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Gathering Stars

by Lamie

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review response: Hmm, The Giver was one of my favorite books back in 8th grade (right up there with A Seperate Peace), but I honestly never thought about it while writing this. Now that you mention it, I suppose it is a lot like The Giver.

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Paloma stared at the wall of her bedroom. Ash, Edeline and Unashira were sitting in the front room, waiting for her to return. But she couldn’t return. She sat on her bed and stared at the wall. She was so nervous. She had thought over her ideas and her research many times, but there was one thing she never factored in: fear. Now that Edeline had joined them, there was an actual chance for Paloma to be able to leave the planet. She never really thought about what she would do once she had assembled a team. It took her a while to realise that she was now the leader of a team composed of two extremely skilled fighters and a super genius... and herself. What did she have to contribute? Leadership, of course. Ha, Paloma scoffed at herself. They didn’t need her. She needed them more than they needed her. She inhaled deeply, trying to gather as much confidence as possible, and stood up. She sighed heavily and then walked out of her

bedroom and down the stairs to the front room.

She could hear the faint sound of an argument coming from the front room, but when she walked in, it had abruptly stopped. She guessed that it had been Edeline and Unashira. Paloma confidently walked into the room and sat in the large armchair. “Do we have a plan?” Ash asked her.

Paloma paniked internally for a few seconds. She had nothing resembling a plan. “Well,” she said without showing any bit of hesitation. “Our best plan would to be able to somehow get government vehicle blueprints so Edeline can start to study it. I think the best way to get one would... it would have to be through my father.”

“How are we gonna do that?” Edeline asked.

“I’ll have to get into the government building. I can get my father’s entry card while he’s asleep or something.”

“You’re only 19. How are you going to get the guards to belive that you work for the government?”

Paloma smirked.

“Alright, we need an outfit that says I’m going to work, and if you stop me, I will eat your face.”

They were up in Paloma’s room and while Unashira watched, half in amazement, half in disgust, the other three girls began sorting through all of Paloma’s clothes. When they found an outfit they thought might work, they sent Paloma into the next room to change. Over the next hour, many clothes changes were met with many reactions:

“Too school-girly.”

“Ug, she’s not a 70 year old man!”

“Stay away from bright colors.”

“Well, that’s a good one if we’re trying to make her look like a primary school teacher.”

“Maybe that one, but with a skirt instead.”

“Oh no! Keep the pants!”

“I said, stay away from bright colors! They make her look too soft.”

“She’s not me,” Unashira said once.

“Hmmm... Maybe if we add some glasses,”

“And pulled her hair back into a tight bun,”

“And some really dangerous looking heels,”

“I think it could work.”

Once they had everything together, her look did seem to say “I will eat your face.” An outfit consisting of moderatly tight black pants and a matching jacket put togeter with the glasses and the shoes and the hair style made her look at least 10 years older.

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Outside she looked fierce and dominating, inside, Paloma had never been more scared in her life. She was standing in front of the largest building in the Settlement. It housed the government. The night before, she had put a little something into her father’s nightly drink, ensuring that he would sleep through the arrival of the mass transportation vehicle that he rode to work every morning. Paloma had taken his vehicle pass and his pass to get into the government building.

Standing in front of the building, looking up at it’s high windows, she could imagine what was going on at home: Her mother had woken up, and was surprised to discover her husband still sleeping next to her. In a panic, her mom would try to wake up her dad for almost 5 minutes before he snapped out of it. Then he would hurry to get ready and not be able to find either of his pass cards. Of course, the vehicle had already come by that morning, and wouldn’t be by again for another 4 hours. If he was still desperate to get to work, he could walk- a journey that took at least three quarters of an hour by foot. And once he finally reached the government building, he wouldn’t be allowed in since he didn’t have his pass card. He’d have to go to security to get his identification verified, and report his pass stolen or missing, and get a whole new one made, and....

By that time, Paloma would have retreived the plans.

She finally was determined to enter the building. She walked up to the front door and inside to the security area. As she handed her father’s card to the guard, she was very thankful that the passes had no personalization on them so that no one could say that the card wasn’t her own. Past the security station was the main lobby of the building. Even though she had been in almost every room at Ash’s mansion, this was the largest room she had ever been in.

“You look lost,” a peculiar sounding voice from behind her said.

This was what she feared most- showing her confusion and fear. Paloma turned around to face the owner of the voice- he was a young man, couldn’t have been 5 or 6 years older than she. “No,” she said in her most important sounding voice.

“Y’are,” he said. It was with this that Paloma realised what made his voice sound peculiar: he didn’t talk like people from the Hill. It was kind of like how Edeline and Unashira everyone else in the Valley talked a little differently. But this man’s speech sounded different from that of the Hill and the Valley. “Yer lost. In fact, you don’t even work here.”

Color drained from Paloma’s face. “H-how dare y-you insinuate th-”

“Truth be told, I probably shouldn’t be here either. I barely work here. I don’t fit the qualifications right. See all these people around here-” he waved his finger around at all the people in their business outfits walking from room to room, carrying what were probably important papers. “-they wouldn’t know anything

little that goes on here. All they see is what’s in their ‘to-do’ box. I, on the other hand, notice things- things like you. You don’t work here, and whatever it is you came here for, you can’t find it. So what is it? Tell me, and I’ll help you.”

Paloma wasn’t sure what it was, her fear, the lull of his strange voice perhaps, but whatever it was, she confessed. “I’m looking for plans to a vehicle.”

“Here for the big guns, eh? Lets see what we can getcha. Follow me.” He began leading her to the back of the lobby, and then down a hallway. She said nothing the entire time. They went up several flights of stairs, and down even more hallways. Eventually, they got to a point where the man had to show a pass card to a guard almost every time they went through a door. At last, they were in a large room with several tall shelves with boxes and boxes filled with papers. “It’sa good thing that you had me. You never woulda found this room, and even if you knew where it was, that pass card you have isn’t good enough to get you in this room.”

“You’d think,” Paloma said quietly, “that for being such a restricted and important room, it would be a little neater.” She was referring to the way that boxes and papers were scattered around.

“Ah, it’s a restricted room, not an important room. This is just where they put all the top-secret stuff that they can’t just leave out in the open and that can’t be destroyed due to reference reasons. It’s too restricted to let anybody come in here and clean it, and the people who are allowed in are too high and mighty to spend their time cleaning. So they mostly just drop it all in here with no regard to any filing system. And on that note, I wish you luck in finding those vehicle plans.”

“Wait, you’re not leaving are you?” Paloma cried.

There was a look on his face that said that he was planning to, but that look softened away and he said “Nah, I’ll stay here.”

Almost 3 hours passed before Paloma was able to find anything remotly resembling a vehicle blueprint. Mostly what she found was lots and LOTS of incriminating material about Ash’s family going back for over a hundred years. She also found out the young man’s name- Lonnie- and that he had more power in the government than the mayor. This was a shock to Paloma because she had always been told that the mayor was the highest rung on the political ladder. Lonnie told her that she had been taught wrong, as were all the other students in the Hill schools. When Paloma asked why, he responded: “I don’t know. I’d honestly like to change that, because I hate lying to people, but I don’t have enough influence. Especially lately. My superiors are saying that I’m finding out too much, that I’m too close to something.”

“Too close to what?” Paloma asked while opening up a new box of papers.

“That’s just the thing, I’m not even sure what I’m close to. But I guess I get closer and closer each day ‘cause each day I’m more and more out of the loop.... Here it is!!” he yelled suddenly, pulling up a very long piece of paper. He had to stand up to completly pull the paper out of the box.

Paloma’s eyes opened wide. “That’s a little more complex that I would have thought, “ she said looking

at the paper sideways as he held it up. Lonnie began to roll the paper up into a more portable size.

“Well, here you are,” he said, extending one end of the roll. “Your plans, miss.” She began to reach for them, when he suddenly pulled them away. “One more thing,” he said. “Go out with me this break-day.”

Its a good thing that he hadn’t handed the paper to Paloma yet, because she would have dropped it when he requested that. Paloma hadn’t gone out on a date on break-day since Ezhno was taken away. It wasn’t he was still in her heart or that she promised never to love again once he disappered (she had never loved him in the first place,) it was just that she never wanted to, she never thought about it, until now.

Lonnie noticed the shocked look on her face. “You don’t want to, that’s okay. I und-”

“No, its not that. It’s just, I didn’t expect this. I practically break into the government building to steal vehicle plans, and I come out with a date for the next break-day.” Paloma bit her lip playfuly. “Alright, I go out with you on break-day, if you don’t tell anyone I was in here,” she smirked, knowing full well that he wouldn’t tell anyone even if she had declined his invitation.

“Deal.” He handed her the vehicle plans. He then escorted her all the way back to the front doors that she had entered almost 4 hours before. “I’ll meet you at the 4th transport stop at 20:30?”

“Sounds good,” she said before walking out and trying her best not to trip over anything.

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“This.... will be impossible.” Edeline stared at the plans that Paloma had brought back for her.

“What?”

“Look at this stuff.... There’s no way I could get this all put together.”

“I thought you were the girl genius,” Unashira scoffed.

“I am. But this is gonna take more than a genius. This is gonna take... a god.”

The other three girls stared at Edeline. “A what?” Ash asked eventually.

“Oh... I forgot. It’s just that I haven’t been around other people in such a long time, I forgot that you all don’t know about that kind of stuff. It’s an offworld thing. On some planets, people believe in a kind of like, all-knowing deity that is watching over them and--” The other girls’ faces remained puzzled. “It’s a difficult concept,” Edeline sighed. “We get off of here, we’ll go and you can see a temple and talk to a priest or something.”

Unashira turned her neck to stretch it. “Where are we gonna sleep tonight? I don’t wanna sleep on your floor again, Pal.”

“Oh, be quiet,” Edeline lowered the blueprints from her face. “You used to sleep in a tree.”

“You be quiet! You don’t know anything about me!”

“I know you sleep in a tree.”

Unashira snapped up into a standing position. Ash grabbed her arm and silently urged her to sit down.

She did so, hesitantly. “Unashira and Edeline are welcome to stay at my house tonight,” Ash said politely. “There’s more than enough room.”

Minutes passed, and then: “There’s no way all of this can be... this,” Edeline face showed increasing signs of confusion.

“What do you mean?”

“It doesn’t make any sense. I mean, everything in the plan does... It’s brilliant, really. But, these things don’t exist. Not here at least.”

“Wait, wait,” Paloma joined Edeline in looking at the large paper. “What are you talking about?”

“The Hill, the Valley- we don’t have these kinds of resourses. Look here, this part... I have one of these. But the strange part is that its an offworld part.”

“The government knows about offworld places?” Unashira asked.

“Well, duh. They took Paloma’s old boyfriend, didn’t they?”

“That’s not exactly what she meant,” Ash spoke up. “Yes, they took him, but we all kind of assumed that they were just trying to keep this planet kind of... pure. And now, it seems that not only do they know of other places, but they are conducting some sort of business with them.”

“It would have to be a lot of business. There are....” Edeline began to look and count quietly. “...at least 14 of this part on one vehicle alone, and this is just a small one. Think of one of those mass transportation vehicles, they would need more. And who knows how many more parts on here cannot be made or are not made here on our planet.”

“What does that mean?”

“That means... that in order to get parts to begin building something that might possibly get us off this planet we’re going to have to get off this planet.