CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

I'm not sure what Laronda was thinking when she thought to throw me a party. I mean, how in the world are we supposed to do that at the NQC? And where, exactly? Surveillance cameras are everywhere. . . . And we're not supposed to be "fraternizing" too much, even in the platonic friendly meet-ups sense.

"Don't worry, Birthday Girl, I'll take care of everything, you'll see," Laronda whispers to me as we sit down for breakfast at the cafeteria on the morning of my birthday. "I'll get everyone you know to show up, and you'll see, we'll even have cake!"

And she turns to Dawn. "Girlfriend, you're in charge of dessert-gathering."

"Huh?" Dawn says, raising one brow. "You mean, like prehistoric hunter-gathering?"

"As in, you grab a few pieces from the food bar, now-just whatever they might have, pie, cookies, jello, you name it-whatever can fit in a napkin and in your roomy uniform pocket."

"Jello? Hell no! That's disgusting."

"Okay, whatever, just grab something, Dawny-baby-poo, and tell a couple of people we know to do the same."

"Baby-poo?" Dawn punches Laronda on the arm, and Laronda says, "Aww!"

"You're serious?" I mutter with a snort.

"Oh, yeah." Laronda cackles, rubbing her hands together. "We will have the best, yummiest bunch of asteroid-end-of-the-world-compound-cafeteria yummies gathered in one place."

"And what place will that be?"

"Let me think about it, let me ponder, and I will let you know by lunch!"

"O-okay," I say. But I'm shaking my head, because I know how crazy this whole thing is.

* * *

And so, for the rest of the day I am exposed to the "crazy." Candidates of all Four Quadrants from my own Section Fourteen whisper "Happy Birthday!" as they pass me by in the halls, in the classrooms, outside in the long streets between our dorms, and pretty much wherever I turn.

I swear, I don't even know most of these people!

At one point, just before lunch, when Charlie Venice from Red Quadrant Dorm slides by me on the street and gives me a genuinely painful pinch on my waist, accompanied by a very breathy falsetto "Happy You-know-what, Me-e-ez President!" I've had just about enough.

"Yo, Charlie!" I say. "What's up with this already? How many people know about my birthday? Who told you?"

But Charlie grins widely, and makes a horsey laugh noise, and runs along to wherever the hell's he's going.

"Little dummy jerk!" I say to his retreating back.

When I turn around, there's Logan.

My heart does a happy jump, and my pulse starts racing as soon as I see his warm hazel eyes and the slow smile.

"I hope you don't mind," Logan says, falling in with me as we walk back to my dorm. "Gracie told a couple of people at our dorm about your Fun Day. Oh, and-Happy Birthday." And with that Logan takes my hand briefly and brushes his fingers against my palm, so that now my pulse is really racing. "I don't have a present for you here with me, but will I have something for you at the party."

I can't help smiling. "Thanks. As far as presents, don't be silly, you don't have to! I mean, where will you get presents? And, yeah, I can't believe I'm seventeen. Heh. . . . One more year, and I can vote. Not that it means anything. Or, like, who needs a driver's license these days? Or whatever."

"One more year-" He briefly leans near my ear and I can feel his warm breath on my neck. "And you'll be all grown up. . . ."

My smile deepens and I look down and bite my lip. "Yeah. . . ."

And then, with a jolt of sharp clarity, the despair returns.

One more year, and I will most likely be dead.

I, and everyone I know and love.

But I force myself to continue smiling and then we go in through the closest glass walkway to the lobby of Section Fourteen.

* * *

"Okay, girlfriend," Laronda tells me as we meet up for lunch. "Right after your last class, at five-thirty PM, you need to go to the big Training Gym in CA-3. Got that? That's where the party is. Don't be late!"

"Laronda! How many people are going to be there? This is nuts! What if they catch us?" I shake my head at the girl, but she's implacable.

"Just, get your skinny smarty pants booty over there at five-thirty! Don't make me have to use deadly force on you! Oh, and if any of the Instructors or guards ask you where you're going, tell them it's 'team-building homework exercises' for Section Fourteen!"

My mouth falls open, but I am laughing. "Seriously?"

"Asteroid-impact seriously!"

"Ugh . . . don't remind me," I say.

And then I endure lunch and two more classes, with people giving me winks and coy little looks. Generally I'm feeling even more self-conscious than usual.

The weird thing is, the alpha bullies give me looks too, but none of them make the nasty usual comments. Could it be, Derek and Wade and Claudia have given me the day off from their a-hole behavior? Nah, must be something else. And the thought of what that something else could be gives me a cold feeling in my gut. . . .

* * *

At around five-thirty, I make it to the CA-3 Training Gym, huge, sterile, and sprawling, that has a full-size running track and tons of exercise equipment and what looks like a mile-high ceiling. I turn the corner, overcome with sudden uneasy shyness, and enter the main hall area past weights and rowing machines.

There's a whole bunch of people all over the gym. At a glance, could be at least fifty, if I had to count. And no one yells "Surprise!"-thank goodness for that.

Instead, I see my brother George. Behind him is Gordie, and then Gracie. They are smiling widely, and at the same time other people at the gym turn away from whatever they're supposedly doing, and all give me meaningful looks.

"Happy Birthday, Gee Two!" George takes me in a brief hug, then whispers in my ear, "We all have something for you. . . ."

And the next instant I feel something being placed in my fingers. George closes his big hand over mine, and I see . . . a shoelace!

My jaw falls in a silent laugh.

But I have no time to react, because Gracie comes to hurl herself at me and she squeezes me in one of her crazy hugs, and then her cold little fingers are fiddling in mine. . . .

Another shoelace!

I turn around and Gordie tickles me, and punches me multiple times-because again, he is not the hugging type. And then he places a third shoelace in my hand.

Then there's Laronda. "Happy Birthday, Shoelace Girl!" And she hands it to me.

She is followed by Dawn, Tremaine, Jai, Hasmik, Mateo, and a whole bunch of people, who each abandon their exercise equipment and then walk by me as though casually, and whisper a greeting followed by a shoelace.

As I stand there, giggling and counting shoelaces, someone taps me from behind on my arm. I turn and it's Blayne in his wheelchair. His head is craned to the side slightly, his blue eyes are full of unusual suppressed energy, and he's offering me a shoelace. I glance down and notice one of his pristine-looking shoes is missing a shoelace for real.

Wow. . . . For some reason seeing his feet like that, I get a sudden lump in my throat and my eyes start itching.

"There you go, Lark. Happy Birthday," he says with a shadow of a smile. "Now, I'm heading for the cake."

And with that he starts rolling toward the nearest wall, where I suddenly see in the back, is a small stack of boxes. On it are several unrolled napkins, and on top of the napkins is a bunch of pieces of cafeteria desserts of all kinds-cookies, pieces of crumbling pie, and a few actual cake chunks. It's a sorry looking gooey mess, but several people are gathered around it, and they are all grinning at me . . . and holding more dratted shoelaces.

"Go get your cake, so we can sing!" Laronda nudges me forward.

I walk over to the cake "table," followed by more and more people, some of them looking vaguely familiar, until suddenly there's Jared Holder and Ethan Jamerson-two of my Semi-Finals buddies from Los Angeles! Zoe is next to them, naturally.

"Hey, Gwen!" Ethan says. "Or should I say, Shoelace Girl!"

Zoe shrugs laughing. "I had to tell them about this, Gwen."

"Oh, hey!" I exclaim, and feel an indescribable pang, as a whole bunch of memory flashbacks come to me. . . . Things both good and bad.

And then another vaguely familiar teen comes up to me, and offers the shoelace. "Thanks," he says to me. "If it hadn't been for you, the drones would've killed me back in L.A.."

"And thanks from me too, man," another guy says. "I copied you when you did the underwear thing, and didn't get burned crossing the L.A. River bed."

"What underwear thing?" I hear Logan's semi-amused voice as he suddenly comes up behind me. "Should I be concerned?"

"Oh!" I exclaim, turning to him, and blushing a deep red. "It's nothing! You really don't want to know."

Logan raises one brow. But he is laughing.

"Not to mention, your insane shoe-baton rig saved a whole bunch of us in the very end, that day," a slim girl says. I've never seen her before, but apparently she knows me.

"You're welcome, I guess," I say, smiling sheepishly.

"Okay, cake! Now!" And Laronda shoves me at the dessert spread.

I pick up a crumbling piece of some kind of white cake with a bit of frosting on it. Before I can take a bite, everyone in the Training Gym starts to sing.

And I mean, everyone.

I put my hand up to cover my mouth, because I don't know how else to react, as from every spot in the hall teen voices rise. . . .

Since the surveillance cameras are on us, most people remain where they are, "using" the exercise equipment, or pretending to stretch and look in another direction away from me, or walking around the track perimeter. But the birthday song is overwhelming, and it gets so amazing, because it's a given that everyone here can sing really well, and many people start doing gorgeous harmony.

I stand, with shivers going up and down my spine. . .

And then it's over.

"-And many, zany, granny mo-o-o-re," George intones, finishing up with our own family twist on an extra add-on line to the popular song everyone knows.

My brothers and sister and my friends grow silent. They stand looking at me.

There are no candles to blow out. No wish to make.

And it occurs to me, in a strange surreal moment of existential awareness, this is probably my last birthday.

And for many of them, it also occurs to me, this is probably their very last party or celebration of any kind.

* * *

The moment is interrupted when a small commotion happens at the doors to the gym, as we hear voices and more people approaching. And then I hear Claudia Grito's obnoxious loud tone as she says, "There she is! They are having an illegal gathering! They're breaking the rules!"

The room is instantly silent and many people either turn away in haste to pretend-exercise, while the rest stand around me and the cake table, looking vaguely guilty.

I look around with worry, and see Oalla Keigeri walk into the gym hall. She is followed by Claudia and Derek and a few others of the alpha crowd. Oalla walks closer, and her boots ring with angry loud echoes against the linoleum floor until she comes to the mat-covered area and stops. She glances at all of us coldly.

"There it is! They stole cake and food from the cafeteria too!" Claudia points gleefully.

"Attention, Candidates!" Oalla exclaims. "What's going on? Is it true that you removed some food from the cafeteria? What are you doing here?"

"Nothing, we just got a little hungry," Laronda mutters, stepping forward to block me from Oalla's wrath.

"So what are you doing?"

"We're having a team bonding exercise for our dorm Section," Dawn says suddenly, taking a step forward also.

"Is that so?" Oalla raises one brow. "And which class is this for?"

"It's for all of them," Zoe says. "We are practicing teamwork for the upcoming Finals, since we know teamwork will be required."

I push forward past Laronda and start to open my mouth to basically come clean and take the blame. But Laronda shoves me painfully in the gut.

I remain quiet.

Oalla turns to stare at the rest of the room, and no one else meets her withering gaze. "All right. Those of you near this unauthorized pile of snack junk, step forward. You get a single point demerit for whatever it is this nonsense is." She pauses to include everyone in her scrutiny. "Come up and get scanned. Anyone else in this room who's possibly involved, you may also step forward to get your demerit. However I will not bother to go over to where you are, so it's all up to you."

I bite my lip and sigh, while my friends shuffle forward and Oalla Keigeri scans their tokens rapidly with a blank expression that could be boredom. When it's my turn, she scans my ID token and doesn't even bother to look at me.

No one else seems to take her up on her invitation to approach. So then Oalla turns around to look at the bully crowd who came with her. Claudia is whispering with Derek and repressing giggles.

"And you!" Oalla Keigeri says suddenly in a loud sergeant drill voice, addressing Claudia. "All of you get demerits too-two points each, for snitching on your fellow Candidates! Come up to me now, to get scanned! Move!"

Claudia's expression goes from smug to priceless. Her jaw drops with outrage and she starts to mutter in protest, but Oalla passes her handheld over Claudia's token. And then she does the same to Derek who looks ready to kill someone-me.

"Now, get out of here!" Oalla tells the alpha bullies ruthlessly. "Back to your dorms and actual homework!"

They stampede out of the hall.

Oalla turns to us in the meantime. As we stare in amazement, she walks up to the dessert table and picks up a messy chunk of cake. "Okay, I am not a big fan of this cloying sweet stuff that you eat here on Earth, but I think I can have one for the occasion," she says, looking at me with a crafty, amused expression.

Holy lord! Humorless drill sergeant Oalla is human, and furthermore, she is amused! I have never, ever seen her like this. . . .

"Oh, and Happy Birthday, Shoelace Girl," Oalla tells me, as she bites into her cake.

* * *

And so, for the next few minutes it looks like the party is still on. My siblings and friends exhale in relief and then crowd around the dessert stuff, and everyone starts to giggle and talk louder than usual. Even the people "hiding" behind exercise equipment come out eventually. Oalla talks to a few of us casually, as she chews a small bit of cake.

"Candidate Lark," Oalla says, turning to me, and her kohl-lined beautiful eyes are somewhat cool. "As you can see, I'm cutting you some slack here. But it's not for you."

I watch her, not sure how to respond.

"It's for all the rest of them," she says, nodding at the room in general. "Look, I get it. You are all letting off steam, because it's what happens in a situation like this. It's like before going into battle. . . . On Atlantis, people celebrate hard before they have to do something where there's a good chance they will die."

"I-I think people on Earth do that too."

She nods. "Exactly. So, we're not unlike in that sense."

"Okay."

Oalla continues to look at me, and I do not look away, do not cringe from her direct, hard gaze.

There's a strange little pause.

"You still have your special voice training later tonight, don't you?" she says.

"Yeah," I say. I am a little surprised she knows about it, but then, why not? Apparently Aeson Kass and the other Atlanteans talk about us in detail. So yeah, she would be informed of my ongoing schedule. Besides, they're all astra daimon, and there are probably many things they share in general. . . .

Oalla looks at me closely. Not sure what she is trying to see, but the weight of her scrutiny is almost tangible. "Only two more times left-for your voice training," she says, watching me. "And then, Finals. I think you and I are going to have a little talk before Finals-but not just yet."

"What do you mean?"

But the Atlantean girl simply nods at me with her composed unreadable expression, and then starts to move away. "Enjoy your party, Lark, everyone. And, thanks for the cake."

And she exits the Training Gym hall.

* * *

Ten minutes later, the party is still going strong. Sure there's no booze, the last pitiful crumbles of cake and cookies are gone, and there's no music or pretty much anything else you get at teen parties. But the people are here, and that's what counts.

And yeah, I have a whole bunch of mismatched shoelaces in my hands. I stand grinning, and Laronda says, "So, whatcha gonna do with all of them?"

"Make a really long cord super-weapon of the Yellow Quadrant?" Gracie giggles.

"Hmm, I could do that, I suppose." I tickle Gracie. "But-don't you guys all need them back at some point? I mean, it's not like you can run to the store to buy new ones. . . ."

And then I glance at George with an uncertain smile. "So, was getting the one point demerit worth it?"

"I think it was," my older brother says matter-of-factly, as he rubs his hands together to wipe the cookie crumbs off his fingers.

"Oh yeah, definitely," Dawn adds with a single wiggle of her brow.

"Okay, then," I mutter. "As long as you guys don't regret it."

Logan takes my arm in that moment, and pulls me away. "I have your present," he whispers, leaning near my cheek.

I turn my face to him, smiling with a flush of excitement. "What?"

Logan reaches in his pocket, and after a small strange pause, takes out his knife. I recognize the small penknife-it's the one he's always fiddling with, playing with the blade in his fingers whenever he is abstracted.

"Here, I want you to have it," he says, handing me the knife. "It-it belonged to my brother Jeff and he gave it to me before he went on . . . assignment."

"No!" I say, looking down at the knife with a sudden jolt of emotion. "I can't take that! I know how much it means to you."

"Please, keep it. . . . It's my birthday gift to you," he says, watching me with serious, intense eyes. "Sorry it's not much, but I think it will come in handy. Might even protect you during the Finals-who knows? In any case, no arguing with a gift, okay?" And he puts it in my hand so that his fingers close over mine, lingering momentarily.

"Wow, okay . . ." I say. "Thank you!" And then I give him a swift deep hug, regardless of any surveillance cameras.

A lump is building in my throat and this time is does not let up.

Soon enough the party is over.

* * *