9. Two Worlds

Mindy had always thought she was chaotic but smart, logical, and scientific. Ten steps from the rocket entrance, she discovered this was a lie and that people do the dumbest things when under pressure.

Who in heaven’s name would give away their ticket when they know the whole country is destroyed in half an hour? she thought. Is he crazy? Or am I?

Behind her, dozens of people were punching each other.

“I’m not boarding with a filthy Juraad!”

“What have we ever done to you?”

“Go live in a hole in the ground, where you belong.”

“Oh really? Because of the color of my—”

Mindy heard a slap, a scream, and walked with hands over ears towards the line for the other rocket. She could surely come up with some fib about why the number on her ticket was wrong.

And who still has gold coins? she thought. Only the highest ministers of a couple countries, I think. We’ve paid digitally for centuries. But the man was old, maybe he had something left over from the past.

She knew the animals were special, but he couldn’t know that. She pictured them again, the cute little faces of the rabbit and koala.

“What am I doing?” she said aloud. “Those animals are proof of a whole intelligent world about which we don’t know.”

Like a rain-soaked stray cat between two rockets, she changed her plan. I doubted my cage for years. We didn’t even give nature a choice. Yes, they’ll talk about me, as the only human who stood up for what’s right.

“Wait!”

She ran to the gate the man had walked through. Out there it was instantly pitch dark and she tripped over a thick branch. She grabbed her cell phone to shine some light.

Deep footprints stood in the wet mud. She followed the trail until she didn’t need her flashlight anymore.

The man stood next to a well-lit helicopter, loading a pile of cages and other items.

“Wait!” she yelled again.

The man looked up but didn’t stop his work.

“A deal’s a deal!”

He turned around. Wwhen Mindy got too close, he pulled a pistol that was hidden on his back.

The next rocket launched. Here, outside, there was less protection from the storm and Mindy felt her clothes choking her like a noose. Every sentence had to be shouted, even now, standing just a couple meters apart.

She threw back the ticket—a waterproof passcard—and the money. “I don’t need it. Give me the animals.”

“I’m not the sort to waste the lives of pretty young ladies. But stay here and you leave me no choice.”

Mindy didn’t know what to say. She was drenched by rain and had to stay upright with the help of a small, weak tree. The pistol aimed at her face. However scared she felt now, animals must feel just as scared when hunted.

An all-terrain vehicle tore across the field with squealing tires. No, she thought. Not squealing tires, squealing rabbits! Thee cute little heads of countless beasts poked out all around.

The vehicle crashed into the helicopter.

One of the rear blades flew off and sliced through the roof like a sword.

A long gray beard hung from the window. “What idiot parks a helicopter here? Cursed people! Ruining the roof of your car.”

Mindy used the distraction to grab the cage with Prince and Akeo inside. By the time the man noticed, she entered the vehicle on the other side.

“And who might you be, young lady?”

Aliber stomped his foot on the pedal and shot away. Bullets left dents in the rear doors.

“I’m the intern they should have paid better.”

She pressed the cage to her chest as if it were a baby in need of warmth and love. Prince tried to peek past her to see if Pika was in the backseat.

As raindrops noisily splattered the windshield, they raced towards the lights of the base.

Aliber spoke with a deceptive calmness. “Did I correctly see that you threw away your ticket just now?”

“Erm—do you happen to have two?”

“I have zero.”

Mindy sat upright with mouth agape. “Oh gods, I’m stupid, I’m stupid, I just entered the car of my kidnapper, I’m so—”

“What? I am no kidnapper! I am … lazy and unprepared.”

The car turned sharply. They both grabbed a handle on the ceiling to prevent falling out of the car.

“Without a warning from the animals,” he said, “I’d still be in bed, dreaming of blue skies.”

The gate of Raketa arrived sooner than expected. In a rain of sparks and scraping metal, they burst through it and drove straight into the crowds on the terrain.

“Well, it’s not called an all-terrain vehicle for nothing,” Aliber mumbled.

Two rockets remained. Too few staff, however, remained to care about the careening auto: they didn’t even see it. Similarly, there weren’t even enough people to run into.

Mindy slammed the brakes a hundred meters from the rockets. She looked at Aliber’s long rain-soaked coat, then her own oversized lab coat.

A few minutes later, two people walked towards the rockets: a gray-bearded man and a disheveled young lady, both with exceptionally broad and full upper bodies hidden by coats.

Two whistling hares popped up above Mindy’s collar. She blew out her nose, trying to push the beasts back down, but it didn’t fit.

“Ticket?” a guard asked. The boy was her age and didn’t take long to recognize her rain-soaked face, despite the body that made no sense from any angle. “Mindy! We were looking for you! What are you doing here?”

“Well, uh, this is my …”

“Father. And she’s coming on my ticket.”

“But … but I thought we would, you know, push the button together and stay behind and …”

“Oh, well, sheesh, hmm, come on now.” Aliber used every short word he knew. “Young love, ain’t it true? But eventually we must—”

The boy’s face hardened. “—show a valid ticket for each.”

“Three minutes until Kran’s weapons,” the speaker repeated. “One minute until final rocket launch.”

Mindy and Aliber looked at each other. The boy turned around and started closing the rocket doors. Mindy grabbed his wrist. “Please, we worked together for years, please.”

“Rules are rules, something you apparently don’t understand.” He poked and prodded the many lumps in Mindy’s coat with his finger.

To everyone’s surprise, a gray paw shot up, with a black five-fingered hand that looked quite human but wasn’t.

Akoa’s hand held two passcards.

Mindy laughed. She took one, Aliber took the other.

“I’d like to board my rocket now.”

But a voice called from behind the door. “We only have room for one extra passenger. More than that and the system simply won’t let us launch.”

Mindy didn’t hesitate. She pushed Aliber forward and ran to the bridge between the platforms, towards the second rocket.

Left and right, animals tumbled from her coat. She had no time to look back. No time to look down and risk vertigo.

Eyes only for those rocket doors.

The countdown had already begun.

A penguin jumped out ahead of her and slid across the ground. Groups of rabbits used him as a raft over the slick metal pipes. Mindy had to join in and grabbed his tail.

Below her, the boy yelled for her to be stopped.

They slid through the doors. They shut, pinching Mindy’s shoes. She untied the laces and got away before her shoes were crushed.

The last two rockets launched, like twin spears thrown simultaneously by a strong god.

The previous rockets had already poked holes in the black sky. The world below already received more sunshine than it had in centuries.

It could enjoy a minute of it before Kran’s weapons came.

When they finally rose above the clouds, above the world of endless gloom, Mindy only had eyes for one thing.

Her whistling hare, who placed his paw against the windowpane. And another whistling hare, across from him in the other rocket, who responded by placing her own paw against the glass.