← Sleep Tight Stories - Bedtime Stories for Kids
Sleep Tight Stories - Bedtime Stories for Kids
The Transfer Student V3 - Part 15 🛸
00:22:54
An ongoing series featuring Red a transfer student from Mars.
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Hello, friends. Before we begin, there's a quick ad and then we'll get right to the story. It's the carefree days of summer, but we know it doesn't always feel that way for parents. You've scheduled the camps, booked the vacation, but what about all those other hours in the day? Meet Next Playground, the active game system where your body controls the play. Kid safe gaming means no ads in app purchases or mature content, and no online chats or friends you don't really know. Playground comes with five experiences ready to play, add play, pass, and unlock over 50 games, many with characters your kids already know and love. They even have an the Last Airbender game centered around the Earth Rumble tournament Practice rock bending while dinner bubbles in the crock pot to fill those long summer days with active play. Check out nextplayground.com that's nexplayground.com to learn more. Hello friends, and welcome to sleept Stories. Red and Blue are concerned about their mother, and now that Red has helped to solve the latest mystery at school, she has more time to focus on her mom. They have noticed a lot of unusual behaviors and realize she is not sick. When Blue uncovers their mom's Internet activity, it just raises more questions. They sit with their mother before bed, and she tries to act normal, but they both know there is something going on. The transfer student, Volume 3, Part 15 Red didn't know what to say, and despite saying that they needed to have some kind of conversation, her mother didn't appear to either. They just stood there in silence for what felt to Red like a really long time. Gone were the displays of data hanging in the air. The room was just as one would expect of some ordinary home office a small lamp, an old desk, a bookshelf with its mixture of English, science books, and carefully disguised Martian text. Red almost wondered if she imagined the whole thing. Except she hadn't. Mom looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep. Come on, she sighed. Let's go down to the kitchen. But let's try not to wake Blue. They went to the kitchen. Mom put the kettle on, which was what she did when she needed something to do with her hands. Red sat at the table and waited. A minute later, Blue appeared in the doorway in his pajamas, hair going in four directions, looking completely unsurprised to find them there. Mom looked at him for a moment, let out an audible sigh of defeat, and pulled out a third chair. It was going to be a family meeting. She stood at the counter while the kettle heated and chose her words the way she always did, carefully, precisely. Like a scientist who understood that the wrong measurement could invalidate everything. Three months ago, she said, I received a message from someone I used to work with on Mars. Her name is Dr. Yava Soren. She's one of the best atmospheric scientists our people have. I've known her for 20 years, and we have worked together a number of times. We technically aren't supposed to be able to communicate with Mars, but your father. Well, with his work with the aid, I wanted to make sure I could reach him, no matter where he might be. And honestly, despite all our talk about fitting in here on Earth, I still wanted a connection to our she paused. Our old home. Red waited. The message came through a channel that technically shouldn't exist anymore. It's old and was set aside a long time ago. Mom's mouth did something complicated, which tells you how seriously Yava took what she was sending, and how strange it felt to receive it. The kettle began to heat outside. The wind had picked up, moving through the trees, making that strange rustling noise, a sound Red had slowly gotten used to without ever quite liking. Yava sent me atmospheric readings, mom continued. From an old residential habitat on Mars. The readings showed environmental instability, pressure variance, atmospheric composition shifts. She paused. The kind of shifts that, if they continue on the trajectory Java's data suggests would make that habitat increasingly difficult to live in. How difficult? Blue said. It wasn't quite a question. She looked at him. Uninhabitable, she said quietly. Eventually the kettle began to whistle. Mom turned to take it off the heat, and Red sat very still at the kitchen table, thinking about the line she had read in the office earlier. If these numbers are right, we have maybe five years, which Red didn't think fit the definition of eventually. She knew eventually meant time. Five years wasn't very much time at all. Red watched her mother pour three mugs of tea, which under normal circumstances would have included a comment about Blue being too young for tea, but these were apparently not normal circumstances. Which habitat? Rhett asked. Sector 7, her mother replied. It's one of the older residential rings, not the largest, but significant. Approximately 40,000 people. Red knew sector seven the way she knew most of the habitat designations from school, from maps she'd studied, from the background knowledge that came from growing up on a planet where everyone understood the basic geography of survival. She hadn't known anyone there personally, but but 40,000 people was 40,000 people. So why haven't they fixed it? Blue asked. If the readings are bad, someone should be fixing it. That's exactly the problem, their mother said. According to the official reports from the Martian Habitat Authority, everything in Sector 7 is completely normal. No instability, no variance. All systems functioning within expected parameters. Blue frowned. So either Soren's wrong or. Or the official reports are wrong, their mother finished. Can't you just call someone? Blue asked. Like someone who actually lives there. Just ask them if everything seems fine. Their mother looked at him with an expression that was somewhere between sad and impressed. We can't contact Mars, Blue. Not through any normal channel. That's the whole point of the program. Complete separation. Did you think we could just dial Mars and someone would pick up? Red said. Blue stuck his tongue out at her. There is the secret channel, he said. Which Yava has already used, their mother said. And which I don't want to use again unless I have to. If someone is monitoring that channel, they'd know, red said. They'd know, their mother agreed. Blue wrapped both hands around his mug, the same way his mother always did, and stared into it, thinking. So we're stuck, he said. Their mother didn't answer, which was its own kind of answer. Their mother finally sat down at the table, wrapping her hands around her mug. The kitchen was quiet except for the wind outside and the sound of the refrigerator. It had taken Red a while to understand what that noise was when they first arrived on Earth. Refrigerators were noisy. Blue was still staring into his tea. The readings Soren sent, he said. Were they raw data, or had someone already processed them? Their mother looked at him. Processed? Why? Because if they were already processed, then someone touched them before they got to Sorin. Which means the problem could be bigger than one habitat. He paused. Or it means Soren only sent you part of what she has because she didn't trust the channel enough to send everything. Their mother was very still, almost like she was holding her breath. How do you know about processed atmospheric readings? Red asked him. Blue shrugged. I read a lot, Blue. Their mother's voice was gentle but serious. What exactly have you been reading? Your books, mostly. He said it like this was completely obvious. The ones on the shelf with the plain covers. I finished them a while ago. They were pretty interesting, actually. The one about pressure differential modeling was a bit slow in the middle, but the last section was really good. Their mother looked at Red. Red looked at their mother. Neither of them had anything useful to say about that. Okay, their mother said finally, in the tone of someone filing something away to deal with at a later date. To answer your question, you're right. Soren sent processed readings. I've Been trying to find raw, independent data to verify them for months. And you can't find any? Blue said. No. Blue nodded slowly, like this confirmed something he'd already been thinking about. He took a long sip of his tea. I might know where to look, he said. But you're probably not going to like it. Their mother twirled her mug around like Red had observed people doing whenever they were deep in thought, where she said just the one word. But the way she said it had about 15 questions inside it. The facility, blue said. The one from last year. The one under the forest. Their mother looked at Red. Red gave her the smallest nod. Yes, she knew about it. Yes, Blue knew, too. This was apparently a night for things that had been quietly understood to finally be said out loud. Their mother was quiet for a long moment. The monitoring systems in that facility, blue continued, are old Martian technology. Really old. Built before the lottery program, before the aid, before any of the official channels that currently exist. Which means they wouldn't route through any of the systems that someone might be watching. He paused. If they're still running. They were still running last year, red said carefully. Their mother stood up and went to the window. She stood there, looking out at the dark backyard, arms crossed, and Red recognized the posture. It was the one she used when she was thinking through something she didn't want to think through. If those systems still have atmospheric data from Mars, Blue said, it would be completely independent. Nobody could have touched it. Accessing that facility remotely would require going through systems you are absolutely not supposed to know how to access, their mother said without turning around. I know, blue said. And you're telling me you can do that? Blue twirled his mug around too. I. I'm telling you I might be able to do that. Their mother turned around and looked at her son for a long moment. Outside, the wind moved through the trees. How old are you again? She said. Ten, said Blue. But I read a lot. Their mother stood up and rinsed her mug at the sink. Get some sleep, she said. Both of you. We'll talk more in the morning. But Red started. Morning, their mother said in the tone that didn't leave much room for negotiation. Blue slid off his chair without complaint, which was either a sign of genuine tiredness or tactical wisdom. He padded toward the stairs in his socks, paused at the bottom. The facility monitoring systems, he said without turning around. I'm like 80% sure I can do that. Get some sleep, Blue, their mother said. 80% is really good, blue said, and disappeared upstairs. Red got up to follow him. She stopped at the kitchen doorway and looked back. Their mother was standing at the counter, filling the kettle again. Their eyes met. I'm okay, her mother said quietly. Red didn't say anything. She just nodded, went upstairs and got into bed, where she proceeded to stare at the ceiling, which she often did whenever she tried to understand something as important as what they just discussed. 40,000 people, she whispered. She knew the habitat designations the way she knew most things about Mars, as information, as geography, as facts you absorbed growing up somewhere without really thinking about them. Sector 7 had just been a name on a map, a designation in a textbook, the kind of thing you needed to know for an exam and then filed away. It didn't feel like that anymore. 40,000 people going about their lives right now, sleeping probably given the time difference, getting up for work, arguing with their kids about something, preparing breakfast. Not knowing that somewhere on Earth a tired scientist was losing sleep over a set of numbers that didn't match the official story. Not knowing that anyone was paying attention. Red turned over and looked at the wall. Through it she could hear absolutely nothing from Blue's room, which either meant he was asleep or thinking so hard it had gone quiet. She thought about her mother standing at the counter, filling the kettle again. Red pulled her blanket up. She didn't know if that was true. She didn't know if the numbers were as bad as they looked. She didn't know if Blue's 80% was going to be enough, or what happened if it wasn't. She knew 40,000 people. She knew five years. She knew her mother hadn't been sleeping outside. A car went past, its headlights briefly crossing her ceiling and disappearing. The refrigerator hummed downstairs. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked once and went quiet. Normal Earth sounds. Red closed her eyes and listened to them for a while. Eventually, without really deciding to, she fell asleep. Red came downstairs the next morning to the smell of honey cakes. She stood in the kitchen doorway for a moment, just breathing it in. Honey cakes meant Mars. They meant their mother's kitchen back home and Saturday mornings before everything changed and the particular kind of comfort that only came from something that belonged entirely to where you were from. And this time they were homemade. Blue was already at the table, working through a stack with his usual focus. He looked up when Red came in and they exchanged a look that said everything without saying anything at all. Their mother set a plate in front of Red. Without being asked. They ate. The refrigerator hummed. Outside, the early morning sounds of the neighborhood were starting up. A car, someone's dog, the distant rumble of some truck on the main road. Nobody said anything about the night before. Nobody said anything about Sector 7 or Dr. Soren or facility monitoring systems or 80%. They just ate honey cakes and let the silence sit between them like a fourth person at the table, the way silences did when everyone was thinking about the same thing and nobody quite knew how to start. Then their mother's tablet, sitting face down on the counter, buzzed once. She didn't move immediately, just looked at buzzed again. Their mother picked it up, read whatever was on the screen. Red watched her face do the thing it had done the night before in the office, that careful stillness, like someone making sure nothing showed. She set the tablet down on the table so Red and Blue could see one new message, the same channel as before from Soren. Four words they know. Leave now. And that is the end of this part. Good night, sleep tight.