by David Salvi
Emerging from the bathroom was the old man. He asked who Chris was, then subsequently introduced himself as Brody, the chief engineer on Motus, formerly the chief engineer with Canaan.
The rest of his oration was a slew of vulgarities charged at the Arch Canaanites and their blind followers. Chris surmised that Brody didn’t care much for anything to the east of their beloved Motus Society.
The other workers kept their heads down. They had heard this speech before.
“Bad experiences?” Chris asked.
“You could say that. A bunch of bullshit over in Canaanite City, that’s for sure. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!” A few more bullshits came out of his mouth but trailed off as he zipped up his pants and headed back to the innards of the laboratory.
He hurried back to his workstation, a long metal table covered in papers, handwritten notes, graphs, old pictures, and food crumbs. He took a seat in front of a screen illuminated with a blue map of Motus like blueprints Chris had seen.
“It’s not getting better over here. More bullshit.”
“Is that MapGraph Max?” Chris said, referring to the old man’s computer.
“Yep. Know it?”
“My Administrator had it on his computer. Charted all the farms and gardens.”
“Oh, a transplant!”
“Guilty.”
“You and I both.”
“Dynamic program.”
“Thanks for saying so. I built it.”
That’s when Chris realized. “Brody?”
“Guilty.”
“Chris.”
They shook hands.
“So, young man, for what can we, the mighty stewards of science, do for you today? Classes are usually on the weekends. And private tours need to be scheduled ahead of time. I’m a bit busy today.” His focus went to a pencil and notes.
“Riley Reuben suggested I come see you,” Chris said.
“Ah, that’s nice.” Brody’s face tilted down again toward notes. He grumbled and hummed at whatever he was calculating and processing with numbers and equations. All of it hurt Chris’s head as he gazed down to see squiggles and numbers and shapes he did not recognize.
Chris tightened the straps on his knapsack as a sense of security.
What else was there to say? Well, there was one thing.
“My full name is Christopher Menas. Jason and Myra’s son.”
Brody dropped his pencil. An audible gulp ensued. He wanted to reply, but his voice tightened and he tried to clear it by coughing out his nervousness.
“Excuse me?” Brody finally uttered.
“I’m their son. Riley told me that you knew my parents.”
“Are you bullshitting me?”
“Of course not.”
“You’re not one of those bullshit splinter agents, are ya?” Brody looked over Chris’s shoulder, then squinted directly in his eyes. Until he saw it. He studied Chris’s face and started to see the man he was forced to send to death. The woman he watched enslaved to save the boy she was carrying in her womb.
Almost defiant, Chris said, “I held my dying mother in my arms.”
Brody was wowed. He stood up from his chair. “So, you’re the one they have talked about.”
“So, you knew my parents?” Chris asked.
“I did in my way,” Brody said, but this time quieter and more solemn. “Of course, we lost touch. Good looking kid. Just like your parents.”
Then Chris noticed Brody eye his knapsack. He caught Brody’s eyes darting back and forth between him and the bag.
“Interesting knapsack you got there.” He said it with a raised eyebrow.
“Birthday present from my mom.”
“Good craftsmanship. It’s held up. Couple marks here and there.”
“Yep.”
Brody took a deep breath. After looking at his workstation one more time, he looked back at Chris and thought reminiscing would be better. “So, what do you want to talk about, Chris Menas?”
Without missing a beat, Chris spoke of the only topic on his mind.
“I wanted to talk about the launch.”
“I’d rather not.” Brody slinked back into his chair slowly.
“Why not?”
“I can’t.”
“I need to know.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a damn nightmare!” Brody shouted, not intending to startle Chris, but did. He checked himself and fell back into his chair, covering his eyes with his left hand.
The other scientists started to perk their ears up to listen. Typically, they’d hear Brody groan about the past without much interest. But the laboratory had a visitor, which was rare. And a Menas at that. A famous name heard in gossip circles at night around campfires with drinks in hand.
“Please, I need to know.” Chris said.
Brody calmly interrupted, “I’m not going to help you chase a ghost, kid.”
“I’m not here to ask about my father. I want to know what happened and what went wrong.”
“Everything was calculated perfectly. It was supposed to be flawless.” Brody stared into space as he spoke as if hypnotized by his memory.
“I want to help fix it.”
“Oh, yeah? You want to travel to Earth?”
“Something like that.” Chris didn’t blink.
The engineer stared at the young man. Spunk. Will. Courage. Just like his father. Chris held the same stare to emphasize his sincerity.
Finally, Brody leaned forward and said, “Kid, do you have any idea what it would take?”
“Yes.”
“Some things we don’t have here. We’d need to steal…”
Now Chris interrupted politely, “I know. That’s my job.”
“And my research…”
“Here.” Chris handed him a flash drive. “And there’s more there too.”
“You sure about this?”
“I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life.”
Just like dad.
CHAPTER 11
CHRIS SAW RILEY beside the fire pits as he usually did at night. Amber flames danced up one lit side of her face, illuminating her vibrant red hair. He stood off to the side and out of the way.
In the several weeks since his arrival, Chris noticed Riley sitting around a fire pit most nights as folks regaled the audiences with stories with a powered enthusiasm. She appeared as a child sitting with her arms hugging her knees and head tilted toward the sky. The stories frequently involved tales of heroism and freedom and rebellion. Names and places would change based on a teller’s imaginations. Night after night, a new person would steal the attention with a dazzling plot, expounding upon Oscar Marian’s extensive pop culture collection, or about one of the Mutinies. All of the stories were passed by oral tradition, treating the mind like its own galaxy of discoveries for one to behold by themselves. It was Motus’s version of fan fiction.
Riley told Chris storytelling helped her mind dream off to different places instead of thinking about wartime policies and strategies, which occupied her days and injected unwanted stress into her life. But it was the life she chose.
“I’d float around in a world. No idea what was going on. But I saw what I saw and it’s beautiful.” She said of the stories.
Chris would listen to a story at the campfire and stroll. He’d think of his own story and fantasize with grand plans and ideas. Something big. Something worth attention. Something life altering.
This particular night, he had returned from the laboratory after working to Brody, a major part of his nightly routine. The wind whistled around the mountain. Flaps of water bumped into the boats and piers in Motus Bay. It was now the month of Virtus, the middle of Augustus season. He was thankful to be on Motus Island instead of Canaanite City—in the middle of the worst heat.
Chris popped a squat next to his friend and stared up into space with three moons orbiting his planet and wondered if, off into the distance, Earth was looking right
back.
Riley found Chris exploring his fascination, and interrupted his thoughts.
“Whatcha thinking about?” She nudged his shoulder in a playful manner. Chris liked it.
“Earth. If it’s up there, over there, or maybe on the other side of the sky.” Chris’s fingers pointed to the various points and Riley’s eyes followed.
“You’re obsessed,” Riley said.
“Maybe,” Chris replied with his eyes to the sky. “How are war preparations?”
Riley turned to read his face.
“Fine, I suppose. We have all capable men and women at arms. We’re putting the Nina and Pinta on the line to fit more forces. As well as the Armada, a battleship we’ve built with guns and extra troop capacity. It’s going to take the entire Motus population to get this done.”
“What’s the plan?”
Riley paused and took a breath. She said, “Capture the Arch Canaanites—the magistrate, council members, and heads of departments.”
“Storm the castle and cut the head off the snake?” Chris asked.
“You got it.”
“Godspeed.”
“Why do you ask?” Obviously skeptical.
“Well, I want to offer my services.”
“You want to help? How?”
Chris smirked a bit and answered, “Well, I did fight off three Canaanite bi-copters. And several military force brute buttheads.”
“You didn’t help much when they captured me,” Riley snarked back. She was visibly upset.
Maybe the cocky resume was too much, Chris thought.
She continued, “What? You thought I’d forget that you stood only a few feet away from me as they verbally assaulted me and shackled my hands?”
“I…uh…”
“It’s okay. I forgive you.” Half-heartedly.
“Sorry.”
“I was kidding, sort of,” Riley said. She nudged him again. “So, what do you want to do for our raid on Canaanite City?”
“I’ll help take the Arch Canaanite tower.”
“The biggest cheese of them all. I thought for sure you’d say you’ll want to sabotage the military base, or the sentry towers.”
“Why’s that?”
“That’s my assignment. Take out their defenses.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“Well, they probably don’t think we have the krakona nuts to attack the base. Arch Canaanites are more concerned with protecting themselves, which is why they allocate most of the forces near the tower at all times. So, your assignment is rendered the most dangerous, but also the most critical. Capture those cowards, and they’ll break,” Riley said with shards of hostility in her voice. There was a primal desire to destroy those who have destroyed countless lives over the last two hundred years. She knew this.
CHAPTER 12
CHRIS STROLLED into the library after a morning in the laboratory with Brody and his team of cooky scientists. He enjoyed his time with them, making frequent visits during his time on Motus, now months. With him was the brown knapsack.
But as much as he enjoyed the laboratory and mixing potions, Chris’s heart was sent aflutter when he stepped foot into the library—for a few reasons. Reading and Olivia.
Checking her watch, Olivia kept her internal tap on the library’s most frequent visit. He had an air of carelessness to his walk and face.
Olivia said, “Right on time, bookworm.”
He nodded.
“What’s it today?” she asked. She held back a childish grin.
Chris adored their innocuous conversations. As did she.
“Hemingway,” Chris said. The answer nearly floored the librarian. Her mouth was agape, and Chris replied with, “That’s right, Papa Hem.”
“What’s the occasion, Christopher Menas?” That was another thing. She always used his full name, but he liked it. That was how she addressed him. And it was special in its own way.
“Soldiers leave tomorrow for Canaanite City. I’m with the second ship. Thought it’d be romantic to see it off.”
“Ah, right. The big Battle of the Bulge. Meaning a bunch of people are trying to prove to have larger balls than the next. The battle for the biggest bulge.”
“Riley is a woman.”
“And she’s got the biggest balls of them all. I can usually see them through her shorts.”
The thought made Chris visibly uncomfortable for a second. Olivia laughed at his reaction.
She said, “What? You have…you know…a thing for her?” Though she smiled, she held her breath for the answer she’d hate to hear.
Chris hesitated, but finally answered, “No.”
A silent sigh of relief. Her stomach unknotted. Her face drifted back to her screen as she saw Chris make his way toward his material.
Chris took a step, cleared his throat, and asked, “Can…you…show me the Hemingway display?”
The request threw her off as she darted her eyes to her screen, then back to Chris, then back to her screen. “Me?” Her stomach knotted up again.
“Yeah, if you have time.” The library was sinfully quiet. Chris worried a thousand eyes were watching him like he was back in Canaanite City.
“Sure.”
Olivia sheepishly rose from her chair and circled around her desk to meet Chris. They walked over side by side to the display, grazing hands on accident and looking at each other.
Stacks of books piled high in this tiny section of the library. Albeit an important area for her to maintain, she rarely got around to the disorganized stacks and disheveled papers, mostly ripped pages because Motus kids acted like delinquents when they were bored. Motus hardly cared about Hemingway.
But these two had an affinity for the famous terse writer. A cosmic glue they used to enjoy each other’s company.
For the next few hours they flipped through pages and laughed, thought, and were brought nearly to tears. Farewell to Arms broke them down to depression. The Sun Also Rises invigorated them with tales of sport with animals. A Moveable Feast allowed their wildest artistic dreams flourish in their souls with thoughts of Earth and what it could be, their true home planet. Even Olivia conceded that point to Chris.
“To think way out there is where we actually started,” Chris said. “Little organisms. Then an entire race.”
Olivia enjoyed his insight about the origin of their species. Canaan was merely a planetary apartment for their survival, and paying rent cost too much for the whole lot of its tenants. And in-fighting and disagreements have ripped communities to deathly shreds. This was meant to be the refuge from our own demise, but instead Canaan had become a worse version of their former selves as a species.
Hemingway’s tight writing cut to the inner light of what it meant to be human navigating turbulent times. Olivia and Chris marveled at the self-evident truth of every piece of writing. The human condition was the man’s forte, they concluded. Hence their enthrallment with him. But they weren’t alone.
“That’s why he was Oscar Marian’s favorite author,” Olivia said.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Chris said.
“I couldn’t imagine how difficult it would have been to leave the place you were born. A planet. Not a town, or island, or forest. But a planet. And knowing you’ll never return.”
“Right.”
“He’s a genius for what he did.”
“He’s something for sure,” Chris said somberly.
Olivia tried to decode his tone, but failed. Instead there was a brief silence.
The weeks in the library proved enlightening for Chris’s basis of knowledge for where they came from and where they had to go. Oscar’s letters, his mother’s death, and his fierce motivation told him more than ever what he had to do. In order to save himself and the others.
“Thank you for showing me everything,” Chris said.
“Anytime.”
But now it was time to depart. Olivia told him he could check out only one book. One in, one out was their policy. He chose Old Ma
n and The Sea, a novella classic that brought Hemingway to the highest reaches of literary greatness. That’s what Olivia told Chris anyway. She had learned that in the countless biographies the library housed about the famed author.
As they inched closer, Chris rotated his head to look at Olivia’s eyes. He thought she was beautiful. A wild forest nymph indentured in the mountainous cavern who was full of knowledge, wisdom, and mindless entertainment as its curator, but shackled, however, by her own desire to surround herself by the genius around her. Chris secretly envied her simple life of reading and helping people find what they want to read—or play or watch.
“What?” Olivia asked. Her head recoiled on her neck to get a better look at Chris as to judge his intentions.
“Nothing.”
“No, what?”
“You…are…just…” Chris stumbled like a fool. Again he’d reach for his straps as comfort and protection against the outside world’s many penetrating and harmful forces, such as mild embarrassment.
“What?”
“Amazing. You’re amazing. And beautiful.” He was sincere, almost accusatory.
Her eyes spun upward into her head, looked at her brain, and returned to give Chris a sinister death gaze. It was clear no one ever spoke to her like that. Though Chris was being truthful and honest. Nothing more.
“You shouldn’t say things just to say things and get your way.”
“I’m not.” Chris would never. He meant everything he ever said or wrote. Another thing he learned from his mother. The path to trust was paved with follow through. Everyday walking into the library stacks and seeing Olivia affected him in a way he hadn’t intended, as a follow through to what he said to her the first day—that he would be there digesting what pockets of wisdom he could extract from the library as often as he could. And everyday a conversation that sparked a smile or a flutter of the heart that made the visit worth it.
Olivia believed Chris, and her eyes told him so. She replied, “Thank you.”
With that he saw another galaxy hidden within her gorgeous orbs that spoke the world to him and as to how she felt at that very moment. He didn’t expect the cosmic boom of romance in that moment, but underneath it was boiling within the both of them. They had to have someone in this world, or universe.