Illumination

“Jackie? You up?”

A voice penetrated the darkness and parted the water around her. Jack smashed her face further into the cushions she was resting on and moaned. Even that hurt her throat, which felt strangely salty. Almost as if she’d swallowed saltwater.

“Hey, it’s okay. Get up,” the voice instructed. It sounded vaguely familiar, but Jack couldn’t tell who it was through the fog that clouded her mind. “Jack…I know you’re awake.”

“No I’m not,” she muttered, closing her eyes even tighter and trying to forget that the last few days had happened.

“Come on,” the voice egged again, now discernibly male. Jack rolled over, her legs tucked up against her chest, and saw Robin standing outside the sleep pod, looking in concernedly. She mumbled something incoherent and forced herself to sit up, now aware that she was still in her itchy travel uniform. “Hey, are you alright?”

“Yeah. Where are we?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer in the back of her mind.

“Back at home,” Robin started, then corrected himself. “Well, we’re in the new colony. In our tent.” He paused, then added, “The others are here too.”

“Oh, good,” she muttered, leaning back against the sleep pod and reaching out to close the lid.

“Hey, Jack’s up!” Robin called into the other room. He gently swatted away her hand and held the sleep pod lid open as the sound of footsteps approached. Her friends and Sierra came into the room and crowded around the opening.

“Please, no…” Jack whispered, gingerly touching her throbbing head. She was surprised to find a bandage wrapped around her skull, plastering her tangled, sand-colored hair to the side of her head. Unsure of what it was for, she pulled her hand away and stared at the red print on her palm. I guess I really took a tumble back there. She smiled at the others, who looked at her with worried expressions. “I’m okay, really,” she told them softly. “How are you guys?”

“Okay,” Sierra answered with a tired shrug. Her eyes were dull and Sunken in. A Band-Aid was plastered on the bridge of her nose, tilted slightly to the left. “Getting by, I guess.” She paused and looked around, as if deciding whether or not to tell Jack something. “You’ve been out for a while. You hit your head hard when Ben—the alpha, knocked you against the ground.” Sierra pointed at the bandage that was wrapped around Jack’s head.

“Where’s Dad? You did get him, right?”

Liam and Bailey glanced at each other and Robin and Sierra looked down at the ground. “No,” Bailey finally admitted, shaking her head frankly. “We saw that you’d been knocked out and ran to help, but the alpha turned and attacked. I tried firing at it, but it just wasn’t working. The blasts were deflecting off and destroying things, so I stopped because I was worried that I’d hit your dad. But then the alpha made a weird, squeaking sound and another solfect appeared. It clawed at Sierra’s face and started to drag Liam off by the leg, but I was able to distract it and make it let go. We were so busy trying to defend you and ourselves that we didn’t notice the tiny solfect and the alpha drag your dad away. We don’t know what happened to him but we were overpowered and had to leave with your body. I’m sorry, Squeak.”

“It’s okay,” she began, but trailed off, unsure how to end an apology that had no meaning. “We’ll come back for him, right?”

“Of course,” Liam said immediately. Jack glanced at him, surprised that the answer had come from him of all people. He had a thick bandage of ythafone wrapped around his right leg. It looked like the kind of cast that was meant to be signed, and indeed had a few signatures already, but the blank spaces were painfully obvious. Liam looked down, confused as to why she was staring, but then noticed her expression. “Do you...want to sign?”

“Sure,” Jack answered, and the silence was broken. Robin went off to get food and Bailey sat down in the corner to clean out the barrel of her gun. Liam found a stylus and Jack leaned out of the sleep pod to sign his cast with her name.

When she was done and the Brit had left the room, Sierra approached the sleep pod and climbed in like she’d done when Jack had first come to the new colony. The girl turned and rested her head against Jack’s shoulder, her eyes shining. She still held back her tears bravely, shoulders shaking. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay, Jack,” she told her older sister. “We’ll find him.”

“I know,” Jack whispered, placing a hand on the top of Sierra’s head. “We’ll get through this.” For a few minutes, there was nothing but the sound of their breaths. Jack looked around, for once feeling at peace. Bailey was watching the scene with narrowed eyes and a slight frown, absently cleaning the gun. Jack, for once too tired for her suspicious antics, stuck out her tongue then looked away. After a moment, the other girl got up and left the room hurriedly, leaving Jack and Sierra alone.

“I’m sorry...for arguing with you. You were right.”

“What was I right about? We nearly died back there. Maybe we should’ve gotten help.” Jack smiled sadly.

“Maybe, but we’ll never know. We can’t seem to catch a break, can we?” Sierra said, looking up at the tented ceiling above the sleep pod. She curled up her legs against her chest and Jack noticed that she was wearing the fuzzy purple slippers that she’d given her little sister for her seventh birthday. Five years later, they still fit.

“We have our mom,” Jack said, then realized that the fact was not much comfort. Their mom, Dana, was paralyzed in bed half of the time, with her husband as caretaker. Now they would have to take over their father’s position and care for their mother. “We have our friends.”

“Yeah, like Julia and Ronin, who are both dead because of me,” Sierra spat. “And you have Liam and Bailey, who are ‘boring’, according to you.”

“Not really boring,” Jack decided with a slight smile. “They’re not fun, but they’re...you know...interesting.” She shrugged and gently pushed Sierra to the side, dangling her legs out of the sleep pod. “Come on, let’s get up. What time is it?”

“I don’t know,” her sister admitted. Sometime in the morning. You slept through the night when we brought you back. I haven’t looked at a clock since.”

“That’s dedication for you,” Jack teased, slipping out of her uniform and into a grey sweater.

“Only in school,” Sierra shot back, pulling out a chair for her older sister. “Now, sit. I want to do your hair. You’re nineteen and I still do it better than you.”

“Can’t deny it,” Jack said with a slight smile, pushing all thoughts about her dad and the warning from the alpha aside for the moment. She winced as Sierra ran a hard comb through her short, tangled curls, humming all the while. “You are the beauty queen, after all.”

“Not really,” her sister answered, pointing at her chopped up hair awkwardly. Jack bit her lip and stayed quiet. “Okay, I’m done.” Sierra held out her holopad so her sister could see her reflection.

“It looks good, Sie,” Jack remarked, twisting a lock of sand-colored hair absently. “Now could we cut to the chase and get me something to eat?”

Her sister grinned and led her into the kitchen, where Liam, Bailey, and Robin were all talking around the table. “She has returned!” Sierra announced, drawing everyone’s attention to them.

“Want something to eat?” Robin asked. He was holding up a greasy bag. “I’ve got some super old bacon that we never ate.” Jack snorted, remembering the bacon they’d brought with them on the walk. But then her smile faded as she remembered why she’d wanted to go on that walk. Ben. “Hey, cheer up. I’ve scheduled a meeting with the General. We can go back to the beginning and discuss where to go next.”

“Where is there to go?” Sierra asked, sitting down next to her brother and unwrapping the bag. Jack peeled off a slice of the bacon and gingerly bit into it. It was cold, stale, and chewy, yet still delicious. Just the way she wanted it. “I mean, we don’t know where they took Dad.”

“I might have an idea,” Jack interrupted, leaning forward against the counter solemnly. All eyes turned on her. “Before Ben—the alpha, knocked me out, he told me to remember the pillars and go to 186.”

“What does that mean?!” Bailey asked, frowning and running her sharp fingernails across the counter. “And why should we trust him? He tried to kill us, after all.”

“It’s the only lead we have, and I think I might have an idea,” she answered slowly. Everyone leaned in expectantly. “When I got lost a few days ago, I was chased by an Apex into this gorge, where I had to sleep. When I woke up, I realized there were pillars around me. Pillars of ice, with strange, writing-like symbols on it. They were clearly not natural, or at least somebody had sculpted them out of natural ice formations. I think that’s what the alpha meant by the pillars.”

“No way,” Robin objected, shaking his head firmly. “I’m all for looking for clues, but I’m not going to drive back out into the wilderness to investigate some weird language that we can’t even translate. We’d have to get a translator—”

“The Archives!” Bailey exclaimed. Everyone turned and stared at her. “My dad recently got promoted to Grandmaster, right?” The others nodded and groaned, remembering how she’d bragged endlessly about it in class. “He got a key to the Archives during the ceremony. If there are any clues about the writing that you saw, Squeak, or the 186 reference the alpha made, we’ll find it there. I mean, it’s the biggest man-made archive in the entire New Earth. And we could all do it from the safety and comfort of the colony.” She blinked slowly and glared at Liam and Robin, adding, “For those of you who care.”

“Sounds good to me,” Jack said, ignoring the nickname Bailey had used. “Should we ask your dad for the key?”

The other girl glared at her incredulously. “Are you kidding? I just said that it’s the biggest man made archive in the entire New Earth! My father doesn’t even trust his coworkers; he won’t hand over the key to his daughter.” She rubbed her hands together and smiled slyly. “We’re going to have to steal it!”

There was an immediate uproar from the others, which Bailey quieted with a slight wave of her hand. “Hush! Let me explain.” She stood up from the table and gestured for the others to gather in the center of the kitchen. There, she pulled out her holopad and laid it out on the counter. An image was projected into the air of a skeletal key embossed in gold. Intricate designs were carved down the side. Designs that Jack recognized.

“Hey, those markings are like the ones on the pillars!” she exclaimed, pointing at the hologram. It was etched clearly in her memory. There was no mistaking the strange symbols. “Is this a copy of a general key, or is it unique to your father?”

“I-I’m not sure,” Bailey admitted, rotating the 3D hologram around so everyone could see the markings. They were only on one side of the key—the right side. “It might not have scanned right either—I had to stop mid-job because my dad came in. But I did get most of the scan right.” She dismissed the hologram of the key and brought up another one, this time of the Archives itself. “I’ve never been inside, but this is the general layout from security maps that my father keeps in his office. If these labels are right-” here she pointed to a series of shelving to the right of the main entrance “-the catalogues are kept in alphabetical and numerical order. So the 100s would be right here.” An aisle filled with boxes and books stacked on either side was highlighted at her touch.

“All this mapping is great,” Sierra cut in, adjusting her glasses absently. “But when and how are we going to break in? That’s the real question.”

“First, the ’when’ is easy. Tomorrow evening,” the girl responded, dismissing the hologram and towering over Sierra. “I can easily get the key by then and that’s my father’s off day. According to the schedule, they’re putting several interns in as guards of the facility—sort of a test day. The new guys won’t know what hit them.”

“You’re scary when you’re into everyone’s business,” Robin commented.

Bailey ignored him and continued, “Their shift starts at 5:00 IT, which is supposedly a ‘safe time slot’ because who would break in during the peak of colony activity?” She pointed at herself with both thumbs and smirked.

“You?” Robin guessed with a halfhearted shrug, returning back to his seat and breaking out his holopad to write down what she was saying.

“Stay in school, buddy,” Bailey returned snarkily, which made him flush crimson. “Anyways, yeah. As for the how question, that’s for us to figure out.” She brought up a map of the new colony on the holopad.

“How did you get that?” Jack asked suspiciously.

“Friends,” Bailey answered with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Liam, what info do you have about the times of the night guard shifts? Use that big brain of yours.” She poked his head playfully, which he grumbled at.

“Not a lot. Don’t expect me to be some sort of expert—”

“Oh, don’t worry, we already do,” Jack muttered under her breath.

Liam stopped, glanced at her with a miffed expression, then resumed, “Anyways, no. I don’t know anything about the night patrols. I’m not some criminal in disguise, unlike you.”

“I might know something,” Jack revealed, resting her bare, scuffed up elbows on the counter. Once again, all eyes turned on her. “When I first saw the light grenades, the alpha told me that the guards stop patrolling after ten at night. I don’t know if that’s true, but I don’t think he had a reason to lie to me, at least then.” She spat the last word bitterly, an image of her dad flashing into her mind.

“Okay, so I’ll steal the key myself at about five thirty when my dad goes to eat dinner with his work buddies. Then we drive off to the Archives using Robin’s buggy, search for what we need, satisfy Squeak’s insatiable appetite for strange writing, then make it back just after ten, when the guards finish their patrol. Does that sound good?” Bailey asked, her eyes flashing in a way that communicated, Oh, it’s good and you know it.

“Sounds good to me,” Sierra cut in with a cool gaze. Jack smiled in appreciation at her little sister.

“Alright then. Let’s meet at the garage at 5:45 tomorrow, then. I’ll let you guys in from the inside,” Robin decided.

They shook on it, and the plan was set.