Half Way Home (23 page)

“So it woke us up to use us?” Mindy asked.

“There was never a long-term solution,” Kelvin said. “The farms. They were never gonna get started.”

“Fucking Colony,” Jorge spat.

“Fucking Colony,” Karl agreed.

“We have to stop it,” I said, looking out at the trees between us and the base.

“Are you crazy?” Jorge asked. “How many more people have to die over this bullshit?”

“Think about what this will mean,” I said. “Not just for us, but for the rest of the galaxy. Our lives are nothing. We are specks compared to this.”

The last of the light wilted away outside, the sun disappearing with the suddenness only mountains provide. A shadow fell, like something the day forgot. In the barest of glows, I watched my friends consider what I’d said, knowing they would be chewing most strenuously on the last—on my recommendation for action. Kelvin gave me the barest of nods, his jaw flexing as he clenched and unclenched his teeth. Tarsi reached an arm around me and squeezed. The rest looked like they were having problems imagining what to do next.

I knew precisely how they felt.

That night, we all slept as best as we could in the mouth of the mine, adjusting to make room for Mica and Vincent after they woke up and came looking for us. I rested my head on Tarsi and kept a hand on Kelvin, needing—as always—to know they were both there. What I really needed, I think, was someone touching me back, reminding me that I was a thing.

That I
existed
.

That I wasn’t the speck I feared, far less important than six gold vials full of information.

For most of the night, I stayed awake and dwelled on the sounds of my world: the occasional whistle of a bombfruit before it thudded in the distant moss, the twitter of night bugs as they sang their nocturnal tunes, the snoring and grunts of my luckier companions as they managed to win sleep.

While I listened, I turned my theory over and over in my mind, inspecting it from all angles. I put myself in the AI’s place, watching one discovery trigger an abort sequence, then seeing the potential in a subsequent find and fighting to undo the nasty process. There was still a lot I didn’t know or understand, but the theory fit too many of the puzzle pieces together to be completely wrong.

That left the next troublesome question: What to do about it?

In an angered state, I had convinced most of my companions that we should risk ourselves to prevent the rocket from launching. But how could we stop that from happening? I felt certain we could turn the rest of the colony against the AI if they knew what was going on—when they found out there had never been a long-term plan for our survival. For all I knew, the AI planned on nuking the base as soon as the rocket went off. The patents wouldn’t be much good if we established this world and became their primary competitors—or
our
ancestors lived to fight off
their
ancestors.

But how could we get a message to the rest of the colonists without the transmission being intercepted by brainwashed enforcers or the AI itself? Do we walk back to base and shout it over the fence? What would stop Colony from nuking the base and going with a far riskier satellite transmission?

I hatched many a wild plan that night. I thought about taking the remaining mine digger, boring a hole right underneath the rocket and leaving it to idle, then hoping one of those metal critters would come through and destroy the blasted thing. But that would only adjust timetables rather than solve the source of the problem. And we’d probably get eaten on the way there.

The enforcers posed a major hurdle. With their daily target practice, they would be more formidable. And they probably couldn’t be trusted with the information we had. Loyalty to Colony—for Hickson especially—trumped all else.

I could think of so many vulnerabilities. The Colony simply wasn’t designed to defend against sentient beings, especially from within. Even so, I couldn’t see how to exploit them. It would take a concerted surprise attack from dozens of colonists at once. There would have to be a signal of some sort. We didn’t have that many people, and we were on the wrong side of the fence.

Around and around I went, dreaming up ways to send a code in to the workers, figuring out some sort of defense against the guns, but it seemed impossible. Every solution had a hole in it or just caused two more problems. I spent the night tossing and turning, my brain racing, a nervous energy coursing through me that probably would’ve tortured me with bad dreams had I been able to sleep.

When dawn came, it finally gave me an excuse to get up and relieve my anxiety with real motion. I strolled out across the dried mud that delimitated the mine complex. Some of the deep tracks from Oliver’s tractor were puddled with rain, but the ground had absorbed the rest. I tried the door to the module again, but it was locked.

I picked up a rock and considered bashing my way into the digger, but then had images of gashing myself on the glass and having to wake everyone else up and explain the stupid injury. I left the break-in for one of the more “manly” men to perform later in the day. At least, if
they
cut themselves, they’d be able to brag about it to the girls.

As I came down from the tractor, I saw someone walking out from the mine. It was Kelvin. He wore a frown as he approached, his usual morning cheerfulness conspicuously absent.

“You okay?” I asked him.

He crossed the last dozen paces without a word, then wrapped me in a massive embrace.

“I’m sorry about Oliver,” he whispered.

I squeezed him back, wishing I could hold him longer—or be held by him longer—but feared my body would give me away. I wasn’t sure how to admit that I’d only thought of Oliver’s death a few times during the night. Much larger problems had occupied my mind, so I lied and told him I was feeling sorry as well.

“I know you guys were close,” he said.

“To tell you the truth, I felt betrayed by him.”

“I know, but it doesn’t make it easier.”

Yeah
, I wanted to say.
It does
.

We both gazed out toward the trees for a moment, then Kelvin squeezed my shoulder. “I have to tell you the truth about something,” he said.

“Sure. What is it?”

“It’s hard to see you guys together. You and Tarsi. I find myself, well, I hate the things it makes me think, you know? I don’t know if there’s anything you can maybe tell me, something psychological, that might help.”

I ran my hand up through my hair, which felt nasty and clumped together. I turned away from Kelvin and looked back up the slope of the mountains.

Kelvin turned around as well. He reached down and picked up a rock, then studied it, rolling it around between his fingers.

“I think I just need to find someone for myself,” he said. “You know, to make it feel more comfortable for us to be around each other. It’s just, there’s not many available girls in our group. I know Karl and Mindy are together, and I don’t know what the fuck Leila sees in Jorge, but it’s enough. Hell, I think it’s creepy and a tad fast, but I can see Mica and Vincent developing into something after last night.”

“It
is
quick,” I said.

“Yeah, but time’s short, right?” He threw the small rock sidearm. We watched it bounce through the dirt before catching in one of the tracks with a small splash.

“That leaves me and Samson to snuggle up together, right? How gross would that be?” He laughed.

I tried to laugh as well, but I could feel my face burning.

“Pretty gross,” I said. And I meant it, but not for the same reason he did. I reached out and grabbed his arm. “Kelvin, look, I didn’t mean to start something with her, okay? I know we had that talk before, and I want you to know I never made a move, it’s just—”

“Stop.”

“No, I want you to hear this. She’s felt like a sister to me from day one. I mean, we were born side by side, you know? Like adjoining wombs. Besides, I try and imagine having children with her, and it just doesn’t compute. Raising a little family? I don’t think I was built for that.”

“You’ll be a great dad,” Kelvin said.

I cupped my hands over my face and groaned.

“I’m sorry I keep bringing this shit up, man.” He squeezed my shoulder and I felt myself lean into him, resting my head against his arm and trusting him to hold me up.

“Things were so much easier when the three of us were just friends,” I said. “I’d almost rather you and Tarsi be together and let me just love her as a sister and you as—”

“A brother?”

“Yeah. A brother.”

“Well, I think that’s how
she
loves me,” Kelvin said. “As a big brother, so it doesn’t much matter.”

“It’s crazy that we even think about this stuff, you know? I mean, think about how the universe is going to change when that rocket goes up. And we have a rough life ahead of us as colony outcasts. Yet here we are complaining about who’s dating who.”

“Speaking of the rocket,” Kelvin said, “I’ve got a great idea on how to stop it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We break in that digger, bore it under the base—”

“And leave it idling,” I said. “Then we wait for a metal vinnie to eat the rocket.”

I watched Kelvin deflate, his shoulders and cheeks drooping.

“Colony still has the nukes,” I said. “And there’s no stopping it from forcing someone to build another one or just sending off a satellite message. No, what we need is a concerted attack from all the colonists with the enforcers completely unaware. And there’s no way to pull that off. Not without someone getting shot or the AI doing something drastic.”

He whistled in awe of the task before us, or at least I thought he had. I turned to see his mouth was closed, the noise coming from elsewhere. I looked back to the trees, but the bombfruit had already landed in the distance.

Kelvin sighed. “I say we just move on. Let’s go live a simple life someplace. These things we’re worrying about will happen hundreds of years from now, long after we’re dead and gone. In the meantime, we can build a little village up in the trees—”

“So you and Samson can raise a family?” I asked.

He punched me playfully, but it didn’t make us laugh the way Tarsi’s slaps could.

Another bombfruit fell in the distance, an unusual pairing when so many hours could go by without a single drop. I spotted it before it hit and buried itself in the mud.

“Kelvin.”

“Yeah?”

“We need to wake the others.”

“Now? Why?”

I squeezed his arm. “I know how to stop Colony,” I said.

Tarsi, Kelvin, Leila, and I stood at the main gate, waiting to be noticed. After the four-day hike around the trees and back to base, it took absolutely no effort on our parts to appear physically defeated, ready to throw ourselves on the mercy of the colony. Several times during our hike, I had come uncomfortably close to admitting just such a defeat. I felt broken, nearly to the point of acquiescence. We were all half-starved, barely pausing to eat raw bombfruit, and our bodies were so tender that the soft mosses were causing our feet to split open. We didn’t even have the energy to shout for attention once we arrived. We just waited for someone on the rocket scaffolding to spot us and send the enforcers our way.

They eventually came, just as expected, the glimmer of their guns bouncing up and down on their own emaciated hips. It had been just over a week, but I hardly recognized Hickson with his stubbly beard and gaunt cheeks. The humming in the fence fell silent, then the electric lock clicked loudly, allowing the group on the inside to pull the gates inward.

They came for us with their guns drawn, even though our hands were up. Despite our poor condition, we looked better off than they did. Especially Kelvin, whose mighty bulk had been tamed by malnutrition but not destroyed. He almost looked normal, which made him a giant among the rest of us. It seemed a diet on but one type of fruit is not a proper diet at all.

I nodded to the group of enforcers as they approached. “Hickson,” I said, greeting him in particular. He sneered in response and trained his golden gun at my stomach while the other enforcers looped rope around our wrists. I had a moment of panic that I had been wrong about them, that they would just take us to the edge of the berm’s ditch and pull their triggers—thereby ending our plans—but they didn’t.

Hickson turned his back once we were all secure and walked off toward the command module. The small group of enforcers shoved us through the gates, pointing toward our new home, which was our
old
home.

“Head to the vats,” one of them said.

Our place of birth had been transformed into a penitentiary. The tubes in which we had once lived as a mere collection of cells had become—a collection of cells. A few were already occupied, most likely by those who had attempted to flee over the past week. I saw Julie in one of the first vats, right by the door. She glanced up at us as we filed by, her eyes dim and devoid of life. She looked like an animal, her hair down over her face, her clothes torn and hanging in scraps. There were scratches up and down both her arms.

The enforcers pushed us forward, and in a bizarre twist of fate, I found myself shoved into Tarsi’s old vat and she into mine. Kelvin jockeyed for position with Leila to get locked up on the other side of me. Steel bars were dropped in place outside the thick, transparent doors, preventing them from sliding open.

The abuse and accusations we’d expected and feared from the enforcers never came. Frankly, I don’t know that they could summon the energy. The most they physically could do to us was raise their heavy guns and squeeze the triggers, plenty enough for them to maintain control.

We sat down in our respective vats, our legs weary from the days of hiking, our hands thankfully freed from the ropes.

“Rocket looked surprisingly close to finished,” Kelvin said once we were alone.

“Best guess?” I asked, rubbing my wrists.

He shrugged, then leaned his head back against the vat and closed his eyes. “The payload was in place. I’m guessing propellant is still the holdup. Even if production was halved, I’d guess another week. Maybe less.”