Across the Universe

Across the Universe

Book 1 in the New York Times bestselling trilogy, perfect for fans of Battlestar Gallactica and Prometheus! WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO SURVIVE ABOARD A SPACESHIP FUELED BY LIES? Amy is a cryogenically frozen passenger aboard the spaceship Godspeed. She has left her boyfriend, friends--and planet--behind to join her parents as a member of Project Ark Ship. Amy and her parents believe they will wake on a new planet, Centauri-Earth, three hundred years in the future. But fifty years before Godspeed' s scheduled landing, cryo chamber 42 is mysteriously unplugged, and Amy is violently woken from her frozen slumber. Someone tried to murder her. Now, Amy is caught inside an enclosed world where nothing makes sense. Godspeed's 2,312 passengers have forfeited all control to Eldest, a tyrannical and frightening leader. And Elder, Eldest's rebellious teenage heir, is both fascinated with Amy and eager to discover whether he has what it takes to lead. Amy desperately wants to trust Elder. But should she put her faith in a boy who has never seen life outside the ship's cold metal walls? All Amy knows is that she and Elder must race to unlock Godspeed 's hidden secrets before whoever woke her tries to kill again. "Entirely original, deeply compelling, and totally unputdownable--I've found a new favorite!" --Carrie Ryan,  New York Times  bestselling author of  The Forest of Hands and Teeth "A murder mystery, a budding romance, and a dystopian world gracefully integrated into a sci-fi novel that blows away all expectation." --Melissa Marr,  New York Times  bestselling author of  Wicked Lovely "A horrifying and deliciously claustrophobic masterpiece that's part sci-fi, part dystopian, and entirely brilliant." --Kiersten White,  New York Times  bestselling author of  Paranormalcy  and  Supernaturally Beth Revis lives in rural North Carolina with her husband and dog, and believes space is nowhere near the final frontier. Across the Universe is her first novel. 1 A m y Daddy said, "Let Mom go first." Mom wanted me to go first. I think it was because she was afraid that after they were contained and frozen, I'd walk away, return to life rather than consign myself to that cold, clear box. But Daddy insisted. "Amy needs to see what it's like. You go first, let her watch. Then she can go and I'll be with her. I'll go last." "You go first," Mom said. "I'll go last." But the long and the short of it is that you have to be naked, and neither of them wanted me to see either of them naked (not like I wanted to see them in all their nude glory, gross), but given the choice, it'd be best for Mom to go first, since we had the same parts and all. She looked so skinny after she undressed. Her collarbone stood out more; her skin had that rice-paper-thin, over-moisturized consistency old people's skin has. Her stomach—a part of her she always kept hidden under clothes—sagged in a wrinkly sort of way that made her look even more vulnerable and weak. The men who worked in the lab seemed uninterested in my mother's nudity, just as they were impartial to my and my father's presence. They helped her lie down in the clear cryo box. It would have looked like a coffin, but coffins have pillows and look a lot more comfortable. This looked more like a shoebox. "It's cold," Mom said. Her pale white skin pressed flat against the bottom of the box. "You won't feel it," the first worker grunted. His nametag said Ed. I looked away as the other worker, Hassan, pierced Mom's skin with the IV needles. One in her left arm, hooked up at the crease of her inner elbow; one in her right hand, protruding from that big vein below her knuckles. "Relax," Ed said. It was an order, not a kind suggestion. Mom bit her lip. The stuff in the IV bag did not flow like water. It rolled like honey. Hassan squeezed the bag, forcing it down the IV faster. It was sky blue, like the blue of the cornflowers Jason had given me at prom. My mom hissed in pain. Ed removed a yellow plastic clamp on the empty IV in her elbow. A backflow of bright red blood shot through the IV, pouring into the bag. Mom's eyes filled with water. The blue goo from the other IV glowed, a soft sparkle of sky shining through my mother's veins as the goo traveled up her arm. "Gotta wait for it to hit the heart," Ed said, glancing at us. Daddy clenched his fists, his eyes boring into my mom. Her eyes were clamped shut, two hot tears dangling on her lashes. Hassan squeezed the bag of blue goo again. A line of blood trickled from under Mom's teeth where she was biting her lip. "This stuff, it's what makes the freezing work." Ed spoke in a conversational tone, like a baker talking about how yeast makes bread rise. "Without it, little ice crystals form in the cells and split open the cell walls. This stuff makes the cell walls stronger, see? Ice don't break 'em." He glanced down at Mom. "Hurts like a bitch going in, though." Her face was pale, and she was lying in that box, and she wasn't