by Corey Furman
“It’s Friday night. Unless you want me to go hunt through the bars looking for them, there’s nothing I can do tonight.”
“Why didn’t you say something to him while we were there?!”
“With our own kids standing right there? Think it through, Sirvon. The guy’s wound tight as a spring – suppose he snapped? I care what happens to them as much as you, but the kids come first.”
“I know, dear,” she said as she sat next to him on the bed and stroked the side of his face. “I’m not angry with you, either, just scared for them.”
“Yeah…” he said with a tired sigh. “Look, if the Marines won’t help, I’ll drive back out there. I don’t know what I’d do, but I’ll try.”
“Gimme a break, Sergeant,” Harry said the next morning. “He used to be one of yours. Don’t you give a damn?”
Harry winced as the comm channel exploded with the duty sergeant’s response. “No, sir, like I told you! We’re busy doing our jobs, not worrying about what some guy is doing when he hasn’t done anything wrong. I assume you know that, or you’d be talking to CorpSec. Look,” he said as he began to relax a little. “I’d like to help – since he used to be a Marine – but the LT. nixed it when I asked the first time you called this morning. I can schedule some routine patrols that would include his settlement in about two weeks. That’s the best I can do.”
“Well, I’ll take what I can get, but don’t walk away thinking that’s good enough –”
The Marine cut off what he was about to say by closing the channel.
“Rotten bastards!” Harry bitched as he rubbed his eyes. Looking at the set of his wife’s chin, he knew what he had to do. “Alright, I’ll be back in a few hours.”
“You’re not going anywhere by yourself. I don’t care if he is your friend – suppose that whack job really does snap?”
“Well, you’re certainly not coming with me, woman! Or do you want to bring the kids, too?”
She exhaled loudly in exasperation. “Fine – but you comm me when you get there and you keep the channel open.”
“Okay, that’s a good idea. Hey,” he said as he touched her face. “I’m sorry I let us get dragged into this.”
“Don’t be sorry, for doing the right thing Harry. If we don’t get involved no one will.”
He pulled her to him and held her tight.
Harry threw the end of a cigarette out the window and punched up the channel for home as he was cresting the ridge right before the settlement. “Are you there?”
“Yeah, I’m here. Leave the channel open when you go inside, okay?”
“I will. Okay, I’m pulling up out front. ‘I’ll probably be a few minutes, so you won’t hear anything, but the freq’ll be open.”
“Alright, just be careful.”
“Now you want me to be careful! Thanks…”
He killed the power plant, got out of the lift and scurried to the front of the house to get under the tiny roof over the stoop. It was a meager covering in the wind-driven rain, but it was better than nothing.
A few seconds after he knocked on the door, he could hear the ratcheting of the tumblers in the old style lock. The door opened, and Breylin stood across the threshold. “Harry… I wasn’t expecting you. Come in.” He said coldly. He receded into the house, and Harry followed, shutting the door behind himself.
“How are you today, Joss? You still sore about last night?”
“Honestly? Yeah, a little, but I’ll get over it. Sit down. You want some coffee? Maré, put some water on and get us a cup.”
Harry watched her as she came through the room and went into the kitchen. “What happened to her face?”
Breylin gave a small laugh and said, “I think she fell. Not too sure.” He hollered out to the kitchen. “Maré, come show Harry where you fell and hit your face!”
Harry could hear her getting things around, but she stopped and came back as she was told. Her face was perfectly impassive as she stood before him. He could see three long, bruised welts below her left eye, purple, sharp and even. Harry got off the couch and examined her injury closer. “Is that what happened, Maré? Did you fall?”
She shot Breylin an involuntary, furtive look before her eyes met his. “Yes, it happened just the way Mr. Breylin said it did. I fell.” She almost managed to keep her face expressionless except for the tears that were beginning to collect on her eye lashes.
Harry could see that she was lying through her teeth – and terrified.
He heard the soft movements of feet on the carpet behind him. When he turned around, he saw Luna standing just inside the room. She had a cloth stained with dried blood tied around her left hand.
He turned to Joss but spoke to Maré so that he could watch his expression. “Where did you fall, Maré? What did you hit your face on?”
“Harry? I…” Maré stammered out. “I fell inside. In my room. I forget what I hit.”
Breylin, sitting with his feet stretched out in front of himself with the ankles crossed, was the picture of indifference. His expression was one of boredom. When Harry looked up at Luna, he saw a tear slide down her cheek that she rushed to wipe away.
He looked back at their abuser. “You wanna try the truth this time, Joss?”
Breylin got to his feet whip-crack fast and stood before him, muscles in his face and neck tightening. “What’s the big deal? She decided to shoot her mouth off to me one too many times and I gave her a minor attitude adjustment.”
“Yeah? And what about her?” he said as he pointed to Luna. “What did she do?”
“It’s none of your damn business what she did!” Breylin pointed to the front door. “Now you get the hell out of here!”
Breylin went to shove him but Harry threw his arms around him, and they both toppled onto the couch and rolled onto the floor. Maré shouted, “stop, it was my fault! Please don’t fight!”
They continued to scuffle and yell wordlessly. Harry got one arm free and brought his elbow down on the top of Joss’ head, slamming his teeth shut audibly. It had cost him, though. A split second before Breylin’s jaws slammed shut, he punched Harry in the midsection, throwing his weight into it, and all of his air left him in a rush. Tiny motes of light danced in Harry’s vision as he struggled to catch his breath.
Luna had run over to Maré and now they were both holding each other and crying.
They rolled apart, but Breylin was on him in a heartbeat. He dragged Harry to his feet and shoved him towards the front door. “I’m really starting to regret ever having invited you over, Harry!” He jerked open the door and pushed him outside, sending him sprawling in the muddy sand of the front yard. “Get the hell out of here, Harry! And mind your own friggin’ business! You and your wife!” After he was done shouting, he slammed the door shut.
Harry got his feet under him and staggered back to the lift. When he shut the door, he could hear Sirvon’s tinny voice through the comm system.
“Harry? Harry! What the hell’s going on there?”
“I just got my ass handed to me is what happened,” he wheezed. He spent the next couple of minutes telling her the details and letting the pain in his solar plexus subside.
“You’re lucky he didn’t kill you!”
“I don’t think he’d have done something like that. He was angry as hell, but the sarcastic asshole was in control.” He dug his hand in his pocket to get his key FOB and tobacco. “Shit, I think he tore my lousy jacket,” he said as he drew the pouch out and rolled a cigarette with long practiced moves.
“Look, just come home, and be careful!”
“Except for my pride, I’m fine now,” he lied; his chest still hurt. “I’ll be home in an hour.” Firing up the engine and his smoke, he took off to the south using too much thrust.
Twenty Four
As Breylin was throwing Harry out the front door, Maré held Luna tightly to her in the living room. She was too afraid to move, too afraid of what might h
appen when he came back to them.
Through her tears, she noticed something black sticking between the couch cushions. When she focused on it, she could see the small, square buttons of the controller Breylin kept. It must have fallen out of his pocket during the scuffle. Quickly, she bent over, snatched it up and stuck it in the waist band of her underwear.
A low, fearful moan was coming from Luna’s chest. Maré went to her, put her arms around her and hugged her as tight as she could. “Shhh… it’s going to be alright, Chroma.” As comforting as she tried to sound, her heart seemed to be thrashing at an alarming pace, and her temples throbbed in anxiety.
There was angry words and the front door slammed. Breylin stalked back in, looked at them and said, “What are you two doing? Go to your room!”
They nervously edged around him and ran back to their room and shut the door before he could change his mind.
Once inside, Luna hissed, “Quick, hide that horrible thing, before he catches us with it!”
“I’m trying to think… where?”
“I don’t know!” said Luna in an urgent whisper. “Somewhere!”
“Yeah, I got that…”
“Don’t get snarky! What the hell were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that one of these times he’s going to kill us with it, maybe even tonight like he promised,” said Maré. “How about in the chest?”
“No, that’s the first place he’ll look!” she replied.
“What if I roll it inside a pair of socks?”
“He’s crazy, but he’s not an idiot, Maré!” Her head swiveled as she looked for a place to hide the device. “What about the bookshelf?”
“Yeah… let me see.” She started looking at the few possessions of theirs on it. There were five or six books, about a dozen pretty rocks, and a few wooden vehicles badly in need of a paint job that had been sitting there since before Breylin had woken Maré up from hypersleep. Then she spotted the framed holo of their parents.
“How about behind Mom and Dad?”
“Fine, just do it!”
Maré climbed up onto the bed and slid the little device behind the frame. “That’s as good as it gets. We’ll have to get it into the trash disposal as soon as we can.”
Now that the crisis was passed, at least for a little while, Luna was starting to calm down. “If he finds it, Chroma, he really will kill us,” she said wearily.
Maré sat next to her on the edge of the bed and laid her head on her shoulder. “I don’t think so. If he kills us, he won’t have anyone to torment.”
Luna pushed her off her lightly and said, “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Look, I’m sorry. Maybe I didn’t think it through. I just acted. I hate that thing!”
Maré pulled her back into her arms as she stifled a deep sob that was like an aftershock. “I know – I hate it, too.”
In his bathroom, Breylin stuck his head under the faucet and let the cold water run over his hair and into his face, hoping that it would crush the anger he was feeling. He was going to have to make this right somehow with Harry, or risk losing his job. Right off the top of his head, he had no clue how he was going to do that after throwing the man out of the house and down onto the ground. As the water poured over him, he tried to ignore the sick feeling that something else was about to go miserably wrong. Again.
He shut the water off, grabbed a towel and started pushing his hair around with it. He draped it around his neck, sat down on the commode to relieve himself and rested his head on the wall behind. There was an annoying drip sitting on the end of his nose, but he was too wearied to care enough to do anything about it. Just sitting there, he shut his eyes and tried to think of nothing at all.
Despite his halfhearted attempt to remain a blank slate, the image of Larissa as she was back in college picked its way to the front, until he could think of nothing but her. Softly, he began to cry and pound his fist on his thigh. He noticed neither tears nor the dull ache in his leg, only the memory of a distant time when the sun’s rays had created a thousand diamond splinters in his lost love’s hair…
When Breylin came to an awareness of his surroundings, he didn’t know how long he had been sitting there; since the sun was covered with storm clouds – and it never moved, in any case. The only signs that marked the passage of time were his numb legs, dry hair and an immense fatigue, as if he had been hard at labor working with the gas taps. His watch told him that nearly an hour and a half had disappeared while he had blacked out. With stiff movements and sore joints he got up and made himself presentable.
As he left the bathroom, his stomach complained about its empty condition, and he realized that he’d missed the noon meal. As he took a seat in the living room he called out while he massaged his calves. “Luna! Maré! Lunch needs to be made.”
They emerged from their room cautiously and went into the kitchen. From where he sat, he listened to them opening cupboards, drawers and containers and working the stove. He was gazing out the picture window at the storm when he was startled by Luna standing next to him. He thought he’d been paying attention, but he hadn’t seen her approach. When he turned to acknowledge her she said, “everything’s ready, Sir.”
He got up and followed her into the kitchen, where he was greeted by a familiar, old smell. He sat down at his place and immediately began to scoop the food into his mouth. “Spicy potato casserole – we used to eat this all the time. My daughters loved it.” he muttered into the plate. After a short silence, he shook his head and looked up at them. “You aren’t them, are you?”
Maré paused with her fork halfway to her mouth and shook her head no.
A single tear slid down his face. “Too bad.”
When the plate before him was empty, he wiped his mouth, got up and left the room without saying another word, leaving them staring at each other in bewilderment.
He was having trouble focusing. Something about this house… it’s not right. Riss must have moved the furniture again. No, that can’t be it – Riss is gone. They’re all… gone…
Breylin sat down on his bed to try and sort things out. His eyes were sore, and when he rubbed them he realized that he was really tired. Maybe he just needed a nap and then everything would seem okay. He dragged himself to his feet, drew the shutters and turned off the light, then laid down. Things will have to make more sense after I get some sleep…
“Did he just cry?” asked Luna, when they heard the door to his room close.
“Yeah… he does that sometimes when he misses his wife.”
“But he was asking about his daughters. Is it me, or was that eerie?”
Maré nodded. “Oh, it definitely was. I’m starting to wonder if we shouldn’t have played along with his fantasy.”
“Maybe it isn’t too late,” Luna said staring down at her own empty plate. “We could tell him we thought about how it might be nice to be a family.”
She sighed with resignation. “Maybe that would be better, if we can keep him pacified.”
Breylin came to with a start, with a strong feel – almost like a memory – that he had something thrashing against him as he held it close in his hands. Whatever it was that he had been dreaming about was fading fast, though, and the image wouldn’t form. As he sat up in the dark and his thoughts cleared, the sweaty clothing that was all stuck to him was beginning to irritate him. He stripped off his shirt, dropped it on the floor and reached for the light. He was still a little irritated, but at least his head felt clearer. Small mercies…
It was nearly time to eat again. As he changed out of his clammy things, he noticed that the controller wasn’t in his pants. It must still be in the bed somewhere. Screw it, I’ll find it later. He went out into the rest of the house.
When he hit the living room, a startled Maré was jumping off of Luna’s lap. It might have been innocent, but the look on their faces gave him pause. It might be time for a little refresher course
on household etiquette, he thought. He reached for the collar controller in his pocket…
Of course, it wasn’t there. “You two look guilty as hell. What were you doing?”
They were both wide eyed with fear. “Nothing, Sir. Just sitting,” said Luna.
“Together, it would seem, and testing my patience.” He allowed an edge, thin and sharp as a knife blade, to creep into his voice. “Was I unclear somehow?”
He’d found that tension was an extremely useful tool, so he let it linger in the air as he pierced them with the intensity of his stare.
Luna was actually beginning to quietly whimper, but not Maré; she had the spine to glower right back at him. “We understood what you wanted, and we haven’t disobeyed. We were only sitting together, Breylin.”
The way she said his name caused one of the belts in his mental machinery to slip a little, and before he knew it, he was looming over her lithe frame with has left hand drawn back. She faced him not with resistance, but with an inner calm that he could easily read on her smooth face and defiantly upturned chin, and it was enough to pause him from delivering a blow that would likely heave her over the couch and across the room. Luna was kneeling at his feet, holding on to his leg and wordlessly wailing, but her actions barely registered.
She’s going to push me, is she? This was something new, and though he didn’t like it, he wasn’t about to let her make him lose control. His arm ached to uncoil its tension at her, but he knew that if that happened, he’d probably kill one or both of them, and he didn’t want that. He let his hand drop to his side, and when his hand brushed something, he looked down. It was Luna. He looked back to Maré and smiled while he lightly brushed her hair with his fingers. Her calm faltered, and he knew he’d found her weakness.
Obviously, he was going to have to help them through one of the difficult times tonight.
“That was too far, Maré.” Using the backs of his fingers, he brushed the welts on her cheek. “Go make dinner – something with a lot of carbs. I think we’re all going to need our strength tonight.”