But the more infractions on my record, the less likely I’d be granted the specialty of my choosing after certifications, and that wasn’t part of the plan.
My left arm dangled unadorned but a gleaming metal loop circled Maude’s, drawing my gaze. I dreamed of a transport cuff of my own, aching for the freedom it represented. We’d been largely confined to the Academy since we were ten, nearly seven years now. For all of the times and places I’d visited in the past, in the present I’d never left Sanchi. Genesis wasn’t huge, but there were seven small planets and several uninhabited moons. The thought of planet bouncing and freedom brought my brother to mind for the second time in as many hours, but I banished the thought of his name and the image of his face with a frown.
Stay gone, Jonah.
I’m not sure if the silent, fervent wish is because of my anger with him or because he’d be executed should he show his face here again.
Right then, all I knew for sure is that getting out of this decontamination air lock would be enough freedom for me. It usually took less than twenty minutes for computers to analyze our vitals and clothes to make sure we didn’t bring back anything undesirable, while the tattoos etched deep into the skin over our brain stems, wrists, and throats uploaded all the bio information they needed.
The hollow feeling in my stomach said it had to be close to dinnertime. “What time is it?”
Analeigh rolled her eyes, and Sarah laughed.
“I know, I know, I always forget my watch. Is it time for dinner?”
“Yes,” Sarah answered, shaking her short, dirty-blond hair in an attempt to lose the wig crease.
“You have a pass tonight for a home visit, right? For your birthday?” Analeigh asked.
Of course. My birthday.
The reminder that tonight meant dinner with my parents cracked a grin across my face. I missed them more since Jonah had left the Academy, and the thought of seeing them relieved some of the stress over another botched assignment. “Yep.”
“And we’re still going to Stars tomorrow, right? For your friend celebration?” Analeigh’s eyes sparkled with anticipation.
“I can’t believe the Elders gave you two passes for one week. Must be nice to be from an Original family,” Sarah commented, her perfectly formed eyebrows creased together.
My finger smoothed my unruly brows in response. I hadn’t been to the grooming booth in weeks; I just couldn’t find the time to care as often as my friends. I shrugged. “My parents put in a request. It’s not just my grandfather. I think it’s also, you know … Jonah.”
Analeigh’s lips pressed together at the mention of my rogue brother, and Sarah avoided my gaze. Sarah didn’t voice her curiosity, and Analeigh kept silent about her disapproval, both aware that I preferred not to talk about it. We all knew my grandfather’s status in the scientific community curried favors, regardless of Jonah’s decisions. He’d been one of the Original scientists whose work had ensured the survival of selected families from Earth Before, and he’d founded the Historians besides. If my parents wanted me home for dinner tonight, then I’d be home for dinner tonight.
“Okay, well. We’ll see you for study session, then?” Analeigh asked, quieter now.
“Yes. My pass is only until eight.”
Our lights-out alarm came at ten every night, which gave us a couple of hours for a certification review. We didn’t have to go to sleep then or anything, but none of the electronics worked so most of us did. The observations and the traveling wore us out.
A series of clicks followed by a hiss of air indicated we’d been declared uncontaminated and allowed back into the Historian Academy. Maude exited first, probably thrilled to not have to listen to us anymore. Analeigh and Sarah raced ahead, chattering about our plans for tomorrow night.
We typically didn’t get passes more than once a month, but birthday celebrations were special, my seventeenth birthday even more so. It meant that tomorrow night I could find out the name of my True Companion—the one person ever born, or who would ever be born, who was made to love me.
I only had to decide if I wanted to know.
Chapter Two
Standing in my mother’s arms an hour later, it struck me how many things had changed since Jonah disappeared. The fact somehow made the familiar more dear. The way my mother smelled—like dirt and fertilizer, perfumed by whatever plant or flower she’d last touched at the Agriculture Academy before coming home—fell around me like a warm blanket. She could make any shriveled seed bloom, which was why she’d been chosen to remain on Sanchi at the Academy instead of posted on Palenque, where the farms operated. The scent pricked my eyes with unexpected tears and I squeezed her waist hard before letting go.
My dad wasn’t much of a hugger, but the grin under his brown-and-gray moustache betrayed his happiness at having me home. “Hey, bud. Happy birthday.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Are you hungry?” Mom grabbed my black cloak from my fingers, a staple on Sanchi, where the temperature never rose above ten degrees Celsius. She folded it primly over an arm. Her ice-blue eyes pleaded with me to be hungry, for the night to be normal even though it couldn’t.
The house felt unsettled, as though Jonah’s absence had somehow shifted the walls and tilted the floors. But it hadn’t changed the structure—it had changed us.
Both Jonah and I being sorted into the Historian Academy had been a surprise since our parents displayed scientific aptitude—my mother a botanist, Dad a respected genome researcher—but my brother and I shared a love of good-natured discussion on the ever-popular topic of whether humanities’ choices or our genetics had a greater impact on our downfall. Voices had filled our house with laughter and constant debate. It had always been fun, and I’d joined in even before my training began, but now the hallways and bedrooms and kitchen felt deserted. The way things used to be had evaporated, devoured by the shadow of Jonah’s ghost, and as hard as we faked it, we just weren’t the same family without him.
My brother had been gone three years now, running and hiding in the vastness of space. Surviving by committing unthinkable acts of piracy. It seemed like less time had passed since this place had gone from feeling jovial and warm to holding its breath. Waiting. It reeked of forced happiness.
“I’m starving,” I told my mom, grasping for normal.
The kitchen looked the same, with its cheery yellow curtains edging the sink and windows and dings in the metal cabinets here and there. Mom’s meatloaf smelled familiar—though not as good as real beef. Sometimes the hardest piece of the past to leave untouched was the food. No animals had been relocated to Genesis for several reasons, so our nutrition was synthetic. Though I knew nothing different, after a few observations it became clear that even the scents in our new worlds paled in comparison.
We gathered at the table and ate, my mother bowing her head and murmuring a quiet prayer while my father and I dug in. My mother had been raised on Persepolis, a tiny, arid planet where most of the religious traditionalists lived. My father was born on Sanchi and hadn’t been raised with any sort of inclination toward faith. Religion wasn’t popular in Genesis, but also wasn’t prohibited or sanctioned. Those who believed in a higher power followed the same primary, overarching law as the rest of us—no hatred or segregation of any kind.
The Originals had agreed and instituted a zero-tolerance policy for any kind of violence. It was the only true law in our society, and the only infraction punishable by exposure—by death.
Day to day we operated on expectations rather than laws. The System ran more like a corporation than a government, with all of the citizens acting as employees—cogs in the machine. We were rewarded for good performance, demoted and reprimanded for poor, and had a Sanction Guide that amounted to a basic corporate conduct policy. It had worked for us.