Across the Universe

“Umm,” I say.

“Command unknown,” the computer voice says. “Prompt command: lights, door.”

“Lights off?” I try.

The lights in the room flick off.

I roll my finger over the bar again. “Identity unknown. Voice command.”

“Lights on,” I say, and the lights turn back on.

Beside the rolly-bar that controls the lights are two rectangles of metal built into the wall, one about the size of a Post-it note, the other larger, roughly the same size and shape of an envelope. As I get closer, I notice a small button under each rectangle. I push the button under the small rectangle, and the metal disappears, showing a cavity just large enough for me to fit two fingers into it. It’s empty. When I push the button under the larger rectangle, though, the door doesn’t slide open. I push again, harder. A small beep! echoes through my silent room. I have just enough time to panic—have I done something stupid? Have I set off an alarm?—when the door zips open.

Behind the door is another cavity, just like the smaller one. But it’s not empty. Inside is a fat, steaming roll of bread that oozes a bit at the side. It reminds me of a Hot Pocket, but no Hot Pocket ever smelled this good. I reach inside, my mouth already watering. The bottom of the cavity peels away under my touch—a napkin. The pastry is warm, and I can’t resist—I eat three or four bites of it before I really taste it.

But once I do taste it, it becomes hard to swallow. It’s a meat pie, filled with gravy and some vegetables I can recognize. But the round green things that look like peas are larger and chewier than any peas I’ve ever had. And the chunks I took for potatoes aren’t potatoes at all. They’re something like tofu, but thicker, and when I suck the gravy off a chunk, it feels like rubber on my tongue and tastes about as appealing. There is very little spice in this meat pie—definitely salt, and something sort of sweet, like cinnamon, but no pepper, nothing with kick.

And the meat... it’s not any meat I know. Red meat, but no fat on it at all. Each piece is a perfect cube, and I can’t help but wonder—is it that way because of some skillful cook who cut it, or is it that way because it’s not really meat? I imagine ice trays filled not with water, but red gooey meat-like substitute, and I gag and drop the remains of the pie into the small canister by the door that looks like a trash can. As soon as it lands in the trashcan, the bottom of it zips away, revealing a long, black tunnel that sucks the meat pie and napkin away.

Nothing remains but a waft of steam from the rectangle metal by the door and a scent of unseasoned gravy in the air that is both strangely familiar and deeply alien.

I shake my head. This technology is better than anything on Earth. Another sign that I don’t belong here.

I wish I had someone to share all these discoveries with. My eyes drift to the chair, and I can almost see Elder sitting there. Elder, with his kind eyes. The only person on this ship who doesn’t seem to wish I was off it.

I think about my parents. They are on this ship too, but they are still fifty years away.

I screw up my eyes and will myself not to think anymore.

And then I think about how I was unplugged, and how they might be too.

I shiver, and I tell myself that it’s just because it’s chilly in here. A wardrobe stands against the far wall, beside the large piece of metal hanging from the wall that I think covers a window—light creeps in around its edges. The clothes inside smell musty, but when I shake some of them out, they seem to be clean and in good shape. I cannot find a bra in any of the drawers, but one drawer is filled with cotton panties. I am a little grossed out, putting on panties when I don’t know where they came from, or if they once belonged to someone else, but they don’t look old or used. I let the towel drop to the floor and wiggle into a tan tunic and dark pair of pants, both of which have been decorated at the hems with tiny painted yellow flowers. When I drop the towel inside the hamper by the wardrobe, the lid snaps shut. A puff of steam emerges from under the lid, and then the hamper pops open. The towel inside is dry and clean.

There is too much about this ship I don’t know. That will be what I do first: find others, learn about the ship, and figure out what to do to protect my parents from whoever unplugged me. Because even though I want them more than anything right now, I don’t want them to wake up cold, alone, and drowning under glass.

A crack of light lines the carpet under the square piece of metal hanging on the wall beside the wardrobe. When I touch the thin raised metal, it whirrs away, revealing a smudged, dirty window looking out onto bright green fields.

So this is where I will spend the next 49 years and 266 days.

It’s not ugly. It’s not what I expected. There is green here. Rolling hills spread out from the lawn of the Hospital down a dusty dirt road. The pastures and fields are divided by dark green hedges or brown fence posts. The cows are the closest, and I assume the white fluffy dots further down are sheep or goats. Neat rows of vibrant verdant plants spread out like a crazy quilt. And there, on the edge, is something that looks like oversize stacked LEGOs—train cargo cars or the trailers on big rig trucks stacked upon each other in rows, each painted a different bright color. The jumbled stack of colors reminds me vaguely of Walt Disney World. When I was little and lived in Florida, my parents took me there every summer. It seemed massive then, giant, like a whole country in a theme park, but I realize with a shock that Cinderella’s castle would fit in this metal bubble, and that this level is easily fifty times bigger than the whole Magic Kingdom.

I try to count the trailers, but can’t. Just how many people live on this ship? There’s room there for at least a couple thousand.

I wonder if Elder lives in one of the colored boxes.

My eyes drift toward the horizon.

There is no skyline. Because there is no sky. Cool gray metal rises over the brightly painted boxes. The metal curves over the city, arching over everything. Near the top, a sickly shade of blue replaces the gray. I suppose they were trying to make it look like a sky, but they didn’t do a good job of it.

Smack in the middle is a bright yellow-orange ball of light. It doesn’t hurt to look at it like it hurts to look at the sun, but it’s still painful. Maybe if I’d never seen the sun, I would be impressed by this glowing source of light and heat made by man. But I have seen the sun, and it is not this tiny false thing, it is so much grander than that. I stare at it until my eyes prick with water, and when I blink away, I keep my eyes shut longer than I need to.

Images of broken light dance behind my eyelids. How could this giant lamp compare to the sun?

Everything is wrong here. Shattered. Broken.

Like the light.

Like me.

I never thought about how important the sky was until I didn’t have one.

I am surrounded by walls.

I have just replaced one box for another.

20

ELDER

ELDEST AND I DON’T TALK AS WE DESCEND IN THE ELEVATOR to the cryo level. We particularly don’t talk about how the alarm on the table on the fourth floor lay open and smashed, its guts spewing from it and spilling out on the floor. Broken. Useless.

When the doors slide open, the lights are already on.

“Back here!” Doc’s voice calls.

Eldest’s strides are long, although uneven with his limp, and I have to rush to keep up as we go down the aisle with the numbered doors. I seek out Number 42, but we’re going too fast for me to find it without stopping.

We round the corner and start down the aisle numbered 75-100.

One of the little doors is opened. The tray table has already been extended, and a cryo box lays on it. Doc is standing in front of it, his back to us, bent over the box, but even though he blocks our view, I can tell that something is wrong.

Eldest doesn’t hesitate as we approach.

I do.

The man inside the box is dead, floating in water with blue sparkles. His arms are bent, his fingers curled into claws, and I know he died trying to escape the box as the cryo liquid melted. I know because his eyes are open, and his mouth is a gaping maw, and his face is twisted in anger and defeat. There is a pool of blue-specked cryo liquid on the floor underneath him, and red marks around his too-pale throat.

Eldest and Doc lift the lid together. The dead man inside bobs, his fingers and nose and knees pushing up at the viscous layer of the water.

“Who was he?” I ask.

“Number 100.” The last box in the row, the last person cryogenically frozen.

This means nothing to me, but Eldest sucks in his breath. Doc nods at him in a knowing way.

The dead man’s head jerks and I jump back, startled. But Doc is just pulling at the tubes in the man’s mouth. With each yank, his body twitches violently. Water splashes from the box. I step back, but it still splatters on my boots. I go over to the table at the end of the aisle and pick up Doc’s floppy, running my finger along the edge to turn it on. The screen glows. I rest my thumb on the scanner square, and a message flashes: “Eldest/Elder override: full access granted.” The screen fills up with images—icons, folders, notes. I search for Number 100, and after tapping around a bit, I find it: the dead man’s folder.

NAME: WILLIAM ROBERTSON

NUMBER: 100

OCCUPATION: LEADERSHIP SPECIALIST

STATUS: ESSENTIAL TO OFFENSIVE ORGANIZATION

PRIOR EXPERIENCE: UNITED STATES MARINES, ACTIVE DUTY IN WAR OF—

Eldest snatches the floppy from my hands. With a swipe of his finger, he blacks the screen.

“Pay attention,” he growls. He jerks his head toward Doc, who is finally reaching the end of the tubing. A small electrical panel pops out of the dead man’s mouth, and he sinks further beneath the cryo liquid.

“Well?” Eldest says. “Was it a malfunction? Another one?”

“Give me a minute.” Doc is bent over the electrical box. He pushes a button, and a door springs open. He pulls out a tiny round metallic object that rests on his fingertip. Eldest hands Doc the floppy he had taken from me, and Doc presses the computer chip into it.

“Well? ”

“... It was turned off.” Doc’s voice is hollow.

“Turned off?”

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

“This.” Doc points to the blinking black box near the head of the glass coffin. The light flashes red. “Someone opened the cover and flipped the switch.” He shoots Eldest a look. “Someone with access.”

“This was done on purpose?” I ask, but I suspect the answer already.

Doc glares, and I hope that the anger in his eyes is not directed at me. “Someone came down here. Pulled this drawer out. And flipped this switch. Then walked away as the cryo liquid melted, walked away as the man inside slowly revitalized, slowly died, drowning in his own liquid.”

I want to look away from Doc, but what else should I look at? Eldest, whose rage is burning behind his stony face? Or the dead man with unblinking eyes that shimmer under the blue-speckled cryo liquid?

“Who would do that?” I ask.

“Who could do that?” Eldest asks, his deep voice rumbling behind me like the roar of the centrifugal machine in the labs.

“Few people know about this level,” Doc says. He looks away, and I can already see him slipping into his scientist-doctor mask, the one that’s cool and calculating, the one he wears when he diagnoses in the Ward. “Us,” he says, looking at both me and Eldest in turn. “But also some of the scientists. The ones who have worked in the”—he pauses, flicks his eyes from Eldest to me—“in the other lab, they know, of course.”