Notices fly through every single holographic device in the entire world--the last ship is leaving in two days. Bring only what you need and nothing else. Supplies will be provided on the ship and partitioned after the headcount has been completed. Please check to make sure you are on the registered name list to confirm your space upon the spacecraft.
"We've confirmed, right?" Lisa asks, peering over the top of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Jennie was sitting at the other end of the sofa, speeding through Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
"Hm? Oh--yeah we have. We got the space assignments too, the same bunk bed. But I used our birth certificate names," Jennie says with a sheepish grin. "So we'll have to check in at different lines but we'll meet up back inside."
"Good," Lisa says, eyes lowering back onto the page.
Two days pass in a flurry of words, faster than the flip of a page.
The check in times are blocked off, mainly to keep the teleportation stations from flooding, and too many people trying to access the same end point might cause glitches in the system (horrible accidents in the past). Jennie and Lisa were slotted for the last batch of people leaving.
"Orphans, duh," Jennie says when Lisa asks why they're always last in line for everything.
"Right, right," Lisa says, slumping down next to her, watching the clock on the wall tick down mankind's last couple of hours on Earth. It's weirdly symbolic, that the last people on Earth would be those at the bottom of the social class, misfits and orphans.
When the time finally comes, they decide to leave the books. They're heavy and not worth the weight when teleporting--might screw up the algorithm if their masses are too off and they can't use an entire teleportation ticket for just books, they only have two.
"I'll meet you inside, okay?" Jennie says, waving as she bounds off towards the line for the K's
"Yeah!" Lisa heads in the other direction for the M's. The lines are long, but they move at a decent pace. Still, it's been an hour and Lisa felt like they haven't moved much at all. Something crinkles beneath her foot as she takes another step and looks down. It's a teleportation ticket. She bends down to pick it up, smoothing the thin material over her palm. An idea clicks in her head and she grins, turning to the old man behind her.
"Could you please save this spot for me? I forgot something back home and I gotta run to get it."
The old man nods and smiles a toothless smile. Lisa bows low, then shoots off towards the nearest teleportation stand.
Jennie finally makes it through the sea of people inside, pushing passed them all till she reaches their bunk room. It's tiny, small as a closet, with just two beds and a small light attached to the head of each bed along with the bare necessities needed for daily life. There were two sets of immaculately folded clothes laid out on the sheets. Neither of them have been touched. Jennie bounces on her feet, looking up and down the curved hallway before she decides to change now and then go find Lisa.
The mess hall is just that, a mess, and Jennie grabs two apples, shoving one in her pocket, popping the other one in her mouth before moving along the various tables and rotating trays, filling her arms with more food than she's had in... ever. She lays them all out on a table, then scans the room--no Lisa to be found. Her stomach tightens, but she brushes it off. There were literally tens of thousands of people on this ship, of course she's not going to find Lisa right off the bat. It'd be nice though.
'She'll be there when we go to sleep,' she loves sleep too much to skip out on that, Jennie thought as she polishes off her apple and proceeds to stuff her face till she can't fill her stomach anymore. The spaceship rumbles to a start and people cheer as it finally lifts off. Jennie takes up as much food as she can in her arms and goes back to her bunk, dumping all the food on the lower bed before climbing up the stepladder to peer into Lisa's bed.
The clothes are still folded, the linens still pristine and wrinkle free.
Jennie frowned. Why hasn't Lisa changed yet? She can't enjoy being in those tattered old clothes they were wearing. Something very startling and increasingly unpleasant blooms in the back of Jennie's mind but it can't be. She takes a deep breath and makes for the central commands.
The cockpit is barred off by a low set of metallic strings so that the people sitting in the giant lounge can see all the happenings inside, even talk to the crew if they fancied, keep an eye on the ETA and check their progress through the galaxy. The ship has cleared the Earth's atmosphere and is slowly making its way towards Mars. When they clear the last of Jupiter's moons, and only can they go into light-speed travel. Any time before that and the power of the ship might affect gravitational forces of the first four planets and the point is to leave a much intact as possible.
"Hey, excuse me? Uhm, did everyone make it onto this ship?" Jennie pulls herself up onto the raised platform of the cockpit and was greeted by a gentle-faced man with a stern smile.
"We haven't yet been able to recount the data, but that shouldn't be more than a couple minutes more. Is there someone you're looking for?"
"Yeah, Lalisa, Lalisa Manoban," Jennie says, raising her fingers to her lips as if to chew on her nails but she catches himself last second and lowers her hand back down.
"A quite rare name," the man says, pulling up a list of names and scrolling through them. Jennie watches, rocking on the balls of her feet.
"Do you know how old she is?"
"Uhm.... no? We're orphans... don't really keep track of that stuff."
"Ah, I'm very sorry to hear that," the man's voice softens along with his eyes as he lowers them back onto the scrolling list. Little green checks connected to each name and Jennie hopes against hope that one of them is Lalisa. Her Lalisa.
"Where is she from?"
"Incheon, Korea. We're both from there--"
"Ah yes," the man says, nodding as the scrolling slows and he pauses over one tiny little red x marked next to a Lalisa Manoban, Incheon. He frowns, "It seems that she might have missed check in but I'm sure after the second round of confirmations, we'll find her. No one's missed a ship since the third one took off."
Jennie takes a deep breath through her nose. Her heart is pounding somewhere in her temples and her fingers feel cold, her neck too hot, the space around her doesn't have enough oxygen and she feels her vision slip in and out of focus.
"Just another minute or so before the second round of confirmations come in," the man says, tapping the refresh button at the top right corner of his list.
Jennie closes her eyes and tries to keep still, tries to keep herself from tipping right over and falling off the edge of the raise platform. This cannot be happening.
"Ah..." the man's voice does not bode well.
"What?" Jennie bites, eyes snapping open. There's still a little red x next to Lalisa's name.
"It... it seems that she didn't make it onto the ship. And the final headcount did come up to one person short."
YOU ARE READING
Wonder JenLisa AU
Science Fiction"You see, one loves the sunset when one is so sad." - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗲
