Free Bounders by Monica Tesler

handle and a flashing keypad mounted alongside.
    And the place still stinks. Did they forget to circulate the air in here?
    We follow Ridders, all dressed in our dailies, in a single-file line down the center stripe. If you ignored our out-of-sync steps and our short stature, you might actually think we were Earth Force officers.
    Wait a second—we are Earth Force officers. Geez, that is awesome. Mind-blowingly awesome.
    â€œWhat do you think the sensor is for?” Ryan asks as he places his foot on the platinum stripe.
    â€œDefinitely some kind of automated transport device,” Cole says.
    â€œOh!” I say. “It’s for these mini Spider Crawlers. They look like plain black boxes when they’re zipping along the sensor, but then they have these long spiky limbs for walking just like the big Crawlers.”
    â€œHow do you know that?” Cole asks.
    Uh-oh. The only reason I know about the robots is because of my escapade with Marco. The last thing I want to think about right now is that mystery alien, and I’m definitely not ready to tell Cole. I shrug. “I must have read it somewhere.”
    Cole frowns. I worry he’s going to interrogate me, but I’m saved by our arrival at the mess hall.
    The hall is filled with a couple dozen circular tables, all a funky orange color. The walls are the same dull green, but the orange brightens the place up. There are even portholes along the wall where you can look out into space.
    When we walk in, our formation falls apart. The girls are already here, and there’s a lot of chatter. If I close my eyes, I can almost believe I’m in the school cafeteria back home.
    Most of the boys beeline for the food. I’m hungry, but I can’t shake the horrid smell of stale hot dogs. It kills my appetite.
    Lucy rushes over and steers me to a table in the back. Cole follows. She frowns at him, but she doesn’t shoo him away.
    â€œGuess what I found out,” she says.
    I raise my eyebrows. She’s going to tell me no matter what I say.
    Sure enough, she keeps right on talking. “After breakfast they’re announcing the pods.”
    â€œReally?” Cole says. “Have you learned any more about how they assess compatibility?”
    She shakes her heard. “No. Total silence on that front. But Florine says they’re not going to finalize assignments until this morning.”
    Hmmm. What are they waiting for? What grand insight into our character did they expect to get in less than twenty-four hours?
    At the next table, Ryan and some other cadets inhale plates of something yellow and spongy that might be scrambled eggs. As I watch them, I try to make sense of what Lucy said.
    â€œWell?” Lucy asks. She must have kept talking. I zoned out.
    â€œSorry. Ask me again.” I fix my eyes on Lucy. She’s changed her hair. Her ribbons match the daily uniform—indigo and orange. Like the tables.
    â€œHow was your night?” she asks.
    â€œFine,” I say. Cole embellishes my answer with a technical description of the racks and storage areas and the morning wake-up committee.
    â€œThat sounds just like the girls’ dorm,” Lucy says. “But you guys didn’t have the late-night excitement we did.”
    â€œWhat happened?” I ask.
    â€œI bet you could guess. Oh, don’t bother. I’ll tell you. Dancing Queen decided to take a stroll in the middle of the night and set off all kinds of alarms. Let’s just say, no one could have slept through it.”
    â€œMira?” I ask.
    Lucy nods. I follow her gaze across the mess hall. Mira sits alone by a porthole, her hand pressed against the glass. Her shirt is untucked, and some of her hair has pulled loose from her braid.
    â€œWait a minute,” Cole says. “The dorm doors are linked to an alarm?”
    â€œTo put it mildly,” Lucy says. “It was like a five-alarm fire when Mira wandered off. Before we knew