The Box

Stella

Stella
Every morning, every citizen of the Escape, or, as it is more commonly known, the Box, over twelve years of age who has not been admitted to the hospital is awoken by a very irritating noise that is transmitted directly into their ears through a permanent sort of earpiece called a Unit that everyone, regardless of age or status, is required to wear. The noise starts with a click, followed by a single tone that continues to climb higher in pitch and louder in volume until you cross through the doorway of the bedroom of your apartment or whoever's apartment at which you happened to stay the night. You either do this immediately or you are driven insane trying to prolong this routine. I prefer the first of the two choices, as do most who are forced to contend with this, so, holding my hands to my ears despite the fact that this only makes the noise worse, I stumble out into my kitchen and collapse onto the sofa that I have positioned directly next to my bedroom doorway precisely for this particular procedure. From here, I simply have to press in a couple commands into the keypad next to the catering machine, and some hot coffee will be delivered almost directly into my hands. Of course, I have to open up the tiny window in the wall to retrieve it, but I'm not complaining. I'm one of the few who actually get coffee.
So...hi.
My name is Stella Winterson.
I'm one of the thirteenth generation on this accursed ship and I will probably never see the stars.
I would do anything to see the stars.
***
"Stella?" The tiny voice that fills my ears is enough to make my heart expand.
"Hi Dustin." I reply. It's my little brother, the boy who has been living in the hospital since he was five and needs his own personal little air-chair to get around. He's had so many operations I haven't even bothered to count, but he is still the cutest little boy who ever lived. I visit him every day.
"Where are you? The doctors need the permission of a qualified relative in order to start a new operation. They think it might get me out of the chair."
That's what Dustin wants. He wants walk. It makes my dream of the stars look foolish in comparison, to think of the little boy who wants nothing more than to feel his legs again.
***
"Hey, kid." I say to Dustin upon entering the hospital, hands engaged in a complicated handshake/high-five that we created when we were younger. He's been waiting for me at the door. "How's it going?"
"It's going good." He replies, grinning and bobbing his head. "Great, actually. Take a look at this-" his chair seems to spin of its own accord. "I don't need controls anymore. I just need to lean in the direction I want to go-" He spins again and nearly crashes into the nurse at his shoulder, and as she straightens out her scrubs, he turns pink and looks at the ground. "I still need a bit of practice, though." He admits, as I place my hand on his shoulder in a protective gesture and turn to his nurse with narrowed eyes.
"So what's this about a new treatment?" I ask.
Her smile, stiff and fake, is a show put on for me because I am important. I don't like the staff, and they don't like me. They don't like me because they consider me haughty and arrogant. I don't like them for the number of times they'd gotten Dustin's hopes up before crashing his dreams all over again; a cycle that seems as if it might go on for ever. But despite what we think of each other, there's one thing that we agree on- we both care for my brother, who has, over the years, charmed just about every staff member, patient, or visitor who has ever set foot in this place. So she leads me out of the waiting room and into one filled with computers and posters and so many ideas I'm thinking they probably haven't sorted everything out for at least a decade, maybe longer, hands me a permission slip, and jumps right into her presentation complete with virtual images and lots of meaningless talk. That means something. But only because of the way Dustin's eyes seem to glow as she explains to me this new, promising procedure. That has never been done before. Dustin will be the first test subject.
Sure, Dustin's played the guinea pig before, but it doesn't mean it's anything I like, or even approve of. But there aren't many paralysis patients here, and I guess it's a good thing that the research doctors don't go around breaking the backs of the helpless animals that live only behind bars, locked up inside the cages of the zoo, in order to experiment on one of them before they turn to my brother. If they were the sort of people who would do that, I'm not sure I would want them operating on my brother in the first place.
None of this medical stuff is really my thing; it doesn't interest me, although I'm sure that if I wanted to I could probably blow the minds of all these doctors and their scientifically backed predictions and hypotheses and experiments and whatever else they do. But I'm too busy watching Dustin's excitement grow and grow as he gazes at the screens with longing to really pay attention to the actual presentation. All I get is that it will include some painful growing of the lost nerves and such, which will take place within his freaking body and sending some little microscopic robots in that will go in and patch up whatever needs to be patched up. Meanwhile, he'll be on so many drugs he'll barely know who he is, let alone who I am, so it won't matter that the experience will be completely painful because he won't be feeling it. To me, it sounds just like all the other operations they've put him through except for the fact that they're growing the new nerves inside his body as opposed to in some sort of lab. I don't see what's so different about this one; let alone what makes it so much more promising. I'm actually against the whole idea, but it only takes one look at Dustin, blue eyes filled with mesmerized light, his whole face seeming to glow, to melt my stubbornness.
My eyes skim the form without reading it as my index finger traces my signature onto the thin, flexible screen, handing my little brother over to the doctors as I always do, dreading the action as I am doing it.
"Go ahead." I say to the nurse as I hand the slip back, permission now granted for them to do, in so many words, pretty much whatever they want with him for the next week.
I fake a smile and pretend I think that my brother will be alright, with two working legs and no chair. But every time he comes out of that operating room, his hope and his light seems to crumble away a bit more.
And mine does too.
***
"I," I announce as I punch in the key-code to the classroom and step inside, "am here."
As I'm standing in the doorway, I can see Erica Mason screw on the top of her nail polish bottle, stuffing it in her desk as she carefully studies her sharply tipped nails and their glistening pink. She used to be my best friend, back before Placement, but she got tired of getting outshone and my test results were the last straw. She doesn't even glance my way as she artfully flips her dark brown hair over her left shoulder; she has yet to meet my eyes since she made it clear to me that our friendship was over, and I doubt she'll ever meet my eyes again. I watch as she swivels in her seat to whisper something to Alicia. She can't look me in the eye, but she has no qualms when it comes to gossiping about the girl everyone has a reason to resent. Me.
I slide into a seat next to Tina Hesse, my closest- not to mention only- friend, if the social nobody who spouts Earth quotes at you as a farewell every day counts as a friend. Not that I would know; I'm even more of a social nobody than Tina Hesse, and that's saying something.
My brilliance, as I always knew it would, came with a cost, setting me apart from my peers and transforming me into an object of admiration that is raised up on a pedestal, not to be touched or loved.
Tina sits on the edge of her chair, as always, looking like a bird preparing to spread its wings and take flight. Her stance and demeanor have a way of making you think she's about to disappear; not particularly as if she's preparing to flee the scene, but more like she's not entirely there, and could fade into thin air without warning. She's been a companion for so long, however, that I've ceased to worry about vanishing on her part.
"Hey." She says, pushing a pair of plastic-rimmed glasses up her nose She doesn't need them- I don't know a single person who'd eyesight isn't beyond perfect-and I don't even know how she got her hands on a pair, but I've always known her to wear them and to see her face without those thick plastic lenses to frame her eyes would be to see her with a second nose or something. They simply seem to be a part of her, just as much as my blond hair is a part of me.
She can also read me like a textbook. "Is something wrong?"
I grimace.
"It's Dustin, isn't it?" She pushes her stringy dark brown hair back behind her ears. "I heard he's in for another operation." She chuckles dryly. "Quite the little celebrity he's becoming, isn't he?"
I shrug. "Yeah, well, what can I say?"
She gives me a flat stare. "You can say that a combination of being a spaceship's only paralysis, along with being the beloved brother of a particularly prized prodigy can attract a lot of attention." She shakes her head and shivers. "Sometimes I'd do anything to be you, and sometimes, I'm rather glad I've managed to escape all those eyes."
I give a bitter laugh. "You don't want to be me. I promise."
It's a topic we've discussed multiple times, so I understand her annoyance at this statement, but she decides to drop the subject. I'm glad. I could do without the numerous hissy fits we engage in ever so often.
"Anyway," she says, her voice low and secretive as she leans in towards my ear. "If you aren't, you know, busy, during lunch hour today, there's something I need to show you." she bites her lip. "I know you probably have something planned, but- it's really important."
I put my hand on her shoulder reassuringly. "Don't worry, I'll be there."
Her face falls as she rejects my promise. "No, you won't."
I often feel guilty for being that friend who will always seem more important in her eyes. She'll be there when I need a hand, but if she's the one crying for help, it's likely I'll be at a meeting with a council member, or some other person she doesn't dare to contend with. And it's almost funny, how the gap between us could easily have been diminished with a slight difference of scores- just numbers in a file. A couple more correct answers on her part, and a couple wrong on mine, and our places would be switched. But six years ago, when we sat in our separate rooms with a stylus and a tablet, I was much too nervous to have even thought of flubbing up a couple answers for the sake of a social life. But many a time have a gone back to that room and wondered how my life would have been if I had not tried quite so hard. It's very possible that I wouldn't even be sitting here now, trapped in a life I despise with a future stretching out before me as endless as the universe I've yet to see.
Tina's proclamation of my distance couldn't be more accurate, for just as she is reminding me not to make promises I can't keep, my Unit clicks on with a message.
"Head of Council Miriam Govanchi is requesting a meeting with Miss Stella Winterson during the Fifth Period of the day."
"Govanchi wants me to meet with her during lunch hour, Tina."
Her eyes narrow. She crosses her arms, her eyes daring me to say no.
"I can't turn her down, Tina. She's the Head of Council."
Tina purses her lips. "Someday, you two are going to be equals. Why not start practicing now? It's not like she treats you like anything but a friend."
"But-"
"Just say you can't come. Tell her you've got other plans."
"Like what? What is more important than the-"
TIna's pencil-thin eyebrows shoot upward in an attempt to mask the hurt on her face with disbelief, but her voice quakes a bit as she speaks. "A friend, maybe?"
"I can't, Tina." I sink into my chair, wishing I could disappear. Sometimes it seems like I can't help but hurt everything I touch. "I just can't."
Tina suddenly becomes very interested with a chip in her navy blue nail polish. "I see." she says, her voice cold, and I make a snap decision, turning my Unit back on with a click of my tongue.
"You know what?" I tell the computer voice. "I can't come. I've got... plans. Because Govanchi isn't the most important person in the universe. Oh, is that a surprise to you? Well, she isn't. 'Kay? Good to know you understand. Bye." I can feel myself grimacing as the words come out of my mouth, because, to many, Miriam Govanchi is, in fact, the most important person in the universe, and someday I will be, too. Right now, I'm just hoping that I'll be able to laugh about this, as opposed to regret it, in a couple days.
Maybe, just maybe, Tina will laugh with me.
She looks a bit worried right now. And awed. I raise my eyebrows at her, waiting for a response. But then she starts to laugh.
"Well," she says, "I didn't expect you to go quite that far, but, I suppose, it works just the same."
"Might have higher consequences, though..."
She makes a face, and suddenly we're both laughing. Maybe it was the fight, or my impressive performance in turning down Miriam, or maybe its just the stress of the two combined, but it's fun to laugh together, even if we don't know why.
Moments later, Mr. Mason, Erica's father, the council member who is teaching the course of the week, is staring us down.
Well, mostly me. He doesn't like me any more than his daughter does.
I straighten my back and stifle the giggles rising in my chest, suddenly aware of the fact that the man has been lecturing us on the dangers of both republics and democracy, and I don't have a clue what those dangers may be.
"Miss Winterson," he booms. "Would you please enlighten the class by giving an example of one of the reasons the Republic of Antarctica fell in 3048?"
I stare back up into his face defiantly.
"No, Mr. Mason, I'm afraid I can't tell you that. Would you please enlighten us?"
One of the great things about being the prized prodigy in a government like this one is that I already have power, and it takes a brave soul to stand up to me. Sometimes I think our government has more faults than the ones that have failed before in history. At least in the republics and democracies, the people had a say.
***
"So... I'll just stop by my apartment, so I can throw a quick lunch together, and then...?"
"So..." Tina says, mocking me, "We'll get our lunches at the cafe. Then we'll go to my apartment, and I'll tell you what's going on." She speaks slowly, like she's talking to someone stupid.
I clasp and unclasp my hands nervously. "I'm sorry. I just..."
"Haven't acted like a friend in a long time?" Tina cuts in. "Well said. You've got a lot of catching up to do, girl. We aren't twelve anymore."
"No?"
"No. You haven't been to anyone's private apartment beside's Thomas's and Gavin's , have you?"
And Eleanor's, I almost add, but catch myself just in time, remembering that Thomas is the only one who knows a relationship between Eleanor and me ever existed. Instead, I say, "Not Gavin. He scored so low that he got put in a dorm."
"Yeah, well, they did like to match us with stupid, didn't they?"
I roll my eyes. "Duh."
Suddenly she grabs my hand.
"C'mon!" she says. "The cafe's this way."
And we take off running down the grid through one of the hallways that pass as roads in the cage where we live.
But Tina is a skinny girl- all bones- and is panting with in moments.
"You-" she starts. "Do you know how to hoverboard?"
"No. I never needed one. I can walk from my apartment to the City Hall and back, and besides, my paralyzed nine-year-old brother travels at a faster speed than those things. I should be able to manage."
"Then you're due a lesson."
Her back to the wall, she sinks to the ground, pulling her pack up onto her back. "It's a good thing I carry an extra, you know? Otherwise, it might take forever to get home. I'm sure we could make it to the cafe, but my apartment is on the other side of the city."
"Oh. Wow. How come you carry two?"
She looks up from her bag from which she's pulling a second board. "You ever get jumped? I mean, saying that you've got even less friends than I do... They like to take my stuff, so, I try to take an extra in the hopes that they won't take my bag, you know?"
"No, of course I haven't gotten jumped. People do that?"
"Are you blind?"
"I guess I am. But- who?"
She grins. "Oh, you know, kids like Gavin and Ellie and Derek and Sarah and Shawn. The ones who score low on intelligence but ace fitness and end up living in a dorm because the only need we've got for the super stupid yet super strong kids is to lift boxes and stuff. Those guys."
"Gavin?"
"Hell, yes. Does that surprise you?"
"God, no, but... he doesn't act that way around me."
"Did you expect him to? Girl, he's trying to impress you."
"Well, he fails epically. And anyway, why bother? He knows I'm going to have to marry him anyway, whether I want to or not. It's just the way things are." I shake my head. "Getting a perfect score on Intelligence was the most idiotic thing I've ever done."
"True." There was a pause. Then, "So, you wanna learn how to kick ass on a hoverboard?"
"You know what?" I asked as I held out one hand to help her up from the ground and received a board in the other. "I think I do."
***
Fifty-seven spills later we're standing outside the cafe, having taken our break, and I'm beginning to loose my patience. Dustin hadn't had to go through all this trouble when he learned to direct his chair, but then again, that was a chair. This is something that you have to stand on, several feet in the air.
"Seriously, Stella." Tina tells me. "I've done much worse. You could be called a natural."
"Some natural." I mutter.
"No, really. I've done, much, much worse."
"I'm sure I'll get to that."
Ignoring my snarky comment, Tina continues. "So are you ready to try again?"
"Absolutely not."
Tina grins. "Then let's go."
I step onto the board and crouch down, nervously holding onto the edges with my fingertips. Tina sets her board down on the ground and takes a few paces back, and then she's on her board and zooming ahead at a speed that is almost- almost - as fast as Dustin's chair, while I sit on my unmoving board.
Suddenly Tina stops, and just stands there, in midair.
"Well, are you coming, or no? You didn't turn down Govanchi for a couple of pastries and a coffee, did you?"
"I'm starting to regret the whole episode." I call back.
"No, you're not. You've been having fun."
I have been having fun, I realize, and the freedom I've felt today is something I haven't felt in a while- It's a freedom that can almost let me forget that I'm living in a cage.
I step on the button that starts the board, and I'm flying.
And then not so much. I take a sharp turn after Tina, and my feet slide off the board. For a second, I'm falling, but then the magnetic belt Tina provided activates and it pulls me back on by the waste. That makes spill number fifty-eight. I'm hoping I don't make sixty.
"Don't worry," TIna says. "It's pretty much straight road from here. It'll be fine."
She doesn't mention, however, how crowded it becomes. As we enter the highway that separates the main apartment block from the city, the roads are covered with hoverboards and pedestrians combined, and it becomes clear that it isn't so easy to get a space in the traffic.
"I've never been out this way before." I shout over the noises of hovercars honking, pedestrians talking, and some kid who keeps crashing his hoverboard into the walls on either side of the highway, probably because he thinks it makes him so cool or something. He looks like he's about twelve, testing age.
"Really? Not even as a kid?"
"No. My parents were Monitors, both of them. They're gone, now. Hovercar accident. I was almost testing age, so they moved me up a month so that I could get placed and support myself and all. I just sort of automatically became Dustin's guardian." Odd words to be shouting as you're stuck in traffic in a hallway, but they give a sense of release. I've only really talked about my family with Thomas and Eleanor, and they aren't really friends in the technical usage of the word.
"Oh, wow. I'm sorry. You and your family just seem to attract all sorts of trouble, don't they?"
I shrug. "Something like that."
"You know, what I'm going to show you is a bit of trouble on its own."
I laugh.
Then suddenly I'm serious all over again. "Tina?" I wonder. "Is this what it means to be friends? I haven't had one in so long."
"I don't know..." she replies, but then she swerves her hoverboard over and pulls it up next to mine, and reaches out to grasp my hand, looking straight into my eyes. "I haven't had many either. But you know what? I think, maybe, it is."
***
The traffic thins as we turn on to a side road that leads to Tina's apartment. The streets are almost empty now, save for a few small children running around, not yet testing age, but ranging anywhere between four and eleven.
"Hey, Mel," Tina calls to a little girl, about age six, sitting on the stairs that lead to Tina's private apartment. "What are you doing just sitting here? Don't you have something to do?"
The girl, Mel, looks slightly embarrassed. "I got locked out of my dorm-" she confesses. "And I need to go pee!"
"Oh gosh, Mel. C'mon inside. I'll go call the dorm mother and see if she can let you in."
Mel's eyes grow very wide. "No. You can't. You can't do that. Please, Tina."
TIna gets down on her knees so she's eye-level with Mel, as I watch at a distance, feeling awkward and out of place.
"Why not, Mel?"
"Because," she stammers, "Ms. Petunia will get mad at me for loosing my key-card." The little girl looks down at her feet, forlorn. "She'll be awfully mad."
Tina chuckles. "Mel, of course not. Back when I was in the dorm, I lost my key-card all the time. I bet Stella did, too. Didn't you, Stel?"
She turns towards me, exasperated, and mouths, 'Just say you did'.
I hadn't lost my key-card at all, actually, but I lie. "Oh, yeah, all the time. Of course."
"And the dorm mother never got mad. Not once." Tina assures the girl. "It'll all be fine, 'kay?"
Little Mel breaks into a wail. "You don't know Ms. Petunia!"
"Mel, just go inside and use the toilet, before you wet yourself," Tina instructs the girl, who is now holding her crotch and dancing around, "Then we'll discuss this further."
As Tina opens the door for Mel and ushers her inside, she say to me, "Sorry about that. My little cousin. I'm sure you saw the resemblance."
Thinking about it, they do look a bit alike. They have the same dark brown, almost black hair, and the same dark brown eyes.
"Oh, cool."
"I really feel sorry for her. Ms. Petunia isn't like the dorm mother I had when I was a kid. She really has no right to treat them the way she does."
"So Mel wasn't exaggerating."
Tina raises her eyebrows. "Yeah, no. But she can't just not go back. She'd never get evaluated."
There's a pause, such a one that, if we were children, one of us would undoubtedly blurt, "awkward silence", and then everyone would resume talking again.
Eventually Trina speaks. "So... You want to come inside?"
"Sure."
***
"It's not much, I mean, not as much as your apartment, I'm sure, but it's got its pros." Trina begins, awkwardly. Of course she would know that my apartment is considerably more than hers.
"Well," I say, in an attempt to make her feel better, "It beats Thomas's."
Her eyes widen. "Girl, I don't wanna hear about Thomas's apartment, or what you do when you're there. Remember that there's a six-year-old in the house... somewhere."
I run my hand along the shelf of books - she has many more than I do, and they're antiques, the expensive sort from early Earth-times that have paper pages that rustle and turn and smell of the world encased inside - before taking a seat on a plushy, red couch.
"Ew! Don't worry, I wasn't planning on discussing that with you, or anyone." I make a face. "And besides, your apartment is nice. Anyway, what was it you were planning in showing me?"
She quickly produces a small tablet from her back pocket, as she announces with grandeur, "This."
She seats herself down on the couch next to me, and carefully places the tablet on the table in front of us.
"You know that extra course you can take, the one where you trace your genealogy back to the Earth times?"
"Yeah.," I nod. "I was never really interested in that one, though."
"Yeah, well, now you are." she tells me, then lowers her voice. "I've never told anyone this before."
"And so you're trusting me? The random girl who just sits next to you in training? Wow, you're smart."
She gives me a flat stare.
"Okay, fine," I say, putting my hands up in mock surrender. "I won't tell a soul. But, one thing- no secrets from Dustin, okay?"
"Fine. So anyway, I've been enrolled in that class for, like, two years now, and I only just found this out, like, a couple weeks ago.
"I don't exist. I mean, I'm on the records and everything, see?" she pulls up her files on the tablet, but when I lean closer to see, she places a hand over it and gives me a look. "Hey! That's my private stuff. Nobody looks at that but me, and a few officials. Got it?"
"I understand."
She eyes me suspiciously. "I'll bet you do. Something tells me that despite your placement, you haven't got the cleanest record.
"So anyway, I exist on all the records, but, I shouldn't. I traced myself all the way back to this girl, Lucille Baker, my last Earth ancestor. She looked like this."
She pulls up a picture of a pretty girl with dark brown eyes and full, wavy dark hair, smiling giddily at the camera.
She looks about testing age, I think, but then remember they didn't have the tests back then.
"Recognize her?" Tina asks.
"No... Should I?"
Tina rolls her eyes, and pulls up a virtual newspaper article. The same girl's face stares unblinkingly at the camera, but for some reason, the picture looks eerie and out of place. I read the headline and gasp.
"Twelve-year-old girl goes missing the night before she is scheduled to board Escape."
"Lucille Baker... We learned about her in Fifth Year History, didn't we?"
Tina nodded grimly. "Yeah. They never found her. Remember how important it was, the fact that she disappeared that night, almost as if she didn't want to be saved?
"And she didn't have any siblings or relations that the gene test could've led me to. It was her."
I frown. "So you don't exist."
Tina shakes her head, slowly. "No. I don't exist."
Suddenly a door opens at the top of the stairwell, and Mel's tiny head peeks out.
"Can I stay with you for the night, Tina, please? I don't want to go back to the dorm."