Unknown 8:36 PM
—Do you think the people on Prospero ever get homesick?
I slide my thumb across the unlock screen. This is the first time they’ve texted me first, aside from the first time.
8:36 PM
—Missing home, Carmindor?
Unknown 8:36 PM
—It was blown up, remember? Episode 43. The Last Turn of Time.
8:37 PM
—Doesn’t mean you can’t miss it.
Unknown 8:37 PM
—I miss parts of it. I don’t miss the actual place. That’s never as good as you remember it.
—Sorry, I don’t know what I’m saying. It’s stupid.
Not as stupid as he thinks.
8:37 PM
—Would it be weird to say I know how you feel?
Unknown 8:38 PM
—We can be weird together then.
—What place would you go back to?
What a question. Because the place wouldn’t be as good as I remember it. And now, knowing what I know, there’s only one place I’d go back to.
I want to text back that I don’t know—that it’s a hard question.
But that’s a lie. I know exactly where I’d go back to—to the exact moment, seven years ago, when I sat on the steps of the veranda, the story I’d written that day in hand, waiting for Dad to come home. I would tell that little girl to go inside. To lock the door. To keep the bad news out.
My phone buzzes again.
Unknown 8:43 PM
—Let me guess. You’d go back to when Starfield was still on TV, right?
I smile.
8:44 PM
—Never saw it live. Too young.
I realize too late that I’ve just revealed to a total stranger that I’m a teenager, which I know you should never, ever do. But then they ping back.
Unknown 8:44 PM
—Same. Syfy reruns? 11 to midnight? Falling asleep in homeroom the next morning?
8:45 PM
—Every. Day.
Whoever this unknown number is, they don’t feel like a stranger. Or even unknown. Clumsily, on the stupid number pad, I hit SAVE CONTACT and type in the name, one letter at a time.
CARMINDOR.
Franco sits with me as the sun sets behind the tree line. In the dusky darkness, the night watchman begins his rounds.
When he gets to me, he tips his hat. “Closing time, Miss Danielle.”
“Just a few more minutes?”
His rigid gray eyebrows soften. “Just don’t let that fat rat pee on any tombstones.”
“You wouldn’t pee on a tombstone, would you?” I ask Franco once the night watchman is gone. In reply, the dog slurps at my cheek, tail whipping through the air. “Not unless its Catherine’s gravestone, no you wouldn’t, no you wouldn’t!”
Frank woofs and jumps onto my lap, and we settle in for a moment longer. To be honest, the night watchman will let me stay as long as I want—and if I could, I would stay for hours. I would curl up by the gravestone and just talk with the dirt.
But tonight, I won’t. Tonight, for once, I actually have someone else who knows how I feel.
FIRST I FIND OUT THAT I have a bodyguard named Lonny, then the hottest girl in Hollywood tells me we’re dating for the next twenty-three days, and now I’m about to die. Probably.
Is it too late to cash in my insured abs?
“I think I need a moment,” I tell the stunt coordinator—who is, I’m pretty sure, insane, a thirty-something woman with dark hair and a dead-eyed stare. I adjust the strap that’s digging into my left little guy. As stunts go, this is the one I have been looking forward to the least.
“What, getting scared, hero?” She claps me on the shoulder. Hero is her nickname for me, which, given how scared I am, is probably ironic. Like calling Lonny “Shrimp.” Really flattering, in other words.
“I just want to, uh, write my will first,” I reply. Or at least I think I do. My pulse thrums so loud in my ears that I can’t hear anything else. I stare down, down, down the fifty-foot drop onto the green-screen landing.
If I fall now, I’ll land flatter than a pancake. At least my only consolation is that the camera guy filming me is coming along.
“You know, maybe we should take a break. Who’s hungry? You hungry?” I ask the camera guy.
He pops on his chewing gum, giving me a bored no-bullshit gaze. Am I the only one who thinks this is nuts?
“Can it, hero.” My stunt coordinator tugs on the wires of my harness, triple-checking that I won’t in fact hit the ground flatter than a pancake.
“We—we haven’t established a safe word yet,” I say. Stall for time, my mind chants. Stall for life. “I mean, you’ve got me into his compromising position, and I barely know you!”
She rolls her eyes and radios to the assistant director. “I told you we should’ve let Luis do the stunt.”
“Luis?”
“Your double.”
“Wait, he wanted to?”
“Want me to get him, hero?” She drawls out the last word.
Yes. “Nope,” I squeak.
“Good.” The stunt coordinator turns back to the cameraman and begins checking his harness too. He keeps messing with the settings on his camera as they talk about the scene.
I tug on my collar, staring down, down, down at all the people below me. I’m beginning to regret my decision to do most of my own stunts.
The scene sounds simple enough. Carmindor’s running for safety. In this part of the movie, the Nox lay siege to a council hearing, and the entire building on Andromeda Earth—the homeworld of the Federation—goes up in flames. Carmindor (me) rushes down a hallway, pursued by seven Nox knights. He’s heading toward a dead end, but because Carmindor is genetically enhanced, he can bust through the window at the end of the hall, hurtling himself to the next building’s rooftop to escape.
That’s where I find myself now. Running away from the Nox, busting through the glass window, and letting the cables take me fifty feet down onto a landing pad. Fifty feet doesn’t sound that high until you’re looking down at where you’re supposed to land. But I must’ve failed to realize that I’m not the Federation Prince, and my bones are not made of titanium, and I will break just as easily as the next guy.
I swallow the bile rising in my throat.
Run, spin, knee, wall, I keep reminding myself, remembering the rehearsal for this shot. Run, elbow, back-step, jump. Run, kiss ass goodbye, jump—
Suddenly, I feel something buzz in my tattered uniform. It’s been made to look singed at the edges and caked in soot, like I’ve just—you now—been through a siege.
I reach into my jacket.
Unknown 3:47 PM
—So, about your question yesterday…
—Where would YOU go?
—Anywhere, any time, in the history of you?
“Hey, hero, you ready to rock and roll?” Ms. Scary Eyes calls to me.
God bless my poor unfortunate soul. “Do I have a choice?”
Down below, Amon, the director, barks a laugh. “We got the paramedics standing by. You’ve got brass balls, Darien! I respect you!”
I follow the stunt coordinator back down the hallway specially built for this fight scene. It’s one continuous camera shot, so no mistakes.
Run, spin, knee, wall. Run, elbow, back-step, jump. Run, kiss ass goodbye, jump.
I’ve practiced this. I can do this.
3:48 PM
—I honestly don’t know.
—I wouldn’t go anywhere alone—it’s a big universe out there.
—I’d need a buddy system.
Unknown 3:48 PM
—LOL scaredy-cat. Then where would WE go?
“Quit texting your girlfriend, hero! Get ready.”
3:49 PM
—The frozen tundra of the Arteysa Galaxy is supposed to be nice.
Unknown 3:49 PM
—Brisk! I like it.
“Loverboy!” the stunt coordinator snaps. “Can someone take the kid’s phone away?”
Kid. I try not to let the word sting as Gail rushes up and snatches the phone out of my hand. “I was just making sure my will was in place. And my insurance,” I add under my breath.
The cameraman moves his hundred-thousand-dollar equipment closer, bracing to follow me down the hallway. Is it too late to opt out? I’m not good at this. I should probably just—
“Get ready,” Ms. Scary Eyes says, and radios down to Amon. “We’re set!”
“Three, two…,” the AD says. I turn around, rocking back and forth on my feet.
Get into the moment. Slip on Carmindor like a Halloween mask that still smells like rubber. Breathe in. Breathe out.
“Start running. Go!” the AD directs, and then shouts “Action!” A horn blares.
I take off down the hall. A Nox comes out of the first doorway. I spin on my heels, ducking his punch. A piece of stucco wall pops over my head—fake gunshot—and three more go off down the hallway. I grab the Nox by the collar and send his face into the fake wall.
“And BOOM!” the AD shouts.
I stumble on command, feet slipping out from under me. Another Nox emerges from the next doorway and slams the tip of his rifle against my forehead. Fires.
I dodge, grabbing the gun, and elbow him in the side. I back-step, aim, fire. The Nox is blown backward on ripcords.
“FINAL CUE!” roars the AD.
Tossing the gun to the side I hurtle the downed Nox, dodging another knight trying to grapple onto me. I can feel the harness digging into me. My heart’s in my throat.