Approximately four hours passed before the brothers descended back through the main elevator of their castle, placing their time of arrival at around 10 in the morning. Immediately upon their entry, they were charged with cleansing and dressing themselves into more 'appropriate' clothing by the 7th child of the Clan; ‘The Dancer,’ Lila Astros. The short order caused Jordan and his brothers to struggle for nearly a half hour before completion. After, they were tasked with ordering brunch for the entire family - those present, at least - and overseeing the robotic arms preparing each dish. And so started the everlasting cascade of harsh treatment, odd jobs and errand running that occupied the three brothers' lives throughout the week. Sparring sessions with their elder siblings. Maintaining the assortment of equipment, drones, and robots scattered around the castle. Tending to gardens. Cleaning halls. Babysitting their younger siblings. Day after day, the tasks continued until each member of the Clan to be found within New Bran had grown bored with their sudden authority and had relegated the three brothers to those under the protective wing of the Clan like Mr. Dakaan and the good Dr. Creps.
By the fifth day, the fabrication of their appendages was complete and sealed in shock-proof cases before they could even judge them with their own eyes. With the help of their elders, their cases were attached to the ruck frames on their backs, where they could easily be detached and dragged or reattached even with their nubs. Then they continued to attend to the Clan's business. Day after day, until midnight on their 17th birthday."
——
"Get in." Vera jerked her neck towards the train docked to the axial truss; a strange sight, with her tight ponytail wrapped around her neck like a scarf.
Jordan tilted his head and squinted as he held off on her order to study her gear. Instead of her usual slacks and collared shirt, she was dressed in a black vacuum-suit that was pulled tightly around the contours of her body and padded with relatively thin armor along the chest, back and thighs. "Going on a space-walk?" Jordan chuckled rhetorically.
"Someone challenged me, so." Vera's eyes trailed away as she shrugged with her hands, sighing heavily with severe dissatisfaction. "Down to Europa I go-"
"Yeah, uh-huh." Jordan mumbled from a few meters away.
He was halfway to his seat before Vera's explanation was fully formed. After his assumptions were proven correct, he saw no reason to continue listening to her ramblings and inevitable emotional display. As the youngest of their father's first litter of four children, Vera was as old as the Galilean Powers itself, having been born in 2101. Her generation was the one to influence things like trials, Campaigns, and Merit the most. Now, generations later, many believed they took such things almost too seriously. Naturally, notions and feelings about such things were of no concern to Jordan. So, he entered the train to sit and wait patiently for his brothers to get secure; listening absently to the gentle hum of the life support units ringing throughout the cabin and the creaking of restraints easing themselves around his body. He stared vacantly at his half-dozen siblings crowded around the airlock and their second-eldest sister, Vera Astros.
As he continued to stare, Jordan could feel the corners of his mouth begin to twitch and wrinkle as if something was wrong with his nerves. Finding himself at the moment he'd anticipated since he could stand, the flux of emotion was more than he could bear. Coupled with the fear of the unknown, it was almost enough to induce panic.
Their trial was an event every member of the clan went through on their 17th birthday. A pilgrimage, of sorts, across the untamed wilderness of New Bran's second rotating drum. There was at least one found in orbit of every Jovian moon; for O’Neill and Mckindree Cylinders were the favored habitats in the Powers. It made for half of a habitat filled with terrestrial flora and fauna for the sake of having a dedicated nature reserve. New Bran's wilds were said to be largely unexplored, tailored to fit whatever environment their father sought to impose and filled with whatever fauna thrived in such places, both dangerous and not.
"It's not like you to look be stressed." Jacques sighed from across the cabin. As always, his face was devoid of emotion as he stared at a point just below and to the left of Jordan's head to avert his intimidating gaze.
"How many of us do you think he'll have?" Jordan asked offhandedly. "Our father?" While the arrangements between their father and the mothers of their half-siblings were none of Jordan's concern, the fact was known to anyone within the Galilean Powers. Villan Astros, the Don of Europa, had many, many children. Even for someone his age, even in the time where gestation chambers meant populations could explode in a single generation and families could be quite extensive, it was considered an absurdity. A rarity, even. The clan consisted of 15 families, or litters, divided into 3 packs, making a total of 43 children that varied from only children to quintuplets; half-brothers and sisters to Jordan, who ranged from being as old as the habitat beneath them to being too young to speak properly.
Jordan's eyes shot to James, expecting a response. The former was staring as if in a daze out the window until he noticed Jordan's gaze and turned to face them, wiggling his wrapped up arms in an attempt to scratch his head.
"You're lying." Jacques chuckled lightly from his perch, summoning Jordan's attention back to him. "But, I'll humor you. I think our father will have at least one hundred children."
"Hah!" James croaked from his seat, shaking his head. "He's almost at fifty. What's fifty more?"
"I would ask you, but you don't have an answer." Jacques snickered at Jordan. "So instead, I'll ask. What's stressing you, bro?"
As much as Jordan hated to admit it, Jacques was right. He was clairvoyant in a way Vera could only hope to be. The way he could analyze social cues and body language was almost uncanny. He almost always knew exactly what Jordan was thinking at any moment. Jordan just hated his condescending attitude whenever he was right. Which, unfortunately, was most of the time. Like now.
"What do you think it's like on the other side?" He asked, hanging his head in defeat with a sigh.
"It'll be a strange world with beasts we've never seen before." Jacques chuckled under his breath. Then shrugged coyly as he turned towards their siblings now crowding into the cabin behind them. "For all its worth, though, they say Earth is far deadlier that most of the habs orbiting Jupiter.”
Jordan pursed his lips in reply but quickly swallowed the air in his mouth as a soft warning-tone chimed through the cabin. After the airlock sealed shut with another electronic ring, the train lunged forward with an electric whine. Just as the cabin got up to speed and exited through a hole in the platform's wall, it slowed abruptly to ease itself into a tunnel-like airlock at the cap of the habitat. As the seconds passed, the perpetual hum of the station infrastructure fell into an eerie silence and was quickly replaced with the now unignorable hum of air scrubbers, fans and AC units working to keep them alive.
James's deafening breathing intensified as the cabin lurched again, swinging the large recliner-like vector-chair underneath Jordan to line him up with his change in velocity. And silently, the train glided smoothly above its magnetic rails to breach the endless void and gently curve around in line with the exterior scaffold. The windows ceased their randomized adverts to allow an unobstructed view of the wrist-sized bands of rust, sand, and water colored storms shearing against each other in Jupiter's upper atmosphere.
Though distant and therefore unimpressive to the frequented eye, Jordan knew the peaceful, awe-inspiring sight was a facade that shrouded the unimaginable violence the King of Planets was capable of. He imagined himself trapped kilometers below the upper atmosphere, stuck in limbo between the overbearing pull of gravity and the uplifting force of buoyancy; his joints flailing and bending and crushing unnaturally as he's tossed and thrashed about, skinned from his very bone by hypersonic molecules crushed into a dense fluid.
'Power.'
It was the only thought his mind could produce when confronted with the sight, no matter how unremarkable it'd become over the years. The only thought most Galileans could conjure, in his opinion, after receiving the light of Jupiter in their eyes. Regardless of how many improvements humanity made to its condition, be it through technological advancement or moral superiority, Jordan was confident that mother nature would always be present to tell us that there was a limit to humanity's seemingly endless reach.
The sight, as magnificent as it was, faded just as fast as it appeared. The train continued falling along the exterior truss until it curved downwards toward the cigar shaped capsule spinning silently beside their home. Jordan's eyes traced the supportive truss ahead to where the railings diverged to curve around the cylinder. Peering from behind the structure were vast arrays of fan-like structures - radiators - glowing an ethereal red before the milky backdrop of stars to bleed off the countless thermal units of heat generated within.
As the structures faded from view, their train fell through a similar airlock to enter the habitat. While it cycled, Jordan noticed his chest rhythmically bulging into his restraints. His breath, becoming more erratic and hastened, drowned his ears with panic even after the background noise of the habitat returned to his perception. Then the train slowly pulled forward, providing Jordan a weak attempt to distract himself from his plaguing thoughts by craning his neck in every orientation to observe the passing greenhouse bubbles, agricultural bays, and storage facilities within the axial truss.
After pulling into a boarding station near the support spires, the train docked itself along the center axis of the habitat and prepared to match its environment to the outside pressure before releasing its passengers. The station was a mirror image of the place they’d left. Barren, gray paneled walls lined each surface, broken apart by large windows and egg-shaped lights that were set into the walls at repeating intervals. In the center of each wall, surrounding the rectangular module, were round passages that led to the glass chambered elevators running the length of the support spires connecting the truss to the surface.
With a forewarned beep, the train's airlock unsealed with a loud hiss, inviting a gelid wind to force itself through the opening and churn through the cabin. Jordan bit through the cold and pushed himself into the boarding station, where the rest of his siblings were crowding in wait around their eldest.
"S-so." Jacques chattered from behind Jordan as he emerged from the train and gazed through the closest window. "This is what a real forest looks like?"
"I guess." Jordan chattered through his teeth while his eyes roamed the white-capped, viridescent landscape looping around the axis. "So many trees."
“Now then." Vera just barely shouted as they emerged. "The three of you will be separated during your journey. Your goal is the other end of the habitat. Instead of using the lifts, however, use your boots to walk up the far side of the cap and enter through the Clan's private compound beneath the truss. Walk as straight as you can. If you run into each other, diverge immediately."
Without a further explanation from Vera, Jago appeared behind Jordan and began pushing him towards one of the vacant lifts. Once inside, he remained unnaturally silent. He stood off to the wall, staring nostalgically at the nearly unbroken forest stretching beyond the glass.
Contrary to Jordan's expectations of something similar to the humid, forested rolling hills lining New Bran's residential drum, a thick layer of snow sat atop everything in visual range. Having seen the radiators, Jordan could only wonder how the habitat compensated for all the extra mass as he scanned the powdered clusters of dense trees and brushes with a childlike bewilderment.
"You should have a good idea, right?" Jago randomly asked after half the descent. Without so much as a glance Jordan's way, he spoke quietly, and with a warmth that was foreign to the voice of Jago Astros. "How far it is to the end? I trust that you thought of a route? Know of a way to find food? Or at least brought enough? Still, you'll need to protect yourself from the cold."
Jordan eyed Jago suspiciously as his elder brother quickly turned to rummage through his pack. "What're you planning?" He asked accusatively.
"I'm planning to keep you warm so you don't develop hypothermia." He sighed.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
"But why?" Jordan shook his head in disbelief. "Schadenfreude. This isn't the Jago I know."
"I may be a dick." Jago laughed heartily. "But you're still my little brother. Only I get to fuck with you."
"You have many, many little brothers, Jago." Jordan snorted phlegmatically. “Twelve, in fact.”
"Yeah." He grinned wide, pulling a poncho tight over Jordan while a smaller, equally hearty laugh squawked from his lips. "But out of all of my little brothers, you're my favorite. Critical Mass is a pretentious ass and Leo's a meat head. The Twin Dogs are too feral, even for me, and the rest are too young. That leaves the J-triplets; who, like Vera and the first pack, were birthed from two of Gale's founders."
"So?" Jordan scoffed and shrugged. "Doesn't mean shit in the Powers.
Jago sighed impatiently and took a glance through the glass floor. The surface was only a few hundred meters away and still not slowing in its approach. "On top of having a titanium stick up his ass, James is too selfless. Jacques is a recluse and way too smart for his own good." Jago sighed again. "Nothing wrong with either of those. They're just boring."
"And I'm not?" Jordan tutted under his breath.
"No." Jago sighed again, impatiently. "But you are acting too dumb for my tastes. Stop it."
Jordan ignored him as the elevator finally slowed to a halt and slid its doors open, once again inviting the cold to creep under Jordan's clothes and begin biting at his skin. But before he could take a step, the wet imprint of a boot outlined on the small of Jordan's back and pushed him forward with a dull pain. Cursing loudly, Jordan crumpled forward under the weight of his pack, down into the powdery ground.
"Whatever you do, don't get wet! And remember, nothing you see out here will kill you!" Jago's muffled voice bellowed behind him. "This is the last thing I'll ever do for you, Jordy! After this, you're on your own!"
Jordan scrambled against the burning cold on his face to pull his legs beneath him and stand. He feared he'd pull something while trying to lift both his body and pack and let out a laborious groan as he succeeded in righting himself. He tilted his head back to the single silhouette dancing behind the light of the elevator's glass and roared to the paneled sky like a feral animal. Once calm, Jordan bit at the buckles of his straps and felt a wave of relief wash over him as his pack thudded loudly to the ground behind him. Grasping control of his breath, Jordan looked to the axis once more to catch his bearings and began walking awkwardly through the dark until the straps around his nubs pulled taut behind him. Then he stomped.
After a few hours, trudging through the snow became a little less of a burden for Jordan. Once the large panels along the axis lit up to bathe the habitat in a gentle light, it was reflected off the forest floor to create a soft, blue aura that hugged the ground majestically. As the minutes passed and the glow intensified to the full bloom of morning, Jordan decided it was a good time for a pause and took a 15 minute rest period. When his strength returned, he roamed about his temporary camp with his pack dragging behind him to explore for potentially forgeable food until, through the sound of rustling leaves, a short, ragged breathing, dampened from the dense trees, fell through Jordan's ears.
He stood in place, listening as the repetitive snorting grew louder. After waiting and waiting, the noise seemed to surround him from all sides and quickly became all Jordan could hear. Just before he decided to move - to investigate, a warm, moist gust of air pooled around the base of his neck and cooled to freezing near instantly. Lightning sparked through Jordan’s spine, priming his body to leap haphazardly to the side, face twisted with horror as he came face-to-face with a bus-sized beast staring down at him through rock-sized eyes. The two massive, open-palm obtrusions protruding from its head swayed and knocked against the trees without a care as it stared Jordan down. Then, without warning, it reared backwards with a demonic neigh, waving its forelegs in Jordan's face.
Jordan's body turned on its own, flinging snow into the air and into the face of the hell-spawned beast as he raced through the forest. He ran and sprinted as hard as he could through the powdered maze, desperate to not be thrown off balance from his missing appendages and the hardshell crate dragging behind him, bouncing into trees and catching on shrubs.
As a result of living in orbit, far away from the ecosystems of Earth, wild animals were something most Galileans - or anyone else living off-Earth - would never encounter, and as a result, didn’t study while growing up. Such things were omitted in favor of more useful knowledge applicable in the art of space-survival. Orbital dynamics, physics, and, in the Galilean Powers, fighting. Animals native to Earth were just one of many subjects Jordan never cared to learn. Though, even if he did, he was certain of that... thing being born entirely from a human mind.
He was sure of it.
…
The leaf lined patches of light reflecting off the snow were noticeably brighter, almost blinding by the time Jordan collapsed to his knees from exhaustion. For the first time since his arrival, he welcomed the biting cold on his skin; openly invited the brisk air to swirl within his lungs as he gasped and choked with his face buried in the snow.
Moments later, Jordan struggled to his feet and knocked the snow accumulated on his clothes by banging himself against a tree, inadvertently freeing the heavy powder resting on the branches above, forcing him to repeat the process. After ten minutes, he'd succeeded in clearing his body of snow and worked up a moderate sweat that quickly began to freeze. The cold numbness bit at his nubs, stung his pits, and shrouded his body in a shiver inducing frost that caused his clothes to stiffen uncomfortably, chafing his legs with each step.
"F- Fuck!" Jordan shrieked as his body spasmed from the cold, then turned his gaze upward to the axial truss. Using it as his compass, he snaked through the forest towards the next waypoint on his path. The support spires stretched from the floor of the habitat to the rotational axis like spokes on a wheel. Four of them; repeating through the length of the habitat every 5 kilometers. It was the simplest; and only landmark he could use. Like a beacon, the thick column peered from above the treeline. By his estimation, it was around 200 meters from his location, still obscured by the thick brush. He took his time approaching, taking in his environment with open eyes now that the threat of the hoofed beast was behind him.
The nature reservation held an eerie silence that seemed to ring in tune with the brisk atmosphere. His deliberate, hot breath; the steady crunching of snow underfoot; the occasional bird call, fluttering of wings or rodent scampering about, was like scattered notes that played a symphony of dread in Jordan's heart. The trees were crowded, in the sense of people during a plague. Separated by a few meters, yet condensed enough to form a vertically terraced wall of trunks. Animals could be found wherever he looked. Birds, squirrels and rabbits - the ones he knew about - while the larger, unknown beasts had yet to be seen.
Unlike the spire he descended from, the one serving as his next waypoint lacked any visible elevators. Instead, it was covered halfway to the top in snow capped rocks in a way that made it resemble a curiously thin hill or a pillar-like mountain, probably only twenty meters around at the thickest point. But at its base was a wide-mouthed cave, its interior veiled in shadows.
Jordan bustled into a jog towards it at once, pausing a few steps from the entrance to open his pack for a change of clothes. After barbarically securing the articles firmly under his nubs and teeth, he cautiously toed inside the cave. The shroud of darkness enveloped him after the first few steps. Looking back, the entrance seemed like a relatively small sphere of light a fair distance behind him, like he'd fallen into a black hole and could turn to see the universe he'd left behind. The air became thicker with each step. Warmer and more moist. Pungent and musty.
Jordan was well enough inside the cave to tend to his business and get on his way. But his battering heart and still pooling sweat betrayed him from taking such simple actions. He took a deep breath as he squinted to peer through the veil. Tiptoed deeper into the cave.
"Grrrrr!"
The sound hit Jordan like a shockwave. He reflexively took a step back and froze. His heart protested, leapt and punched to escape from his chest while his mind struggled to find the next course of action. During his moment of crises, Jordan's eyes caught sight of the shadows in the distance, jolting and shuddering as another growl rumbled through the cave, seeming to vibrate the stone itself. Jordan's body tensed in an instant. His diaphragm squeezed a shameful squeal from his lungs as he fell backwards on his ass. Forgetting his clothes, Jordan twisted around, clawed against the stone with his nubs to pull himself to his feet and scramble out of the cave. Fear seemed to pinch the nerves in the top of his spine, causing his neck to tense and brace for an impact that most likely would never come, almost as if his body was convinced that the beast was millimeters behind him, lunging forward to strike at his unprotected nape.
The strings of his pack pulling taut behind him, the warmth of light falling onto his skin as he escaped, the subsequent burning of his lungs from his exertion; these stimuli scratched at the back of Jordan's mind while he ran, yet were denied entry from the fearful adrenaline burning through his veins until he'd arrived at the next support spire and collapsed onto the powdered surface for the second time in a few hours.
His body burned from exhaustion and the comedown of adrenaline while the snow seeped moisture into his clothes to bite at his skin. Looking through the dense fog clouding around his face and mouth, Jordan saw he was at the edge of a large clearing surrounding the support spire. Satisfied with his temporary rest stop, Jordan rolled to his back, hoping he was still on the right path to the end. If that were true, he estimated he was at least halfway there. Without a change of clothes, however, he wouldn't make it half that distance before succumbing to the cold. And yet, another two minutes passed as Jordan laid in place, staring at the sun-like panels radiating above until finally, he summoned the strength to pull his legs beneath him with an animalistic groan, then halted as the familiar sensation of warm breath rolled down his neck.
Jordan shot upright and staggered as he twisted about to face a bulbous brown eye. He stumbled backwards, inviting a large wet spot to spread around his bottom and legs.
Jordan's guest reared its head back and backpedaled in cautious surprise, yet remained in place with its four hoofed feet splayed wide across the ground. Its fur was brown with mottled spots of white along the sides; a short, bushy, white tail perched directly vertical while its seemingly oversized head swayed, looping the branch-like growths through the air with careless ease. It was an animal Jordan was sure he knew, albeit young. It seemed unbothered by Jordan's presence, however. Even his earlier outburst. More than that, it seemed curious as to his existence.
"You're… a deer, aren't you?" Jordan smiled as he reached out to pet it.
The nub of his arm pivoted in front of him and seemed to wiggle in place just below his chin. Sighing wearily, he dropped what was left of his arm back to his side and gave the deer a defeated smile.
Behind him, the larger deer seemed to have been won over by their curiosity and began cautiously approaching Jordan. Slowly, he drug his pack behind him as he relocated to the middle of the herd, careful to remain hyper aware of his movements as to not startle them, and began rummaging through his pack for yet another set of clothes. And some food as well.
Around an hour after mid-day, Jordan was satiated and comfortably warm in dry, water resistant clothes. After gathering his gear and bowing goodbye to his new acquaintances, he paused at the edge of the herd to scan the cylinder around him for traces of his brothers or any other animals, caught his bearings, and began stomping through the snow once again. After passing two more support spires, the radiant aura shimmering above the forest floor returned as the lights above dimmed to their twilight hue. Judging from that alone, he estimated it'd been around twelve hours since he and his brothers were pulled from their beds, given their packs, and told to assemble at the boarding station. Despite his assurances, however, Jordan was still skeptical of his accuracy and doubled on his pace.
After another four hours of walking, the habitat was shrouded in a darkness that made the cave seem like a child's bedroom doused in night lights. Jordan had maintained his double pace and stopped only to relieve and satiate himself with little interference from the native fauna until he reached the last spire, where, this far from the entrance, the layered snow became increasingly thick; and when coupled with the darkness, reduced his pace to a crawl. It didn't take long after for the ominous, pervasive thoughts to creep into his mind. While the fog still lingered, it had lost its luminous glow and only hugged the forest floor like a whispering blanket of impenetrable gloom. A hallucination inducing entity that lapped against the endless darkness like water on a riverbank, breaking apart to reveal the occasional tree, rock, or fleeing animal that was only a few meters away.
As Vera instructed, Jordan continued past the last spire and trudged towards the habitat's end cap. Just beyond the structure, Jordan came upon his last obstacle - a river. Too deep and fast to wade across without risk of slipping or losing the sled downstream and too wide to leap across.
Arriving at the bank, Jordan elected to scout around for a few hundred meters both up and downstream to search for a way across, be at a fallen tree, shallow spot or, by some chance, a bridge. From what he could find, his location was as close to the end cap as the river went. On each end, it looped around the circumference and branched off to snake toward the center of the habitat, looping cleanly around the support spires to meet at a central, relatively shallow lake.
If his time-keeping was correct, Jordan had only two hours to make it to his destination before their day was done. He was unsure of the consequences of not returning before the deadline - no Astros had failed to make it yet - and he certainly wasn't willing to find out.
Squinting through the night, he stared above the bank and followed the axial truss with his eyes to where it met the flat surface of the end cap. Just below the crossed girders, from Jordan's perspective, were twin torches that poured the only light to be found in the habitat through the night. If he focused, Jordan could see the rigid outlines of a stone-laid entrance flickering amongst the shadows.
"Two options, Jordan." He muttered to himself, returning his attention to the river before him. "Make a bridge, somehow. Or strap up and cross it." His eyes trailed both ways downstream as he weighed each option considerably. The ease of methods, the time it'd take, and the potential consequences. Each variable was tossed and turned, analyzed within his mind before he verified his decision and committed to it.
After falling onto his pack to reattach it to its frame, Jordan braced himself with a deep breath and darted through the river. The water immediately pushed against him like a wall, yet seeped into his boots and churned up the inside of his pant legs to embrace him in its deathly cold fingers. Trudging forth, Jordan misjudged the depth of the water and slammed his foot into a cluster of smooth rocks as he made it to the middle. The water steadily being pushed around him stung like daggers that drove against him as much as they stabbed into him, threatening to topple him over. He heard himself screaming as he struggled to right his numbing body and clambered out of the water in large strides.
Jordan's blood boiled after finding himself in the same situation he'd started the trial in. He cursed under his breath while he continued stomping through the snow without pause, grunting and growling like some troglodyte that'd been slighted.
