Sleeping Jenny (14 page)

The old woman snatched it up, tore it open, and shoved the end in her mouth. I bent down slowly and retrieved my miniscreen. “If anyone asks, I didn't see anyone up here. I swear.”

I slowly stepped around her as she sucked on the soywafer. With no teeth, it would take her a while to eat the whole bar. Enough time for me to get away. “You just keep going on living up here, okay?”

She didn't answer, so I shuffled down the next flight. I listened over my shoulder, but no footsteps sounded, so I increased my pace, practically jumping each flight at once.

Ten more levels to go
.

My whole body shook from the strange encounter, and my knees weakened until I worried they'd give out.
Come on, Jenny; you've made it this far. You're sure as hell not going back up there
.

What if no one was on level twenty-four? My skin crawled with the thought of climbing all the way down here to an abandoned room.

No
. Martha would never send me to these people if they weren't for real.

How well did I really know the old woman, anyway? I'd only met her twice, but it was a bond that had to be trusted. She'd gone through everything I had times ten. If Martha said to contact these Timesurfers, then they were here.

By the time I'd convinced myself to keep going, I reached level twenty-four. I pushed in the door and a waft of dusty air came out. Slipping inside, I glanced down the corridor. A shadowy figure of a man stood at the end. My heart beat a thousand times in that one minute.

“Are you alone?” His voice sounded grizzly, like he'd smoked cigarettes his whole life.

Besides the old crazy homeless woman?
I cleared my throat and my voice quivered. “Yes.”

“Good.” He stepped forward and I took a step back, ready to make a run for it. At that point I didn't care if I ran into ten homeless crazies on the way back up.

“Code word?”

I paused. That wasn't something an axe murderer would ask. Then I remembered my conversation with the blue-haired man. “Paradise.” My voice croaked.

He opened a door and waved his hand inside. “Welcome to the Timesurfers.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Just Like Me

P
eople of all ages, social classes, shapes, and sizes filled the room, some standing, some sitting on the dusty floor. A wallscreen, lit by an energy cell hung at the room's center, showed an unknown galaxy of stars. I recognized the blue-haired man across the room. He nodded as I came in, his nose rings glinting in the light from the wallscreen. I took a seat on the floor in the first row, next to two young women dressed in upper-level tunics like mine.

I breathed in clean air and noticed an air purifier connected to their battery cell in the center of the room. If they took that much care of their people, then they couldn't be that bad, right?

The guard stuck his head inside and nodded to the blue-haired man. “That's it, Jax. They're all here.”

Had they been waiting for me? My cheeks flamed, and I leaned over until my hair fell on either side of my face. I practiced my art of blending into the wall. How good I was at it, I had no idea, but teachers never called on me in “wall mode.”

“Excellent.” Jax stood at the room's center in front of the wallscreen. He wore a black jumpsuit over his lean body, reminding me of a ninja. An animal-rights ninja.
Pretty darn cool
.

“My name is Jax Upton. I'm the president of the Timesurfers, and I welcome you to our recruiting meeting tonight.” His eyes skimmed the crowd, remaining on mine for a little longer than the rest.

He extended what looked like a lipstick container into a long, silver baton and pointed to the screen. “This is the Aquarius Dwarf galaxy, the home of a newly found Earthlike planet orbiting in its sun's habitable zone.”

I squinted my eyes, but all I saw was a cluster of shiny stars.

The tip of his baton tapped one of the glowing spots. “Paradise 15. It's roughly earth-size with an orbital period of two hundred and ninety days, a little shorter than ours. This planet is twelve percent closer than we are to its sun, but the star is dimmer, lower in temperature, and smaller than our sun. This means the greenhouse warming is similar to Earth's. Surface temperature would be seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit.”

Audible gasps rang out around me. The young woman next to me jumped up. “When was it found?”

Jax crossed his arms and met her gaze. “Our scientists found it two days ago. Which gives us some time.” He addressed the rest of the room. “Due to the recently established planetary laws, the first to walk on the planet claims it. This means we'll need a mission set in place—a ship and a team of cryosleepers—by the end of this year.”

“Do you think you can beat the government to it?” An older man with a white beard spoke as he typed wildly into his miniscreen.

“We have to. Out of all of the planets we've scanned, this one seems the most promising for our mammal regrowth program. It's too far away for the government to consider mining operations— only for colonizing. We're going to need people who can withstand the cryosleep process without difficulty. We can't take the chance that our team won't wake up once the ship reaches Paradise 15.”

I whispered to the young woman beside me, “What do they mean, without difficulty?”

She tucked a piece of her brown hair behind her ear. “Forty-seven percent of cryosleepers don't wake up.”

I swallowed hard. Wish I'd known that before. But what was I complaining about? I'd woken up. I was alive. Back in 2012, they hadn't had the research statistics yet. I must have been the other fifty-three percent.

“We'll conduct initial screening tests for all applicants shortly. I must warn you—anyone who goes is taking a chance. This planet may not be inhabitable, and you'll be forced right back into cryos-leep. Either way, it's a sacrifice. When you return to Earth, everyone you know will be gone. Our descendants will continue the program, and they'll be here to greet you. If the planet is habitable, you will begin the DNA replication to create a world in which people can live in harmony with animals and nature. The point is not to colonize the planet with a bunch of people, but to have a small team who will act as guardians for the animals until they can live on their own.”

I raised my hand.

Jax turned to me and nodded.

I took a deep breath, surprised I was even speaking. He'd gotten my attention. I wanted to know more. “How many scout ships have already gone out?”

“We've sent fourteen teams of cryosleepers into space, one for each Paradise planet found. Since they're all hundreds of years away, the results are upcoming.”

No proof. My stomach sank to the floor. Why was I always involved in the experimental projects?

The older man in back spoke before I could ask more questions about the process. “Why not let the government tackle this themselves?”

Jax's eyes grew hard, like two ice lakes. “Because they'd mine the resources from each planet just like they did on Earth and, soon, the moon. The human race would spread through the universe like a virus, killing everything in its path.” He clicked his baton and the silver end retracted back into the handle. “The cycle of unsustain-ability stops here on Earth.”

The older man had stopped typing. “How can you be sure the government will honor these planetary claims?”

Jax didn't skip a beat. “The World Coalition has put them in place. Our nation can't afford to start another war. The other world governments are way behind on space travel technology, so if we set foot on this planet and set up home, we'll be able to control the colonization efforts.”

The older man slapped his miniscreen down. “Sounds like a shot in the dark, if you ask me.”

Jax shrugged. “Then you don't have to join us.” His gaze traveled through the rest of the room. “I'm taking applications for volunteers. Those of you who'd like to work in our DNA preservation facility, talk to Ralk here on the right. Those of you willing to donate to our cause, talk to Yara by the door. Those of you with nothing to lose, brave enough to scour the galaxy, see me. All I need is one drop of blood.”

People bolted from their seats and the room turned into chaos. I stood like a lost child wondering where its mother had gone. Sure, I wanted to donate and, according to Len, I had the funds to do so. The real reason I was here was to make sure animals lived once again. To be with them and study them.

My dad's words came back to me.
When you wake up, you'll be cured. You'll be free
. Living in this skyscraper hell was not the freedom he imagined for me. He would have wanted me to follow my dreams.

Before I could convince myself otherwise, my feet took me to Jax. Where my courage came from, I had no idea. Maybe I was just fed up with this futuristic world.

No one else stood in his line.

Jax looked me up and down. I searched his boyish face to see what he saw in me, but he gave nothing away. He reminded me of some futuristic Peter Pan. “You wish to apply for the team?”

I shrugged. “Everyone I know is already dead and gone. I have nothing to lose.” Besides, what were the odds I'd get chosen for such an honorable task? Surely they had people already in their organization battling it out for a ticket off Earth. If I was chosen, I'd deal with it then. I could always change my mind. At least I could rest easy knowing I'd tried.

He took a plastic strip from his miniscreen. “What was it? Three hundred years?”

I nodded. “Long enough to see the world go to hell.”

“You think you can fix it all by yourself, just because you knew what it was like to live in the good old days?”

I nodded, angry at everything—my cancer, Chad, Maxim, the tick of time. I jutted out my chin. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

His lips broke into a sly smile. “You're just like me.”

Looking at his ninja bodysuit and muscles, I hardly thought so, but I wasn't about to argue. Jax touched the plastic strip to my finger, and I received a small zap of electricity. When he pulled the plastic away, a drop of blood the size of a pinhead blossomed on my fingertip.

He checked the plastic. “That's it.”

An explosion rattled the floor underneath me, and the lights flickered. A guard burst into the room as everyone stood in confused silence. “We've been compromised.”

Jax shouted over my head, “Everyone, get out.” He stuck the plastic strip into his miniscreen and jammed it in a backpack. Meanwhile, others disassembled the equipment. They unplugged the wires from the energy cell and the lights went out. Someone screamed, sending shivers up my spine.

This is so not happening
.

It really was. People scrambled out the front and back doors as another explosion shook the walls. Jax ordered his guards to leave with the equipment. Big burly men scooped up the energy cell and scurried out the back door.

I turned to follow when there was a crash behind me. The wallscreen had fallen on top of Jax as he ejected the memory disc. I had to get out of there, but Jax had my blood, and I didn't want whoever was knocking on the door to come to Valex and Len's looking for me.

I ran to Jax and tried to lift the screen. The small muscles in my arms bulged as I strained, gritting my teeth and growling in frustration. “It won't budge.”

“Here.” He gave me the disc. “Get it out of here.”

I held the shiny circle in my hand, the most incriminating piece of evidence there was, and I had no idea how to get away. “No. You're coming with me. I'm not going to leave you.”

I looked around in desperation. We were the only two people left in the room.
Man, these Timesurfers sure know how to shuffle
.

He winced in pain. “You have to get away. You and the disc are too important.”

Men shouted and laser fire sounded on the levels above.
Dammit!
I scanned the room for anything to prop the wallscreen up with. Nothing.

I put my hands under the wallscreen. “Help me lift it. On the count of three.”

“One.” The laser fire grew louder until it sounded like they were in the corridor outside.

“Two.” My blood pumped so fast through my veins that my neck twitched with each beat.

“Three.”

We both heaved, and the wallscreen rose just a bit. It was enough for Jax to pull himself out. I helped him up and gave him back the disc. “How do we get out of here?”

Jax stuck the disc into his pocket and hobbled over to the window. “It's the only way.”

“Are you crazy?”

He threw a chair through the glass and the window shattered. Cold, windy air rushed in, chilling my arms. Pulling a metal device out of his backpack, Jax strapped the bag over his shoulders. “Come on.”

Men burst through the door armed with lasers. They pointed in our direction. “Freeze.”

Jax grabbed me and jumped out the window.

I screamed like I when was on the Expedition Everest, although this time there'd be no picture taken of my shrieking face.

As we fell, Jax fired a grappling hook. At first I thought he had missed, but something yanked us up in the air and toward the building. He braced our collision with his legs, and there we stood. On the side of the building. At least ten floors up.

“Don't look down.” Jax held me against him.

If he let go, I'd fall to my death. I wrapped my arms around his neck and shrieked.

“I'm not going to drop you.” He hooked the end of the rope to his belt and walked along the side of the wall. “Can you reach the next balcony?”

“I'll try.” My voice squeaked out. Above us, the men with the lasers hung their heads out the window where we'd just dropped. They fired down at us, trying to shoot around the balconies, and Jax increased his pace. The balcony came up quickly and I reached out, my fingers slipping on the metal. We swung like a pendulum to the other side.