Project SUN

The first thing I felt wasn’t the bed or the air; it was the static. It was loud behind my eyes like a thousand broken radio stations, screaming my own name back at me until my brain finally clicked into place. Mercury. Age 11. 

I bolted upright, my breath coming in jagged, shallow stabs. “Mercury? That’s not my name. My name’s… my name is—why can’t I remember?”The room was a blinding, clinical white—the kind of white that feels like it’s trying to scrub your eyeballs clean.

"She’s glitching again," a voice groaned.

My panic surged, and the small glowing light at the base of my skull flared hot. Suddenly, the sterile silence was gone. The drawing table screeched six inches across the tile. A half-colored picture of a tree ripped itself off the wall. My stuffed rabbit, Peanut, shot into the air like he’d been launched from a cannon.

"Hey! Watch the ears, glitch-bot!"

A clump of grit hit me square in the forehead. I blinked, my vision finally clearing. Mars was leaning against the opposite bunk, his orange tracksuit rumpled. He was tossing a ball of compressed sand up and down, his eyes narrowed. "You’re vibrating the floorboards, Mercury. Can you not wreck the room for five seconds?”

"I... I don't..." I stammered, but my telekinetic grip only tightened. The metal bolts in the bunk beds began to hum a low, dangerous note.

"Leave her alone, Mars." A shadow fell over my bed. Jupiter stepped between us, his movements smooth and heavy. He looked like he’d been awake for years, while I still felt like I was made of wet cardboard. "She just came online. Give her a second to find her feet."

"She’s gonna find her feet under the floorboards if she doesn't calm down," Mars snapped, the sand in his palm swirling into a miniature cyclone. "Control your Spark, kid, or I’ll bury that glowing head of yours in a dune."

I tried to find my words, but my head was still a flat line. I didn't recognize these faces, yet I somehow knew their names—like the information had been downloaded into my brain while I slept. I reached out, my fingers grasping at the air as if I could catch the questions floating in my mind, but I never got the chance to speak.

Jupiter moved faster than a breath. With a low growl, he pinned Mars against the white wall, one hand pressed hard against Mars’s chest to keep him back, and another on his cheek to keep him from running his mouth. The sudden movement sent a wave of toxic ozone—the sharp, metallic scent of a coming storm—straight to my nose.

I flinched, reaching up to cover my face, and that’s when I saw it. A silver sleeve. I was wearing a tracksuit, just like the boys. I didn't remember putting it on. I looked down at my chest and saw the small, stitched emblem of the planet Mercury near my heart. I wasn't just a girl; I was a unit. A unit that didn’t remember her last name—or her first, for that matter. The fabric felt unfamiliar against my skin, like it belonged to someone else.

“Let go of me, you—you jerk!” Mars struggled, his yell muffled against Jupiter’s grip. He fought to break free, but the age gap was obvious; Jupiter didn’t even budge. Mars’s shouting yanked me out of my spiral.

“You’re ridiculous,” Jupiter scoffed under his breath. He finally let go, giving Mars one last playful shove to the side of his head. As Jupiter’s hands fell tiredly away, the objects I had accidentally lifted began to drift back down to the floor like slow-motion rain.

A cold chill suddenly filled the room, as if someone had blasted the AC. I shivered, watching a stray gust of wind swirl through the ward. It tossed my hair into my face and rattled the drawing paper on the table, but Jupiter didn't even blink. The air seemed to circle him, hugging his dark tracksuit like a living thing at his disposal.

I looked down at my own sleeve, the fabric a shimmering, polished silver. Mercury. I traced the planet emblem with my thumb.

Why Mercury? The name felt cold in my mouth, like it belonged to someone else. The thought was cut short by a heavy, rhythmic thud from the hallway.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The room went deathly silent. Mars’s sand stopped swirling, and even the wind around Jupiter died into a flat, terrifying calm.

The footsteps grew heavier, each thud echoing with a rhythmic, robotic precision. They were too steady, too calm—the sound of someone who was never in a hurry because he was always in control. I looked at Jupiter and Mars; the fire had completely gone out of them. We weren't just similar in our tracksuits; we were identical in our fear.

The door didn't just open; it hissed, sliding into the wall with a mechanical sigh. A man stepped into the light. He wore a crisp, white scientist’s coat that looked like it had never been touched by a speck of dust.

Father. The word felt forced into my throat. He was our dad, or that’s what the files told me, but there was no warmth in his gaze. His eyes were like camera lenses, adjusting as they swept our small circle of bunks.

“Good morning, children,” he said. His voice was perfectly smooth, like a recording played on a loop. He tilted his head, scanning the room with a slight, artificial frown. “Oh? Only the three of you? I was certain the others were scheduled to be moved here by now. I suppose the transport from the other Wing is running... behind schedule.”

He stepped further into the room, and I noticed it then—he didn't breathe. His chest didn't move, and the air around him didn't carry a scent. He just smelled like cold, sterile plastic.

He turned his gaze toward me, the silver of my tracksuit reflecting in his dark pupils. “Mercury. You’ve finally joined the waking world. Do tell me... can you still feel the light behind your eyes, or did the reboot fry your synapses?”

My heart ran cold, an unexpected wave of fear washing over me. I hadn't been scared a moment ago, but now I was frozen. I reached for my words, but they had fallen into an empty pit in my stomach. Beside me, a plastic chair began to rise. It didn't drift smoothly like the things before; it wobbled and spun in a frantic, lopsided circle, mimicking the mess inside my head.

“Reboot...?” I managed to whisper. The word was shaky, barely escaping my throat.

Father’s eyes shifted, his pupils dilating with a mechanical click that made me feel like I’d committed a crime just by breathing. Before I could spiral and send every chair in the room flying, a hand landed on my shoulder.

It was heavy—Jupiter. He was trying to pull me back down to earth, his grip firm but surprisingly gentle, nothing like the way he had handled Mars.

“She was able to tell what color her suit was,” Jupiter said, his voice cutting through the silence. He sounded confident, but he kept his head slightly bowed—a careful balance of protection and respect. “I’m guessing her synapses are fine, Father.”

Father’s gaze lingered on the spinning chair for a heartbeat before it clattered back to the floor. “Very well. Performance is the only metric that matters. Follow me. The others have already begun their morning calibration in the East Wing. It is time the planets were aligned.”

He turned on his heel with a precision that was too perfect to be human. Mars scrambled to his feet, the sand around his boots settling instantly. Jupiter gave my shoulder one last supportive squeeze before nudging me toward the door.

I stepped out into the hallway, my silver sleeves reflecting the endless, flickering fluorescent lights. We were moving. Somewhere behind those heavy metal doors, the rest of the solar system was waiting.

As we stepped out of the suffocating room and into the wide hallway, I let out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding. The air out here was unnaturally clean—sterile and cold, as if no one had ever actually lived in these halls. There were so many identical doors that I knew I’d be lost in seconds if I were alone.

My eyes drifted to the massive glass windows lining the corridor, and I nearly tripped. The view was unreal. The sky was a piercing, clear blue that faded into a deep, velvet indigo, dotted with stars so bright they looked like they were burning. It was so beautiful it felt like a dream, or a trick. I was so lost in the sight that I didn't notice the group had stopped until I bumped right into Jupiter’s shoulder.

We had reached the East Wing.

Father swiped a translucent card, and the heavy doors hissed open to a room that actually looked like it was made for people. There were splashes of color on the walls, shelves of toys, and piles of drawings scattered on low tables. But my attention went straight to the five kids standing in the center of the room.

My head stung—that sharp, digital ping.

Venus. Earth. Saturn. Uranus. Neptune.

I had never seen their faces, but my brain recognized them instantly, like pieces of a puzzle finally clicking together. I looked at the girl huddling near the back, her fingers tracing a line of frost along a tabletop—Uranus. Beside her, a boy was staring at the floor as if he could see through it, and for a second, his body flickered, turning almost transparent. Neptune.

The planets were all here. Mercury—the first planet, and somehow the last one they needed.This wasn’t a home. It was a countdown, and I had just hit zero.