THIS IS A DRAFT.

A first draft, to be precise.

I am writing this book for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMO) and part of my core belief system is that NaNoWriMo is not about publishing. It's not about perfection. It *shouldn't* even really be about sharing.

But here I am. Sharing. Because I also believe that one should say Fuck The Rules and do what one wants.

Life is short.

Read some good books. Or write one. Try, at least.

Thanks for reading.

_

This book is the brain child of my childhood love of The Little Mermaid and my deep beliefs that we are destroying our planet.

Despite what your personal beliefs may be, I think we all have something to learn from the Earth. How to treat it, how not to treat it, and how we can make our planet- our home- a better, more beautiful, more sustainable place.

This is a work of science fiction. I have taken real scientific research to create this world and these characters, but beyond that, it's pure imagination.

“Welcome Miss Thorir.” Proctor Jakony sits at an ancient filigree carved desk with four others, across from my place in the center of the room. My hands are at my side, my feet are planted firmly. Fresh, clean air circulates through the room and makes me lightheaded. I try to focus on my task at hand, but can only think about Jakony’s facial hair. His eyebrows are grown out and sticking out from his head like live wires, matching his beard and mustache.

“You can call me Marnie,” I say, folding my arms in front of me. I’m not shaking. I’d thought I’d be shaking.

“Marnie, yes, of course. Are you prepared?” He asks. A woman wearing a black body suit squirms in her seat beside him.

“I wouldn’t be here if I was unprepared., Proctor.” My voice is strong and loud, surprising me. I feel weak and tired and small standing in front of these people.

Two women, three men. Two I’ve never seen. One from HERO, for sure. I force a smile and they nod, shooting tight smiles back at me. These are the people who will decide my future.

“Very well, Marnie. Your first examination for entrance into HERO, the Historical Examination of Relics Organization, has officially begun. From this point forward, you are not to leave this room or use any resource material of any kind. You have agreed to these terms by entering the institution this afternoon. Additionally, you have agreed, upon entry, to remove any type of communication device or technology and leave it with the attendant. Was this ensured upon entry?”

I was strip-searched and interrogated before I entered. Disagreement was not an option. I nod at Jakony.

“Good, good. Let us begin, then. Your first and only question will come from our guest,” Jakony says, lifting his eyebrows high above his eyes and gestures to the woman sitting to his left, the one in the bodysuit. She looks directly at me but makes no movement. Her arms are crossed and she’s tapping her foot to some internal rhythm. Her boot is tapping against the side of her chair and after a few minutes I want to scream at her. I try to remember the training. Focus on something in the room other than her foot tapping.

Distraction, interruption, arguments… These are the tactics they use. To test your emotional stability. To test your mental preparedness. Her foot tapping is as much a part of my examination as the question. I know this and yet, I feel like there is nothing else in my mind except her tap, tap, tap, tap and her staring, piercing eyes.

I know the answer to her question, I know all the answers to all the questions. She need only ask. Foot tapping, however, is nearly the breaking point.

“Marnie, that is a wonderful name,” the woman says finally. “Is it a family name?”

I shake my head. “Short for Marinellia. My mother made it up.”

“Marinellia,” she repeats, letting my name roll around in her mouth and float around in the room. She hasn’t taken her eyes from me since I walked in.

Is this her question? Or more tactics to test my acuity and mental balance? “This has been the easiest examination to date,” I say. The proctor frowns, but everyone else lets out a small laugh, including the woman.

“Funny,” she says and sits forward in her chair, unwinding her legs and propping her elbows on her knees. “Do you know who I am, young lady?”

I recognize all the faces in the room except hers. Everyone is dressed in plain, linen clothing. This woman looks like she’s straight out of an APSIS exhibition, and has an air of power you don’t often see. “I do not. I can only assume that you are from APSIS. The HERO division. Or so I sincerely hope.”

She smiles, nodding. I can’t tell if she’s admitting that she’s with HERO or not. “Your question, Marnie, is this: What, according to what we know about the final years of the Relic World, was the biggest downfall of Relic society? That is to say, what did them in? In addition, please speak to the methodology and credence of HERO to date. I want to know what you think they have done right, what you think they should change. In short, if you were in charge, what would you do to ensure humanities’ salvation?”

If I was in charge, humanity would have been salvaged a long time ago. I won’t say that, though. I’ll talk in circles, backing up my arguments with historical and scientific evidence. I’ll prove to them that my mind has been shaped into the historical genius that they want.

“The downfall of the Relic world had little to do with the people, although it surely didn’t help the larger situation at hand. A large part of the fault, I believe, should lie with the natural disasters and weather that occurred over the dark period.

“When the ice began to melt and the oceans began to rise, even when the evidence was stacked against them, a large population of people refused to take a scientific stance. The religious population of earth then, namely the Christian religious sects, vehemently disapproved of any sort of human-caused heating of the earth theory. They called it Global Warming, and most people thought it was a myth. But of course you know that,” I clear my throat and let my hands rest at my sides again. “But without the heating of the earth, without the rising oceans and the disastrous weather conditions, the Relic people would have been fine.”

“Excuse me,” the woman interrupts. She holds up on hand and shakes her head. “Do we agree, Marinellia, that the melting of the ocean ice is the catalyst?”

“I will give you that,” I retort.

“How nice of you,” she shoots her words, and a look, at me.

I can tell I’ve rattled her. My heart is pounding and the shaking that I thought I was going to avoid starts in my hands. I clench my fists and square my jaw, staring back at her.

“So,” she starts again, “Are you telling me that had the icecaps not melted, Relic humans would have stumbled along and continued to exist in their misery without much consequence?”

That’s exactly what I’m saying.

“I don’t know if they would have gone on sans consequence. Violence and war ravaged Earth. There were at least four major genocides before the water rose. And other wars, be them religious or politically based, may have had the same effect. But that was all before no one had time for wars and fighting. That is my point, really. Society was delusional. They would have been ruined regardless, but it would have taken a greater amount of time. Did they cause the ice to melt and the earth to heat? Partially. Our scientific research has proven that the heating would have happened, eventually. Naturally. The major point I mean to make, though, is that the weather is to blame for the downfall of society. The weather and the natural disasters that happened post ice depletion- that was the hardest hit to humankind.”

“What you are saying is bold. A lot of people at APSIS would disagree. So, explain yourself further,” she snaps.

“The oceans rose and densely populated seaboards disappeared. People who didn’t die were pushed inland. Fresh water was not always available, then, after 30 years, was not available at all. Food was scarce. Disease began to spread. The earth heated and the sun cut through the ozone. Entire land masses became uninhabitable. Governments were unable to stabilize and help their populations. Tornadoes destroyed and killed entire cities. Earthquakes marred earth’s surface. Sink holes claimed entire habitats and towns. Tsunami’s claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. By the time the electrical grid went out, there was nothing to power. There was nothing they could have done differently. If it had just been the icecaps, or just the weather anomalies, we wouldn’t be in this situation today.”

“And what situation is that?”

“Fighting for our lives against the universe. Desperate to cure the incurable Earth.”

“I’d be careful if I were you,” she says. Her voice is stern and harsh, but she’s trying to hide a smile.

You said there was nothing Relic humans could have done differently. Not even from an early human, early relic stance?”

“Early humans barely had running water and electricity enough to light a house, let alone predict the warming trends of earth and prepare for the natural disasters that would destroy their future family members. And generations later, once relics realized the mistakes of their ancestors, there were too many problems, too many people, not enough resources to fix the problems.”

“Ah. So that brings us to the second question. What about HERO? What have they done, what are they doing.”

“Tabula Rasa,” I say. My fingers are ice and stiff in my palms, but I relax as I watch her relax.

She smirks and nods, looking down for the first time since my exam began. “Is this to say you, uh,” she chuckles and shakes her head. Apparently what I’ve said she finds funny. “You chalk it up to luck? I can tell you straightforwardly, Miss Thorir, we don’t believe in luck.”

“Who is we?” I ask. My chin is jutting upward, challenging her. This is still my exam, but I can see what game she’s playing. Trying to make me secondguess my knowledge, my opinion. Trying to tell what kind of character I have.

“Miss Thorir!” Jakony slams his hands on the table and stands. “Watch your tone, pupil! This is still your institution of learning, and I will not allow your disrepsect of APSIS whilst-”

“Jakony, that’s enough,” she says, cutting through his words with her own. She looks back at me and nods. “Continue.”

I take a deep breath and exhale. The cool, filtered air makes me feel like I’m floating. The air outside is heavy and hurts the back of my throat because it is full of smog. The ozone is thick in the air, too, because a storm is coming through. There aren’t windows, though. I can’t tell if it’s already started.

I won’t back down.

“Partially luck, yes. I don’t know how else you can explain what happened. Without a blank slate, we could not have risen from the ashes like we did. And relics could not have wiped the slate clean purposefully. Too many people clung to the only way of life they’d ever known. They weren’t going to give up what was being ripped away from them. The timing was perfect- the rising oceans, the weather, the massive population kill-off… everything fell into place to allow Tabula Rasa.”

“And how is HERO effected by that?”

I chuckle and let my shoulders slump forward. “HERO is the slate! We are literally rewriting history. We are guaranteeing that we never forget the mistakes that were made. We ensure that the future is educated, if not bright. That it’s transparent, if not guaranteed. And I believe we’ve made good use of the slate.”

The air filters whir behind me, but otherwise it’s silent. Jakony is staring at me, his eyes wide.

“So what would you do now? If you could make a difference, what would you do?”

“I would-” I started to speak but was interrupted by the main door to the examination hall sliding open. A small woman with short blonde hair scuttled in and walked straight to Jakony. She kept her eyes on the floor, except to flash a quick sideways glance at me. Her lips were turned downward and I could see her cheeks burning scarlet from where I stood.

Something was happening. Something bad.

“Glovenia! What is the purpose of this interruption!” Jakony cried out and leans over, as if he’s going to stand. Glovenia puts one small hand on his shoulder, though, and whispers into his ear. Her eyes flit over me again, then she moves away and out of the room. Jakony’s eyes immediately lock on mine. I don’t have to hear him say the words. I know what this means.

My mother is dead.

Jakony wanted Glovenia to walk me home. I refused.

For a split second, when I was standing in front of Jakony and the others, I felt a sense of relief. My mother was sick. So sick. And now she’s free. She’s gone from the dying planet and doesn’t have to watch it burn and crumble.

I watched in slow motion as Jakony stood from his seat and walked over, placing a giant hand gently and soothingly on my shoulder. Even under his wiry mustache I could see his lips turned down in the only sign of sadness I would get from anyone in that room.

My examination was over in that moment, and I walked out, away from my potential and into the desert-hot summer air. The storm churned overhead, whipping the air into a dusty foam.

“I will send someone, in the next few days. Just to check on you, Marnie.”

“Please do,” I said. My speech and comprehension were separated. I didn’t hear the conversation or remember what it consisted of. Then I was standing under a covered walkway, the one that sat halfway between the Botany outpost and the History Track Conditioning building.

The school buildings were built on top of centuries old relic buildings, like a patchwork quilt made up of odd scraps and crisp, calculated cuts of new fabric.

The Botany outpost is a literal oasis in the desert. The smell of herbs and fruits and fragrant grasses and manure and wet soil permeates the area all around it. Even from here, with the wind whipping wildly, I catch a breath of lemongrass.

I stand for a long time waiting for something to push me forward, to make me want to move closer to my home. To my mother’s body. Someone is there, certainly, preparing it for the departure. Someone from the medical school will come for her and she’ll be dissected and mutilated, studied and measured and quantified. They will try to find out how to prevent skin cancer. They will try to make my mother’s death worth more than 37 years.

And when they are done, her parts will burn and she will be ashes. Some relics cremated their dead, but it is the law now. We don’t bury bodies in the ground. We don’t stack them in granite mausoleums. We study them and burn them and dump them.

I can’t even have her ashes. I can’t idolize them in a gold pot.

I will have nothing left.

I begin to count the steps back to my home, the once-white APSIS approved housing units, now covered in creeping vines and dirt stains. When I reach the gate, a group of people are waiting inside for me. Each one takes my left hand with theirs and puts the other to my cheek in a sign of sorrowful affection. These men and women are as much my family as my mother. I grew up with them, with their children. They sacrifice their bodies as much as my mother did hers, and yet… Here they are. Still standing. Unmarred and unscarred.

I walk through the garden to the other side of the jungle, which is encased by 5 long dormatory housing units. And then I step into my building and into my home, which still smells like her.

“Hello Marnie,” he says, standing quickly. He rubs his palms on his pants. My mind flashes to the last time I saw the nervous gesture, when I was four years old. The day before he left us.

“Dad?”

“Oh Marnie,” he comes over and reaches to pull me to him.

I step back and put one hand over my mouth.

He stops and puts his hands out. “Marnie, please. I was too late. I thought there was more time.”

“Why are you here, dad?”

“Your mother contacted me, said I should come.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“She told me she was sick and said that I needed to come. For you. To say goodbye.”

“No! No… we didn’t know it would be this fast, she said the doctors told her-”

“Marnie. She didn’t want to hurt you. She wanted you to focus on your HERO exams.”

“How do you know this! Stop! Don’t talk about me or mom like you know or care.”

“Marinellia, I do care. I love you both.”

“You left us. You went to the MeSIAH outpost and you left us here. You don’t love us.”

“Marnie, your mother asked for me to come. To say goodbye.”

I walk past Drake to the kitchen and look around. Down a short hall and on either side is our sleeping quarters. I poke my head into mine. Books line one entire wall, floor the ceiling. One stack is leaning dangerously. The bedding is folded down neatly and tucked into the pad on the edge.

She made my bed on the day she died.

“She’s gone, Marnie.”

“Did you get to say it?” I ask, walking back to the front of the apartment. I lean against a wall that is covered in twine, with drying herbs and flowers dangling from each thread.

“Say what?”

“Goodbye. Did you make it in time?”

He rubs his palms against his pants again and looks down at his shoes. “No. No, I didn’t make it.”

“Where is she?”

“They took her to the greenhouse.”

“The medical students haven’t come for her yet?”

“No. They’ll come tomorrow. Tonight, we’ll celebrate.”

“Dad?”

“Yes, Marnie?”

“If you really love us, if you loved her, you’ll come and go quickly,” I said, then pushed past him and back out into the jungle towards the greenhouse.

The greenhouse is a stout relic building that was gutted and re-purposed lifetimes ago. Giant UV shielding ceiling windows were put in to allow natural, non-damaging light into the building and nurture the fragile plant life below. Rows of experimental plants and genetically modified versions of edible and medicinal plants run length-wise down the building, each row held up by ancient wooden tables, worn smooth from years of love and use.

Tonight, though, the tables have been pushed together, toward the outer edges of the building. And in the center, laid out on an empty wooden plant stand is my mother, dressed in a tan linen tunic, is my mother.

As I walk toward her, the crowd grows quiet and moves aside to let me pass. Some take my hand and squeeze, or rub my cheek with green stained fingers. I let them touch an caress me, remembering my mothers fingers on my cheeks just the morning before.

When I reach her, I can see that she’s been cleaned. Green streaks still stain her fingers and dirt is caked beneath her fingernails. Her hair still smells like earth and life. I kneel beside her and take her hand in mine and kiss her palm. It’s cold and stiff.

When I was nine, a woman who lived on the other side of the complex died. I don’t know why or how, but I think it was sudden. I remember it was a shock to my mother, who dropped everything that day to attend to her family. It seemed everyone left their work where it lay and went to her apartment, talking in hushed voices to each other and holding her small children.

That’s when I found out how people die. That they are gone, then they are taken for the medical students and burned.

I could have been too young, but I don’t remember any sort of ceremony or pomp with that woman’s death.

Now, though, people approached me and my mother and draped her in garlands and wreaths and whispered little sayings in her ears and caressed her cold cheek. The noises began to get louder and people began to murmur and talk, then laugh.

Then someone started to sing.

I didn’t move from my place on the cold cement ground beside her, but I watched as the people moved and reacted with each other. The songs were ones I’d heard before, but didn’t know myself. The melodies were soothing and soon I found myself lying on the ground, the cement seeping coldness through me and my body melding to the ground as the songs unwound me.

Hands continued to touch my face, fingers brushed my cheeks and arms. I kept my eyes closed, though, and imagined every moment I’d ever known with my mother. Her teaching me about which plants could heal my paper cuts and what roots could help with anxiety.

And now she’s gone. She’s dead and her body is all that remains. Even that will be gone soon, though.

The coldness began to leave me and was replaced with searing hot anger.

I don’t want the medical students to take her. I want to bury her in the jungle and have a secret hallowed placed to visit he whenever I wanted.

But I would have nothing.

The singing eventually subsided and the bodies in the greenhouse gradually faded from around me. Voices echoed off the walls in hushed whispers. The intoxicating blend of fresh, pure oxygen and the melodic tranquil singing had sent me into a comatose state, but now I started to wiggle on the floor, bringing my body back to reality.

Two voices came rushed from across the greenhouse. My eyes were still closed, but I could hear them arguing in the corner. Their voices bounced around the room, dulled slightly by the leaves and blooms all around us.

“She doesn’t know, then?”

“I didn’t have the heart to say anything. Not yet.”

“If you wait much longer, you’ll have a fight on your hands.”

“I know, I know. She’s been through so much, though. I mean… look at her! She’s lying beside her mother’s body on the cold concrete! Am I expected to break the child further?”

“She’s not as much of a child as you want her to be, Drake. She doesn’t have much longer, before she is considered an independent citizen. Can’t you do something? Can’t you have her stay with me? With someone from the Conditioning program?”

“I tried! I’ve spoken to every possible resource. The resounding answer is no. She has to come with me. There is no other option.”

And in that moment I realized that I had not only lost my mother, but I would lose my home, too.

The next morning I woke up and started my routine like any other day. I dressed in my normal tunic and linen pants and slipped into my normal routine: read, breakfast, off to school. And then Drake walked out of my mother’s sleeping quarters and bumbled past me into the eating area. He ripped off a piece of bread and gnawed on it at the small two-person table. I sat across the room with my book in my lap and watched him.

Drake. Not my mother. She wouldn’t ask me what I hoped to accomplish this day. She wouldn't send me off with extra bread crusts for in between lectures.

I couldn’t sit there any more, not with him smacking his lips together and invading my space. Her space.

I gathered my things to leave, shoving the book into my canvas bag and tossing it over my shoulder.

He stood abruptly and reached a hand outward. “Marnie, uh… Wait, will you?”

“Why?” I asked and turned toward him again. I stood between him and door. The irony wouldn’t get past me.

“I need to talk to you about a few things, yeah?”

“I need to…” I started to speak but trailed off when I realized that I didn’t have to go to school. Not today, not really. Jakony had said as much when he walked me out into the hallway and toward the door.

“You need to what?”

“Nothing. Never mind,” I said and threw the bag down on the floor and sat back in a small cushioned chair that sat along the short wall of the apartment. “What did you need to talk about?” He rubbed his hands on the linen pants that I assume he borrowed from one of the Botanist men in the outpost, then sat at the small table again and looked over at me.

Everyone tells me they can see my mother in me. That may be true in some small distorted ways. I am nearly a replica of my mother, I realize as I’m staring at him. Mosey hair, blue eyes, skin so pale that you can see and trace the blue veins up and down each arm. I turn my wrist over and flex, watching the vein roll and move along the skin.

My mother never told me how much I looked like him, just that I had his eyes. I always felt pride in that, even if I felt nothing but hatred and resentment toward Drake.

He was my father for four years, then left us.

“Well, Marnie, it’s um, it’s come to our… I mean, it’s come to my attention that, well, that… That you aren’t exactly old enough to stay here alone. You know, there are laws in place to keep a person from being displaced, especially children. I didn’t know much about it myself until I spoke to the APSIS council last week. But they were quick to tell me that something would need to be done for you.”

“Last week?” I interrupt him and cross my arms in front of my chest. “You spoke to the council last week?”

He nods and winds his fingers together on the table top. “I had to. After your mother contacted me, I didn’t have much time to make arrangements. Of course I got the first transport here, but, I mean, that can take weeks if it’s the wrong part of the season.”

This is the second time he’s mentioned my mother contacting him. I didn’t believe him at first, but now..

“When did she contact you? Why?”

“Marnie, it’s not important. We shoal-”

“It absolutely is important. It’s important to me. She never… She didn’t say anything…”

“We’ve been in contact for the last several months, Marn. We’ve been preparing for this for a while.”

His words are like creeping vines, wrapping around my body and constricting me slowly, almost so slowly that I don’t even notice that they’re killing me. “What sort of preparation?” I whisper. A hiccuping sob catches deep in my throat and I swallow it back, but I can feel the hot tears burning behind my strong facade.

“Preparations for you, mostly. The plan was, of course, to get through your examinations and see you off to HERO or to a job with the school. You know, if HERO didn’t work out.”

I would never take a job with the school. He wouldn’t know that, though. Or had my mother told him in one of their secret meetings?

“But life never happens how you want, and she didn’t make it. And now we have a whole new set of problems to work through. That’s really the point.”

“What problems?”

“The Displacement Ordinance.”

Silent tears roll down my cheeks. I don’t know what he’s talking about, but I can tell it’s bad. And that I won’t like it.

“Marnie, because you are still sixteen, you are not considered an independent citizen, which means you can’t live by yourself.”

“But I’m not by myself. Everyone here has raised me.”

“It’s not the same, Marnie. You have be with a guardian. With your mother… gone, I am your guardian. For someone here to become your guardian, they would have to be part of the lottery, and next in line to receive an orphaned or displaced child. It’s too great a risk. Plus, I’m here. I… I want this. I want you in my life.”

The tightness in my chest eases a little and I take a deep breath. “That’s why you came here? To be my guardian and let me finish school? You’re… you’re going to live here?”

The words hang heavy in the air in the room and float around and in between us like dust particles through sunlight pouring into the room. I hold my breath while I wait for him to tell me it’s going to be okay, that he’s going to make things right.

“No, Marnie. You have to come to Iceland with me. I’m sorry.”

He’s still talking, but I don’t hear anything.

Iceland. That country, the MeSIAH outpost there, has been his mistress for the last twelve years. And now he is going to take me away from the only home I’ve ever known.

He’s talking and talking and looking at me with wide eyes, but I am only thinking about my history books and my mother, whose body is probably not in the greenhouse anymore. I want to see her again.

“Marnie? Where are you going? Marnie! Marinellia, stop!” he yells as I open the door and run out into the scorching light.

The storm raged overhead last night, flooding everything except the jungle, which is fitted with a water filtration and rainwater receptacles. It’s acidic, the rain, but they have found a way to purify it. We drink, bath in, and water all the plants with the water from storms like the one last night.

The sun is out in full force today, though, and already the ground is drying and cracking, leaving some spaces as giant holes in the dirt. Muddy pools still dot the desert between the botanist outpost and my school building, although they won’t be there for much longer.

I’m running across the desert, trying to make it to the school before anyone can stop me or Drake catches up to to me. I glance behind me once, but no one is there. I can’t even hear any shouts anymore.

The lectures and examinations have already started for the day, but there will be one empty space in the school.

I run to the back of the building and yank open the door, then walk through the filter room, which sends me tumbling through turbine fans to force the dirt and smog from my clothes and hair. When I finally make it to the main hallway, I take my first left off the main wing and then turn into a small alcove at the end of the hall into a room that is lined from floor to ceiling in relic artifacts. I step into the room, slam the door, and sit on the carpet in the center of the room and cry into my hands. No one will find me here.

I jerked awake when hands grabbed me on both shoulders and pulled me up from the rug in the center of the room.

“Marnie? My dear girl, are you alright?” Jakony asked, shaking me lightly.

My eyes flew around the room. Where am I? When did I get here? How long was I here, in my secret eerie room?

“Child, what on earth are you doing in here? You should not be here, it’s not safe. We would not have had any clue where you were if something urgent were happening.”

“What’s going on?” I asked and gently pulled away from Jakony. He is leaning over me, looking at me with raised eyebrows and a skeptical sneer.

“Your father is here, looking for you. Everyone has been looking for you for several hours. No one even knew you had come here, to the school.”

“I…” I run my fingers down my hair and think about what I could say that won’t make me seem like a petty and silly child. “I just wanted some peace.”

“My dear, I know how you must be feeling. It is devastating to lose ones’ mother, I know. And your mother especially was a magnificent and dedicated woman. She held the true spirit of APSIS.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Come on, dear. I’ll take you to your father and we can call off the search party.”

We walked silently down the halls until we reached the front of the building where Jakony’s office sat in the northwest corner. This building, an old relic building, no longer had any windows to protect against the sun’s violent UV rays. There were tiny slits in the ceiling through, UV filtering, that allowed natural light to flow through. The air filtration was off, though, and the air was thick and stagnant.

“Please, sit.”

I sat and waited silently as Jakony bounced around his office and kept a constant chatter going. I heard him and nodded when it was appropriate but didn’t speak directly to him. I knew what he was doing was a tactic. He was trying to loosen me up, get my mind off of negative things.

Then a thought struck me.

“Proctor, did you know?” I ask and let my weight fall back against the chair. Jakony stops his flitting about and turns to look at me, an overly dramatic look of concern and wonder on his face.

“Whatever do you mean, Marnie? Did I know what?”

“About my mother dying? About the laws… The displacement laws. About Drake coming here, to this sector, and about me having to leave… About going to Iceland.”

Silence stretched on between us. Jakony’s face softened, but he didn’t answer. Then Drake walked in, a flurry and rushed and erratic movements.

“Marnie! Where were you? No one could find you… I saw you run here, but then we looked everywhere and couldn’t find you.” He grabbed me and pulled me into his chest, his arms wrapping around my body and nearly crushing me.

“She was resting in one of the artifact rooms. No one really uses the artifact rooms, Drake. I hadn’t even thought to look there.”

He took his arms away from me, but kept close beside me. “Thank you, Jakony. I’m sorry we interrupted so much of your day.”

“Nonsense. It’s a peculiar time in the girls life, and in yours. I must say, Drake, it’s been good to see you. Good to see you’ve done well with yourself in Iceland.”

“Can you two shut up!” I scream, taking a step into the middle of the room. I turn to face Drake and ball my fists at my sides. “Can we get to the point, please? You’re taking me away! You’re ruining my chances at being accepted at HERO! You’re ruining everything. There is nothing for me in Iceland. There is barely anything left for me here!”

A small knock on the door brought us all out of the trance my words echoing off the walls caused. We looked over at the door in unison as Glovenia walked in, her head turned down toward the floor in her normal, polite gesture.

“Ah! Glovenia. Just in time, dear.” He reached for her hand and pulled her over to him and they stood next to his desk. “Drake, Marnie. Sit, please. Let’s discuss a few things, Hmm?” He gestured to the chairs in the room against the wall across from his desk.

Drake sat first, and I followed, taking the seat on his left. He reached over to touch my arm, but I pulled back and snapped my attention to Jakony, waiting for him to speak.

Why would Glovenia need to be here? What did any of this have to do with her?

“Thank you, both of you. I realize that it’s been a hard few hours. I realize that, as your circumstances dictate, that things will continue to be difficult, especially in the coming days and weeks as Marnie transitions into her new life at the MeSIAH headquarters in Iceland,” he stopped and looked at me, pressing his lips into a thin, sympathy smile. “That is what I wanted to discuss. Drake, first and foremost, I have agreed upon your terms and have granted you the items and personnel that you have pressed from me. Everyone and everything will be ready for departure by tomorrow morning.”

The words mostly washed over me, but a prickly feeling in my arms and legs made me want to jump up and run again, this time far away and into the sun.

“That’s great to hear, Jakony. I’m glad we were able to come to an understanding. And the things at the house? Those will be included in the transport?”

“Yes, absolutely. We’ll have people coming that way in the next few hours.”

“This is great news.”

“Can someone tell me what is going on?” I ask. I hate that they are talking like I’m not there, or can’t understand them. Just a child. Just a silly girl who doesn’t understand the way of the world.

I know better than anyone. I know all the mistakes humans ever made. I know the history of everything.

“Drake? Would you like to tell her now?”

“Yes,” he says to Jakony, then turns in his chair to face me. He smiles a little, but I can see pain in the corner of his eyes and mouth. It’s a smile of someone who’s been badly insulted. “Marnie, we’ll be leaving for Iceland in the next few days. Do you remember those preparations I told you about earlier? Well, they’ve all come through.”

“And?” I ask.

“And all your books and study materials you would need are coming with you,” he said, then turned to Glovenia. “And Glovenia is coming. She’s going to be your tutor and teacher. She will help you prepare for the HERO exams.”

My heart swelled in my chest, pushing on it’s cage. The pain was unreal, but in that moment I was happy.