Page 18 of Bound by Stars

Weslie

Twenty-seven days to Mars

Jupiter hasn’t said a word since he came into the library and perched on the table next to mine. If he hadn’t waved on his way in and flashed his stupid dimples, I might believe this was a coincidence. Asha probably told him where to find me again.

“Quiet mode. Play message…”

ILSA speaks at her lowest volume, dragging out letters that devolve into obscure noises. They sound nothing like words. If anything, she’s getting worse. And I can’t find a damn thing wrong with her.

“Stop.” I melt into my chair and lace my fingers into my hair, holding my head. Another day of wasted work. I’ve been over this code so many times I could practically recite it.

Jupiter holds up the stylus, squinting over his thumb, marking the width of ILSA’s head with his index finger, and comparing it to the drawing. “Do you have her exact measurements?” His eyes rapidly dart from the screen to ILSA until he catches my glare. “Never mind.”

I sigh, rolling my eyes. “Let me see.” Heaving myself up, I move to his table and glance over his shoulder.

He scoots to make room for me to sit, but I stay on my feet.

Better to keep myself grounded. I can’t afford to be pulled into his orbit.

Bad enough that I’m talking to him again.

I can feel my hardened resolve defrost a little more every time he opens his mouth.

And I’m still not convinced this whole nice thing isn’t an act.

“Her face screen is a little more rounded.” I lean in to point to the area.

“Like this?” He smooths out the edges and turns his face toward mine, grinning like an idiot.

We are way too close. I take a step back.

“Yeah…and her arms are a little shorter. They extend in demo mode, but in her standard posture they only fall to about here.” I reach over awkwardly, keeping the maximum amount of distance between us.

“Thanks.” He marks the areas. “Anything else?”

“No. It’s pretty good.” I head back around the table to my seat, massaging my right temple and reevaluating what I could be missing.

If it’s not ILSA’s code that’s causing the issue, then it must be a hardware problem.

Only that doesn’t make sense, either, since the rest of her speech is perfectly, sometimes painfully, clear.

“If you’re up for a break from the programming, we could work on the interior plans next time.”

“Sure.” I stare out the window. It must be in the code.

“My drawing is pretty good and you’re up for meeting me without any stipulations? Have you had a med check recently?”

“ILSA is my med check.”

“Right.” He peers over my head toward her. “ILSA, Weslie is acting out of character. Could be space madness.”

“Space madness is a fictional malady created by filmmakers in the twentieth century. Space travel is taxing on the human mind, but—”

“He was making a bad joke, ILSA.”

“Oh. Then yes, I, too, am often concerned with Weslie’s mental state. Ha-ha.” Her robotic laugh is spaced out and over-pronounced. If she were human, it would sound like she was mocking Jupiter, but she faces him with the swoop of a conspiratorial grin across her face screen.

I swear, she’s getting more petulant by the day.

Jupiter erupts with laughter.

Behind him, the blue-haired librarian peers around a shelf from the top of a rolling ladder, lifting one finger from the handle of the feather duster in her hand to press to her lips. Her thick glasses make her eyes look too large, like she’s part owl.

I shrug and point at Jupiter.

He shrinks in his seat and whispers, “Sorry.”

A tall boy with short, dark curls steps out of an aisle. Curran—I think that’s his name. Focused on the tablet in his hand, he stops awkwardly, planted in the open space like he forgot chairs exist. He mindlessly runs the medallion hanging from his neck back and forth along its silver chain.

Jupiter follows my gaze, whisper-yelling to his friend and waving him over.

Curran’s head pops up as though he’s surprised he isn’t alone.

With five easy, long-legged steps, he’s at the end of our table.

Closer up, his facial features are clearer.

His nose is dotted with freckles, similar to mine.

Nodding to each of us, his smile is reserved. Kind, but not inviting like Jupiter’s.

ILSA pivots toward Curran. “Hello. I am ILSA. What is your name? My scan indicates that you and Wes—”

“ILSA,” I whisper and then grimace at him.

“She’s intrusive for a bot.” The crease between his eyebrows deepens as he looks her over, his subtle frown equal parts curiosity and wariness.

Jupiter pulls down Curran’s tablet. “Still the family line project? Aren’t you done with that by now?”

His eyes flick to me and then down to the screen. “Pretty much.”

Jupiter moves over, leaving the chair closest to the end of the table free. “Join us.”

“Can’t. I need to get to the gym.” He backs away, waving before he steps through the door.

“What’s his story?”

“Curran? We’ve been best friends since forever.

Most honest and loyal person I know. He’s the Nole Corp heir.

They’re the oldest family line on Mars, actually.

And the largest Big Six company by a long shot.

Among other things, they run the DNA databank, which you’d think would make a family history easy, but he’s been working on it since we left Mars. ”

“We don’t really keep track of that stuff on Earth.” No reason to be precious about bloodlines when there’s nothing to pass on. I’ve never thought much about family beyond my parents, but people don’t generally live as long on Earth.

“It’s not all that interesting.” Jupiter shrugs, returning to his drawing.

I try to focus, hunting for bugs, but it’s all starting to blend together.

Maybe this is not fixable. If I disable the function and take it off her specs list, no one will know I couldn’t figure it out.

But I will know. The solution should be so simple.

It has to be staring me right in the face, so how do I keep missing it?

The library door slides open. A woman barrels through, immediately scanning the room. The same one who nearly ran ILSA and me over in the escape pod bay the night Jupiter got his stupid ass stuck in an airlock.

I turn back to my laptop and Jupiter is gone. Something bumps my knee.

“Did she spot me?”

I scoot back to see under the table.

“Don’t look down here. You’ll give me away.”

The hulking woman meets my eye. I grin and lower my face close to my computer like I’m reading, speaking through my teeth. “Your mom’s henchwoman?”

“Yep.”

She marches along the back of the room, searches the aisles, makes one more visual sweep of the tables, and exits.

“All clear.”

Jupiter grips the other side of the table and slowly peeks over, climbing into a chair when he’s sure she’s gone. His shoulders relax, but he keeps his eyes on the door. “Thanks.”

“Might be the longest game of hide-and-seek in history. Are you keeping a record?” I leave a note on a line of code. It’s not the issue, but I’m grasping at stars now.

“This is probably round fifteen for me and Gianna, but I think she’s enjoying it.”

“Yes. That scowl screamed pure, unadulterated fun.”

“My mom decided I should have tutoring sessions after lunch five days a week. I decided they can only make me go if they can catch me. I take it your parents didn’t track every moment of your day on Earth?”

“Just my mom, but no. She works a lot, and, unfortunately, she’s between henchwomen.”

“Do you get along?”

“Most of the time.” I hear her voice in my head, the way she sounded on the outside of my bedroom door, calling me Wesi like I was five again.

The last thing she said to me before I snuck out the back door to get on a ship to a planet a hundred and forty million miles away.

I swallow hard and shake off the memory, reminding myself that the last thing she did was basically unforgiveable.

“Do you miss Earth?”

I meet his eyes. What did I give away?

“I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer.” He means it. Not in the way people usually do, trying to make you feel just enough guilt to open up. Like he would move on without another word.

“I miss the air.” And my mom. The farther we get from Earth, the less angry I feel. “Everything here smells fake. I think I prefer dust over plastic. Is it like this in Elysium?” Mom and I could probably get used to it.

“Maybe. I didn’t have anything to compare it to until a little over a month ago. This was my first trip to Earth, at least that I can remember. But my mom didn’t let me outside much.”

Resting against my seat back, I cock an eyebrow. “Afraid you’d go full Earther?”

“Probably. I was supposed to stay for longer, travel around to different cities.”

What he’d said in the arboretum replays in my mind.

This is the best place to pretend you’re on Earth.

It had deeply annoyed me then. I thought he was playing a part.

Trying to convince me that he was on my side, so I’d let him work with me and ILSA.

But maybe it was real. Maybe, unlike most people, Jupiter Dalloway is exactly who he says he is.

“Why didn’t you? Couldn’t miss the Boundless ’s historic maiden voyage?”

He rubs the base of his throat. “I became an heir. I don’t really have any say over what I do now.”

Okay, poor little rich boy. “Aren’t you born into that position?”

“Not always.” He swallows hard and drops his eyes to his interlocked hands resting on the table. “I’m second born. My sister was the heir, but she died in an accident a couple of years ago.”

Of course. My stomach twists into a knot. I could have put that together if I stopped for a second to think. If my default setting wasn’t asshole. “I’m sor—”

A robotic voice fills the room. Attention, Boundless passengers, please be advised a curfew has been put into effect this evening to allow our crew time for maintenance in the night hours.

All passengers are required to be in their quarters by the twentieth hour of the day. Thank you for your cooperation.

“Maintenance again? Think it’s still because of the elevator?” Jupiter grabs his stylus, erasing and redrawing the curve of ILSA’s head.

I shrug. “Maybe. Seems like they’d have it cleaned after three days.”

“Do you know what E.F.E. stands for?”

The hazy scrap of a memory teeters on the edge of my mind before it dissolves completely, and I bristle as his insinuation sinks in. “Why would I?”

“I thought maybe you would’ve heard something since you’re friends with that porter…” He stares down at the table, tapping his fingers and frowning like he’s trying to recall the name I blurted out in the escape pod bay.

“Reve.” I lean back, crossing my arms over my chest, blood already boiling. “And why would he know anything? Because we’re Earthers?”

“Yes. I mean, no. I thought maybe because you—”

“Hell, one of us could have been a part of it, right? I was in the arboretum that night.” Every time I start to think this guy might be different, he proves that he’s just like the rest of them. Assuming we’re all criminals. Lowly Earthers. Dust mites.

“I wasn’t accusing you, I swear Wes, I—”

“Don’t call me that. We aren’t friends.” I stand, collecting the sweater draped over the back of the chair.

“Let me start over, I—”

The librarian appears between the rows with her arms crossed, glaring over the top of her wide-framed glasses. “You two will have to leave if you can’t be quiet.”

I snatch my laptop off the table. “I have to go anyway.”

“Weslie, wait!”

“We do not have to leave. There is nothing on your schedule,” ILSA says behind me, her volume low.

Already across the room, I whip around the corner and slam into Hale.

“Watch where you’re going, dust mite!” he snarls in my face.

Beside him, Meridian crosses her arms and wrinkles her nose.

ILSA rolls to my side. “Weslie’s species classification is human. A dust mite is a microscopic organism that causes allergic react…”

They both burst into laughter over her horrifyingly unhelpful information.

“Let’s go, ILSA.” I hold my head high and keep moving, sucking in a breath that gets caught in my tightening chest. All I’ve ever wanted was to move to Mars and build a better life for myself and my mom.

But is this really better? How am I ever going to change their minds about me if I can’t even change Jupiter’s?

“You’re going to have to burn that jacket now,” Meridian says loud enough that I can hear from down the hall.

Flames lick up the sides of my neck, my face.

To all of them, I’ll never be anything but a dirty Earther girl.