The Weight of the Stars - K. Ancrum Page 0,2

texted a bunch of question marks. She sent back a single exclamation point.

“I’ve gotta go, but we’ve got a deal. If you don’t want to do regular meetings, I’ll just swing by after class if I have any questions or updates.” Ryann walked over to the door, but stopped right before stepping through it. “And thanks for the bell curve leniency.” She smirked.

Mrs. Marsh rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, you’re welcome. Go to your next class before I have to write you a pass.”

2 HOURS AND 15 MINUTES

Ahmed Bateman, Ryann’s best friend, was ten times what anyone expected him to be. He was beautiful, with black eyes and black hair that he wound up tightly into his navy blue turban. His face was angular, but pretty, and he was a bit on the shorter side.

He looked like his parents. Like all three of them. Two dads and one mom.

They showed up to report-card pickups and school events shamelessly, all three, hand in hand. There were ghosts of them all over Ahmed, to the point where it was impossible to ask who fathered Ahmed without being savagely impolite and overly specific.

Ryann liked Ahmed because weathering that had made him tough, but living it had made him sweet. A winning combination, which prompted Ahmed to decide it was a great idea to backhand Thompson when he called Ryann a dyke when they were in fifth grade—even though he and Ryann had never spoken to each other before.

They’d been close ever since. No one but James knew her better.

So when Ryann texted Ahmed that exclamation point, he knew to gather the others so they all could discuss something important.

2 CLASS PERIODS

A little past the baseball diamonds, behind the building, there was a huge hill. There were a lot of places to meet in the city, but this was the only one close enough to get to between classes without shirking the entire day.

Shannon, Blake, Tomas, and James were already waiting for Ahmed and Ryann at the top.

Shannon was exceptionally popular, but Blake and Tomas were a year younger, juniors like James. They’d both opted to be a bit more alternative than was considered appropriate—Tomas, gangly and tall with his bright red Mohawk, and Blake who shaved his head and had been giving himself stick-and-poke tattoos since middle school. They didn’t have anyone else to be with, so Ryann had gathered them beneath her wing.

“There’s a new kid!” Ahmed hollered up the hill.

“Really?!” Tomas shouted back. “Are you sure someone didn’t just get a bad haircut?”

“NO!” Ahmed yelled indignantly.

When they finally reached the top, Ahmed collapsed to the grass, panting, and covered his eyes.

“It’s a girl,” Ahmed explained. “She’s cute and stuff. She’s got history with Ryann, but that’s not—”

Blake cut Ahmed off. “So what, who cares?”

“I do,” Ryann said firmly. She slung her bookbag to the ground and lay down between Shannon and James. “She’s a celebrity. Well, kind of … Do any of you remember that project I did for Science Fair last year?”

“No,” Shannon, Tomas, and Blake all said in unison.

Ryann scowled. “Okay. Twenty years ago, after NASA was absorbed into the US military, a bunch of private space exploration companies got a ton of investments in, because a lot of people disapproved of the militarization of a public good like space exploration, which made space privatization seem a lot less sinister in comparison. Anyway, there was this company called SCOUT that was super focused on extended missions. They used their investment to gather a bunch of people to send off to the edge of space—”

“Why?” Blake interrupted.

Ryann shrugged. “It was a combination science and art thing. They wanted to have human beings experience the actual journey outside of our solar system. Kind of like the Golden Record, but instead of being there for observation, they’re supposed to send back their feelings about the experiences they’ll have. Plus, it was a privatized company so their regulations were a bit more flexible. Which leads me to my next point.

“The reason I did my project on SCOUT was because it was super controversial. Privatized space companies have more flexibility, but they still have to follow general laws. For this mission, SCOUT seemed to be scraping the edge of every limit. Everyone who went had to be at least eighteen so they could personally make the choice to go legally, but young so they’d have around fifty years of mission time. And SCOUT picked only girls because they naturally have better longevity and also