It was midday and she was sitting at a table in the kitchen when she heard the giant front doors of the Hall open. She couldn't bring herself to get up and greet whoever it was who had entered, she was too lost in her own thoughts. It was rude, maybe, but she didn't care.
"Auntie Elie!" a cry of joy filled the room. Elodie turned her head and smiled at the little boy who had entered the kitchen; it was her nephew. "Harley!"
She hadn't seen him since he was born, she couldn't bare to. Her brother and sister-in-law were completely unmoved by his birth - as if it was something they just had to do rather than something in need of celebration. They seemed proud, but not so much that it stopped her brother from going to work that day or her sister from returning to work once she healed leaving little Harley to be taken care of by his grandparents instead, since they were considered too old to work. She would have taken him, she thought, if only his emotionless expressions hadn't scared her away from the idea. It scared her how the child - how all children - were calm and completely emotionless. She thought they should be happy and playful like in the vids of old Sol Earth games. Knowing what she now knew she realized it was the Phydus in the water and probably some from the mothers (gained through breastfeeding) that rendered the infants and toddlers as mindless as the adults. She was surprised to see him so... full of emotion.
"What are you doing here? Where's your Dada?" she asked him, scooping him up off the floor and sitting him on her lap.
"Workin'." he smiled. "Mama, too." "You came here all by yourself?" she asked him. Surely he shouldn't have been allowed out all alone.
"No, silly!" he said as if she were the child and he the adult. "I came here with a nurse from the hopsital." "You mean the Hospital." she corrected him.
"That's what I said!" he insisted. "They say I'm gonna live there now. They say I have to take loon meds. I've been there... " he thought a moment before holding up three fingers, "this many days!"
"Loon meds?" she questioned him. The inhibitor pills.
"Yes, they say I won't be living with Mama or Dada anymore... but that I can go to school instead and I can come see you all the time Auntie Elie!" he seemed to be excited about this. Elodie remembered she was devastated when she was told she was Loons. She grew angry at the thought knowing now that she was normal. "Oh Harley, you're not loons!" she told him. "You are perfectly normal now!" "Nah, loons! Loons is more fun! We're both loons Auntie Elie!" He laughed. Elodie sighed. she supposed there was no way to argue with a 5 year old and win. "It is more fun, I can assure you." At least she would try to make him feel better about it even if he did seem fine for the moment. She knew by experience that one moment it could be fine and the next it wouldn't be. If she was honest, though, she was glad - she was beyond happy that her nephew wasn't going to be under the influence of phydus. "What are you going to learn in school? Are you going to be a shipper?"
"I'm gonna learn art! I like colors, I want to do something with colors." he said.
"Hmmm," Elodie thought, "what about painting? You could use all the colors you want with painting."
"What's that?" there was an increase in his excitement.
"Here, I'll show you." she smiled.
Elodie picked him up and carried him back out into the hall. She waved at the nurse who had escorted Harley to the Hall and the nurse nodded, bored of waiting already. She sat Harley down in front of a floppy and began tapping away at the screen. She brought up all sorts of paintings; some by ancient artists, some by artists who lived around the era before Godspeed took flight, and some by artists who lived during the previous gens. Harley sat there, wide-eyed, enraptured by the painting he saw on the screen before him. At some point he rose to his feet and reached out to touch the screen when a painting with incredibly vivid colors appeared. "Whoa..."
"You could paint things just like that one day." Elodie told him. "No." he said, "I'm going to paint better things!" "There you go!" Elodie encouraged. "It's going to take practice, though."
"Practice?" he questioned.
"It's where you paint more and more and more and the more you do it the better you will get. But you can't stop because then you will never get better." she explained. "Practice... " he repeated. "That means I have to start now!" "Might as well, you're not getting any younger. You're a big boy now." she joked with him.
"I am!" he said, proudly. "I am big! And I should practice before I'm old! Thank you, Auntie Elie!" he hugged her tight and ran toward the nurse. "Nurse Lila I have to go practice! Come on before I'm old like Eldest!"
Elodie shuddered at the mention of his name. For a moment she was able to forget about him - the ever present leader of the ship - but now he once again loomed over her thoughts. She watched Harley and nurse Lila leave, returning Harley's goodbye wave when he turned at the door one last time, and she sat down at a table, pulling a small floppy over to her. She wasn't sure exactly what she wanted to do with it so at first she was absentmindedly tapping away at the screen, filling it with images that she wasn't paying any attention to anyway. Eventually an image flashed by that did capture her attention; it was a blueprint of the ship. On it she saw nothing unusual - it simply labeled the Keeper, Shipper, and Feeder levels - nowhere on the blueprints did she see the secret stairwell where Elder - Not-Elder - was now hidden.
"None of this makes sense." she sighed and placed her head down on the table. "I've gotta go see him again."
"See who?" a voice asked from the doorway. She hadn't noticed the door open or the man walk in and she didn't need to turn around to know who's voice it was, she'd heard it plenty of times before.
"Eldest." she said, standing and turning to face him. "It's a pleasure to see you!" Great, she thought, now I'm lying to Eldest. "I hope I wasn't disturbing you." he said, faking concern as he walked over to her table.
"Not at all!" she said quickly. "I was... I was just reading up on some things."
Eldest reached her table and glanced over her shoulder at the floppy which still displayed the blueprints to Godspeed. "Reading up on the Godspeed blueprints? May I ask what for?" there was a hardness in his voice now.
Elodie felt like she had been caught red-handed looking at something forbidden. But surely these blueprints weren't forbidden, after all she was able to access them on her own without needing override from Eldest. "I was, yes." she thought quickly. "See, my nephew, he's starting school and... and I thought it would be a good idea to read up on Godspeed's history so I could help teach him about our home." Eldest considered her for a moment and said, "you should teach him about the plague." "I think that's a dark subject for a child." Elodie said a bit sheepishly. "It is vital to our history. It teaches us that unity is important." Eldest asserted. "It teaches us that we all must do what we need to in order to survive. Everyone has a very important job to do and we can not have anyone not doing their part." "Yes. Yes, everyone should do their job." Elodie agreed. "I am glad you understand." Eldest said.
There was a moment of awkward silence between them before Elodie broke it with a question, "Eldest, sir, was there anything I could help you with? Are you looking for a book, perhaps?" "No. I don't think what I'm looking for is here after all." he said quietly. "I'm sorry I can not help, then." Elodie told him.
"Who did you say you were you going to see?" he asked.
Shite, he heard that, Elodie cursed to herself. "No one, Eldest, just my... my brother. It came as a shock - my nephew, I mean, him needing to live at the Hospital and all." "Well, genetics are a funny thing, sometimes they can show in some family members but not all. These defective genes showed up in you, but they must have skipped your brother and just showed up again in your nephew. It can happen, even in twins despite how close those genetics can be." Eldest explained. Elodie couldn't get passed the way he said 'defective' like it was a curse. "You must be right, Eldest. Thank you for explaining it."
Eldest again considered her. Elodie was worried he could see right through her lies but luckily he seemed satisfied with what she had said to him.
"I must be going." he said, "I have important business to attend to. Thank you for your time." "It is never a problem, Eldest." Elodie said as politely as she could. Eldest nodded and left the hall.
Elodie was alone now. She felt dizzy and sick. She shouldn't have ever lied to Eldest. Had she never ran after Elder but Not-Elder that day she still wouldn't but now everything was upside down. She thought about what he had told her and once again cursed, this time out loud, "shite"! He was looking for Elder. He must have been. He came in here looking for Elder not some book. Eldest announced him dead but didn't believe it. She had to go back and warn him. Had to tell him that Eldest was still looking for him. She was convinced Eldest knew about the stairwell and was going to find him any moment. Maybe he, too, would sneak in after the solar lamp clicked off for the night as to not scare the people in the city. Elodie decided then that she would go back and warn him.
She had dinner late that evening and watched the clock count down the minutes at a painstakingly slow rate. Two hours til dark-time she set out and crossed the pastures, then weaving through the streets of the City as the workers were heading home. She paused briefly at a crossroads and looked down the road to her left, a road that contained the house where she was born - where her brother and sister-in-law now lived. She considered stopping by, but she had other matters to attend to. Besides, they never had anything new to say and now her nephew was living in the Hospital. It was sad, but she didn't have anything here anymore. She kept walking and eventually she made her way to the wall. It was a block away but she could still see the Shippers descending through the grav tube, heading home for the night. She couldn't just go sit by the wall, so she kept walking. She walked in circles for roughly a half an hour more until the solar lamp finally clicked off for the night.
She looked around - everything was quite now. It was like someone hit stop on a vid. Nobody was around. She could see the lights from the homes, she could hear things like cups clattering or the cows off in the distance mooing, but other than that there was silence. She kept looking around until she was a hundred percent certain there was no one around and finally she worked up the courage to creep over to the wall-that's-really-a-door and pull it open. Sneaking in and closing it behind her she looked around but couldn't see. It was too dark.
Panic kicked in. There was no light coming from where Not-Elder's camp was supposed to be. Something happened to him, she thought, I didn't get here in time.
"Elder!" she whispered as loud as she could. "Shite - sorry! Are you okay?"
She felt like an idiot. Eldest probably got to him and now she was risking her neck just being here. It was too much for her to handle. The stress of the last two weeks all came crashing down on her and once and she started crying. She dropped to her knees and buried her face in her hands.
"I thought you promised you wouldn't come back?" a deep voice asked from over her shoulder. Elodie straightened up and pushed herself back up on her feet and turned around. Not-Elder was standing there, holding his lantern, staring at her with more confusion than anger. He must have heard her crying. "Elder!" she ran over to him and hugged him. "Frex. I'm so happy you're okay!" He hesitated a moment before wrapping one of his arms around her lightly. "Yeah..." She pulled away from him. "Frex, sorry. Uh... long day." "Don't worry about it." he said, a little embarrassed, rubbing his arm and looking at the dirty ground.
The silence between them was awkward, but at least their silence didn't leave Elodie feeling scared and sick like her exchange with Eldest. Thinking about it reminded her why she had come back.
"I spoke with Eldest." she said suddenly when she snapped out of her embarrassment.
"What?" Elder asked angrily. "You said you wouldn't -"
"I didn't tell him anything!" she defended. "He came into the Hall today. I had just finished talking with my nephew, Harley, he's living in the Hospital now...but you don't care about that... Uh, well, anyway - Eldest comes in and he says he's looking for something, I offer to help but he say's he's not looking for any books. I think he's looking for you! He left, after spewing some stuff about everyone doing their job and stuff. But... he asked a lot of questions and I don't know. He probably knows about this place! If you knew he must know! I mean, he is Eldest. You're not safe here. I had to come warn you and when I didn't see your light I thought he already got to you and... and I thought I was too late to help... I was -" He took a step toward her and put his arm around her shoulders, "take a deep breath, I don't need the Recorder dying on me in my secret room." She looked up at him and saw the smile on his face, she couldn't help but return it. "Shut up." "Come on, I want to show you something." he said.
He led her in the direction away from the stairs. A few feet passed the secret door was another door - this one made of plastic and with a knob and lock reminiscent of those from the pictures of Sol Earth homes. He opened the door and it led to another stairwell, though this was was skinnier and made of metal. The stairs seemed to spiral down.
"Where does this go?" she asked. "To the level below this one." he told her.
"There is no level below this one." she responded.
"No? Then where do these stairs go?" he countered. "Come on."
He took his arm off her shoulders and stepped out onto the stairs. She hesitated and pulled her arms against her body as if shielding herself from something. He held out his hand, still holding the lantern with the other, and said, "It's alright. Trust me." She bit her lip and looked around. "Come on, follow me down the rabbit hole." he smiled, pleased with himself. She recognized what he was talking about. He was referencing to a children's book from Sol Earth. "I don't know. Strange things happened when Alice followed her white rabbit." "And I promise strange things will happen if you follow this one." his smile grew wider. "Why would I want that?" she asked him, but she couldn't help smiling along with him. It was like his smile was contagious.
"Because you're already in too deep. Now you just need to know." he said. She sighed and took his hand. "Fine, but please don't get me killed." "I promise you'll be fine." he said, "just stick with me."
He led her down the stairs. Surprisingly they did not go on for as long as she thought they would, this secret lower level having a smaller ceiling height than the Feeder Level. The stairs led to another Sol-Earth-like door and he opened that, too, which left them standing in a hallway.
Elodie looked around, "what is this place?" "It's the 'storage' level." he told her. "Only it has much more than storage."
"What do you mean?" she asked. "Come on, I'll show you." he was still holding on to her hand so he gently pulled her along until he reached the end of the hallway. He pushed open the door and Elodie saw what looked like a bunch of metal drawers. "Are those the storage containers?" she asked.
"I guess you could call them that." he said.
"What do you think is inside?" she questioned.
"People. People are inside." he told her. "What?! You're loons! People are not inside those boxes!" she refused to believe him, though at this point there was really no reason for her not to.
"Look." he let go of her hand and walked over to the first box in the first row since it was the closest.
He put his lantern down on the floor then carefully opened the drawer and pulled on a thick table that gently slid out bringing with it a metal and glass box. What was inside the box is what Elodie couldn't wrap her head around. She took a slow step toward the strange box and then took two steps back. She didn't want to be any closer. She could make out the figure from where she stood. She could see that inside the box a human, naked and immobile, was floating in ice. Tubes extended from the top of his box, connected to some machine, and continued through the lid and disappeared into his mouth. Steam rose up from the coffin of ice as it began thawing in the room's warmth.
"Put it away!" she yelled. "I don't want to see it anymore." Elder listened and carefully slid the man back into the drawer and closed the door. Elodie turned away and hugged herself again.
"Are you okay?" he walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. Her eyes were closed and she kept them shut tight. "Why is everything I know a lie? Who are those people? They look so weird." "They're from Sol-Earth." he told her, answering her second question first since it was the easiest to answer. "I'm sorry - now you know how I feel." "I don't want to feel how you feel." she whispered. "Sorry," he said, and he meant it. "I know - it's not fun. I just... I needed to tell somebody else. If I didn't, I think I would have gone loons - for real." "And what am I supposed to do? I can't tell anyone. How am I supposed to not go loons?" she asked, almost crying again.
"You can tell me. I know I already know, but... we can talk to each other about it now. So we don't have to carry it all by ourselves." he told her. His voice was warm, gentle. "What else is down here?" she asked, though she couldn't believe it. All she could think about was how she didn't want to be in this room with the weird Sol-Earth people in drawers and yet she had asked to see more. "The phydus pump." he told her. "It's on the other side of the room." "Show me." she said.
"Are you sure?" he asked. "Yes." she answered.
He led her through the rows of drawers, passed a few empty tubes, and finally to the back of the room. They stopped in front of a tall pump, about as tall as Elder. It wasn't impressive by any means. Just a metal tub, really, with smaller tubes and wires running out of it by the base. "I thought it would be more... menacing." Elodie admitted. "It is just the pump." he told her. He kicked at a bucket on the ground next to it. It was empty except for some patches of goop that clung to the sides, "it's this shite that's bad. Pour this in there and boom! Instant slaves."
Elodie bent down to inspect the bucket, she stared at the patches of old goo on the sides and reached out a hand to touch it.
"Don't!" Elder cried, grabbing her hand away. "Don't touch it. It's not diluted, it'll kill you." "What do you mean?" Elodie asked, standing with him as he rose. "If it's concentrated enough, like this is, " he gestured to the leftover goop, "then it'll kill you. It'll invade your bloodstream and calm you. Calm you so much that your heart will stop beating and you'll die. Like overdosing on a medpatch. Only it'll act quickly and you'll know it's happening - you'll know you're dying but you wont care enough to try and stop it. Not that you could anyway." "Frex." was all she could say. "And Eldest puts that shite in our water." "Yeah." he answered. "Yeah, he does." "We have to stop it." she said.
"I know. I just need to figure out how first." he told her. Elodie nodded. "What's in the other rooms?"
"Most of them are locked. They need old codes and passwords, I couldn't access them with my override. I'm going to figure it out, though. One of them is for genetic engineering." he explained.
"What's in there?" she questioned.
"DNA. For cows and rabbits and stuff. It's how we got them here on Godspeed, the ones from Sol-Earth died out. Some of the DNA is for other stuff." he began to look sheepish.
"Like what?" she wanted to know more.
"Uhh... " he rubbed at his neck, and he winced with pain from his wound which was now red, swollen, and angry looking. "Some giant cat things from Sol-Earth. Some plants...".
Elodie felt like there was something else he wasn't telling her but figured it wasn't too important. It was just DNA and it didn't mean anything to Elodie, not like the phydus did. That was something that directly concerned her. Even the frozen people didn't really mean anything to her other than it was a lie, unnatural, and she didn't know what they were for.
"Can we go back upstairs? This room is starting to creep me out." she said, and Elder seemed relieved that she dropped her questions about the DNA room.
"Wait - there's one more thing I want to show you." he was smiling now.
"I'm not sure I want to know any more right now." she told him.
"No, I think you'll like this." he said, I know I did.
She sighed, "alright."
He took her by the hand again and led her down the hallway, passed the door they had come in through. There were hatches sitting within the wall and they passed all of them, only stopping when they reached the very last one. Elder tapped some things on a screen that sat outside of the hatch and Elodie watched as a metal plate rose upwards, leaving the room inside the hatch open to space and allowing her to see the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.
Real stars. Not pictures or vids, but real stars.
She was enraptured by them, captivated by their sheer beauty and she pressed her hands against the glass trying to touch them.
"They're beautiful." she whispered.
"I know." he told her. "I know." He gently placed his hand over hers and was glad when she didn't pull her hand away. "Thank you for being here."
"What do you mean?" she asked, quietly, like she didn't want to speak too loud and scare away the stars.
"I meant what I said earlier, that I would go loons without someone to share this with." he said. "I'm not so sure we're both not loons anyway." she smiled at him.
He smiled back at her. She didn't notice until now how handsome he was. Even if he was only 17 he looked older, more mature. His face was kind and gentle, with high cheekbones and a smile seemed to play at his lips even when they were resting. His brown eyes were warm, rather than cold, and seemed like they could be trusted. His dark brown hair was messy, and probably had some blood caked in it from when he ripped the wi-com out, but it still looked good. His olive colored skin matched hers, matched everyone aboard Godspeed's - as did his hair and eye color. He was tall, a good five to six inches taller than her, and thin. She hoped he had packed enough food - she didn't think he could do with getting any thinner.
"Are you sure you're going to be okay?" she asked, looking him in the eye rather than looking out at the stars.
"I promise, I will be okay." he said. "Maybe I'll stay a day or two and make sure Eldest doesn't come looking for you." she said.
"You can't and you know it. A missing Recorder would be too weird to ignore." he wasn't saying anything she didn't already know.
"Yeah." she said turning back toward the stars, "you're right."
They stayed there a bit longer until finally Elodie was growing tired. "I've got a long way home," she said, "I should probably be getting back before I'm too tired to walk that far." "Okay, come on." he tapped against the screen again and the metal sunk back down, once again hiding the stars. "Let's go get my lantern and then we'll head back up."
"Alright." she agreed.
Together they walked to the end of the hall and into the room with the frozen people. They stopped in front of the drawers and Elder bent down and picked up the lantern then started walking towards the hall again. They stopped dead in their tracks when they heard a sound from down the hall - it sounded like the elevator at the end of the hall.
"Frex!" Elder whispered. "Keep quiet and stay close. It's Eldest."
Elodie was beyond scared at the mention of his name. This could be it - Eldest could find the two of them and if Elder was right then Eldest would kill the both of them. She was frozen with fear, but Eldest extinguished the light from his lantern and grabbed her hand tightly. He squeezed it for a second as if to assure her it would be okay. He pulled her around the end of the row so that they were standing in-between the first and second rows of drawers. He pulled her about halfway down the row so that Eldest wouldn't be able to see them as he walked into the room. Elder hoped he would stick to the main isle as he walked, undoubtedly, to the end of the room to add more phydus to the pump.
They were as quiet as their frozen companions. Elodie kept her eyes shut tightly again, the sound of her heart pounding filling her ears and hoping that no one else could hear it too. It felt like hours as they listened to Eldest's footsteps grow louder and louder as he got closer and closer to them. Elodie nearly puked with fear when she heard him enter the room and stop. This is it, she thought, he knows where we are and he's going to kill us. But as soon as she finished the thought Eldest resumed walking and she heard his footsteps start to get softer as he passed them and walked closer and closer to the phydus pump.
Elder pulled her close to him and then started walking toward the end of the row. When they reached it he carefully and slowly peered around the edge, praying to the stars Eldest wasn't looking in their direction as he did so. He saw Eldest at the workbench against the wall - his back was to them as he began to pour a tub of phydus into the very bucket he had kicked earlier. It wouldn't take long for him to finish and they had to move quickly and quietly. He turned and looked at Elodie. With his free hand he held a finger to his lips, signalling the need to move quietly. Then he took his fingers away from his mouth and put up two more. On the count of three they would go.
1...
2...
3.
He squeezed her hand and they took off - walking quickly but lightly as they walked passed the rows and out the door into the hall. Luckily for them Eldest had left it open so they didn't need to try and shut it quietly without him hearing. Once they were on the other side of the door they stuck to the walls to be extra safe and headed directly for the door down the hall. They entered the stairwell again and Elodie watched as Elder took a key out of his pocket and locked the door they had just come through.
"How could he not know this is here?" Elodie whispered, heart still pounding, still too afraid to speak loudly.
"There's no window in the door, and I keep it locked." he said. "Eldest doesn't bother with locked doors. He doesn't care about the ships secrets."
"What if he cares now - because he's not a hundred percent sure you're dead?" she asked.
"He'll stop doubting it soon. When I don't show up a while he'll be sure." he assured her, though she thought he was still trying to convince himself, too. "Come on - you should get going while he's busy down here, just to be safe."
Elodie nodded and let him lead her up and back out of the rabbit hole.