by eden Hudson
I grinned and leaned back in my seat. It was going to be a pleasant ride to the icebreaker after all.
SIX:
Nick
“All right, sugar, I’m awake,” Re Suli said. “Let’s see them fancy plans a yours.”
Nick handed over the schematics for the leviathan mech fittings with a mixture of intense uneasiness and equally intense relief. He shut his eyes, almost panting with the release from the compulsion.
It had taken him most of two days to render the plans entirely by hand, and all the while that need to complete the task had gnawed at his soul. None of his tech classes had studied anything related to cyborgcromancy. All he knew about it was that cyborgcromancy was the most complicated form of technomancy, it involved binding inorganic matter to biological matter to create a complex machine, and the biological matter had to be dead in order for the machine to work. In the end, he’d had to go on guesswork and what he knew about bio-mimicking machinery. There had been a couple of dark hours there after the first plans he’d rendered had to be trashed—the combined weight of the leviathan and the metals required would collapse the contraption—when he thought he’d go crazy trying to figure it out. He hadn’t slept. He hadn’t eaten. He hadn’t been able to think about anything else.
Worse, he hadn’t been able to stop. Even in the depths of the compulsion, Nick knew that a cyborgcromantic leviathan in the hands of some backwoods jungle hag with delusions of Dark Age Soami grandeur couldn’t mean anything good.
The witch looked over the schematics, nodding to herself.
Nick wished he could’ve done something to sabotage the mech. Built in a stop measure or weak point. But based on that black wall of despair he’d crashed into when he ran the calculations and realized the first design wasn’t viable, the soul jar wouldn’t have let him fail—intentionally or otherwise.
“These’ll do just fine, sugar,” the witch said. “Just fine. Het!”
Her voice cut through the jungle more effectively than a buzz saw. She didn’t look over her shoulder waiting for the kid to show up, but went back to looking at the schematics.
Maybe she had Het under a spell similar to the soul jar, and he had to come running when she called. Nick wondered whether he could offer to break the little guy’s spell if Het would get Nick’s wristpiece for him.
The dirty little kid smashed through the underbrush and into the clearing a few minutes later, breaking in on Nick’s thoughts.
Re Suli looked up from the schematics. “I got somebody I need you to fetch to me, Het.”
Het grinned, showing off four black gaps where he should’ve had canine teeth.
SEVEN:
Jubal
The Mirror Shard, a five-thousand-ton wrecking ball of a ship, was waiting at the dock for us when we arrived. Carina and I hauled our baggage aboard while, overhead, a crane loaded the last shipping container of supplies. The microbiologist kept her distance.
One of the crew, a windburned guy with severely chapped lips, showed us below deck.
“Only got the two cabins free at the mo’,” he said, already heading back the way we’d come. “Fight ’mongst yourselfs over ’em.”
The microbiologist squeezed around him into the door of the closest cabin. “I require one to myself. Research. Equipment. Samples. Late hours. The two of you, of course, will want your privacy.”
Carina was looking at the older woman with something like bewildered amusement. Before Carina could open her big fat mouth, I put my arm around her and squeezed until I could feel her shoulders through the biothermal layers.
“Just remember,” I said, shooting the microbiologist a wink, “our door’s always open.”
The microbiologist slammed her cabin door in our faces.
“What did you tell her?” Carina asked, heaving her bag down the hallway toward our cabin.
I followed her inside and threw my luggage onto a metal desk below one bunk.
“Lots of stuff,” I said. “For example, did you know that there’s such a thing as a sexual snow fetish?”
“You didn’t.”
“Why, what did you tell her?” I started shucking extra layers of clothes and spreading them out on the metal desk below my bunk to melt. “That we’re on a magical quest to an ancient cave to steal Time from a murderous speleothem? That chick in there is so goo-goo over tardigrades and their mating habits that she can’t hear anything that doesn’t have to do with sex or microanimals having it.”
“Obviously you weren’t paying attention at all,” Carina said. “She’s not studying anything’s mating habits. Most species of tardigrade don’t even have separate sexes. They lay eggs that—”
“Parthenogenesis is a major turnoff for me, Carina. When I hear it, I know I can safely disregard the rest of the conversation as a waste of brain space. So, if you want me to keep paying attention, you’re going to have to veer away from it pretty quick here.”
“You told her you were a snow fetishist?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I told her we were snow fetishists. Additionally, I invited her to try starting a friction fire in my pants.”
Carina rolled her eyes. “Have you ever considered just telling someone you didn’t want to talk right now?”
“Seems like the hand job return on an approach like that would be pretty low.”
She sighed and turned away from me, pulling off and laying out her frozen layers, too.
“What’s the matter, Bloodslinger, are you worried she’s going to blab it all over the ship and hurt your chances of getting a taste of salty seaman?”
“I wanted to hear more about her research,” Carina grumbled.
“Then I wouldn’t worry about it,” I said. “We both know women can’t keep their mouths shut to save their lives. Whatever she finds out’ll be all over the infosphere in no time. Besides, we came down here to do a job, not take a course in microbiology.”
“Remind me how well the professionalism argument worked when I asked you not to sleep with my lead investigator,” Carina said, turning back to glare at me.
I tapped her on the nose. “You are so jealous that it’s almost endearing. Trying to keep other women away from me, trying to control me, dropping hints about how you and Nickie-boy are done…”
“We’re not done.” But there was something in her voice, something almost indistinguishable from doubt. Guilt?
“Okay, so dropping hints about how rocky things are between you and Nickie-boy so I’ll swoop in and comfort you, physically. I admit, I wouldn’t say no to a bounce around the cabin if that’s what all this lovesick jealousy is about. I’m not coldhearted enough to turn down a charity bang for a friend. We’ll have to watch our heads, though. The concussion risk in this place—”
“You’re not?” Carina asked, dropping the sweater she’d been hanging over the back of the chair in the corner. She took a step toward me, her green eyes locked on mine. “You wouldn’t say no to sex with me if that’s what I wanted?”
My heart stopped. “Whuh?”
“If I’m lovesick over you?” She took another step. She was so close I could feel the heat from her skin. Every inch of her body was almost—almost—pressed against every inch of mine. “You would sleep with me?” Every word came out in little puffs of air against my lips. “If that’s what I wanted?”
My fists balled up at my sides. Every muscle fiber in my body popped and sparked, screaming with roiling black energy, but I couldn’t move or shake my shoulders out without touching her.
Over Carina’s shoulder, my flame kigao covered her fiery mouth and nose with both hands, her burning-blood eyes wider than I’d ever seen them before. I ignored her.
Carina was so close that I could smell her. A scent like warm rain and warmer skin overwhelmed my senses. Flawless mahogany skin, so perfect right up to the jagged pink edges of her scars, like molten chocolate flowing up to a shore of pink rock candy. I could rest my cheek against them.
I swallowed. I had to say somet
hing, but the words stuck sideways in my throat.
Soft fingertips grazed my forearm. She was reaching up, about to touch my face. I leaned into her hand.
Blood poured from the black hole between her eyes—she was naked, covered in blood, strips of her skin shredded away in flags, dead eyes staring out of her cold face like frosted emeralds—she was screaming her throat raw over the sound of a hole saw—she wasn’t crying anymore, she was a new person, thirsty for blood and pain, completely drowned in her torturer’s personality—
I jerked away, stumbled back a step, and banged my head on the sharp corner of the bunk.
“Son of a cock!” I doubled over, clutching the spot where my brain was hemorrhaging out of my skull.
Carina stood there watching as if I were a particularly interesting case study.
“That’s what I thought,” she said, all the sex and promises gone from her voice. In their place was the confirmation of a hypothesis, the compiled data from an experiment. She shook her head. “It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.”
She grabbed her discarded layers and left the cabin, letting the door swing shut behind her.
My head throbbed as if the corner of the bunk were lodged in it. My skin was too hot, too tight. My whole body shook.
I grabbed the edge of the desk and tried to flip it over. It was bolted to the floor. Every piece of furniture in this damn cabin was bolted down.
“That’s what I thought,” I sneered. I threw my parka at the door, then layer after layer of biothermal jackets and sweaters and mittens and snow pants. Their softness and swishing just made me angrier. “Acid-faced freak! That’s what I thought!”
I kicked the door as hard as I could. The metallic bang reverberated through the tiny cabin.
She had been so close I could’ve licked her scars. I could’ve grabbed her ass and pulled her into my lap. I could’ve dragged her down to the floor and given her everything we both wanted.
That soul-jar-making vocor’s voice rang in my head—You can get her, but you won’t. The fear your papa put into you is too strong.
“You’re not welcome in here,” I told the voice.
Not that that stopped Lorne. Or those images of his gals. If they hadn’t intruded, Carina would be in my arms right now.
That’s what I thought.
“Fishshit it was.” I paced the tiny cabin in furious strides.
She’d been testing her limits. Seeing how far she could push me.
Or she wanted me to think that was what she’d been doing.
Why would she want me to think that?
Because it hadn’t really been a dispassionate experiment to see what I would do. She wanted me, but she couldn’t admit that she wanted me, not so soon after Nick’s disappearance. She had to cover up what she’d almost done, pretend like she’d been teaching me a lesson about playing with fire instead of almost getting burned herself.
I could see her eyes, sparkling dark green, almost entirely pupil. The eyes of a bloodthirsty feline predator dying to sink its jaws into an exposed throat.
How long were we going to keep going around and around like this? When was she going to admit that I was perfect for her, that we were two of the same rare and beautiful creature, prowling the Revived Earth in search of one another?
Constantly circling each other, never going in for the kill? That couldn’t last. It wasn’t sustainable. I’d gotten Nick out of the way; I couldn’t do everything myself. Surely she could see that.
I stopped pacing. Of course she could see it! She just couldn’t admit it yet. Carina felt guilt. She felt remorse. She needed time to talk herself out of those things.
She was right, it would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
I threw on a jacket and jerked open the door. Time to find out where they stashed the food on this tub.
***
After consuming a surprisingly delicious meal of hogzilla and beans with a side of sorghum-slathered cornbread, I made my way back to the cabin in a much better mood.
Inside, the half-sized door to our en-suite head was shut, and the shower was running. Carina had made it back, too.
I peeled off my outer layers one by one until I was down to shorts and an undershirt, stuffed the discards into the Dirty compartment of my bag, then climbed into my bunk for some light reading on subzero survival and spelunking.
Eventually, the steady drum of the shower cut off. A few minutes passed, then Carina came out, wreathed in steam.
In spite of all her tough talk about sexy sleepwear at the Sharp Right Turn, when we stocked up for this mission, Carina had refused to get anything but an oversized t-shirt and a pair of those martial meditation pants, and no amount of my complaining had changed her mind.
“Where’d you run off to that you need a shower?” I asked.
“They have a gym on the lower deck,” she said. “Have you been making friends with the crew?”
“The chef specifically,” I said. “The guy graduated with honors from the Ad’brum’Sarl Culinary Institute. Can you believe that?”
“I can.” She dug through her bag and pulled out a hairbrush. “Captain Ojembay said their line keeps the icebreakers as comfortable as possible to compensate for the harsh environment the crew has to work in. The hazard pay is incredible, too.”
“Of course it is. They lose an average of six men a year,” I said, scrolling through an article on proper snow shelter construction. “Why, thinking of changing jobs?”
“Nah, not yet.”
The ripping sound the teeth of the brush made as she pulled it through her hair filled the cabin. If the lights were off, I could’ve fallen asleep listening to that.
Then she had to go and ruin it.
“What happened earlier is bothering you,” she said.
“Sister, nothing is bothering me. We’re just a few nautical miles and a little subzero hiking away from stealing enough Time for me to search the surface of the Revived Earth for a cure for the plague. Which reminds me: What are you doing after this? I’m thinking the first place I’ll look is Wasteside. Nobody’s asked them if they have a cure for PCM yet. Nobody ever asks the Wastesiders about anything, all because of their soft spot for human flesh. They could have the trick to immortality, and none of us would know it.”
The brushing stopped.
“You act the same and say the same things, but it’s not the same,” Carina said. “I can feel it.”
Black treble hooks of restless energy prickled down my spine. I shook them out.
“That’s called ‘imagining things,’” I told her.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her watching me.
“I’m sorry I pushed you, Van Zandt,” she said, finally looking away to stow her brush again. She zipped her bag. “You were asking for it, though.”
“I’m sure that would’ve made Nickie-boy feel better if I hadn’t been gallant enough to shoot you down.” I kept scrolling without seeing the text. “‘We got nasty, Nick, but he was asking for it.’ A few rounds of hardcore fucking really would’ve shown me.”
“I was proving a point to you,” she said.
“To me?” I laughed my most condescending laugh and switched to an article on how to make deadman anchors so I would have something else to scroll through.
“If you hadn’t reacted like you did, I would’ve put a stop to it,” she said.
“Your defensive tone says otherwise.”
Carina sighed and shut the lights off.
I kept pretending to read.
In the ambient glow from my wristpiece, I saw Carina pull herself up onto her bunk and turn on her side to face me. She propped her head on her hand and put the pillow under her knee, maybe to take some of the pressure off her replaced vertebrae or to ease the pain in her newly healed femur.
“Have you ever loved anyone, Van Zandt?”
The ache in her voice resonated in my bones like a pulse—Say me. Say me. Say you love me. That old familiar poisoned knife twisted i
n my guts.
I stopped scrolling. “Are you asking because you actually want to hear my answer, or are you using rhetorical questions as jumping-off points so you can keep yapping about whatever you’re stuck on now?”
“I couldn’t have gone through with it,” she said. “I love him.”
“What you’re saying is if you didn’t, you could,” I told her.
Carina didn’t say anything.
I pushed up onto my elbow and pointed my wristpiece light at her face. She was lying on her back now, staring up at the ceiling. Her wet hair had fallen away from her face, leaving her scars exposed. If our bunks had been closer together, it would’ve been like we were lying side-by-side in the same bed, maybe even sharing the same pillow.
I watched the profile of her eye while she stared. In cross section, the green of her iris was almost as clear as top-shelf triple-distilled water. Her eyelids met in a series of slow blinks, her long lashes making the tiniest of sounds every time they touched. Every blink was a coded message, an esoteric communication meant only for me.
And then she closed her eyes and didn’t reopen them.
“But I do,” she said.
Eventually my wristpiece light timed out.
I stared into the darkness where I knew she was.
“There are realities where you don’t,” I said, a jagged edge in my voice that I didn’t put there. “And you’re a lot happier in them.”
Carina didn’t respond. Her bunk creaked and the bedclothes rustled. She was turning over to face away from me.
I scratched absently at the back of my head while I considered her move. People only turn away when they want to hide something.
She knew that I knew she could see those other realities, too. Realities where we’d found each other before she gave up and settled for someone else. Realities where we set the universe on fire together and laughed while it burned.
My fingernails were digging into my scalp. I could feel the wet wedges built up underneath each nail. I tucked my hand into my armpit before I did any noticeable damage.
The sad truth was Carina hadn’t turned away because she didn’t want me to know that she could see those other realities. She had turned away because she wasn’t going to do anything to turn this reality into one of those. She couldn’t let herself, and she was ashamed because she didn’t want me to see how helpless she was.