“Where are you going?” the man asks. I hesitate—just a moment. I recognize that voice.
Luthor.
I should have started running, but my brief pause has given Luthor time to touch my shoulder. I peek at him under my hood, careful to keep my face down. The bruises Victria and I inflicted on him are a nasty greenish purple. His left eye is still swollen; a dark red scab covers his split lip.
“Come with us,” he says, still not recognizing me. “Bartie’s talking about how we could move the ship to a system that’s more fair. ”
He pulls me around by my shoulder. I try to jerk away, and my hood slips down. For a moment, I see surprise in Luthor’s face; then his eyes narrow to malicious slits.
The woman gasps as if I’m Quasimodo or something, but Luthor grins with all his teeth. The cut in his lip cracks open, shiny red, but he doesn’t seem to care. His grip on my shoulder tightens, and I hiss in pain.
“Come on,” the woman says. “The freak isn’t invited. ”
Luthor releases me suddenly, pushing me at the same time, and I stumble on the path. Laughing, the two of them continue down toward the pond.
“It’s not like I wanted to go anyway!” I yell. The pair pause, their backs to me. Before they turn around, I race down the path toward the grav tube.
Fortunately, since this grav tube can only be used by Elder, no one else is out this way. I lean back, looking at the clear plastic tube that goes all the way up, through the ceiling, to the Keeper Level.
It’s stupid, but the first thing I want to do is push the wi-com on my wrist and fly up to Elder. I can’t get the taste of his kiss off my lips.
I shake my head, forcing myself to focus on the wall behind the grav tube. I usually avoid the ship’s walls. From a distance, you can squint and blur out the rivets that hold it together, pretend that the sky-blue paint is sky. But when you’re up close, you can smell the metal, the same sharp taste in the back of your throat as blood, and when you touch it, it’s cold and immovable.
I rap my knuckles against the steel wall the same way my father tapped on the drywall in our house to find a stud before hanging a picture. Maybe the sound will clue me in to whatever’s behind the wall. For a moment, I flash back to the other time I beat against the walls, when I was crying and screaming and clawing at the metal, desperate to find a way out. Orion found me then, one of the only welcoming faces on the ship, and I thought I’d found a friend in him. Not a murderer.
I focus on the sound of my knuckles against the wall. Tap-tap. Tap-tap. Tap-tap. There’s nothing here. Tap-tap. Tap-tap. Tap-tap. What am I doing? I look like an idiot. Tap-tap. Taaap-taaaap.
My hand stills. Just to the right, a little off center from the grav tube dais, the wall echoes hollowly. I lean closer.
And then I see it. Faint, dusty, almost invisible.
A seam in the wall.
I run my fingers along the outline of what I now know is a door. There’s no handle or hinges that I can see, so the door must open inward. I push against it, but it doesn’t give. I lean in with all my weight, my shoes sliding on the ground, digging scar marks into the earth.
The door opens.
It’s dark inside.
The door doesn’t want to open more than a crack, and I have to squeeze myself inside. With the sliver of light from the Feeder Level pouring into the darkness, I can see a bigger handle on the side of the door, a stamped metal floor, a covered box on the wall at eye level.
And stairs.
I push against the inside of the door with all my weight, and the three-inch thick door crashes shut. For a moment, I panic and tug against the giant handle until the door opens back up a crack, allowing me to catch a whiff of grass and dirt from the Feeder Level. I can get back out. I sigh in relief and push the door shut again.
It’s empty and silent here. I breathe deeply, and notice the sound of my presence more than the taste of dust and stale air.
I can see nothing through the inky darkness. I fumble in the dark, patting the cool metal wall until I stub my fingers against the raised plastic of the covered box I saw embedded in the wall before I shut the door. The cover lifts up on hinges at the top, and under that I find a light switch similar to the ones I remember from Earth. I should have assumed that the lights would operate like this—this whole area is part of the ship’s original design.
But it’s not an overhead light that flicks on; instead, the stairs start to glow. My feet thud hollowly on the metal floor as I draw closer. Tiny LED lights race up the railings on either side of the stairs, and a thin row of lights mark the front of each step. The lights are encased in plastic tubing, almost like outdoor Christmas lights.
My mind stops.
Before, if I thought Christmas, I would have remembered my past on Earth and would have succumbed to the aching sadness for a life I can never have again.
Now, I can think the word and not feel anything but a dull ache, a phantom pain for a part of my life that’s been amputated.
I shake my head and place my hand on the railing. My fingers glow pink from the tube of lights. I mount the first step and look up—the stairs climb higher and higher, zigging up like levels in a parking deck. I try to count how many times the stairs twist and turn, but the lights jumble together at the top. Godspeed is as t