Read Online First to Dance by Sonya Writes - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Sonya Writes
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wasn’t just pictures she was seeing—this was live video. She could see her mother sleeping in her bed, and her father was on the living room couch, still awake. He had the lamp on and he was holding his head the way he did when he was deep in thought. The rest of their house was dark and still. Ayita watched the screen for a long time.
Suddenly a white box popped up on the screen. It displayed the following words: “Unit 6437 has landed at Adonia. Transmitting records now.”
Below this were two buttons: “Conference” and “Home .” Ayita was afraid to touch anything, but after waiting several minutes, she clicked “Home.” This took her to a new screen which gave her many options to choose from. She could go back to watching the live videos, or select an option that would help her learn how to work one of the spaceships, but there was another application which piqued her interest: History Log.
This took her to a screen which allowed her to choose from a list of planets. Earth was not on the list. Ayita clicked on Zozeis. From here she had the option of “Condensed Records” or “Complete Records.” Ayita clicked on “Complete Records.”
A screen popped up with a list of names. The list seemed to go on forever. At the top of the screen was a search box. Ayita typed in her own name and hit ‘enter’.
The first line in the document said, “Ayita has accessed Computer 17582. She has viewed inside her home in the video interface and searched her personal record in the History Log.”
Ayita clapped her hand over her mouth and her heart started racing. Then her mind went to the screen that had shown only a few minutes earlier. Records were being transmitted to whoever had traveled from here to Adonia. She swallowed hard and her hands started shaking. She scrolled down and skimmed through her record. This file seemed to contain every single word she’d said and every action she’d taken in her entire life. She did not try to read the whole document, but she read enough to know that it was indeed ‘complete’. It was also automatic somehow. Ayita scrolled up to the top of the file, which had updated to state how far down in her record she scrolled before scrolling back to the top of the file. Ayita stared at the screen.
“Hello,” she said.
The record updated to show that she said “Hello” but that no one else was present.
Ayita took a deep breath before she clicked back and went to the Condensed Records. Here she found a single bullet-point list of events. Conversations were summed up in a sentence or two and there were notes on when people entered and left buildings.
“How do they do this?” Ayita said to he rself. Then she smiled a little because she knew her file had just been updated. For a moment it felt like she was let in on an inside joke, but her amusement turned again to fear as she wondered if the people running the secondary school knew about and had access to these files.
I need to leave soon, she thought. They might already know I’m here.
Ayita returned to the home screen and found the computer’s controls and information for the two spaceships in the other room. She selected the spaceship that was fully charged and clicked the option that said, “Prepare for Launch”. This brought up a list of options. She selected that there would be one person flying and the destination was Earth. There were three landing centers on Earth; Ayita chose one at random. The next screen showed her the spaceship’s status in several areas. Everything was green for the spaceship to fly to Earth, except for the food supply, which was shown in red and only said 67%.
“There’s not enough food,” she whispered. She jumped up and ran to the apartment-like room, where she looked through the kitchen cabinets and the refrigerator. The cabinets were packed full, but the food was unlike any she’d ever seen before. Everything was packaged in an airtight sort of plastic and had odd labels on
Suddenly a white box popped up on the screen. It displayed the following words: “Unit 6437 has landed at Adonia. Transmitting records now.”
Below this were two buttons: “Conference” and “Home .” Ayita was afraid to touch anything, but after waiting several minutes, she clicked “Home.” This took her to a new screen which gave her many options to choose from. She could go back to watching the live videos, or select an option that would help her learn how to work one of the spaceships, but there was another application which piqued her interest: History Log.
This took her to a screen which allowed her to choose from a list of planets. Earth was not on the list. Ayita clicked on Zozeis. From here she had the option of “Condensed Records” or “Complete Records.” Ayita clicked on “Complete Records.”
A screen popped up with a list of names. The list seemed to go on forever. At the top of the screen was a search box. Ayita typed in her own name and hit ‘enter’.
The first line in the document said, “Ayita has accessed Computer 17582. She has viewed inside her home in the video interface and searched her personal record in the History Log.”
Ayita clapped her hand over her mouth and her heart started racing. Then her mind went to the screen that had shown only a few minutes earlier. Records were being transmitted to whoever had traveled from here to Adonia. She swallowed hard and her hands started shaking. She scrolled down and skimmed through her record. This file seemed to contain every single word she’d said and every action she’d taken in her entire life. She did not try to read the whole document, but she read enough to know that it was indeed ‘complete’. It was also automatic somehow. Ayita scrolled up to the top of the file, which had updated to state how far down in her record she scrolled before scrolling back to the top of the file. Ayita stared at the screen.
“Hello,” she said.
The record updated to show that she said “Hello” but that no one else was present.
Ayita took a deep breath before she clicked back and went to the Condensed Records. Here she found a single bullet-point list of events. Conversations were summed up in a sentence or two and there were notes on when people entered and left buildings.
“How do they do this?” Ayita said to he rself. Then she smiled a little because she knew her file had just been updated. For a moment it felt like she was let in on an inside joke, but her amusement turned again to fear as she wondered if the people running the secondary school knew about and had access to these files.
I need to leave soon, she thought. They might already know I’m here.
Ayita returned to the home screen and found the computer’s controls and information for the two spaceships in the other room. She selected the spaceship that was fully charged and clicked the option that said, “Prepare for Launch”. This brought up a list of options. She selected that there would be one person flying and the destination was Earth. There were three landing centers on Earth; Ayita chose one at random. The next screen showed her the spaceship’s status in several areas. Everything was green for the spaceship to fly to Earth, except for the food supply, which was shown in red and only said 67%.
“There’s not enough food,” she whispered. She jumped up and ran to the apartment-like room, where she looked through the kitchen cabinets and the refrigerator. The cabinets were packed full, but the food was unlike any she’d ever seen before. Everything was packaged in an airtight sort of plastic and had odd labels on
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