Page 24 of Between Earth and Eternity
Skyler,
There are things I should have told you sooner, things I have come to suspect about Mannox Industries’s true intentions but chose to withhold, thinking my mistrust wouldn’t change our situation. But when your name was drawn in the Lottery, I realized I had made a mistake by staying silent. I knew then that I had no choice but to tell you now that you are going into the fire, surrounded by not only the Mannox family but their inner circle as well.
I had to share it with you here because, as a winner, you and our family are bound to draw unwanted attention. I also assume you’ll be screened, and I don’t want this knowledge to put you in danger. If you’re reading this, it means I am not too late.
There are forces at play within Mannox Industries that exceed anything I imagined. I know, like many others, you resent the wealthy for exploiting more than their fair share as the planet’s resources dwindle. But it’s not just the opportunity of a new life that they have gambled with; if my assumptions are indeed correct, they’ve taken parts of our history as well. I discovered months ago that many archived records, not just music, but all forms of media, recovered and saved at E.P.S. were mysteriously missing. In some cases, they were simply altered, in others, they were entirely removed from the database, or worse, destroyed. At first, I thought it was a mistake, but when I started receiving unwanted visitors at E.P.S. and threats from Thomas Stafford sent directly from Alister Mannox himself, I had to keep my suspicions under wraps. I don’t have an estimate of the number of records lost, nor do I know why.
I don’t know what this means, what else they are keeping from us, or what they have planned. As you begin this journey on Zenith, be careful who you trust and definitely DO NOT trust anyone from Mannox.
Be wary, try to find those you can confide in, and perhaps, if you are lucky, some answers will begin to reveal themselves. I trust you to do what you think is best to uncover the truth. I can only hope that once we are all on Eden together, we can get to the bottom of everything. I have thought long and hard about what I should do, if I should bring this to light, realizing now that perhaps those radical groups know more about Mannox’s true plan.
Remember Sky, you can’t control what happens to you, only what you do when it does happen. Regardless of if we are hiding under the covers or walking bravely out the door to face it head-on, life goes on, and we must do the best we can. I know you can do this.
Play the game. Stay vigilant. Stay safe.
We will be together again. I have to believe that is true.
Your mother, your Gran, and I are so proud of the woman you have become. You will be in our every thought until we see each other again.
Destroy this letter as soon as possible.
I love you, my daring and darling daughter.
Until we meet again.
Love, Dad
I reread the letter several times, new tears staining the page each time, and it’s all I can do to keep from screaming.
Not only am I now trapped and surrounded by strangers, there is perhaps a more sinister plan at work. And iftheyfind this letter—if they find out what I now know—I can only imagine what may come for me and my family. Are there cameras in our rooms? My fingers shake as I rip the letter into thesmallest scraps possible before tossing them into the lavatory and flushing them down the drain. I steady myself against the bathroom counter and splash cold water on my face.
I take a quick glance around the room, looking for any obvious signs of cameras or planted recording devices, but I truly have no idea what to actually look for. After somewhat confirming I am in the clear—I didn’t know I’d need to be an expert in espionage—I grab my phone from my bag, and my stomach sinks. I have no service.
I try to place a call anyway, tapping on Dad’s name, then on Elliot’s, but the calls fail every time. After the tenth attempt, I throw my phone onto the bed. I gulp down my pain, my rage and sadness, covering my face with a pillow before flopping onto the bed myself.
I don’t even know what I would have said if a call went through, but just hearing a voice would have eased the hurricane of doubt and fear swirling in my mind.
The words were written clearly in my dad’s message, but it’s what was between the lines that is making my head ache. What does my father want me to search for exactly? How can I decipher what’s out of place without knowing what I’m looking for?
Without a conscious decision, it’s Elliot’s voice that comes to my mind.Hang in there, San Fran. You got this.
“I don’t think I do,” I say to the empty room. The room I will now be confined to for five days. Panic sets in again, and I rush to find my phone. I let out a strange sound that is a mix of a laugh and a sob when I confirm that I can still listen to my downloaded music or my father’s lectures. Those hours spent with Elliot going over all those playlists, photos, and a few e-books was time well spent.
Is that why Mannox built this base out in the middle of the desert, miles away from the city? So we would have zero service to make outgoing calls?
My father’s warnings are already making me question everything, and I’ve only been here for a couple of hours. The headache is turning into a migraine at an alarming speed.
There is only one thing left to do, the only thing that can give me comfort with literally no one here to distract me from my spiral. I slide my earbuds in and find a playlist titledSaddish 80s Pop.
I’m starting to question if El should have been put in charge of naming them after all. As the first song begins to play, I close my eyes and pretend I’m anywhere but here.
Droves of people continue to arrive at Base X well into the night. After practically biting my nails to nubs, people watching becomes boring. My legs are itching for a run, and I need a better distraction. With limited options, I explore what is available to stream on the monitor console in front of the bed.
There’s an entire library of documentaries that mostly consist of the same set up: two supposed experts discussing topics from cosmic exploration to interstellar ship designs. Not my favorite form of entertainment, but now that I’m being forced into the final frontier of space, it won’t hurt to obtain some basic knowledge.
“One big question, why not cryosleep?” asks the interviewer.
An older gentleman with a thinning hairline responds, “Well, studies have shown that, while the human body is resilient, it wasn’t designed for something as unnatural as forcedhibernation. Through our thorough testing, we found severe damage to the heart and brain in several case studies. It was a unanimous decision that it was better to use our funds elsewhere.”
