“Happyyy birth-day dear Sailor….Haaa-ppy birthday to you.”
Sailor giggles softly and blows on her 8 unlit birthday candles.
“Okay... cake or presents next ?”
The birthday girl mulls over her choices, glancing up at the ceiling before going for the small stack of presents. She unwraps the gift from Luce first, grinning excitedly at the pink and white polka dot headband.
Her attention is quickly taken by the playbill the headband had been wrapped in.
She smooths out the worn paybill for Alters: a Musical on the table. “Nova, this is from the year I was born.”
Nova had been 12-years-old when he and his Dad went to see the musical. He’d been a fan of the Alters video game and saw his opportunity to see the show when he and his dads flew to Long Island for Sailor’s birth.
He’d been relentless, if not a little selfish, about going to see the show. He’d been told the weeks after the birth of his new sister, Sailor Aoife Haley-Grace, were for Aunt Twyla’s recovery and getting the premie baby ready to travel.
But after nonstop begging he’d finally convinced his dad to take him to the show the weekend before they went back to Las Vegas as a family of four for the first time.
Luce and newborn Sailor came along because his dad couldn’t bear to be away from her. They’d stayed in the Washington family’s Manhattan condo.
He’d laughed as his dad struggled to follow the in-joke filled show. Afterwards, they’d had a late dinner at Golden’s, a small unassuming diner tucked in a corner of the West Village. Over cheese fries his Dad confided in him that things at home may change with the new baby but that he’d make time for Nova and never use him like a third parent.
Sailor was fussing when they wandered back to the condo at 3 a.m, gleefully whisper-singing songs from the soundtrack. Haley took her from an exhausted Luce, quieted her with some gentle sways and a bottle and they all went to bed.
Then the Siege happened.
Helions came down.
Morning Star Soldiers took the streets.
Then…New Aeterna.
***
In the days following The Siege, Luce had scrawled all over that Alters playbill. Names. Phone numbers. Medications.
Sailor smooths the playbill out on the cot and traces Luce’s hurried block letters. “I wished for Daddy to come back home for my birthday.”
“Dad too.”
She scowls at Nova’s addition to her birthday wish. She’d always had a tough relationship with Haley.
She hadn’t had the same dad he’d had.
Sailor looks up at the ceiling again, willing the hidden door in the floor of the apartment above to open.
But the hidden door stays closed because their fathers–Luce Grace and Alex Haley–were the only ones who knew they were hiding in this forgotten basement apartment.
And Nova is pretty sure they’re both dead.
Luce had gone missing over a year ago.
Haley had ventured out when they'd run out of food.
He hadn't come back either.
Nova had found Sailor’s birthday gift and the Chinese brand snack cake tied to the bottom of his cot a few weeks ago. He knew Haley would have wanted them to celebrate her birthday so he’d saved it for today.
Nova splits the chocolate and crème snack cake, giving his little sister a bigger piece.
She eats her portion slowly to make it last.
Tomorrow would suck. It would be another no eating day.
Unless.
“Sailor ?”
“What ?”
“I think we should go outside.”
—
The day of The Siege, the Haley-Grace family had gone where everyone had; the ferries.
Haley wore a bundled-up newborn Sailor on his chest and gripped Nova’s forearm as they joined the current of panicked New Yorkers and tourists. Luce had reverted to the years he’d worked as a security guard, keeping his body between them and the rush.
The crowds at the harbor were more civil than expected. A few people even let them in front when they say they had a newborn.
They’d stood in the biting cold and watched three overloaded ferries make their way across the Upper Bay to Staten Island.
And then never come back.
Luce’s mother wired $750,000 to an ex-Navy SEAL willing to cross the Hudson from New Jersey. He'd returned the money after videos circulated of winged men–who the world would come to know as Helions–snatching up guardsmen from Coast Guard rescue boats, flying them up so high they were barely pinpoints and then dropping them to their deaths.
The Haley-Grace family returned to the Washington condo. The shaken condo residents were pooling supplies and information in the unoccupied penthouse. Luce– the only person in the building with a firearm–went out with a group on a supply run.
On the fifth night, Luce and three others came back from a medicine run covered in blood and gore. One man’s cheek was torn open. The cohort of surgeons who lived in the building quickly got to work on him.
When Haley asked Luce what happened he just shook his head in disbelief.
A well-connected condo resident was able to get a direct line to her congressman. She’d implored the congressman to tell congress there were children and a newborn in the building that needed to be saved.
The rescue never came.
The blackout did.
The backup generator kept them warm but the internet and phone stayed disconnected. The only communication came from the radio:
All humans are welcome to report to their closest New Aeterna bomb shelter for protection from the United States’ incoming terror.
They all knew a luxury Manhattan condo building wasn’t made to withstand bombs.
Luce and Haley filled a rolling suitcase with diapers and formula for the walk to the hospital basement that served as the bomb shelter.
At the shelter entrance, a middle-aged woman smoking a cigarette stopped them before they could go in.
“They don’t like us,” she said plainly nodding to the tall winged man standing at the door. “I can take your baby inside–”
“Get away from us!” Haley snapped when she reached for the sleeping baby. There was a hard edge in his voice. An edge that only got steelier as the years went on.
“They’re separating the women and children from the men,” she explained and then lowered her voice. “Somebody saw them arrest a man and his partner yesterday. My wife and girls are inside. I went to get clothes and come out here to warn others….Your son can wear my daughter’s clothes and come with me too. I’m trying to help you.”
Luce studied the front of the line–the strangely pale Morning Star soldiers were being instructed by the Helion to separate the women and men. Athletically built young boys were being forced away from their mothers.
“You can pass, Lex. Go with them.”
“No. I’m not leaving you–”
“I can figure something else out alone–”
“Luce–”
“I won’t do anything stupid. You have to protect the kids, Alex. We’ll meet here when this is over. I promise.”
***
The soldiers barely looked at Nova and Haley when made their way into the women’s side of the shelter, heads bowed.
The shelter was a center of fear and unrest. But there was a ready supply of meals, heat, and medical supplies.
Haley offered his assistance to relieve the nurses who had been on duty for days keeping the critical care patients from the hospital upstairs alive.
Other men had found ways to sneak into the women’s side of the shelter. They reported that the MS soldiers were taking their IDs and showing a film about General Thanatos’ promise of New Aeterna.
After eleven days of bombing, a squad of Helions and MS Soldiers entered the shelter to announce all humans were now loyal citizens of New Aeterna.
A brave woman tried to rally the gathered crowd to resist and was promptly shot in the head.
They are told they have 30 days to report to a registration site for citizenship papers and assignments.
Haley gathered Nova and Sailor and walked past the lineup of MS Soldiers to go outside. Luce was waiting for them as he had promised. There was a bruise on his face and caked blood under his nose.
That night, when they returned to the condo, he’d tell Haley that he’d spent the first days of the raids in a subway station with a dozen other men. There’d been a fight over a rations drop and when he’d tried to break it up, it got the attention of a Helion.
The Helion had confiscated Luce’s ID and took him to a militarized encampment where he was given a health check, issued New Aeterna citizenship papers, and equipped with a small one-way communication radio.
He was then escorted back to the bomb shelter and told to standby.
Haley looked at Luce’s New Aeterna documents–eerily official and ready-made for a country only a few hours old.
It listed Luce’s health as CLEAN, his marital status as SINGLE and under children it said NONE. The condo building was listed as his temporary address.
“When I register I can give them the address for the condo next door. At least we can still live close toge–”
“No,” Luce frowned. He touched the back of his own neck. “They microchipped me. They can track me like a fucking dog. I’m not letting these fuckers do that to you or the kids. We’re going to find a way out. If not for me then for them. And you.”
“We are getting out of here together, you have a newborn who needs you. Maybe if we go to the registration site we can explain we were only visiting–”
“Alex, these people…they don’t care about our rights–”
“Yes, I know that, Luce,” he snapped. “But how are we going to survive until then?”
***
The next day a call went out on the radio that MS soldiers were coming to inspect living conditions for all registered citizens with last names D-G. Haley, Nova, and Sailor hid in the vacant condo next door while Luce hid all evidence they existed.
“No fucking way, dude!” an MS Soldier exclaimed when he and his squadron walked into the condo. He took a picture with his phone. “I’m putting in for this one. What the hell did you do for a living ?”
“It’s not mine. It’s an Airbnb,” Luce said. The last thing he wanted them to know is that he had a loose connection to The Washington Family’s wealth.
“Well, it’s check out time,” another soldier spat. “Clean this place up and get ready for a housing reassignment in the morning.”
“Ay, yo what’s this ?” another soldier cackled loudly from the kitchen.
Luce turned to where the man’s gun was pointed at an empty formula can that had rolled between the stove and fridge.
Luce replied simply, hoping they took his fear for shame. “There’s…no food.”
The soldiers share a laugh. “Yeah….Well stick with General Thanatos and you’ll never go hungry.”
***
A radio dispatch tells Luce which street to report to the following day for his new housing assignment.
Other displaced humans are already there, choosing units while armed MS Soldiers and a Helion look on. A man tries to reason with them that he wants to stay in the Brooklyn property he owns. He is shot.
Luce is deliberate in his choice.
He picks an old building.
He remembered seeing stories about New York's illegal basement apartments and how families that rented them died during the last big hurricane.
“Excuse me, sir? How many units are in this building ?,” Luce humbly asked the patrolling MS soldier.
The young soldier is not amused. “How many do you see? Fucking pick one.”
“Twelve ?”
“Look at that. You’re not as stupid as you look. Pick something or you can live in a prison barrack.”
Luce nods and takes the keys for the 400 square foot studio on the bottom floor. It was clear from the lewd posters and mess that these units formerly housed the MS Soldiers.
He waited until the Helion soldier is farther down the street before looping back to the nearby park. The MS soldiers were far easier to get around than the Helion soldiers.
Luce finds Haley and Nova huddled behind a tree with Sailor--wrapped in his sister-in-law’s mink stole--held between their bodies for warmth.
His new neighbors were too busy puzzling out their new predicament to give them a second glance.
The paranoia hadn’t started yet.
“Fuck. She’s shivering,” Luce said once they were all safely behind the apartment door. He unwraps the too quiet baby and puts his cheek close to her tiny nose to feel the small puffs of breath. He presses his lips to her icy forehead. “Jesus Christ. I’m sorry, baby girl.”
Haley folds his arms and looks at the small studio apartment. He can hear people shuffling in the hall, sharing information and discussing going out for supplies. “When she starts crying people will hear.”
Luce turns to Nova, who’d been staring at the Helion dogma the former occupants had scrawled on the walls. “Sit down and knock on the floor. Don’t stop until you hear someone knocking back.”
“Why ?” Nova had countered.
“Just do it.” He handed the baby to Nova. “Keep her warm until the heat kicks in. Alex, follow me.”
They walk to the outside of the building and he opens the cellar doors to a rickety staircase. A sour stench hits them as they descend the stairs. Piles of decaying matted fur that could be either a large cat or several rats dotted the corners.
The illegal basement apartment was half the size of the studio upstairs. There was a grease covered hot plate crawling with roaches and a mildewed shower stall with a toilet and sink combination inside it.
Above their heads was the quiet sound of Nova knocking on the floor of the apartment upstairs.
“We can seal the cellar entrance so it can’t be opened and make a new hidden entrance in the apartment floor,” Luce explained. “You and the kids can hide down here if something happens or someone comes inside.. It’s not perfect but there’s heat and water. Just until we can find a way out.”
***
Less than 24 hours later Luce was called to his mandatory assignment.
While he was away, Nova and his Dad picked up as much trash as they could without making noise. They tried to anticipate Sailor’s needs so she’d have no reason to cry.
She looked much cuter to Nova now than she had when she was born. Her egg donor was from the same region of Ukraine Nova’s had been from but she had none of his features. Or Luce's. Her hair was a brassy red and her deep brown eyes were full of curiosity.
Luce returned from his assignment with a haunted look on his face that only softened when he had Sailor in his arms.
Nova and his Dad went to work deep cleaning the apartment and basement–no longer worried about making too much noise. A group had gone out the night before and liberated industrial cleaning supplies and paint from a nearby store.
In real life, Nova hated cleaning. But here, it was something to do.
After dinner (a can of soup heated over the stove that they took turns drinking from) Luce gave Nova his iPad and told him to watch a movie. There was still no internet but he’d downloaded three movies he’d planned to watch on the flight back to Las Vegas.
Nova knew they wanted to talk without him overhearing so he put on the headphones but kept the movie on mute.
He listened as Luce explained how he and a dozen other men had been assigned to an Acquisition Relocation Team. The men who hadn’t shown up were located by their microchip and made to beg for their lives before they were systematically murdered by the MS.
The team went around the city, moving items into trucks that were going to the Helion base in Brooklyn.
The Helions and MS Soldiers were mostly interested in luxury goods–especially white gold jewelry.
Looting the leftovers became the norm for humans.
At night, Nova and his Dad took turns going out with Luce. They were mostly looking for formula but took anything that could be of use.
It was fun to Nova, wandering through abandoned New York City streets looking for things they needed.
When the penalty for being an unregistered human was announced as public execution, his Dad and Luce fought over if he and Sailor should register.
Haley wanted them to register.
Luce didn’t.
Luce won.
***
As they approached the one year anniversary of The Siege, better assignments opened inside the newly built Helion City.
Informing became the easiest path to a Helion City assignment.
A neighbor accused Luce of subletting for extra money when they’d heard noise from the apartment when he was away. Luce told the investigating MS officer–the MS now had an officer rank– he’d invited a woman over for sex and she hadn’t left right away.
The next day he came home limping and received no pay for a week.
“You can’t let her make noi–Good job, pretty girl.” Luce grinned at the 10- month-old Sailor who had begun to pull herself up to stand using the seat of a chair. They’d taken the small chair and table set from a Starbucks nearly a year earlier. Sailor made a soft, satisfied groan that was drowned out by the TV. “She’s standing up. Look at that, Lex.”
“Look at that,” Haley echoed dully.
Sailor had been standing herself up and even taking steps for a week but Haley had decided they were going to let Luce think he was seeing her first milestones.
“She knows making noise gets her attention,” Haley continued. “She doesn’t understand to be quiet or we could be discovered and put to death.”
“Maybe you all should stay in the basement when I’m not here. Some of the tenants have days off when I don’t.”
To show appreciation for the rebuilt cities, General Thantaos reduced workdays from 12 to 10 hours and allowed each worker one day off a week. Most suspected it was actually an attempt to quell the violent worker rebellions.
Haley spooned a dollop of the jarred alfredo sauce into the pot of cooked pasta before adding the spinach and tomato from the windowsill planters. “I don’t know if there is enough room in the basement for all of–”
“Don’t cry, sweet girl, I’m right here.” Luce had moved to sit on the floor to be eye level with Sailor–whose face had started to crumble when she realized no one was paying attention to her standing. He ran his hand through her short hair--which had settled into a tawny strawberry blonde.
***
After a different neighbor threatened to report Luce for suspicious sounds Nova found himself spending 12 hours a day in the 225 square foot basement with his father and sister.
Haley kept them on a strict schedule.
When Luce left at 6 AM they went into the basement and slept on the twin-sized air mattress until late afternoon. Then they went through the ritual of bed making, face washing, rigorous teeth brushing, and changing from pajamas to day clothes.
After a breakfast of cereal, they did a yoga practice from the yoga coffee table book they’d taken from the Washington condo.
Then Nova had to do “schoolwork.” Which meant working in one of the random workbooks Luce had found. Nova was learning nothing but stopped arguing about it.
Then they did an hour of silent reading.
Haley started to teach Sailor sign language. If he couldn't find a sign in their small collection of books he made one up. He rewarded Sailor with a peanut butter morsel he’d picked out of a granola bar every time she signed instead of using her voice.
But Sailor was stubborn.
She quickly stopped caring about treats and he’d smack her mouth if she used her words. When she cried out, he muffled her with a pillow and took her into the small water closet where they both stayed until she was quiet again.
When Luce returned he knocked on the floor three times before opening the secret door they had made on the apartment floor. He was usually exhausted from the hours of physical labor and immediately settled down with Sailor for a nap.
While they napped, Haley made dinner and Nova could watch the TV. Nova wasn’t supposed to watch the propaganda channels but his Dad ignored this rule. Especially when Luce was asleep.
They both wanted to see what the world looked like outside.
After dinner, the shower ran for 9 minutes and they each took a turn under the warm spray. Then there were even more chores Nova had assumed would be irrelevant in an apocalypse; dishwashing, clothes washing, bathroom cleaning.
They discussed escape often. There were whispers of humans who got out. But every time Luce met someone who had information that person disappeared.
***
Their best chance had been a few weeks after Nova turned fifteen.
There had been rumors for years of an Upper West Side home with a private tunnel. The wealthy owner had wanted to drive his golf cart directly to his favorite golf course in the Bronx. For a fee, a man with driving privileges drove people to the home where they could walk the tunnel to the Bronx and then walk to a US Embassy in Upstate New York.
It took Luce nearly a year to confirm the information and when he had, he traded his firearm–their most valuable possessions–to pay for the escape.
Luce would stay behind. An alert would go off if he went out of bounds and he wanted to buy them time. There were other ways of escaping he would try when he was on his own.
Sailor, still a toddler, had been mesmerized by her first car ride.
They’d just made it uptown when the driver spotted an MS checkpoint.
The driver apologized, said the checkpoint was new and he couldn’t make the run tonight. He barked at them to get out of his car before the MS saw he was driving unregistered citizens.
Haley begged the driver to make a U-turn and drive them back to the apartment but the driver said it would look too suspicious. The man finally pulled a gun and Haley ushered Nova and Sailor out of the car.
Nova wanted to take in the city--it was much cleaner and uniform than he remembered. But he was too scared to look anywhere but ahead. They did their best to blend in with the groups of workers walking home from assignment. They crossed avenues and hid in stairwells when they saw soldiers checking IDs.
When they finally made it back, hours later, Luce looked crestfallen.
“We’ll try again,” he promised.
But they never did.
***
Nova craved privacy.
After some terrible decision making the night before, he’d found himself balancing on his knees and awkwardly peeing into his little sister’s training potty.
They didn’t use the basement toilet because the pipes rattled too loudly whenever the toilet was flushed. Sailor had her potty chair and he and his Dad each had a bottle.
Nova fucking hated it.
Especially today.
He’d managed to fill both bottles earlier and when he had to go again his Dad told him to just use Sailor’s toilet and he’d put Sailor in one of the many unused Pull Ups taking up space in the basement. Sailor–who had been toilet trained since she was 15 months old–had pouted about not wanting to be treated like a baby.
But Nova had been too desperate to care.
“Is there blood in your urine ?” Haley asked.
Nova startled at finding his Dad standing directly outside of the flimsy shower curtain that was their sorry excuse for privacy.
“Oh my god. I said no,” Nova told him for the third time that day. He thoroughly washes his hands in the sink so his Dad won't bitch about that too. “It’s nothing, can up you please just leave it–”
“It’s not nothing, Nova. You might have a UTI. If you're sick–”
“I’m not.” Nova bit out. He was just very, very hungover.
He’d woken up last night with the reckless idea to sneak a beer from the stockpile under the table.
Humans were only allowed two packs of beer a month and Luce hoarded them so he could trade. People thought it was weird he’d rather have soap and toothpaste over beer but no one questioned it directly.
Nova drank four of the beers to make sure the warm buzz stuck. He still hadn’t quite worked out how he’d hide the empty bottles but no one had noticed yet.
He walks past where Sailor was coloring with a satisfied smile on her face. Nova stared as her purple color pencil filled in the hair of Tsuge Miyako– a character from the Alters manga.
The worn Alters manga had been the only book Luce brought him that he actually liked and Sailor had wanted to color in it from the moment she saw it.
Nova snatched the book out from under her and she yelped.
“What the fuck, Sailor? I told you not to touch this! You ruined it.”
Nova flips through the manga to see she’d managed to color in the hair on three pages while he was in the bathroon. He grabs her colored pencil.
“No. Give me! That’s mine!”
Nova holds her pencil above his head, out of her reach. She jumps and hits at his raised arm. When that does nothing, she sinks her teeth into his other arm.
“Ow, fuck!” Nova shoves her harder than he means and she stumbles backward into the basement wall. Sailor stands back up almost immediately and marches back towards him–red-faced and furious.
Nova snaps the purple colored pencil in half and, as far as he remembers, that’s when she screamed.
Haley races across the room and presses his hand firmly around her neck cutting off her air supply. “Sailor, no. Stop it. Right now.” He turns his gaze up to Nova and whispers harshly. “What the hell is wrong with you? You are fifteen years old–”
“I’m seventeen–”
“Don’t talk back to me.”
Haley cautiously moves his hand from Sailor. She takes a single deep breath and screams louder. Nova’s heart drops–she was in full rage mode.
Which never ended well.
Haley pinches her nose closed and dark pink stain blossoms on her face “Sailor. Enough. You know better.” The pain only makes her cry louder. Haley picks her up and carries her towards the water closet. “Sailor Haley-Grace, if you don’t shut up I’m putting you in the closet. Alone.”
“No! Don’t put me in there, no, no–” She jerks away, aggressively fighting Haley’s hold but he doesn’t let go. Her sobs catch in her throat and turn into loud wet choking as they approach the water closet. She cries out hoarsley. “No, stop. I'm scared. Please!”
Haley opens the water closet door and lays her down on the yoga mat in the corner. When she tries to escape he picks her back up and lays her back down on the mat. He holds her body down with his own body weight and gently cradles her head with is arm.
“Stop moving. No more fighting me. Lay down and don’t move. Get yourself under control or I’m telling Daddy you were a bad girl. Is that what you want, Sailor ? For Daddy to be upset with you ?”
Before she can answer, Haley gets up and shuts the water closet door, finally muting her feral cries.
His attention turns to Nova. “Go stand in that corner.”
Nova stared back at his Dad dumbfounded. “Are you talking to me ?”
“Who the hell else would I be talking to? I saw you push her. And over what? Some stupid fucking book? Never put your hands on your little sister like that. She could have a concussion. If she gets hurt we can’t take her to the hospital–”
“I know! I didn’t even push her that hard. She only started crying because I broke her stupid god damn pencil. God, Dad, she thinks everything belongs to her––”
“You can't break her things. As far as she knows what she has is all she’ll ever have. Go stand in the corner–”
“No–”
“You don’t say no to me. I don't give a fuck how old you are. I’m your father and I make the decisions–”
“Do you ?” Nova shot back. “Because it's like the minute you got married everything we did had to go through your husband. Sailor is five, Dad. FIVE. We’ve been trapped for five god damn fucking years because of what Luce wanted–”
“Stop being a smartass–”
“Amnesty Day is next week,” Nova said. It was the thing that had been on his mind all month. “We can go register. People do it every year. I want to go to school. You can get a job or something.”
Instead of responding, Haley turned to the now silent water closet and opened the door. Sailor lay curled up on the yoga mat quietly whimpering to herself. Haley beckons her out of the closet and forces them to apologize to each other.
Nova offered to fix the colored pencil but Sailor ignore him. Instead, she sits in the middle of the room crying quietly into Pinky, her Russian knockoff Squishmallow.
“Sailor, I’m sick of watching you cry,” Haley called from across the room after watching her for five minutes. “Do you know that’s all you’ve done today? It’s time to read, come over here and read a book to me.”
She shakes her head and self consciously put her fingers in her mouth.
“Fine.” Haley snapped. “Get your fingers out of your mouth. You’ll get sick.”
He drops half a Xanax into Nova’s hand. The Mexican brand of Xanax was easier to come by in the city than fresh meat.
They hear Luce come into the apartment. He knocks on the floor three times before opening the secret door in the floor of the apartment.
Haley always went up the step ladder first so he could help Sailor up and Nova always went behind her in case she missed a step. Sailor reaches for Luce the moment she sees him. Luce picks her and Pinky up and kisses her on the forehead.
“Have you been crying ? What’s wrong ?,” Luce asked Sailor. He places a brief arm around Nova as fresh tears start to fall down Sailor’s ruddy face.
“Daddy, I had an accident,” she whispered, adjusting her arms around his neck and resting her cheek against his clean-shaven jaw.
“That’s okay, Beautiful,” Luce assured her. He signs a quick ‘I love you' to her and she signs it back. “It’s nothing to cry about. Nobody’s mad at you. Let’s get your changed–”
“I’ll do it,” Haley said taking her from Luce’s arms and placing her feet on the ground. “Why didn’t you tell me you needed to change–”
“I want Daddy–”
“No. Daddy is tired from work.”
“It’s fine, Lex–”
“It’s not fine, I’m so tired of this shit,” Haley said in the low whisper yelling he’d perfected. “Our kids are don’t respect me. They never listen. Ever. I’m trying to keep them alive and all they ever do is bitch and whine and fight. How are we ever supposed to get out of here, Luce if they can't follow directions?”
Nova was used to his Dad being angry about something–they all usually were. Instead of responding Luce is already in the bathroom running an early shower for Sailor. Which meant they wouldn't be able to shower until tomorrow.
Haley silently goes to the kitchen to make dinner.
Nova sits in front of the TV with Luce’s pocket knife, gently shaving the broken colored pencil halves into two colored pencils.
“Honey, I know you’re tired but I want to talk to you,” Haley said after their dinner of leftover chicken and rice.
Nova’s ears perked up because his Dad rarely used terms of endearments with Luce. Sailor was asleep on the bed and his parents were sitting at their small table.
“What now, Lex ?”
“I am losing my fucking mind–”
“I’ve noticed.”
“I’m going to Amnesty Day. I'm getting the kids and I registered–”
“No.”
“You can’t just say no. Not anymore. Living like this is madness”
Nova decides to add his opinion. “I want to go to school, Luce. I’m not learning anything.”
His Dad nods in agreement. “Nova deserves to have an education and friends and so does Sailor. We’ll still make time to see you–”
“You’ve been watching the propaganda channels.” Luce’s displeased gaze cut from Nova to Haley. “The humans you see on TV are traitors. Most people who come forward on Amnesty Day go to the work camps. There are no jobs. I don’t have a job. It’s forced servitude, do you not see that? Sailor is the same age as the General’s daughter. Every day they kidnap little human girls for her to play with and those girls never come back the same.”
“Fine. Sailor should stay here but I want to atleast try–”
“No, Alex. It’s not safe out there. If a pissed off MS Soldier doesn’t kill you, those insane protestors will. The only thing getting me through every shitty day and every injustice is knowing they can’t touch my family. Just fucking leave it. Please.”
***
There was fighting and even more crying but Luce managed to win out
Nova had been pissed.
He hadn’t fully grasped Luce’s fears until a year later when Luce had been reassigned to a cleaning crew inside Helion Castle.
On his first day, he came home late with the right side of his face bandaged.
A pair of Helions had seen him taking out the kitchen trash and thought he was too handsome for his own good. One threw hot oil in his face. He’d worked through the pain until his shift ended and he could go to the clinic..
When Luce got out of the shower that night Nova glimpsed welts and deep red marks down his back. They didn’t talk about it because there was nothing to be done except be thankful he hadn’t been killed.
***
The day Luce disappeared had been a rare good day.
Haley had started covering the basement walls in adhesive wallpaper and Nova and Sailor had found a word search they could do together. They’d waited for the sound of him coming inside and the knocks before he opened the secret door.
It never came.
After three days, they hastily moved the food supply and essential belongings into the basement.
After two weeks, Haley climbed out of the basement, went outside the apartment building, and rang the neighbors. He pretended to be a friend looking for Luce. No one had any answers and he’d run back inside when a patrolling MS came through.
After a month a single man was assigned to live in the unit.
There wasn’t time for grief.
Haley had decided they would stay hidden in the basement until he thought of something. There were too many incentives for turning in three unregistered humans.
Nova noticed when his Dad started only eating every other day and, after a while, he did the same.
Eventually, Haley began to sneak into the apartment when the new resident was away. He took a few cans from the pantry and the news bulletins that were in the trash. The resident must have noticed because he’d called the MS about someone in the building breaking and entering.
Everyone was rounded up and threatened.
A few months after that, Nova opened one of the cans of tomato soup to find mold floating on top. He wanted to scrape it off but his Dad threw it down the sink and added the can to the mounting bin of trash. Instead of opening another can, they ate a soup made from boiling water and a ketchup packet.
The next morning Haley counted out half of their $500 in savings and packed up two cases of beer.
He’d said he was going to the Spirit Market–an after-hours market run by humans for humans. After hour markets had popped up all over the city but the Spirit Market was the biggest. Luce went often because they didn't ask questions. MS patrols allowed the market because it was where they got smuggled American goods.
Haley showered and did his best to get the wrinkles out of his clothes so he would fit the New Aeterna grooming standards. He hugged and kissed them goodbye.
And never came back.
***
When Nova had found Sailor’s birthday present and the snack cake under his cot he’d wanted to open it right then. He wasn’t sure they’d survive to Sailor’s birthday.
But he’d saved it for the proper day like his dad would have wanted.
A part of him had hoped things would be better.
But they weren’t.
They were always hungry and down to one meal a day–Sailor eating every other day and him eating every two days.
They’d abandoned their Dad’s schedule months ago since neither had enough energy to get up. They slept and re-watched the same three movies or the videos on their parents phones.
His sister, who was somehow 8-years-old today, was relying on him to keep her alive. Nova felt suffocated by the weight of it.
He couldn’t make her watch another family member walk out the door and disappear forever.
If they were going to leave they’d do it together.
___
“Daddy said it’s dangerous for us outside,” she reminded him. “I don’t want to go.”
“We can be careful.”
Nova had considered that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if Sailor was caught by the MS.
He was twenty, legally an adult, and certainly going to be put in a labor camp. But she’d get placed in one of the schools. Even if the human school was a prison she’d have a full stomach and meet other kids her–
Footsteps sounded above them. It was too early for the new resident--who had no idea he had downstairs neighbors–to be back from assignment. And these footsteps were heavy. Like MS boots.
Wordlessly, they sprint to the water closet, bolting it from the inside and standing in the damp darkness.
Three knocks sounded on their secret entrance on the floor of the apartment above.
“Daddy,” Sailor whispered hopefully at the sound of the secret door opening. She reaches for the water closet door but Nova holds her back. The footsteps hadn’t sounded like Luce’s.
A loud thud hits the floor. The person had jumped from the apartment to the basement.
“Shit! Ow. Nova ?....Sailor? Anyone in here ? Nova ? Sailor ?”
The voice was female and unfamiliar to Nova. The woman sounded terrified.
“....I hear it’s your 8th birthday, Sailor,” the voice continues. She would have seen their little birthday celebration on the bed. “I’m here to help.”
The woman knocks on the water closet door. Nova pushes Sailor behind him. He approaches the door to shout to the stranger. “Who are you ?”
“My name is Genesis. I’m human. I'm here to help. We don’t have much time.”
Nova takes Sailor’s hand and signs into her palm. Stay hidden.
He opens the door just enough and walks out to find a woman standing in the middle of the basement. She was in her mid-30s with short curled brown hair. His face heated imagining what she must think of them. The basement was crowded with months of trash and showering had stopped being a priority when the soap ran out.
Genesis is in an MS officer uniform but doesn’t look as sickly pale as the MS he remembered seeing on the streets. Cradled in her arms are two wrapped deli sandwiches.
“Luce Grace sent me.”
“You know where Daddy is ?,” Sailor asks. Nova turns to see her peeking out of the closet despite his direction to stay hidden.
The woman takes out a phone. It was bigger and flatter than the phones his Dad and Luce had.
She turns it to face them and he sees a pre-recorded video of Luce. He looked tan, healthy, and well-groomed in a clean fitted gray polo shirt. It made Nova furious to see him look so good.
Luce’s unreasonably blue eyes, made brighter by some kind of lighting, flick to the corner of the screen before looking directly ahead.
“Alex, I’m so sorry I left. I'm so sorry. I didn't want to. Not a single day goes by that I don’t think of you….I can’t explain everything but you can trust these people. They’ll take you all to a safehouse until we can be together. I love you, Sailor, I miss you beautiful girl. Be good. Nova, I love you too, kid. Stay strong. Listen to your father. I am doing everything I can to get to you.”
He ends the video by quickly signing below his waist. I'm okay. You can trust them. They promised to keep you safe. I love you.
Sailor grinned at the video and touched her finger to the screen to replay it. Nova shifted his gaze up to Genesis.
“My Dad left six months ago to find food. Do you know where he is ?”
Genesis shakes her head.
Nova knows she is lying.
Luce had addressed all three of them in the video but she'd only called for he and Sailor when she came inside.
She knew something Luce didn’t.
Nova isn’t sure what to make of that. But he knows they can’t survive here anymore.
--
A/N
Lol, what if I called this Hidden ?
When I was thinking of how I would write NA I had this image of a family hiding in a basement Room style living in fear of The Regime. I knew if I did original characters I would have to spend time building their backstory so I used my characters. It was originally going to be Juliana/Rhett but I couldn't quite make it fit. I added Sailor because I need someone a little more vulnerable than Nova.
SHV: Hmm, okay I was going to just kind of wrap it up here but think I want to explore what happened to Luce and Haley in separate chapters and then come back to Nova and Sailor. See what happens when a family breaks apart and if they get back together.
CP!Shawna: Yeah, sure but uh...these ideas are...erm, dark. I think we--
SHV: Yeah...we are going to break the cuties again. And it's bad. Blame Lile and Little Rebellions.
P.S. Dear Lile, is is Thantos or Thanatos ?