Radon (Inmate Space Mates Book 1) Read online

  “Alright. If you want to go there, we can. If you say no, you’re dead weight. Understand? The places you came from don’t want you back. As far as they’re concerned, you ladies are our problem now. There’s no record of you. At least no record of you being alive and kicking. Get it? You don’t have a whole lot of options at this point. To put it bluntly, your lives belong to us.”

  It was a slap in the face, but I knew that what he was telling me was true. People like me, people like Alecia and the other girls in the room with nothing but poorly healed scars and desperately unhappy pasts, we didn’t get good choices. Most of the time, we didn’t get any choices at all. That was when I knew that I would be doing it. That was when I knew I was going to be on that shuttle.

  ***

  “Hello? Please, tell me, is there anyone else here? Is there anyone else awake? I need to get out of here. I can’t be in here anymore!”

  My memories were coming to me in massive, jumbled waves, memories I was having trouble making sense of. The timeline of my life was all mixed up, with my clearest memory being the one of that last conversation in the wreck room when I’d learned that my life was no longer my own. All of it was inside of me, but at the moment all I wanted was to get out of my little protective pod. I hadn’t ever realized that I was claustrophobic, but as it turned out, that was exactly what I was. I was claustrophobic and I wanted out.

  “Hello? Come on! Please! Just OPEN!”

  Expensive military machinery or not, I started banging on the glass that was keeping my closed in. I banged on it like my life depended on it because, to me, it honestly felt like it did. I banged on it as hard as my sweaty, shaking fists would allow without ever expecting it to amount to anything. So, imagine my surprise when, mid pound, the glass slid open silently. My hand hung in midair, just hung there, like it was still looking for something to make contact with. That was the first thing I noticed. The second thing, after the sudden nature of my freedom started to wear off ever so slightly, was the fact that I couldn’t breathe. I. Couldn’t. Breath. It felt like someone had taken a massive weight and set it on my chest, like it was crushing every vital organ inside of me. I could feel all of the chords in my neck begin to pop out and my mouth opening only to shut again. I must have looked like a fish out of water, just lying there on the deck and being smothered by the atmosphere. I was going to die right there in my pod. I had come all of this way, I didn’t even know how far, only to bite it before I got to see anything of this so called other planet I’d been hearing so much about lately.

  “No! No, no, no. You’ve got to calm down, baby girl. You’ve got to calm down to make your way through it, ok? Just listen to the sound of my voice. I’m going to help you through it. Just listen to the sound of my voice and we’ll get through this together.”

  Part of me recognized this new voice, but it was a part of me that was buried down deep underneath oceans of fear. And it didn’t exactly help that all I could see was a deep dark that was only cut by harsh blinking lights. It wasn’t an atmosphere to inspire feelings of calm, I can tell you that much.

  “Becca! Get it together, bitch! You’ve got to breath. Listen to me. I know it hurts, ok? I know it feels weird. There’s something about the air in here. I don’t know, like we’re depressurizing or something. I don’t know. I’m not a scientist. All I can tell you is that you’ll be ok after you adjust to this air. You’ve just got to keep from suffocating yourself while you do.”

  I just had to keep from suffocating. It was such a matter of fact way to ask me to do an incredibly monumental thing that I might have laughed if I hadn’t been rapidly losing my grip on reality. I didn’t have enough breath to laugh. I didn’t have enough breath to live. But the advice was good advice, and as I wasn’t quite ready to check out just yet, I decided to take it. I concentrated on the sound of this good Samaritan’s voice, concentrated with everything I had, and gradually the feeling of too much weight began to leave me. It was true. Something about the air in the cabin of the shuttle was very different from the air inside of my pod, which was where the feeling of suffocating was coming from. Gradually, the air started to return to my lungs and I realized that I was going to be ok. I realized that I was ok.

  “There you go. That a girl. I thought I was going to lose you for a second, I’m not gonna lie.”

  “Who-who’s there?”

  “Aw shit, really? You’re gonna hurt my feelings, Becca. I didn’t realize I was so easily forgettable.”

  “Alecia?”

  “I think it’s safe to say we’re on close enough for you to start calling me Lecia, don’t you? Or Al. I like that, too. Just not Alecia. I’ve never liked that name.”

  “Sorry. I’ll try to remember that. Do you mind helping me up?”

  “Ok, but only sitting. It’s not good for you to stand up too quickly after waking up here. Believe me, I speak from personal experience.”

  I was still thoroughly confused as to what the hell was going on, but I wasn’t in the mood to argue. Especially because I still felt like I was one bout of overexertion away from fainting dead away. I accepted Alecia’s hand, allowing her to pull me up slowly to a sitting position. As soon as the air of the cabin hit me, my body broke into violent shivers. Why the fuck was it so cold in here? What exactly were they trying to do with us, recreate the Antarctic?

  “I know,” Alecia spoke immediately, as if she were reading my mind, “that’s part of the waking up, too. Here, hold on a second. I’ve got something that’ll help.”

  She was up and out of my line of sight before I could tell her no, not to go. I wanted to scream in out, to insist that she not leave my side. I wasn’t typically a particularly needy girl, but this was a pretty unique situation. I needn’t have worried, though. She was back in a flash, a large military sweatshirt in one hand.

  “I know, I know. They’re crazy big. It’s like they thought they were sending a bunch of gorillas into space instead of a bunch of women. It’ll do to keep you warm though, at least until you start to get used to being awake.”

  “T-t-thanks,” I managed to get out through seriously chattering teeth, “that helps. A lot.”

  “What can I say?” She said with a devious little smile, “I aim to please.”

  “So what is this? Are we there?”

  My eyes were starting to adjust to the dim light, just as my body was beginning to adjust to my new surroundings, and I couldn’t help but look around me with curiosity. The whole ordeal of being shot into the sky in an over glorified cannon had happened so quickly that I hadn’t really had the chance to get used to the idea. Now, peering through the vast dark, it was starting to hit me. We were nowhere close to the only kind of life I had ever known. I didn’t even have a vague reference to use to understand where we were now, but the basic question of “are we there yet” still seemed applicable.

  “Ha! Are we there? I’m not gonna lie, I don’t have a clue. I only woke up a little while before you did. Just long enough to get my shit together and help you along.”

  “And the others? Where are they?”

  The shuttle’s little holding room grew very quiet and very, very still. Alecia didn’t strike me as the type to be nervous about saying things, but something was definitely holding her back. I listened with everything I had, waiting for any sign of life. I kept expecting to hear the distant noise of feet, the sound of raucous voices from somewhere above. There was nothing. The shuttle’s holding bay was as quiet as a tomb.

  “They aren’t anywhere, Becca. At least not the parts of them that count.”

  “I don’t understand. I don’t know what that means. There were so many of us.”

  “Yes,” she spoke calmly, with the voice one might use when speaking to a small child, “there were. And now there aren’t. They died. I don’t know why, so don’t ask me. All I know is that I woke up and everyone’s pod was open except for mine and yours. They looked...old. They looked like they had aged years and years and years. I think our little
pods were the only ones that worked the right way. I think...I think they might have died of old age. Or else starvation.”

  It was like being in a horror movie. Like the child I was being treated as, I shut my eyes tightly, willing myself to wake up. Because this had to be a dream, right? There was no way any of this was actually happening. Things like this weren’t real. They just weren’t. I almost had myself convinced of that fact, too, when the pounding began. My eyes flew open, searching desperately for Alecia’s face and beyond grateful when I found it.

  “What-?”

  “The door,” she answered softly, a tone of utter disbelief in her voice, “I-I think somebody is knocking on the door of the shuttle.”

  Chapter Six

  Radon

  “They can’t do this! They can’t, not without my consent, and I’ll be DAMNED if I’m going to give it.”

  I was pacing around my dismal little hut, and this time it was me who was breaking things. I didn’t care. I didn’t care if every single thing I owned wound up shattered on the ground. They were just things. They didn’t matter, not at all. It wasn’t like I was leaving my legacy for anyone. Nothing of mine was going to be passed down for generations to come, because there would be no more generations. At least not of the Valmorians. That was something I knew. It was one of those facts I had grown up with, and I had made peace with it, too. Not like so many of the others. Not like poor, nervous Petering. But now? Now what the devil was I supposed to do?

  “Radon, come on now.”

  “No. Fuck come on now.”

  “Radon!”

  I turned to face my friend, noted the fact that his opaque green skin was beginning to become more intense, his scales standing on end. I had never seen him get riled up like that. Not with me, not with anyone. It was so strange it was almost funny and I couldn’t help but smile.

  “What is it, Petering? Why are you yelling at me?”

  “Why am I yelling? I’m yelling because you’re yelling. You trying to get yourself locked up?”

  “Why, you suggesting that I’m going to?”

  “You might. You take a look outside since we’ve been back here, or you have you been too busy breaking things?”

  I rolled my eyes, but made my way to my little window nonetheless. He was right. The roads were crawling with members of the authority, and if I kept going the way I was they were going to be making their appearance at my door any moment now. That was the last thing I needed. It would have made my worthless excuse of a day complete.

  “Come sit, Radon.”

  “You act like this is your home.”

  “That’s because it feels like it is. Now, are you seriously going to make me feel like a fool?”

  I shook my head, grabbing a jug of wine from one of the shelves in my little kitchen and following Petering’s lead. We did not bother with glasses and, for a while, neither one of us spoke. It felt as if everything we could say had been said already, while all of the truly important things were too difficult to get out. We were at a standstill; one I would have been happy to maintain if it meant that I could keep everything from changing completely.

  “You know, it doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”

  “Says who?”

  “Seriously, Radon,” Petering shifted towards me, his eyes full of an earnest hope that made me tired, “it doesn’t. Maybe this really is the beginning of a whole new world for Valmore. Everything could be different.”

  “You’re right. That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “What does that mean? I don’t get you, Radon. You’re my brother, and I love you, but I don’t get you at all.”

  I nodded my assent. It was the only thing I could do. Because, honestly, I wasn’t sure I got me, either. I was pacing around my hut, going from walking little circles to looking back out the window at the slightly frenzied looking authority roaming the streets and I knew I didn’t really understand where my anger was coming from. Was it really as simple as the fact that I was stubborn? Was it as simple as me not liking to be told what to do? I wanted to think there was more to me than that, but even thinking about the town hall meeting I had just left made my scales stand on end. I could still hear it all playing out perfectly, as if I was still there living it.

  “Order! I will have ORDER!”

  The town hall building had been crammed to the gills. Valmore wasn’t a big place by any stretch of the imagination and there was typically little cause for meetings that brought all of the steadily diminishing population. This meeting, however, looked to have brought everyone. Shaley’s father, Morigon, was standing at roughly fashioned pulpit and banging his fists on the top of it over and over again, his face growing a steadily deepening shade of purple and his scales standing out at attention. I could see the top of Shaley’s head sitting in the front, surrounded by a gaggle of her girlfriends. Gods, even the top of her head looked self-righteous with the pride of knowing it was HER father who was in charge. Looking at that, I wasn’t exactly regretting the fact that I had made it so clear that I wasn’t ever going to couple with her. Aside from the fact that I didn’t see the point in doing it, I knew that I would want to kill her if I spent more than an hour in her company.

  “ORDER! I will have order, or else the authority will come and haul every one of you away!”

  That last statement, along with the crazy look in Morigon’s eyes, was enough to settle a hush over the crowd. Everyone was quiet, all eyes trained on Morigon to see what he would say next. I saw him take a deep breath, his skin returning to its more customary shade of gray, as his hands settled on either side of his stand. He was ready to deliver his speech. I groaned internally, then heaved a sigh of my own. I wasn’t looking forward to listening, but I was definitely looking forward to it being over.

  “First of all, I would like to thank everyone for coming. I know you are all anxious to hear the reason for this meeting, and I am pleased to be able to deliver it to you.”

  This brought on another rush of talk, along with a general movement of the crowd that made it look like the entire building itself was moving from side to side. It was only after several of the Authority stepped forward, banging the bottoms of their staffs on the ground loudly, that order was restored once again. Morigon cleared his throat and glanced down at Shaley. He looked afraid. It was only after she nodded her head vigorously in joyous approval that he began again.

  “As I said, I am happy to be the one to explain why you have all been brought here. We have news. We have very important news, the likes of which will change this planet forever.”

  “What is it, then? Why don’t you get on with it?”

  “Right! Stop all of the chatter and get on with it!”

  “Tell us! Tell us now!”

  The chorus of disgruntled replies began to ring out loudly. I could see that even the threat of the Authority wasn’t going to keep them at bay for much longer. After all, they weren’t going to arrest everyone, were they? That was what I kept thinking, and if I was thinking it, I was positive that others were thinking it as well.

  “Quiet! Quiet down, if you want to hear. Or else this meeting is over!”

  The hush returned, a tentative kind of agreement amongst the citizens that, at least for now, we would behave. Morigon looked quickly at the four other members of the Masters, looking for confirmation that he was handling things correctly, I supposed. It was hard to gauge their reaction to him. They sat in their regal black gowns with gold trim around their shoulders and around their feet, wearing a stony expression as they watched on. They were the heads of other villages. There were five Valmorian villages in the Council. Ours was the capital.

  The Council had been Morigon’s idea, making him the head of the Masters and allowing for the five villages in the Council to share resources in working to find a solution to our current struggle. The leader of each village had become a Master once the Council was established, creating an extra layer of government above the Authority that ruled each individual vil
lage.

  While I watched Morigon prance around in front of his colleagues for approval, I was struck by the sudden urge to make my way to the front and whisper in his ear that if he wanted people to listen to him, he had better start acting like someone worthy of listening to. I didn’t do it, of course. Not only would the advice have been less than appreciated, but in the end, I just didn’t care enough to do it. I just wanted to go home.

  “Right. Fellow Valmorians, this nation was once full of great warriors. This is not something I need to tell you. It is known. Even with our dwindling ranks, our unfortunate crisis, our warriors are still renowned. We have the ability to protect those who might otherwise be vulnerable.”

  “What are we talking about here?” A young, pushy man at the front yelled out, “Are we talking about invaders?”

  “We are. Or else we might be. We are talking about keeping other planets safe, planets who might not be in the position to defend themselves against enemies so far away from themselves. We are talking, comrades, about the planet Earth.”

  Another rumbling of speech, this one louder and more excited than the last. I could feel my temples begin to pulse with the beginning of a headache as I tried my best to keep all of my concentration on Morigon. Why didn’t he just come out and say what he meant? This endless drawing out of the situation was making me feel crazy, and it was clear that it was having the same effect on many of the others. I wanted him to say it, to get it over with. I wanted him to say it because I already had a gut feeling that, whatever the plan the Masters had cooked up, I wasn’t going to like.

  “Please! Order, please! I understand your doubt, really. All of us do. But you must know that we don’t offer this protection against would be invaders for nothing. We will of course be receiving something in return. Something vital. The thing we need more than anything.”

  “Oh yeah? And what the devil is that?”

  “Fertility.”

  Morigon’s look was smug now, like he had managed to deliver the blow he was looking for and deliver it in the exact manner he was aiming for. There were no voices, no hum of conversation. The confusion of the crowd was complete. I wondered in any of the others had the same kind of ominous feeling I did, but when I looked at Petering for confirmation I saw something completely opposite. What I saw in his face was something very close to absolute devotion. He was overjoyed, ravenous for more information. Looking at that face, I felt more alone than I could remember feeling in a long, long time.