by Corey Furman
“No problem,” he said with a dismissive wave that trailed smoke from his cigarette as he did it. “I’ve got another box in the back of my lift. You look like you’ve lost a couple of pounds, but they’ll do well enough. Did the housing people give you any crap about the house, or did you get everything squared away?“
“Nah, they were fine. I just had to fill out a shitload of paperwork. They actually seemed relieved that I was willing to just take the place next door – they didn’t have to arrange anything, I guess. They weren’t even going to send anyone out there to look at… the house.”
“Ah. What about the simulant registry?”
“It was another paper drill, but I got through it quicker. The people over there couldn’t’ve cared less about the ones I’d lost, as long as the paperwork for the replacement was filled out to their liking.”
Harry hedged, but he went on quietly. “Did you send something to Riss’ parents?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I haven’t heard back yet, and I don’t guess I will. I’m sure they still blame me for the accident. The first one, I mean, and hell, they’ll probably blame me for this one, too.” He shook his head. “Oh well, fuck ‘em.”
“Wow. They’ve lost a daughter, Joss. You might go easy.”
“What? Listen, I loved Riss, but she had issues that went way back. If they’d done their jobs, things might’ve been different.”
“Harsh, man.”
“Cry me a river, Harry” said with a shrug. “How about we change the subject?”
“Ooo-kay,” he said, and decided not to dig any deeper. “Listen, Sirvon and I wish you’d come to stay with us for a while. You still can, if you want.”
“Uh… thanks, man – I know you mean it, but to be honest, I just don’t really want to be around anyone yet.” He smiled at Harry then looked away. “I just don’t want to have to pretend I’m fine. Let me take the crew out by myself and get the work done. It will give me something to focus on besides… everything else.”
“Well, I guess. If that’s what you want…”
“Yep, that’s what I need. I want to get back out there.”
“Okay. Did you say you want to do it by yourself? I thought you said you didn’t like being around the simulants.”
“I don’t like the gabachos,” he said emphatically with narrowed eyes. “And I don’t care what they think of me. But around them I don’t have to paste a smile on my face. It might be a good thing too; we can just dispense with the bullshit of seeming to care about each other and focus on getting the work done.”
Given the huge stress of losing his wife, the changes in Joss’ personality were understandable, but Harry was still troubled; occasionally a tight darkness would creep into his eyes, but then it would pass. As he sat now, he wondered if he’d actually seen it. “It’s probably nothing,” he muttered under his breath.
“Huh?” said Joss with a puzzled look on his face.
A sharp, hot sensation broke through his distraction, and when he looked down, he found that the cigarette he’d been smoking had burned down close to his fingertips. “Damn,” he said as he ground the butt out in a nearly overflowing ashtray.
He shook his hand as he looked up at Joss. “Sorry, I was distracted for a moment there. Take the crew out if you want, Joss.”
He started to move, but Harry held his hand up, stalling him. “Hey, would you do me a favor though?”
He looked back at his boss. “What do you need?” he said with impatience.
“Would you have dinner with us? Or maybe you and I could go hit a bar. Whatever – I think you need to spend some time around people. It isn’t good for you to be up at Amity all by yourself with no one but the ghosts of the past to keep you company.”
“No promises, but I can probably come to dinner – just say when. I guess I could use a good meal.” He thought for a moment, then stood straighter as he continued. “And you’re right, I could use the company. Hopefully I’ll get a gabacha or two to keep me company soon.”
There was that damn slur again, the friction of it grating on Harry like course sandpaper. He grimaced, but he let it slide; the way Joss had been flexing his hands into fists as he’d spoken was an obvious sign of unspent energy and unresolved issues, but Harry doubted he was even aware of what his hands were doing. Still, he wasn’t getting a sense of where the tension was coming from. Unsure if it was a good idea or not, he decided to probe him further. “Didn’t you tell me you’ve always had twin simulants?”
“We’ve – I’ve – had a pair of twins for years, since I left the Marines. I was hoping I could get a different model this time, but no such luck – story of my life, though. Still, it’s something to look forward to, right?” He dismissively waved his hand in front of his face. “I gotta go, Harry – I’ll talk to you later. How do you breathe in here?”
“Later,” Harry said to his retreating back, but then something offbeat struck him about what he’d been saying. There was a conflict somewhere in there, but Harry couldn’t pin it down. What’s going on with him? Maybe it’s time to get him in front of the company shrink…
After work on Friday, Joss got cleaned up in the locker room and put on a set of new clothes that he had gotten in the city. He still didn’t have a whole lot of personal things, but he didn’t want to show up to dinner in Harry’s clothes. He hated handing over the money, but he’d be damned if he’d give Sirvon a reason to feel sorry for him.
Having met her only one time at work when she had stopped by to bring Harry his dinner, Joss felt a little strange. He wasn’t sure why, but he got a strange vibe from her that time. It was eating at him a little as he followed Harry to his apartment in his own lift, and when they got there, Harry picked up on the way he was feeling.
“Sirvon, Joss.” He waved his hands back and forth between them and tried to keep the mood easy. “You guys remember each other, right?”
“Sure. How are you?” She stuck her hand out to him, and Joss took it.
“I’m really good, Sirvon. Thanks for having me.”
“I hope you’re hungry and you like pasta.” She turned to her husband. “You,” she said sternly. “Loose that cigarette, or you get nothing to eat.”
“You and Amber always make too much, babe.” He opened the front door and threw the butt outside. “If you don’t feed me you’ll feel awful for wasting it and starving me.”
“Don’t test the theory, husband,” she said in a quirky accent he couldn’t place. She was hiding a small smile as she turned from him, but he turned to Joss and said, “you saw that too, right?”
“Who’s Amber?” Joss asked.
Harry spoke up. “She’s our daughter. Aaron is our son. Amber does most of the cooking.” He lowered his voice. “Are you okay around kids?”
Joss thought about the kids he and Riss had had – Maré and Luna – and unpleasant memories flooded back. It was too late to back out of dinner, so he swallowed the uncomfortable lump in the back of his throat and spluttered out, “ah, no. It’s ah, it’s fine.”
Over dinner, Harry kept trying to bridge the silences that Joss would lapse into. “So, how was it out in the region with the simulants this week?”
“Mmm…” he said around a mouthful of food. “The gabachos don’t give me any trouble.”
Sirvon flinched, and Aaron sat up stiffly. Amber seemed to be pointedly ignoring the conversation around the table.
“Uh, but how did you feel, being around them?”
“Me? I felt fine. Never better.”
Harry had been hoping Joss would express some reluctance or difficulty out there. If he had, he would have started going back out there with them. As it was, he didn’t want to push him on the point in front of Sirvon, but he knew that the work crews were saying that Breylin was starting to get pretty nasty towards them. He would have to keep an eye on his friend, and on his interactions.
Sirvon became quiet herself after that, and Harry knew he’d get an earful l
ater in bed, if it took that long. He guessed he would probably get some tension from Aaron and Amber, too. Holy shit, I need a smoke. It wasn’t to be, though. He sighed into his pasta and willed the night to be over. And this was all my idea…
Joss wasn’t sure how or why, but somehow Sirvon and Harry had become uncomfortable. She kept shooting looks at Harry who was trying to stare at his food a little too intently. He replayed the short conversation in his head, but he couldn’t see what went wrong. The silence was beginning to make him uneasy, too. It was time for an exit.
Joss finished his food quickly and sat back, thinking of what to say to get out of there without being rude.
Amber came in from the kitchen. It was amazing how much she looked like her mother. Looking at him, she clipped her words as she said, “Have you finished, Mr. Breylin?”
Staring at her, he said, “Ah, yes, thanks.”
As she picked up his plate, she turned to her parents, and her tone softened as she spoke. “Mom? Dad? Can I get you anything else?”
Sirvon smiled at Amber. “I don’t think so, dear. Please sit and finish your own meal.” With a suggestion of an edge she said to Joss, “Are you sure you’re done? We have some desert, if you can stay. I know it’s getting late.”
That was the opening Joss needed. “Actually, I think I should get going. I have a long drive home yet, and I need to get up early.” He made a short laugh. “There’s still a lot to do in the new house.”
Harry wiped his mouth and tossed his napkin on the table. “Sure, we understand, Joss. Thanks for coming over.”
Joss gulped down the last of his juice and stood up. “Well, thanks for dinner. I really needed it.”
Harry got up with him, and walked him out. “See you Monday morning, right?”
“I wouldn’t miss it, Harry. See you then.”
The two men shook hands and Joss left, pulling up his collar against the infiltration of wind. As he was walking back to his lift he tried to figure out what went wrong over dinner.
Seventeen
On a Tuesday afternoon nearly eight weeks after the fire, Joss was notified that a shipment was due from orbit addressed to him – his new simulant. He had been nervously awaiting this, and now that the moment was here, he was full of anxious energy. He was glad that he would have a few hours to work through his feelings before picking her up back in Twilight; at least she would still be asleep.
After work, he took his beat up, old lift to the spaceport. On the way over, he had the strange sensation of Déjà vu, but he shrugged it off, having done this a couple of times before. Twice, in fact, though this time was a little different, since he was only retrieving one of the twins. He shrugged it off, chalking it up to pent up stress and shot nerves, broken sleep and easy but unhealthy meals. On the plus side, he reasoned, at least I didn’t pick up Harry’s habit of smoking. Just thinking of it instantly made him regret the distance that had crept into their relationship.
The dock foreman’s name was Jones, according to the name plate picked out in red stitching on the blouse of his uniform. “Can I see your credentials and your invoice, please?” he said. His hair had become more salt and pepper since the last time Breylin had seen him.
“Here,” he said as he handed everything over.
When Jones saw the holo on his ID, he said, “You look familiar. Have you picked up cargo here before?”
“A couple of times. Twin simulants usually, but just one today.”
“I thought so,” he said with a grin as he held up the ID so he could see it and him at the same time. “You’ve gotten older since this holo was taken!”
Gesturing at the top of Jones’ head, Breylin said, “we all do.”
“Yeah, I know it. And now that you mention it, I remember thinking how odd twin simulants were… Didn’t know they came that way.”
“I guess.” he said noncommittally. “We – I” he corrected himself, “picked them because they were cheaper. Uh, is everything in order?”
He frowned. “Oh, sorry – I get talking.” He thumbed at the androids standing idly nearby. “Not many people around here.”
He compared Breylin’s ID to his invoice and handed them back, then scanned down his shipping manifest and found the right container markers. “You,” he pointed at one of the androids. “Find shipment 456.34 BCH and load it into this man’s lift.”
The android shuffled off toward the various stacks of odd sized boxes and containers, tubes and shrink-wrapped pallets. How does anyone find anything in that immense pile?
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. Good luck with the simulant,” he said with a wave over his shoulder as he returned to his cluttered desk.
“Oh, I think it will be fine,” Breylin said in a quiet voice that belied his anxiety, but he doubted Jones caught it.
After Maré’s shipping pod was loaded into the back of his lift, he took off at a leisurely pace towards home, arriving just before nine. The clouds had been steadily clearing, and as he was climbing out of the lift, the clouds parted almost completely, allowing him the rare, full view of the sunset. Instantly, he thought of Larissa, sitting by the window and staring out, and grief took a hold on his chest. I miss you, my queen…
When he finally pulled himself out of thoughts of the past, his hair was a mess from the wind and he was bone weary. The sun sat in exactly the same place. Not wanting to deal with Maré – or anything else – he pulled the pod out and clumsily stuffed it in the back of the lift port. Just having his hands on the huge, coffin-like container made him uneasy. Once he was done, he wearily trudged into the house.
Without turning on the lights, he dropped down onto the couch still in his dirty clothes, hungry and tired, drew his knees up and shut his eyes. As he opened himself to the embrace of sleep, he let his past and future recede. The weekend would be more than soon enough to deal with what needed to be done.
Knowing that Maré lay sleeping in the lift port made the rest of the week progress by millimeters, particularly since he did more thrashing than sleeping at night. Breylin wasn’t sure why, but he was almost afraid to face her. Every time he allowed himself to think of their next meeting, he felt as if something was lurking unseen outside of his field of vision – something sinister. Each time it happened he forced himself to let it go, but the strong desire to avoid the situation inevitably returned.
In the intervening weeks since the fire, Joss had replayed the scene of the final moments of his family, how he had lost everything in a single afternoon, and how he had then killed Luna with cold rage and Maré with hot, angry hatred. It seemed as if those events had happened to someone else, that he had been merely a ghostly witness. A couple of times the comforting fantasy almost seemed real, but then he would remember the sight of the burned husk that used to be Riss, and the anger would flash into his mind like a white hot bar of steel left to carbonize in a forge.
It seemed like that had gotten better. Though he did his best to avoid thinking about his losses, he was able to with a certain amount of detachment, as long as he didn’t try to swallow the whole thing at once. He hadn’t yet been able to shake off the anger, but at least now he kept it in a cage of thick iron bars with formidable welds and banding.
As he sat thinking in the driver’s seat of the cargo lorry that Friday afternoon, one of the gabachos approached and startled him.
When his heart stopped racing, he said, “what do you want?”
“Ridder, Sir. We’re having difficulty getting the bit pipe to shake loose.”
“So? Do I need to stand over top of the lot of you bastards, or do you know what to do?” he spat.
“Of course, sir, we know what to do, but it’s getting late in the day. We don’t think we’ll be able to finish before the end of the shift. I thought I should tell you as soon as I…” Ridder’s words died on his tongue as he watched Breylin’s eyes darken with animosity.
He spoke, not bothering to disguise th
e heat in his voice. “You get your lazy ass back there and finish your work yourself, or I’ll join you and provide whatever motivation you require.”
Ridder flinched. “Yes, sir…”
Ninety minutes later, the pipe still wasn’t completely dislodged, and Breylin was fuming.
He punched up the dispatcher back at base camp on comms. After he connected, the woman asked impatiently if they were nearly done for the day.
“Nearly, but this lousy crew is taking its time!” He paused to bring his tone down a notch. “I’ll be another hour or two,” he said more reasonably.
“Leave it go until Monday, will ya? You’re over an hour away and I’d like to get home.”
“Let me see if I can wrap things up quickly, okay?”
“Fine, do what you have to do, but make it quick please.”
“Okay, Janice.” After he stowed the mike, he walked out to the crew, certain that he could get their asses moving. They just needed to be appropriately inspired.
They pulled in back at base three hours late. As the gabachos carried one of their number to the infirmary, Harry came out from the offices, slowing as he passed the simulants laboring to get inside.
“Joss… can you tell me what the hell is going on? Where have you been? And what happened to that worker?”
“Yeah, well…” He swallowed. “He was giving me a lot of nonsense about getting the work done and –”
“And what?!” Harry said, struggling to light a smoke with a shaking hand. “You beat him half to death?!”
Breylin hung his head. “Look, Harry, I was just trying to finish… I may have let it get a little out of hand.”
“What, are you kidding me?” he said. “Get the hell out of here, Breylin. When you show up to work on Monday you had better hope Ridder is able to work – otherwise, your ass is going to do his work!” Harry paused to let his breath out slow and suck in another lungful of smoke before continuing. “Alright, look. Joss, as your friend, this isn’t healthy. You have to let this anger towards them go, or it will destroy you.”