Greyson

A thrill-buzz of déjà vu hits hard, and I feel sick. I mean, we’re never meant to fly, else we’d have wings, yeah?

Bryn’s worried about Rayburn. I’ve a worrisome for a whole other reason. It can’t be coincidence on the day everything goes to hell in a cable-car Rayburn and his mob go radio silent after regular-like checkups and whiny requests for updates. It’s got a suspiciousness, is all. What’s Rayburn up to? Does he know about Bones? Glitch, I hope they caught the old geezer.

“Keep your modes,” I say when Bryn picks up the dusty goggles from our last trip. “It’s worth the risk to stay in touch.”

“Fine by me. These pinch.” Bryn tosses the goggles over one shoulder all gleeful-like.

We don’t talk as we help each other with our breathers. The air from the half-full canisters is stale-dry. Bryn unsheaths her sword and makes the gesture for bring it. I snort then scowl cos the tasteless air makes my tongue curl.

I open my arms for Zipper. She tilts her head, smirks in the way only a robotic cat with stainless steel whiskers can, and climbs her way up my right leg. Her claws prickle my skin as she squirms under my jacket until she’s plastered beneath my arm, a metallic growth.

After triple checking our breathers, I program the docking bay door to open and I’m relieved and a bit disappointed the jetkites are where we left them. I hope we didn’t damage anything on our last flight. They wake up easy enough, almost purring beneath my hands. The door closes behind us and the in-use light flickers on.

I sort Bryn out first. She isn’t strong enough to setup the jetkite on her own so I get her strapped into the cockpit, squeeze her ankle affectionate-like, and seal her in with her backpack like a tot in its first VHS cradle … if it had wings and a fifty-fifty chance of taking its user to its doom. Zipper hacks into the departure system to release the outside doors and I make short work of belting myself down. I allow myself a brief moment to freak the glitch out as the doors rumble open.

Bryn goes first this time, her shriek faint, but through the link I hear her painfully clear before she disappears into space.

My turn. I almost slam into the space station before I lean away and I’m flying. It’d be exhilarating if it isn’t so wigging terrifying!

The sun’s disappearing behind Earth and the last of the sunlight makes the hull of the space station gleam. I make out the faded letters SEEDSHIP #8 - TRIUMPH. It’s impossible to miss L0 – a bitty, windowed deck sitting atop the station like a glass hat. The doors aren’t open like L4’s and the closer and closer we get, the more I reckon I’m wrong thinking these chips I made’s got anything to do with them. Pa mentioned L4 in that recording of his, so maybe Bones didn’t send him. Maybe he left the space station his own way and he left the doors open on his way out? Maybe I’m flying in the jetkite that took him to Undercamp?

Can you get those doors open, Zip? I ask fair nervous-like.

What would you do if that were a negative?

Zipper!

Just curious.

The docking bay behind the command deck’s rushing towards me at an incredible pace, or rather I’m racing towards it. The outside doors open revealing a large, empty space and I’m lining up for landing when Bryn swerves up from beneath me like a glitching shark and crash lands on the platform, sliding inside. My knee-jerk swerve means I slam into the station’s main antenna at a speed that should’ve killed me.

The jetkite doesn’t survive.

The metal structure breaks up around us until we’re slip-sliding down the reinforced bulkhead, still strapped inside the cockpit, dragging half a wing with us. My heart twinges when the rest snaps off and floats away, our engine still buzz-humming, the only thing keeping us from doing the same. With the last of the jetkite’s power, I propel the cockpit safe inside and Zipper closes the doors behind us.

Understandably, I take a long moment.

When I finally force open my cockpit with a firm few kicks, Bryn’s already out.

You alright? I message and she nods. I think she’s smiling beneath the breather, her braids whipping around her face like tentacles.

Zipper doesn’t shift from the shelter of my jacket, though she does wriggle-squirm around until her head pokes out beneath my chin.

And to think that was only your second time flying, Zipper says.

Zipper breaks into the system and opens a door leading into a narrow pressurisation chamber. When the green light flash-flickers on, I sign for Bryn to keep her breather on. I wouldn’t trust the life-support.

As we move beyond the docking bay, I’m surprised to see the Core, the lift doors sealed shut and surrounded by couches, of all things. The couches are grouped in pairs, facing small tables covered in faded magazines and vases full of flowers. They’ve got to be fake. They seem fresh cut and glisten with dusty dew.

It’s like my Mom’s office, Bryn says.

We scuff up dust clouds crossing the waiting room to a wide door in the opposite wall. It’s a work of a heart-beat for Zipper to get it open and we’ve found the command room.

It’s real dim. The only light’s from the steadily disappearing sun, beaming through one of three glass screens stretching along the walls. The other two look out on the darkness of space.

After a beat, the room wakes up, overhead lights switch on, and displays flare bright colours of all sorts. The displays are set in U-shaped cubicles, interlocking to create a sixteen-person workspace, screens thick with grime and switches gathering fluff. There’s four of these spaces arranged in a square around an inner tier, and it’s just so average! The command chair’s centred on a raised platform of grey-pink carpet and encircled by a flat screen desk, lights racing around its edges in coma-fy mode.

Stolen novel; please report.

Look, it even has inspirational posters! Bryn laughs, pointing at the framed pics of Old Earth’s mountains and oceans paired with words like Excellence and Teamwork. Except as I move about, I see exposed cabling’s been yanked out of the walls and, above my head, paneling’s been removed. There’s messy knots of wires and piping hanging everywhere, all the same grubby grey.

Do you know how to work this stuff? Bryn asks, bouncing up the steps to check out the chair mounted high and overlooking the rest of the workspaces like a throne. A section of the desk must flip up or in or something, to get inside. Bryn huff-heaves herself up onto the desk and slides across, catching herself with a jerk when she moves faster than she reckoned.

It’s got to need a whole crew to work it. Sixty or more folk. What you think, Zip?

Zipper pushes a paw out of my jacket to point towards a panel flash-beeping like it’s got its own rave party happening.

That one’s as good as any, she says.

A few switches and a whole lot of luck, the room darkens a bit and a hologram flickers above us. Navigational controls then, and they’re still set for when they were used last, hundreds of years back. Brilliant clusters of blinding white points, swirls of ruby red dust clouds and pulsing trails of glitter. It’s like the inside of Zipper’s head, star clusters and galaxies and suns.

I don’t understand, Bryn says, bewildered.

This’s impossible. Even Zipper’s stunned.

It’s got to be some kind of mistake, yeah? I add.

But there it is, in all its multidimensional glory.

They’re set for space travel, I point out. Why’d they be set for space travel?

That makes them make more sense then. Bryn gestures to the viewing windows. Rising into view is the shattered moon.

History says our moon was destroyed during the wars, fracturing in half, and screwing over our seas and oceans. It was the final smack that got our ancestors’ fleeing Old Earth in the space stations.

It’s the moon, I say, trying to see what Bryn sees. That open space’s making me queasy.

It’s not one moon, it’s three.

She’s right. I slot the pieces together and it’s clear there’re far too many parts. A smaller moon, complete and right beautiful, peeks shy-like out from behind a larger fragment, like a tot from behind his mother’s skirts.

We haven’t just fled to the skies, we’ve fled to space.

Everything we’ve been told is a lie. Everything the Guardian’s ever said has been a lie. And those words printed on the outside of the space station. The spaceship, I correct. SEEDSHIP #8 - TRIUMPH. The Triumph’s a seedship. Whatever that means. And it isn’t the first. Eight of eight? Eight of more? How many are there?

This isn’t Earth. I’m not sure who forms that thought into words, but we’re all thinking it. Sudden-like, not much makes sense any more.

“Where are we?” Bryn whispers, her eyes glued to the moons, and she’s crying, silent fat tears dripping off her chin. “If we’re not in orbit around Earth, where in sky are we?”

It’s a kick in the gut, realising we aren’t ever going to set foot on our planet of origin. I didn’t think I’d care, one way or another. Before all this I hadn’t reckoned I’d walk under any blue sky, on Earth or otherwise. But now I know I can’t ever, it’s like I’ve exhaled until my lungs are right empty and now I can’t bring myself to breathe back in.

You’re going to have guests soon, Zipper says after a heavy beat.

Let’s worry about the not-Earth later, I say, pushing all those twisting feelings of sickness, panic and disquiet to the back of my mind. Bryn nods fair eager-like. Can you lock us in? I ask Zipper and she hums as if to say you’re an idiot for even asking.

I shrug off my bag, gesture to Bryn for hers, and lay out the pieces on the floor, assembling the device in a few deft twists.

Set yourself up in the command chair and activate the desk, Zipper instructs. It isn’t easy, but I manage to wirelessly connect the device into the ship’s system without dooming us all. Yet.

If this works like it should, you’ll be able to fly this station … ship without a crew, Zipper says and I share a grin with Bryn before I make the last connection. Nothing happens.

Except for the pound-pounding against the doors. They’re flushed smooth with the wall, flexing with every blow, and it isn’t going to take long for whoever’s on the other side to break in.

Why isn’t it working? Bryn hisses, holding Truthseeker one handed while the other digs around in her pocket. She pulls out a Band-Aid and a shoelace and what looks to be a marble before she huffs and palms the marble. Whether to use it as a projectile or to calm herself, I’ve no clue. I steal the Band-Aid and a twist of wire from her hair and use it to bind two loose bits, and the device beep-tweets merrily, lighting up like a disco ball at an Activation party.

Got it! I cheer as the doors screech open with a growling-hiss, revealing eight black Mediators wielding their batons as if facing an army, not two kids and a robotic cat.

Zipper ducks into my jacket, her voice loud in our minds as she says, Your breathers better still be working!

Somehow Zipper, absolutely epic Zip, has wormed her way into the life support system and it stops with a whine, all the fresh air sucking out in a massive rush, rattling through vents and leaving the room a vacuum. It’s as if the station exhaled, and I wobble a bit, gripping the device tight and trying to see where Bryn’s ended up. She’s tucked under a U-shaped desk, hidden behind two chairs bolted to the floor. Her knuckles are white from pressing her breather to her face, her sword wedged between her knees.

The Mediators don’t fare near as well, stumbling with heavy limbs from the control deck and sealing the doors behind them. We’re safe for as long it takes for the Mediators to get the life-support working again. It’s then the device in my lap talks.

Greetings, Greyson. My name’s Navigator, but you may call me Nate, the AI sing-songs cheerfully. Of course Pa’s invention would come with its own AI. He created Zipper and Hugo, it makes sense the device designed to help me receive coordinates and hack into the station’s controls would be able to talk me through it. Congratulations! You’re now flying your very own ship! the AI cheep-chirps. It sounds like a prepubescent boy, voice on the verge of cracking, treble high until too much stress on a vowel makes it huskier. I slump into the command chair, cradling the device in my lap and offering a weak hello of my own.

Oh, joy, Zipper says, a baby brother.

Zipper, you got the coordinates my pa sent Hugo? I ask, unable to take my eyes off the round device that’s looking more and more like a human head.

According to the memories I’ve recovered, you need to move towards the twin of this device, Zipper says disdainfully.

Nate snarks, Aren’t you a prickly one!

Zipper ignores it (him?) saying, The device your father took with him should be calling out to this one.

That’s a negative, Nate replies, his tone embarrassed. Beacon, but she prefers Bec, though we’ve never officially met ... Well, her signal’s a tad on the weak side.

What? Is Pa too far away? Is the landing site too distant? Maybe he didn’t survive and the beacon, Bec, is rusting in some alien ditch? Are there aliens even down there? With razor teeth and poison claws, like the creatures of Old Earth? Or are they gaseous or ethereal beings, unable to be seen until you’re swarmed and they suck your life out of your eyeballs?

What has been said about you being paranoid, Grey? If you recall, someone only recently crashed into the station’s antenna, so maybe that has something to do with it? Zipper says dry-like.

Well, damn.

You need to boost the signal, Zipper adds.

How in sky do we manage that? Bryn asks, positioning herself between me and the door, swinging her sword about, the weapon making a satisfying whooshing sound.

Then the massive ventilation system kicks back in with a growl-clunk as the Mediators seize control.

Oh, cleanbots, Zipper complains. Was hoping they’d take longer than that.