The Apollo Academy (14 page)

AURORA

W
hen Aurora made it outside, she found that everyone was already there, waiting for her. Of course, every head turned to look at her, the late arrival. Sky was there too, giving her his usual I’m-disappointed-in-you look. His blue eyes looked her over in a very unfriendly way, and Aurora felt rocket ships blast off in her stomach.

The group loaded up in the large hovercar that would take them to the Apollo Alliance SpacePort just a few miles away.

When the short ride was over, she stepped out, a peacefulness settling inside her. Wind blew across her face, bringing with it the smell of briny ocean air, synthetic jet fuel, and oil. Aurora took a huge breath. Looking up at the beautifully clear sky, she realized she couldn’t wait to get up there and prove to herself and everyone else that she belonged.

The SpacePort was crawling with activity. Shuttles and various aircraft were lined around its main circular dome. Aurora felt better knowing that the SpacePort was continuing to operate normally. If they weren’t going to let the TerraRists bother them, then why should she?

Enraptured in her surroundings, she didn’t realize that all was quiet. When she looked around, she found that the other cadets were already following Lieutenant Colonel Jackson into the flight department. She turned quickly to catch up with the other students and didn’t see Sky looking back at her with a curious expression until she ran right into him. It was like hitting a brick wall.

Heavy hands steadied her, and she took a step back, intending to apologize, but stopped short when she caught sight of Sky’s scornful face.

He was a really cute guy, but Aurora found his face unattractive when it was twisted in anger. Granted, she seemed to be the only one capable of really setting him off because he was extremely popular with everyone else.
What is it about me that makes him so angry?

“You need to stop daydreaming and pay attention to where you’re going,” Sky barked before walking away.

Aurora didn’t mean to run into him. Apparently, whatever she did to rile Sky up, he did the same to her in return. She stomped forward, trying to catch up to him.

“What’s your
deal
?”

Sky stopped and turned back to look at her. “I need to know you’re not here because of your father,” he stated, as if he were doing the Apollo Academy some sort of huge favor. He began walking away again, but she kept pace next to him. She tried to think of what else she could say to convince him that she belonged here, but there wasn’t enough time for this conversation again. She let it go for now. It wasn’t anything new anyway.

As soon as they walked into the briefing room, Lieutenant Colonel Jackson began briefing the class on the day’s flight. “All right, cadets, today we’re going to partner up in teams. Remember the purpose of these training flights is to minimize pilot error during life-threatening situations. You need to accustom yourselves to making fast, accurate decisions. When you’re piloting the shuttle, you will have the lives of ten other people in your hands. So today we will test your decision-making abilities. Remember your procedure flows, and you’ll be just fine. So let’s get teamed up and review.”

He pulled out an electronic tablet that held the team list. The Lieutenant Colonel looked down at the record briefly before he began calling out names. Aurora stared at the large bold T’s that branded the tablet as a Titon Technologies product while he called out names.

“Jeremy, you’re with Burner. Nathaniel, you’re with Vapor. Rick, you’re with Bug. Jean-Pierre, you’re with Guano—”

“Guano is Ewan’s call sign?” Rick asked, a smile lighting his face.

All of the graduated cadets went by their call signs, and the stories behind them were usually hilarious. Aurora wondered what hers would be.

“Yeah, because he’s bat-shit-crazy,” Jeremy responded before falling into a hysterical fit of laughter.

“All right, settle down.” Lieutenant Colonel Jackson continued, ignoring the guys’ whoops and hollers. “And lastly, Aurora you’re with Sky.”

Aurora barely kept her groan of frustration to herself. Of course she was teamed up with Sky. In fact, he probably ensured that they would be teamed together, just so he would have the opportunity to scold her.

Lieutenant Colonel Jackson pulled up a visual display of the XT-101’s cockpit and continued with the lesson. “Jeremy, would you recite the electrical fire in-flight emergency procedure?”

Jeremy nodded his head and confidently rattled off. “The autopilot flight control unit will handle most basic types of emergencies. However, if that fails, you would manually select the master switch to off position, close all vents in the cabin, activate the fire extinguisher, and turn all non-essential electrical equipment off—”

Lieutenant Colonel Jackson nodded his head and cut off any further commentary. “Good.” He looked around the room, selecting his next participant. “Rick, what are the emergency rapid decompression flows?”

Rick, leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head, ticked items off his fingers. “Throttles to idle. Pitch to just below never exceed speed. Begin descent to twelve thousand feet. Verify proper oxygen flow to mask.”

Aurora rolled her eyes. Typical male pilots. She listened and visually went through each procedure in her head, better preparing herself for the flight ahead. Even with an autopilot, everyone was required to know every single emergency procedure because autopilots were not one hundred percent reliable. She listened intently as the boys arrogantly answered each question thrown at them.

She sometimes wished she had their total confidence.

When Lieutenant Colonel Jackson was satisfied that they were all prepared, he released the class. “All right, everyone, go pre-flight and remember, if you forget everything else you’ve been taught, just remember to keep your knots up. I’ll see you safely back on the ground.” He walked out, heading to the ground control room, where he and the on-ground pilots would direct and monitor their training.

Aurora didn’t move when everyone else stood up to leave. She was too busy watching Sky, as he followed the Lieutenant Colonel out the door. Before he left the room, he turned, meeting Aurora’s stare. Heat rushed to her cheeks as his challenging eyes met hers. She didn’t give in to the urge to look down, determined for Sky to see her as his equal.

ZANE

Z
ane’s footsteps pounded on the moving treadmill below him, making a consistent beat, while sweat dripped down the back of his shirt and made it cling to his skin. He was only halfway through his run, and as usual his heart rate and breathing remained steady. By this point he had usually worked himself into a panic over his unknown medical condition, wondering if his heart rate was right or if he was supposed to be breathing harder.

Normally he was so in tune with his body that he never paid attention to the virtual world displayed on the screens that surrounded him. Sometimes he didn’t even bother to turn the screens on and ran with blank white screens, but today he decided to take Aurora’s advice and selected the night country road option.

He had to admit there was something relaxing about running in the middle of nowhere where the stars twinkled in the black velvet sky above his head. He had never been anywhere so isolated or an area that allowed the stars to shine so brightly. Outside of his astronomy class, anyway. He had lived his entire life in the overcrowded Orlando metropolis and didn’t think anywhere like this even existed anymore. There were even trees in the distance.

No wonder people wore their alternate-reality tech all the time. If he hadn’t seen the resulting addiction and consequences first-hand, he probably would have tried them out a long time ago.

The freedom that came from running in such an open space allowed him to clear his head. He imagined how fresh the air would smell and almost felt the night breeze cooling his hot skin. He wasn’t even paying attention to his body because of how freeing the scene was. There were no skyscrapers pressing down on him and no people to avoid. The open space allowed him to let go of his thoughts as his body maintained its meticulous movements.

There was something to love about running like this. He now understood why Aurora’s face lit up when he mentioned running. He felt free, calm, and like he could even become a better person. He seemed to be literally sweating away all of the stress and negativity that had been accumulating in his body.

As his mind lost its usual sharp focus, he let his thoughts drift to Aurora. Her soft lips. Green eyes.

Zane shook his head. When he’d found out who Aurora’s father was, he’d thought she’d be a spoiled brat. She was a little naive but nothing like he imagined an heiress would be. The day he’d followed her to the Apollo 1 launch pad he’d meant to finally push her away, but that wasn’t what happened at all. He’d left feeling closer to her than he had felt to anyone in his life.

Aurora gave him hope. They were going to be expected to save the world, and she was giving him a reason to other than his own selfish needs.

The lights came back on, interrupting his thoughts, and the country trail and night sky returned to the white screens surrounding him. He looked down at his techiwatch in amazement. The run couldn’t possibly be done yet, could it? He stepped off the treadmill and wiped his face on the towel he left on the corner chair. He also took a sip of water, even though he didn’t feel dehydrated. He felt fantastic and thought he probably could’ve run ten more miles.

He gathered his things and stepped out of the virtual running room only to walk right into Dr. Stevenson.

“Oh, sorry, Zane. Didn’t mean to surprise you.” Dr. Stevenson looked a bit embarrassed. “I was probably standing too close to the door.”

“No problem. Hope I didn’t get you wet.” Zane wiped the sweat dripping from his face and walked down to the couch that was in the hallway.

“Zane, I was hoping we could take a few minutes to talk.” Dr. Stevenson took a seat beside him on the couch.

Zane swallowed. This didn’t sound like it was going anywhere good, but nothing too terribly bad would be said in public. He erased any fear from his face by returning to his usual blank mask that the run stripped from him. Not having to hide his thoughts while he ran had been such a relief.

“Of course. What’s up?”

Dr. Stevenson looked around like he was trying to make sure they were alone. “Not here. Let’s go to my office.”

Damn, that wasn’t good, but Zane had no choice but to comply. He forced his legs to move, following the doctor.

They left the training floor together and made their way to the elevator that took them down one floor to the medical facility. Dr. Stevenson threaded his way around all the medical staff and AI helpers. His office was on the farthest corner of the building.

Zane examined his surroundings, trying not to focus on the little voice in his head telling him to get the hell out of there. He had never seen Dr. Stevenson’s office, but that was mostly because, unlike today, he avoided the medical area at all costs.

The office was a large windowless room kept neat and tidy. The doctor’s desk was made completely out of glass, making it easy for Dr. Stevenson to access his patient’s information. Dr. Stevenson sat down behind the desk and quickly swiped away whatever charts he had previously been looking at.

Zane continued to watch as he took a seat on the hard chair positioned in front of the desk. He stifled the urge to run while Dr. Stevenson began pulling up new images on his desk. When the doctor found the documents he wanted, he looked back up at Zane and cleared his throat. “Zane, I wanted to meet with you privately because I ran into some irregularities in your blood work.”

Zane felt sick.

The doctor knew.

He wasn’t ready for his new life to end. Wasn’t growing up alone in an orphanage enough? How much more would he lose?

Oblivious to his thoughts, Dr. Stevenson continued. “We routinely do a DNA genetic screening on all of our cadets toward the end of the training year, but I selected to begin your testing a little early. There were some things that intrigued me about you, and I just couldn’t help myself.”

Dr. Stevenson glanced down at the display on his desk and then looked back up at him as if astonished by something. “After watching your physical training and your training in the hypobaric chamber I began to realize you were different. Your body reacts differently from any other cadet we’ve trained.”

Zane was confused. This didn’t sound like it was about his anomaly. “What are you talking about?”

Dr. Stevenson placed his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers together. His eyebrows arched. “Zane, how do you feel during your physical training exercises?”

He shrugged. “Um, just fine, I guess.” He was overly conscious of his body during every physical training exercise, but he had never seen a problem. Never.

Dr. Stevenson smiled. “I would guess you felt great, that you could keep going, even when others began to tire.”

“That’s a good thing, right?” He had an anomaly that would cause health issues. What did it matter if he was in better shape than anyone else?

Dr. Stevenson ignored his question. “Have you ever monitored your heart rate or breathing rate during extreme physical exercise?”

“Yeah, they were under control.” Besides, his techiwatch also monitored his heart rate, and it had never indicated a problem.

“And how about in the hypobaric chamber? You felt good, right?” Dr. Stevenson persisted.

Zane still didn’t know where Dr. Stevenson was going with this. He had made sure his body was functioning properly during all of his testing because he was too paranoid not to.

“Well, I felt fine, but I can’t be really sure of that because that’s what oxygen deprivation does to you. It distorts your actions and emotions. I thought I felt fine at the time, but it was a false feeling.” He knew he was rambling but wasn’t sure if he could stop himself from explaining further.

Dr. Stevenson’s forehead scrunched in disbelief, as he fidgeted awkwardly in his seat. “Zane you are a very intelligent young man. Are you actually telling me that you truly believe your performance so far has been normal?”

Zane’s confusion must have shown because the doctor decided to spare him further questioning.

“Zane, your heart and breathing rate remained calm and steady during your twenty-six mile run this morning. If that wasn’t phenomenal, then your hypobaric chamber performance time certainly would have been. I watched you that day. You didn’t seem to be affected at all by the lower oxygen level. As a doctor, I became curious and watched you closely. In fact, you intrigued me so much that I ran a few tests on you.”

The doctor sheepishly smiled as if in apology for taking such liberties, but he was obviously pleased with the results. “I’ve never seen anything like your genetic sequence. At first glance, I thought you had a defect in your DNA for heart failure, but because I’ve personally witnessed you function under high physical and mental stress, I knew I needed to look further.” The doctor leaned forward, excited. “When you look more closely at the irregularity in your DNA, you can see it’s not a genetic disposition for heart failure, but something entirely different. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

Zane could no longer hold a straight face. He jumped to his feet and rounded the desk, towering over Dr. Stevenson. “Look, there’s
nothing
wrong with me. I’ve been perfectly healthy for the past nineteen years, and I’m here to make something of myself. You can’t take that away from me.” He looked down at the doctor and stared into his eyes, willing him to understand.

Dr. Stevenson, not fazed by his domineering stance, placed a hand on his arm. “It’s all right, Zane. I’m not going to tell anyone what I’ve discovered, and you’ll still be given the opportunity to graduate and gain status in the WRD. Please sit back down, and let me try to explain without getting ahead of myself again.”

Zane reluctantly took a step back and resumed his seat across from the doctor, trying to calm down. He believed Dr. Stevenson when he had said he would be safe; there was honesty in the doctor’s eyes that couldn’t be faked. Granted, he also saw a drive to understand something he found fascinating, which was kind of creepy, but he didn’t see cruelty. Zane settled back into his chair and waited for the explanation he’d wanted for years.

Dr. Stevenson leaned back in his seat. “There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just say it. I think your DNA was altered.”

“Okay. That happens all the time now, right?” Zane didn’t see what the big deal was.

Dr. Stevenson nodded. “In a sense, yes. We can decide a person’s physical attributes before they are born and remove some genes that are predecessors for certain diseases. However, your genetic alteration goes much deeper than that.” He paused as he thought over how to explain. He must have come to some sort of conclusion because the doctor’s face cleared, and he looked directly into Zane’s eyes. “Someone has added inhuman genes into your DNA.”

Zane was thrown back into a memory that he never wanted to live again, but the smell of alcohol and disinfectant dragged him under. He was in a flimsy cotton nightgown, feeling utterly exposed and scared as he held onto a robotic puppy for security. The little dog barking and wagging its tail was the only good part of the memory; it was the only thing that kept him sane.

He was supposed to be saved that day, but that dream had been crushed as easily as an old tin can. “Zane,” they told him, “we think you are the most beautiful, kind-spirited little boy there is. I’m so sorry, but we cannot afford to take on your medical condition.”

“Why? What’s wrong with me?” Zane whined.

“The doctors found a few anomalies in your genetic coding.”

He’d never heard that word before. “What’s an anomaly?”

“It just means that you’re special. And you’ll need special medical care that we cannot afford.”

“I don’t understand,” he whispered.

“You’ll need special care, and we want you to have the best life you can, which means waiting for someone who can meet all of your needs.”

At the age of six, Zane learned life was totally unfair. He’d never seen any visible symptom of this so-called condition in the past thirteen years of his life, but here it was in front of him again. The only thing he wanted to keep from that memory was the puppy, which was a ridiculous notion. Zane rationalized his attachment to a robotic puppy as his six-year-old mind coping in the only way it knew how, imposing his need for someone to care for him onto anything, even a lifeless object.

When Zane finally refocused, Dr. Stevenson’s eyes were alight with discovery.

“What does that mean exactly?”

Zane always knew deep down that he was different, but he never imagined he was a genetically-altered freak. This was the reason for his anomaly? The reason he wasn’t adopted? Maybe why he was abandoned to begin with?

Thoughts swirled in a maelstrom of thunderous activity. If Zane were a more normal person, he would probably have screamed in rage.

“Well, I don’t have all the answers yet.” The doctor spread his hands wide.

Zane shook his head and finally voiced some of his thoughts. “I was turned down for adoption because the doctors thought I had an anomaly that would cost lots of money to fix. What a
joke
.”

The excitement in Dr. Stevenson’s eyes died down a little bit at the reminder of his childhood. Zane knew he was concerned with his welfare and not just his discovery of a new type of genetic alteration, but it was still odd being looked at like a miracle. “I’m sorry, Zane. They were wrong. But it was probably hidden intentionally. In fact, it’s probably why you’re an unknown.” Dr. Stevenson began patting his jacket pocket, as if he was looking for something. “Would you allow me take some more blood samples and conduct a few more tests?”