Across the Universe (8 page)

15

AMY

I AM AWAKE. BUT I DO NOT STRETCH, YAWN, OR OPEN MY EYES. I am not used to doing any of that. At least, not anymore. So I lie here, becoming aware of my senses. I smell mustiness. I can hear someone breathing softly, as if asleep. I feel warmth, and it is not until I realize this that I remember I am no longer frozen.

My first thought: how much of the dreams and nightmares was real?

Even now, the dreams I had while frozen are fading, becoming fuzzy memories, like dreams do. Did I really dream for three centuries, or did I dream for the few minutes between fully waking and unfreezing? It felt like centuries, dream upon dream piling up in my head—but dreams are like that, time isn’t real. When my tonsils were taken out, I had dozens of really detailed dreams, but I was only under the anesthesia for an hour or so. Besides, I
couldn’t
have dreamt when I was frozen—that’s impossible, dreams can’t flit through frozen neurons.

But what about those stories of patients who are awake during surgery, even though the anesthesia is supposed to knock them out?

No. Ignore that. It’s not the same. I could only have dreamt in that small time when my body was melting but my soul hadn’t yet. If I start thinking about time, and how much passed, and how aware I was of it passing, I’ll drive myself crazy.

I force my eyes open. I can’t be haunted by dreams—whether they’re centuries old or not—if I am awake.

The crinkle of my eyelids feels new to me, and I revel in opening my eyes.

And then—
oh
—I strrrrretch. My muscles burn. I can feel them all tightening, the muscles at the small of my back, the ones running along the sides of my calves, the slender muscles wrapped around my elbows.

The blanket slips down my legs. I sit up, my abdominal muscles pulling me forward with relish. I am bare from the tops of my thighs down, and above that all I am wearing is a blue-green hospital gown, the kind that doesn’t close in the back.

A boy sits beside my bed, breathing in a slow steady way that drifts in and out of snoring. I pull the blanket all the way up to my shoulders. He fell asleep while sitting in the chair and is slouched over in a way that looks uncomfortable. He must have been watching me. I hate the idea that he was there, awake and conscious, while I slept. It creeps me out.

It’s the same boy who was there when I first woke up inside the glass coffin. His face is soft but has an edge to it that belies the innocent appearance he has while sleeping. I’m not sure what race he is—not black, but not white; neither Hispanic nor Asian. It’s a nice color, though—dark in a creamy sort of way that compliments his almost-black hair. The high cut of his cheekbones and the strong curve of his forehead make him look instantly trustworthy, maybe even kind.

“Who are you?” I say loudly. For the first time since I woke from my centuries-long slumber, my voice does not crack. They must have done something to my throat. A dull, throbbing ache fills my body.

The boy jumps, a look of guilt or wariness on his face when his eyes focus on me. He looks around as if he’s surprised I’m talking to him, but he’s the only other person in the room.

“I’m uh... I’m Elder. I’m the future, um, leader. Of the ship. Um.” He stands up, but I don’t, so he sits down again awkwardly.

Future leader of the ship? Why does the
ship
need a future leader?

“Where am I?”

“You’re in the Ward,” he says, but I can barely understand him. There’s a strange clipped quality to his words, and they’re inflected with a singsongy intonation. His short speech sounds like this: “Yar in-tha Wart,” with a lilt at the end of each word.

“Where’s the Ward?” I ask.

“The Hospital.” (“Thas pital.”)

I look around. This isn’t what I expected. “Why am I in a hospital? What are you doing here?”

I’m not fully concentrating on what he’s saying, and I don’t really catch everything he says in reply. The room suddenly feels colder, and I clutch the blanket tighter to me. Something about being a future leader, again, like that has any weight to it. Future leader of the ship. Well, of course he is. I inspect him closer. He’s got wide, broad shoulders with just enough muscle that it isn’t too obvious under his shirt-tunic thing, although I can see the hard corners of his biceps. Tall—much taller than me, but a few inches taller than most people, even though he’s probably about my age. He slouches, though. His face is narrow but inviting, with almond-shaped eyes that pierce. All of this adds up to a certain
something
that makes him just look like the kind of guy who could lead a ship. It’s almost as if God had known Elder was going to be some sort of leader or whatever, so He gave him the right face and body for it.

I turn in the bed so that my feet touch the floor. The floor’s cold, though, so I raise my knees to my chin—under the blanket, of course, since the hospital gown does little to cover me. “What’s it like?”

“What’s what like?” (“Waz-wa lick?”)

“The new planet.” And even though I didn’t want to come here in the first place, and even though I hated every moment of my frozen years to get here, there is a little awe in my voice that even I cannot hide. A new planet. We are finally on a new planet. A planet no human being has ever been on before.

The boy stands up. He’s so tall, it doesn’t feel fair to call him a boy, but at the same time, he’s got a bit of a baby face, as if he’s never seen or done anything to make him grow up, to make the angles of his face sharpen with the harshness of age. He walks to the far wall, his back to me. He is towering in this small room; it can barely contain him. He reminds me, in a small way, of Jason. Not in how he looks—this boy is darker and more muscular than Jason—but in the way he stands and walks, as if he knows his place in the world with absolute certainty. He leans against the wall, facing a rectangular piece of metal hanging there. Light peeps out from around the edges of the metal. It must be some sort of window covering.

“Ware na onnda plant yeah,” he says. I had not realized how confusing his accent was until he was facing away from me, unintentionally shielding his lips from my view.

“What?” I ask.

He turns to me; this time when he speaks, I am able to decipher his words. “We’re not on the planet yet.”

“What... do you mean?” Cold, the coldness of ice and hell, fills my empty stomach.

“We’ve still got about fifty years before we land.”

“
What?
”

“I’m sorry; 49 years and 266 days. I’m sorry.”

“Why did you wake me up early?”

“I didn’t!” the boy protests, flushing deeply. “It wasn’t me! Why did you accuse me?”

“I just want to know why we were all woken up 49 years and 200-some days early! And where are my parents?”

The boy lowers his eyes. Something in his look makes the ice pit in my belly churn.

“You weren’t all woken up early,” he says. His eyes beg me to understand what he means, to quit asking questions.

“Where are my parents?” I repeat.

“They’re... below.”

“I want to see my parents. I want to talk to my parents.”

“They . . .”

“
What happened to my parents?
”

“They haven’t been reanimated yet. They’re still frozen. Everyone else down there is still frozen but you.”

“When will they wake up? When do I get to see them?”

The boy edges to the door. “Maybe I should get Eldest to come explain?”

“Eldest who? Explain what?” I am shouting, but I don’t care. The blanket has slipped from my legs. My brain is racing, falling into place, crashing against the words I think the boy will say, the words I dread hearing, the words I must hear him speak aloud before I will believe them to be true.

“Er... well, uh... They’re not going to be woken up until we get there.”

“Fifty years from now,” I say hollowly.

The boy nods. “Forty-nine years and 266 days from now.”

I have been frozen in ice for centuries. And yet, I have never felt more alone than I do right now, at this moment, when I realize that I am alive and aware and awake, and they are not.

16

ELDER

SHE STARTS CRYING. NOT SOFT, SAD TEARS, BUT THE ANGRY sort, like she hates the whole world, or at least the ship that’s now her world. So, I do what any reasonable person would do when faced with a crying girl.

I get the frex out of there.

A familiar
beep, beep-beep
fills my left ear. “Com link: Eldest,” says the soft female voice of my wi-com.

“Ignore.”

Eldest had left the Hospital as soon as Doc had begun administering post-regenerative meds to Amy. He hadn’t helped set up the IV bags or watched as they slowly dripped three full bags of nutrition and fluid into her. He wasn’t there to help us lift her onto the new bed in the Ward that Doc made up for her. He wasn’t there when she woke up, having stayed by her side for more than seven hours just so she wouldn’t have to wake up alone.

I don’t really care what he has to say right now.

What I care about is Amy. Maybe if she sees more of
Godspeed
, she won’t cry so much. If I can bring her a piece of her home, something that reminds her of Sol-Earth, maybe she’ll...

I head straight to the garden just behind the Hospital. The garden is full of blooms right now, but I know what I want—the large yellow and orange flowers growing near the pond, the ones with streaks of color almost as brilly as Amy’s hair.

It takes me a moment to find them; there’re only a few blooms left, their big heads drooping toward the pond water. I kneel, ignoring the muddy stains seeping into my trousers, and break the stems of half a dozen flowers. The petals are as long as my fingers, curling at the ends, and their honey-like scent drifts lazily to my nose.

“Elder.”

Shite. I turn to face Eldest, my fingers tightening around the stems.

“You ignored my com.” His voice is low, monotone.

“I was busy.”

His cold eyes drop to the flowers in my hand. “Clearly.”

I start back toward the Hospital. Eldest follows me.

“You’re forgetting your duties. You have yet to complete the assignment I gave you yesterday.”

“It can wait.”

I start to climb the steps leading back to the Hospital, but Eldest grabs my shirt collar and drags me back.

“Being leader of the ship is more important than any girl.”

I nod. He
is
right.

“She shouldn’t even be here in the first place,” Eldest mumbles. “What a nuisance.”

I crush the flower stems into my palms.

“A nuisance?” Now
my
voice is a low monotone.

“Her presence is bad for the ship. Difference. The first cause of discord.”

Something roars in protest inside me. This is not the kind of leader I want to learn to be—one so coldly indifferent to Amy. Yesterday, Eldest told me that it was my job to protect the people. I didn’t know he just meant
our
people.

“Now go back to the Keeper Level and work on that assignment.”

“No.”

Eldest’s eyes widen, then narrow. “No?”

“No.” I rip myself from his grip and head to the Hospital elevator. Before the doors slide shut, Eldest steps inside with me.

“I don’t have time for your childishness. I’ll tell you once more. Go back to the Keeper Level.”

“No,” I say, still smiling, but it’s all a front to hide my fear. Eldest cannot stand rebellion, and I’ve never pushed back at him this hard before. Part of me wants to take it all back, apologize, and obey him like I always have. Part of me wishes he’d take a swing at me so I could punch him back.

Eldest raises his left hand to his wi-com button.

“Keeper override; Eldest clearance,” he says, and my stomach lurches. This can’t be good. “Command: apply noise modification enhancer to wi-com Elder. Vary tone and pitch. Intensity level: three. Cease at subject’s entry to the Keeper Level.”

Immediately, a low-pitched buzz fills my left ear. I clap my hand over it, but the noise isn’t coming from outside; it’s coming from inside my ear, in my wi-com. The buzz rises into a screech for a second, dips back into a buzz, then makes a grating, teeth-jarring scratching sound against my eardrum.

I jab my finger into my wi-com. “Override!” I say. “Command: stop all sounds!”

“Access denied,” the female voice of my wi-com says over a sound worse than the squelching noise of a cow giving birth. Augh! This isn’t like the biometric scanner where I have the same clearance as Eldest. Wi-coms are different, unique to each of us. The only thing that can stop mine from bugging out is Eldest’s.

“Make it stop,” I say to Eldest. A burbling sound pops in my ear, which isn’t too bad on its own, but each burble is punctuated by a short high-pitched
eep!
that makes me jump a little with surprise every other second.

The elevator doors slide open and we step into the common room.

“The noise will stop as soon as you enter the Learning Center prepared to learn and listen,” Eldest says pleasantly. He pushes his wi-com again. “Command: increase intensity to level four.” The sounds grow louder. Eldest smiles at me. Then he turns and strolls out of the common room toward Doc’s office.

I try sticking my finger down my ear, but it’s no good. The wi-com is wired directly into my eardrum. Something that sounds like glass shattering over a crowing rooster crackles in my ear.

“Nice flowers.”

“Orion?” Any surprise at seeing the Recorder here in the Ward is replaced by the cacophony vibrating through my left ear. I’d even forgotten the flowers clutched in my right hand. Green plant blood oozes between my fingers from broken stems.

“I needed to get more supplies.” Orion shakes a small plastic bottle, and pills rattle inside it. He must have swiped them. No one’s supposed to have a store of mental meds—even if you don’t live in the Ward, the Inhibitors are delivered daily, one pill at a time.

“Don’t want Eldest or Doc to catch me.” Orion pockets the pills.

I clap one hand over my ear in a feeble attempt to stifle the noise, but it’s no good.

Orion smiles grimly. “That old trick. There’s no point trying to stop the noise. It’ll just get worse the longer it goes.” He watches as I beat my fist against my ear. “Just do whatever he told you to do, or you’ll go mad from it.”

“How do you know?” The words come out harsh and angry, but only because I am having such a hard time concentrating on anything beyond the braying in my ear.

“I just wanted to give you a bit of advice—there’s no point in standing up directly to Eldest. Won’t work. He’s an old king, too used to power. You can’t face him directly. You’ll have to be a bit sneakier than that.” Orion tucks a piece of his long, straggly hair behind his ear, and I notice again the spiderweb white scars creeping down the left side of his neck, as if his flesh had been ripped open and the pieces didn’t quite fit back together again.

“I’ll do what I want,” I say as I push past him, one hand clutching my ear.

I stagger across the common room. When I pass Harley, I knock into his canvas as another high-pitched tone starts an unnatural staccato in my ear, throwing me off balance.

“Elder?” he asks, jumping up in concern.

I ignore him as I open the hall door and head toward Amy’s room. I’m going to give her these frexing flowers if it kills me. I won’t let Eldest push me around.

“What’s wrong?” Harley’s followed me. He leaves a koi-colored hand-print on my arm as he reaches for me, but I shake him off.

I stop at Amy’s room and knock on the door.

No answer.

“What are you doing here?” There’s a hitch in Harley’s voice that I notice through the loud crowing that’s started up in my left ear. I remember now—this was his former girlfriend’s room before it was given to Amy.

“A new res,” I say, wincing. My voice sounds loud to my pained ear.

Harley puts his hand to the wall, leaving behind a smear of orange-yellow on the matte white finish. No one will care; it’s just another mark of many. Ever since Harley moved into the Ward permanently, spots of color follow him everywhere he goes, like a trail of rainbows.

The wi-com is doing its best to distract me—the sounds and tones are cycling through at a dizzying pace. Part of me wants to bash my head against the door, just to make the noise stop. It’s driving me insane, the sort of insane that Doc’s mental meds can’t fix. My left hand grips my ear so hard that blood trickles between my fingers—I’m afraid I’ll rip it off. Instead, I punch the wall with my right hand.

The flowers I’d so carefully chosen from the garden—the big, bright blooms I’d selected specifically because they reminded me of Amy’s hair—crinkle against the force of my fist meeting the wall. Petals fall in a shower of reds and golds. I unclench my fist. The stems are a stringy, gooey mass. The leaves have been crushed beyond recognition. The flowers themselves are pitiful remnants of the natural beauty they held on the pond’s edge.

An undercurrent of clicking sounds adds itself to my tonal torture. I let the flowers drop at Amy’s door, slap both hands around my ears, trapping the noises inside my skull as I run from the Hospital to the grav tube to the Keeper Level and silent tranquility.