Another World Read online

  “You got guts,” he said finally.

  Merritt closed the backpack and pulled the straps up over his shoulders, grunting against the lopsided weight.

  “May I pass?” he asked.

  Edward sucked on his teeth while he mulled it over, tapping the plastic ticket against the palm of his hand.

  “You know what?” he said, shaking the tickets at Merritt. “I’m gonna guess your real name isn’t on either one of these. Do you know what that means?”

  He held up a hand to call over one of the security guards.

  Merritt stepped closer to the stall. “I can pay you fifty thousand.”

  Edward lowered his hand, the ghost of a victorious smile tugging at the edges of his mouth.

  “Guy like you that can afford a trip through the Rip?” he said. “I think two-hundred K.”

  He set a card-reader cube against the plexi window with its glowing orange screen facing out.

  “That’s too much,” Merritt said through clenched teeth. “That money is for housing and food.”

  Edward shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  He beckoned one of the guards over.

  “Two-hundred K,” Merritt hissed.

  Edward tapped the screen of the card-reader until the numbers read 200,000, then held it against the plexi, smiling smugly. Merritt glanced behind him at the approaching security guard. He hastily pressed the flat side of his hellocard against the plexi opposite the card-reader, swallowing the urge to vomit as the glowing numbers plunged lower on the screen of his hellocard and surged upward on the reader.

  The security guard walked to the side of the booth. Edward stood and opened a narrow door, then spoke to the guard in hushed tones. They shared a laugh, then Edward nodded toward Merritt and rolled his eyes. The guard squeezed his rifle grip.

  Merritt clenched his hellocard until it dug painfully into the flesh of his palm. He slowly turned away from the booth, preparing to run.

  Edward slammed the door on the side of the stall and dropped back into his seat with a sigh.

  “Okay, Mr...” he said, consulting the tickets. “Mr. Boone. Enzo here is the best guard in the force. The absolute best.” Enzo made a rude gesture at Edward, who grinned without humor. “He’s gonna escort you through security. Have a safe journey, blah blah blah.”

  He waved Merritt away from the booth indifferently.

  Enzo flicked on his rifle safety and slung the weapon over his back. He walked through the security gate.

  Merritt looked up at the sky, trying to see Sunrise Station through the haze. On a semi-clear day, which was the only good kind Houston experienced, it appeared as a small, gleaming metal asterisk arcing rapidly across the sky, its six tapered arms glinting as they rotated around a central core.

  Part of him was happy he couldn’t see it, for catching a glimpse of the station was one of the few truly beautiful reasons for remaining on Earth. As he followed the security guard through the gate, he hoped he would never see it from the surface again.

  TULLIVER

  The darkest moods find the darkest corners.

  Tulliver Pruitt sat on an overturned suitcase in the shadows of a dusty room in a poorly-lit section of the Houston Spaceport, nursing one such mood. His thoughts were thunderous and grim, as they often were those days. The room had no door, and Tulliver sat in the dark, watching passengers scurry past without noticing him as they rushed to catch their rides.

  He rubbed his thumb over a golden locket which lay open in his meaty palm. The slender gold chain dangled between his fingers. He stared down at the pictures of his wife and daughter, and he tried to cry.

  Tulliver had never been able to conjure tears, not even when it concerned his family.

  He snapped the locket shut and clenched it to his chest, taking a deep, cleansing breath, then rubbed his hand slowly over his bald head, wiping away the sweat.

  Baggy clothes covered his loose skin. Tulliver was a powerfully-built man, over two meters tall, but he carried a lot of unnecessary weight. His shapeless clothes concealed everything but his sagging, jowly cheeks and the vague outline of a pear-shaped torso.

  He wheezed.

  Tulliver couldn’t help it. He’d tried medication, tried losing weight. None were effective. His wife slept like a log, bless her, and never complained about his snoring. The problem was his nose. It was broad and squat, and difficult to breathe through, so Tulliver had to wheeze through his mouth.

  On the floor next to him was a pile of forged tickets. One of them had enough travel credit left to get him through the first security checkpoint and no farther, but all of the others had been rejected by the self-scanners outside the sled terminal. Bright red lights flashed overhead whenever an invalid ticket was scanned, so Tulliver had decided to wait an hour between each attempt.

  He tried the last ticket yesterday, so now he was stuck in limbo, unable to leave the terminal after passing through the first set of gates, and unable to pass through the next set without a ticket containing more travel credit.

  Sleds launched to Sunrise Station several times a week, but only one more departure would get him there in time to catch his next ride. He needed to board that sled in less than two hours, but all he had was a pile of worthless tickets.

  The silhouette of a man with shaggy hair stepped into view just outside the room.

  “We got one, Tull,” he said.

  The gravelly voice belonged to Roland Day — a wiry, skeletal man half Tulliver’s width and two heads shorter. Roland let his hair run shaggy to compensate for his inability to grow a beard — a sore point that one quickly learned to never bring up in casual conversation.

  Tulliver carefully secured the locket in a zippered pocket of his ill-fitting, sand-colored jacket. He wheezed as he stood from the overturned suitcase, then left the pile of forged tickets behind as he followed Roland into the dim light of the starport.

  Upon emerging from the muffled, cave-like room, Tulliver was immediately assaulted by sound and movement.

  Tin music blared from unseen speakers. Video billboards covered every square inch of wall, shouting at him, selling to him, appealing to him.

  One such billboard played a looping publicity reel for one of the two remaining pharmaceutical conglomerates. It showed a happy young couple cradling a newborn. The background was blown out, overexposed to imitate a brilliantly sunny day that no one believed in anymore.

  “Find out what the good doctors at PharmaGen are doing to fight Low Birthrate,” proclaimed the billboard. “Sign up for a local study today.”

  Tulliver followed Roland across a broad, open white concourse with a peaked ceiling reminiscent of a circus tent. Smeared, opaque windows shaped like teardrops let in a small amount of outside light.

  Roland walked quickly, his shoes clacking loudly on the hard, polished floor. It didn’t take Tulliver long to pick out his mark in the crowd.

  A man in a tailored suit walked hurriedly across the room, heading for the sled terminal. One of his hands held a cup of coffee and pulled a small suitcase on wheels. With the other hand holding his phone to his ear, he struggled to keep the strap of his messenger bag from slipping down his shoulder.

  A rectangular plastic ticket with glowing blue lettering bounced in his back pocket as he walked.

  Roland glanced behind him, and Tulliver nodded. Roland sped up to a jog, passed the man in the tailored suit, then abruptly turned around and bumped into him. The man’s coffee cup crumpled between them, spitting hot liquid everywhere.

  While the man yelled his face red at Roland, Tulliver lightly lifted the ticket from his back pocket and whisked it into his jacket in the blink of an eye. Roland apologized a dozen more times before managing to extricate himself from the encounter, then met up with Tulliver around a corner.

  “One more ticket to go,” said Tulliver, holding up the hard piece of plastic. “After that, no more running.”

  Roland grinned and reached for it, but Tulliver snapped it away and wagged a fin
ger at him.

  “Uh-uh. You owe me for Dallas, remember?”

  “That was six years ago!” said Roland, throwing up his hands.

  “And I’m just about ready to forget about it.”

  He squeezed the back of Roland’s neck and guided him toward the concourse to find a new mark.

  “Oh, great,” Roland growled as he looked across the room.

  The man in the tailored suit was speaking to a group of armed security guards, excitedly pantomiming his encounter with Roland and the subsequent loss of his ticket.

  The guards looked across the room in unison, and saw Roland.

  “Time to go,” said Tulliver.

  He spun and bolted, his heavy boots and his heavy feet within them pounding the hard floor. Roland easily overtook him, running at full speed toward the last remaining automated ticket terminal.

  He glanced back with wide eyes, his shaggy hair bouncing side to side. He slowed enough so he could reach out and grab for the ticket.

  “Give it to me!” he shouted.

  Tulliver shoved him away and looked back, wheezing hard. The guards were gaining fast. Just a few more seconds to the gate, but he wouldn’t make it in time.

  Roland could, if he had a ticket.

  “Here!” shouted Tulliver.

  Reluctantly, Roland slowed down as Tulliver held out his hand. Tulliver slowed down even more, hearing the boots of the guards right behind them.

  “Come on, come on!” yelled Roland.

  Tulliver grabbed something from his inside jacket pocket and shoved it into Roland’s grasping hand, then stumbled into him, knocking them both to the floor. Tulliver landed on his shoulder and rolled away, screaming in pain.

  “He has a blade! He has a blade!” he cried.

  Roland sat on the floor, staring without understanding at the knife in his hand. Then he figured it out, and the confusion on his face turned to rage. He lunged for Tulliver, slashing with the knife, but the guards fell on him, slamming him to the floor.

  As he screamed and fought, Tulliver shuffled away, holding his gut, pretending to be wounded. He fell against the automated terminal for support and swiped his stolen ticket across the screen. The plexi door slid open and he stumbled through, into a brighter section of the spaceport.

  As the door closed behind him, one of the guards brought the butt of his rifle down to crack against Roland’s head, silencing his squeals.

  Tulliver straightened up and cracked his back. Giving one last look at the limp form of Roland as the guards dragged him away, he turned to find the boarding terminal for Sunrise Station.

  LEERA

  Leera bit nervously at one of her fingernails as she rode in the black limo on the way to the spaceport. Rain streaked the tinted back window, through which the blurred outline of her military escort SUV was barely visible.

  Few drivers and even fewer pedestrians were willing to brave the storm. The empty streets and oppressive haze swirling overhead made Houston feel like a ghost town.

  In direct contrast to the sterile uniform she endured at the lab, Leera now wore a short, black cotton jacket over a white T-shirt, with dark green pants and hiking boots. Somehow it felt more adventurous — more like she was going on safari instead of into the cold vacuum of space.

  At fifty-five years old, she hadn’t expected to do either.

  The route to Galena opened when she was just a girl in Birmingham. Every child dreamed of going, but the earliest pioneers were unmanned probes. Humans wouldn’t be allowed through the Rip until Leera was forty-seven. She figured by that time the opportunity to visit Galena would be awarded to any one of the dozen talented, fresh young graduates in her department.

  That’s why she was so surprised to get the contract.

  Across from Leera, in the back of the limo, Paul leaned forward, smiling, and gently pulled her hand down into her lap. Her own smile was tinged with sadness as she squeezed his fingers tightly.

  Ten years her junior, Paul hardly looked older than when she’d met him in his thirties. His short hair was putting up more of a fight than many of his peers, thinning slowly, but not receding. Like so many others, he’d received corrective eye surgery after it was lumped into the universal coverage initiative. Leera thought he looked even younger without his glasses.

  Next to her, Micah sat leaning into her side, his hands on his thighs in proper fashion, staring out the back window. Leera’s son rarely stopped running around long enough to show her any kind of affection, but he’d been a barnacle as of late. She wondered if he sensed she was leaving.

  The boy had a keen sense of foreshadowing, picking up on signals to which Leera and Paul never gave a second thought: her empty travel bag pulled from a closet; a small container of toiletries; her adventurous attire, so different from her lab uniform.

  Leera couldn’t help but wonder if his prescience was a result of his condition — a heightened sense compensating for his losses.

  Spinal meningitis had found him as an infant, permanently dulling his hearing, delaying his speech as a toddler, and causing recurring kidney problems. The last round of treatments he endured resulted in a promising improvement, but he would soon need another to maintain his health. Leera planned to spend every last credit of her upcoming contract fee on a kidney transplant.

  Her family had ridden in silence after the limo picked them up from their one-bedroom condo on the north side of the city. The entire morning had been silent.

  Leera had known for almost a year she would be making the journey to Galena. Paul had known. They didn’t have to talk about it for the first few months after her team had been approved for passage on the next tour. It hung quietly in the background, this enormous thing, pushed into the distance and safely ignored.

  Micah was three. He would be five when Leera returned. So, yes, there were things to discuss. Many, many things.

  Paul was handling the situation with his patented stoicism, attacking it from a practical angle. He broke her absence down into year-long chunks — ‘bite-sized pieces’, he called them. Two slender journals sat on his bedstand, each filled with scribbles of his plans with Micah while she was away.

  He looked at his son, his brow knit with uncertainty. Leera was certain Paul felt more concern for Micah than he felt for her. Yet instead of bitterness, warm comfort washed over her, and she second-guessed her decision to leave for the nth time.

  The limo stopped in front of the spaceport’s employee entrance. Leera picked her travel bag off the floor and set it in her lap. She gripped the handle nervously.

  “Are you coming in?” she asked.

  “In this weather?” Paul replied, craning his neck to look up at the sky. “Of course.”

  She couldn’t help but smile. “I told you to stop being so charming, or I’ll never leave.”

  “That’s not really motivation for me to stop, is it?”

  The driver came around and opened their door.

  “Ready, bud?” Paul asked loudly as he picked up Micah. “It’s wet and cold.”

  He ducked out into the rain and hurried for the spaceport. The port was a towering concrete monstrosity, the shape and size of which one had to stand ten blocks away to fully grasp.

  Leera ran after them, her hiking boots splashing in puddles, until they stood under an awning out of the rain. Micah leaned his head on Paul’s shoulder and grinned.

  “Was that fun?” asked Leera.

  He nodded.

  Four armed soldiers got out of the escort SUV and walked unhurriedly through the rain.

  “Dr. James,” said one of them in a booming voice, “if you and your family will follow me, we’ll get you through security.”

  He spoke quietly to the other three soldiers. They fanned out behind Leera and her family as they entered the building.

  The lead soldier swiped his badge on a keypad by the employee entrance, and the heavy metal door slid open.

  Leera clutched her bag to her side with one hand and held Paul’s hand w
ith the other. Micah clung to his father’s neck as they walked through the spaceport.

  People stared, but Leera couldn’t be sure if it was because of the military escort, or because of Micah.

  “I saw another news story about a missing child at the port,” said Paul as they walked. “He was taken after his parents got him through the security gates. Those snatchers are getting bolder.”

  “Fewer children to go around,” Leera replied. “More people willing to pay for them.” She squeezed Paul’s hand. “I spoke to the Board of Directors. You’ll keep the military escort until I get back.”

  “It’s been nice taking him to the park,” he replied, nodding toward Micah.

  Leera brushed a strand of brown hair away from her son’s face. He had her hair, straight and thick, though his was not yet lined with silver. He had his father’s pug nose. She tapped it and he smiled.

  They reached an automated ticket terminal and stopped. The soldiers stood a respectful distance away, and Leera realized this was it — this was where she left her family.

  Paul set Micah gently on the ground and took his wife’s hands. Leera found she couldn’t meet his eyes.

  “It’s two years,” she said quietly.

  “Two short years.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and held her close. When she tilted her head up to kiss him, there were tear-marks on his shirt.

  She knelt and put her hand to Micah’s cheek. He looked down at the floor.

  “I love you very much,” she whispered, unable to speak louder. “Mommy will be back before you know it.”

  She hugged him fiercely, choking back a sob, then kissed his forehead and stood.

  “I love you,” she said to Paul, then she swiped her blue ticket at the terminal and went through the gate.

  “Don’t look back, don’t look back,” she muttered as she walked away.

  She turned around. Paul and Micah were already being guided back through the spaceport by the soldiers. She watched until they disappeared from sight, then reluctantly shouldered her bag and continued on.

  The main sled terminal was a large, circular room with a low ceiling and a thick, concrete central pillar. Sedate food stands and coffee trolleys hugged the pillar. Four boarding gates lined the outer circumference of the terminal, each crowded by twenty or so ratty, upholstered chairs. Most waiting passengers leaned against a wall or sat on the floor.