Dr. Vivian Toujours injected her mother in the arm, pushing the plunger filled with sweet release. Janice’s body caved into itself, freeing the tortured person within. One last breath and it was over.
Ninety-five years of hell were over.
“What will you do now, Mom?” Jenna asked.
Vivian turned to her daughter, who still seemed to be eight years old. Years ago, she had wanted Jenna to remain small forever, to cuddle with her, to depend on her. Part of that was still true—Jenna did still depend on her.
So did a lot of other people.
“Keep working,” Vivian said. “I’m going to keep working.”
Zach Chapman
Between Screens
Originally published by Galaxy Press
I was fourteen when I first skipped across the galaxy, trying to fit in, trailing the older boys who had ditched class. Cox, the grunge leader of the group, tattooed and modified, ran the skipper code hacker with one hand and shoved me through the portal with the other. One moment I could hear the others laughing, the next I was in an empty station on my hands and knees, picking myself off the cold floor, heart racing. I didn’t know much about skipping, or space travel—I had only been off Earth for a week—but I knew it wasn’t cheap. A moment later I heard the others stumbling in after me, shouting in fear and excitement.
“We’re caught.”
“By who?”
“The pigs!”
“They tracing us?”
“’Course. Gotta skip. And trip the pigs. Lose ’em, yeah?”
“Sure, sure.”
I was shoved by three other boys through another skipper, and like that, I was across the universe, in another grey skipper station, running from the pigs who were light years behind.
They never did catch us, not that first time. Cox made sure of that, rerouting stations with his hand hacker to throw them off. We skipped, racing down long hallways in abandoned stations. We skipped, shoving through dense crowds of business drones. We skipped, diving past upkeep bots. We skipped until my world spun and nausea swelled inside me.
When we arrived at our final destination—a claustrophobic, cold room—a dozen boys were touching-up a rigged cacophony of gerrymandered technology. Some of the boys I recognized from school. Their stares jarred me. I was foreign to them, tan Earth skin, natural brown eyes and hair, a stark contrast to their pale features.
A screen that looked scarcely different from a threadbare bed sheet was draped on one side of the room, a blindingly bright projector shone on it from the other side. Wires and ancient technology, a haze of smoke, the stink of synthetic bliss, and worn blankets and pillows filled the cold room.
Cox bumped and pounded two tall, thin, pimply boys who were entering some final calibrations on the projector, “Ready, ready? The telescope spitting what we need?”
“Sure, sure,” the two answered in unison and returned to their work. Their complexions were more corpse-like than the other spaceboys, and their greasy light hair curled at their shoulders.
An image flickered on the screen. It was a black canvas speckled with burning white stars. The projector clicked several times, then the image zoomed in on a planet, green and blue, much like Earth, but with strange-shaped continents. All the boys quieted. Cox pushed me to the blanket-covered floor and stuck a warm drink in my hand, “Drink up, new kiddie, the lightshow’s starting.”
“What’s so special about it?” I asked, taking a sip of the burning elixir. A boy next to me hushed me as if I were speaking over some audio, but there was no other sound in the station.
“Boys projectin’ the light. That’s a planet, this ain’t no movie. There’s a telescope outside of this station. Boys hacked it. Boys real smart with equations.” Cox tapped a finger to his temple. “Real sharp. Taller one’s name Timmet, other’s Trager. Real ugly, but so sharp they’re smarter than the teaches we ditched. Sure, sure.”
“That’s another planet out there, hundred light-years away?” I asked.
Cox nodded, irritated, then punched my shoulder, “Just watch. I ain’t seen it at this angle yet.”
Sitting, I began to watch, but nothing seemed to happen. I gradually became aware of a hand on my back, slowly rubbing as if to annoy. I turned to look, but the light from the projector distorted my vision. I could make out the shape of a girl, narrow with long synthetic dark hair. In the dimness and blinding projector glare, I thought I saw her wink. She hissed, “Don’t lose your lunch, new kiddie.”
Before I could respond to her, a gasp from all the boys brought my attention back to the screen.
A meteor hurdled for the planet, brown and jagged. The two masses collided. Breaths hissed in. A shockwave slowly spread from the impact, followed by a wall of ocean. Cox turned toward the projector and yelled over the silence, “Timmet, Trager! Zoom in! Can’t see nothing.”
The brothers tapped away with their hackers, the telescope zoomed in, and our projector followed the shockwave as it ate forests, deserts and mountains, obliterating all to dust and magma. It zoomed in further. A city came to view, quaking, buildings falling, ants scrambling. Then it was dust too. And then a wall of water. The projector flicked to several other dying cities before the visible half of the planet was devoured and dead. When it was over, the entire room fell silent. The telescope flicked back to the impact site—a circle of red-orange magma, glowing as the tectonic cracks slowly tendrilled across the planet like stretching skeletal fingers. The nausea from skipping returned. I accidently tipped my drink over, but no one seemed to notice, their eyes were nailed to the dying world.
“Why?” I managed to utter, “Why did those people stay? They must have known their planet would die.”
“Misguided principals.” Cox shrugged. “Or just too poor to leave. Not like you, new kiddie.”
“If I was rich, I’d still be on Earth,” I began, but something buzzing on Cox’s hip took precedence. He fumbled at the device, brought it up to his face. His eyes widened. Pointing his finger toward the skipper gate, Cox started to shout. Boys began to clear the skip station, running, packing up pillows and synthetic smokers and hard drinks, spilling their possessions everywhere as they jumped through the skipper. Cox jerked me to my feet, “Move, new kiddie—the pigs’ve found us.”
I turned to look for the girl, but she was gone. Cox shoved me forward. “You hear me? No time.”
Then I was skipping again, Cox at my heels, more boys chasing after, hooting. Instantly through space we ran: Abandoned comet drill site. Packed synth-steak meat house. Sliding living quarters. Busy commercial district, grey and dull. And a hundred skip stations between. The boys began to split, skipping off to different stations.
Pigs in pale suits popped up here and there, never able to crack us with their electric batons, though once, right before we lost them for good, one dove for Cox, catching his ankle. I kicked the fat man in his teeth, stomped the hand that had captured Cox, and shoved us both through the portal. When we finally lost them it was just Cox, Todd, and I.
Cox swung a tattooed arm over my shoulders and squeezed, “Kiddie, you did good. Respect, respect. Did good watching that planet blow for the first time, too. I’ve seen it five times now. First time was the hardest. But it hooks you, yeah? It’s a day later and you want to keep watchin’. Skip to new stations where the light ain’t passed through just yet. See it again, at a new angle.”