"I love you too," I whispered into the thick, scented cloth, wishing that I had told Max when I had the chance.
The hoodie still smelled like him, and I could almost imagine that he was there with me.
He wasn’t.
One year later, there I was, curled up in the same spot on the floor, with my head buried in another one of his hoodies.
"I miss you," I breathed softly. The tears that accompanied the painful memories were beginning to slow, and I sat up to wipe them from my eyes.
As I sat up, something unfamiliar caught my eye. To my right, hidden in the corner of his closet, there was a tiny white shape. The pale glow seemed out of place in the pitch-black of the room.
Reaching for the object, I wondered why I had never spotted it before. I had scoured that room countless times in search of mementos. I noted, fleetingly, that the only way to see the object was by shifting one particular hoodie in the closet and by maintaining a ground-level vantage point.
Soon, though, I had something more compelling to focus on. The pale object turned out to be a rolled-up scrap of paper, formatted in the same way as an annual report card. I examined it more closely.
Similar to a typical report card, the paper contained one row for each student and one column for each major grade, such as monthly exams and midterms. The last column, of course, was the most important, containing the result of each student's neural scan performed at the end of the year.
There were five rows for five students.
Jada Breaker, Alexander Green, Cassandra Linstein, Maxwell Reed, Dana Wilborough.
Anxiety pinched my stomach as I realized the source of the paper: data from two years ago. And, as I studied the percentiles listed in the last column of each row, I felt that pinch escalate into full-scale panic.
100. That was me, the only student in the one-hundredth percentile. 99.9999, 99.9996. Alex and Cassandra, both listed here as Alpha-worthy students. Dana's number was in between theirs, as was to be expected: 99.9998.
However, one percentage seemed terribly out of place.
Maxwell Reed: 97.4685.
Cassandra Linstein had been deported that year after her percentile was reported to be the lowest in the class. The scrap of paper I held reported otherwise.
Cassandra's deportation had never seemed quite right to me, or to any of us. She had performed better in school than Max, and, as much as I had dreaded the eventuality, I was convinced he would be deported.
Maybe, I thought. Maybe he should have been.
Maybe this was all a mistake.
Flying past the tenth and eleventh grade wings, my feet nearly soundless on the floor, I slowed to enter my dormitory. As I opened my drawer and pulled out my prism, I pondered the veracity of the paper scrap. It wasn't exactly a reliable source. It looked official, yes, but I couldn’t confirm its origin.
Mounting the prism in a slot on my desk, I called out to the interface.
"Interface, please establish a desktop prism link."
"Yes, Ms. Breaker."
The screen immediately lit up and granted me access to the network.
"Access library. Search 2145 Station Alpha student records for ninth grade, class designation one."
The prism immediately pulled up the list of records for my former class. I tapped on Grades, and a table almost identical to the one on the scrap of paper appeared. The one difference, of course, was Max's percentile number, listed on the official digital records as 99.9997.
I looked back at the scrap.
97.4685.
One of the records had to be false, and it was my responsibility to figure out which one.
I had to know the truth.
CONFIDENTIAL
Audio Log
Recorded on May 16, 2148 at 3:27 AM
The girl, the girl is at fault. Soon she will know everything, if I am unable to intervene. Interface! Set a reminder for tomorrow morning at seven o' clock. Remind me to encrypt the source code of the file she's discovered. That should keep us safe a while longer.
And now, the boy, Miles. Initially, I had thought his name to be a simple coincidence, but it is not. How much does he know?
I must keep a close watch over their activities.
His heritage, coupled with her knowledge and influence, could be my undoing.
Chapter 7
Amber’s bouncy blonde hair shook in frustration as I pointed to the numbers on the paper.
"Now, you just carry the nine down, see the arrow I drew, and then you subtract it from this number here."
She leaned her chair away from the table, sighing and throwing her head back melodramatically.
"Well of course it works when you do it."
"At least now you have this chart." I smiled at her, gesturing to my handmade, customized drawing. "Memorize these steps and you're good to go.”
A voice bellowed at us from the kitchen. “Cookies!"
Steve’s abrupt subject change made her smile, like it always did. Or maybe it was just the cookies.
"Okay! Thanks again, Row."
"Anytime, Amplifier."
I woke up with a bittersweet aching in my chest. I really missed my sister. My brain lurched into consciousness as I sat up, and the ache got stronger.
The nighttime sky was dark and still outside my window. My alarm hadn't gone off, so I knew it couldn't have been past 7:30. When I finally checked my clock, though, I did a facepalm. The clock read 7:04, but of course it was nighttime: I lived in space! It was always night!
Grinning to myself, I repeated those words in my head like a little kid who was way too excited about visiting the planetarium.
I live in space.
Taking one last glance out the window, I rolled out of bed. After stretching, brushing my teeth, and combing my hair, I debated how to spend my first morning on Alpha.
My suitcases sat on the floor, but their black and brown fabric seemed out of place next to my white walls. So, I decided to unpack. Unzipping the largest of the three suitcases, I realized that I would need to find a place to store my clothes. I scanned the room, looking for anything that resembled drawers.
There. I spotted a knob, just next to the threshold of my bedroom, close to the ceiling. I had to stretch to reach it, but I was able to pull the knob out a few inches from the wall. As soon as I did, though, a strong rush of air from somewhere above me ruffled my hair. The breeze was accompanied by a loud clang, and I flinched.
I pushed the knob back into the wall, instinctively looking around to make sure that no one in the empty room saw how clumsy I was.
When I scanned the room for the second time, I noticed the faint outlines of eight rectangles on the wall across from my bed, stacked on top of each other. Bracing myself for another rush of air, I gently pressed the center of one of the rectangles.
But, instead of triggering another bizarre chain reaction, it slid open quietly. I had succeeded in finding a drawer.
I began organizing my clothes into the drawers, easily finding a routine. T-shirt, third drawer up. Jeans, second. Socks, fifth.
My routine, however, was interrupted by the appearance of an object I didn't remember packing. Tucked between the folds of a yellow hoodie, there was a grey envelope with my name on it. I picked it up, turning it over in my hands a couple times before fitting my finger under the flap and carefully lifting. The crisp white paper slid out smoothly, coarse against my fingers.
Rowan -
So you're being transferred to Station Alpha. Congratulations.