DAY 12, 8:23 A.M.

Aboard Genesis 11

Roathy makes an appearance at breakfast. Everyone welcomes him back, wishes him well, but he ignores us. He still can’t eat solid foods, so he blends a handful of fruits from the buffet bar into a smoothie and sits down with Isadora. She leans in and kisses his cheek. Kaya sees it and glances my way. Isadora’s continued attachment to him is worrying. If Roathy’s counting me as an enemy, then that means Isadora’s counting me as one too. I glance their way a few more times and can’t help feeling jealous. I want to be looked at like that. I want to be wanted.

Defoe arrives for morning exercises. As everyone’s gathering to leave, I try to take the high road one more time. Isadora rejected my apology, but I still have hope for Roathy.

“No hard feelings,” I tell him. “I was just playing the game.”

A smile cuts across his face. Roathy looks at me the way he looks at everyone. Like he can see the strategy hidden beneath my apology. My whole body tightens as he leans in close and whispers in a voice only loud enough for my ears, “If you’re going to hit someone like that, you better make sure they don’t get back up.”

He raises an eyebrow and walks away. Bilal sees it all and backtracks to me.

“Everything okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say. “Roathy’s all talk.”

Bilal looks even more worried. “I don’t think he is, Emmett. You have to be careful.”

“Nothing I can do about it now,” I say. “Come on, we’re falling behind.”

Roathy’s return isn’t the only surprise. Our normal manipulations are replaced with a different kind of test. We’ve been pushed for focus and speed so far. Today Defoe wants to test our strength. A row of geometrical shapes runs along the back wall of the room. I spot cubes and spheres and pyramids and cylinders. They’re all the black-hole color of nyxia, and as the row sweeps from left to right, they get bigger and bigger in size.

“Longwei,” Defoe calls. “Step forward.”

He does. His tuft of hair looks messy today and his eyes are red. As with all of us, the simulator drained him of energy. We watch him set his hand on a sphere the size of an apple.

“On my command, transform it into a 3-D shape of equal size. Ready?”

Longwei nods.

“Cube.”

We watch the air ripple and a cube clatters to life. He moves on to the next one. Cylinder, cube, cube, sphere, pyramid, and so on. Longwei’s about three-fourths of the way through the line when he stops in front of a sphere the size of a beach ball. There are only six objects left.

He reaches out, closes his eyes, and collapses. He twists onto his back and starts to writhe like someone has him hooked up to a transformer. I move forward to help, but Defoe holds out a hand. “He has to get out of it himself,” he warns.

I curse under my breath. Even if I don’t like Longwei, it’s hard to watch his body get pulled around on marionette strings. It lasts for thirty seconds. When his eyes finally open, he gasps in thick lungfuls of air and lets out a terrified scream.

Longwei, the toughest and hardest one in the group, screams until a pair of attendants remove him from the room. Defoe calls Azima forward next.

She makes her cautious way through the objects. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her show any fear, any restraint. She looks like a child reaching into the unknown, a darkness where sharp-toothed danger waits. Her collapse comes halfway through the exercise. Invisible forces crush her, pin her, and wring the life from her. After about ten seconds, she comes gasping back to us. Azima doesn’t scream, but she can’t get back to her feet on her own. Bilal rushes forward and drapes her arm around his shoulder. Together they limp to the door.

What the hell is this? Kaya’s name is called next.

“No,” she says.

Defoe raises an eyebrow. “No?”

“No.”

“Kaya, if you do not participate, you cannot earn points.”

“That’s fine. I’m not comfortable with this drill. I will forfeit it.”

Dead silence shrouds the room. For the first time, Babel’s methods are being questioned. They only have the authority we give them, and right now Kaya’s putting her health over her points. I remember that the money we all so desperately need doesn’t matter to her. I know she wants to go to Eden. She wants to see another place and escape a life of sorrow on Earth. So she wants to win. But right now she’s saying no. Mad respect.

Defoe’s expression tightens. “Five hundred points docked. That penalty will double every time we participate in this activity and you do not.” His eyes dart to me. “Emmett.”

Kaya glances over. Her eyes are dark pools, and I see the sadness there that I saw during our conversation on the couch. She’s not trying to be rebellious; she’s just terrified. Whatever the first two saw behind Babel’s dark curtain, she doesn’t want to see. I don’t either, but competition is competition. Every point matters. I nod to her before stepping forward.

The longer I’ve had my ring, the less I’ve felt the nyxia’s temptation. It still feels alive and vibrant, but I’ve ordered it around long enough to not be frightened of it. The first sphere of nyxia I set my hand on has a stronger lure by far. I can feel the vibrating pulse of something inside the substance. Then I hear Defoe say, “Cube.”

Focused, I press the image forward and watch as the sphere sharpens into a cube. Each successive block has a stronger influence over me. I’m only six objects down the row when I start to feel the nyxia pressing back. Only through intense focus can I push past its defenses and transform the object into a pyramid. My breathing slows and my heart feels like it’s barely beating. I move past the one that Azima struggled with. Then the next one, and the next one, until I’ve passed Longwei’s mark.

I am stronger than you, Longwei.

Pride comes before the fall. The third to last object cuts me away from the world.

I am drowning in the deepest waters. I am being pulled too fast for my body. I feel my arms moving in and out of their sockets. The drag slows, then stops, and now something outside me pushes its way in. Claws explore the deepest places, touch the parts of me I will never see. In that impossible dark, I see a face…just before the lights return.

My lungs beg to be filled. I scream until they take me away.

Vandemeer sits with me in a comfort pod. He’s patient and kind. I try not to look out into space because the black nothing has a face now. Vandemeer notices and presses a button, and an image of looming snow-capped mountains replaces it. Everything with Babel is so damn point-and-click. It’s digging under my skin.

“Who are you people?”

“Just people,” Vandemeer answers.

“Nah. My friends are just people. PJ and the Most Excellent Brothers, they’re just people. Me? I’m just people. But you guys? No way. What do you want?”

“Money,” Vandemeer says. “It’s always about money, Emmett. Babel wants to be the richest and most powerful corporation in the world. I joined them for the same reason. They paid the best and had the most resources. Everyone likes to be on the winning team.”

And what about the losing team? I want to ask him. I want to know all the things they don’t want me to know. The secrets that were digging under my skin that first day, the fears my pops had about them, they’re all resurfacing. This flight must be costing them billions of dollars. So what do they want? The nyxia? Could it really be that simple? Spend a few billion to make a few hundred billion?

“What just happened to me?” I ask. “What was that?”

“Nyxia is an interactive element. You can manipulate it using your thoughts and intent. Every person is capable of manipulating the substance, but there are thresholds. We’ve discovered that if you try to manipulate too much, nyxia reverses the manipulation process. It’s as if the substance is trying to take your skin and blood and bones and make…something else.”

I stare at him, horrified. “So, what, we’re just being used as experiments?”

“Of course not.”

“Then what was that?”

“We’ve tested it extensively,” Vandemeer says. He gives me a strange look, then reaches for his watch. With a few clicks, he turns it off. “Off the record, we discovered the limitations during the first mission. One of our men tried to manipulate an entire mine. He was devoured.”

“Meaning what?”

“You felt it, inside of you?”

I shiver and nod. “Yeah.”

“Imagine that it’s not a safe, tested amount of nyxia. Imagine what you just went through multiplied by thousands.”

“Sounds horrible.”

“The video was difficult to watch. The victim did not die well,” Vandemeer confirms. He turns his watch back on. “My suggestion would be to take it easy. You pushed yourself pretty far today. It might be wise to participate in the exercise and withdraw when you’ve reached a safer point. That way you can get points, but not…”

“Feel like I’m being killed from the inside out?”

“Yes,” Vandemeer says. “That.”

“Great advice, Doc.”

Vandemeer frowns at that. It makes his face look even more slanted and sharp.

“Emmett, I really am here to care for you. Kaya’s and your health are my primary concern on this ship. Do you understand that?”

“I appreciate it, Vandy. But at the end of the day, you’re one of them. Aren’t you?”

Vandemeer leans back in his chair, glances at his watch, and nods.

“Yes, Emmett. I am a Babel-employed doctor, first and foremost.”

I stand up and brush by him as I pass. “Glad we cleared that up.”

Old habits die hard. I didn’t steal too much as a kid, but I was always looking. Always thinking about how a watch could slip from a wrist or how a pair of shoes might magically disappear from the school locker room. Spend enough time in the same old pair of jeans and everything seems worth the risk of getting caught.

But aboard Genesis 11 there are some things that are a little more valuable than a fresh pair of kicks. Since day one, I’ve found myself eyeing Vandemeer’s utility belt. He uses his data pad for access in the ship, but he also has a secondary identification card with an identical scanning pattern on it. He doesn’t ever use it; I guess it’s more of an emergency thing. Usually it’s tucked safely into the back of his belt, but now it’s in my pocket. A part of me just wanted to see if I had the chops to do it. But the real reason? I want to explore the rest of the ship. Babel clearly has secrets. Maybe even a handful that Vandemeer doesn’t know.

I know I need to dig, to find out what Babel’s got in their dark basement. Knowing what’s coming might be the only thing that gives me an edge on the rest of the competition. It’s my one way to pull back the veil on Babel. Answers are waiting. I just have to find them.