by D. Brumbley
There was actually some applause at that, since people seemed happy to see that a married couple had been left together. They could see Barry and Erebi in one of the front rows with their arms around each other, exchanging quick, furious kisses of celebration that they would be together without complications. The directors allowed for a moment of applause, smiling down at the group, then continued on with their list. “Kameron Fitch, Navigation and Security.” Vance called out, nodding at the woman once she stood up. “Kazuo Tanaka, Engineering.”
Kameron looked up at the screen and then looked around for her match before she sighed and looked over at Orion before she moved away toward her match, since she was sitting close to Orion and his wife. “I was really hoping that they would change their mind about the whole penis business.”
“Go get him, girl.” Orion smiled at his friend, even though he knew she really wasn’t looking forward to what was coming. The Japanese man she’d been matched with didn’t look thoroughly excited about it either, but he did manage to give Kameron a smile as she got closer, and the names continued to rattle on through the list.
“They must be saving the best for last.” Gordon said as he leaned back in his chair with one arm still around Jessie’s back. He looked almost bored with the entire proceeding. “You think?”
“There’s still a lot of people to go through.” She said as she watched another set of people matched, and she couldn’t peel her eyes away from the screen but it was giving her more anxiety than she could manage. “I feel like they’re toying with me.”
“It’s actually worse than that.” Gordon said without changing his tone, still flippant and relaxed as he had been ever since they got on board the station. “It’s not that they’re toying with you, it’s that they don’t know enough about you to even care enough to toy with you. They know some, and they know what they care about knowing, but it’s not enough. They’re messing with all of us. But they’re like a researcher with a lab full of monkeys. They don’t do it because they hate monkeys, they just don’t care about monkeys, so they use them. They certainly don’t care about making you wait to find out what your future’s gonna look like. So long as they control that future.”
Jessie finally turned her attention away from the screen after listening to what he said, and then she looked at him straight in the eyes. “Why do you have to say things like that? God, you could turn people suicidal that way. I mean, why even tell me something like that? Do you care about me any more than they do? You kiss really well, but otherwise, you have absolutely no reason to care about anything or anyone up here either.”
Gordon didn’t meet her eyes immediately after that kind of accusation, then slowly began looking around over the crowd of people surrounding them, half a dozen of them in the process of walking over to join their new match as the names continued rolling on.
“I care about Jannah.” He finally said, still looking around the room. “I care about Earth. I care about the human race as a collective whole. There are a few individuals I care about for their own sake, but it’s everyone that I care about.” He reached up to run his hand over the back of her neck and pulled her into another brief kiss just to keep her against him and ease her mind. “And yes, I do care more about you than the rest of these fuckers. Worlds more than I care about any of the assholes up on that stage, that’s for damn sure. Which is why I’m never gonna bullshit you about what I do and don’t know. What I know is that we’re all monkeys in a cage to them. What I know is that Jannah isn’t the salvation of humanity to them. It’s a business opportunity. But they’re the ones who hold the means to get there, which is part of the reason I’m here. I care about Jannah, I care about Earth, I care about my friends, and I care about you.” His grip on her tightened a little just to squeeze her against him more tightly, and he raised his chin a little to look her straight in the eye. “If you stick with me, no matter what else happens, no matter how far south this whole Initiative ends up going, I will do everything in my considerable power to get you to Jannah. To make sure you get the new life you want. If you stick with me.”
Jessie wasn’t sure what to make of that speech, and it was hard to think with names being called in the background along with her own continued anxiety. She eventually nodded, not necessarily because she trusted this man that she barely knew, but because she trusted him just a little bit more than the rest of the strangers she barely knew. Jessie needed a friend, for more than just to get to Jannah, but because she needed to have a relationship with someone who didn’t halfway hate her for whatever reason. “Alright.” She replied in a whisper. “I’ll stick with you. Whatever that is supposed to mean.”
That finally brought a smile back to Gordon’s face, and he kissed her thoroughly, his hands bunching into fists in her flight suit to hold her tight. “Wise choice. And I think I’m going to like having you on my side.” He grinned and actually chuckled, out of place as it was in the otherwise severe atmosphere that had been brought about by the mass matching. He kissed her a few more times, heedless of the crowd around them, then set her back in her seat with his arm still around her. “I hope, for his sake, that your match is a singularly understanding human being.”
Her cheeks were flushed by the time she was in her own seat again, but the high from the kisses was severely dampened by his last comment. “I said that I didn’t want to choose, but I didn’t want to choose any of the men you showed me. I would rather choose you.” It was difficult for her to admit it, since he still frustrated her and riled her up in many different ways, and she barely knew him, but it was the truth. His mysteriousness and his kisses had somehow won her over.
“I would choose you too.” He said with a lingering caress along the back of her neck beneath her hair. His eyes raked her up and down, but it was only when he looked into her eyes again that he smiled.
It looked like he was about to say something else, but Kaplan spoke again before Gordon could open his mouth. “Jessica Rogers, Catering Operations.” Kaplan looked around for a while, obviously waiting to see if Jessie was there to join them.
Catering Operations. Of course. Jessie refrained from rolling her eyes before she stood up in response to her name being called. She had hoped for a more exciting job than a ‘cook’, but she wasn’t going to make any waves about it. At least not now, not in front of everyone else.
It seemed, imagined or not, like there was more of a delay in the other screen lighting up with information, but when it did, a face she recognized came up on the screen. “Gordon White.” Kaplan intoned, still looking around the crowd for the man. “Data Support.”
Gordon stood up where he was right next to Jessie, as if the two of them didn’t know each other, and he just smiled over at her as they got a small smattering of applause from those around them who had assumed they were already together. “Well, will you look at that?” He grinned at her and sat back down as the list went on and he put his arm back around her shoulders. “What are the chances?”
Jessie was stunned into silence even as she sat back down with his arm around her. She blinked several times as their faces left the screen and the list moved on. “Did you do that?” She eventually asked as she turned her face into his so that she could whisper into his ear.
The grin that spread across his face at that question was all the answer she really needed, and his caresses resumed along her back and neck as they settled in place. “An honest, law-abiding citizen like me, break in and fuck with the system for my own gain? I’m scandalized. It’s like you don’t know me at all.”
She let out a heavy breath that she didn’t know was trapped in her lungs. Jessie leaned her forehead against the side of his head, and closed her eyes. Clearly she was happy to get what she wanted. Mysterious or not. “I hope you know what you’re doing, getting tied to me. Now I get to see you naked, and I want that really bad.”
That statement chased away the smile from his face, but he didn’t move away from her. “I’m glad you want it n
ow. You might change your mind when you get what you want.” His tone was back to being dark, but he moved to kiss her cheek as his fingers massaged her back. “If we’re off for the next few days, though, then I see no reason for you to get back into anything at all once I get you back to our room and out of that flight suit. Not for days.”
“I won’t change my mind.” She assured him as she stole another kiss from his lips, since a kiss on the cheek didn’t satisfy her, though her cheeks were definitely burning after he said he wanted to keep her naked for days. “I don’t have to share you. That’s more than enough, to have someone I want all to myself.”
“Like I said,” he whispered back as he kissed her, “I like my women possessive. Own me all you like, just know that I expect the same in return.”
Jessie nodded since she had no desire to be owned by anyone else, not now when she had someone to herself and someone who wanted her. At least it seemed like he wanted her. He was hard to read. “I’m all yours.” She kissed him several more times, though clearly they were one of only a few couples who felt so enthusiastic about their match.
Anna wrinkled her nose as she saw Gordon and Jessie making out, and she turned her attention back to Logan, while she looked at the screen every so often. “I didn’t even think that smug asshole would actually make it onto the shuttle after the first meeting, and I certainly didn’t think his match would be so enthusiastic.”
“No accounting for taste sometimes.” Logan let out a short laugh, but he was getting more nervous the longer the list of names went on. He thought when the obviously-married couple had been announced that there would be a whole run of all the married couples in the room, just to set people’s minds at ease, but so far he hadn’t seen anyone else either get upset about being separated from their spouse or rejoicing over staying with them. If other married couples had been kept together, they were keeping it to themselves, and if they had been split apart, they didn’t seem too broken up about it. They had found Orion and Mercury off in another section of the room a while earlier when following the people who stood up and moved from one place to another, and Logan could see that the two of them were looking just as nervous as he and Anna were feeling, though they were still sitting together. “There’s not that many left.” He said as he watched the screen continue to change, listened to the constant listing of names and occupations. They had been sitting there for nearly an hour, but Logan couldn’t imagine they had too many more to go through, as quickly as people were being read off.
“So that means this horror is almost over.” Anna said as confidently as she could manage, though Anna was feeling just as nervous as Logan was. Another couple was matched and they moved to sit together across the room before anything happened, and Anna nearly broke her neck when she whipped her head around to look back at the screen at the sound of her name.
“Anna Bickford, Mechanical Operations.” They put her married name up on the screen by her picture, so that had to mean something. Anna stood at the sound of her name, staring at the screen, willing Logan’s face to appear next to her. Director Vance scanned the crowd looking for her, and nodded once when he located her before turning back to the tablet in his hands to pull up her match.
“Orion Al-Jabbar.” He announced, as Orion’s face and name came up on the screen opposite hers. “Navigation Officer.”
It felt like Anna’s whole body was dropped in ice water as soon as she saw the pilot’s face and name appear on the screen next to hers, and she couldn’t even look away from the screen, let alone move her body at the sight. This was a joke, right? She’d met the guy, he’d taught her a few things on the shuttle, so someone was playing a joke on her. It had to be a joke. When she looked over at Logan’s face, though, she realized that it wasn’t.
Across the room, Orion closed his eyes when he saw his name come up across from someone who wasn’t Mercury. He squeezed her hand that he was still holding, and looked over at her, no trace of a smile on his face as he let the weight of what had just happened settle over him. “I love you.” He said quietly, since he didn’t want her to doubt that at any time. He held her hand for another moment and then stood up slowly, looking across the room at Anna to see whether she was coming to him or he needed to go over to her.
Mercury was just as stunned as Orion or Anna or anyone else in the room, but she held his hand as long as he would let her before she replied with a whispered “I love you too.”
Anna stared at Orion across the room before she shook her head and then sat back down, since she wasn’t going to leave Logan. She had nothing against the pilot, he seemed like a nice enough guy, but she wasn’t going to move. Anna had waited her whole life for Logan to be hers, and she wasn’t about to fucking walk away from him because of some computer program. “Fuck that shit. A computer doesn’t know what I know. I’m not moving.”
Orion squeezed Mercury’s hand one more time before he started walking through the rows to get over to Anna. There were plenty of open seats around her, but as the list continued through a few other people’s names, he ended up taking one a few seats down from her on the same row. Neither of them were happy about it, but Orion and Mercury had talked about what would happen. Nothing was going to change the way he felt about Mercury. Certainly not some arrangement of convenience or genetic benefit. That didn’t have anything to do with a person’s choices. He sat in the chair and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, just listening for the one and only other name on the list he cared about.
Mercury felt ridiculous and alone sitting by herself once Orion had moved, and she felt sick to her stomach most of all. The list of reasons why she had resisted a relationship for so long was playing insistently through her thoughts. Relationships had the power to do harm, to distract, even though Orion hadn’t done anything himself to hurt her. Just her feelings for him gave him the power to do so, and the Initiative had done the hurting for him, though she wanted to believe she wasn’t split away from her husband because someone was twisted enough to want it to happen. She knew that she and Orion were already genetically diverse, but the woman he had been matched with was genetically similar to her own Earth-born husband. So if Anna and Logan Bickford had to be split up, then they had to be put with other people. It was logic. Wasn’t it? Mercury ran her hands over her cheeks to try and calm the heat that had appeared, but nothing would chase away the sick feeling that was heavy in her stomach. Especially not when she knew her name was coming. There weren’t many people left.
Logan felt like he couldn’t even blink as he watched the screens and listened to the names continue to roll through the room. No one seemed to be clapping for anyone after Anna had obviously been matched with someone who wasn’t her husband, and as he watched, he saw more existing couples split up, matched with others who were new to the Initiative. One older woman, obviously an Orbital with maturity to her otherwise-attractive features, was paired with an Italian man Logan knew had to be his age or younger. A distinguished-looking man from Kenya was paired up with an Australian girl who had been sitting with a girl who could have been her sister but might also have been her girlfriend from the way they were holding onto each other. People were being moved around like trading cards in every direction, and it had his heart thumping in his chest until it was almost painful.
“Logan Bickford.” Kaplan finally got around to reading out, his eyes jumping up to look straight at Logan, after having located Anna there earlier. “Agricultural Operations.”
Anna looked back at the dreaded screen once she heard Logan’s name, and already she wanted to throw something at the stage because she knew her name wouldn’t be there. She turned her attention quickly to Logan, though, before anyone else’s face could be matched next to his. “We’re still in this together. No matter what.” She reminded him, since he looked about as sick as she felt.
“Always.” He promised quietly, his huge hand resting on her leg just to let her know he wasn’t moving, though he did stand up afterward to let
himself be recognized.
Kaplan actually paused when he looked down at his tablet again, and his eyebrows went up just slightly as he read the next name, but there was no other trace of a reaction on his face to explain the reason for the pause, at least until he read it out. “Dr. Mercury Finnegan. Medical Unit, Obstetrics director.”
Mercury had a harder time convincing herself of ‘logic’ when she was matched with the man she’d met only hours ago, whose wife was now paired with her husband. She stood up slowly as soon as her name was read, but she realized that he wasn’t moving either, just as his wife hadn’t moved. She felt as though she had been played a fool somehow, but there was no reason for her to sit alone. Slowly, she made the move to sit somewhere near her match, even though he wasn’t making anything any easier for any of them.
There was certainly no one clapping for that particular match, and the fact that the two married couples had been cross-matched was lost on no one in the room. Mercury could hear people whispering their opinions of the situation as she passed, but more names were still coming through to drown out the sound of the voices. Logan didn’t move any closer to her when she got close, but he did remain standing until she got to his row and took a seat near his. He looked over at Anna once he sat down, and took her hand again tightly, then looked over at Mercury with a slow sigh, since he could see she was no more excited about the match than any of them were.
Mercury barely glanced at Logan before she looked over at Orion where he was also sitting by himself nearby, and there were tears in her eyes as she stared at him. Mercury told herself over and over that it didn’t matter, that she would have this stranger’s baby and it would be nothing. She told herself it was genetic diversity. Logical diversity. It wasn’t nothing, though. The officials had already explained that they could have rooms together with their match, so clearly they wanted people to remain paired together, but for what reason, she didn’t know. Why would that matter, if the only reason was genetic diversity? Why live together if procreation could be accomplished in a more civilized way?