Free The Burn by Annie Oldham Page A

just might explode in my face.
    The Burn. Most often I picture the desolation the
colony has fed me—deserts, crumbling buildings, the blazing sun.
But I saw beauty on Gaea’s monitors. Maybe I will belong up there
and it won’t just be this childish fantasy I always dream of. It
will be real, and I can touch it and feel it.
    I fall asleep after my mind stops racing along faster
than my body can keep up with. I wake up when the computer
announces, “Now leaving the Northwest Pacific Territory. Entering
the Northeast Pacific Territory.”
    I look at the clock. 18:00. I slept for thirteen
hours. I again sit in the controller’s seat. Just a few more miles
and I’ll pass Hawaii. That is the half-way point between my old
life and my new.
    Just as I pass it, the monitor blips at me,
indicating a message is waiting for me. Surely Gaea wouldn’t risk
transmitting a message. Mr. Klein? But he can’t let anyone know he
knows where I am.
    It is from Jessa. Should I even be tempted by this? I
need to entomb this part of me to have a chance of happiness on the
Burn. But my heart aches for one last piece of her. I press a
button. Jessa’s face appears on the monitor.
    “Look, Terra, I know you’ve left for the Burn. I’ve
known for a while you weren’t happy here.”
    She sits in our room. She manually locked the door,
not just relying on the computer locks that can be overridden. She
brushes tears off her cheeks.
    “I just wish you would have told me so that I could
understand. I want to understand. Listen, I haven’t told Dad yet
that I know, but he’s trying to sort through all the archives right
now to figure out where you’ve gone. So wherever you are, please
hurry and be safe. So you can get where you want to go without any
of us stopping you.”
    There’s a knock at the door. Jessa’s head whips
around. “Just wait a minute, Dad!”
    “I’ve got to go. I think Dad’s almost caught up.
Listen, I love you. I know you were trying to tell me that all day
yesterday. Be safe.” Her face freezes on that moment, and my eyes
burn. The screen goes black except for one line: Print text of message?
    My finger hovers over the keys. Can I keep one
reminder of her? One that I can actually touch? I too am crying.
Then I press Yes .
    The paper prints slowly. I find a waterproof cover
and carefully slide the sheet in place, then fold it and lay it
perfectly parallel to the edge of the bunk.
    Needing something to cling to, my hands grab the
folds of my dress. I look down. I need to change into the clothes
Gaea gave me. The fabric is rough and dull colored, like
brush-cleaning water. How often in painting class, one of the
regular enrichment curriculums, we would paint a landscape. That is
what the old masters painted. But the teachers never gave us a
photo to paint from. Always the images in our heads. We weren’t to
be misled by what the Burn looked like before the Event. It would
undoubtedly be a bastion of death and decay now, and those images
were too violent, too corrupting to be allowed into the
curriculum.
    Now I will see it all. And it will be more
magnificent than the images on Gaea’s monitors. If it can look as
beautiful as it did sent from a satellite to an outdated monitor
several miles under the ocean’s bulk, it will be astonishing in
real life. It has to be.
    I strip out of the dress. The Burn clothes are too
big, but they’ll do. I pull on the hiking boots, and my feet feel a
hundred pounds heavier. All the shoes in the colony are feather
light and small. These are clunky, but maybe you need something
like this for walking on rocks.
    I toss the dress in the bottom of the pack, put the
clothes and other supplies on top, then fold Jessa’s message twice
more and slip it into a zippered pouch on the front.
    I’m hungry finally, after the memory of swallowing
blood has faded, so I search the sub’s supply bins. A few energy
bars, and a first-aid kit with a sedative. Just what I need to
sleep until