Chapter One
Since I was a little girl, I could tell when bad things were going to happen. The day my best friend's cat was hit by a car, I had been on my knees, worshipping the porcelain God. The day that my grandfather died, I had a really bad migrane, and when I slept I kept dreaming of funeral parlors. Creepy stuff. I always wondered why everyone came to me for advice. I guess in away they were psychic, in that they could tell that I had special abilities, that no one else had. Even though I had a lot of friends when I was real little, I was never popular. My big popularity boost, was in seventh grade, when I went to junior high.
Well, you know what? I kind of doubt you want to hear my life story, so I'll stop now...
The year is 2037. About two days ago, the United States Federal Beauru of Investigation issued a statement; "At 13 hundred hours and twenty-four mintues, U.S. survellience satilites detected a disturbance in the reigion of Venusian Radius." This basically means that some unauthorized space ship was flying around near Venus. That's not a good thing. Only pilots with four thousand hours of experiance are allowed in the gravitational pull of other planets. Especially Venus, cause those gases in the clouds will eat through the thickest metal you could find in the solar system. [On Neptune actually, Nepturian] No one in the country was worried, no one in the world, for that matter. We all just figured it was some rouge ship from Durga, NATO's brand new inter-galexy ally. They've given us the ability to travel at light speed, and the ability to build Space Warp Engines. If all this is confusing you, I'm sorry. Space Warp Engines were designed by Komanes-Lnob the head scientest of a 'country' on Durga. He let NASA copy his designs, so we could tavel at faster than light speed. Anyways, I digress. President Fisher said we should be cautious of inter-stellar messages we recieve through the mail. It's not a big threat-yet. I have a feeling this 'rouge Durgan' space ship isn't quite what we think it is.
President Clinton, who was president of the United States from 1992-2001, was a great leader of economy. His social life; however, was under scruitny. He took the 50 United States through the new millineum, and helped shape the acceptance of four new states, more than fifty years after the last states had been initiated. These states were all instated in under 12 years-
I sighed, and quit writing. Hand writing things were so much harder than typing. I set my pen down, and stared out the window. I was at school, working on the 'lost art' of writing an essay. Actually, the computer systems were down, so we couldn't type everything the way we usually do. I glanced at the clock, and caught the eye of my best friend Roxton Mitchers.
"Four minutes," I mouthed to him. He nodded. Four minutes until we got to leave. My parents are the Ambassadors to Durga, and we were going on a six month trip, to learn more about their culture and stuff. My parents said Roxton could come with us, since they knew I'd be miserable without him. I began writing him a note, since I didn't really want to work on the essay anymore.
Ro,
I'm bored to tears, so I figured I'd write. Duh, we have.....three minutes and twelve seconds 'til we get out of this hell hole, but still. Once we get to durga, we'll spend all our free time chillin' and going on 'educational' feild trips and all that spiffy junk. Yeah, M and D expect me to be learning stuff, but this will be so much more fun than studying! I'm lidded about this whole idea about going to another planet! It's hard to believe, but think about it. We're writing an essay on President Clinton, and the 1990s. That seems like forever ago! They thought it was a big deal to actually get their Mars Landers to respond! Well, now we have two minutes and six seconds....so I'll sign out, and go....do something. Peace-
Faith
I stood, and casually walked past his desk, and dropped the folded paper on it.
"Faith, Roxton, you may go," Mrs. Felps said without even looking up.
I grabbed my 00's retro mail-bag purse, and computer disks, and ran out of the class room, with Ro on my heels. I lead the way down to the office to sign out. I waved bye to Marolyn, the nice lunch lady [she usually gave me free cookies] and ran out into the huge white limo my parents sported. I flopped on the very backseat, and laughed as Ro gave me an evil look for making him step over me.
"Hello Miss Faith, Master Roxton. We'll be leaving in just a moment for Denver Interstellar Space-port. We have Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, Sprite, 7-Up, and sparkling water in the fridge, and I do belive Miss Faith is sitting on the video game control," our chaeuffer, Richard leaned back through the seperater and flashed us both a smile.
"VR game, Rich, not Video-Game," I smiled.
"I'm sorry," he revved the engine, and pulled out of the school's bus loop.
I turned the TV on, and let my eyes close for the twenty minute drive to the airport. Ro and I were to be the minor citizens to land on Durga. We'd be famous!
I yawned and sat up. I looked around the small space and shuddered. These space-plane thingies sure weren't very comfortable. I was locked in place by seatbelt. I struggled to get it off, and automatically floated away. I grabbed at the reclined seat, but missed. The next closest thing was Ro's floating hair. I grabbed it and he yelped.
"Hey!" He pulled away from me. "Watch it!"
"Sorry," I mumbled. I grabbed for something else as I kept rising. Ro shook his head, and said something to himself. Then he took my hand and pulled me back down.
"You're not supposed to unbuckle during the flight, retard," he muttered.
"Well excuse me, Mr. I Know Everything," I retorted, and pulled the buckle to strap back in.
He was about to make a smart remark when the whole plane jilted to the left. I flipped over, and landed on Ro. He 'oofed' even though I was weightless in space. I shot him a dirty look.
"Even in weightlessness some things don't change."
I whapped him, and fell back as the plane tilted again.
"Dude! What's going on?!" I shouted up at my mom.
"I'm not sure, Captain Felding will be on in a minute to explain," she said. I wasn't so sure.
