1. CHAPTER 1

The sound of the thick piece of gum hit the trash bin with a bing. The last thing I wanted was to look like I had no tact at all, and sitting here smacking on gum like a damn camel was not the first impression I wanted to make. My hands shook, but thankfully, I could hide them from the camera. I took a deep breath sucking in the warm air and then exhaling again, and then I did it again. Okay, I'm freaking nervous, maybe the most nervous I've ever been. I daydreamed about my acceptance and how it would launch some sort of grand career among the stars. I snapped back to the reality of my tiny bedroom and turned on the camera to begin.

"Hi, my name is Caspian Storm. I'm nineteen years old and a recent college dropout." I breathed in and out. "The reason I left college was because… well… you're told throughout high school that you must keep going to school, even if you don't know what you want to do, that you will find out who you are if you keep going. Well, that didn't happen. And with everything done by Androids... The only thing I would get out of going to school is thousands of dollars worth of debt and not even a job flipping burgers. But I want to do this. When I heard about Outer Worlds, I knew this was for me. I hate this planet anyway, and only scientists and doctors can go to Mars. I want to make history, too. I know it sounds so dumb; it's not coming out right."

It looks like I've already flubbed this up big time, but maybe there was a chance they would fall in love with my innocent charm and nervous tick? Perhaps they would view me as authentic? That's it, authentic was a seller now. The craze of fake plastic smiles was at an end. People wanted to see what was real and what I gave them was real.

Let's continue, shall we?

"I guess I want to say there isn't anything here for me. But there, the possibilities are endless! I'm good at organizing, and I'm a writer. I plan to record all my experiences for the future. I'm also a fast learner. If the ability to survive is what you want. I know how to hunt, fish, set up a camp, cook outdoors, and gut animals. My dad taught me before his death."

Oh God, I think I wanted to vomit. I turned off the recording and rummaged through my folder for some of my old hunting and campfire footage. This vid was gonna need a lot of editing to make it presentable,

"Urgh." Jolie entered my room. The juicy crunch of the tart apple she bit into sent my stomach into a frenzy; I hadn't eaten in hours. Jolie was my older sister, older and, dare I say it, the better version of myself. She was twenty-three, and she graduated from university with a major in nursing with plans to hightail it to medical school. She had perfect grades, perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect everything. I guess, more accurately put, I was the imperfect version of her, and I hated admitting it.

Mom was so proud of Jolie and always let her know it… but with me? Every little mistake may as well have been announced to the world on a loudspeaker. In a sense, that's just how it was, except it was done through social media. Yeah, my mom always framed her vids as her being the doting mom to her screw-up son; she got a lot of sympathy for it and made some extra money on the side. When I was a kid and didn't know any better, I helped her with her videos. Or more like I just did as I was told, like spill my juice on the carpet so she could ‘catch' me trying to hide it from her. Or hit another kid so she could deal with her unruly son at school, who was starting fights with the other kids.

My role was that of the bratty little brother who had to annoy his big, studious sister.

I didn't stand a chance.

I don't even know why I'm recording this portion of the story. Perhaps it gives me some solace to remember what my life was like before the shit hit the fan?

Anyway, my sister was already being scouted by SpaceZero, one of the chosen few who get to live on Mars. She was thinking about it; the fact that she could think about it made me wanna scream.

Outer Worlds was a new space program developed by a group of billionaires who wanted to colonize a newly discovered habitable planet with a future focus on space exploration. Unlike SpaceZero, you could be a regular person and get to space through Outer Worlds, so long as you were young and fit.

"Outer Worlds aren't going to pick you; I hope you know that," Jolie said, taking another bite of her apple.

"How the hell would you know?!" I replied, already annoyed by her presence.

"They said they want the best and brightest, not a dropout."

"They also said they want ages seventeen to thirty-five. I doubt they are expecting everyone to be a college grad." I rolled my eyes and continued to splice away at the footage, this time tapping my finger harder on the keys than before, like it was some telepathic link to let my sister know how angry she was making me. "Why are you here?" Yeah, might as well go for the jugular. Although I doubt that line of questioning can be considered going for the jugular, whatever, it still made me feel good.

"Mom is giving you one last time to re-enroll. Just pick any major and make her proud instead of banking on being one of the five hundred thousand chosen for a stupid colony."

She was the one to talk.

"Is mom gonna pay for my education like she's doing yours?" That was a loaded question.

"You know she and Dad only saved up enough for me."

"Liar. When I got too old to play the part of the unruly brat son Mom milked for social media credits, she used my school money to move us around all over the damn place after Dad's death. She couldn't bear touching your precious college money."

She knew what I was doing, throwing up the fact that she was Mom's favorite in her face.

"Dad was alive and well while Mom was doing that social media thing, and he didn't do anything to stop it. But you still praise him while hating Mom."

"I don't praise him. He's just not here to hate."

"Or you feel guilty for what you did to cause his death."

"Get out."

"Fine." Jolie waved her hand dismissively and left the room.

Now you see and understand why I needed to get the hell out of here. Can you imagine having the same conversations with the same people repeatedly, resolving nothing?

You either give in to their demands, or you put your foot down like an unmovable tree. No quarter and no compromise. One day, you wake up and realize that your entire life has been a compromise; just compromising for everyone else!

And I couldn"t take it anymore…how both mom and Jolie blamed me for Dad"s death…I guess it was my fault…I just needed to get away.

Okay, let me relax and breathe in.

Fuck it, I'm sending the footage I have and hope for the best. Yay for good old self-sabotage. I didn't expect to be chosen, anyway.

I might as well jump-kick this story ahead, as nothing special happened in the weeks following my sending off my application to Outer Worlds. Did I even explain what Outer Worlds was or is?

Several years ago, the Gen Ten, short for Generation Ten, discovered how to create FTL space travel. The Gen Ten are a group of androids created by a company called Synthetic Life. The Gen Ten's function as a super-intelligent AI was to help solve mankind's problems, like curing cancers and prolonging our life span, yadda yadda. However, only the rich benefited from their discoveries. Occasionally, the benefit trickled down to the little people.

Like the discovery of Faster Than Light space travel, you wouldn't believe the new companies that rose to take advantage, but so far, most of them were private space corps, which specialized in mining asteroids, and SpaceZero, which realized its dream of total Mars colonization.

Outer Worlds was one of the companies that sprung up almost overnight, announcing the discovery of a habitable planet several light years away from Earth with breathable air, water, and everything. Not only did they discover this planet, but they also wanted to colonize it. Fast forward about ten years later, the company announced the creation of Eden's Prime colony; yeah, I think they ripped that straight from some old video game. They already had Androids on the planet building the colony, and now they were ready for the first five hundred thousand settlers, and I wanted to become one of them.

Anything was better than sitting in this house yelling at my controlling mother.

"No! Leave me alone! I've already packed my bags!" I said, trying to sound tougher than I was. The truth was, I was scared out of my mind, but my mother had laid down an ultimatum, and I had no choice but to plant my feet on the ground. The ultimatum was: Enroll in school or get out.

"And where the hell do you expect to sleep? Huh? A shelter?!" She replied, probably wasn't expecting me to pack up my shit. It's not like I didn't already have my suitcase packed full of clothes. Since my dad's death ten years ago, all we did was move around, never staying in one place for more than a few months or, if I was lucky, one year before we were packed up and heading elsewhere. Now we were back in North Carolina, and she just became this college-obsessed sycophant.

"It's better than doing what you want!" True, I think I'd slit my wrist if I had to sit in some boring classroom listening to some professor rattle off at the mouth about social issues.

I slammed my door in her face. It was a bit too harsh of a move there, but I was angry. I was already thinking of apologizing for that one. When I left my room, my mom was slipping on her jacket.

"I need to get the hell out of here and take care of a few things," she sighed. "When I return from the store, I hope you've developed some common sense, Caspian."

"Yeah, I don't think so." I folded my arms, being as stubborn as ever. There goes my apology. I returned to my room to do what I had been doing for the past few weeks: watch videos, see what my favorite live streamer was up to, and click around the Outer World's site, hoping they got my application. Yeah, I still had hope, don't know why. But my jaw dropped when I saw the notice posted on the site's front page.

"We're happy to announce that Outer Worlds had over one million applications, and we sent acceptance and rejection letters to everyone who applied. We wanted this to be personal and private. We didn't want to leave anyone in the dark. Please be assured—"

What?! Yeah, it shocked me. If they sent mail to everyone, then how come I got nothing from them… unless they were full of shit.

I checked the vid upload site and noticed the string of videos titled: "I got in!"

"Going to space, baby!"

"Bad news guys…"

Oh God!

I ran to the front door. The thumbnail to some of the good vids showed a large package. I checked the bushes, but nothing.

Goddamnit, I swear if I saw my mail in Mom's room, I was gonna flip… that's what I thought.

Sure, enough, the package titled Outer Worlds in large purple and teal text was right under my mother's bed. The damn thing was opened too. Fuck an apology. This was no mercy, no quarter given.

I quickly ran to my room and tore through the damn thing, and read off the little letter in the folder.

"Dear Caspian Storm, thank you so much for sending your application for our Outer World's program. We are all about making the impossible possible, and we strive to choose those who dream big. We regret to inform you…"

Motherfucker!

Pain, all I knew was fucking pain… I didn't know why I cared. I mean, I wouldn't get in. Even so, there was a part of me that imagined my packed bags were because they would accept me. Now, where the hell was I supposed to go, a fucking shelter?!

I left the letter on the kitchen table, a message to Mom that I knew what she had done. The next morning, it was gone, and neither Mom nor Jolie said a word to me for hours until…

"You're better off." Jolie just had to say something. "Outer Worlds seem shady at best. I mean, they just discovered some habitable planet and are already trying to send people to live there? What about research? It seems like they are only trying to make history."

"Shut up and stop making sense," I grumbled. "But you know what? Who cares if they're trying to make history? History is made by those who take chances." That was a slogan by one of those mining corporations.

"I think---" Mother was about to say something while coming downstairs after her obvious eavesdropping.

"I don't care what you think." I shot back, not at all apologetic. "You hid my mail from me and opened it too. You have no respect for my privacy."

"I'll respect your privacy when you make better decisions." She sighed. "I've decided that we're better off moving again."

"What?! Why?" I asked, not as surprised as I had come across. "You said this was the last time."

"I know what I said." My mother looked haggard. "I thought a friend would be able to help us out, but it seems as if she can't, so we should leave. It would have been nice to see you enroll in your future, but maybe not here…"

Enrolling in your future… The slogan of the University corporations.

I sighed, got up from the couch, and grabbed my bags, which were already parked at the front door.

"I have good news," I said as smugly as possible. Jolie ate her gelato as if she was expecting some stupid shit to pour out of my mouth, and she was right to expect it. "It turns out Outer Worlds made a mistake with my application. I spoke to them on my account, and they said I was in, so I won't be sleeping in some homeless shelter tonight or moving away to wherever you want to go now. I'll be sleeping on the bus to Iowa."

"You're not going!" My mom exclaimed.

"Watch me," I said calmly and grabbed my roller luggage.

"You're lying your ass off." Jolie chimed in with a chuckle. "Just let him leave. He's probably spending the night at a friend's house."

"Okay, have fun in outer space." Mom laughed and waved goodbye, but behind her cheerful smile was a flash of concern. She hid her emotions well, but not well enough.

Neither of them believed me, and they were right because I was lying my ass off. But you're gonna find out real soon that when I lie, I pretty much commit to the lie to the point of delusion.

So, I headed straight to the bus station.