The Unwinding House and Other Stories

by Jared Millet

  “This is bullshit,” I say to no one in particular. “It doesn’t take this long. Are they playing it up for the cameras, or are they really that incompetent?”

  “Vee,” says Amber, “it’s okay. Calm down.” She tries to hold my hand, but I jerk away.

  “What is wrong with all of you? I’m not some fragile little doll!”

  Even Johnny turns to look. Izzy and Amber inch away, but I know they’re only regrouping for another attack. I take a breath and try to regain control.

  “I’ll be all right if you guys stop badgering me.”

  “Cancel the show,” says Johnny. “Christ, I’ll do it myself.” He gets up, but I shove him back into his seat.

  “Just watch the stupid broadcast,” I tell him. “It’s all you care about anyway.”

  “Screw you.” His retort is half-hearted. Amber closes her eyes and Izzy crosses his arms. On the screen, the airlock hatch swings open. I bite my knuckles hard enough to leave a mark.

  At least I’m not cold any more. I’m seething. Why can’t my so-called friends keep their pity to themselves? Do they think that it helps? Or do they want me to break down in a lump of raw nerves? Would that make them happy? I reach past Johnny’s head to turn up the volume.

  “The airlock is now open,” says the idiot announcer. “Rescue Officer Wood will be the first to enter. Once he and Officer Chou are inside, they’ll have to close the outer hatch and repressurize the inner chamber.”

  “Oh come on!” I yell at the screen. “We live on the Moon! We know how an airlock works! What, are you being paid by the word? If you don’t have anything better to say, then shut up!”

  Izzy puts his arms around me from behind as I continue to shout at the screen. “Just shut up! Why can’t everyone shut up?”

  ~

  I first met Israel Delane in sixth grade, but back then he went by ‘Easy,’ not Izzy. Papa had enrolled me in the advanced placement program at Copernicus, and Easy’s parents were water-mining technicians who’d just transferred from Clavius.

  It was the first time either of us had been to Copernicus Dome. I remember marveling at the artificial sky and the real grass in the schoolyard. Easy and I spotted each other soon enough. We were the only ones who didn’t take our surroundings for granted.

  As soon as we started hanging out, I mentioned my guitar and Easy revealed that his father had a collection of drums from Africa, Indonesia, and Central America. Whenever his parents were away, Easy snuck some out of storage to practice.

  We compared tastes. I was into 2030’s New Retro, he was into reggae. I liked the blues and he liked baroque. I wished more than anything to go back and meet Jimmy Page, and Easy practically worshiped John Bonham.

  The conclusion was inevitable. We had to form a band. My hab would have offered more privacy but Easy wasn’t allowed to take the drums out of the house. We had no choice but to rehearse at his place.

  Easy’s hab was a lot bigger than mine. Instead of a tube tunneled out of rock, his house was an inflated dome half-buried in the lunar surface. The inside was decorated with throws and wall-hangings in orange, green, red, and brown. Displayed prominently was a very old chiseled wood statue from the Caribbean.

  The first time I went over, Easy’s parents were there. His mother greeted me with a smile and said, “Bringing girls home already, is he?”

  I felt myself blush.

  “I hear you’ve got a guitar,” said his dad. “How do you play without an amp?”

  “It’s got a built-in transmitter. My uncle wrote an app to route it through the speakers on our holoset. Is it okay if I download it to your system?”

  He nodded. As soon as the app was installed, I played Papa’s favorite: a song by Jimi Hendrix called “Little Wing.” Papa first heard it when I was exploring the SolNet music archive. I always thought the words were too dreamy, especially the bit about “butterflies, zebras, and moonbeams,” but for some reason Papa loved it. He even went so far as fabricating a set of butterfly and zebra decals for my sleeping nook. I liked the song too, but for its bittersweet melody, not the sappy sentiment.

  I botched it horribly. It was the first time I’d ever played for anyone except Anton or Papa and I was nervous. Still, Easy’s parents took pity on me and applauded when I was done. Then, with his parents’ blessing, Easy and I secluded ourselves in his father’s office and proceeded to make some of the most horrible noises ever heard on the lunar surface.

  Pretty soon, Easy and I discovered that despite our burgeoning musical talents, neither of us could sing. Also, we lacked a bass player. Easy said he’d see if anyone he knew wanted to learn, and I asked Uncle Anton to keep an eye out for a bass while hunting through the Dump. Papa suggested that we have the computer extrapolate a bass line for us, and I suggested he stuff it. We weren’t going to use a computer at all. That was the point. I was eleven years old and my new obsession had become the most important thing in the world.

  How quickly things changed.

  ~

  Four months into our collaboration, Easy’s dad agreed to let him bring his drums over to my place. I think he relented to give Easy’s mother a break from our daily racket. Since Papa was away and Anton was at work, we had my hab to ourselves. We were in the middle of an early 2040’s Jackabilly song when a tremor shook the whole module.

  We stopped playing immediately. It was a reflex that had been drilled into us as soon as we learned to crawl: if you hear or feel something strange, stop what you’re doing and listen for a leak. The hab’s safety seals didn’t engage and the atmosphere lights registered green, but still I had to remind myself to breathe. That tremor was just like the one when I was two, and my eyes swam with the sudden memory of Mama pushing me through a pressure hatch.

  Easy shook me back to the present.

  “What was that?” he asked. I checked SolNet, but it only gave a warning to stay where we were and monitor our safety systems. I punched the test code and didn’t relax until the computer verified that we were secure.

  Another tremor rattled the walls. Our warning lights flashed red and switched back to green. Easy’s eyes grew wide. I went to the door and set the emergency lock, just to be safe. Easy put away his drums and I turned on the newsfeed.

  It was fifteen minutes before the news had anything to report, and even then it was just that a living module had collapsed. That didn’t make sense – unless the collapse was nearby, we shouldn’t have been able to feel it. And what had the second tremor been? The reporters filled the time by taking calls from all over Copernicus.

  We watched for at least an hour until the screen flicked over to an incoming call and Uncle Anton’s face appeared. He was in his spacesuit, but he hadn’t put his helmet on yet.

  “Venera, how are you? Everything okay?”

  “Fine. Easy’s here and the hab is sealed.”

  “That’s good. I’m going to be late, da? Tell your friend to stay there. Have something to eat. I’ll check back pozdno.”

  He signed off, and I worried. Anton’s accent always got thick when there was trouble, and that was the thickest I’d ever heard. The news flipped back in time for a reporter to announce that they hadn’t been able to reach anyone from several sections of the city.

  “Maybe you should call your Mom,” I said. “Let her know you’re all right.”

  Easy tried, but his mother didn’t answer.

  The hours dragged. We tried Easy’s mother and his father as well. We were able to reach the building where his father worked, but no one knew where he was. We also called a few of our friends before Lunar Admin shut down all non-essential communication.

  The reporters on the newsfeed pieced together as much of the story as they could. By evening they had established that the damaged area included portions of the northern district, several of the Species Preservation Center’s biomes, and the wing of luxury housing units where Easy’s family lived.

  Despite my unspoken fears, it wasn’t a mercy bombing this time. A s
huttle technician named Akiko Takahama had committed suicide by disabling the security lockdowns in her hab and using a mining charge to void her living module into space. From what they could determine, she’d had no idea that her module’s implosion would set off a chain reaction, or that in disabling her own security protocols she’d inadvertently deactivated those of her entire block.

  I tried to reach Uncle Anton, but security blocked all calls. I told Easy he could stay the night. He nodded, but didn’t say anything. He never left the couch and neither did I. When he was too tired to sit up any more, I lay down beside him and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. I think he cried most of the night. I didn’t, but neither did I sleep. Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw Mama.

  In the morning, Easy’s father came for him. I didn’t ask whether Mrs. Delane was all right. I could see the answer in the way the skin hung on his face. He didn’t say much except to thank me for keeping his son company. Easy hugged me before stepping out the door and I gave him a kiss on the cheek. Then I closed the hatch and waited for my uncle to come home.

  He never did.

  ~

  Paolo Martin, our newly appointed sound man, steps into the lounge to announce that they’ve started letting people into the hall. It isn’t enough to distract me from the news. The two rescue officers have repressurized the airlock, but the radiation readings inside the Orpheus are at lethal levels. Izzy squeezes my shoulder.

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” I say. “Those outer filters get bombarded all the time on Earth landings. That’s why they keep the airlock system separate from the rest of the ship.”

  “So what,” Johnny asks, “he could still be alive?”

  “It’s possible.” For a moment, I believe what I’m saying. “It’s not the first time Papa’s been close to a fallout storm.”

  “Yeah, but it’s the first time he’s been caught in one. Ow!” Johnny floats a meter toward the ceiling after Izzy kicks the bottom of his chair.

  “Guys?” says Paolo. “The room’s filling up. What should we tell them?”

  “I’ll send them home,” says Izzy. “No use letting them wait around for nothing.”

  “No.” I grab his arm. “Please. Just a little longer.”

  “Vee, there’s no way in hell we’re playing tonight. We can’t do it without you, and you’re a wreck.”

  “I am not,” I insist. “This is important. This isn’t just some pirate broadcast this time. This is a live concert with a live audience. Do you know how many years it’s been since that’s happened? How many decades?”

  “Venera,” Izzy says as if he could drill the word through my skull. He points at the newsfeed. “This is more important. We can do the show another time.”

  I know he’s right, but I don’t give ground. “Look, let’s just wait until they get inside the ship, okay? Then we’ll know for sure. If Papa’s alive, he’ll never forgive me for stopping the concert.”

  It’s obvious what Izzy thinks of Papa’s chances from the way he purses his lips. “Okay. We’ll wait a little longer, but then I’ll send them home.”

  “That’s all I’m asking. Just a few more minutes. Let me hope.”

  He takes my face in his hands, kisses my cheek, then whispers so no one else can hear. “You know I love you, right? You know I’m here for you.”

  I put my arms around him. “Just a few more minutes,” I say again, “then you can do whatever you want.”

  ~

  It was hard to make do after Uncle Anton died. On his own, Papa couldn’t afford our hab, but with all the families who suddenly had to relocate there weren’t any cheaper tubes to go around. His only options were to go into debt or find a job with higher pay, which is how he got involved with the Terra Project.

  Most people, Papa included, considered the Terra Project to be a pipe dream, but it was a paycheck and it let him spend more time at home. It was odd having him around all the time the way Anton used to be. It felt as if I was breaking in a new father while he was learning to live with a new daughter. We both wished we could fill the hole that Anton left, but we had to make do with each other.

  Meanwhile, Papa became something of a celebrity. For years the Terra Project had sent probes back to Earth to monitor surface conditions, but Lunar Administration had always considered manned missions too dangerous. In the wake of the Copernicus disaster, those in authority changed their minds, reasoning that a return to Earth would give people something to look forward to. Papa was selected as the project’s first pilot.

  His early flights merely skimmed the atmosphere, dropping probes and bugging out before too much radiation fragged his ship’s systems. The northern regions, especially around the old U.S. and Middle East, were so far gone that even probes couldn’t last on the surface, but the fallout levels in the southern hemisphere were low enough at times to risk a manned landing. The hazard bonus for a single mission would pay our bills for a year.

  And so, on my thirteenth birthday, my father, Igor Popov, stepped out of the Orpheus onto a ruined highway in the Australian desert and became the First Man (Back) on Earth. I remember watching from school. Everyone cheered and took turns hugging me, but all I could hear was Uncle Anton’s voice saying it was a damned stupid idea and that Papa would get himself killed.

  I abandoned my music after Anton died. For a long time I didn’t have it in me, and I think Izzy felt the same after losing his mother. I even stopped listening to the Old Earth classics. There was new music, after all.

  The problem was that it wasn’t very good. Most of it, in fact, was artificial. A.I.s in dance clubs mixed preprogrammed melodies with computerized beats and adjusted as needed by gauging the crowd’s reactions using face recognition software and blah blah blah. Some people posted vocal compositions on SolNet written for computer accompaniment, but it seemed like all they sang about was how great Earth was before the End. Enough of that crap would make anyone want to blow themselves up.

  But the old songs didn’t bring any comfort either. Artists from Earth now struck me as either hopelessly naïve or willfully blind, either too happy or too self-centered in what they wrote about. Teen love? Finding yourself? Being who you want to be? Try total annihilation, jerkwads. A few bands – metal groups, mainly – touched on more serious subject matter, but in such a cartoonish way that listening to it was almost impossible.

  Then I heard the Clash. After that, the Ramones.

  ~

  I stand at the door and stare into the unlit hallway. I wish it were darker still, so I could see what my father sees, so we could share one last experience. The idea that I can make the dark and the cold permanent drifts through my mind. I don’t acknowledge it, but neither do I push it away. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that death comes to all of us. No need to rush it, no point in holding back.

  Behind me the newscasters may as well be mumbling random words. Nothing matters, not the little details nor the agonizing play-by-play. There’s only one thing left for me to hear and it doesn’t matter if they find him hunched over a console or flattened against the bulkhead. I just need to know that it’s over.

  I hear the word “strange.” I hear the word “where” phrased as a question. I hear confusion as the newscaster stammers and tries to mask his ignorance.

  “Hey,” says Johnny, “are you watching this?”

  “What?” I ask so quietly that I can barely hear myself. Suddenly I don’t want to turn around, face the room, make it real.

  But I do. I have to get it over with.

  Amber gives me a look as if she thinks I might jump out an airlock. Izzy and Johnny are watching the screen. The picture is split between the newscaster’s face and a suited figure floating in the Orpheus’s cabin.

  “What’s that?” the newscaster asks. “Are you sure? Well... This is certainly not what we expected. To everyone watching, the Orpheus is empty. I repeat: the Orpheus is empty. The ship appears to be flying on autopilot. Captain Popov is not on board.”
<
br />   I breathe in. I breathe out. That’s how long it takes for the words to punch me. I sink into a chair so as not to fall. He didn’t even come home. I’ve waited so long, and he isn’t even there. The Orpheus is a ghost ship, an empty casket, while his body lies somewhere in a pile of radioactive ash on the coast of Argentina.

  “Vee?” says Amber. I don’t respond. I can feel her and Izzy nearby, but I don’t see them. I don’t see anything. I’m not crying. My eyes are as dry as lunar dust.

  He didn’t come back. I won’t even get to mourn him. I won’t get to visit him. I won’t bury him next to Mama. I won’t play for him one last time. I won’t be able to tell him I love him.

  I feel someone’s hand on my shoulder. I feel someone else wrap my fingers in their own. I close my eyes and the dark is a blessing.

  ~

  Papa was happy that I was playing again, but my new style, I think, took him by surprise. My bouncing, auditory onslaught made him take step back, and it didn’t raise his opinion of my efforts when I shouted in my happiest voice that I wanted to be sedated.

  “What do you call that?” he asked.

  “Punk! Isn’t it great?”

  “If you say so.” I could hear the sigh behind his smile. “Can’t you play something a little more pleasant?”

  “Where’s the fun in that?” I launched into the opening chords of “London’s Burning.”

  I was lucky that he was willing to tolerate my new obsession. More than anything else, I think Punk saved me. It spoke to me at a time when nothing else would. It said, “Yeah, the world sucks and we’re all gonna die. But right now we’re alive, so let’s party!” Maybe I was projecting and reading too much into the music, but as far as I’m concerned that’s how rock ‘n roll works.

  It wasn’t long before I dragged Izzy back into my life. We’d seen less of each other, but I didn’t know anyone else who’d understand. I told him to bring his drums, sat him down, played through my meager repertoire, then showed him some recordings of the Irish, Ukrainian, and Jamaican fusion-punk from the last few decades before the End.