Chapter 2
by Drew Katronick
Zach sat up and looked around. He was confused. Where was he? All the metal around him seemed so strange. After all, he was not even used to being inside, having spent years out in the wilderness. He heard some gears wizzing. Looking at the gears he realized what an engineering marvel. Of course, he had heard of the miracles of the age he had lived in from his mother, but he never had seen something even as simple as a gear before then (well, he had seen the starship). “It looks like a factory,” thought Zach, “Yes, it’s a processing plant”.
Right next to him, his sister thought along similar lines: “Look at all the peanuts, this must be the place where they process peanuts after they harvest them from the planet.”
Zach started to turn his head toward the left, and, much to his surprise, he saw his sister sitting there looking just as dumbfounded as he felt himself. “Mia!” he shouted.
“Zach!” she responded.
“Is it really you?” they both asked.
“Yes, I think so.” contemplated Zach.
“But why are we here?” questioned Mia, “Don’t you think the commanders would have caught us if they pulled us up with that weird light?”
“Maybe this is a trap.” Zach replied, beginning to feel more than just uncomfortable with his new surroundings. He was starting to feel scared again.
“No, I don’t think it is.” Mia mused, “Why would they need to trap us? After all, they have all the proof they need to convict us.”
“Well, then why are we here?” Zach said, accepting his sister's explanation.
“You know, maybe the alarm was meant for something else.” Mia continued.
Zach wasn’t going to let Mia get ahead of him, even if this was a life and death situation. He’d noticed that there wasn’t anyone in the huge room but themselves, so he said “There are no workers in this room, don’t you think that’s weird?”
“Oh, no, the work is probably all done by robots,” explained Mia.
“Hear me out, Mia, hear me out,” countered Zach, “One: there are no robots in this room; two: there are worker safety instructions on the wall; three: there are red dots on the floor, where they probably want workers to stand.”
“I guess,” said Mia in agreement, “Maybe the alarm was just a bell to tell workers to get off their shift.”
“Sounds about right,” shrugged Zach, “But what should we do now?”
Mia thought the answer was quite obvious, so she began teasing her brother: “Come on little brother—”
“I’m your twin, not your little brother.” interjected Zach, cutting off Mia.
“Yah, whatever,” ignored Mia, continuing her train of thought: “But don’t you think what we should do is obvious?”
“Uh, not really.” responded Zach.
Mia rolled her eyes, “Well, we should try to hide.”
“Among the billions of people on this ship?” questioned Zach, “Someone will notice us.”
“No, it will be easy to blend in with so many of them,” overruled Mia, using what she considered superior intelligence.
“Still—”
“Can you think of anything better to do?” said Mia, raising her eyebrows as if he were just a wild little brother.
“Okay, lead the way, smarty pants.” said a defeated Zach.
Mia stood up and walked towards a dark, cold-looking door. Zach followed her, and, this time, he was the one to roll his eyes at his sibling’s antics: Mia was strolling towards the door as if she was a movie star. But out of the corner of his eye he noticed something queer. The peanuts coming in from the planet were covered with some unusual black substance. As the weird peanuts rolled along the conveyor belt, Zach thought about the peanuts from their part of the planet: they had always looked different. The twins really were experts on peanuts, after all, for all the time they had lived on the planet, they had only eaten peanuts. Zach began to think that the peanuts had mold on them. This idea scared him, because he knew that everyone on the starship depended on the peanuts.
“Look at the peanuts, Mia.” Zach ordered.
“What?” asked Mia, “Oh— they’re, they’re rotten.”
“I know,” responded Zach, “Isn’t it weird?”
Mia began to think, and then voiced her new conclusion: “Maybe they didn’t want the workers to see that the peanut crop is failing so they rang that alarm and told them all to leave—”
Suddenly, Zach and Mia heard a loud scream accompanied by a screech of metal and against metal. They threw themselves under some conveyor belt and looked at each other in horror. What could it be? What was happening?
However, no one came into the room. Nothing happened. Nothing. They waited and waited. Even though there wasn’t a clock in the room, the twins could almost hear the seconds drag by so slowly. Tick, tock. They sat there, fearing the worst. Their fears were in vain, for nothing happened. Tick, tock. The room’s dark metal gears and belts whizzed away, only increasing their fears. Maybe the gears sounded like a clock. The twins sat rigid, waiting for a catastrophe. Tick, tock. Nevertheless, nothing happened. The red alarms scattered throughout the room sat waiting to be aroused. Tick, tock. Another second passed, still their fears were not relaxed. They hoped something would happen— anything, anything. Tick, tock. Zach’s heart pounded, louder than a drum. Mia’s heart pounded, louder than a drum. Zach thought Mia had heard his heart beating, yet Mia only heard her own. Tick, tock. Tick, tock! Tick, tock! The suspense became unbearable, the twins could no longer take it. They were weary of their hearts painfully beating away hopelessly, waiting for the door to swing into their helpless faces.
Mia then stood up and dusted herself off, looking very determined, with courage that impressed the trembling Zach. “Well, we can’t just sit around all day, we have to try to find somewhere safe.” she said.
“I guess so,” Zach responded reluctantly, his heart pounding and vision blurring as he slowly crawled out from under the machinery.
“We need food, water, and a safe place to hide,” stated Mia, listing the things they needed, “We cannot let them find us.”
Zach’s heart almost missed a beat at the reminder of just how high the stakes were: “If they find us—” he thought aloud, shaking.
“They will not find us, Zach,” interrupted Mia, “We are no more safe hiding under that machinery than anywhere else, we might as well just get what we need.”
Nodding in agreement, Zach, even though he was scared, walked to the door, determined to be the one to take the initiative this time. Just as he was about to grab the cold, hard doorknob, a small flicker of an idea flashed into Zach’s mind. A horrible, terrible idea. From this idea he began to shake, for he was scared. “No, it isn’t possible,” he thought. But what else could it be? His face started to become pale. “They wouldn’t do it— they couldn’t do— it’s wrong— Oh, so horribly wrong.” Zach stood there, almost forgetting to breathe. His mind and heart felt like they were fogging up, even though his heart was beating faster than ever. Then, without warning, an ear-breaking screech of metal against metal heralded another victim’s screams piercing the air like lightning.
Now Mia understood too, and she began to turn just as pale as her brother. “So those are the screams of the workers who are supposed to be here?” she whispered in shock.
“Yes, I think so.” Zach answered, shaking his head. He had come to accept the harsh reality, no matter how horrible it really was.
Still in shock, his sister mumbled “They’re, they’re killing the workers— they’re killing them, how could they— how could they do that, how?”
“We’ve got to escape,” stated Zach, now determined to protect himself and his sibling.
“Let’s do it, then.” exclaimed Mia, determined to put the screams behind her. She knew they had already happened and there was nothing she could do to save the victims. So, Mia walked right up to the door and opened it wide.