DAY 10, 11:38 A.M.
Aboard Genesis 11
When Sabbath finally comes, I sleep like the dead.
Waking up is just a reminder that my muscles are sore and my brain is tired. The competition and the adrenaline push the pain out of sight, out of mind. My first deep sleep brings all the bumps and bruises back to the surface. When I limp into our shared living room, I find Kaya sitting cross-legged on the couch. She closes her book, picks up her nyxian mask from the table, and laughs her way into it.
She says, “You look like a grandpa.”
“I feel like a grandpa.” I take the seat next to her. “Big plans for your day off?”
She pats the book in her lap. “Alice and I are getting into trouble.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Alice?”
She holds up the cover. A girl with blond hair and a blue dress looks like she’s getting into all kinds of I’m-a-girl-with-blond-hair-in-a-blue-dress trouble. A handful of absurd characters are chasing her into it too.
“I’d read along with you, but it looks like it’s in Japanese.”
Kaya’s eyes light up. “Do you really want to read it?”
I glance at the shelves. “Is there an English version?”
“Sure,” Kaya says. “But who needs that when you have me? Get comfortable.”
When I’ve got my feet kicked up, Kaya begins. She goes back to the beginning, even though I can see a dog-eared page marking her progress halfway through the book. As she reads, she pauses for suspense and changes her voice for different characters. Only person who ever read to me like this was Moms. Something about that thought makes all this feel like more than an alliance. It has the faintest taste of family to it.
And I was right about Alice. Girl’s getting into all kinds of trouble.
“Wait,” I say, interrupting. “She just started shrinking?”
“Yes,” Kaya says, tracing the line with a finger. “Drinking from the bottle made her really small.”
I frown. “Not very realistic.”
“You didn’t complain about the rabbit with the pocket watch.”
“Because he sounds kind of cool.”
Kaya glares at me. “Do you want me to keep reading or not?”
I laugh. “Yeah, yeah.”
Before she can start again, our door hisses open. Defoe strides into the room, takes one look at us, and nods at me. “Come with me, Emmett.”
He gives the command like a king would. I groan to my feet and wink back at Kaya.
“Thanks for reading. Promise you won’t read on without me?”
Her whole face unlocks. “Yeah, I promise.”
Defoe directs me out of the room. I’m guessing whichever rabbit hole he’s leading me down won’t come with magical elixirs. We walk through hallways and it’s an effort to keep up with his long, purposeful strides. I find myself side-eyeing our mysterious director of operations. Nothing shakes the guy. He always seems in control and he always sounds confident. Only his hand stands out as a weakness. Up close, I can see just how shriveled it is. Since day one, he hasn’t bothered to hide it. The bones look malformed and the skin looks permanently burned.
“What happened to your hand?” I ask. It’s none of my business, but it’s about time we tested him back. I want to know what kind of skeletons he has in his closet.
He holds the hand up, considering it.
“I sustained the injury in an encounter with an Adamite.”
My eyes widen. “Really? You’ve seen them?”
“So have you, Emmett.” He glances over. “On the videocast.”
“But you’ve seen them in person. You actually fought one?”
“It wasn’t meant to be a fight. It was supposed to be a peaceful discussion.”
“And it did that to you?”
“Yes, but are you familiar with the phrase ‘you should see the other guy’?”
I nod. “Of course.”
“Well, you should see the other guy,” Defoe says, throwing me that dangerous grin of his. I think back to the video of the Adamites. A squad of high-tech marines got destroyed by just a handful of them. Still, I find myself believing Defoe. He has an undefinable danger to him. Babel needs us because they can’t overcome the Adamite forces and defenses to mine the nyxia they want, but for all we know, there are millions of Adamites on Eden. It’s possible that an individual fight could favor a human, especially someone like him.
“You don’t cover it up or anything,” I point out.
“No,” he says quietly. “It’s a reminder.”
“Of what?”
“I don’t have to be perfect. I just have to be better than the other guy.”
He leads us up a spiraling staircase. It’s strange to walk and talk together like normal people would. I kind of admire the guy. He’s a golden standard in a new age. But the deeper, instinctual feeling is fear. Underneath all his shine, I know Defoe is power and chaos.
“You don’t wear a mask.”
He glances over. “Not my style.”
“But how does everyone understand you? Without the mask?”
He raises an eyebrow, like a magician weighing whether or not he wants to let me in on the trick. After a few more paces, he lifts his good hand and taps his cheek twice. “I have a permanent translation insert in this molar. Our most advanced tech. Perks of being the boss.”
So there’s even more to Babel than what we’ve seen so far. Makes me wonder what’s still in store for us.
“Am I in trouble?” I ask. “Feels like I’m being taken to the principal’s office.”
“Not exactly. We just have to monitor the health of our contestants. With only ten of you on board Genesis 11, it’s vital to keep you alive and well.”
“My health? But I feel fine.”
“How did you feel when you hurt Roathy?”
I take my time answering. “I didn’t mean to hurt him, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“You didn’t?”
“Not for real. I just wanted to win.”
“Winning is important,” Defoe says. “I understand. This is just protocol, Emmett.”
We continue in silence. The hallway narrows into an almost normal-sized door. It opens up into one of the ship’s comfort pods. The room is filled with plush cushions and calming colors on the walls. Except now the view is of space. I walk over and squint out. It reminds me of black holes.
“Take a seat, Emmett. Dr. Vandemeer will be in shortly.”
Defoe helps himself to an espresso. The machine coughs black liquid into a ceramic cup. He swirls sugar in and stirs. Even the coffee makes me think of black holes.
“My attendant’s name is Vandemeer too,” I say.
“Same person.”
“But he’s not a doctor.”
“Of course he is,” Defoe says, turning.
The door gasps open and Vandemeer enters. He offers a friendly smile but looks completely transformed. He’s wearing glasses now and a little white coat over his uniform. Like Defoe, he’s got a data pad in hand. “Hello, Mr. Atwater.”
Defoe salutes us with his coffee and exits.
“So you’re a doctor?”
“Of a sort,” Vandemeer replies. He takes a seat opposite me. His face is full of odd angles, and he keeps his receding hair cut short. It’s the first time I’ve seen him this way. Most days he’s gliding alongside me, appearing one moment only to disappear the next. After a few clicks on his data pad, he looks up at me. “So, you were involved in an incident the other day.”
I nod. “It was an accident.”
“Certainly,” Vandemeer agrees. “And how did it make you feel?”
Oh. He’s one of those doctors. I let air out through my nostrils as I look away, out into space. It’s so full of unknown that it looks empty. I don’t want to hash out my feelings with a psychiatrist. He went from friendly insider to brain thief in about two minutes. When I don’t respond, Vandemeer tries again.
“Emmett, every employee fulfills multiple roles on this ship. My roles both happen to deal with comfort. I act as your attendant during part of the day and a doctor during the rest of it. I’m assigned to you, but I can’t help you if you’re unwilling to speak to me.”
“I don’t need your help, all right?”
“All right. Certainly. Can I show you something?”
I glance back at him. With a sigh I say, “Sure.”
He flips the data pad around. His finger taps the center of the screen, and I watch the footage from earlier in the week. I sidestep Roathy’s blow and crush him with my left hook. He topples, and the camera watches as I back away. My face is completely, utterly, terrifyingly blank. “Did you notice what we noticed?” Vandemeer asks.
I nod once.
“So I’ll ask you again. How did it make you feel?”
“Horrible,” I say. “I didn’t mean to hurt him. I felt bad about it.”
“And yet it didn’t show on your face. You masked that emotion.”
“I didn’t mean to. I was just…I don’t know. Everything here is so simulated.”
Vandemeer nods knowingly. “Exactly, Emmett. One of our biggest concerns with the training design is the simulated aspect of it. We were worried that it would form a distance between the participants and their actions.”
“Okay,” I say. Where’s he taking me? I hate feeling like I’m being led somewhere, like I’m a dog with a pretty collar. “If you already knew it would happen, why’s it a big deal?”
Vandemeer turns the data pad back around. He swipes the screen and continues looking at me. “Because we projected these symptoms for day one hundred and twelve.”
I stare at him. “So, what, you’re worried I’m some cold-blooded murderer or something?”
Vandemeer shakes his head lightly. “Of course not. Are you worried that you are?”
I roll my eyes. I hate the whole let’s-turn-your-question-into-my-question thing. I glance back out to space and remember the recurring dreams. Destroy or be destroyed. I’m not a murderer, but I do want to win. More than I’ve ever wanted anything.
After ten days, Babel’s already worried they brought damaged goods with them. I try to imagine how they think of me. A poor kid from Detroit. If they did their homework, they know I’m not in any real gangs. I hang out with the Most Excellent Brothers, but they’re harmless by Detroit standards. Still, to the higher-ups and the Richie Riches I bet I look like your everyday street thug.
“Look,” I say. “When I get pushed, I push back. That’s how I was raised.”
“And that explains your lack of reaction?” Vandemeer asks.
“I guess I didn’t feel like I was wrong, because it was self-defense. You saw how he came at me.”
“I did; you’re right. So you felt that you were defending yourself?”
“Yes.”
“And that completely removed your empathy for him?”
“Not completely. I felt bad on the inside. But it doesn’t show on my face because my instinct is to push back, to protect myself. I guess I wasn’t sure I was safe yet.”
Vandemeer frowns. “But he was down on the ground at that point, Emmett.”
I laugh, knowing I have him now. “You ever been in a fight?”
“No, have you?”
“A few times,” I say. “Seen a bunch too.”
Vandemeer spreads both hands. “And?”
“Well, the first guy on the ground isn’t always the one who loses the fight, Doc.”
“I see. So this was all…instinct?”
“Right. I was defending myself, and that doesn’t stop when the guy hits the ground. You let up then and you deserve to get hurt. That’s all it was. Case closed.” He’s not quite convinced, so I decide to throw in a little extra. “I keep having this dream.” I try to look distant, like I don’t want to share it. “I don’t know what it means.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.
I give him a weighty glance. “I don’t know.”
“Come on, Emmett. It might help make things easier.”
I nod. Now sharing the dream was his idea. People love it when something’s their idea.
“I kept getting sucked out into space,” I say. “There were these black holes that looked like the other kids. I just kept getting pulled into them, like they were destroying me.”
Vandemeer makes a note on his data pad. He’s typing rapidly and nodding now, like it all makes sense. He keeps asking me questions; I keep feeding him answers. We dance our way to the conclusion that my life on the streets made me defensive, but that I shouldn’t put a wall up between myself and my emotions. I leave out the part in my dreams where I’m the black hole, where I’m the destroyer. I am what Babel wants to believe I am. It’s better that way.