Fallout

by Ariel Tachna

  Yes, he’d do that in the morning. Sambit would find it when he got off work tomorrow evening, and maybe he’d call.

  robotech: How are the new additions working out?

  sopsolo: Most of them are pretty good, but nobody with much robotics experience. Tucker screwed up when he sent you home. That’s the other good news. He’s being replaced next week. Of course, I suppose the new guy could be as bad as Tucker, but we can hope anyway.

  robotech: That’s good. I hope you’ll be less stressed with him gone.

  sopsolo: You mean you hope Sambit will be less stressed.

  robotech: That too, but I really don’t want you to be stressed either. I think of you as one of my friends too, you know.

  sopsolo: I know. I was teasing.

  robotech: Well don’t. I’m not in the mood at the moment.

  sopsolo: Call Sambit.

  robotech: Tell him to call me.

  sopsolo: What do you think I’ve been doing for the last four days? He’s as stubborn as you are. Call him.

  He couldn’t talk about it anymore, but he wasn’t quite ready to deal with an empty house and no human contact for the evening.

  robotech: so what’s with the IM handle? sopsolo?

  sopsolo: I’m the soprano soloist in the local community choir. With a name like Lyrica, you knew I was going to be a musician of some sort.

  robotech: Oh, cool. Let me know next time you perform. I’d love to come see you.

  sopsolo: As long as you bring Sambit with you.

  Derek sighed. Lyrica wasn’t letting it go.

  robotech: If he’s talking to me again by then, I will. I’m going to do some laundry and take Fido for a walk.

  sopsolo: I’ll tell him you asked about him.

  robotech: You’ll do no such thing. He’ll call me or not when he’s ready. Don’t interfere.

  That was probably wishful thinking, but he had to say it anyway. He logged out of chat before she could reply and tempt him again with calling Sambit. “Come on, Fido,” he called, grabbing the leash. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  The dog bounded up to him, tongue lolling and tail wagging excitedly at the thought of a walk. “I’m glad someone still wants to be with me.”

  That wasn’t fair to Sambit, and he knew it, but it was hard to keep his hopes up when he hadn’t talked to Sambit in four days.

  They walked the circular route around his neighborhood. Derek smiled at the sight of piles of trash on the curb. As disturbing as it was to know that much had been damaged, it was proof of people coming back and picking up the threads of their lives again, and that was a source of hope.

  One of Derek’s neighbors, a man he recognized on sight but didn’t know by name, came out of his house dragging a big roll of carpet.

  “Flooded?” Derek asked sympathetically.

  “Only about two inches of water,” the man called back, “but enough to ruin the carpet. I’m not going to complain too much, though. The roof didn’t fall in like a lot of the other houses did. My wife’s been after me to tear the carpet out now that the kids are grown and put down hardwoods. I guess she’s going to get her wish.”

  “What a good way to look at it,” Derek said with a laugh.

  The man laughed too. “Next time I’ll do what she wants without the storm to make me, I think.”

  “Good idea,” Derek said. “If I never live through another storm like that one, it’ll be too soon.”

  “Did you have a lot of damage?”

  “Not too much,” Derek said. “Certainly not like a lot of people seem to have. It makes me glad I put all the upgrades into the house when it was being built. They paid off.”

  The man nodded. “Yeah, we did the same thing. We’ll have some shingles to replace, but other than the water and downed branches, we seem okay. We’re having an inspector come out to check the foundation since we know we had water in the house, and the insurance inspector has already looked at the interior damage. Thank goodness for flood insurance.”

  “Really!” Derek agreed, though he hadn’t needed it this time. After seeing the damage in his neighborhood, he wouldn’t let it lapse anytime soon. Fido pulled impatiently at the leash. “I’d better finish his walk before he finishes me. Good luck with the redecorating.”

  Fido whined a little when they passed the house where Derek had found him, but the dog made no attempt to go toward the house, much to Derek’s relief. He couldn’t see any sign that the owners had returned. No pile of trash waited for pickup, whenever city services were restored. No lights shone through the remaining windows, and no boards covered the broken ones. Wherever Fido’s old owners were, they weren’t here, and that was fine with Derek.

  “SO WHY haven’t you called Derek yet?”

  Sambit opened his eyes, blinking a couple of times to help them adjust to the sudden brightness in the room. “Why are you in my trailer?”

  “Because you and Derek are both being fools and I’m tired of it,” Lyrica said. “You’re moping around like someone kicked your puppy, and he’s texting me instead of texting you, and this is getting ridiculous. You’re grown men, not prepubescent boys with no sense. So why haven’t you called Derek yet?”

  “Because he doesn’t want me.”

  “Like hell! I just spent twenty minutes in a chat window assuring him you were as miserable as he was and that you hadn’t died of radiation poisoning and everything else I could think of to try to make him feel better about the fact that you hadn’t called. That man is stupid with wanting you.”

  “Then why did he tell me not to call him?”

  Lyrica let out a huge sigh. “God, why do men have to make everything so complicated?” She plopped down on the mattress of the narrow metal bed that had replaced the army cot. “What did he tell you? Exactly.”

  “He said not to call him.”

  “Ever? Then why is he telling me he’s waiting for you to call?”

  “Not never,” Sambit said. “Until I could tell him what I wanted out of our relationship, but there is no relationship, so how am I supposed to know what I want?”

  “I give up,” Lyrica said, standing up and glaring at him. “He’s told you he considers it a relationship. He’s told me he considers it a relationship. I’ve told you it looks like every relationship I’ve ever seen except for the fact that you aren’t together at the moment, but that’s temporary. If you keep going like this, you’re going to be right, and it’s not going to be because he didn’t want you. It’s going to be because you pushed him away so often that he stopped coming back for more rejection. He’s being patient with you at the moment. He’s waiting for you to call him, but if you don’t put some effort into nurturing that, even if you e-mail him and tell him you’re still thinking or that you need to wait until you get home or something, if you don’t let him know you still want him, he is going to get tired of waiting eventually, and then all your self-fulfilling prophecies will have come true through no fault of anyone but you. Is that what you want?”

  Sambit sighed. “No.”

  “Then why won’t you do anything to change it?”

  “Because I don’t know how to answer him.”

  “Of all the stupid things.”

  “I’m getting a little tired of you calling me stupid,” Sambit complained.

  “Then stop acting stupid and I won’t have to call you on it,” Lyrica retorted. “This isn’t nuclear physics. It’s a relationship. What would make you happy?”

  What would make him happy? Sambit had gotten so used to simply accepting his life as it was that he wasn’t sure he knew what happy was anymore. “I liked hearing about his day,” he said finally. “I liked telling him about mine.”

  “That’s a good start. What else?”

  “I liked joking with him.”

  “What else?”

  “I don’t know,” Sambit said, his hands shaking with frustration. “All the relationships I’ve ever been in have failed.”

  “Why?”

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p; “What?”

  “Why have all your relationships failed?” Lyrica said. “What went wrong, and how do you keep that from happening with Derek?”

  “I told you about Praveen.”

  “So distance was the problem there,” Lyrica said, “and you’re still gun-shy from that, especially since Derek doesn’t live down the street from you, but I’d be willing to bet there were a few other factors, like family and societal pressure.”

  “Yes, probably.”

  “You don’t have to worry about those,” Lyrica said. “Derek’s about as out and proud as they come. I can’t swear nobody’s pressuring him, but I’d put good money on him not caving to it.”

  Sambit couldn’t argue with that. Derek made absolutely no bones about his preference for his own gender.

  “So what else?” Lyrica prompted when Sambit didn’t continue. “What else went wrong?”

  “Do we have to talk about this?”

  “No, we don’t have to talk about it, but you have to think about it,” Lyrica insisted. “Ignoring it will make it go away, but it won’t solve anything.”

  “If I promise to think about it, will you stop talking about it?”

  “Yes, but whatever you decide, you have to call Derek,” Lyrica said. “Even if it’s to tell him that you don’t want to see him again, that you don’t care enough about him to give a relationship a chance, don’t do to him what Praveen did to you.”

  “That’s a low blow.”

  “Maybe, but it’s what you’re doing. You’re leaving him hanging, waiting to hear from you, hoping everything will work out. If it doesn’t, that’s fine, but don’t leave him in the dark. Whatever you decide, be man enough to tell him yourself.”

  “Fine,” Sambit said. “I will. Just drop it now.”

  Lyrica didn’t look convinced, but she left him alone with his dark thoughts. Despite his answers to Lyrica, he had been thinking about Derek’s question. He missed the e-mails, the texts, the phone calls. He missed the connection, however tenuous. He missed the flirting and the phone sex, but more than that, he missed telling Derek about his day and feeling like the other man was genuinely interested in hearing what Sambit had to say.

  So what did he want from Derek?

  The easy answer would have been a life together, but Sambit didn’t see it being possible. Derek would never agree to be discreet about their relationship. He’d want to go with Sambit to university events and temple functions, and he’d want Sambit to go with him to events for the staff at NASA. Sambit didn’t mind that part quite so much, that being Derek’s life and friends, not his own, but Sambit didn’t know how his colleagues would react if he brought Derek with him to the faculty picnic or to convocation or any such events. A&M had their own version of a Gay Straight Alliance, but Sambit had never paid any attention to how active they were or how they were received on campus by either the students or the other faculty. It hadn’t mattered because he hadn’t planned on bringing anyone to campus with him. If he got together with Derek, he wouldn’t have a choice, not if he wanted to keep Derek for more than a fling.

  It would mean turning his entire life upside down, and while he was tempted in a way he’d never been tempted before, fear held him back. If it didn’t work out, he’d be left without even Derek’s companionship to make up for the changes.

  He’d never had a relationship last past a month or two. With that kind of track record, he was hardly optimistic now. At least he’d be able to go home soon. Tucker’s replacement, a sensible man named Davis, had found someone who could run and repair the robots, and with the influx of new people to work on decommissioning the plant, Sambit would only be needed for another week. He’d be home in time for the end of summer faculty picnic. That would help him settle back into his real life, and everything would feel more balanced after that.

  Lyrica’s words about Praveen echoed in his head. He picked up his phone and texted Derek.

  I haven’t forgotten you. I just need a little more time.

  Chapter 17

  SAMBIT’S apartment seemed incredibly quiet after the near-constant buzz of noise at the power plant in Bay City. He told himself he should be glad of the peace, but instead he missed the companionship. He gave himself a day to be lazy; then he did all his laundry, cleaned the apartment from one end to the other, and revised his syllabus for the fall semester based on his experiences over the summer. He also made a note to discuss adding a basic robotics engineering course to the requirements for a degree in applied nuclear engineering.

  That kept him busy through the night before the faculty picnic. He tossed and turned all night, vague dreams of showing up at the picnic in only his boxers mixed with dreams of showing up with Derek and being run off by his jeering peers.

  When he awoke, he told himself that was ridiculous. They were all too professional to jeer at him as they had in his dreams. They would politely shun him, and that would be worse.

  He sighed and made himself go through his normal morning routine: yoga, tea with real milk instead of the awful creamer packets they’d had at the power plant, chana masala and poori for breakfast, and then answering e-mails. The last e-mail he’d gotten from Derek stared at him accusingly as he worked, the one from his NASA address with information about who to contact about a possible job. An e-mail that had arrived even after he’d sent the last text to Derek two weeks ago asking for more time. He owed Derek an answer. He knew that, but he couldn’t seem to come to a decision. He missed the other man terribly, but he still didn’t see how it could be anything more than a pipe dream.

  He answered all the other e-mail in his inbox, leaving only the one from Derek. He’d think about it after he got back from the faculty picnic that afternoon. He needed a shower and then he needed to head out, since the picnic wasn’t in College Station but out on one of the ranches surrounding town. He might joke about Indian time, but he hated to be late to anything.

  He debated what to wear but finally decided on jeans and a polo shirt. He’d probably be hot, but he couldn’t make himself wear shorts to a university function, even one as casual as the picnic.

  He wasn’t the first person to arrive when he got to the ranch at a few minutes after noon, but he didn’t need to be first, just not late. He summoned a smile and a handshake for his colleagues, asking about their summers and saying as little as possible about his. The hurricane was a huge topic of conversation, needless to say, as well as the near-miss with the meltdown in Bay City.

  “Have you been following the developments at the South Texas nuclear plant?” Peter Jones, one of Sambit’s colleagues, asked.

  “Closely,” Sambit said. “It’s an interesting case, made more complicated, from what I understand, by the NRC representative who disagreed with the local team on what the outcome should be. In a year or two, when it isn’t quite so fresh in people’s minds, I think it could make an interesting case study. The other thing I found interesting was the use of robots once again to do work in situations that were unsafe for humans. I wonder if we’re doing our students a disservice by not requiring them to learn at least some basic robotics.”

  “Is there such a thing?” Peter asked. “I mean, that’s an entire field in itself. How do we add that to an already heavy course load?”

  “I wasn’t thinking as much about the creation of robots as I was about the maintenance of them,” Sambit admitted. “A NASA robotics engineer created the robots being used at the plant, but the people on site were expected to maintain them, and they found that to be outside their abilities beyond the very basics.”

  “You really have been following it closely,” Peter said. “Where did you get your information? I thought I’d searched pretty thoroughly, but I missed that.”

  Sambit sighed. “I was there until about three days ago helping contain the situation, but I’d rather that stay quiet. I don’t want people thinking I’m playing at being a hero.”

  “Somehow I don’t think there was any playing involved.”
r />   “Sambit, Peter, come meet our new biogenetics faculty.”

  Eager to escape the conversation with Peter, Sambit joined the head of the physics department. “Sambit Patel, Dr. Bradley Smith-Wallace, lately arrived from University of Maine. He’ll be setting up a genetics lab and teaching some of our advanced bio courses.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Sambit said, offering his hand. “Bradley, was it?”

  “Please, call me Brad. The only person who calls me Bradley is my mother.”

  “And you don’t want to meet his mother,” another man said, joining them and giving Brad a fond smile.

  “Be nice,” Brad scolded. “My mother is coming around. Dr. Patel, this is my husband, Paul Smith-Wallace.”

  Sambit felt the world tilt on its axis as he shook the other man’s hand. The new bio professor was gay, married, and completely unconcerned about the reaction of the rest of the faculty. Furthermore, no one hearing the introduction seemed to care. “Nice to meet you,” Sambit said automatically. “Are you in genetics also?”

  Paul laughed. “Oh, God, no! I’m an interior designer. I know, call it cliché, but I have a good sense of space, light, and color. It was either that or be an artist, and I had to pay the bills somehow. Unlike some people, I’m not independently wealthy.”

  It was obviously a familiar dig given the indulgent look on Brad’s face, but it wasn’t their interactions that made Sambit’s chest hurt. It was Derek’s absence. If he hadn’t been such an idiot, he could be standing here right now introducing his partner as well.

  “Have you been married long?” Sambit asked.

  “Not as long as we would’ve liked,” Paul said. “Maine hadn’t approved gay marriage when we started dating, but while we jumped at the opportunity to make it legal, there anyway, since Texas doesn’t recognize it, we still celebrate the anniversary of moving in together as well as our wedding anniversary.”