Orbits

Riley & the Nothing, featuring a Something

Riley stood alone at the fringe of the group, her helmet in hand, her metal suit uncomfortably heavy on her chest, looking at nothing.

Really—there was nothing to see.

The ground was dry but porous beneath her feet, like a hard new sponge. It seemed to have veins: spidery purple lines beneath the surface, as thin as rope strings, angled everywhere, twisting and turning or clumping like wet hair. Sometimes light pulsed through them (it always moved like a whisper).

That was the closest thing to something: what with the desolate grey sky, and flat, featureless earth, the planet looked like it had just been scrubbed and cleaned out. The only colour was death.

The Earthlings were huddled around a pod, trying to pinpoint what was so strange about the air.

Riley could guess the cause of the weirdness. The air's chemical composition was not the same as Earth's, so of course it would smell different. Because it wouldn't come from the same place, and it wouldn't have been shared by the same people.

The ones who'd breathed in this planet's air had marked it somehow, even if they weren't aware of it.

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They had no captain to turn to. No one had received the role officially: the ship had governed itself, and the pods had taken care of every need, fielded the few questions.

So heads (and the thoughts they housed) angled themselves toward this person, then that person (both persons were usually Nathalies). When Riley understood the predicament, she frowned and chose not to acknowledge it. Eventually, the heads and hopes turned away toward nothing, while the group remained huddled like sheep.

Riley smarted. Her Mind Map had been amputated, leaving behind an imagined burn, and with it went the lush green forests and clear rivers of her simulations. The seasons and change that had once defined Earth. But Earth was now a polluted wasteland, with water the colour of ink—though this new place, Planet X, did not appear to be any better.

It should bring her to the cusp of despair. But, as if the planet's blandness had infected her to the core, she could not find despair in her.

This made her afraid.

Slow, deliberate, she snaked out of her Metal Suit, exposing her bare legs and arms to the breeze-that-should-be.

She closed her eyes and imagined her happiest place.

This was no simulation, but her brain experienced that same artificial tingle the Mind Map conferred to her sometimes anyway. Her eyelids turned green and vibrant, layered, shadow-making. A movie began to play in her thoughts. A movie directed by Time.

She was walking, every step an attempt to savour the taste of the ground. Above and around her: wild explosions of colour. It smelled like rain; she brought her arms out to catch the drops that would eventually fall, and kept them there although the wait was long. Fall they did. Spring had broken the sky.

But a hand found its way onto her shoulder, reached into her dream, and pulled her out, as if it were a hook.

"You're in my party."

Riley blinked, attempting to focus on the woman who had spoken, the woman with shadows around her head.

Nathalie held out her hand. It wasn't shaken. Behind, and around her: two young women, three young men. Everyone had tired eyes. Everyone held bags.