THERE ARE NO STARS HERE

CHAPTER ONE:
THE AIRLOCK

Solanis

When the great window cracked, Solanis Tailor felt, for the first time, that she had made a mistake that would cost her and her brother their lives.

The pressure in their Boston compound had slowly dropped over the span of a few hours. Ronnie had noticed first. It was tapped into the sensors in and outside of their home—the massive fortress in the supposedly protected gated community of Seaport. The AI was supposed to let them know when the air pressure didn’t match, which would indicate a leak. The compound’s pressure systems were designed to keep her home slightly over pressure.

Pressure would keep Haze outdoors. Even a hairline crack could destabilize the balance, allowing the abrasive, razor-like particles to infiltrate their safety.

Both she and Greg had rushed to the living room and examined every corner of the cathedral-high ceilings, wooden walls, and glass fixtures.

Where was the leak?

He had found the crack—a small, curved fissure that tilted upward like a twisted smile. Solanis could hardly see it. But just because you couldn’t see something didn’t mean it wouldn’t kill you.

Earthquakes were invisible, but one had killed her parents. All she had seen were the side effects and the consequences. Falling rocks. Bodies. Denver, fucking Colorado.

She shivered.

“I’ve got the sealant!” she yelled, running toward the basement steps while her brother headed for the airlock.

“Ronnie!” Greg yelled. “You didn’t close the shutters?”

The intelligence responded no. It was having a hard time connecting to StarLight; the satellites couldn’t penetrate Haze very well. Access to information was limited.

How did it always sound so nonchalant?

There had been a malfunction in the closing mechanism. The shutters that would protect the great window were stuck open.

Solanis stumbled her way downstairs, her hands vibrating as she searched for the sealant on the shelf with the emergency Haze supplies. Everyone had this kit in their home, issued by the Haze Emergency Response Agency—HERA. But she hadn’t expected to need it. Haze wasn’t usually deadly for people like her. People with means.

Haze wasn’t new. The dark, human-manufactured hurricane was just Mother Nature’s way of kicking everyone in the balls—a consequence for using plastic straws that killed turtles, forests, and birds. It was made up of ultra-fine particulates laced with the remnants of toxic industrial compounds that could cause respiratory distress. It was the perfect disaster—just small enough to fly through the air but heavy enough to cut you. When people in Seaport described it, they called it the lightest of the worst. Others compared it to the winter wind in Chicago—cold enough to cut your skin if you didn’t bundle up. Denver called it business as usual. Worthington called it an excuse to build more Domes.

Solanis found the glue gun, checked the battery, found it full, and sprinted back upstairs. Greg was near the airlock—the massive secondary room they’d hastily added to the side of their compound earlier in the year—zipping up his light gray jumpsuit while clutching a mask under his arm.

“Seal from the inside,” he said. “I’ll fix the gears.” He put the helmet over his head, turned on the air canister, and then slid a finger over the display next to the airlock room. It indicated his suit was sealed correctly. He gave her a cheesy thumbs-up—the same one her mother used to give her before she toured the stars—and vanished behind the massive door.

Solanis grabbed the ladder, climbed to the creepy smile of a crack, and began her work. “Ronnie, show me Greg,” she demanded, powering up the gun.

The wall lit up, and the cameras outside their compound searched for her brother in the dark.

She inspected the window. How could one little line, about five centimeters long and no thicker than a hair, cause so much trouble? It mocked her. The upward curve sneered at her.

She leaned forward to fill the fissure, keeping one eye on Greg. Her hands wouldn’t stop vibrating. She had to run her arm across her forehead a few times to steady the stream of sweat that would sting her eyes.

The display showed her brother’s silhouette trudging toward the shutter’s closing mechanism, hidden in a box next to the great window. His gray jumpsuit was stained dark as he moved, sullied by the grittiness of Haze. He stepped deliberately, fighting against the hurricane the gods sent up into the world, until he reached the box and pulled a tool from his Velcro pocket.

Solanis looked back at the window, determined the seal was applied correctly, and asked Ronnie to check the air pressure inside. The tablet indicated the pressure was normal. Good. Her job was done.

Greg cranked the shutters by hand. They were almost closed when one of the arms snapped, sending the now free shutter hurling toward him.

He reflexively tried to block the shutter with his hands, but it smashed into his helmet, throwing him backward across the front yard. Ronnie gave an alert to emergency services, but Solanis already knew that was useless. The wait, even with his insurance, would be significant.

She ran to the airlock, grabbed the extra jumpsuit, and desperately stepped into it. Greg struggled on the monitor, his hand covering his face.

She did not have much time.

His mask had shattered. He reached into his other pocket, pulled out some duct tape, and hopelessly began to try and tape over his helmet—a pathetic attempt to plug the hole. But instead of heading back inside, he began to make his way back across the yard and toward the now flapping shutter.

Another alarm went off. The window struggled. Solanis’s ears popped. Pressure was rising in the room to compensate with the outdoors.

“Come back inside,” she urged Greg through the monitor as she pulled her arms through the jumpsuit’s sleeves and grabbed a mask repair kit from the shelf. She then began the time-consuming process of checking the seals on her jumpsuit; she’d never had to do this before.

Greg went outside. She didn’t.

She didn’t want to go out.

Please don’t make me go outside.

She didn’t want to face Mother Nature.

She willed Greg to finish his work and come back as quickly as possible. But her brother struggled. One hand still covered the makeshift patch while his other arm weakly pushed the shutter closed. He stumbled forward and fell again.

He was going to die.

And then she’d be alone.

She would not be safe if she was alone.

Solanis tied her dark wavy hair into a bun, slipped on her helmet, powered the air canister, and pressed the door to release the airlock.

A red warning alert came on. She ignored it and yelled, “Override!” The system unlocked, and she slid the door open and stepped down into the airlock.

The door had a hard time closing behind her, so she put her shoulder into it, forcing it closed. She knew if this door wasn’t shut, the outer door would never open. The indicator above the door turned green.

The massive white room was normally only used during the twice yearly Haze storm. She’d always wondered why the designers made the airlock look like a padded cell. It was all flat walls and air canisters in case of emergency. There were large analog buttons on the walls, and if you looked closely, you could see backup emergency doors embedded in the ground and ceiling of the unit near both entryways. If you were forced to, you could probably live in an airlock this size. At least until you ran out of food.

Greg had once called the room dummy proof.

“Ronnie, let’s go,” she demanded, crossing the room to the exterior door. “Let’s go.”

The room filled with more oxygen, increasing the pressure inside just enough to provide an air barrier against the swirl outdoors. She’d feel the push and step outside into the black snow. Haze was like ash.

The floor vibrated slightly, and the door indicated she could exit when she was ready. There was a flashing red indicator next to the door, its needle pulsing to the right. She told Ronnie to override the warning light, pushed down on the handle, and exited the airlock into the Boston Haze.

The door screeched closed behind her.

The Haze was like a weighted blanket pressing down on her from all sides. No, it was more like putting a heavy plate on her back at the gym. Instead of the bright, calm Camelot air of Seaport, her home was all gray and dark shadows. Small red, green, and blue embers exploded around her like tiny, silent supernovas. The experts had said this was the flammable compounds inside Haze that lit and fizzled. It was a blizzard of ash with the grittiness of death, cloaking the world in an amateur gray and black.

Ronnie beeped happily, and a small pulse filled Solanis’s ears as the AI tried to lead her by sound. It would know where Greg was, so she just needed to follow.

She could maybe see a foot in front of her. The airlock was supposed to light up, but even the beacons were faint in the darkness. She wrinkled her nose; her suit smelled like burnt plastic.

Ronnie chirped, coaxing her to follow its audio guidance. She walked to the left, lifting each foot carefully. Her mother had done this once during astronaut training. She’d walk in the giant pool, the weight of the water forcing her to move slow. In those moments, Solanis would be glued to the edge of the tank, watching through the bright blue and leaving fingerprints on the glass as Greg just sat bored, reading.

She missed her mother. The way she smelled like wood, grapes, and barbecue. If she was still alive, she’d give Solanis a thumbs-up and remind her that there are harder things in the universe.

“Nuclear pasta,” Solanis’s mom would say, peering cleverly at Solanis as she giggled at the idea. “Hardest substance in the known universe.”

This felt harder.

The beeping faded. Solanis pivoted to the left. The beeping grew more confident.

There he is.

Greg hobbled toward her. She couldn’t see his face properly, but she knew he noticed her because he began gesturing with his free hand for her to go back. She ignored him and continued walking forward. He needed the patch.

When she reached him, she forced her brother to stop moving. She pulled out the patch kit, placed it over his helmet, and watched as it expanded and covered the hole in his mask. The sheeting bowed outward—a sign of positive air pressure. At least, that was what Ronnie said. She was a communications executive, not a fucking scientist.

She gave her brother half of a thumbs-up, and the two made their way back to the airlock together.

Greg leaned on her, hard. He drifted sideways into her, his body shaking, as he dragged his right leg in the dirt.

The lighthouse that was the beacon for the airlock came into view. She didn’t have to tell Ronnie they were coming back in. It would know where they were.

Greg collided with the door, his shoulders heaving up and down. He tried to pull the handle but instead pitched forward.

She frowned. So, maybe Ronnie didn’t know where they were.

“No!” she yelled, grabbing Greg around the middle and pushing him onto his back. She pulled the door, and the power operation assisted, sparking a grinding noise from the track. She stepped inside and grasped him under his shoulders and pulled hard to get him inside the airlock. All that lifting in the gym had finally come in handy.

Once his feet crossed the threshold, the outer door tried to slide shut but jammed on the track. They should have maintained this better.

Solanis stepped over Greg. “Come on!” she yelled to no one. “Come on!” She pulled the door, forcing it to close. The light on the door oscillated between green and red until she shoved her shoulder into the door, and it stayed green.

But she wasn’t done yet. They’d need to depressurize the chamber to make it equal to their home. Then decontaminate, strip, and decontaminate again. And she needed to see how badly Greg was hurt.

The hissing was back as the air pressure rose. But there was a metallic groan behind her. She spun around and stared at the door.

The indicator was red again. The interior door shuddered violently, bowed outward. The klaxons sounded.

“Pressure irregular,” Ronnie said.

No. “Ronnie?” Solanis asked.

“Integrity compromised. The pressure—”

Why the fuck was it always so cheerful?

“Fix it!” Solanis pleaded.

That was dumb. Ronnie would listen to her.

She threw herself on top of her brother as the airlock exploded. The walls buckled around her, and the inner door bent to the side, cracking. Her mask shattered on impact. Glass cut her cheek.

The seal hadn’t held.

There was too much pressure in the chamber. Her home couldn’t keep up.

The lights flashed crimson and white.

There was an emergency protocol. What was it? Ronnie spoke to her, but all she could hear was her heart thundering in her ears.

She knew this. She’d read the manual. What had it said?

The second explosion rocked the chamber, this time from the exterior door. The door bowed in, and the force threw Solanis and Greg against the wall. Something inside her broke.

The darkness bullied its way into the chamber, blanketing the walls, the sky, and anything that wasn’t already grayscale in darkness. She groped for her mask, trying to cover any gap. But it was futile. The lights in the room strobed.

The weight of the darkness pulled at her. Her skin itched as thousands of pieces of glass, shards of the past, tore at her.

Another explosion as the spare oxygen tanks mounted on the wall combusted, filling the already crowded air with shrapnel. She knew what had happened—oxygen-rich air and Haze creates fire.

All it took was one spark.

She inhaled.

But it wasn’t air that went in. It was the metallic taste and the grittiness of sand and iron. Stars crowded her vision as Greg shook beside her, in shock.

There was an override. She needed the emergency doors to fall. She needed to purge the chamber.

Solanis tasted iron. Blood.

She gasped. “Ronnie, push it out. Push it out.”

A loud grinding noise filled the room as she clutched her brother’s weak hand, and the room vented the air from the airlock. She realized her mistake. She’d forgotten to take a breath. There was no air left in the room. She clawed at her broken helmet, ripping it off her head. Her ears popped. The emergency doors slammed shut on either side of the room, and a cool mist filled the space as the compound began pumping fresh oxygen into the room.

She was going to die here. The air would not arrive in time. Her esophagus contracted as her throat became sticky and bitter.

Then came the breeze.

It wafted over her nose, and as if by instinct, she took a deep breath. She inhaled glass but also cool, crisp fresh air.

She coughed. Dark burgundy spilled from her mouth.

She was alive.

But she wasn’t finished.

Greg was still on the floor, jerking and seizing.

“Greg!” she yelled, her throat screaming at her. “No, no, no.” She got on her knees and pulled at his mask. “Ronnie,” she gasped. “Decontaminate.”

The suits were still dangerous.

Liquid fire fell from the sky.

She recoiled. The gash across Greg’s face was deep. Dark lines protruded from his cracked face. He gritted his teeth and shuddered in pain as orange liquid poured in from the ceiling.

She unzipped her suit, pushing it down past her torso and began working on her brother. She knew what to do. She’d always found it difficult to ignore pain, even during her time in the National Service—the consequence of York’s war with America.

She was overwhelmed.

Solanis blinked through the orange decontamination fluid, coughing but working quickly. Anything less than fire wouldn’t neutralize Haze.

What was it HERA had said?

Decontaminate first. That was the fire rain.

Then treat.

This would hurt.

She pulled the jumpsuit over his torso and waist as he grunted in pain. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We have to.”

He grabbed her shoulders as she pulled the stained jumpsuit down past his legs and exposed his full body to the fluid. The black snow, the red blood, and the orange-tinted water pooled beneath them. It would drain eventually.

“Ronnie!” she yelled as she held Greg up under the flow of chemicals. “Medical consult.”

They needed more time under the blast of the scalding heat of decontamination to ensure nothing got inside.

Those thirty seconds were an eternity as Greg howled in pain.

The water stopped.

Ronnie announced decontamination was finished. The light on the emergency door leading back to the compound turned green, and the door slid out of the way. She confronted the bowed and damaged internal door and threw her back into grinding it open. She returned to Greg, got her arms around his torso, and gasped as she pulled.

“Come on. Help me.”

Greg convulsed as she crouched and forced him up to walk. She nearly slipped, her feet still wet from the shower, as she jerked him toward the living room and through the debris in the room. Not much Haze had gotten inside thanks to the pressure difference, but the chairs, tables, and lights had been shoved around. There was glass on the floor.

Ronnie had already set up instructions from HERA on how to treat Greg. Solanis leaned over, dumped him onto the floor, and looked to the screen, which flashed the words offline mode.

Fuck.

Ronnie still couldn’t see the sky. It would need to use its internal memory for treatment. But in her state, she couldn’t read all the instructions.

“Read the steps to me, Ronnie,” she said, running half naked back to the airlock and dripping orange. She grabbed the white box with the cross on the front.

“You need to clean the wound,” Ronnie said.

She placed the kit on the floor next to Greg who twitched and jerked. Something was wrong.

“Elevated heart rate suggests patient is in distress. HERA recommends administering a sedative. Oxygen level is low.”

She watched as the display lit up—bruising, toxicity, and other damage due to rapid decompression and Haze poisoning.

Solanis slid the kit in front of her and pulled out a sealed packet that matched the one on the screen. Inside was a box about the size of a keycard. She placed it on his arm and told Ronnie to go. Her brother winced as the needles in the packet stabbed him. He jerked hard once, gasped, and then fell silent.

She didn’t think as she worked. Her arms were tools for Ronnie, working to get Greg’s injuries under control. She sprayed the antibiotics and skin growth stimulants onto the gash on her brother’s face. She worked with Ronnie to find the shrapnel that was embedded inside him. Ronnie showed her the location of the bits she could yank from his body. She wouldn’t get them all. Many of the particulates were too small to access. They’d have to come out over time.

After about an hour, Solanis fell back in relief, her hands sore. The little animation on the screen told her she was finished for now and read her instructions for post-traumatic care.

Ronnie said to look out for side effects from the face injury and that Greg’s workplace—Half Dome Enterprises—would be sending some pills to help with the side effects. At least he had good insurance.

She draped a blanket over her brother, whose chest was now rising and falling with an acceptable cadence. She stroked his red hair softly and told him it would be okay.

She stared at the wall with the great window, now shuttered from the outside. Doubt crawled under her skin. Like the sinister smirk in the window, her uncertainty was spreading.

Maybe Greg was right. Maybe they should have left. Should have gone to Philadelphia.

Solanis pulled on the medical cuff from the kit that would diagnose her before she fell back onto the couch, exhausted.

The universe ate her, and she surrendered to a dreamless, dark sleep.