Short Story Excerpt #3
Sarah stiffens, and it finally hits her; this is what she has been waiting for, the goal she's been fighting to reach for almost half a decade. Find her brother, make sure he's safe, bring him home. She missed him so much. They used to run together in the fields behind their house, toes wiggling in cool grass, skipping hand-in-hand all throughout the property. Atlas would do her homework for her and buy her ice cream and let her watch scary movies at night. Atlas would hold her and touch her and comfort her when she was down. They were inseparable, as if their souls had been sewn together. He loved her. She loved him. She loves him. She adores him.
But he's a stranger now.
The Atlas she knew and loved wouldn't abandon her. Would he? Or did she simply not mean as much to him as she thought she did?
"So," Atlas says, snapping her back into the present. "Your turn. Where's mom, and how did you get here?"
Sarah sighs. "Mom shipped me off to an education planet a bit after you disappeared." She pauses. "When we landed and they were escorting everyone off and stuff, I told them I forgot one of my bags on the ship, and stole it. Sold it for parts at the edge of commercial space, used the money to buy a smaller ship, then I went back to Earth and got Ariel's family to shelter me while I looked for you."
Atlas snorts, and gives a wide smile of approval. That's my girl, he whispers, and it sends a shiver throughout Sarah's tiny frame, goosebumps forming all across her flesh.
"Looks like we're both considered missing people, then," Atlas says, pulling his gaze away. "Nowhere for either of us to go but here."
"Um, no, you're coming home with me."
His face falls, and his expression goes blank. "I can't." Atlas rubs his eyes. "You know I can't. I'm doing good work out here, Sarah. Last week we smuggled 30 people out of punitive space and got them new identities, new homes. I'm helping people."
"And the Collaboration will consider you a traitor."
"Well, that too."
Sarah scoffs. "Collaboration is the worst fucking name ever for it. I can't believe they said it was a reference to 'ancient community-focused Earth practices' or whatever. Instead of everyone on Earth actually collaborating to give us a better Earth, we collaborated on how to take over space."
"Yeah, it's messed up," Atlas replies. "It really is. And because of that, what do you think mom will do when we get home? Just accept that you escaped and ran away for four years? Just suddenly be okay with me doing all of this?"