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Chapter 17
Cora Keaton: 2053
The bench felt empty without him.
Cora ran her hand over the rough metal surface, feeling the bumpiness between her thin fingers. Pollen loaded the air, but that wasn’t why her eyes were red and watery.
Cora got up, walked a few feet, sat on the ground, and propped herself against one of the only oaks left in the park. The grass tickled the underside of her legs. And, for a moment, she was eight again.
The hose was hooked up to a massive water slide, climbing twenty feet into the sky. The air was simmering with heat, but the water made it better. Cora scaled the inflatable ladder with Zach at her side as they raced each other.
Upon reaching the top, Cora leaped over the rainbow divider and crashed onto the slide. She slid down fast as a bullet, barely avoiding friction burns all along her back.
When she reached the bottom, she overshot the small pool meant to catch her and shot into the grass. One of her water shoes went flying.
Once she got her composure, she wiped off the mud clinging to her sunburnt skin, stood up, and realized she was missing one of the bright pink slippers. Zach reached the bottom of the slide a moment later, his wet hair falling over his eyes.
“Where’s my shoe?” Cora had said, her hand running over her bare foot. Her face shifted to concern as she realized it had flown deep into a rose bush. Thorns jutted from every stem within the foliage—she couldn’t retrieve it without her arm being sliced to bits.
Zach didn’t care, though. As soon as he saw her shoe, he sloshed through the flooded grass and drove his arm right into the rose bush. His fingers wriggled as he attempted to grip the slippery mesh. He winced, scratches on his skin dripping the color of the roses around it. Eventually, he got hold of the shoe and pulled it free.
Cora expressed worry about the cuts running up Zach’s arm, but every time she tried to wipe off some of the blood, he swatted her away, claiming he was fine.
Naturally, Zach neglected to tell Cora about his suicide mission to Mars. If she’d freaked over a few cuts, he must have known she’d stop at nothing to talk him out of his foolish plan. Instead, he had avoided her entirely in the last week: not returning her calls, ignoring her texts, dodging her attempts to speak to him at work.
She never would have found out about his plan if it wasn’t for Ryker, who seemed just as disgruntled. Over a cup of tea, she implored Ryker to talk Zach out of going through with it. Funny how that worked. Not only had Ryker not talked Zach out of going to Mars—he’d gone with him.
There was nothing Cora could do about it now. All she could do was pray that Zach was right about everything. That he could really do it—and do it right—saving lives in the process.
Cora rested her head against the tree trunk and closed her eyes. Suddenly, a large boom echoed through the park. She opened her eyes, scanning the sky until she spotted a fiery object plummeting through the clouds. She reeled with deja vu, recalling the morning in the park when she and Zach had first spotted Ryker’s dropship.
Was that a dropship? Zach’s dropship?
Cora’s heart soared. He was coming back. He had to be. He had changed his mind about the mission and had set a course for home. Cora could barely contain her excitement. She smiled and leaped to her feet, then jogged out from under the tree to get a better view of the sky. Her eyes traced the object as the flames began to peel back, revealing a dropship. It’s him!
Her lips were just forming Zach’s name when the dropship exploded.
Ryker Gagarin: 2053
How goddamn ironic.
He lasted one week on Earth. One scary, dangerous, eye-opening week, and now he was back on the Gateway. A sigh escaped his lips as he, Zach, and Mabel walked past his old bedroom. The door was still ajar, so he could see everything was exactly how he had left it. The stack of old books he always read was still leaning on his nightstand, a bookmark jutting out from one. The bed was messy, with sheets balled up at the end and the pillow wrinkled. His clothing was piled in the corner, a tangled mass of jackets and jumpsuits.
“I missed laundry day,” Ryker commented. So, this was his life again. He pictured himself only a few days earlier, giving the middle finger to the Gateway as his dropship flew away. The joy he felt as he vowed to never return. With what he went through, it would have been surprising if he ever looked at the sky again.
After all that, he was right back where he started. It felt like going back to an abusive ex.
When they reached the cafeteria, Ryker shot straight for the pantry. He’d been working through the pre-packaged food for the past few years and still hadn’t gotten to the good stuff. If there was any in the first place, that is.
“Did I ever tell you about the time I got blasted out of an airlock?” Ryker asked as he sat down at the metal table.
Zach shook his head, preparing for whatever nonsense Ryker had in store. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”
Ryker swallowed a bite of vacuum-sealed bread and leaned in. “So, one morning—I think I was 15 or so—all the intercoms went crazy. I almost shit myself. One of the outer radars had been hit with debris and got super fucked up. Me being the only person here meant I had to fix it.”
Mabel walked around the table wearing a loose gray hoodie she found in a supply closet. Dark circles surrounded her eyes. “Then what?”
“I was getting on a spacesuit that barely fit, and I stepped into the airlock. Then boom, the outer door opened just as I got the helmet on and blew me out into space. No tethers. No connection to the station. Luckily, I slammed into a solar array and was able to climb back in.”
The room fell silent for a moment.
“So it’s true, then? You really lived here?” Mabel asked.
Ryker slowed a bit, setting down a can of fruit punch. “Yeah.”
“I never left Pasadena,” Zach said. “After I got back… there wasn’t much I wanted to do, you know.” Ryker didn’t know. “For years, I just hung around with Cora. A lot of years.” His face suddenly looked sadder than it had been a moment ago.
“You’ll see her again,” assured Mabel, flicking a speck of dust off Zach’s shoulder. She turned to Ryker. “I was in Michigan. Ann Arbor. Hated the place.”
What could possibly be so bad about a city? On Earth, with the world in her backyard? “Why’s that?”
“Imagine standing in a meat locker, then aim a few degrees lower.”
Zach frowned and took a bite out of his apple. “You should have moved.”
“My parents didn’t want to. They were studying electromagnetism, going back and forth between Michigan and some island in the South Pacific. I don’t know.” Mabel scratched her cheek. “So, cryosleep. What’s it like?”
“It’s just like Michigan,” Zach said. “Freezing cold, but tolerable when you’re asleep.”
Mabel crossed her arms. “Why are we using cryo at all if Mars is so close? It’d take a few minutes going at lightspeed, no?”
“Yes, but we’re not going at lightspeed. There’s likely only a little irogen left in the ship’s reserves, and it’s not nearly enough to activate the continuum drive. It’s enough to travel the long way, though.”
“Aren’t we trying to get this done as soon as possible?” Ryker asked.
“Obviously, but there’s not much we can do without the drive. It’s the long way or no way,” Zach answered.
“Then what are we waiting for?” Mabel moved for the exit, then realized she had no clue where to go. “Finish your food, and come on.”
Ryker and Zach gobbled down what was left and walked into the hallway.
“This way,” Ryker said. After a few steps, he angled his face toward the ceiling. “Gateway, set course for Mars.”
A few minutes later, they came to the massive steel door labeled Cryobay. Surprisingly, Ryker hadn’t stepped foot in it since Prescott. There was no reason to. Ryker placed his palm on the identification scanner and waited for the door to open. Nothing happened. The light didn’t turn green.
“What’s wrong?” Zach furrowed his brow.
“It’s not taking my print. Gateway, open the cryobay.”
“NEGATIVE, GAGARIN. POWER TO THE DOOR IS OFFLINE. CONTACT MISSION CONTROL FOR HELP.“
“Goddamnit!” Zach growled.
“The power is offline?” Mabel looked at Zach, then Ryker. “What’s that mean?”
“It means we’re fucked.” Zach paced away from the cryobay door.
Ryker slumped against the wall. “It doesn’t make sense. It can’t be because of the Emergency Protocol. I overrode it last week. That’s how I was able to launch the dropship.”
“Can you do the same for this?” Mabel asked.
“I don’t know,” Ryker replied. “Maybe? It only took me twenty years to do it last time.”
“Well, then, you better get started.”
Zach Croft: 2030
The plant was obliterated.
From the colony, it was hard to tell how much damage it had sustained. But standing where Zach was, on the edge of a steep dropoff into the crater, the destruction was self-evident.
Twisted metal. Piles of rubble. Mines blown wide open. The cavity spanned about a hundred meters across, ending in a portion of the plant that had remained standing. Its gnarled beams extended over the crater like a skeletal hand.
Ryker had hesitated to come here, but Zach convinced him otherwise. They were due for a fun day, especially after the havoc unleashed on their lives over the past few weeks. The crash. The meteor. The death of Ryker’s father, which had taken a considerable toll on him. Zach and Ryker’s hab units were beside one another, and Zach could hear the stifled sobs through the thin composite walls every night. After several days of this, Zach decided it was time he got Ryker’s mind off the bloodshed. So he suggested going into the crater and exploring the mines.
The objections had come immediately.
“We’re not allowed to.”
“What if we get caught?”
“What if the mines collapse?”
But Zach had come equipped with all the answers Ryker would ever need, typically using a simple “what they know won’t hurt them.” An hour of convincing later, they were trekking through the tunnels leading to the dome erected over the meteor impact zone. The dome had originally been intended to house a second colony once Prescott was up and running, but the council had decided to use it to cover the meteor crater instead, so crews could work on repairing the mines and irogen processing facility without needing to work in bulky spacesuits. It was a smart decision—there wouldn’t be a second colony if the first one failed.
When they arrived at the edge of the crater, Ryker hesitated. He looked uneasy. Zach patted him on the back. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”
Of course, they had to take precautions when entering the crater. It was massive and was covered in debris, but it wasn’t anything they couldn’t work around. A steep, rocky ramp, likely formed by the blast’s shockwaves, provided access to the surface below. Once they got down into the cavity, the search for something interesting began. At various points along the crater’s walls, the mouths of the mineshafts gaped open, just waiting for brave explorers to venture inside them.
“How about that one?” Zach proposed, pointing to a nearby mineshaft. They’d have to pass through a labyrinth of half-standing walls and ledges to get to it, but the dark tunnels beyond the entrance seemed promising.
“Really? Don’t you think it looks a bit… menacing?” Ryker shoved his hands in his pockets.
Fun couldn’t exist without a bit of risk-taking. Zach went to work convincing Ryker to at least check it out, claiming they could back away whenever it got too scary. After a few minutes, Ryker caved.
Zach carefully led the way to the blown-open maw in the side of the crater. It was terrifying—pitch black—but this might be their only chance to explore the mines before operations were up and running again. They had to seize the opportunity. Besides, no one would find them; it was forbidden to go into the crater. Zach faltered a bit as he considered the possibility.
No one would find them if they got lost.
Zach dismissed his concerns. There had to be ways out of the mines, right? Even the workers would need some way to escape in case of emergency? Zach accepted it as truth and ducked inside. Ryker followed. The darkness quickly engulfed them. Thankfully, Zach had the foresight to bring flashlights and promptly handed one to Ryker.
The light revealed metal walls, floors, and pipes. There were several points where the alloy had melted from the explosion. But after another few meters, their surroundings appeared reasonably intact. Zach supposed that was a perk of having the mines deep underground; it was almost like a fallout shelter.
They didn’t seem like mines on these upper levels, per se. More like… hallways. Perhaps these levels had already been plucked of whatever irogen crystals they held and had been transformed into metallic passageways. There were doors here and there, small storage rooms by the looks of them. Zach briefly entered one but got bored after finding it was empty. They continued walking.
An elevator with a fence-like door was at the end of the long mineshaft. Zach rattled the handle. It pulled open. He stood for a second while staring into the steel box. “That looks like something…”
Ryker seemed uncomfortable. “I—I don’t know. Can we go back?”
“Why? The miners wouldn’t use it if it wasn’t safe.” Zach entered the elevator, dragging his hand over a set of buttons painted with numbers 1-13.
“I know, I know. It just gives me the creeps.”
Zach threw his hands up. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Ryker!”
Ryker sighed. “If you think so.” He silently took his place in the box. Zach pressed the button for level 13, the lowest one, and held onto the railing as the elevator began descending, level by level. As it dropped, glimpses of other floors passed by the grated door. The lower the elevator went, the less developed the structures—the ceilings, walls, and floors—seemed to be.
The box stopped halfway between levels nine and ten. It sputtered, tilting a bit to the side… Then, it plummeted. The elevator dropped down two floors, as if the cables holding it upright had snapped. Zach and Ryker screamed as the grimy air whipped all around them. The elevator shuddered briefly, slamming the two kids against the floor, then continued its drop. Zach looked at Ryker, seeing the fear in his eyes. Were they about to die? The elevator fell another floor, then crashed to a complete stop. Level 13.
Ryker skittered back against the wall, hyperventilating. “I don’t want to be here anymore.” He coughed as a thick cloud of dust wafted in from the shaft outside.
Zach didn’t have the heart to confess he had no idea how they’d get out. Surely, there was another elevator. Or ladder. Or staircase. Something to carry them back to the surface. “Let’s see if we can find an exit.” Zach got Ryker to his feet and stepped out into the tunnel.
This level had no metal walls, only rock. Red emergency lights along the floor provided the only illumination, shrouding the passageway in a deep, bloody glow. Ryker clutched Zach’s arm for safety as they stepped forward.
The first level had been scary, but this was way worse. Even Zach, who took pride in his ability to hide his fear, felt his stomach churn. They were hundreds of feet underground, alone in a silent tunnel. Or were they? Could someone else be down there, lurking in the shadows?
Nope. No way. Zach wasn’t going to indulge in that line of thinking. It was already petrifying enough to be alone; he wasn’t about to add even more. About thirty feet ahead, the rocky mineshaft split off in two directions. To the right, a gargantuan machine sat with claw-like appendages grasping the wall. It looked like it was frozen in time. To the left, there was only more empty space. It was obvious which direction they should go.
The center of the floor was lined with steel tracks. Something that looked like a pickaxe leaned against the wall. Zach took it in his hands, holding it up in a ready position. It was stupid. What did he expect to find down there that warranted having a weapon?
The air was definitely thinner underground. Zach had heard about how they pumped oxygen into the mines but couldn’t help wondering if they’d stopped doing that after the meteor. Zach tried to breathe easy and told Ryker to do the same. “We’ll find a way out. We will,” he said. Zach was about to repeat it when something caused them both to freeze. A sound. A roar. Something.
Zach could hear it maybe a hundred feet up, grinding away. Was it a person? A monster? Whatever it was, it took away his ability to breathe altogether. He exchanged a look with Ryker and wordlessly suggested, “Let’s get out of here.”
But where was the way out? The presumed other elevator? Back the other way, the tunnel was blocked off by that big machine, and here, well… there very well might have been a monster waiting for them to draw near. This was the only way. The only chance they had. As scary as it might be, they had to keep moving forward in the direction of the crunching sound.
“No. No, we can’t,” Ryker said shakily.
“We have to.” Towing Ryker behind him, Zach pressed forward. With his other hand, he clutched the pickaxe tight, ready to use it to defend himself if he had to. Slowly but surely, they inched down the tunnel. The deeper they went, the fewer emergency lights there were. Darkness surrounded them. They turned the flashlights back on.
Wait. Was that a good idea? Or did the creature now know of their presence? Warily, Zach shined the light down the tunnel and…
Another machine. That’s all it was. A massive blue mechanism carving out more tunnel space from the Martian rock. Was it doing that automatically? Zach couldn’t see a driver, so it must have been. He started to laugh. “Oh, thank god.” With the indicator lights on the machinery, he could see another shaft that split off from this one. Zach started down it.
“What are we doing to tell our parents?” Ryker asked. “We’re covered head to toe in dirt.”
“That we were playing in the Slabs?”
“My mom might believe that, but your dad won’t.”
As they continued down the tunnels, they discussed other possible alibis. Maybe they were playing hide and seek or pretend war? He didn’t have much time to dwell on it before things got strange. This deep in the mines, any real sign of humanity was nonexistent, other than the tracks. No lights. No structures. But there was something else: up ahead, Zach could make out a faint, murky glow around the next bend. It was bluish-purple, twinkling as if there was a portal to another world just ahead. As they turned the corner, they entered a vast cavern. Zach’s jaw went slack.
Hundreds of blue and purple crystals clung to the walls and ceiling. They jutted out in every direction, their centers glowing vibrantly with ethereal light that streamed through the sides of their hexagonal structures.
Irogen.
A single track ran through the cavern from the tunnel. On it, a mine cart was piled high with loose crystals. As Zach shone the light at the translucent spikes, they reflected it in all directions. Zach grabbed one of the crystals, rolling it around in his hand. Without thinking it through, he blurted out, “Let’s take some.”
“What?”
“They’re cool looking, don’t you think? Maybe we can make something with them.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Lamps or something. Here. Hand me your backpack.”
“Are you sure?” Ryker handed the backpack to Zach, who began filling it with crystals.
“Sure about what? There’s nothing to be sure about.” Once the bag was full, Zach tossed it back to Ryker, turned around, and resumed his search for the exit.
Right. Left. Left. Right.
Emergency lights reappeared. Then, miraculously, they found another elevator. This one was nicer, probably newer than the other. And while Zach wasn’t prepared to put all his trust in it, there didn’t seem to be another way out. So they entered it. He punched the button for the first floor and held on tight as it ascended.
By the time they reached the light, it was as if they had never been there.
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