"I'm only going to be a few minutes," Mom said, pulling up in front of our one story house. "Do you want to wait for me in the auto or do you want to come inside?"
"It's summer," I pointed out. "Not exactly the best time to be in an auto."
"Fine," she said, snatching her keys.
I hopped out, picking up my bag from the backseat before meeting my mom at the door. The house was one of the newer models in Kingsfield, set up in a mass housing boom almost two decades ago. Mom told me that Dad's job had allowed them to afford the house not long before he went missing on the Outside. Not that I was too torn up about that. He was gone when I was still young, so I barely remembered him anyway.
Mom unlocked the door to the house with her security ring, waving me inside as the door slid open.
"Wow, it's really humid today," she noted, fanning her face. "Drink some water and wait for me, okay?"
"Yeah, okay," I muttered.
The house was pretty roomy, for a one story home. The front door opened into a small vestibule, just wide enough to accommodate two people standing. I dropped off my shoes in the rack built into the wall before stepping out into the living room. Since there were only ever two or three of us in the house at a time (Peter wasn't always home and we rarely had visitors besides the occasional neighbor), there was only a couch and an armchair to keep comfy. I tossed my jacket and bag on the chair and kept going in a beeline toward the kitchen.
"The passes to the Institute are on the kitchen counter!" my mom yelled from the bedrooms. "Don't forget to drink water!"
I snatched a glass from the countertop, sticking it under the dispenser as I turned my attention toward the stack of virtual envelopes blinking on the countertop screen. There were a few e-bills on top, but underneath, an envelope with an intricate seal bore Peter's unmistakably bold writing style. Leave it to Peter to send back something fancy.
Setting the glass of water on the counter, I pulled a stylus off the wall cooler and broke the seal on the envelope by tapping the screen. Two passes were included inside, along with additional documentation and a map with a set of instructions to show me the way.
"There's a pass for you too," I called to my mom. "Are you coming?"
"What? Oh, not today," Mom called back. "Work."
I nodded, though I knew my mom couldn't see me, and looked over the directions.
Djoser Airfield - shuttlebus to Moon
Follow the Blue Line once docked
Peter never liked saying more than he needed to. Most of the time, people we met were put off by his curt mannerisms, often reprimanding our mom for raising such a rude child, but in reality, Peter knew how to be polite. He just didn't think he needed to waste time on manners.
I pulled out my mobile, collecting my pass as I got up to look for a bag. Every time Peter came home, he'd bring back souvenirs he'd made and free stuff for me, as well as some extra cash he earned on the side to help Mom with the bills. This time, since I was going up, I probably would need to bring a backpack to carry back all the stuff he'd let me steal from his lab.
I wandered into my bedroom, kicking the door open with my foot. My spare backpack was folded up and stashed under my desk, all ready to go. Snatching it up, I shook it out to make sure there was nothing in it before tossing it back into the living room. That was the bag I was going to take to Peter's school; my normal school backpack was already full of junk anyway.
Peter rarely visited home, so most of the gifts he sent me were mailed. I picked up the most recent item, a handmade drone that Peter had built in his workshop. It worked surprisingly well despite Peter's grumbles that it could have been better. My little brother had always been pretty good with his hands. That and his big brain.
When I was eight, I remembered working with Mom to figure out what school to apply to. Mom had wanted me to aim high, but considering the commute, I didn't think we'd be able to afford the extra transportation costs.
"I'm already zoned," I'd said. "It's fine, Mom. Weth High is one of the best in the city."
"If you don't count the commuting schools?" Peter had asked.
"That's right," Mom said, ruffling Peter's hair. "Charlie says we can't afford the transit costs, but I figured I could ask my boss for a raise to cut even."
"I said it was okay," I reminded Mom. "I'm fine with Weth."
"You could go to a better school," Mom insisted. "You shouldn't consider yourself limited by money."
"But better schools cost too much. Weth is fair for the price."
"Charlie? What's the best school?" Peter asked, curious. "Mom keeps dropping me off at the old nursery near her workplace, but you always get to go to school."
"That's because you're only four," I snorted. "Of course Mom drops you off at the nursery."
"I'm bored at the nursery," Peter complained. "All the other kids are idiots."
"Language," Mom warned. "It's not polite to call other children idiots, especially at an age where they're still developing."
"You're also too young," I pointed out. "I'm looking at high schools now. You haven't even started school."
"But what's the best school?" Peter asked again. "You guys didn't answer."
"Well, that really depends," Mom answered. "There's the Career Schools for Kinetics, Barca is the best grade school, Demosthenes is-"
"I don't want to go to grade school," Peter interrupted. "Dull curriculums and dumb kids. What's the best school out there?"
I looked at Mom and shrugged.
"Well, there's the Cadmus Institute," I said. "But you can't get in. Their acceptance rate is the lowest in the whole universe, since they take students from every country. You have, like, a point zero, zero, zero, zero, zero one chance of getting in, and besides, you're four years too young for the test."
"Really?" Peter asked, leaning forward. "But it's the best, right?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Good. Who do I get in touch with to take the test?"
The inspectors had shown up at our house two months later, grilling Peter on the test, demanding to know if he cheated in some way. When they realized he hadn't, they told us why they came to investigate; Peter had gotten a nearly perfect score on their test, something so difficult, even graduate students of the Institute sometimes struggled to obtain such scores. He received a full scholarship, including transportation, room and board, and a meal plan the moment he was accepted.
That was six years ago.
I set down the drone and looked up at the wall, where Peter's acceptance letter still hung in an aluminum frame. Mom had been ecstatic about his acceptance, telling everyone who would listen that one of her sons had been accepted into the Cadmus Institute with a full scholarship.
Then, he left for school, leaving mostly me and Mom at home, returning every now and then with news. This year was going to be his last; he was graduating at the end of the year with full honors, including maintaining the dean's list and acquiring his own personal laboratory up in the Institute. Maybe that had something to do with why he called me up.
Of course, if Peter was going to graduate soon, that would mean he'd be moving back home for the first time in six years. Whenever he used to visit, he had stayed in my room with me, but now that he would be staying full-time, that meant I'd have to start sharing my room. We didn't have a spare bedroom for him and besides, when he'd left for the Cadmus Institute at four years old, he'd still been sleeping out of a baby mat in my mother's bedroom.
I sighed in resignation, sweeping a few nuts and bolts off to the side of my desk. That meant not only would I have to start getting used to calling it our room, but that I'd have to clean the books off the floor and the interstellar ship models off the windowsill and a million other things before Peter got back. Definitely wasn't looking forward to that.
In the corner of the desk, my latest model, the Golden Eagle produced by Stryver Industries, lay partially finished next to a pile of parts. Since it first came out earlier in the year, all the magazines had been raving about its outrageous speed and sleek design, complete with elegant wings and chrome plating that made it look like a comet of molten silver flashing by in the demo videos.
I reached out unconsciously and tilted the base slightly, letting the wingtips shine in the light. As I did so, the wide base knocked a bunch of parts off the edge of the desk, scattering small pieces across the ground.
"Whoops," I muttered, bending down quickly to snatch at the parts before most of them could roll away.
Snatching up the parts one by one, I identified them quickly and placed them back on the desk one by one, dropping them in a small pile to prevent them from rolling.
"Stabilizers, rear fin, uh... small brass cylinder..."
My fingers stopped on a brassy object, hesitating just before I dropped it into the pile. The Golden Eagle looked down at me from the desk, shining in its chrome plating. Definitely not part of the model.
I straightened and dropped the remaining parts back on the desk, then held up the brass object to the light to inspect it further. It was made out of a coppery metal, glinting dull in the light. One end of the cylinder was empty, revealing its hollow structure, but the other end was capped with a round snub-nosed tip. The rounded tip was the only thing that wasn't made of metal; it was actually made of a translucent white crystal, cut in a geometric formation.
"Okay," my mom said, rushing out of the hallway behind me. "I'm done. We can-"
"What's this?" I asked, holding up the small brass object.
She paused, turning around to stare at the object in my hand.
"Oh, that?" she said, shaking her head. "That's nothing. I was just doing some cleaning, that's all."
"But what is it?" I pressed.
Mom reached out and took the brass object from me, placing it back on the desk with the other model parts.
"Just something from your father," she said, turning around. "He never said what it was. Anyway, we're going to be late."
I nodded, waiting until her back was to me, then reached out and snatched up the small object, slipping it into my pocket before she could notice.
"Alright," I said. "Let's go."
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