Chapter 1- "Look Up"

Excerpt from Chapter 1 of my Book of Truth series

LOOK UP

Cumulus clouds crown the view outside the AIR Tube-craft. The sheer size of them never fails to take my breath away, though I have been living on AIR since before my earliest memories. Across the small capsule my mom smiles at me reassuringly. She’s from Ground, she’s got no reason to be nervous. “We’re all from the Earth,” she told me when I laughed at her proposal. She never calls the surface by its name: Ground.

I mentally count to ten to avoid rolling my eyes at her. Even strapped into our 5-point harnesses, she can reach me with a thwack across the head if she wants to. She looks like a goddess, her thick curly locs cascading about her brown face, all backlit by the sunrise spectacle behind her. It was very cool of her to get Luke Apollo to schedule our departure with the Sunrise Descent. It’s much harder to appreciate the way the sunrise paints the clouds from AIR itself. The floating ring is so high that we’re above the weather, above the clouds even.

Sighing, I bring my thoughts back to the present moment. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Most of my friends-classmates, I remind myself, my heart clenching in my chest a little. We lived in seven or eight different sectors in my fifteen years, and I never quite go the hang of making friends. My twin brother on the other hand has never met a stranger.

Chalyb shifts in his seat as if he can hear my thoughts, though his sleep is uninterrupted. He’s so tall his head nearly brushes the top of the capsule. It lolls back as he snores. I don’t understand how he could sleep at a time like this. Once in a Lifetime. Those words echo in my head again and I will my gaze back to the wide window straight ahead. It is made of the same temperature-smart and sun-safe glass that makes up the entire AIR ring. Right now, it is set to clear so I can really appreciate the golden edges and pinks, peaches, pale salmons that swirl around in the shadowy shelves of the clouds that tower above me.

My chest releases as my brain finally locks onto what I’m seeing.

“Wow,” Forgetting myself, the word escapes my lips. I silently curse and sure enough—

“Breathtaking, isn’t it?” Luke Apollo, our chaperone for this guided Tube-craft trip, leans forward conspiratorially, as far as his harness will allow. His grin dazzles almost as brightly as the sun blazing ever higher in the sky. He shoots a grin into one of the cameras mounted in the upper panel of the tubecraft.

This time, I allow my eyes to roll just a little before I nod. Who cares if all of AIR is watching on “Good Morning” the inter-AIR news channel that’s always running footage of Luke Apollo’s exploits. They like reality, right?

“Never seen anything like it.” At least the words are true even if my smile is pasted on. I hope that will be enough to keep him from asking more questions. Thankfully, he’s been very quiet on this early and surprisingly long descent in the tubecraft. I suspect he’s getting AIR sick, because he was incredibly chatty the first time I met him last week.

Luke Apollo is the richest, most famous man in the world and that includes AIR and Ground. Which is why I couldn’t believe my eyes when he arrived in our pod on Sector 58 (maps to the airspace above what used to be Washington DC in America) , all gleaming glamour and glitz, with 7 bodyguards and a small camera crew.

I can still hear his voice, oily like a roll with too much butter, when mom opened the door:

“Zaleeshaaaaa,” her name drawn out like a low growl. “Long time no see. Can I come in?”

Mom had dried her hands on her apron, which she insists on wearing even on days that she replicates dinner.

“Mr. Apollo. What a pleasant surprise.” Mom had actually sounded like it was pleasant, which was equally shocking to me because I’ve only ever heard her talk shit about Luke Apollo.

“Whoa, mom, you know Luke Apollo?” Chalyb had followed mom into the room when I opened the door. Like me, he had probably never heard the visitor indicator ding before. Up until this moment, we kept a painfully low profile.

The hair from this wig tickles the back of my neck in the tubecraft just like it did as the cameras behind Luke stared into our front door.

“Can I come in?” Luke Apollo had asked again, while I itched to rip the wig off my head and toss it in his too-big smile.

My mom finally moved back from the entrance. “Please, have a seat.” She closed the door in the cameras faces.

“Oh, they’re with me-“

“We cannot allow cameras in the house, you understand, Luke.” My mom’s smile doesn’t slip a bit as she speaks on the same level as the man who runs all of AIR. My heart is banging in my chest- he could have us thrown down a space chute, or block our veg rations for the rest of our lives, or literally anything if he wanted to. I can’t believe she would talk to him like this. I lock eyes with Chalyb, without words, I know he’s thinking the same thing.

There is a pause in the air so thick I think I hear it crackle, or maybe it’s Luke’s knuckles, but he just laughs a politicians’ bray and throws himself down on a kitchen chair.

“Of course, Zaleesha. Silly me.”

He waits until he’s closed the door to continue. “Now, I assume you received my correspondence?”

“A letter, how quaint.”

“I thought you’d appreciate the antiquity of the gesture, given where you’re headed.”

My mom only nodded.

My mouth was dry and my neck itched, but I dared not move, not even to swallow, lest she kicked us out of the room. I had no idea what was going on, but the whole situation felt as itchy and uncomfortable as the wig my mom insisted I wear until my birthday. I told mom I didn’t want to wear it, that I cut my hair because I was tired of having it touching me all the time, but she insisted I wear it a few more weeks. One more glance at Chalyb assures me he’s standing as stone still as I, watching…waiting…

“So, why are you here, Luke? Your letter said you’d arrange our travel, not that you’d stop by as a personal envoy. I’m shocked you have the time in your PR schedule.”

“Zaleesha, please. You are the spouse of my oldest comrade—"

“Don’t talk about him.” Zaleesha’s smile grew teeth, biting off whatever Luke was about to say.

My mom didn’t allow anyone to speak about my father since he’d gone missing thirteen years ago. Not even us.

Luke tried a different tact. “It is not often someone chooses to leave AIR to live in the wilds of Ground. We might not see you in our aethereal halls again. Of course, I would come to see you off the AIR ring.”

“We are not due to leave until Sunday. So again, I ask, why are you here?”

Luke drew himself up to his full height, near seven feet of massive shoulders unfolding from his chair. The crisp pleats in his Commanders’ Suit didn’t rustle a bit. He began to pace the small sector-pad where we’d been living for almost a year.

Suddenly my brain catches up with my ears. “Wait, leave? Mom, what are you talking about?”

Luke’s head snaps from where he’d been studying our holographs on the wall, to stare back at us.
“You mean you haven’t told them yet, Zaleesha. Tsk, tsk, you’ve less than a week now to pack and prepare. Surely you’re not reconsidering?” His smile morphs to something more sinister, a wolf licking its chops before a meal.

My mom heaved a big sigh and rose from the table. She crossed to the door and smacked the little button on the side. Snick, the door slid open, sighing as it exposed the cameras again to the inside of our home. Our home which apparently we were leaving in a few days. Again.

“Thank you for paying us a visit, Mr. Apollo. What an honor.” Mom waved at the camera like a pageant queen.

This whole event was a side of her I’ve never seen before.

Luke Apollo took another turn around our flat, as if satisfied with what he’d seen there, before exiting. That was maybe the eeriest part of all…What was he looking for? And did he find it? I shudder as I remember.

“Ok?” My mom whispers. I just nod.

Take a deep breath through my nose.

Imagine I’m a bird as we plummet in a controlled fall towards destiny.

I exhale through my mouth.

Look up, the sun cresting to such a heigh that the clouds which started out below me, cushy carpets of my dreams, are now above me, as if on fire, molten gold in the heavens.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Riding in Apollo’s personal Tube-craft, Sun Chariot, scholarship to attend his special Ground ambassador school for AIR government officials, opportunity to actually live on Ground… it all was special. Priceless. Once-in-a-lifetime.

So why do I feel such a massive sense of foreboding?