daynight (7 page)

I change into standard issue workout clothes in the ladies’ changing area, and get on the treadmill, working up to a light jog. Skimpy I think, about the clothes, which consist of a ‘barely there’ tank and short shorts. Wonder what they have the guys wear?

Any questions I’d had about Blake’s relative strength to Tristan are answered when he enters, shirtless, into the gym and gets on the treadmill next to me. He barely glances my way before doubling my speed. The boy is slender but muscular, like a marathon runner or triathlete. Stunned that his physique is not of an emaciated meth addict, I awkwardly stumble and have to catch myself on the treadmill’s sidebars, lower my speed, and start up again. If he reacts to my blunder he doesn’t show it.

I want and need to digest the material presented this evening and the terrifyingly cool way they presented some of it, but I’m too distracted by the figure next to me. All he would have had to do at Carmel Valley High was take off that flannel, flash his smile and join the track or swim team, and he could have had the pick of most any girl in our school. But instead he chose, and that’s what intrigues me—that he chose—to become invisible, hiding beneath the façade of a delinquent board-loving loser. I scour my memories of English class, searching for a single time he spoke up to participate and can’t think of one. Most of us thought he was probably strung out, too dumb to form a coherent comment, or asleep. But instead, not only does he score top two percent of California test takers and get selected to take the Second Chance Institute Test, but he snags the coveted spot. The boy is a mystery, and apparently a genius.
 

After a half hour of jogging I can’t take it anymore. I’ve been watching beads of sweat careen down his muscular back like a pinball game and the effect destabilizes me. Thankfully, his personality repels me, since his body surely doesn’t seem to. I turn off the treadmill and go practice some meditative yoga moves I learned in gym class on the mat, facing the mirror. Blake, too, leaves the treadmill and heads to the corner behind me to lift weights. Needing to concentrate, I close my eyes. I left everything behind to become an SCI Recruit and need to understand what my next year will entail. My parents’ belief that my life will always revolve around a man will only become a self-fulfilling prophecy if I let it. And I refuse to let them be right. So, I block my past and present men from my mind and focus on Thera.

The entire first training session focused on the planet we’d purportedly traveled to in less than five minutes time. Our host described Thera as an ‘inverse’ or ‘polar’ Earth. Due to lack of satellite technology they’ve had to explore it by ‘old-fashioned’ methods, but believe Thera is the exact size and shape of Earth. However, as our instructor described, it would be like viewing a negative in a dark room. Where land exists on Earth, there is sea on Thera; and vice versa for sea on Earth and land for Thera. That’s why we left Earth by sea and arrived on land. Even days and nights and the direction of the sun are supposedly inverted between Earth and Thera. The whole thing makes zero sense.

How’d it work? We went through a ‘magic’ portal. Uh huh, because those exist. If I’m to drink their hopped-up Kool-Aid, Thera is largely unpopulated, with exception of SCI unit-built cities in various ‘habitable’ locations near ‘Earth’s portals.’ We entered a Pacific Ocean portal, one of a couple dozen or so access points. There are far fewer exit points than entry points, something I wanted to understand further, so I’d enquired as to the reason on my tablet computer, and found out that no one knows; that perhaps they haven’t discovered all the portals yet. Or they have no explanation because it is all a bunch of bull? We could be on a sound stage with cameras trained on us for all I know.

I started to barrage my tablet with questions. Where’s the closest exit portal and can you please provide directions? Why does no one on Earth know about the portals? If it’s true we’re on a different planet, why’s it being kept a big secret? How many earthlings have randomly wandered into a portal and ended up on Thera? Do you feel guilty about the overpopulation problems in India and elsewhere, when you’ve found a perfectly habitable world that has plenty of room? I pounded on the worthless piece of electronic garbage when it offered up crap like, ‘only select people can pass through the portals, limiting entry numbers.’ Blake pried the device out of my hands, and refused to return it until I’d promised not to break it.
 

Apparently, the Bermuda Triangle is the largest of the portals and has both entry and exit points, and is the locale of Import/Export City. They’d rattled off the names of dozens of cities too fast to write down, but I did catch Industrial City, Military City, Farm City, Food City, and Power City. I wonder why the naming conventions are so provincial. Must be that the same not-so-enterprising guy who discovered Thera and decided not to cash in named everything out of his simpleton vocabulary.

As the session continued I got more upset, at one point demanding that they “prove it.” Particularly about the claim that on Thera the sun rises in the West, and settles in the East. I’d asked as nicely as possible, “Give me a compass then,” but neither the guy on the screen or my tablet complied with the request. How can they possibly expect us to believe such extreme statements just because they claim it to be true?

After the substandard geography lesson, we’d moved onto meteorology. Our resident expert on all things alien explained that the weather is much more extreme on Thera, and “more suitable to exchanging days and nights.” Thus, all activity on Thera happens at night with sleeping done during the day. Extreme temperature variations dictate the shift, with the high reaching upwards of 150 degrees during the day and down to eighty or ninety degrees at night. It had to have been at least a hundred, if not a hundred ten when we were out there, so I finally find something I can believe. That does explain the wacky schedule they’ve got us on with the twenty-four hour clocks, but the thought of life in darkness terrifies me, even if the artificial lights they use are beautiful. Special ‘color spectrum’ lighting is used in the canyons and all public areas. Purportedly unique to Thera, the lights stay cool and like a prism can reflect out a full rainbow’s array of colors, creating the light show we’d seen.
 

Garden City dates back to ancient times and is believed to be the original city on Thera. Excavations done to build modern residences have found old murals thousands of years old, which depict small residences surrounded by lush gardens, thus the name. Hmmm, can you say global warming? Because all I saw was some serious desert landscape, certainly nothing that’d be worthy of painting. Despite the lack of greenery now, the residents of the city have continued the tradition and painted life-sized murals of gardens throughout the city’s buildings and homes.
 

Thera headquarters is located in Garden City, as are all scientific studies related to the phenomenon behind Earth’s sister world. And although the ‘management’ for the SCI resides here, locally instituted ‘governing bodies’ oversee the night-to-night operation of each city. Thousands of scientists and doctors reside in the city and manage hundreds of research projects, including ‘Cleaving,’ although most are considered classified.

‘What’s Cleaving?’ I’d asked my censored device and was informed that ‘Cleaving will be covered in a future training session.’ Don’t encourage super achievers. Seriously people—you send me to training but don’t want me to learn? I take a few deep breaths to calm myself and re-focus. I’m sure they’ll explain everything in their own due time.

Two things I did find fascinating were the fact that there is no monetary system and no paper in Garden City. Citizens are issued ‘everything needed,’ so money is ‘not required.’ This means no stores, no shopping, and, most disturbingly, no choices. All jobs merit identical benefits, apparently. The trainer cites ‘lack of usable trees’ as the reason behind a paperless system. The government issues each resident a portable tablet like the ones given to us for training to be used to list-make, note-take, and journal-write. I wonder though, despite applauding the lack of waste and destroying natural resources, whether the impetus centers back to central control. I bet every tablet device is connected, perhaps monitored? Should I ask my device, ‘Do Therans worship George Orwell?’ Ha ha, probably not. It might be wise to make only mental notes of things that could be construed as contrary to whatever political body runs Thera. I’m sure I’ve pissed them off enough for one night.

Solar energy fuels most of Thera and given the temperatures most the water is processed at desalinization plants close to the oceans, one of which is in Garden City, and through purification plants that recycle used water. It was during the very detailed explanation of the water collection process that I nodded off. I’m hoping Blake can fill me in on the missing details, but prefer to ask him when we’re alone in our suite.

My nap had ended abruptly as our chairs were hurtled upward, and the screen filled with an aerial view of Garden City by day. Our chairs moved with the scenery to create the impression that we were flying overhead, reminding me of Soarin’ Over California at California Adventures Theme Park, though more lifelike. I felt like I was outside, feeling wind rush against my face. We first flew the city boundaries, seeing the entire dead man’s land border surrounding it. Then we soared low through the miles of canyons stretching towards the East coast of the unnamed continent. Snaking paths weave through the canyons, while the basins of the canyons have been paved and treated to be able to collect rainwater into large cisterns beneath the earth—that explains what appeared to be a concrete floor.
 

Our instructor narrated our journey, pointing out everything from government buildings to the solar power fields, to water purification facilities, to the school we will attend. I mentally recorded the layout of the sprawling city as best as possible, but struggle to remember the details now, particularly since everything appeared to be built to blend into the landscape. The cables and platforms I saw suddenly made sense. Zip lines. I once did that in Mexico on my one out-of-the country experience. My grandparents hosted a family reunion on a short cruise. We all zip lined in Puerto Vallarta, each getting harnessed and then attached to a pulley that allowed us to ride from platform to platform. It’s fun and exciting, if not a little scary, but appears to be a quick and relatively efficient form of travel here.
 

Once we’d explored the nooks and crannies by day, the sky darkened and we viewed the city by night, swirling lights whirring by. The effect was exhilarating, and like Icarus, my desire to fly overwhelmed me. But then, our night journey completed, the chairs lowered back to floor level, and our first session ended.

A crashing sound yanks me back to the present. I open my eyes to see that the interruption was just the sound of clanking of weights. I catch Blake’s reflection in the mirror. He’s doing bicep curls with some free weights I’d be lucky to be able to pick up with both hands, but his eyes are transfixed on me. Perhaps switching planets brought out his predatory side, since I never saw him show an interest in the female race back on Earth. I shift my yoga position to better stretch and re-close my eyes, trying to edge out his image.

It takes a few minutes to refocus and remember what the training video said about Theran inhabitants. I typed in the exact words, but the mostly useless device is back in the training room. However, I do believe they said two very interesting things. First that, “There are two types of residents: Second Chancers, and those who have the ability to pass between Earth and Thera.” Second, they said, “That which exists on one planet cannot exist on the other, with some exceptions,” which they chose not to expand upon. I’m guessing those that can pass between Earth and Thera have everything to do with those high DNT levels. My device refused to confirm or deny my suspicion, but I’m positive that’s what Spud Rosenberg meant when he said DNT would allow me to adapt to SCI’s ‘remote’ locations. And if we’re really on a different planet, that’s about as remote as one could get. But, what I don’t understand is how the Second Chancers get here and who they are.
 

The conundrum eats away at the fringes of my consciousness until I feel a tap on my shoulder. It’s Blake and he offers me a hand and a towel, both of which I accept.
 

“Sorry to interrupt that sweet display of flexibility,” he smiles, “but we’ve got to go learn the rules of the place.”

“Our hour is already up?” I say, my eyes scanning him up and down. I still can’t get over the fact that he hid a near perfect physique underneath that nasty flannel, docking him only for his scarred hands, a few small scars on his back, and a barely noticeable bump on his nose as if it was once broken. His body actually gives his eyes a run for a lottery-sized jackpot of beauty. Despite the good looks, he doesn’t make my heart flutter the way Ethan did and still does when I think of him.

“Over an hour… they give us some time to shower. We’re due back at midnight,” he says. Focus Kira. Who cares if he’s good looking? He’s a jerk and I’m hardly ready to start dating again. “Showers are in the locker rooms,” he adds, pointing to mine. “Something wrong?”

“I’m having difficulty adjusting to our new wardrobes,” I say, blood rushing to my cheeks, and immediately wishing I hadn’t said it out loud. He laughs and strokes my chin with his fingers. I recoil a bit by his touch, surprised that he’s capable of making a kind gesture. This is the same guy who insulted my upbringing mere hours ago. And there’s something about him that I just don’t trust, though I haven’t been able to pinpoint why I feel that way.

“Likewise, my lovely friend and partner,” he says, with emphasis on the friend and partner. “See you back in there?” He winks and starts to walk towards the men’s locker room.

“Can’t wait,” I say, but then realize he might take it the wrong way, so I add, “I’m awfully curious about all those rules.”