WORLD 4: AWAKENING

Ceres kept talking in his sleep all night which meant I only slept for half of it. I found out quickly that he has some pretty crazy dreams. Shouts of “I’ll eat the brain first!” and “Will you go out with me if I cut your teeth off?” were heard off and on for the better part of the night. I figured it was visions of Athan’s grotesque attack crossed with those Food Lev girls he’d tried to impress.

Some of the insomnia was also due to Baylen. And Ty. And the confusing mixture of the two.

Part of me couldn’t believe I’d actually kissed Baylen back. Another part didn’t regret it whatsoever, which only added to the problem. I had no idea why I felt that way. My heart kept going back and forth between terrible guilt and a longing to kiss him again.

When the early morning light began to show through the cracks between our fabricated walls, I knew I could finally get up and focus on something else besides the two men and Ceres’ dreams. Breakfast was actual food again which perked me up right away. There was even something fruity sprinkled with sugar and spicy nuts. My sweet tooth was finally beginning to awaken after being denied for so long and I absolutely loved it.

I made my way over to Science Shelter where my expedition group was gathering. Wes stood facing away from me, hands behind his back, dark hair combed, assigning tasks to those around him. The fresh air and sunlight made it seem as if years had been taken off of him.

“Hey, guys,” I said as I came to the group.

The Protection Officer assigned to us gave me a smile. “You must be our medical support. My name’s Gabring.”

“It’s nice to meet you!” I replied. “Tylenian was supposed to be the one here, actually, but got called back into the Colony with an emergency.”

Gabring’s face fell immediately. “I heard what happened to Athan, I’m so sorry you had to see all that. Do you know what’s happening with him?”

“No, I haven’t heard. I’m going to try to reach Ty before we leave, though.”

“Good, keep us posted,” he said. Gabring looked to be in his mid-thirties, with skin as dark and glowing as Sirone’s. He had a smooth, commanding posture like my father and strong arms to match it. I was pretty sure I’d seen him off-duty with some kids; he must have lived in the family living areas.

There were three dark blue shirts from Science Lev chatting excitedly about the upcoming mission. One of them who seemed like he was my age brightened up even more when he saw me.

“Hi! My name’s Aymin. You’re Med Lev support, right?” he asked, sweeping some of his shaggy black hair from his eyes.

“Yes, I’m Mayla, one of the assistants,” I said with as much confidence as I could. I didn’t want them to think I was incompetent just because I wasn’t an actual doctor.

He pointed at the other two dark blue shirts. “This is Soren,” he said, and a brown-haired, lanky man in his twenties waved, “and this lovely lady is Brynn.” She looked to be in her twenties as well. She had chin-length, wavy light brown hair and green eyes as bright at Ebie’s. Maybe even more so. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was a Genetic like Athan.

“Brynn’s dad is one of the supervisors in Science, he helped design the Colony engines. Cool, huh?” said Soren. He beamed at Brynn.

She flushed and returned the admiration. “Yeah, he’s the one who got me addicted to science. But Soren’s the biggest genius of us all! He played a huge part in improving the sensors during The Quiet Year.”

“Wow!” I said. “You guys must be pretty smart. I can’t say I’ve done anything as great as that.”

“Me neither,” said Aymin. “But we’re still young, so we’ve got time to make ourselves amazing, right?”

“Ha! I hope so,” I said.

Aymin picked up a bundle of clothing at his feet. “Here, take one of these!” he said and passed it around. “Clothing Services made them just for the expedition groups. They’re vests to wear over our shirts. It’s pretty great — they’ve got a bunch of handy pockets on them to hold all our stuff.”

I held mine up. It was black and fitted, with three pockets on each side, one on top of the other. I fastened it up over my light blue shirt.

Gabring stood next to Aymin and reached into a crate beside him. “We also have weapons for everyone. Each of you gets a dagger, while Second Commander and I will each have an Air Burst Weapon.” He became a little nervous and glanced at me. “You know, just in case we encounter anything out there.”

I couldn’t help but get excited about the dagger — not just for the sake of protection, but because it looked so hard-core. I strapped it to the belt they gave us and practiced gripping its three-bulbed handle.

“So all three of you are coming, right?” I asked the three Science Lev Officers.

“That’s right!” Soren said excitedly. His face was alive with anticipation. “It’s about time we get to go out and do some actual field research for a change.”

Brynn agreed. “Yeah, we’re really looking forward to finding out what secrets this planet has,” she said with wide, exaggerated eyes. She exchanged a bright smile with Soren; he snorted loudly at her in a laugh.

“Hopefully not any secrets we can’t handle,” came Baylen’s voice from behind. He’d finally joined the group. My breathing stopped for a second and I stiffened with that same zing of electricity as the night before. He gave my ponytail a light tug. “You guys are lucky to have this one with us, she’s one of the best assistants we’ve got.”

“I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say that,” I breathed out. “Anyway, Baylen here is the amazing one. He can pretty much fix anything.”

“Great!” Brynn said in her sweet voice. She craned her neck around the area. “So, do either of you know when we’re supposed —”

“Everyone gather around!” Wes shouted. We spread out to make a circle around him. “Gabring here is our Protection Officer and is in charge of the expedition. He will now be giving us instructions before we go.” Wes nodded at Gabring and backed up to join the circle.

“Alright!” Gabring called out with a clap. His voice was smooth and easy. “Let’s get this thing started. I’m excited to be with all of you for the next four days. We’ll be using Ultra Light High Tech Transports for the journey. I know, it’s a long name,” he said as we all chuckled. “Just call them personal transports and that’ll be fine.”

I couldn’t help but steal a glance at Baylen to see his reaction, but he was focused on Gabring. My eyes darted back.

“The transports hold four people at a time, two in front and two in the back, plus one storage area in the end section,” said Gabring. “So we’ll be splitting into two groups. I’ll be going with Medical and Tech, while Second Commander and the three Science Officers will go on the other. We’ll be —”

“No,” Wes cut in. “I will go with Tech and Medical and you can go with the others. Please continue.” He obviously had no plans to leave Baylen out of his sight.

“Uh, well…are — are you sure, sir?” asked Gabring, stumbling over his words. “I’ve planned it out very carefully and —”

“I’m sure.”

Gabring sighed. He couldn’t argue with his Second Commander. “Alright then, I’ll just continue.” He cleared his throat. “We will be traveling for four hours on the personal transports through the route on this map.” He handed Wes a small hand screen with the route marked on it. “The terrain varies greatly from forested areas to brush-covered hills, rocky cliffs, even a river. We’ll stop for a break while our Science Officers will do their thing, and then move on another two hours where we’ll camp for the night.” He scanned the group. “Any questions?”

Soren raised his hand. “How will I send our findings back to the Colony?”

“There’s a built-in communicator inside each transport so that we can talk to each other during the trip. As for your lab, we’ll be able to get a hold of Colony Four within close range using this.” He held up a personal communicator the length of a long finger.” Second Commander and I will each be holding onto one. Unfortunately, the range isn’t great, so we’ll be unable to communicate with the Colony most of the time.”

Soren frowned. He was clearly eager to share his findings with his team both at camp and inside Colony Four.

Gabring clapped his hands. “Meet behind Food Shelter in twenty minutes!”

The Science Officers immediately turned to each other to discuss final preparations while Gabring started an official-sounding conversation with Wes. Baylen grinned at me with an expression as awkward as mine.

“Hey, so we get to ride with your dad, that’s pretty great,” I said.

“I guess so,” he said. “It’s going to be cold at night, you’re bringing your coat aren’t you?”

I nodded several times. “Yep! Yes, I packed it, yes.”

A smile crept up on Baylen’s face. “Wait, did you say yes? I didn’t hear.”

“You’re so funny.” I gave him a gentle shove. The uncomfortable silence returned. “Listen,” I started. “I just wanted to say —”

“Mayla!” Ceres shouted from the direction of Med Shelter.

“What is it, Ceres?” I shouted back, a little grateful for his interruption.

“Ty is on the live communicator asking for you!”

A huge lump filled my throat. I turned to Baylen with a guilty look but he waved me off and went to join his father. I groaned and started the jog over to Ceres. My hand immediately pressed onto my belly; running moved the bandages around a little and the stinging pain of the previous day’s injuries screamed out like a child demanding my undivided attention.

I knew that Ty was probably calling to give an update on Athan. But even though I was anxious to hear good news, part of me was still beginning to panic for selfish reasons. There was a chance that someone had seen Baylen and me kissing. If that was true and they’d gone and told Ty about it, I swore I would track down whoever it was and kill them with my bare hands.

Inside Med Shelter, Ty’s face was grinning out of the live communicator at me. “Hi there, beautiful!” he exclaimed.

Right away I put on a convincing, loving smile. “Hey, Ty! How is everything there?”

“He’s alive!” he cried.

I shut my eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m so glad Athan’s okay! That’s great news. Everyone will be so relieved.”

Ty nodded happily. “We were able to stop the bleeding, repair organ damage and put the skin back together. Took forever, but I did it!

“Wow, sounds complicated. You’re amazing.” My voice dripped in sweet admiration. Thankfully, he was so focused on his surgical success that he overlooked how fake I was acting.

“We still have to do more surgery tonight to repair muscle tissue and some detailed skin work, but it shouldn’t be too bad. Oh!” His digital face lit up. “Something incredible is that Athan’s face is totally fine. Can you believe he doesn’t even have a scratch on it?”

I did a double-take; Athan’s injuries seemed like they almost required there to be damage to his face. “That really is incredible. Really lucky, too.”

“I think I’d rather have my entire body ripped to shreds if it meant that my face would be saved,” Ty said with a laugh. I had no doubt he meant every word.

“Well, I —”

“I stayed up late with Kai making big plans about tonight’s surgery, got to spend a lot of quality time with him.” His smile grew bigger. “After this, I’m sure now that he’ll trust me with my own Med Lev! So I guess something good came out of Athan’s attack, if you want to look at it that way.”

I didn’t want to look at it that way. Not even a little bit.

“That’s great, Ty,” I said with much less life in my voice than before. “I’ve got to get going, we’re about to leave.”

“Alright, be careful. Seriously, Mayla — nothing crazy, no going off by yourself or anything. Promise?”

“I promise. See you in a few days.” I flashed him a forced smile and turned off the box with a sigh. His digital face disappeared inside of it.

Med Shelter was quiet. I grabbed a tube of numbing cream, rubbed a light layer of it all over my belly and replaced the bandages. My eyes shut in relief as the intense stinging disappeared. It was way too good to leave behind; I shoved it inside of my upper left vest pocket.

Taking one last sweep of the room, I tried to think of anything else I could bring along that we’d missed. I grabbed a laser scalpel on a whim, just in case I had to do some kind of field surgery. It was highly unlikely that I would, especially considering I’d never done that kind of thing before, but I stuffed the small metal rod into my pocket with the numbing cream anyway. After Athan’s attack, it would at least make me feel better knowing I had a second cutting instrument on me at all times.

Our group was obviously anxious to get going; even though I was five minutes early, they’d all been waiting for me for twice that. The dark blue shirts leaned against their transport and sprung up straight as soon as I came into view.

“Good, she’s here!” exclaimed Brynn, clapping.

Baylen cupped his hands over his mouth to yell at me as I walked over. “Go ahead and take your sweet time, grandma!”

I shook my head and jogged the rest of the way over to the group. “Still funny as ever, Baylen.”

“Glad to see my humor’s appreciated,” he said with a smirk.

I looked to the group. “Guess what? Athan’s alive! Ty said he’ll need more surgery but will be alright.”

Everyone sounded out a gasp of relief. Gabring put a hand on my shoulder. “So happy to hear that, Mayla. Thanks for letting us know.”

Baylen stepped over to me. “Wow, I’m glad to hear he’ll survive.”

“Me, too. I was pretty worried we’d hear bad news.”

“Yeah.” Baylen’s face relaxed. He kept his eyes on me for an extra few seconds. “Anyway, I’ll drive and you can ride up front with me while my dad sits in the back.”

“No!” I said quickly, wanting to avoid a situation that involved me sitting closely with him for hours on end. “No, I’ll sit in the back. You can’t kick Second Commander out of the front, after all!” Before he could argue, I turned and joined the Science Officers, pretending to be interested in their conversation.

“Everyone!” Gabring called out loudly for our attention. “These are the Ultra Light High Tech Transports we talked about.”

He pointed at the transports behind him. Painted a shiny gray, they were long and narrow, with just enough room for two people to sit side-by-side in each row. The roof was made out of a hard, durable glass that covered the entire upper half of the transport.

“I don’t know about you guys,” Gabring said and pressed a button near the front, “but I’d rather feel the sun and breeze while we’re moving.” The glass roof began to slowly fold its way into the sides of the transport until only the front shield remained.

It took every ounce of my willpower not to jump up and down in delight — I felt exactly the same way as Gabring. Just imagining the wind blowing on me for the next four hours made me just about ready to cry. I looked at Baylen; his eyes were already on me with a face as happily lit-up as mine.

Gabring gave us permission to get going. I whooped in delight and quickly climbed into the back of the transport. The seats were made of a smooth, white material with padded headrests.

“You know how to work this thing?” I asked as Baylen took his place up front with Wes.

He studied the instrument panels. “Think so. The Tech Officers who developed them gave me an overview of how to operate it, so I’m pretty sure I’ve got an idea.”

“Pretty sure?” I said playfully. “So, you’re pretty sure you won’t crash it and kill all three of us?”

“Don’t worry, Mayla,” Wes said over his shoulder. “Baylen’s a smart guy so I’m sure he won’t kill us. Hopefully, at least!” He began to chuckle deeply and motioned for Baylen to get us moving.

Our transport began to crawl forward. Baylen pressed the single red button on the controls.

“Gabring,” he said, “can you hear me?”

Gabring’s smooth voice came through loud and clear. “I hear you, Baylen. Continue along the route to point one. See you in four hours.”

“Got it,” replied Baylen.

“Oh, and one more thing,” said Gabring. “Enjoy the ride.”

Baylen laughed and pressed the button again. “No problem with that, buddy.”

We began to move a little faster, the transport’s wheels grinding along on the dirt. I felt my entire body tingle with excitement as we increased our speed.

Baylen looked at me and Wes with a mischievous grin. “You guys ready?” he asked. Our smiles confirmed it. “Let’s get out of here.”

Launching us forward at high speed, we raced away from Colony Four as fast as we could, beginning our journey into the depths of the alien planet.