me. “There. We are no longer visible to anyone. We’re in my shadow land. No one can hear us.”
“You’re sure?” I ask.
“I am.”
“Good. How long can you keep this up?”
“My shadow land?” she asks.
I nod.
“The longest I’ve gone is a part and a half, but it left me unable to function well for an entire rotation afterward. It works best for a half a part.”
An hour and a half at most—that’s not as much time as I’d hoped. I lift my chin. “You said you could get things—things we need.”
“I’m good at getting things. My gift of obscurity makes it ridiculously easy.”
“That’s perfect. We have to collect everything we need for the journey to Earth.”
“So, we’re still leaving,” she says, her shoulders round in relief.
“Yes. We’re leaving. It will be really dangerous, though. I’ll be hunted. If you’re with me, you’ll be hunted too. If you don’t think you can handle it, tell me now and I’ll come up with a different plan that doesn’t include you.”
“I’ll handle it. I want out too, maybe more than you.”
“Why?” I ask.
“I’ve never been free. This little time I’ve spent here is the freest I’ve ever been and you seem to think it’s a prison. I want to know what it’s like to really be free—to answer to nothing and no one.”
“I can give you that”—I lean my head to the side—“sort of. Earth has its own rules. It’s not easy there either.”
“Nothing worth having is easy,” she replies.
“So you’re in?”
“I’m in.”
“Let’s brainstorm then. What do we need?” I ask myself, thinking of traversing the Forest of Omnicron and all that that entails. “We need a way to travel without detection. Everyone will be looking for us.”
“Every vehicle I know of has a heat signature. They’re easy to track.”
“Think of something that has the smallest heat signature.”
She’s quiet for a moment. Keenan walks out onto the terrace and looks around with mild concern. “A flipcart,” Phlix murmurs. “They leave almost no trail. I can get them easily.”
“Can you teach me how to ride one?”
She smiles. “You mean you haven’t ridden a flipcart?”
“I know. Shocking.”
“Kricket,” Keenan calls out, turning in circles on the balcony, looking for me. I ignore him.
I tell Phlix, “We need food that we can carry, some medical supplies, water, one outfit—versatile—shoes that we can run in, not these torture devices.” I lift my skirt hem up to show her the intricate footwear that makes me have to almost point my toes.
“They’re so lovely, though,” she says. “Are they Gurtrone?”
“I—who cares?” I reply. “We each need one of those things that Strikers use to breathe underwater.” I mime shoving a breathing apparatus in my mouth. “Something that will help us survive the portal to Earth.”
Her forehead furrows in concentration. “You want a tankoid?”
“If it’s the thing you put in your mouth that’s attached to a small cylinder that lets you breathe underwater, then yes, I want a tankoid.”
“Okay. That might be hard to get, though.”
“See what you can do,” I tell her. I may be an okay swimmer now, but I know my limits. Having oxygen in the massive current that will drag us through a wormhole to Earth ups our likelihood of survival, and unlike the Cavars, I have no qualms about using Etharian technology here or on Earth.
“We’ll need rock climbing equipment.”
She shakes her head. “Not if we have flipcarts. They levitate. They can take us straight up.”
I rub my forehead. “Cavars are insane! You know that, right?” Then I say to myself, “Rappelling cliffs that they can just use a flipcart to descend! I am so over it!”
Keenan runs past us in a panic, yelling, “Kricket!” He disappears around the bend in the balcony.
I point at Phlix. “You need inoculations. You’ve never been exposed to the kind of diseases that are on Earth. I can’t have you dying on me.”
“I’ll get what I need. It’s going to cost, though, and take some time.”
“How much time?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “I need to develop a contact among the security team. They seem to have the greatest access in and out of here.”
“Do you need money?” I ask.
“Yes. I have none.”
“Will people barter for things?” I ask.
“Maybe.”
“There’s so much stuff here that probably won’t be missed for a while, if ever. I’ll give you some things that look valuable. Work on getting your vaccines first. We don’t leave until you get vaccinated, okay?”
“Okay. I’ll let you know,” Phlix agrees. We both pause for a moment and look out over the