DAY 18, 11:23 A.M.

Aboard Genesis 11

Roathy’s presence has haunted my week. He lurks and lingers, but every time I look over, he just walks away. Of all the competitors, we’re probably the most alike. I see so much of myself in him, but one wrong turn’s made him an enemy. I know he’ll try to take revenge, but I have no idea what revenge means for a kid like him. If I were in his shoes, anyone who kept me from getting crucial points would have a target on their back. I get this gnawing feeling that when he does take revenge, nothing about it will be fair. The not knowing is the worst.

Babel’s been running us through a series of mining tutorials. When we accidentally blew Longwei up in a simulation, the repetition started to make sense. We’re not just learning how to use expensive equipment. We’re learning how to stay alive as we do the job we’ve been hired to do.

Unfortunately, our team has gone through more growing pains than Kaya’s. Girl’s way smarter than the rest of us and we’ve been losing points each day. Longwei blames us, but he has no idea how to be a part of a team. I don’t get too mad because I know we’ll be racing through digital forests next week. In that competition, Kaya’s strategies work for me. The hit-or-miss points make the individual competitions more important. Our continued battles in the pit are opportunities I have to cash out on.

As we enter the jungle gym of an arena, I glance over at the scoreboard:

I’ve slid a little. Kaya’s been making her way back up the scoreboard too. Really, if Isadora and Roathy weren’t so low, I’d be feeling the pressure. But the scoreboard goes both ways. If I push myself, there’s no reason it can’t be my name in first place. The avatar screen loads, and I’m feeling juiced. Deep down, I’ve been looking for a fight.

Azima and Longwei go first. Azima plucks up her spear and Longwei sticks to his sword. He’s improving, but that doesn’t matter against Azima. She’s a snake striking from high grass. For the first time, I notice how good her footwork is. She slides left and right, pushes off for her strikes, and shuffles away from each of his swings. And her shoulders too. She dips to change the angle of her attack or twists to bring the spear in from the opposite side. It’s musical, almost. Longwei fights for all of twenty seconds before his avatar drops.

Next up are Roathy and Isadora. Defoe looks curious to see how the lovebirds will handle being pitted against each other. But when he gives the signal, Isadora drops both her daggers. Roathy steps forward and cuts off her imaginary head. They rejoin us on the sidelines and put their weapons away. So much for the dramatic lovers’ duel.

A digital me flickers to life on the screen. Jaime fills up the other half. I can’t help but smile. Jaime’s not all bad, but our first standoff still looms between us. Deep down, I’ve been waiting for this fight as long as he has. He walks over and picks up the short swords Roathy used. I slip into my knuckled gloves and stand across from him.

He looks angry. Good. Anger burns both ways.

Defoe gives the signal and we circle.

Unlike Roathy, Jaime’s not a lasher. I parry his first testing blow and jab at his rib cage. He swipes my strike away and we turn. My uncle taught me to fight patiently. Let people make mistakes and then press forward. Jaime’s almost too cautious to make any. He tests me with another strike, I test him back, and then he finally overextends on a lunge.

I crunch down my off hand on his wrist, sidestep his riposte, and rake claws across his shoulder. He staggers back and I press now. Strike, circle, strike.

“You’ve never been in a fight,” I grunt. “You’ve never had to fight.”

And I know it’s true. The way his body moves and the way his eyes stay wide instead of going tight. This guy’s never fought anyone. He loses grip of one of his swords, and my killing blow is an uppercut on his chin. Babel’s fixed my weapon so that my real hand can’t hit his real face, but that doesn’t stop Jaime from falling down onto the mat. He looks furious, but by the time he can stand back up, his avatar is dead and I’m the winner.

“You don’t know anything,” he says, pushing me hard in the back.

I go from dying embers to fireworks in two seconds. The speed of my turn shocks him. Nyxia snaps excitedly in my jacket pocket like it’s feeding off my anger. I think about splitting open that bottom lip, but I smile instead. This is a long-term game I’m playing.

“I know I’m going to win again tomorrow. Every time we stand across from each other in here, I’m going to win again, and again, and again. Count on it.”

Defoe arrives to break up a fight that isn’t going to happen. I take note. He doesn’t usually sweep in to break up competitive banter. He always arrives after the damage is done, like he enjoys seeing how the tasks test and stretch us. But with Jaime he comes in before I can do anything? I file it away under S for Suspicious.

I set my weapons down and watch the last two fights with the others. Kaya outfoxes Katsu, and Bilal lands a great killing blow on Jazzy. We leave the weapons behind and move on to lunch.

Eighteen days aboard Genesis 11 and our imaginary deaths aren’t bothering us anymore. In fact, we’re all joking about it as we eat chicken sandwiches. Vandemeer was right. It feels unreal. The consequences don’t compute because we know that tomorrow we’ll fight again, that the sword wounds and the throwing stars aren’t going to really hurt us. I wonder if we’ll be able to flip the switch when it comes to real combat or real mining or real anything. Babel’s plan is to make us numb. Execute the task without emotion. Complete the mission.

Babel’s endgame is a mystery, but there are no secrets when it comes to the scoreboard. I’m in third place and I need to stay there. We finish up lunch and head down to the Rabbit Room. As expected, the lights are dimmed and the white wires are waiting to whisk us away to the virtual reality of virtual Eden. Before we can discuss strategies, Longwei crosses the room and plugs in. His body’s floating before the rest of us can follow.

“Real nice,” I mutter. “The captain who forgets his teammates.”

“Dude’s a little intense,” Katsu says. “We should offer him a massage.”

Jazzy joins us. “He doing it all by himself, then?”

“Maybe,” I say, “but I’d at least like credit for whatever His Magnificence pulls off.”

“Me too.”

The voice is so close that my body goes rigid. Roathy lopes past like a jackal, his eyes never leaving mine, his laugh echoing in my ears. He knows, for just a second, that I forgot he was there. And I know that he could have transformed his nyxia into a knife and tucked it neatly into my back.

I ignore his crooked grin and take my place beneath the wires. One by one, my senses leave here for there. Our drill’s in the ground and Longwei’s the only one not standing with us. A massive hand slaps against my clear faceplate, and I almost fall trying to scramble away from it. Katsu laughs through the comm and holds up the severed lizard hand from the first day.

“You should have seen your face,” he says.

Scowling, I turn back to the drill. “Longwei, are you in there?”

It’s different today. For the last few simulations we’ve been thrust right into tutorial sessions—all kinds of new lessons and tools—but today looks like we’re picking up right after day one’s progress. Inside the pit, we hear the hydraulics of the drill. There’s no answer from Longwei and no sign of the monsters.

“Longwei,” I say, louder, “unless you plan on coming in second every time, we’d love to know what’s going on so we can actually help.”

“I’m coming back up,” he says. “The drill has to retract to start the next step.”

A glitch opens up to our right and Lieutenant Light ghosts back onto the set. Then the hole in the world closes, he smiles, and it’s like nothing ever happened. He gestures at the drill.

“Now that you have your drill in place, it’s time for one team to start shearing and for the other team to set up your secondary tunnel. Follow me.”

We trail him back to the readouts on the side of the truck. He points at the results of Longwei’s efforts. The drill is a white line diving down into a black sea of nyxia. It’s a little crooked here and there, but it looks fine otherwise.

“Not bad, but your driver has to be stronger on the grips as he goes down. The straighter the tunnel, the easier your job is. That bottom area? That’s where all the nyxia will collect now. Everything your jackjack shears off the vertwalls funnels down to the bottom. The secondary tunnel will allow you to extract the nyxia as the jackjack expands the initial dig site.”

He holds and presses a blue button. I count off three seconds before there’s movement on the display screen. A blue dot appears along the surface fifty meters away from our original entry point. As we watch, a matching line cuts diagonally into the ground until it connects at the lowest point of our tunnel. The marine steps away.

“Now all you have to do is press the blue button again. The minirover will initiate, and you’ll have your secondary tunnel under way. Your task today is to begin mining the main shaft, set up your conveyor belt, and extract one pound of nyxia. Oh, and one other thing.” He sets a massive hand on the gun in his holster. “As you’ve noticed, sometimes drilling attracts the tars. You may have also noticed they hit like hammers. Just make sure you activate the defense system on the console whenever you have approaching bogeys. Good luck, soldiers.”

He walks off into the mists again. Before we can discuss anything, Roathy jabs the blue button. Three seconds later, metal grinds at the back of the truck. We round the corner and almost get decapitated by an extension ramp. It lowers onto the ground, and a seriously souped-up go-kart wheels off on its own. A swirl of dust follows it for fifty yards, and we watch as another miniature drill unloads itself from the vehicle’s metallic back.

“Katsu,” I say. “You and Jazzy take care of the secondary tunnel.”

Katsu nods. The two of them jog off in that direction, and I realize I can actually order people to do things. Glancing over, I also realize I’ve left myself alone with Roathy. His expression is amused, like he’s daring me to give him an order. He smirks before saying, “Don’t worry. I’ll go with them.”

He takes off and I’m left alone. I return my attention to the digital layout. I can see everything. Swirling red pockets underneath the surface, the main drill fully retracted, and even the activated rover hovering over the blue dot on our map. I watch the little blips for as long as I can stand, then turn back toward the main drill site.

“How’s it going, Longwei?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” he says. “It’s stuck.”

“What’s stuck?”

“The drill. I’m pressing down like I did yesterday, but it won’t move.”

I start walking that way, when Katsu cuts through the head comm.

“Emmett!” he shouts. “Hey. Activate the defense thing. The lizard-gorilla things are back. The tars or whatever! A lot of them incoming.”

I scramble back over to the control panel and find the switch labeled DEFENSES. I double-check that it’s the right one and flip it. Metal screeches as two turrets unfold atop our truck. It happens as fast and unrealistically as it does in video games. In KillCall, you can set down a gun turret and it just pops to life and starts shooting. Apparently, that’s what happens when Babel designs things. The two guns sweep for a target and start firing. The report is loud, but not so loud that I can’t hear the distant cry of wounded tars. Katsu and Jazzy cheer into the comm.

I head back over to help with the drill. “Want me to take a look, Longwei?”

His answer is quiet. “Yes.”

I start scaling one of the legs of our metallic drill stand. Careful to keep my balance, I tiptoe across webbed metal to the hatch. With a twist and a pull, I pop the top and glance inside. Longwei’s face is streaked with sweat. His mask is completely fogged and his hands are wrapped tight around two black levers. He looks up and presses the levers forward to show me.

“It won’t go down,” he says.

“Have you tried the other levers?”

He shakes his head. “This is the lever to go down. The other levers are for the side drills. There’s no point in using the side drills until I take it back underground.”

“Just try them,” I say. “Maybe it will reactivate the levers that aren’t working.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” he says.

I frown before glancing off toward the others. From this height, I can see the rover and their vague shapes in the fog. “Jazzy,” I call. “How’s the secondary tunnel coming?”

“About halfway down,” she says, accent thicker than syrup. “We’re doing good, but we might need help settin’ up the conveyor. It’s kind of weird.”

I look back at Longwei. He’s still stubbornly pushing at his black levers. I press the button on my shoulder, and the helmet retracts back into the padding. My comm vanishes with it and I’m breathing in fresh air. “Longwei!” I shout. The helmets were muffling everything. Even though the drill isn’t digging, the engines hum and the pistons snap restlessly. I lean down and shout louder, “Longwei, let me try. It’s okay. They need you for the conveyor belt.”

I can see the war happen inside of him. He loves winning about as much as he hates me. Give up and he admits his defeat, but keep acting stubborn and we keep losing to Kaya. After a second, he nods to himself and unbuckles. I give him a helping hand out of the jackjack seat.

When he’s up top, he presses his own helmet button. Wind tosses his front tuft of hair and he wipes away sweat with the back of his glove.

“I could have done it,” he says. “I didn’t need your help.”

“I know. You would have figured it out.” I look back at the truck and decide to tell the lie that Longwei needs to hear. He can’t accept his own weakness, but he’ll be more than happy to use mine as an excuse. “I can’t understand the monitor. You can. We need you commanding us. Call everything out, all right?”

We both reactivate our helmets. The heat intensifies as I climb into the cockpit of the drill. The seat is hot and the air is hot and I’m sweating balls inside my suit. I take my seat and the world is one vibrating earthquake. I try to calm my breathing as my teeth start clattering together.

There’s a ton of digital readouts in front of me. I don’t know what they mean, but I know I’ve got to get this thing down and mining or we’re toast. The black levers are useless, so I start pulling and pressing other things. The drill responds when I wrap a hand around the silver joystick on my right. Everything vibrates a little more. I press it forward and metal whirrs. On my display, the right drill spins. That’s a start.

I take hold of the joystick on my left and turn both at the same time. Both the side drills spin, and Longwei’s trusted black levers retreat into the dashboard. My chair leans back and the display adjusts so that I’m almost lying down to look up at it. Down by my feet, a silver panel lights up like a game of ElectraDance. I punch both feet down and the drill lurches to life. The bottom windows go dark. On my monitor, I can see the tip of the drill moving into the shaft and my side drills a few meters from first contact.

There’s a brief hiss and then I’m rag-dolling as the drills corkscrew into the walls of nyxia on my left and right. My display shows it falling in thick strips. I’m just trying to keep hold of both joysticks when the left one starts to glow. The metal goes bright white for a second, then nothing. The right one repeats the process. I keep pressing deeper into the hole and my two side drills gobble up everything in reach. Even with the insane vibrations and the rawness of my hands, I feel like I’m playing the coolest video game ever.

I’m fifteen meters deep when the left side of my display is taken over by Lieutenant Light. He’s twelve inches tall, but his voice is just as deep. “Don’t forget to use your pulses when the side drills fully extend, soldier. And if you push her too fast, you’ll advance without shearing away the maximum pull. Good luck.”

My eyes dart around the rattling room for pulses. What the hell are pulses? Both of my handles light up at the same time. I realize they’re signaling that the drills are, as the marine just reminded me, fully extended. So where’s the pulse button? I probe upward with my index finger and find a button. Laughing to myself, I say, “It is a video game!”

The next time my grips light up, I squeeze the trigger and a thunderclap echoes out. Stone explodes on the displays, and even my glass windows are pounded by the falling debris. In spite of the heat, a chill goes down my spine. That was a lot of power. A lot.

“Emmett.” Longwei’s voice. “You’ve got a gas pocket ten meters down. It’s on your left and it’s only two or three meters into the rock. I’d immobilize that drill in five meters.”

“Copy,” I say, because that’s what they’re always saying in video games like KillCall or Gadget Swing. I let the drill ride out a few more shears and then pull my left joystick in to my chest. The drill retracts, and I guide it steadily past the gas pocket. Longwei clears me, and I go right back to thunder and vibrations on both sides as the world gives way all around me. It’s been a long time since I felt this useful doing anything.

We come vomiting out of the simulator about thirty minutes later. Jazzy had to climb halfway down the tunnel to get our conveyor unkinked, but everything else went flawlessly. Longwei led us and even Roathy helped. Our team set an amazing pace because he shifted into new roles wherever he was needed.

We wait restlessly for Kaya’s team to finish their section and are rewarded by Defoe’s smile. “Congratulations on your first victory, team one. You’re all dismissed for dinner.”

Kaya offers her compliments, and we’re all walking back when I feel it. Coasting along my right shoulder, just out of view. Roathy’s trying to deliver the message he’s been sending me all week. I’m here. I’m watching you. I will take my revenge.

My patience is a thin, twisted little thing, though.

I whip around, grab two fistfuls of collar, and shove him up against the nearest wall.

Only it’s not Roathy; it’s Jaime. His pale green eyes go wide, and I can tell I banged his head hard against the wall. Kaya and Bilal are backtracking, eyes on me like I’m a bomb they have to defuse. I release Jaime’s collar and mutter, “Just don’t follow me like that.”

“I was just walking,” Jaime says. “It’s a hallway. We were all just walking, lurch.”

He gives me a look that could rival Longwei’s and slides past. I watch him walk, watch the others turn to follow after him. When they’re gone, I lean my head up against the cold metal walls and close my eyes. I think about space, about drowning in darkness, about being the threat that others fear. Am I their Roathy? Do I make them worried? It’s been thirty seconds and I’ve already lost the thrill I felt inside the drill simulation. Now I’m just scared. Now I just feel lost.

The only good thing about being a black hole is that other black holes recognize you.

“Come on, Emmett,” Kaya says. She came back for me. She takes my arm in hers, like I’ve just forgotten the way home. “Do you want to eat dinner?”

“No,” I say. I’m not hungry. I’m not anything.

“Me neither,” she says. “Come on.”

Patiently, she guides me back to our rooms. She leads me over to my closet and looks the other way as I change into my pajamas. Then she actually tucks me into bed.

“Don’t leave,” I say. “I don’t want to sleep. I always have these dreams.”

She nods. “One second.”

As she slips out of the room, I realize I’m crying. It’s more than just the darkness I feel lurking inside. I miss Pops and Moms. I miss going to normal school with its normal expectations and normal people. I want the city smells and factory stacks on my way to school. I would even pay good money to babysit my cousins at this point. Anything to feel normal again.

Kaya returns with three books stacked in her arms. She climbs onto the empty half of my bed, sits on top of the covers, and leans against the wall. “I’ll read to you.”

I smile until she shows me the covers. They’re all in Japanese. The pictures are startling. The first one has a skull in one corner and features a shirtless boy, face buried in his hands. On the cover of the middle book is a white guy with the transparent outline of a hatchet etched through his hair. They both look like the opposite of bedtime stories. Not nearly as playful as Alice.

“Why’d you pick such scary books?” I ask, half laughing.

She shrugs. “They had boys on the cover. I don’t know!”

I smile again. The third option features a boy and a girl. The boy is leaning against a massive tree. The girl is seated on the roots, reading something. The whole scene is bathed in golden light, and they’re looking off into the eager distance. “That one. Read that one.”

Kaya tosses the other books onto the floor. She crosses her legs and begins.

Like the first time, she makes the story come to life. Her voice is so vibrant and full that I can feel myself being pulled away from Babel’s dark world. I find myself racing through the woods with the characters, crossing a bridge into some imaginary land. I hear breathing and laughter, sounds softer than the falling leaves Kaya describes. She reads until I fall asleep, until I’m no longer afraid.