The Emergence

“Do you know what will happen to you if the Strid find out you have this?”

Araio had the unique ability to inject poisonous anxiety into me no matter what good fortune the gods chose to bestow on us.

But this time I didn’t care.

“Staying here will be worse than anything they could do to me. You know we have to go. This is our chance! This will cover two passage claims aboard the Emergence. No one else in our sector can afford this, we won't be recognized!” I’d always been terrible at affecting a convincing tone and she knew it. She bit her lip in her signature state of cautious suspicion.

“I found it, it’s mine.” I mumbled defensively, my arms crossed.

Her electric white hair flipped to one side as she turned her head to me. “Wrong. You found it yes,” She hissed her next words quietly, “but twenty thousand dollars Epsilon? Someone will be missing that money and they’ll come looking for it, don’t wonder about that.”

She paced the worn wooden flooring of our horrendous little sleepshack. All the units in Sector 5 were worn down though, we weren’t special. We sweat like rats in the summer sol and froze until we felt like our bones might crack in winter but it was better than working for the Strid, by the gods, even if they did get extra rations and housing in Sector 2.

I’m much too impatient for her, but it wasn’t my fault that she took a hundred sols to make a bloody decision.

“It was past curfew but I was alone, I’m sure I wasn’t seen. I was running late and had to cut through the wharf and it was just lying there, Araio. Like the gods meant for me to find it.” I insisted.

I leveled her with a direct gaze. I could tell I was slowly beginning to work her over when she sighed in annoyance. I tried again.

“Look...I’m tired of scraping like animals just to survive the day, the week, only for another year to pass with us still here. Do you really wanna die here? Always staring up into a space you’ll never get to explore, like Father?” She looked up sharply and I knew it stung but I needed her to get on board.

“If we're caught, we’ll never see daylight again. Is it worth that risk?”

It was her turn to burn holes in my head with her eyes while I fidgeted. I wanted to escape this Earth just as much as she did, considering everyone who lived on the Emergence became Sector 1 by default.

But the Strid were a nasty coalition of the worst dregs of humanity with the full force of the military behind them, given free reign to terrorize the middle sectors out of rations, living quarters, etc. and were unforgiving to anyone caught breaking station or stealing, the penalty for which was laboring on the lower sectors for the rest of a very short life.

It was hell on Earth and everyone knew it. Yet there was a vision that I couldn’t unsee, of a dark ocean filled with stars, my hands pressed to cold glass as I watched it pass. I took a deep breath and nodded.

“Yes, it is.”

No sooner had the words left my mouth then there was a sharp rap at the door. We both flinched nearly out of our skins. My heart was already pounding. Araio frowned, and indicated for me to go to the table where our loaded pistol was hidden. I swiped it off a dead Strid a few months ago before the streetcleaners got to him and I slept better knowing it was there. She quickly but deftly tiptoed to the door and leaned against it. She turned to me and I shrugged.

“No one’s there.” She whispered, confusion evident in her voice.

When I joined her by the door, she slowly clicked the handle and swung it open. We stared out into an empty hall, the muffled sounds of yelling men and crying children echoing through it. I stepped out and that’s when I felt something under my foot that wasn't a grungy hall rug.

I looked down and lifted my foot off of a little book.

Araio peered over my shoulder as I lifted it up and inspected it. “What’s that?”

“You know I could be wrong, but I think it’s a book!” I quipped, shutting the door.

“That’s not funny...why would someone leave that?” She whispered fervently, her synthetically crystallized eyes darting nervously to the door as if she might see the shadow of feet near the crack.

“I don’t know.” I muttered under my breath, partly to myself.

I ran my fingers over the cover, noting the obsidian leather gleaming in the dim light coming from our dusty, cracked excuse for a window. A small yellowed note slipped out of the pages and fluttered to the floor. I leaned down and picked it up, and as I turned it a small intake of breath rushed through me.

I expected printed words, the customary form of communication around our sectors. Skilled handwriting was a luxury usually known only to people in Sector 1.

In black ink, words spiked and looped like spiderwebs.

Thieves are takers,

And get what they deserve.

Friends do favors,

And their place is earned.

Araio must have seen my look of growing alarm. “What does it say?”

I swallowed and wordlessly handed her the note.

“Whoever left this, they know...they know I took the money. They know what we’re planning on doing with it.” They’d probably planted it on the goddamn corpse themselves, and I’d played right into their hands. I slammed my hands down on the table. Our chance at freedom felt like it was slipping away.

“Epsilon, there’s more.” Araio offered quietly from somewhere far away, the blood rushing in my ears taking precedent.

“It says if we take this book to a building in Sector 1, the money is ours to keep.”

I looked up at her. “Sector 1? That’s on the way to the docking point for all the outgoing ships!”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t like this. We don’t know who left this, or what they want with this book. It could be a trap.”

“Or it might not be! Look, whoever this is, they have the power to rat us out before we make it ten feet on the Emergence. We need to do this. It’s our only chance.”

Araio frowned. She looked down at the book and opened it. There were a series of binary numbers, seemingly random. She flipped through the pages, all similarly afflicted.

“Can you make any sense of this?” She queried. I shook my head no.

“Whatever it is, it’s got nothing to do with us. Come on! Of all the grunt work we’ve had to do, this is gonna be a walk.”

We gathered up only essential supplies to take with us, though Araio did grab some old photos, and said one last goodbye to our unit. It started raining as we jumped fences, slipped through old alleys and made our way to Sector 1.

I was breathing hard. “Whoever this person is, they better be grateful.” I was completely soaked.

Araio nodded. “They will be. Let’s keep going.”

We reached the warehouse soon enough. As I pounded on the door, I noted the lack of guards on patrol. Whoever lived here didn’t want to attract attention.

The rusted door swung open to reveal a man with dark hair and a white coat looking down his nose at two women who probably looked like drowned rats shivering in the cold. “You found it?" His shocked tone called us Sector 5 trash without actually saying it.

“Here’s your book. So we square?” I grumbled, shoving it at him.

He nodded and began to turn away.

“What do the numbers mean?” Araio ventured, her curiosity always getting the better of her.

He paused. “You looked?”

I bristled. “So what if we did?”

He ignored me and looked at her strangely, a small smile on his mouth. “You two better hurry. You’ll miss your flight.”

She narrowed her eyes. “How did you kno-”

He slammed the door in her face.

I grabbed her arm. “Nevermind that, let’s go.”

We reached the docking station just as the last passengers were boarding. Araio was muttering distractedly. ”I don’t like this...the numbers...the numbers…”

She turned to me and gasped in horror, “They’re codes! I remember about them now, in one of Father’s old books. These machines...they destroyed the earth for hundreds of miles, Epsilon, millions of people died.”

I froze. “All the more reason to get out of here.”

She looked aghast. “We can’t just let him do this!”

I tried to keep my tone from being frantic. “Look...there’s no time. We can’t stop this. If we stay we’ll just die with them!”

“And you’re okay with that?” She hissed angrily.

No. Yes.

I growled, fed up with her compassion and goodness.

“Do you think anybody else in this godsforsaken place would have blinked twice? The ship's leaving and we’re getting the hell out of here now!”

I pulled her hand along, feeling her trip a little. I knew I was being rough but I couldn’t help it. I could practically taste our escape.

We had to shove through begging families and raging protestors seeking passage to the front where I flashed the chip to the guard.

“We want to board the Emergence.” I say breathlessly.

The claims moderator looked up boredly, seeming not to notice the angry throngs of people beyond the gate.

“Congratulations, how many passage claims?” He droned.

“Two.”

“Insert the forty thousand chip.”

I felt my blood turn cold. “Wait what? No. No...the passage claims are ten a piece.”

“Policy change. Insert the chip or move along.”

My heart began to pound in my chest. “You can’t do this. We--No--you don’t understand what we’ve been through to get here. We have to get on that ship together!”

“$40,000. Or get the hell out of my line.”

I was about to scream when I felt a gentle hand on my arm.

“Epsilon…”

Araio’s face betrayed what she was thinking. My eyes widened in horror.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“There’s no way in hell I am leaving you.” I fumed.

She immediately grew hard. “I know you’re very selfish but can you for one moment think about the fact that maybe I don’t want to watch you die?” Eyes filling with tears, she continued, “So you buy the claim, you get on that ship, and you live. You live for me, and for yourself.”

“No! Araio...no...please. What you’re asking me--please don’t make me do this without you.” I felt myself start to sob. “I should never have taken the money, we should have burned that goddamn book.”

Araio shook her head, shushing me soothingly, and enfolding me in a tight hug. “You know it has to be this way. I love you.”

It happened fast.

Before I could react, she ripped the chip from my hands, inserted it in the slot and slipped back behind the security gate just as it slid shut, the alarm buzzing to indicate it had locked. I gripped the bars.

“Wait! Araio! ARAIO STOP!”

She gave me one last look of encouragement and a silent warning: don’t waste it, before she was swallowed by the hordes of people clamoring wildly at the gate.

I felt my eyes blur with uncontrollable tears, my breath racking in huge panicked gulps.

Suddenly the slapping sound of a hand pushing a small claim through the window brought me back to reality. I snatched the cold, hexagonal metal and clutched it to my chest, tears falling freely. Though she could no longer hear me, I promised her anyway.

“I won’t.”