Personal Journal Entry—Eva Reyes
Location: Inside Themis, on unknown planet
My name is Eva Reyes. I’m ten years old. My dad wants me to keep a journal in case we don’t make it back to Earth. I…We’ve been inside Themis for three days. At least that’s what his phone said before the battery ran out. I’m not sure that’s true. The sun hasn’t gone down once. We don’t have any food or water. All we had was a quart of apple juice. That also ran out. I…I don’t know what else to say. Dr. Franklin? What should I say?
[Talk about yourself. Where you’re from. How you got here. And call me Rose.]
Ehhh…I was born in Puerto Rico. My parents, the people who raised me, they worked for the government. We lived in a nice house in San Juan. I went to English school at Saint John’s. I had good grades, but no one liked me there. The teachers thought I was trouble. I would have been expelled if my dad wasn’t on the board. I didn’t have a lot of friends. People thought I was crazy because I saw things, things that would happen sometimes. They made fun of me, called me names. My friends, the ones that didn’t call me names, they never said anything, but they worried about me. My parents too. They worried all the time.
[I’m sure your parents loved you very much.]
I know they did. But they thought I was sick. They believed me in the end, but they died because of me.
[Eva!]
They did!
[It wasn’t your fault!]
I didn’t do anything, but they still died! If I hadn’t been there, those mercenaries never would have come. I wasn’t even their daughter, really. I was made in a lab. My mom carried me in her belly, but I was made in a test tube. My biological parents turned out to be Kara Resnik and Vincent Couture, the EDC pilots who control Themis. That’s why I was made, so I could pilot Themis someday. What else? I was kidnapped. Kara rescued me, but then she also died. Earth was attacked by giant robots from another planet, and she died trying to save me.
[Eva, I…]
What?
[I don’t know. I just…There have been good things too, right? Can you talk about the good things?]
I…Yeah. I met my dad, Vincent. He’s cool.
{Did you hear that, General? I’m cool!}
He taught me how to pilot Themis. We went to Egypt. I saw the pyramids. Then we fought one of the alien robots. I thought we were gonna die, but you—
[Pretend I’m not here.]
…but Dr. Franklin—she’s really smart—destroyed the robot, and they all left.
[Thank you, Eva. That’s very kind.]
It’s true. Then…Then we had a party, but Themis powered up in the middle of it. Somehow, we ended up here, wherever this is. Themis is standing in the middle of a whole army of robots, just like her. We can’t see anything else, and we can’t get out.
OK, now what?
[That was…a little short. I’m sure you have a lot more to say.]
I feel sick. I’m hungry.
[We all are, Eva. Think about something else. What did you do in San Juan? What was your life like?]
I don’t know. I didn’t go out much. I played video games.
[You never went out?]
I played with Essie before she moved away. We used to look for rocks together. She had this huge collection. I was better at spotting the good ones than she was. She really liked rocks. Her parents took us to the Rio Camay Caves one summer. I didn’t think my parents would let me go, but they did. It was amazing. Essie was so excited. I’ve never seen anyone so happy. We stopped at the Arecibo Observatory on the way back. Her dad said that they used it to talk to aliens. We knew he was messing with us, but I thought about it for months after that. I imagined a girl like me on another world. Both of us staring through giant telescopes, talking to each other with big cardboard signs.
[That would have been a really slow conversation. Arecibo is a radio telescope, and radio waves would take a long time to get there. Your friend’s dad might have been joking, but they did send a message into space from there once.]
Did anyone answer?
[No. I don’t think they were looking for an answer. I think they were just showing off their new toy. I don’t know much about it. It was a long time ago. Before I was born.]
Did you ever dream of going to another planet when you were my age?
[I thought I was from another planet when I was your age. Ironic, I know. I…Have you ever felt like your parents weren’t really…Never mind. I felt misunderstood. I guess every kid feels that way at one point or another. I had this idea that I was from another planet and that, someday—some night, actually, somehow that had to happen at night—my “people” were going to come back for me, on a spaceship. Only there were also bad guys—probably from another planet, I don’t remember—who were hell-bent on preventing that. Of course, the bad guys were hiding under my bed, because…Well, because that’s where bad guys hide. I had to make sure that my entire body was on the bed all the time. If a single toe was sticking out, they were going to get me.]
Why wouldn’t the bad guys just get out from under the bed and grab you?
[Because my bed had special powers. A force field, maybe?]
Like the robot we fought on Earth?
[Exactly like that. Maybe my bed was made here.]
I wish I…
[Eva, are you OK?]
I’m dizzy. I’m hungry. I don’t wanna do this anymore.
[I know. I know. But try to keep your mind occupied.]
You said that everyone on Earth has blood that comes from aliens.
[It’s not blood, it’s DNA. It…It’s a code.]
A secret code?
[You could say that. But your cells know how to read it. It’s like a recipe that tells your body what it should grow into, how it should function.]
And everyone has some that comes from this planet?
[Well, we don’t know where we are. But if this is the planet where they built Themis, like we think it is, then yes.]
Do I have some too?
[You do. Your mom and dad have more than most people, and you might have more than either of them.]
Maybe the aliens wanted to bring me back here, like the ones you imagined when you were my age.
[Eva. The part of your DNA that isn’t from Earth is a tiny, tiny part of your genetic code. Imagine that you are that code, your whole body, then the alien part of it would be…smaller than the nail on your little finger. It’s not impossible that they brought us here because they wanted to meet you, but I seriously doubt it. If they wanted to meet any of us, they would have come when we arrived.]