Chapter Thirteen
The next few days are much like the first. After breakfast and a light workout, we go back outside to work on clearing the debris again. It still takes up all of our morning, leaving most of us drained, but we do tack on cleaning in the Hab. In the short amount of time we’ve been here, dust has managed to coat every surface. Because of that, Jordan insists (and I silently gnaw at my cheek to keep from saying something about him asking nicely) that we clean at least twice a day.
On the fifth day, our appointed technical gurus—Angie and Jordan, with Simone there for extra help—begin cleaning the solar panels.
“What about the antenna?” I ask while they’re getting into space suits. “I think we need to get it up as soon as possible.”
Jordan nods. “You’re right, we do. But the solar panels out there are filthy. If we don’t clear them today, we might run out of power. Then it won’t matter if Mission Control sends us anything.”
I didn’t think being a subordinate would be the hardest part here for me mentally. But Jordan is our commander, so I let it go again and follow his lead.
“I’ll start wiping down the kitchen,” Roman says once our three teammates are outside and he and I are left to take care of cleanup duties.
I nod without directly making eye contact with him and start wiping down the living room. I wipe down the couches and the thirty-two-inch TV no one has used yet. We’ve been too tired. Next I move to the comms station. It’s a large desk with different buttons, all helpfully labeled, and multiple screens that live stream different views from outside. They also connect to cameras on each of our helmets. Since Roman and I are inside, our cameras are off. Lastly, a screen has our names and shows our vitals.
I find the screen showing what Jordan and the ladies are up to. They’re facing the solar panels with buckets on the ground and rags in hand. Jordan moves his hand around excitedly, clearly saying something, while Simone is shaking her head and Angie stands with one hand placed on her jutted hip made bulky by the suit. Obviously, getting the panels cleaned is going fantastically.
There have been little gripes here and there, but overall everyone has been getting along. I’m finding it more difficult to stay out of conversations that get a little too personal or not laugh when someone is teasing. Vincent’s advice to not hold myself back from my crew comes to mind, and I decide to offer them a little encouragement. When I switch the comms on, I hear an annoyed “Cancún” from Angie, and lean forward into the mic.
“Keep up the good work, guys,” I say, upbeat as possible. “Y’all are doing great!”
“And let me guess, after we finish out here, you’re going to throw us a pizza party?” Angie deadpans, and surprisingly Jordan snickers.
I laugh awkwardly. “Okay. I’ll let y’all get back to it.” I click off and bite my lip. Well, that went horribly.
Did they not appreciate the pizza I ordered for them? At intermittent times during the year, I’d have some delivered for the teachers to show appreciation. It wasn’t much compared to the amount of work they put in with the students, but I couldn’t talk Principal Major into doing anything else. And now I feel silly for thinking I was doing something great.
“Got ’em!” Roman announces.
I turn around to see what he’s talking about and bite back a grin. “Roman, I know those aren’t…”
He grins wickedly. “Found the pizzas.”
He’s holding up a bag of dehydrated pizza slices.
I break down and laugh. “I’m pretty sure if I try to serve everyone pizzas, they’ll chuck me out the door and lock the hatch.”
Roman shrugs and places the pizzas back in a lower cabinet. “Their loss. I have it on good authority they taste better than delivery.”
“Is that so? By whose authority did you hear that?”
He smiles sheepishly. “Mine. I got hungry while everyone was sleeping last night and made one. Don’t tell Jordan though. I don’t want to hear him go on about conserving our rations.”
“My lips are sealed. But what I want to know is if it was really that good,” I say skeptically.
Roman raises his head like he’s about to nod, but chuckles and shakes his head no. “It’s not. But it is on par with the cafeteria pizza.”
I shake my head, touched that Roman managed to turn around what was an otherwise awkward situation that had me feeling like the odd man out.
I offer him one more small smile, then go back to cleaning. I grab the cordless vacuum to tackle the couches again, since wiping them did nothing. But barely one minute into using it, the vacuum stops working.
I frown and turn the switch on and off a couple of times. I know the battery should be charged since we haven’t used it much.
I hear a cabinet close behind me, and immediately my suspicions are back in full force. Roman did say he was out here last night while everyone was sleeping. There’s no telling what he could have done to the vacuum or anything else. And here I am, getting all weak in the knees over some dumb pizza jokes, unknowingly walking into a false sense of security.
“Do you need some help with that?” Roman asks.
“It just stopped working. I don’t know what’s wrong with it since it was doing just fine yesterday.” I narrow my eyes at him. “Did you happen to tinker with anything while you were out here last night? When everyone was sleeping?”
Roman tightens his jaw and approaches me. “The only thing I touched last night was my pizza. How about I help you with that?”
I hug the vacuum close to my chest and shake my head.
“Bri, I promise you I did not touch that thing. But I can help you fix it.”
I’m slow to release it, but finally let go when Roman grabs the top and tugs. He flips it around, checking the on-off switch, checking the battery I already inspected and the suction port. After a few more moments, he opens the small flap to the motor and holds the vacuum back out to me.
“Try it now,” he says.
I turn it on and am pleased when it whirs to life in my arms. After shutting it back off, I offer Roman a smile that feels more like a grimace. “Thank you for fixing it.”
“No problem. Let me show you what I did so you’ll know what to do if it goes out again.”
Roman pinpoints exactly what he did to make it work, but I can’t focus on his words. Not when he’s standing this close. He smells so good, which doesn’t make sense since we’re only allotted two-minute showers, and the image of him stalking toward me in the greenhouse won’t leave my mind.
“Don’t forget,” Roman says beside me. “They warned us that things would break down and that we might run into technical difficulties. It’s the nature of this simulation, and I think a lot of this is engineered by design to give us issues. It’s one giant puzzle that we have to problem-solve.”
Roman’s shift in personality—smiling, laughing, joking, staring—now that’s a puzzle that still doesn’t make sense. But this is the first thing he’s said that actually does. If the creators of the simulation are going to be giving away big money to teachers, it makes sense they’d throw every obstacle in our path, even those as menial as malfunctioning vacuums. If I hadn’t been so wary and suspicious of Roman, I might have figured that part out sooner.
But I didn’t, and Roman did. “You really have been reading the manuals to learn,” I say, and this time I fully believe it.
He nods. “I told you, I want this mission to be successful just as much as you do.”
“But why? Do you need the money? I thought you would have wanted us to fail so you can get a shot at the vice principal job.”
He studies my face, lingering on my lips for a few heartbeats before meeting my eyes like he’s searching for something. Understanding, maybe? “I’m not out to get your job. I believe the kids deserve a library just as much as you do. And maybe I have other things I’m trying to prove.” He drops his gaze before I can ask any more questions. Like what is he trying to prove, and to who? “Now that I’ve shown you I just want to help everyone, can you please stop looking at me like I’m going to be the one throwing you out the hatch every time something goes wrong?”
I consider the request. So far, all I’ve had are suspicions and no proof of wrongdoing on his part. He’s been more than helpful, actually. He lifts those pleading brown eyes to mine, and I clutch the vacuum closer. What if I agree to a truce, accepting that he’s here for benevolent reasons, and it all blows up in my face? I don’t want to feel how I did when I found out he’d gone around telling the teachers I was leaving. But I’m tired of second-guessing everything he does.
Holding his gaze, knowing that either I’m about to make the biggest mistake or life in the Hab is about to get a lot less stressful, I nod.
It turns out to be a pizza kind of day after all. Once Jordan, Simone, and Angie come back inside, Roman gives them the same spiel about the pizza slices being better than delivery after they’re pumped with water and heated up.
I’m not bitter that the suggestion of pizza is received better coming from Roman than from me, but I also don’t hold back my laughter when Angie takes one bite and looks like she’s ready to hurl before rushing off to get one of her protein bars. She’s going to run out way before the six weeks is up and be forced to eat the food she hates.
After eating, I vacuum again. They brought so much dust inside when they came in, it looks like we’ll have to clean the Hab hourly.
With our daily tasks complete, we get the all clear to take showers. I stay in our room to get some time alone, sitting on my bed, while the others go first. I pick up my journal and flip to the first blank page. I easily fill in the section about the food I’ve been eating and my overall general mood of feeling satisfied, but after staring at the lines intended for me to fill with my thoughts and blanking on what to write, I put it back on my headboard.
I lie down. I don’t want to write out how being here is fine, but thinking about everything I need to do once this is over and I’m back home fills me with an unshakable dread in the pit of my stomach. I can’t tell what’s causing it. Is it that I don’t want to work with Principal Major even if I do win the library? What else would I do? I know for sure I don’t want to apply for the school of arts.
Maybe I should have become an astronaut like my brother. Maybe I could be among the first to actually go to Mars. Rather than six weeks, a mission like that would take up years of my life; then I’d have no choice but to stick with it.
With everyone only allotted a few minutes in the shower, my turn comes soon enough, and I put a pause to my existential crisis. I get cleaned up, put on leggings and a crewneck shirt, then join everyone in the common room. They’re all fresh and dustless in their similar black loungewear, save for Angie, who is in a hot pink shirt and her robe from Pajama Day. I cannot believe she brought it here. On second thought, yes. Yes, I can believe it.
I keep studying her as I walk closer, trying to figure out what she’s doing. Her palm is cupped in front of her face like she’s holding something while she moves a finger of the opposite hand in an upward motion, all while laughing. No one else is paying her any attention, even though she’s clearly on the verge of losing it.
“So, um, what are you doing?” I ask her as I slowly approach.
“Since we couldn’t bring our phones, I have to do something to keep me entertained,” she says.
Now I see it. She’s pretending to hold a phone in her left hand and using her finger to scroll.
“We have the tablets and TV,” I point out helpfully.
“No. I need something with social media. Something like—yass, earwax-cleaning videos.” Angie stares intently at her “phone,” grimaces, then sighs. “Whew, they got it. These videos always make me feel like I need to see an audiologist. I bet that patient can hear colors now!”
Simone and I make eye contact. I think we both know this situation needs to be handled with care.
“Angie,” I say gently. “I’m sure there’s something entertaining around here to do. Something that doesn’t make us question your sanity?”
She scoffs. “What else should I do? Write in my diary all day like Moesha over there?” She hooks a thumb at Roman.
Simone squeals with laughter.
Roman is sitting at the table, writing in his journal. At Angie’s words, his head snaps up and he looks at us like he’s wondering how he ended up catching stray insults when he’s not bothering anyone.
I cover my mouth to hide my smile. Angie is wrong for that. Funny, but wrong. When Roman looks at me and narrows his eyes like he can hear my thoughts, I let my laugh loose.
I do wonder what he’s writing in there. I’ve done the bare minimum when it comes to my own journal, only answering the daily questions about food and activities. From what I can see, Roman’s page is fleshed out. Maybe he’s confessing his deep, dark secrets for sabotage. Okay, maybe he wouldn’t be so maniacal as to write everything down, but he’s writing a lot of something , and my curiosity is piqued.
I look from Roman’s journal up to his eyes. He uses one hand to cover the page like I’m trying to steal answers from his test. I roll my eyes. As if. I was a straight A student. He’d be the one stealing from me. However, he’s the one with the Roman Manual I’d love to read through.
Roman watches me and slowly lifts his hand up, like he’s inviting me to take that peek I desperately want. It’s almost too tempting to ignore.
“Music time!” Simone announces, interrupting our silent conversation, before a beat drops over the speakers.
She hops up from the chair and immediately starts dancing, as has been the ritual this past week. Angie joins her, invisible phone completely forgotten.
“Come on, Brianna!” Simone says. “You’ve got to come dance with us this time.”
Like before, I shake my head no. But unlike before, I feel the pull of the music even more. Simone and Angie are having the time of their lives (as much as one can when stuck in a small enclosure with four other people). And here I am, afraid that by dancing, I’ll somehow ruin my career path. What is the harm in letting loose a little?
When Simone beckons again, I stand up before I can talk myself out of it. She smiles and grabs my hands, pulling me even farther so we all make a triangle.
“I knew you had some moves,” she says as I begin swinging my shoulders and hips to the beat.
I feel a little stiff at first, but eventually close my eyes and let loose. I dance to the song, feeling the beat from my feet to my chest, eventually spinning around and losing all sense of orientation. When I open my eyes, it’s to find Roman looking at me. He’s set down his pen and sits there.
I could stop and sit back down, allow my already racing heartbeat to return to normal and my blood, even more heated by his gaze, to cool. Instead, I close my eyes and keep dancing.