Across the Universe

Page 2

  Before they filled his box with the blue-speckled liquid, Daddy held up his hand, his pinky finger sticking out. I wrapped my own pinky around his. I knew that with it, he was promising everything would be okay. And I almost believed him.

  I cried so hard when they filled his cryo chamber up I couldn’t see his face as it drowned in the liquid. Then they lowered the lid, slammed him in his mortuary, and a puff of white steam escaped through the cracks.

  “Can I see him?” I asked.

  Ed and Hassan looked at each other. Hassan shrugged. Ed jerked the lever of the little door open again and pulled out the clear shoebox coffin.

  And there was Daddy. The translucent liquid was frozen solid and, I knew, so was Daddy. I put my hand on the glass, wishing there was a way to feel his warmth through the ice, but snatched it away quickly. The glass was so cold it burned. Green lights blinked on the little electric box Hassan had fixed to the top of Daddy’s cryotube.

  He didn’t look like Daddy under the ice.

  “So,” Ed said, “are you going under, or are you leaving the party early?” He pushed Daddy’s shoebox coffin back into its little slot in the wall.

  When I looked up at Ed, my eyes were so watery that his face sort of melted, and he looked a bit like a Cyclops. “I . . . ”

  My eyes slid to the exit, past all the cryo equipment on the other side of the room. Beyond that door were my aunt and uncle, who I loved, who I could be happy living with. And beyond them was Jason. And Rebecca and Heather and Robyn and all my friends. And the mountains, the flowers, the sky. Earth. Beyond that door was Earth. And life.

  But my eyes drifted to the little doors on the wall. Beyond those doors were my momma and daddy.

  I cried as I undressed. The first boy who ever saw me naked was Jason, just that one time, the night I found out I would leave behind everything on Earth, and everything included him. I did not like the idea that the last boys to see me naked on this planet would be Ed and Hassan. I tried to cover myself with my arms and hands, but Ed and Hassan made me remove them so they could put the IVs in.

  And, oh god, it was worse than Mom made it look. Oh, God. Oh, God. It was cold and it was burning all at the same time. I could feel my muscles straining as that blue goo entered my system. My heart wanted to pound, beat upon my rib cage like a lover beating on the door, but the blue goo made it do the opposite and sloooow down so that instead of beatbeatbeatbeat , it went beat . . . beat . . .

  . . .

  beat

  . . .

  . . .

  . . .

  . . .

  beat

  . . .

  . . .

  Ed jerked my eyelids open. Plop! Cold, yellow liquid filled my eyes, sealing them like gum. Plop!

  I was blind now.

  One of them, maybe Hassan, tapped on my chin, and I opened my mouth obediently. Apparently, not wide enough—the tubes hit my teeth. I opened wider.

  And then the tubes were forced down my throat, hard. They did not feel as flexible as they had looked; they felt like a greased broomstick being crammed down my mouth. I gagged, and gagged again. I could taste bile and copper around the plastic of the tubes.

  “Swallow it!” Ed shouted in my ear. “Just relax!”

  Easy for him to say.

  A few moments after it was done, my stomach tingled. I could feel the wires inside me being pulled and tugged as Hassan plugged the little black box to the outside of my very own shoebox coffin.

  Shuffling noises. The hose.

  “Don’t know why anyone would sign up for this,” Hassan said.

  Silence.

  A metallic sound—the hose being opened up. Cold, cold liquid splashed on my thighs. I wanted to move my hands to cover myself there, but my body was sluggish.

  “I dunno,” Ed said. “Things ain’t exactly peachy here now. Nothing’s been right since the first recession, let alone the second. The Financial Resource Exchange was s’posed to bring more jobs, wasn’t it? Ain’t got nothing now other than this P. O. S. job, and it’ll be over soon as they’re all frozen. ”

  Another silence. The cryo liquid washed over my knees now, seeping cold into the places on my body that had been warm—the crease of my knees, under my arms, under my breasts.

  “Not worth giving your life away, not for what they’re offering. ”

  Ed snorted. “What they’re offering? They’re offering a lifetime’s salary, all in one check. ”

  “Ain’t worth nothing on a ship that won’t land for three hundred and one years. ”

  My heart stopped. Three hundred . . . and one? No—that’s wrong. It’s three hundred years even. Not three hundred and one.

  “That much money can sure help a family out. Might make the difference. ”

  “What difference?” Hassan asked.

  “Difference between surviving or not. It’s not like when we were kids. Don’t care what the prez says, that Financial Act ain’t gonna be able to fix this kinda debt. ”

  What are they yammering about? Who cares about national debt and jobs? Go back to that extra year!

  “A man has time to think about it anyway,” Ed continued. “Consider his options. Why’d they delay the launch again?”

  Cryo liquid splashed against my ears as my shoebox coffin filled; I lifted my head.

  Delay? What delay? I tried to speak around the tubes, but they filled my mouth, crowded my tongue, silenced my words.

  “I have no idea. Something about the fuel and feedback from the probes. But why are they making us keep all the freezing on schedule?”

  The cyro liquid was rising fast. I turned my head, so my right ear could catch their conversation.

  “Who cares?” Ed asked. “Not them—they’ll just sleep through it all. They say the ship’ll take three hundred years just to get to that other planet—what’s the difference in one more year?”

  I tried to sit up. My muscles were hard, slow, but I struggled. I tried to talk again, make a sound, any sound, but the cryo liquid was spilling over my face.

  “Just. Relax,” Ed said very loudly near my face.

  I shook my head. God, didn’t they know? A year made the world of difference! This was one more year I could be with Jason, one more year I could live! I signed up for three hundred years . . . not three hundred and one!

  Gentle hands—Hassan’s?—pushed me under the cryo liquid. I held my breath. I tried to rise up. I wanted my year! My last year—one more year!

  “Breathe in the liquid!” Ed’s voice sounded muffled, almost indecipherable under the cryo liquid. I tried to shake my head, but as my neck muscles tensed, my lungs rebelled, and the cold, cold cryo liquid rushed down my nose, past the tubes, and into my body.

  I felt the finality of the lid trapping me inside my Snow White coffin.

  As one of them pushed at my feet, sliding me into my morgue, I imagined that my Prince Charming was just beyond my little door, that he really could come and kiss me awake and that we could have a whole year more together.

  There was a click, click, grrr of gears, and I knew the flash freezing would start in mere moments, and then my life would be nothing but a puff of white steam leaking through the cracks of my morgue door.

  And I thought: At least I’ll sleep. I will forget, for three hundred and one years, everything else.

  And then I thought: That will be nice.

  And then whoosh! The flash-freeze filled the tiny chamber. I was in ice. I was ice.

  I am ice.

  But if I’m ice, how am I conscious? I was supposed to be asleep; I was supposed to forget about Jason and life and Earth for three hundred and one years. People have been cryo frozen before me, and none of them were conscious. If the mind is frozen, it cannot be awake or aware.

  I’ve read before of coma victims who were supposed to be knocked out with anesthesia during an operation, but really they were awake and felt everything.

  I hope—I pray—that??
?s not me. I can’t be awake for three hundred and one years. I’ll never survive that.

  Maybe I’m dreaming now. I’ve dreamt a lifetime in a thirty-minute nap. Maybe I’m still in that space between frozen and not, and this is all a dream. Maybe we haven’t left Earth yet. Maybe I’m still in that limbo year before the ship launches, and I’m stuck, trapped in a dream I can’t wake from.

  Maybe I’ve still got three hundred and one years stretching out before me.

  Maybe I’m not even asleep yet. Not all the way.

  Maybe, maybe, maybe.

  I only know one thing for certain.

  I want my year back.

  2

  ELDER

  THE DOOR IS LOCKED.

  “Now that,” I say to the empty room, “is interesting. ”

  See, there are hardly any locked doors on Godspeed. No need. Godspeed isn’t small—it was the largest ship ever built when it was launched two and a half centuries ago—but it’s not so huge that we don’t all feel the weight of the metal walls crushing us. Privacy is our most valued possession and no one—no one—would dare betray privacy.

  Which is why the locked door before me is so strange. Why lock a door no one would ever breach?

  Not that I should be so surprised. A locked door just about sums up Eldest.

  My mouth tightens. The worst part? I know that door is locked because of me. It has to be. This is the Keeper Level, and Eldest and I, as the current and future leaders of the ship, are the only ones allowed here.

  “Frex!” I shout, punching the door.

  Because I know—I know—on the other side of that door is my chance. When Eldest was called to the Shipper Level to inspect the engine, he rushed to his chamber for a box, went all the way to the hatch, then turned around and took the box back to his room. And locked the door before he left. Clearly, whatever is in that box is important and has something to do with the ship, something that I, as leader-in-training, should know about.

  It’s just one more thing Eldest is keeping from me. Because stars forbid he’d actually train me instead of giving me more mindless lessons and reports.

  If I had that box, I’d prove to him I could . . . what? I don’t actually know what’s in there. But I do know that whatever it is has been making him spend a lot more time on the Shipper Level. There’s a serious problem going on, something that’s kept Eldest more preoccupied than I’ve ever seen him before.

  And if they would just give me a frexing chance, maybe I could help.

  I kick the door, then turn and fall against it. Three years ago, when it was time for me to start training, I didn’t care for shite about whether or not Eldest trained me as he should. I was just glad to be off the Feeder Level. Even though my name is Elder, I’m the youngest person on the ship, and I’ve always known that I, as the one born in the off years, would be the Eldest of the generation born after me. I was never comfortable living with the Feeders and their obsession with farming. Moving in with Eldest felt like a relief.

  But I’m sixteen now, and I’m tired of doing nothing but lessons. It’s time for me to be a real leader, whether Eldest likes it or not.

  Defeated by a locked door. No wonder Eldest doesn’t bother to train me.

  I bang my head against the wall and bump it against a piece of raised square metal. The biometric scanner. I’d always assumed it operated the lights to the Great Room. Most of the biometric scanners are there to interface with the ship—to turn on lights, start electronics, or open doors.