by John Mierau
She switched on the smile. “Thanks, babe. Feels good to be clean.” She held up the bowl. “Fresh herbs? You’re spoiling me.”
“A little taste of home,” Lena said.
Sameen just nodded. Her Earther-transplant girlfriend was weird about food.
Lena leaned across the table. “I know how you work. It’s fine you process things differently. Just don’t fake it for me, huh?”
Sameen let the smile drop. She nodded, eyes cool, mind still working on the tangle of the day.
After more food and sex, Sameen felt sleep creeping in. She held Lena the way she liked, and hoped her partner wouldn’t pussyfoot around her in the morning. She could cook for her again, though. Sameen wouldn’t mind that.
“It was terrible,” Lena murmured.
“Yeah, it was pretty shit.” Sameen kissed her lover’s forehead. “Dewie’s okay and I’m okay, so there’s that.”
Lena hugged her tight. “And you saved Buck from those monsters.”
Sameen didn’t like that word. Sometimes people used it to describe her.
“They had it rough,” she murmured.
“They’re never to blame,” Lena murmured, so very close to sleep now. “Always biting the hand.”
“Who isn't? Who bites?” Sameen asked.
“Reachers,” Lena said quietly, her breathing slow and regular.
Sameen felt a ghost of an emotion hurting in her chest.
She stared at the ceiling until dawn.
CHAPTER FIVE
May 08 2347
Pilgrim’s Progress Spaceport
South of South Reach City
“Elena, wait! Baby, what’d I do?”
Tall, gangly Willard Tsu ran after the love of his life, alternately smiling and scrunching up his face in confusion. Elena Garner didn’t turn around. She stomped on down the pedestrian path between the equipment and repair shops and the fence leading into the spaceport proper.
When Elena left, Willard had thrown on jeans over his boxers, stuck tubes up his nose, tucked a small ox-breather into the jacket of his flight suit zipped up over his bare chest and tore the hell out of his bachelor apartment to talk sense into his lady.
Problem was, whenever he touched his fingers to her shoulder or danced in front of her to meet her eyes, her face closed down and she roared at him to get out of her way.
He always let her pass, never closed his hand around her arm—he could never hurt Elena—but he walked close behind, teasing, joking, pleading for a reason.
Why was she cutting his heart out like this?
“Babe, you gotta tell me why. How can you—okay, tell me you didn’t love breakfast in bed this morning, I dare you!”
“You burnt the french toast,” Elena yelled at him, but she hid her dark brown eyes from him behind long, wavy brown hair.
He didn’t let up. He was a dog with a bone, he was a bee buzzing a flower, he was a boy who loved a girl. Except ‘the girl’ had just stuffed her toothbrush, her travel tech, and all those lacy things he loved into a bag and walked out, after saying two impossible words.
It’s over.
He winked at her. “Okay, how about the bubble bath last night? You look so good in nothing but bubbles—”
Elena started to speak, but whatever words were in her throat stayed there, and she slammed her shoulder into him and stormed past.
Willard rubbed his shoulder. “Wait. Babe, wait. Just wait, dammit!” Pain and confusion ripped him apart, because nothing made sense if Elena left. They’d only been together six weeks, but it was long enough. Two weeks had, really. Tsu knew this was the real thing, and he knew Elena felt the same way. Which made her reaction to the news of his promotion—and the engagement ring he’d stuck in the syrup—an unreal episode.
“Babe?” he called after her. He couldn’t muster another scream: the hurt leaking out wracked his voice.
Elena stopped, and hung her head. Then she raised it and kept walking. “You suck in bed!” she shrieked. “You never clean the toilet! You burn everything you cook! Get lost okay? Just get lost!”
Tsu’s eyes narrowed.
Aliens. Elena’s brain had been fried by aliens. Or maybe he’d really messed up the french toast—were the eggs he paid a month’s wages on poisonous or something? He’d never once cooked on his own, unless it came out of a box that read ‘just add water,’ but Elena’s family loved food: they'd run 'The Hard Eight' restaurant on the outskirts of the spaceport for three generations.
He remembered that time he and Elena had made pasta from scratch, alone after closing in up the place. That was the first time they let themselves dive into their unbelievable chemistry and effortless, silent togetherness. He remembered the mind-blowing sex on the counter by the stove. The feeling of being complete for the first time in his life the first time they woke up together the next morning.
He lifted his head, and drew a deep breath and screamed her name. “Elena May Garner!” That’s right, middle name and everything.
She whirled around, eyes burning and face drawn.
She’d been crying. He stumbled up to her, forgetting his pain the moment he saw hers. He stopped a few feet away. He didn’t want her to run anymore, and he really didn’t want to blow this. He couldn’t blow this.
“I won’t ever change my mind about marrying you. I will never hurt you. I want to wake up with you every morning I’m not flying. I want to meet your brother and your friends. I’ll get as good in the kitchen as I am in the bedroom. I’ll clean the toilets morning, noon, and night, baby, I swear to god!”
Elena laughed, and snuffled, and wiped at her puffy eyes. She looked like her heart was cratering as bad as Willard’s…but again she shook her head. “It can’t work, flyboy. Just walk away now. It’ll hurt less.”
“I heard you when you said I should grow up, stop wasting myself.” Willard took a single step forward. “ML&A got a new contract providing critical deliveries for half the departments in Gov. The suits have already raised my clearance. I know I said I wanted to stay away from spooky government shit, but now we can have our own home. We can pay our own way, and have babies, and pay their own way. I know you don’t care about money, but I wanted to prove to you I’m serious, Elena.” The damn dust kicked up in his eyes again. “I can’t… I don’t want to do anything without you ever again.”
It was getting hard to swallow. The world was getting a little blurry. Dust. Must be dust in my eyes.
Elena bit her full red lips—her little trick to dam up the tears. “I want that too, asshole!”
Willard didn’t think he could keep the grin off his face if he peeled the skin off.
“So what’s the problem, fuckwit?”
The anger left her, and so did the little window into her soul that proved he was right. She just looked empty now. “I would ruin your life.”
He closed the distance and wrapped his arms around her. “What life? Oh, you mean the glorious life of a mailman with wings? Eating powdered food and living in that really bitchin’ bachelor apartment—when I’m not sleeping in the back of a company plane? That life?”
She looked skywards, sniffing away tears. “Yeah,” she whispered.
“Are you dying?” he asked, and his stomach boarded a rocket ship for the center of Reach. “Are you, Elena?”
She risked a look out of the corner of her eyes, but as soon as they locked gazes, she turned head, body, and heart back to him. “I’m not sick, no. But I am dying.”
Willard felt like he was missing the joke. “Are you high right now?”
“No,” she moaned, pounding her fists kind of hard against his chest. “And if you stay with me, you’re dead too.”
“Don’t care,” Willard told her.
She nodded. They both knew it was true. He wanted to sing and dance, but he didn’t, because the love of his life—who had just accepted the role—looked like an asshole. An asshole finally accepting that there was no way she was going to stop being an asshole.
&nbs
p; Willard bent his forehead in, and Elena did, too. They stood like that, inhaling each other’s warmth and scent and presence. “God, I’m horny right now,” he confessed.
She laughed and grabbed his hand.
“We going somewhere?”
“Yeah,” Elena told him. “I guess it’s time to meet Jake.”
“My future brother-in-law?” Willard’s right eyebrow shot skyward. “Wow, okay! Can I put a shirt on first?”
She shook her head. “Let’s just…get it over with.”
Willard let Elena drag him forward. They knit their fingers together.
“You look scared,” he whispered to her out of the corner of his mouth.
“You should, too,” she answered.
“Overprotective, huh? Is he gonna punch me in the face?”
“Just remember I love you,” Elena said, her face close to outright terror.
“Always,” he promised.
The Hard Eight stood on two floors in an old strip mall right across from the main gates to the spaceport. In busy times, with asteroid miners and orbital satellite maintenance crews on the ground, both the main floor restaurant and upstairs bar would be full from wall to wall. Buying the place had taken every cent Elena’s parents and their parents had saved in over sixty years of hard toil. While it never made them rich, it kept a roof over Elena and her brother Jake’s head. It had paid for Elena’s schooling free and clear, even though she came back to run the place full-time after she earned a degree in aeronautical mechanics. She kept her hand in that business too, moonlighting on maintenance jobs for some of the smaller companies. Her brother Jake joined Gov military to pay for college, instead of saddling his sister with more debt, and had come back to the restaurant after his stint in the service was up and his debts were paid.
Elena never said much about Jake, though she clearly loved him. In fact, the longer she was with Willard, the quicker the conversations about her brother would end—and the longer the frown that Jake’s name conjured would last. The two were all the family each had left. heir parents had died while the siblings were still in school, yet Jake was never at ‘The Hard Eight’ whenever Elena brought him around. Willard began to think ‘dear brother Jake’ was less than motivated, or perhaps too motivated in illegal fields of profit generation.
Either way, Willard was unprepared to arrive at the ‘Eight and see four tall, muscle-bound toughs loitering around the front entrance. They knew Elena and let them through—but only after honoring Willard with some truly spectacular stink-eye. Another strange thing about today’s visit: his hot as hell future wife wiggled her fine rear end past the restaurant, past the stairs up to the bar, through the kitchen and in through a door at the back marked ‘storage.’
An audio news report blared from downstairs as Willard and Elena descended.
“Caran Corporation Senior Vice President Hiram Dhawal died tragically today while inspecting the recently reopened mining facility 12. The Corporation had voluntarily shut down production after discovering pockets of gas were endangering their miners. The decision was praised at the time by union leaders as a rare example of corporate citizenship, prioritizing miners’ long-term health over financial bottom line. Again, Hiram Dhawal, 67, died today in a freak rock collapse while touring the newly reopened facilities.”
‘Storage’ turned out to be a private room in a rock-walled basement filled with a few tables, a couple beat-up sofas, a battered metal desk…and a shining metal cabinet protecting a rack of blinking computers.
A man leaned on the desk, arms folded and expression dark. Maybe more mountain than man, Willard thought.
Footsteps thundered down the steps behind them and two more angry men blocked the stairwell.
Willard looked back to the ridiculously muscled man leaning on the desk. He wore mechanic’s coveralls. He leaned toward Elena. “That’s Jake?”
She nodded, and stepped closer to him. “You wanted him. Here he is.”
Willard waved. “Hey man, it’s great to finally…” He replayed Elena’s words to her brother. “Wait.”
Willard Tsu did the mental math. “You said he didn’t like your boyfr—” He stared at the computers: top of the line. He looked back at the muscle blocking the stairs: guns in their hands. He looked at the brother who looked nothing like Elena—well, okay he had the same brown eyes. Maybe a grabby uncle in the family, he wondered, then shook his head to clear the humor.
This wasn’t going to be a huggy visit.
These were the people on the news, releasing government documents, hijacking stockpiles reserved for the next convoy to Earth. People were getting killed.
“This is right?” he asked Elena.
“Yes.” She said it serious as a heart attack.
“Okay.” He felt light inside. Right. Connected. He reached for her hand. “I always thought you were too hot for me.” Relief transformed Elena’s face. She put her hand in his. It was trembling, and she damn near squeezed off two fingers. “You should be glad. You’d never have gotten me in a single bed just on your terrible pickup lines.”
He laughed. Reach was a messed up place. “You should be glad. Do you hear the sounds you make in that single bed?”
“I can’t know that!” Jake said, jumping off the desk. He glared at Willard. “So you’re catching on. That will make things easier.”
“Yeah, I guess. Unless you want me to suicide bomb one of the government buildings I just got cleared to visit. That can wait until your sis and I make some babies.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
Jake fumed. “This is serious, you little—”
Willard laughed. “Hell yes it’s serious. I just found out I’m in bed with the Resistance.” He wiggled his eyebrows at Elena. “Twice before breakfast.”
Elena smiled deliciously. “Braggart.”
Jake stormed across the room. “Jesus, Elena, what did you tell him?”
She folded her arms across her chest, obscuring two of Willard’s favourite features. “I didn’t have to tell him a thing. He’s got a brain, Jake. But since you mention it.” She swivelled back to Willard. “I was supposed to seduce you into running stuff for us. We weren’t going to tell you who we are, so we could walk away when you took the fall.”
Willard nodded. Made sense. “I’d have to help you or bad men would take you away and to terrible things to—” His eyes widened. “Ooh, you could have said your mom was sick! I’m a sucker for moms.”
Elena rubbed his arm. “I know, sweetie,” she cooed, then turned serious again. “We were playing it loose until we figured out what kind of man you were.”
There was no going back. Elena was all in on Team Willard and Elena. He beamed. “Then you fell for your mark.” He grinned and leaned in to steal a kiss. “Sucker.”
“Got you here, didn’t I?” she grinned and kissed him for real.
“This isn’t—!” Jake stared incredulously at them both. “Elena you can’t…”
Elena broke away from the kiss. Willard tried to restart his lungs. “Get used to this. I’m keeping him.”
“Yeah,” Willard said, throwing his arm around her. “She’s keeping me.” He made a sour face. “That sounded tougher in my head.” He stared at his future bride. “Was it a little tough?”
She shook her head and wrinkled that adorable nose. “Not even a little.”
One of the tough guys at the stairs walked around Elena and lifted her in a bear hug. “Congratulations, El—”
“Oh, put her down, Ben!” Jake yelled.
“I’ll get some drinks!” yelled the other tough, already half way up the stairs.
“Shut up!” Jake roared. “This isn’t a joke!”
“I’ll say,” Elena said, joyfully, patting Willard’s crotch.
Jake’s eyes bugged out of his head as his sister reached in Willard’s front pant pocket and pulled out the ring she’d stuffed there when she’d tried walking out of his life that morning.
She stared at Willard as she slipped it on. “I
said I was keeping him,” she said, then silently mouthed ‘love you.’
Jake’s mouth couldn’t seem to make a sound. Finally, he threw his hands in the air and walked away.
“Jakey, this is happening,” Elena teased after him. “So make nice, huh? You two are going to be brothers!”
Jake looked back from across the room.
Willard pointed a finger at him. “Hey bro!”
Jake chewed his lip hard enough to draw blood. Willard wondered if he was a resistance fighter and vampire.
He walked wordlessly to the closest table and dropped into the chair. “Guess we got some talking to do.”
Jake kicked a chair around and pointed to it.
“Welcome to the resistance, ‘bro.’”
CHAPTER SIX
July 19 2347
Government Row, South Reach City
Department of Infrastructure Rail Station
Eastbound Line
Shivering from more than the cold and dark, Frankie stood on the platform and stared at the open door on the waiting rail car.
The bell chimed for the second time. A recorded voice warned her to “Stand clear of the doors!”
Instead, she bolted forward, turning sideways to slip inside just in time. As instructed, Frankie knelt on the first seat and watched the platform disappearing behind her.
Nobody was following. Nobody she could see. She sat down and stared straight ahead, chest rising and falling, extremities twitching from the adrenaline rush. She pulled out her new screen, the one she had bought with cash in a downtown shop. She powered it on and tapped in the fake number she’d hacked into Gov’s white-list server and added herself.
“What are you doing, Frankie?” she hissed. She thought of all the freedom her money and genius afforded her. Then she ran her teeth over the ugly rise of scar tissue on her upper lip.