Tim's Arc

Chapter 1 of 11

The patrol ship passed the hab block at dawn, and Tim pressed his baby sister against his chest so her cry would not reach the window. In three days he had to smuggle her off Juniperfall. The colony's conscription sweep took every child it logged, and his sister was not yet logged. That was the only reason she was still here. He had no ship, no money, and no place to hide her while he found both. He counted the daily sweeps on his fingers. One at dawn. One at midday. One after the shift horn. Each time, drones scanned the pods and marked the children inside. His pod would be scanned by noon. He could not stay. Tim wrapped his sister in a gray blanket and carried her down the service stairs. The lower corridors were empty. He had one idea left, and it stood two levels down: the daycare. The building was shaped like a cartoon rocket, white and cheerful, with round windows and painted stars along its hull. It took children too young to be logged. The sweep drones ignored it, because the colony counted those children later. For three more days, his sister would be invisible inside it. He reached the painted doors and found two kids blocking them. Riley and Max Henderson. They lived one pod over. Riley stood with arms crossed, the older one, always watching the corridor like something was coming. Max held a stuffed toy shaped like a shaggy forest giant. "You can't go in," Riley said. "They're checking names at the door now. Since this morning." Tim's chest went tight. "Checking names." "A worker with a scanner," Max said. "We got sent out. They're logging the little ones early. The sweep changed." The safe place was no longer safe. The one gap in the system had just closed, hours before he needed it. He looked at the two kids. They were out here because the daycare had turned them away too. "Where are you going?" he asked. Riley shrugged, but the shrug was stiff. "Nowhere yet. Our parents already got taken for questions." Tim understood then. These two were running from the same thing he was. They knew the corridors, the blind spots, the timing of the drones better than he did. He needed that. And they needed someone bigger. "Come with me," he said. "I'm getting her off the colony. All of us, if we move." Riley studied him a long moment. Then Max slipped a hand into Tim's free one, toy and all. "Okay," Riley said. "But not through the main ring. They scan it every hour." The worker's scanner beeped inside the daycare. A voice called out names. Tim turned from the painted doors and followed Riley down a dark maintenance hall, his sister warm against him, two more children now depending on a plan he did not have.