CHAPTER ONE: ZORA

With one synthetic leg and barefoot, I still ran faster than the relentless sentries. My feet hit the steel tunnel floor with a clanging of metal on metal. An incessant alarm blared and the sounds harmonized in the echoing factory tunnel to create a symphony. I laughed into the darkness, my heart thumping in my chest. The sound of escape.

Even though I smiled and laughed into the echoing tunnel, the exit laid far beyond. But I had finally done it. I stole it, and I didn’t need anyone’s help.

If the sentry droids captured me, I’d have a direct ticket to the prison camps. It would be a death sentence.

When I reached the furthest tunnel with its flashing red lights and maze of passageways, my jaw dropped. There should have been a corridor that connected to the back warehouse. To freedom. Instead, steel plates covered the entire curved wall where the exit to the sewers used to be. I spun to the left, searching for any opening, and pulled open a small metal door, and slid through, my synthetic arm ringing against the steel. I winced at the sound. I was the loudest escape artist in history. With careful movements, I shut the door behind me. The throbbing red light streamed under the door, the only illumination in the small closet-sized room. A rusty mildew odor wafted from somewhere, and I fought the urge to gag.

The sentry skittered outside the door like a heavy spider, its steel legs crashing against the floor like hammers slamming against steel. They were just as loud as me.

I held my breath as a few of the droids passed by the door, the crimson light flickering across the gray floor with their advance. Now was the perfect time to try out my new cyber-eye.

I pulled up the sleeve of my black tee shirt and pressed down on the square metallic door on the shoulder of my right arm. The compartment opened with a click and something small fell out onto the floor. Dammit. I can’t lose the thing already. I inched down, knees banging against the wall, and reached for it with my flesh and bone hand. Got it. My fingers closed around the heavy cyber-eye. I’ll clean it later. I plucked out my left eye and popped in the new one with a quick motion and stored the old eye in the square compartment. Even though my accident was a decade ago, I almost never removed my eye.

It took a moment to get used to the overlay system. My old eye was a basic cyber-eye that allowed me to see, but had no interesting features. I squinted as a haze of blue light showed a progress bar at the bottom of my vision. CALIBRATION: 15%. CRITICAL DOWNLOADS ARE REQUIRED FOR OPERATION. Dammit!

Another sentry droid clanked by my door and slowed. Double dammit. Why hadn’t Byron just set me up with a cyber-eye years ago, instead of making me live with a boring, normal eye? This new one had map overlays, thermal imaging capabilities, and night vision. Except I needed those features right now to survive stealing it. The irony.

From the scrapping movement of the droid’s legs on the floor, I could tell it was pacing toward the tunnel exit and turning back, pausing often. I held my breath and waited, my legs pulled against my chest. These things weren’t smart. It would go away. Hopefully.

Five minutes passed, but it seemed like an hour. The thing still paced outside the door.

CALIBRATION 35%. NIGHT VISION AVAILABLE.

Colors polarized, and the darkness subsided. A few empty shelves covered in a thick layer of dust lined the walls and I covered my nose to fight the rancid scent that wafted from somewhere above me. These old factories haven’t had human occupants for decades and robots couldn’t detect smells. If a ralbat somehow got into the ventilation system and died, it’d just stay there forever.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I listened to the droid outside. Eventually, its scrapping movements sounded farther away, its heavy appendages clanking into the floor further into the distance. Time to go.

I opened the door a crack, just enough to squeeze through. Turning back, I closed it behind me without making a sound. It was not the time to be my normal loud self.

Since my first plan of escape failed, it was time to check out the back sewer drains. I didn’t know if I’d be able to open one of those grates, but it was worth a try. I crept along the dark tunnel and turned to the right. Thank Eramos for night vision. It wasn’t easy to walk without noise and I regretted stepping in the sticky fuel sludge earlier and losing my good pair of boots. I treaded as light as possible on my left leg, the metal just brushing the metallic floor.

Metal clanged in the distance.

The droids were right behind me.

I didn’t dare to turn; instead, I took the drastic approach. It was time to stop sneaking around.

Taking a deep breath, I bolted toward the grates at the back of the tunnel. The sentries behind me beeped and whirred with recognition. If they hadn’t seen me before, they sure saw me now. Good one, Zora.

I raced to the nearest sewer grate and tugged at it. It wouldn’t budge. It was no use. My hands shook as I ran them along the perimeter of the iron grating. This wouldn’t work.

Spinning away from the grate, I sprinted down the tunnel as fast as my legs would take me. The red lights flashing along the ceiling disoriented me and the constant alarm heightened my stress. The beeps and clanks of the droids were close behind me, ten feet away at most. I screamed in frustration, and my eyes darted around the tunnel.

There. The tunnel opening on the left was for humans, and too small for a sentry droid to access. I sprinted through the narrow tunnel, only stopping for a moment to show the droids behind me a choice finger. Come get me, jerks.

The narrow area ended, and I was back in one of the larger tunnels again. Another sewer drain was along the right wall, but this one looked different. The grate was missing.

It was a deep black hole, almost hidden along the lower part of the concrete wall. A man’s head with familiar gray hair peeked through the darkness.

Byron.

He gestured to me, but he didn’t have to. I was already racing toward the hole in the wall. I ducked and slid into the darkness, my hands finding purchase on the metal ladder. One of the sentry droids had found a way around and caught up to me. It clanged toward the dark hole, its four crab-like legs battering against the floor. The black metal of its utilitarian body and small dome head lit up with red lights that distorted my night vision. It unfolded something from behind and pointed a metal slab at me.

“Get down there now!” Byron pushed me down the short ladder with one arm, and with the other, he pulled a small gray sphere from his shirt pocket. I hit the shallow water of the sewer tunnel below just as an explosion sounded from the tunnel above. Heat radiated from the opening in the wall and the sewer pipe filled with a cloud of dark, heavy smoke.

“That just took down one. More are gonna come.” Byron slid down the ladder and reached out a hand for me.

I ground my teeth and stood up, soaked in sewer muck.

“You had to toss me into crap, though?” I stood up, gagging.

“You’re welcome for saving you. C’mon.” he turned and splashed down the tunnel toward the bright light of day at the end. “You’re lucky I even had more port bombs left after the last stunt you pulled.”

I gagged and forced out a sarcastic laugh.

“You mean the last time I pulled off an incredible heist?” The tech I stole when I broke into the old Sylas barracks a few weeks ago was worth it. And it’s not like I knew there were still droids there. Besides, my little brother, August, already put it all to good use in the surveillance system back home.

Byron splashed ahead through the tunnel. “How were you even planning to get out of there? You know that they just added more droids. We’ve seen the transporters.”

My eyes narrowed at Byron’s back. “None of your business.”

Byron slowed, and I bumped into him with the sudden change of pace.

“You are my business.” He shook his head. “I take care of you, remember?”

I sighed and jogged ahead. “Can we just get out of here? Smells freaking horrible.”

“You need to be more careful. Don’t dodge the question. How were you planning to escape this factory?”

I didn’t look back, speeding straight for the light that beckoned from the Wilds of Eramos. The lumpy sludge between my toes was too disgusting. I stood in the cheerful light of late afternoon, the sound of blue falcots singing and wind rustling the leaves on the trees. It was hard to believe that this paradise was so near the nightmare that I just experienced inside the factory.

I looked down at my favorite tee-shirt. Gross.

“Are you going to answer my question?” Byron stood beside me in the grass.

“No.” My jaw stiffened, and I stared ahead at the forest. He needed to stop smothering me. I could’ve escaped without him. I’d have been fine.

#

We headed down the familiar paths of the southern factory sector in silence. I wanted nothing more than to take a long cold shower and wash the stink off my body. Luckily, the cybernetics factory wasn’t too far from our underground home. Byron chose this place because of me. He had to make many trips to the cybernetics factories while I was growing up. Synthetic arms don’t exactly grow along with a girl.

That cybernetic factory was the only one still operating. Many closed over a decade ago, with the latest just last year. It was cheaper for Sylas to manufacture elsewhere, in a less isolated place. Sylas was more concerned with the ores and precious metals on Eramos. Soon, this entire sector would be used for mining, and we’d have to find a new place to live. But that was for another day.

We rounded a corner of a large gray cement building that nature had clawed back with vengeance. Large sections of walls had collapsed, rusted wire exposed and coiled with flowering vines. On our left was the Wilds, a forest untouched by Sylas. Prancers ran through the distant blue pines and something far away roared. It sounded like a mantis, but I wasn’t in the mood to investigate.

I sighed when I saw the tilted gray and white building ahead and heard the rushing of the river nearby. Byron clapped me on the back. We hadn’t said a word to each other in the past forty-five minutes. But we didn’t need to. Not after spending the last ten years of him taking care of my ungrateful ass. He knew my moods better than anyone else.

“Let’s get cleaned up. You can use the shower first, old man,” I said, elbowing him. I forced myself to crack a smile. It wasn’t natural for me to end my stewing moods so early, but I didn’t feel like fighting. It was a long day, and it was barely dinnertime.

Byron shook his head and nudged me back. “You best believe I was going to shower first. I may even use up all the hot water, too.”

“I read somewhere that old people need warm showers.”

Byron threw back his head and laughed. He had a deep belly laugh that would make anyone crack up, regardless of moody status. “Oh, I’m definitely using up the hot water now. You know our water generator only keeps so much water warm now. And I’m gonna use it all.”

“Everyone’s probably inside using up all the power, too. When do you plan on fixing that thing?”

“I’ll fix it when you decide you want to learn. I don’t want to go stand in that river for however long it takes to fix that generator alone.” Byron said, nudging me with a smile.

I shook my head and followed him through the large double doors covered in cracked white paint. Above, a faded sign read ‘FizzPop’ and something else, but that had worn away ages ago. He locked the doors, and I sneezed, dust thick across the factory floor, something I never grew used to. A set of long metal tables rusted with age lined the far wall, along with a mess of large iron drums. Once useful conveyor belts hung above, covered in grime. It looked like the place had been vacant for a decade or longer.

Our hidden home in the abandoned Sylas FizzPop factory wasn’t much, but it was in a key area of the Miras Region. It was easy to stock up on what we needed because we were close to the important resources. Also, we used the smaller building next door as a greenhouse with a brekit coop. We had all the eggs, potatoes, and corn we could eat. I became a wizard at combining those three ingredients into countless meals. We also had redberry bushes outside during the spring and summer, and sometimes August attempted to plant other vegetables. He liked variety, but I stood by my potato recipes.

We converted the basement and subbasement of the old factory into our home. Byron and Dex were paranoid, so our home reflected that. Multiple exit points and tunnels branched from the basement areas, so if Sylas ever found us here, we’d be gone before they could scratch their butts.

We hadn’t seen Sylas’s copters and transporters in the sector for years. The last time I saw a copter was when I was ten, two years after I appeared on the planet. Sylas wasn’t looking for us, at least not yet.

The two of us made our way to the back of the factory, weaving through the old equipment like we had done hundreds of times before. A large orange cat sat in front of the swinging panel that blocked the entrance to the stairs downward.

“Ginger! How is my queen doing today?” Byron jogged up to the cat to scratch her behind the ears. I walked past and pushed the sliding panel back, and Ginger hissed. That cat hated me.

On the small, dark landing, I could already hear August laughing in the living room.

“Hello, is this the secret base?” I called down the spiral stairs.

“Hey stop the yelling. We don’t yell on the ground floor.” Dex called from below. “Remember that time with the swarm of ralbats?”

Bryon was halfway down the stairs, cat following behind. “How’s about nobody yells?”

Great. Everyone was home. Now I had to face them all at once. I took a deep breath and clambered down the stairs towards my judgment.

August sat on the right side of the large room, nestled in his favorite oversized brown armchair. The light from the eight wallscreens lit up the room. Thin, horizontal, slitted windows lined the corner of the room, but August pulled the curtains tight today. He was going for the full movie theater effect, like back on Earth. I could barely remember movie theaters, but ours was certainly the best one on Eramos. Or at least the comfiest.

The living room was cozy and colorful for a factory basement. We scavenged every pillow or piece of cloth we could find and covered the metal floors with carpet and the walls with patterned cloth of all colors and designs. It was as if someone blew up a tapestry and carpet store, and all the items had stuck to all available surfaces. There were hundreds of abandoned apartments nearby to the north that we raided over the years. When the rich people moved to the fancy new Sylas city, Italas, they left so many wonderful things behind.

They also left behind their screennets and wallscreens, which Dex and August took the time to round up and place along the left wall. August was savvy with these and synced them all together to create one big screen.

August didn’t look at me as I entered the room. His full attention was on the action vid he was watching and the bag of caramel puffs in his lap. His light brown hair stuck up like he hadn’t brushed it in days.

Byron had found August eight years ago, rummaging around in the trash near the dangerous Reaper Territory. Byron had an affinity for misfits and lost kids. The then-preteen August became part of the family and here he was in all his messy haired glory, eating my caramel puffs.

“Hey, we’ve only got a few bags of those left. The traders never have these in stock, so you can’t eat them up at once.” I said, grabbing the bag from his lap and eating a handful.

“Z!” he said, without removing his eyes from the screens. “Welcome back.” He turned back to grab for the bag of snacks and his nose wrinkled and he recoiled. “Damn, you stink.”

A large hand rested on my shoulder.

“Get in that back-room, girl. You aren’t standing here while you wait for the shower.” Dex was Byron’s best friend and our second dad. He was our muscle. The guy was huge enough to intimidate any Sylas Soldier or crazy Reaper zealot. He had dark skin and silky black hair that he always wore back in a bun. Chloe and I were jealous of his shiny hair. I made him kneel on the floor so I could learn to braid when I was little. He always let me. As big as he was, his heart was bigger. And he helped me out of more dangerous situations than I could count.

“Don’t you guys worry,” I said as I headed through the living room and toward the dark hallway. “I’ll hide in the back until he’s done.”

“Did you find that eye you wanted?” Dex asked from behind me.

I spun back. “How did you even know that I was looking for a cyber-eye? No one here misses a thing. Can’t keep a damned secret.”

“Oh, I have my ways, kiddo. Watch your mouth, young lady. Now please, get out of here before I send Ginger to attack you. You smell horrible.” He coughed and covered his nose. “Love you. But you smell.”

Ginger brushed up against Dex’s leg and hissed in agreement.

I laughed and headed back through the dark hallway, past the doors to our bedrooms.

Dex loved that giant tabby cat, but it was vicious. It stalked the house in search of mice or… people. Like me. Dex and Byron added tiny hidden cat doors throughout their home, so you could never tell when she’d show up and grab your ankles. Or just my ankles. She was fine with everyone else. It was probably because of my metal leg. Or my synthetic arm. Or weird eye. Who knows? Cats are weird.

I pushed open the back door at the end of the hall and headed back to the storage room to sit and wait for my turn in the shower. Where was Chloe?

“Chloe,” I said. “Get the heck out of here. I smell pretty bad. Just warning you.” I rounded the corner, passed the bathroom, and opened the door for the storage room.

“Hey.” Chloe didn’t turn to look at me. The girl was bending over a large box the size of her slight frame. Her black curly hair blocked her face.

“What are you looking for?” I asked.

“Oh, you know. The usual.”

I smiled. Chloe was always up to something. She was an excellent hacker. Dex started training her when she was two years old and at twelve, she had skills that rivaled any expert. The girl was brilliant. Dex found her at the edge of the Wilds when she was just a toddler. Her parents, like August’s, may have been soldiers or Reapers who didn’t want a baby and abandoned her to the wild animals of Eramos.

Abandoned kids were a reoccurring theme of this planet — there were certainly a lot of us.

“Want help?” I said, leaning over the box beside her.

“Ewe. No thanks. What’s that smell?”

I snorted. “Don’t worry, I’ll get out of here.” I backed away toward the door, smiling.

“I heard you busted into that factory again. Byron said that he was going through the sewer to get you.” She took a step back and covered her nose.

“C’mon little sis, whatever happened to unconditional love?”

“Sewer smell crosses that line.” Chloe smiled and pushed her curls out of her eyes with her free hand. “I’m glad you’re okay. You need to stop taking so many crazy risks, though.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You sound like Byron.” I opened the door and stepped into the hall. “I really didn’t need him to save me. I was fine. Trust me.”

Chloe dropped the hand from her nose and crossed her arms. “Not true.” She shook her head. “We are your family, and we love you. You’ll always need us, just like we’ll always need you. Family is the most important thing. It’s as easy as that.”

Chloe was wise beyond her years. I sighed and relaxed my shoulders. All day, every muscle in my body had been pulled tight against my bones until that moment. My eyes stung. I blinked away the feeling. Tonight, I wouldn’t cry. I didn’t cry in front of anyone. Even Chloe.

“Come here, you little squirt. Now give me a hug.” I took a step toward her, my arms outstretched.

Chloe dodged away, giggling. She dashed behind me and out the door, evading me as I pretended to lunge for her.

Ever since Byron found Chloe as a shivering two-year-old, everything felt right. Our family was complete. The girl was right. Family was the most important thing, and I’d always need them. All of them. But I needed to do some things on my own. They were smothering me.

#

When I was finally in the narrow bathroom with its rigged shower and industrial sink, I stood at the sink. I admired my new purple cyber-eye as I pulled my auburn hair out of a dirt-streaked ponytail. Shaking out my hair, I pressed a button at the top of my synthetic arm and twisted. It came off with a click as I dropped it to the floor. Next, I removed my leg and let that drop to the floor, too.

I woke up in the middle of a dirt road on Eramos when I was eight years old without an arm, a leg, and an eye. One day I was on Earth, and the next minute, I was somewhere else. The thought of everything I lost back on Earth filled the next few years with pain. Byron put me back together as if he were fixing a broken doll. I could walk, I could move around and do everything on my own. But there were some things that he couldn’t fix.

After punching the wall next to the sink, I let myself cry for the first time all day. It all came at once. All the terror. All the stupid mistakes. Everything. Why didn’t Byron trust me to escape without him? I could have done it. I didn’t need him to come and save me. All he did was make me look like a stupid little girl.

I pounded on the wall again, letting out my frustration on the inanimate object that couldn’t fight back. A small metal object slipped off a shelf and fell into the sink with a plop.

Byron’s med charger? What was this doing up there? I pulled it out of the water and dried it off with a towel. Shit. Is it broken? I was famous for breaking every piece of tech around me. This was the one thing I couldn’t break–Byron wouldn’t live without it.

I pressed a button, and a blue light appeared along the top ridge.

Thank the stars. It wasn’t broken.

After placing the charger back on the shelf, I hobbled to the shower. It’d be just my luck to break an irreplaceable piece of tech tonight. This just wasn’t my day.

CHAPTER TWO: JACK

I hammered away at the keys of my official Sylas screennet. My eyes were red, and the words blended into a mesh of gibberish that made no sense. I’d been working on this tedious report for the past week, and it was due in ten minutes.

I sat in front of the screennet and blinked. The surrounding room rang with the sounds of other workers, just like me, drumming away at their keyboards. This job sucked, but I knew I should be grateful for it. I graduated top of my class from the Holtwalt School of Science with a specialization in Earthen sea life and ended up with this coveted position at Sylas Oceanics in the Logistics Division. I had a decent credit allotment and Sylas-issued apartment. Also, I had unlimited access to the aquarium next door. But something was missing.

My job was tedious and required zero creativity. All I did was track the various ocean mining projects on the co-orbiting planet of Eramos. We can land humans on Mars, but I was stuck typing up reports like it was still the early nineteenth century. A robot could do my job, but Sylas didn’t trust artificial intelligence, which was outlawed a decade ago. The only robots that Sylas trusted were brainless task-performing husks–which had a lot in common with my coworkers around me.

I was an office drone, and every cell inside my body was dying. I’d have rather been anywhere else, on a tiny boat in the sea, feeding the manatees at the aquarium, catching up on the latest vids. Anywhere else. Tomorrow was also my birthday, which meant that I could use my one allocated vacation day for the quarter. Now, just to type this last sentence.

I typed three words when I heard the click clacking of heels behind me.

“Oh look, birthday boy is still here!” A drawling cheery voice sounded from behind me and an obnoxious perfume cloud wafted in my direction. I held my breath and steeled myself before turning to meet my boss’s gaze.

Ms. Vonda Avila was a short stocky woman with hair that was dyed an unnatural and dry bleach blond. She always stood with her arms folded in front of herself with her head tilted up as if she were scolding a disobedient child.

“I’ll transfer this report to you as soon as I can.” I met her gaze for the shortest amount of time possible before turning to my screen.

She cleared her throat behind me and I turned around.

“I’m sure you don’t have any plans for tomorrow. Do you mind coming in? We are a little short-staffed.” Her unnatural smile didn’t reach her eyes, and the effect was alarming. It made her seem like a mannequin or a robot pretending to be human. She always gave me the creeps. There was no way this woman wasn’t a sociopath.

“I have plans.” It was hard to lie to Ms. Avila, and I could almost feel her peering into my soul with her watery pale eyes.

Ms. Avila tilted her head to the side and grinned.

“I see.” She flashed her yellow teeth in her fake smile and twirled a stylus in her dehydrated hair. “Why don’t you come in tomorrow, then? These reports won’t do themselves.”

I squeezed the arms of my chair and held my breath. “Understood. I’ll let you know.” I had no intention of coming in the next day.

“Great.” She spun on her red heels, her fake smile still plastered on her face. “Also, don’t send that report. Take it right to the Resolution Room. They are going to start the project tonight and may have some questions for you.”

I imagined what must be under the skin of her face. All the whirling motors and metal that must be beneath. There was no way she was human.

Sylas banned hybrids and cyborgs on Earth–but that didn’t mean that they didn’t hide among us. I didn’t believe all the conspiracy theories, but I knew that something was wrong with that woman.

Her heels clicked against the floor for a few steps before she stopped.

“And don’t forget, the lottery is tomorrow. One lucky individual will join the new scientist training program on Eramos, and you qualify. Lucky you!”

When she was out of sight, I dropped my face into my hands. I wasn’t worried about the lottery–Sylas Oceanics had hundreds of employees that qualified for the relocation. The odds that they chose me were slim. I just needed a day off. Just one day. My last free day was over eight months ago. Ever since Sylas mandated at least 55-hour work weeks, it felt like I did nothing but sit at a desk and type. This wasn’t how I wanted to spend my life.

I could always leave Sylas Oceanics and move home. Then I could spend as much time as I wanted at the ocean, the aquarium–or just doing whatever I wanted. But then I’d have to accept my parents’ money and live with my uncle. No matter how I thought about it, it felt like a huge step back in my life. I wanted to make a name for myself, not rely on my family.

I squeezed my eyes shut and slumped in my seat. The Sylas Corporation did what they could to keep their employees working like machines. They owned the apartments and townhouses where employees lived, and they owned the vault companies that held the hard-earned credits that their employees earned. They owned the schools all the way from elementary to university. When you graduated, you owed them credits, and they owned you. They owned the hospitals that employees would visit if they were sick, and they owned the companies that provided the drugs that kept the world working as hard as it did. Sylas was the king of society in the city of Erifort and across the Unified Provinces. Sylas also owned much of Eramos.

It sounds bleak like that, and I guess it is. But Sylas did a lot of great things. They made life easier. Anything you wanted was accessible with a quick look at your screennet. Things that used to cost money in the past like electricity, network connectivity, all utilities–it was all free. Except the rent. For that, they take credits right out of your pay before you see it. Everything was straightforward. Anything that wasn’t Sylas-issued you could pay for on your own. Things like vids to watch, and clothes other than your work uniform.

I opened my eyes. Time to get this report done and get out of here. Tomorrow would be a fantastic day away from these bland beige cube walls.

I held onto that thought and finished the report with a flurry of typing. That would have to be good enough. After I transferred the documents to my portscreen, I headed for the Resolution Room. After weaving through the maze of tall cubes to the back hallway, I jammed my finger at the button for the lift and waited.

“Hold that,” someone behind me called.

I turned and held the door and regretted my politeness. It was the floor manager.

“Did you get that report finished?” Ian asked, his giant meaty hands holding a screennet like a lobster grasping at a peanut.

Ian made my life horrible for the year that I worked in Oceanics. His father was some important captain on Eramos, and that had to be the only way he got this job. He was as dumb as a Sylas service drone.

“Yep.” I pressed the button for the third floor. “Taking it right to the Resolution Room.”

Ian cocked his head, his too-tight polo shirt straining across his chest. “I’d rather you let me see that report first. We can go over it before you leave for the day. Then you can take it to the Resolution Room later.”

I pushed the button to close the door.

“I have to get going. It’s seven already and I have plans tonight.”

“Jacko. Don’t worry about it. It’ll only take fifteen minutes. We’ll get you out of here in no time. Shame that you don’t want to help the team, though.” Ian rubbed his hands together and chuckled. He tipped his head and regarded me with his watery brown eyes. “Why do you wear those glasses, anyway?”

I looked back at the doors ahead. He always had to bring this up.

“Who in the name of Sylas wears glasses? Get the surgery. Do you have something to prove or something?” Ian leaned toward me. “What’s up with the old-fashioned comm? Just get the implant like everyone else. It’s so weird.”

Was it wrong to not want unnecessary surgeries? Just because everyone else was changing their bodies didn’t mean I had to. Plus, I liked my glasses. They were my own unique feature. Well, mine and Uncle Ezra’s anyway. Almost no one wore glasses.

“Let’s go review your report. Fifteen minutes.” Ian said.

“Sure.” I avoided eye contact with him. This better only take fifteen minutes.

#

An hour later, the front doors of the linking pod station opened in front of me, and I walked out into the night. My eyes were heavy after spending the last hour in Ian’s windowless office. At least the ride in the linking pod only took five minutes.

A little boy and an old man stood on the sidewalk, pointing at the huge blue water-world planet in the sky. Yellow-tinged solar lights flanked either side of the walking path and cast everything in a comfortable golden hue. Today was Meeting Day, a day every thirty-three years when Earth was closest to Eramos in their shared orbit. Earth’s graceful dance with Eramos kept the planets in continuous sync in our horseshoe orbit around the sun.

Everyone around me was a scientist, but I wasn’t someone that understood what was going on in space, I just knew the basics. Instead, I spent my time thinking about the Earth and its oceans. Quite the opposite of Eramos and space.

One day I’d have a job where I could put my knowledge of the ocean to good use. I worked in Sea Logistics because I didn’t have many options. I wanted a career related to the Ocean, and there was an opening at Sylas Logistics. It was a safe office job, and not much changed from day to day. I knew what to expect, and I was good at my job. One day, I’d be ready for something new. Probably.

The door for my apartment building slid upward, and I passed by the silent droid at the entrance and stepped into the lift. There was no one else in sight, which wasn’t unusual for this time of day. Everyone was still at work. The black circular Evaluator mounted on the wall scanned my barometric data, and the lift rose to the 15th floor. When the doors for the lift opened, I stretched and took the few steps to my apartment door, yawning.

My place was tiny, but it was nice to have a space all to myself. I moved in last year when I got the job at Sylas Oceanics, and I needed space from Uncle Ezra. He takes up more space than any human should–Solis Manor was suffocating me.

Now what would I do all night? I could watch vids on the wallscreen, but I wasn’t in the mood to watch anything now that I was home.

It was for the best that I get to sleep early tonight. I rubbed my eyes and yawned. My head was like a swollen balloon floating high above my shoulders. I dropped onto my bed and shut my eyes. This boring life trapped me in this moment.

My apartment was one large room divided into a bedroom and living area, a kitchen area, and a small bathroom. The bathroom was in a separate room though. It was the perfect size for me, and I spent little time here, anyway. Nobody spent a lot of time in these Sylas apartments. There was endless work to be done in the office.

“Wallscreen. On,” I said, and the wallscreen across from me turned on and filled the room with light. I opened my heavy eyes. The news was on and showed an aerial view of a base on Eramos. The news anchor was an eerie, human-like droid with a mechanical voice. Sylas outlawed almost all forms of artificial intelligence except for the simplest pseudo intelligences. These droid news anchors were shells that repeated words and scripted facial expressions.

“This morning, a high-profile rebel leader escaped from the Alpha Mining Facility on Eramos. Sylas officials say that it’s only a matter of time before they find her and bring her to justice. Leaders on Eramos have put together a task-force to find the leader who is known only by her first name, Katya.”

“Wallscreen. Off.” The large screen turned black. I could barely handle what was happening in my own life, let alone think about the events on another planet.

Stretching and yawning, I rolled off my bed. With another voice command, I turned on my lights. My apartment was a mess. I hadn’t had time to clean in weeks. The carpet needed vacuumed, and my laundry needed to be put away in the closet. My stomach grumbled. Any cleaning would have to wait.

“Food hydrator. Start.”

When the food hydrator indicator light turned red, I opened the tall cabinet beside it and chose a meal. I needed to get a delivery soon. Only three meals left. I grabbed the small box for the chicken sandwich and macaroni and cheese dinner, my favorite, and tossed it in the hydrator. I lifted the door up and slammed it shut. Now to wait five minutes.

This food wasn’t great, but it was easy to make. That checked the boxes for me.

I sat down on the bed to wait, and my eyes shut.

Just as I dozed off, my comm buzzed on my wrist.

I cracked open one eye and saw the name on the screen. With a heavy sigh, I answered the call.

“Hey Ezra.”

“That’s Uncle Ezra, young man. I don’t understand why you insist on calling me by my first name.”

“Got it.” I dropped backwards on the bed and closed my eyes again. I should fall asleep on the call with Ezra. That’s what he gets for calling me after work. “So, did you call me to tell me your preferred title?”

“Kiddo. Why do you think I’m calling you?” he announced in a singsong voice.

I sighed and rolled my eyes. He did this every year.

“It’s your birthday tomorrow! Happy Birthday! What are you going to do on your day off?”

“Oh, the usual. I was going to catch a shuttle and leave the planet. I hear they have flights to Titan now.”

“Did you want to come over for lunch or something? That old lady neighbor made me some of those pies that you love. We could eat pie and watch vids here.”

Ezra was always trying to get me to come home. I let out a deep sigh and rolled over in the bed.

“That old lady neighbor smells like old musty socks that were left in a damp cave for a terrifying number of years,” I said, not bothering to hide the annoyance in my voice.

My uncle chuckled. “That’s quite the description. Those pies are good, though. C’mon. You should take a day and relax. Come, hang out here.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to go to that house.

“Listen, kiddo. What is the problem? Something happen at work?”

I groaned.

“Nothing. It’s sucking the soul out of my body. That’s all.”

“Is that Ian character still picking on you? You should stand up for yourself. Those people walk all over you. You’re a Solis. We don’t back down.” Ezra laughed and paused as if he had told a great joke. “When can you come over tomorrow and celebrate your birthday?”

I was sick of hearing about the ‘Solis family name’ and the ‘Solis family’ this or that. There were two of us left. Two people weren’t a family.

“Ezra,” I said, ignoring my uncle’s exasperated sigh. Now I skipped the uncle title to annoy him. “I don’t enjoy celebrating without her. It’s her birthday too.”

“I know what you mean,” He said in a low voice. “I understand, I do. But it’s time to celebrate a birthday with your family. Even if I’m the only one to celebrate with. I understand how you feel about it, but I want you to… move on–”

“Move on?” My heart raced, and I sat bolt upright in the bed. “I can’t move on. Dealing with this all year is fine, but on my birthday it’s too much. I can’t look in the mirror without seeing her face staring back at me.”

“I’m here.” Ezra said, his voice steady and low.

“I don’t care that they’ve all been gone a decade now. They’re gone. All of them. I can’t put those pieces back Ezra. They’re gone.” Tears formed in my eyes, and I wiped them away- I didn’t want to cry tonight, or any night.

“I miss them too. I miss my brother, and I miss your mother… I miss Zora too. They’ll always be a part of this family. We still have each other. I’m still here.”

Breathing deep, I rubbed my eyes and then let my arms fall to the bed, heavy as rocks. I felt like all my energy left my body all at once. Then, the food dehydrator beeped to show that the cycle was complete.

“I hear your hydrator alarm. Come home. I’ll get you some good food. I love you, kiddo. You know I do. I’d like to talk to you face to face on your eighteenth birthday. Please let me give you a normal birthday. It’ll be a step toward something… normal for us.”

It’d be a step away from leaving my twin in the past forever, letting her name gather dust and the memories that I had of her become stale and transparent. I couldn’t ignore her presence, not on our birthday, even if it hurt to think about her.

“I’ll talk to you later.” Clicking a button on my wrist comm, I laid in my bed. The hydrator continued to beep, but I wasn’t hungry anymore.

A World Above Us: First Two Chapters

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Current status: RE-EDITING BASED ON AGENT FEEDBACK.