“So, anyway, one night he and I want to hit a club, but we’re underage, so we have to talk our way in. It’s not hard. Low-cut dress, walk like you own it, laugh if anyone tries to card you. We scam our way into the VIP area. I con us free drinks. Rhys and I make an amazing team, as far as lying goes. We can talk our way into anything. We know how to sell it.
“We think it’s a hoot that we’re getting to know all these folks who are as bad*** as we think we are. Dealers, petty crims. So we keep going back. Mostly I make it to school the next day. Sometimes I don’t.”
She closes her eyes, drags the back of her hand across her forehead. There’s a glimpse of another tattoo at her wrist.
“And one night there’s a raid, and we get picked up with the rest of them. My parents find out I’ve been hanging in the back of clubs with dusters and thugs, they freak the **** out, his do the same. Mine say that’s it, I’m never seeing Rhys again, I’m getting an A-plus on everything I touch for the rest of my life, or else.
“So I say, ‘Or else what?’ and instead of keeping my head down, I leave for school the next day and head for the club to see who made bail.”
She’s silent a long moment, biting her lip so hard it turns white.
“There’s a woman, Kulper, and she stabs another woman, Lee, because she says Lee’s the one that ratted, and some idiot part of me says I have to wade in there and try and stop it, and next thing, I’m in the way of the knife.”
She lifts the right side of her scrubs this time, revealing a puckered scar that sits just below her ribs, marring her brown skin. “Being stabbed doesn’t feel like you’d think. It actually feels like being punched. Isn’t that weird? Anyway, I run, and there’s blood everywhere, and I get out onto a main street somehow and next thing I remember I’m at the hospital. And of course I don’t have any real ID on me, so nobody is able to contact my family while I’m out. And by the time I wake up…”
She trails off, her voice dropping to a whisper.
“Something had happened…”
She hangs her head. Frozen in place. Staring at that tattoo on her wrist. I can finally make it out now. A name.
Samaira.
For a long time, she just stares at it. Her only movement is the slow rise and fall of her chest.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
When she speaks again, her voice is distant somehow. Like she’s describing things that happened to someone else.
“Anyway. Rhys tries to get in to see me. But my parents have him on the security list, so the hospital won’t let him in. And he thinks I’m dying, so he punches a guard, and it takes three of them to bring him down. They tranqued him in the end, I heard.”
Her lashes lift, and she finally looks at the camera again. “And that’s the end of my love story for the ages. Rhys got sent to military school, and I got packed off to snowy Kerenza to wrap up high school in a place too remote to have any kind of scene, and start my medical training after that, and that was the end of it.”
Her shoulders drop, voice softening. “And you know, somehow, once I broke orbit, I didn’t quite understand why his gravity had been so strong. I know stories are full of kids who rebel and hang on to their true selves when they’re unjustly sent away, but for me, it worked. It was the right thing to do. Right up until the moment the bombs started falling, I was loving my job. I loved the internship, all the work I was doing with Aunty Helena and the other doctors. I loved coming over to your place for dinner. I dug Kerenza, even the snow. I made a fresh start of it.”
Her voice is more uneven now, and she pauses for the final bite of the snack bar. The animation of the story is gone, and tiredness shows in her face. “So I guess you’re wondering why I’ve suddenly decided to unburden myself. Why the stories of Rhys Lindstrom the Terrible Influence? Well, funny you should ask.”
She’s shaking her head now, as if even while she’s whispering the words to the camera, she can’t quite believe them. “Today, my cuz, the boy himself walked straight into my med center. And it turns out he’s grown up into a stupidly handsome mother****ing planet invader who doesn’t seem to understand that attacking my planet and killing almost everyone I love in the world is something I might be annoyed about.”
Her hand rises again, tugging harder on her ponytail. “He can’t believe we found each other again in this crazy, mixed-up universe. He’s acting like it’s some kind of sign, this big reunion against the odds. He says he wrote me for a whole year before he gave up on a reply, and I suspect my parents or yours wisely decided to filter that mail out of my inbox. Truth is, I don’t know if I would have written back anyway.
“Kades, I have no idea what to do. Do I ignore him? Do I play him? Can I even speak to him, knowing what he’s done? That he grew up to think being any part of this is okay?”
She lets out a slow breath, lifting her hand to hover her finger over the power button, green eyes haunted, fixed on the small iris of the camera.
“Oh, Kades. I really, really wish you were here.”
COMMAND TRANSMISSION SENT 08/16/75
HYPATIA: Attention, unidentified vessels. Attention, unidentified vessels. This is Captain Syra Boll of the WUC science vessel Hypatia. Identify yourselves, over.
HYPATIA: I repeat, this is Captain Syra Boll of the WUC science vessel Hypatia. Identify yourself. Are you receiving me, over?
BETTY BOOP: Captain Boll, this is Hanna Donnelly. We read you.
HYPATIA: Hanna, thank God. Are you all right?
BETTY BOOP: I’m okay. Nik Malikov and Ella Malikova are here with me. Ella’s goldfish too.
BETTY BOOP: Say hello, Mr. Biggles…
BETTY BOOP: No, sorry, he’s not talking.
HYPATIA: The energy storms we were experiencing appear to have dissipated. The wormhole seems stable. I take it you were able to repair the paradox?
BETTY BOOP: Yeah. We got our version of Nik back across the wormhole just in time. Tell Kady and AIDAN thanks. We owe them both big-time.
HYPATIA: What happened to Jump Station Heimdall? We couldn’t get readings from this side of the breach.
BETTY BOOP: BeiTech’s second drone fleet was set to arrive just a few minutes after we jumped across the wormhole. The station is destroyed, Captain. We’ve got no way back to the Core systems from here. I don’t kn—
MAO: Hanna, what the hell are you doing?
BETTY BOOP: …Um, who is this yelling at me now, please?