Chapter Text
Central Walkway, New Eden
2 N.A. Month 5, Day 10, 14:37 AM
Eun-ji Maya
"Yes, yes... Now leave me the hell alone," I mutter.
The group of thirty-something year-olds speeds past me, obviously not hearing what I just muttered. The snow crunches beneath their feet as they speedily walk away.
There's always snow. It almost always seems to snow no matter what. It's just... So annoying.
That's the third time in this hour alone that a bunch of people have walked up to me and said something along these lines:
"You're Elliot Maya's daughter, right?"
"Your dad is so cool! I loved his (insert one of my dad's book's names here) book!"
"Your dad honestly keeps me going in this place with his speeches."
"Has anyone ever told you your dad's really cool?"
And here's the grand two that I've heard countless times:
"You're Eun-ji Maya, right? Can I get a quick autograph from you?"
"Eun-ji, oh my god! Can I get a quick picture with us?"
Yes, yes, yes... Please shut the hell up, I've heard it all a million and one times already.
Of course, every single damn time, I act friendly and accept whatever they ask for. Might as well, even if they piss me off to no end.
A year and a half on the permanently below-zero New Earth, and this is still how it's going.
Yes, "New Earth" is the name of the planet the Eden landed on. I'm not joking, by the way.
If we ever manage to write a history book about humanity's start on this planet - and that's a pretty fucking massive "if" - I hope the words "collective failure of human imagination" are, in that exact order, written on the first page.
The name of the planet isn't creative in the slightest.
Not Terra Nova, not Persephone, not Gaia, or even Aphrodite. We named it New Earth, like we were moving house and forgot to change the Wi-Fi password.
We were not, in fact, moving house. We just landed on a new planet, slapped some stupid name onto it, and called it a day.
Actually, the administrators did.
We travelled nine light-years, and bureaucracy managed to follow us that entire ninety-year trip here.
You're landing on a perpetually snowy exoplanet? No problem, let's just form a committee!
I would've stayed back on Earth if it wasn't for my father. Apparently he thought it would be "good for our family" if we expanded beyond the confines of Earth.
And by "our family" he just meant the two of us.
In my own professional opinion, that's bullshit. He just wanted an excuse to be a wannabe egomaniac and spread his oh-so-wise speeches onto other planets just for the sake of it.
I bump into someone else, and I grit my teeth in a mixture of annoyance and anticipation...
I calm down when I see that it's just a woman from the hydroponics team that I vaguely recognise. I've seen her a few times, but she's never been all too excited about seeing me.
"Hey," she says.
"Hey."
And that marks the end of our conversation, as we keep on going our separate ways.
There's people who don't immediately explode in excitement when they meet me, although they're in the minority... Unfortunately.
New Eden is filled with ten thousand people, and almost every single one seems to adore my father. I am not one of those people, he pisses me off.
"Hey, Ji!" a familiar voice calls out.
I don't even have to look to know exactly who it is.
She pops seemingly out of nowhere, and falls into step beside me.
"Hi, Eve."
"How's my favourite bestie doing?" she asks, smiling insanely.
"... I'm your only friend, Eve."
"Uh-- well-- uh... Same difference, Ji!"
I snort. "No, it really isn't."
"Whatever. So... How ya doin'?"
"I'm still being bothered by people who don't actually care about me, Eve. Did you get the memo?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah... I got it. Big Bad Eun-ji is moody because everyone loves her."
"Correction: everyone loves my dad, not me. I'm just an extension of his ego."
Eve chuckles. "Hey, don't be like that. You're not--"
"My face is on posters because of him, and yet he's the one that gets mentioned the most. I hate it."
"Don't be silly, Ji. Your face isn't on every poster!"
Just as that sentence comes out of her mouth, we pass by a holographic screen on the outer wall of a storage bay, and my dad's face is pictured as well as mine.
The text says something about a speech later today, at roughly five PM.
"Hah! What were you saying, Eve?"
"Uh-- that was just a fluke, Ji! There's dozens more that don't have your face on it!"
"My point still stands, Eve. People only like me because they adore my father. It's insufferable!"
"C'mon, don't be like that! The attention must be nice, no?"
"Hell no. I just want to have a quiet life, not constantly worry about who's going to run up to me and blather on about my dad regarding things I've already heard a thousand times."
"... Huh. That's why you have a permanent scowl on at all times, then..."
"I do not scowl all the time!"
"Err... You're doing it right now."
"Whatever," I huff, shoving my gloved hands into my coat pockets.
"Anyways, I just wanted to check in on you. Gotta worry about my bestie, after all..." She wraps her arms around my shoulders.
... Actually, in hindsight, I don't really mind the position I'm in right now.
"I feel like shit, honestly. These thirty-hour days really aren't doing me any favours."
"Hah, well... You'll get used to it, Ji. It's something we kinda have to deal with now."
I chuckle quietly. "Yeah, well... My brain's been disagreeing with me for a year and a half since we landed."
"Hey, you'll get used to it eventually. It's something we all gotta put up with."
"I know, I know, it's just... It's kind of annoying, you know?"
"Yeah, I get what you mean, Ji. This planet kinda sucks."
"Oh? What about the cold, snowy, and miserable planet gave that away, Eve?"
"Hey, don't gimme that attitude!" she retorts, pulling her arm back and pointing at me.
"Oh, I'll give you all the attitude I like."
"Careful with all that attitude. People will start to think you're the Great Elliot Maya."
I roll my eyes. "Please. My father's loud, and he has way more than just an attitude, mind you."
"Ohh, right... He's the most egotistical man alive. I forgot your old man adores himself."
"Well that's a massive understatement, Eve. That man could hold a conversation with himself for hours because of how much he loves the sound of his own damn voice."
"I mean..." Eve waves her hands around awkwardly. "He is a motivational speaker, or whatever you call it. He's gotta have some level of charisma to make it work."
"Eve, trust me... That amount of self-love is completely unnecessary. He literally just likes the sound of his own voice, is all. Nothing more to it."
"Whatever you say..."
"Mhm."
"Anyways, I'll be off now. See ya later, Ji!"
"Yeah... See ya."
And then Eve runs off to the left, down the walkway towards where all of our homes are.
Anyways, New Eden (uncreative name, as usual) is massive.
Seriously, this place is huge. There's roughly five thousand "houses" for us all to live in, and there's a bunch of other buildings.
If you started from one end of the colony (although it's basically more of a massive compound) and ran, it would take half an hour to reach the opposite end.
The Central Walkway (which is what I'm walking on right now) surrounds the main central building, which is where all the administrators do their administrator stuff. It's just a massive dome with a glass ceiling, smack-bang in the centre of New Eden.
The administrators are the ones in charge of this place. My dad's an unofficial administrator, if you didn't know from the... Generous amount of influence he has.
It took nine months for all of the construction people (over half of the ten thousand people) to build this entire place, I think.
Anyways... That's enough about me and this place.
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Eun-ji's Room, New Eden
2 N.A. Month 5, Day 10, 2:45 PM
Eun-ji Maya
The sound of guitar thrumming, and me humming along to the tune, fills the room.
Whenever I have nothing to do, this is what I do. Music has always had a special place in my life, no matter what. Now is no different.
Eve is probably off somewhere, chatting away to that cousin of hers. I have no idea how he puts up with her. Maybe he has the patience of a--
Knock knock!
I stop playing immediately, and I put the guitar down.
The moment I get up, dad walks into the room. There's the Elliot Maya that everyone knows and loves (for some reason).
"What is it?" I ask.
"Just wanted to remind you about the speech later today, Eun-ji."
"Yes, yes... You're going to talk to a bunch of freezing humans for the hundredth time this year."
"We are," he reminds me.
"Right, yeah."
Yup. For the third time ever, I'm going to be joining my dad in one of his speeches. I usually like to stay out of it, but he's politely asked hat I come along and participate.
... And by "politely asked" I mean he repeatedly asked me until I finally gave in, but it might as well be the same thing.
He walks over to me and places a hand on my shoulder. Me and him are roughly the same height, although that makes sense when he's five and a half feet.
"Hey, Eun-ji. Chin up, yeah? The Eden was the very first human ship ever built to land on a human exoplanet, and you were on it. That's something to be proud of!"
"Yeah, yeah..." I roll my eyes.
This solar system, as I've already said, is nine light-years from Earth. It was the closest system that any ship from Project Beyond was travelling to.
Everyone on New Earth right now, are all the first humans to set foot on an exoplanet, and a habitable one at that.
Whoop-de-doo, I think. I know it's a massive achievement, and I was excited about it at first, but I think that initial excitement is supposed to wear off after the first few months.
It did for me, at least.
Dad pats my shoulder a few times.
"Just save up your energy for that speech later, it's gonna be a kicker!"
"... Sure."
Dad moves his hand, and then turns around and leaves.
Sometimes, he can be vaguely calm. Like he was just then, for example. It's a shame he isn't calm more often.
I honestly don't think he has it in him to cool his ego for any longer than five minutes. He has to be loud and have attention on him at all times... At least that's what he thinks, I think.
... Whatever.
I glance at the calendar on the wall where it says "Month Five" on the top, and I walk over to it.
Made this calendar myself while we were in orbit above New Earth. The administrators sorted out all the "time and date" crap before we actually landed, as we needed to know just what the hell we were dealing with.
And what we're dealing with: an exoplanet where every day is thirty hours long, every month is exactly thirty days, and a year is ten months (which is three hundred days, the number three seems to be a common theme here).
It's 2 N.A. and we started at 1 N.A.
You're probably wondering what N.A. means. It's the new calendar system, and it stands for "New Age."
Everything about this planet seems to have the word "New" in it. Collective failure of human imagination, as I said earlier.
One thing the administrators haven't done yet, is officially name our new ten months of the year. They're still deciding on all that crap.
Nine days out of the thirty are crossed off on my hand-made calendar. It's the tenth today, which means my twenty-third birthday is in... Three days.
Whatever, it probably won't be any different from any other day. I might have slightly more attention on me for that day, which I'm not a huge fan of.
Unlike my father, I don't thrive in attention like it's as important as oxygen.
.... Speaking of oxygen, New Earth has slightly more of that than Old Earth. 23.2 percent, to be exact.
It's not unsafe by any means, and New Earth's air pressure conveniently happens to be almost the same as Earth's, so we're all fine. Things are slightly more flammable though, although that's a minor thing that hasn't caused any issues yet.
I take a seat back in my chair, and grab my notebook from my desk. Nothing special, just a bunch of random doodles and stuff I've written over time.
I flip through several pages, until I reach the two pages I've been working on for a few weeks.
In the top-left corner of the page on the left, the words "ESCAPE PLAN" are written in the most dramatic font I could replicate.
One funny little thing the tall fences surrounding the colony has: sensor grids.
The sensors themselves look like cameras, and each one casts a sensor grid about ten metres in diameter. They're all on the inside, and they activate after a certain time for security and safety reasons.
After all, you don't want people sneaking out into the night and then getting eaten by an alien predator or something. You gotta know if someone's trying to go outside after hours.
However, one thing I've observed is that one of the sensors in the south-east corner of the colony is broken. Or at least faulty enough to the point it barely works.
I checked on it several hours ago, and it was still broken. It's been broken ever since I first saw it, and I'm honestly surprised nobody's noticed it.
Anyways, one minor lapse in noticing technology problems is my gain, because I'm going to use that broken sensor to my advantage.
You also need a certain security level - and a security pass - to open the gates to the outside world, and I don't have either of those things.
It's fine, though. I can work my way around technology. I didn't spend all that time disassembling and reassembling random bits and bobs without instruction manuals as a young child for nothing.
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South-East Corner, New Eden
2 N.A. Month 5, Day 10, 7:45 PM
Eun-ji Maya
Okay... Plan time.
I'm hidden behind a wall, sneakily glancing at the sensors attached to the fence. All of them are ten metres apart exactly.
Of course, the sensor grids aren't visible. They utilise light on a wavelength that humans can't see, so it's almost impossible to tell where the grids are.
Almost impossible.
I've taken a sneaky read of a few things regarding the sensors, and that's how I know the grids are ten metres in diameter and ten metres apart.
The general consensus is that people who don't do the repairing stuff, don't need to know the specifics about how the sensors work. I'm not a mechanic or engineer or anything, so I had to break a few rules to figure all this out myself.
I can see the broken sensor. The only visible difference is that there isn't a steadily flashing red glow coming from it, like the ones coming from the functional ones.
It's easy to notice small things like that when you're me. Probably why none of the engineers noticed it.
I could've been a perfect little angel and reported it to someone to have it fixed, but what's the fun in that? That would just ruin my entire plan.
Okay, enough talking. Time to do this, but first... I pick up a rock from the ground.
The rock is average-sized, and it's decently heavy in my hand. Heavier than it would be on Earth, because New Earth's gravity is fifteen percent higher. Don't worry, I've gotten used to it by now.
I proceed to toss the rock directly into the area where the sensor grid should be... And nothing happens when it lands. From what I know, there should be a loud buzzing.
So that sensor is still completely nonfunctional. That's good.
With this in mind, I walk out from behind the wall and walk over, and carefully walk through the safe area.
I know I've got ten metres to work with, I'm just being careful for the sake of it. Can't see the sensor grids, after all. I can't get careless now.
After making it past the area, I approach the gate. It's small, and there's a scanner to the left of it, and a slot where someone would insert their security pass to be able to leave.
There's a bright blue screen that says "PRESENT SECURITY PASS" in big letters.
"Hm... I'm gonna show you a security pass, alright..."
I reach into my pocket, and pull out a device that I've been singlehandedly building ever since I started planning. I knew I'd need it.
It's a small remote with a dial and a few buttons, and it has two prongs on the top. Easier to describe it as looking like a portable taser.
Well... It's kind of like a taser, actually. It functions similarly to one, and that was kind of the whole point. Let's just leave it at that.
Built it myself. Took a week and a half to finish it and get it working, and I'm almost certain it works just as I intended it to.
I shove the two prongs into the scanner's slot, turn the dial, and then press one of the buttons--
BZZT!
"Gah-- fuck!"
The electrical shock sends me to the snowy ground. Well, that didn't exactly go as intended...
Click!
... But the gate's open, so... Win for me, I guess?
I push myself off of the snow, pull my hood up, and make my way out of the gate.
Okay, now I'm outside... And the Zapper (very technical name) will definitely need some adjustments. Zapping myself wasn't exactly a part of the design.
I can only imagine how many rules I've broken in the last thirty seconds alone. Oh well!
I shove the Zapper into my coat pocket, and continue out into the snowy landscape.
There's a forest to the left of the colony, from my current perspective. All of us know that life exists on this planet, but it's... Kind of weird-looking.
The gravity, plus the permanent cold, means that life evolves weirdly.
This planet is roughly three-point-nine billion years old, so I'm not too certain on what the "intelligent life" situation is like... Or if it even exists.
Sure, animals themselves have a certain level of intelligence, but not on the level that humans are... Although human intelligence can be debated given how we were ruining Old Earth.
I do find it kind of weird how we decided to set off into space for new planets before deciding to fix our original one. Human priorities are really weird.
Despite having a thick coat on, I'm still shivering in the cold. An average global temperature of negative thirty degrees Celsius (that's negative twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit for you Americans) isn't something that's as easy to get used to, compared to marginally higher gravity.
The sky above me is a dark, pale blue. Midnight will come in roughly seven hours... So fifteen AM.
If "fifteen AM" and "fifteen PM" confuse you, then you're just gonna have to get used to it. I'm still struggling to get used to the thirty-hour days, so it'll be simple for you.
Anyways...
The only sounds I can hear is my boots crunching in the snow, the wind that's blowing snowflakes everywhere, the rustling of distant leaves, and distant chirping.
One thing that seems to be consistent so far with habitable planets - birds.
Earth only has birds because of dinosaurs, so New Earth likely had their own equivalent of theropods (the dinosaurs that birds likely directly evolved from).
Sorry, sorry... I explain far too much. My mind is a loud place, and I tend to put my thoughts into writing to calm it down.
My breath fogs in front of me, briefly blocking my view of the surroundings before being carried off into the wind.
This coat and these gloves are doing very little to protect me from the cold, but I suppose it's better than just raw-dogging the snow without them.
After half a minute of walking, I stop. It's surprisingly calm out here, and there's nothing hostile out here as far as I can tell... Hopefully.
I take a deep breath in, and then a deep breath out... In, and out...
Ah, there we go... The sweet, sweet sound of silence. No people screaming in my face about my father, just me and the planet.
It's nice. I should do this more often.
Crunch.
... What?
I open my eyes, and see nothing in my line of sight.
That definitely wasn't me. I haven't moved in about a minute.
I take a look around me, and that's when I see... Something in the fog, about fifteen meters to my right.
Maybe that's one of the colonists, but... No way. The torso is too wide, and the limbs are also wide.
That doesn't look like any human I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of humans in my time. I'd know a non-human figure when I see one.
... It must be one of the natives of New Earth. And they seem to be... Staring at me?