“Quinn, let’s go!”

  Quinn flinched, stared down at the suitcase lying open on her bed. With the edge of her sleeve, she wiped the tears from her eyes; sniffed. Her air mask hummed in time with her uneven inhale.

  She shouldn’t have bothered to clean.

  It was all she could think as she stared at the neat space around her. Not what mattered the most, not what she needed that would fit in this suitcase. Just that, she’d known this was coming—and cleaned their room anyway.

  The ground shook under her feet, a suncatcher juddered against the window pane.

  “Quinn, damnit.” The door rattled as it hit the wall, Riley stomping into the room.

  Quinn glanced up at them.

  Over the hard edge of the mask, Riley’s eyes were furious—red rimmed, as if Quinn wasn’t the only one bothered by leaving their home behind.

  “You haven’t even started,” they snapped, words dull and flat behind the hard plastic of the mask. “We have to leave, can you get it together?”

  Quinn watched Riley’s jaw flex. She thought she heard a muttered, "Useless," but the tired whir of the air filters swallowed it.

  Shaking their head, Riley turned and strode out the way they came.

  Quinn sputtered a cough that could have been a choked sob, wiping her eyes again.

  “Coda, tell me again,” she rasped, reaching to tug the laundry basket closer.

  The android’s shoulders relaxed, body shifting to turn glowing green eyes on Quinn. “Global seismic activity began at 03:29 this morning. Timeline for volcanic disaster within expected variance. Mandatory evacuation has been issued for Solara-X2. Zone A evacuation 94% complete, Zone B to begin within the hour. Humans are to proceed to the nearest launch facility.”

  Coda delivered the information in a feminine monotone. Something about the no-nonsense of it grounded Quinn and she lifted the lid of her jewelry box. From it she took only her silver necklace with the moon and star; closed it on the solitaire engagement ring. She moved to tuck the necklace in a pocket of the suitcase, thought better of it, and put it on instead. She’d been wearing it the day they’d landed here.

  The ground shook again.

  Quinn stepped around Coda, the floor shivering beneath her feet, and pulled the suncatcher from the window. Tossing it into the suitcase, it landed on a green and blue patchwork sweater she’d folded—one of her favorites.

  “Do you think we’ll be back?” she asked the android softly, running her fingertips over the wall.

  She and Riley had fought over the paint color—they’d been doing a lot of that lately; fighting—before they’d finally settled on the soft sage it was now. Riley had used some plaster technique to stencil the wall with leaves and curling filigree.

  Quinn traced the raised edge of one of those leaves with a finger as the android said, “Rehabitation unlikely.”

  Shaking fingers snagged on the mask’s strap as she tried to run a hand through her hair. She rubbed at her eyes instead.

  “Have they said where we’ll end up?” Quinn asked, moving to the closet. Riley’s half was haphazard, like they’d rushed through and yanked things from the hangers. It was a mess of utility jumpsuits in practical colors, mostly browns and dark blues. They’d taken Quinn’s favorite: one the color of a pine forest that always made their hazel eyes look more green.

  Quinn picked through her side carefully.

  “Leadership has not announced the discovery of any new habitable planets,” Coda responded, stepping beside her to take the sky blue dress from her hands, folding it into her suitcase.

  The ground shook with a steady tremor under her feet. In the living room, something rattled and fell, shattering against the floor.

  Quinn frowned. Asked, “How bad will it be, you know, if I decide to stay?”

  Coda turned, green eyes dimming a little—though Quinn could have imagined it. “Projected eruption index exceeds VEI-8 parameters. Sulfur aerosols in the stratosphere will plunge the planet into a volcanic winter. Atmospheric ash dispersal will render the surface uninhabitable for approximately eighty-three years.”

  Shivering, Quinn ground her teeth together, returned to the closet.

  It was two weeks ago when the broadcast went out.

  “Heightened volcanic unrest detected; eruption likely within weeks. Elevated seismicity and deformation indicate magma is rising. Evacuation procedure to follow.”

  Coda had delivered it in her same, feminine monotone, after the emergency alert had gone off at dinner. The android hadn’t followed it up with anything, just remained perfectly still in her chair—as if she hadn’t just thrown the grenade that would break apart everything Quinn had ever wanted.

  Quinn was born on orbital station AIRA-3; a test tube baby, one in a class of forty. Growing up that way had been sterile, structured, but not lonely. Like everyone else, she’d read a lot growing up. When she finally aged out, she’d hoped for the opportunity to go somewhere planet-side.

  All she ever wanted was a solid planet beneath her feet, and to know the smell of rain, like it was described in fiction.

  Riley had almost been the wrench in those plans.

  Unlike Quinn, they’d grown up in a family unit. They had siblings and living parents. They’d fought her when Quinn had brought up the idea of going to Solara-X2 to be a part of the first colony, had even put it to a vote with their family, as if Quinn’s life was something they got to decide on. It almost broke them up.

  It had been five years, almost to the day, since they’d breathed real, unfiltered air for the first time. Riley’s hand in hers, they’d stepped from the ship and out into the rain. Quinn’s shoes had slipped a little at the end of the ramp, stopping only when they met wet earth. There had been so much love in Riley’s eyes when Quinn had screamed with joy, mouth open to the sky to catch raindrops on her tongue.

  When Coda had gone silent in her chair, green lights blinking on after the alarm faded away, Quinn had looked to Riley with tears in her eyes. She’d reached her hand across the table to take theirs. Only, Riley’s fist was white-knuckled around their fork, hazel eyes dark and narrowed.

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  “I told you this was a mistake,” they’d snarled before stomping away, slamming their bedroom door.

  Quinn looked at her suitcase, barely half full. It was the same suitcase she’d arrived with.

  For the life of her, Quinn couldn’t remember what she’d packed when she left AIRA-3—only that it had been her entire life, and somehow it hadn’t felt heavy then.

  How did she justify only taking that much of her life now? Looking around, it didn’t feel like enough.

  Out the window, ash was blocking out the light. Orange tails of evacuation transports were stark against the darkening sky.

  In her chest, her heart twisted.

  An alarm rang through Coda’s speakers, and Quinn jumped. The word WARNING flashed in red across Coda’s face display, a curved, black display screen that went from where a human’s hairline would be to chin.

  “Critical,” she said, tone more serious than Quinn had ever heard it, “atmospheric opacity at 85%. Launch window closing in two hours. Launch capacity for Solara-X2 is currently at 91% utilization."

  Gooseflesh rose along Quinn’s arms. There was pressure in the bridge of her nose that had nothing to do with the unrelenting hard press of the mask. She sniffed.

  “Coda, where is Riley?” she asked, rubbing her arms, eyes scanning the room.

  The android didn’t respond right away. Quinn glanced at her.

  “Riley exited the residence twelve minutes ago,” she said finally, green eyes seeming brighter now that the sky was darkening.

  Quinn’s mouth pressed into a firm line. She could only imagine Riley, outside, pacing in the yard, eyes dark and angry, glued to the ash in the sky.

  Finally, Quinn moved.

  She threw everything she felt was essential into her bag: hairbrush, toothbrush. And, other things that weren’t: a cool rock she’d found at a beach, a shell, a bit of bark with coin-sized holes in it. In a frame she’d preserved a bug whose carapace looked like melted wax and was the color of flame, and she tucked that carefully between layers of soft clothes.

  When she was done, when it felt like enough of her life was in her suitcase, she had to sit on it to close it.

  Stepping into the hall, she called for Riley.

  The house was quiet.

  Slowly, she moved from room to room, hand braced against the wall as the floor tremored.

  The house wasn’t big—a living room with an open kitchen, a bathroom, and a spare room they used as an office. Objects littered the floor from where they’d fallen off the shelves. The cabinets in the kitchen rattled on their hinges.

  Quinn looked to Coda, the android following her silently and carrying her suitcase with ease. “Where is Riley?”

  Coda’s eyes washed the white walls of the hallway in green. “Riley has not re-entered the residence.”

  Quinn turned to the edge of the living room where a wall separated their front hallway from the rest of the house. A book, fallen from a decorative table, lay open on the floor, pages stirring in a breeze.

  Murky light filtered in, a coat of dust darkening the tile.

  Reluctantly, Quinn stepped into the hallway. The front door was wide open, the wood knocking into the doorstop.

  She could see her hover bike, still where she parked it out front, key in the bowl by the door. It was covered in a dusting of ash.

  Riley’s bike was gone.

  Quinn didn’t move.

  She could ask Coda to check the cameras—to know before she really set eyes on the street if Riley was waiting there or not. Impatient, but there.

  Quinn couldn’t will her mouth to move.

  For long seconds she stood there, listening to the warning sirens bounce off the empty houses. Distantly she could hear rockets lifting away over the din of panicked voices, but it was all so far away.

  She did not hear her name. She did not hear boots on gravel, or the hiss of a mask.

  Riley had never forgiven her for dragging them here, no matter how many times she’d told them that they didn’t have to come. They’d only been dating for six months, Quinn didn’t want Riley to have any regrets.

  Was that why they’d left? They’d regretted coming planet side for her, and they didn’t want to regret getting stuck on it if Quinn made them miss the transport. Didn’t want to have to choose if Quinn decided to stay.

  Quinn wondered which day it had been—what was the morning that Riley woke up to sun streaming through the window, to Quinn on the bed next to them, and wished they’d never come here?

  Quinn rubbed at her chest, digging her knuckles into the place over her heart as if she could press the hurt back in.

  She felt their absence in the tight hinge of her jaw.

  “Launch window closing in one hour,” Coda said from behind her, volume low. “Launch capacity for Solara-X2, Zone 1 is at 96% utilization.”

  Quinn nodded.

  The android strapped her bag to the back of the bike while Quinn put her helmet on. Taking one last look around their home, she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. The mask hissed as she sucked in a breath.

  She could feel her heart breaking, knowing, by tomorrow, her home would be buried under ash.

  The ride to the launch facility was quiet aside from the warning sirens, Coda perched on the bike behind her. The roads were empty—already abandoned. Hover cars had been left on in the rush to leave, their lights illuminating the road where the timers of streetlights above hadn’t turned on. Equipment was scattered unceremoniously in fields and empty lots. Farming drones meandered through rows of crops, still working despite the disaster.

  It made her realize she’d forgotten to turn off and stow the drone that cleaned her floors. Something inside her twisted painfully. She knew the drones had no feelings, probably had no idea of the disaster that approached. Still, she felt guilty they would work until they were buried, or—if they survived it—they simply broke.

  A few half-built structures on each side of the road had already crumbled, unable to withstand the sway of the planet. A fire was slowly eating through a distant barn, no one left to put it out.

  Ash fell from the sky like snow.

  On her left, a row of similar looking homes, all painted in varying shades of pinks and reds, had belongings strewn in the yards, too inconsequential to carry. A child’s bike lay on its side. An umbrella clothesline, still racked with clothes, swung in a lazy circle, fabrics stained black.

  Finally, the evacuation transport was in front of her.

  A few people ran, androids and suitcases trailing. People were yelling, crying.

  Quinn abandoned her bike as close to the ship as she could get, stomach twisting as she got in line. Her eyes scanned the faces of the people she could see, looking for Riley.

  “Is Riley here,” she asked Coda, voice a rasp behind her mask.

  Coda scanned the crowd; scanned again.

  “Negative,” she said. “No one in visual field matches specifications.”

  Quinn pressed her knuckles into her eyes.

  The collective hum of masks inside the transport was loud in her ears. The ship creaked and groaned as the Solara-X2 shook beneath it. The woman beside her was breathing unsteadily into her mask, hands gripping the armrests hard.

  Quinn didn’t know what to say to her.

  With Coda stowed below with her suitcase, she felt strange; exposed. When she imagined doing this two weeks ago, she didn’t imagine doing it without Riley’s hand in hers.

  A wave of relief settled over her as the ship lifted into the ash-filled sky, the world around her still for the first time since hours earlier.

  A ding.

  “The cabin’s air has been effectively filtered. Please feel free to remove your air masks,” said a voice over the speakers. “Time to AIRA-3, seven hours and sixteen minutes.”

  Quinn peeled the mask from her face, rubbing at the place where it stuck to her nose. Leaning into the window, she pressed her forehead against the cool glass.

  In the distance, in the spot where the planet curved away into the horizon, ash rose in a thick column. Lightning glittered through the eruption cloud—beautiful and devastating all at once.

  Somewhere in the cargo hold below, the suncatcher lay buried in her suitcase, with the rest of her life, waiting for sunlight that might never reach it again.

  The sight blurred as tears filled her eyes, cutting through the ash caked on her face.

  With everything she had, she tried to remember the taste of summer rain on her tongue.