joking,” said Pavel. Jess saw an angry look flash across his face.
“I’m counting down from five.”
“Jess—”
“Five. Four. Three.”
“Message me and let me know you’re okay,” he said, flicking his wrist over the spot where her scan chip lay. Jessamyn had no idea how to “message” Pavel, but she wasn’t planning to in any case. “There was no need to threaten me,” he said coldly. “I’m doing this because you
asked
. Because I liked the
you
I met last night.”
Pavel revved the hover-bike and drove off, leaving her alone in the dark.
Chapter Eighteen
NO LANGUAGE TO EXPRESS
Jessamyn noted that her clothes had returned from their spray-shrunk state to their former size. Reaching into a back pocket, she pulled out a thin black balaclava and gloves. It wasn’t as effective as a cloaking fabric, but the black rendered her difficult to see in the pre-dawn gloom. She advanced toward the cloaked transport. Through her glove, the red tattoo glowed softly. Suddenly, her ear implant began transmitting again.
But it wasn’t her brother she heard. Voices, electronically altered, filtered through the device in her ear. Ethan was with others, it seemed—but who? Friend or foe? And then, glancing along the building, she saw him. Ethan was being marched and then made to halt facing a wall, legs apart and hands clasped atop his head.
The voices she’d heard weren’t Kipper and Harpreet—where were they? And how was she going to free her brother? She glanced at her tattoo, preparing to flick it off. But it was doing something funny. As she crept toward her brother, the red flashed to orange. She paused. What was going on? Had Ethan set her tattoo to lead her somewhere
instead
of to him? What else was there? The transport?
She angled toward the vehicle and the chrono-tattoo glowed cherry red. Another couple of steps and it shifted to a deeper red. She crept up to the side of the transport, hoping to find something that would allow her to rescue Ethan. Lifting the tarp and opening the door silently, she slipped inside.
“Jessamyn, daughter,” said Harpreet, seated in the transport. “Thank goodness. Listen carefully. Kipper’s been shot. I don’t know where they took her. Or if she’s alive. Don’t use your left chip again. Stick to the right. Do you understand?”
“What about Ethan?” It was all Jess could do to utter her brother’s name.