Zane snorted out a laugh. He had the best healthcare in the world, featuring technology that wasn't even of her world. In his world, they'd defeated cancer. If only she knew – if the people knew. They wouldn't be happy. But of course, as he'd been told since his admittance into the secret society, they were being spared the cure for cancer for their own good. It had taken him a while to wrap his head around that one.
"No," he said. "I'm fine."
"Then why did you call me? What's the purpose of this?"
"I couldn't just want to see you?"
"Come on, Zane. You didn't drive all the way from Nevada on a whim. What's really going on? Tell me."
"I wanted to ask you a question. Face to face." Zane steeled himself. "Were you pregnant? I mean, with our child?"
The red flush that had been building in her face drained away. She looked suddenly waxen and grey, as if she'd stepped off the warm California beach into a flesh-numbing Minnesota blizzard. Her grey, unblinking eyes probed Zane with an amazement bordering on terror.
"How...?" She took several seconds clearing her throat, her fine eyebrows squeezing downward until her eyes were slits. "Why did you ask that?"
"Just a feeling."
"I was pregnant, and it was yours." She spoke in a flat, dead voice. "I thought this time I had a chance, but then I miscarried. Being childless seems to be my fate."
Zane bowed his head.
"Now you're going to tell me how you knew that. And don't give me any crap about feelings." She stepped closer, her eyes drilling into his. "You had your NSA or DHS friends check me out? You've been stalking me?"
"No. God, no. I haven't been stalking you or asked anyone to check up on you, please believe that."
"Then how?"
"That's classified."
"What about you isn't?"
"I want to tell you everything, Valerie. You know I always did. That's an ache that never stops – not being able to share the truth with the person you care the most about."
"So tell me now. Do you think the NSA or Air Force Intelligence is aiming a surveillance microphone at us this very moment?"
"I don't know. Probably not." Zane turned away from her prying eyes to watch a seagull dance on the warm tides of air over the ocean. "You know that movie where Jack Nicholson shouts 'You can't handle the truth!'?"
"A Few Good Men. I thought that speech was crap, by the way. I've heard corrupt cops and politicians and common criminals rationalize their bullshit that way and I'm not going to buy it from you, either."
"Sometimes I think it's bullshit, too. But I signed on the dotted line, Val. Anyway, I'm not really talking about people making excuses. I'm talking about the cost of not being able to share what you know with people. If I told you, you'd have to bear that cost, too, and I'm betting that's a lot more painful burden than you realize."
"I'm a big girl, Zane. I think I could handle it."
"Maybe you could. Or maybe someday, when it's been eating at you for years, you let something slip to a friend...or maybe your husband." Valerie arched her eyebrows. "And then bad things would happen, I can pretty much guarantee that."
Valerie turned away, regarding the ocean with narrowed eyes, her lips compressed into a sharp ridge.
"I'm sorry about our son, Val."
"How did you know it was a boy?"
"I didn't. I mean, I couldn't be sure. Did you have a name picked out?"
"Is there a point to this? Yes, I had a name."
"Tyler?"
Valerie spun to him, her lips quivering, eyes shining in shock. "I never told anyone that! You are going to tell me how you knew, Zane, or I swear to God I will claw your throat out where you stand!"
Zane had never known his ex-wife to be melodramatic. She'd always been the strong, stoical, logical one. But then maybe she wasn't being melodramatic now.
"Okay," he sighed. "I'll tell you this much. There are other realities that show other possibilities. I was in such a place, and I saw some things..." He swallowed. "Other possibilities."
"Featuring me? And..."
"Tyler. Yes."
"Are we talking parallel dimensions?" Zane didn't answer. "You're telling me you're living in a science fiction novel."
"Something far stranger than that."
Valerie stared at him, slowly shaking her head.
"From what I know, Tyler's okay, Val. Not here, unfortunately for us. But somewhere."
"You've seen this – him - with your own eyes?"
"I have."
"How old was he in this alleged alternative world?"
Zane smiled through his grimace as her attorney's voice cut in. Alleged.
"Toddler." Zane had the sickening sense of sliding down the proverbial slippery slope. Now he remembered why he'd vowed to never tell his wife a thing about work. One revelation led to another and once you started there was no logical place to stop. Especially when you didn't want to. "And you were in love with a guy named Mark Miller."
Another round of surprise passed through her expression. She took a moment to compose herself.
"We did actually date a few times. But he was looking for someone who could give him children, naturally, and when I was honest about my history..." She offered a bitter shrug. "Are you sure you haven't been stalking me?"
"Positive."
"I have to admit I'm finding this very hard to believe. If it were anybody but you I'd think you were either insane or totally screwing with my head."
"Funny. I finally tell you something classified and you don't believe me. Has to be an irony in there somewhere."
Valerie stared through him for a few haunting moments, as if he'd ceased to exist or become immaterial. Just when he was about to say something or maybe snap his fingers in front of her face she refocused on him with abrupt intensity – and then surged forward and swept him into her arms. He held her tight until she leaned back from him, and the expression of vulnerability and tenderness he'd been longing for since their trial separation shone in her eyes. His lips parted and her eyes half-closed in a clear signal he'd seen more than a few times but not in recent years – except that one strange night that had almost brought Tyler into this world.
This was the moment Zane had been hoping for – he sensed the door of opportunity opening – but his response fell short of what he'd expected from himself. He still loved her, still wanted her approval and felt gratified by her affection, but the hollow place he'd been harboring didn't feel so hollow now. Something or someone had filled in at least part of that space.
When they parted, the slight narrowing of her eyes and compressing of Val's lips made Zane suspect she knew he had chosen not to step through that door. She stumbled a step or two as they backed from each other.
"Well," she said, catching her breath. "I guess you asked your question. So what's next?"
"Have you had lunch?"
"A BUCKYBALL Safehouse?" Zeke Cameron laughed over his beer. "I wonder if I made it."
"Knowing you, you're probably heading up a halfway home for survivors." Zane raised his beer to him. "Here's to apocalypses that never happened. At least to us."
Zeke leaned over and clicked his son's beer. "Thank God. I'm way too frickin' old to be a hero."
"I'm starting to feel that way myself," said Zane. "And I'm only thirty-six."
"You must be an old soul."
"I feel like one these days."
"A tough mission will do that to you. And the one you were just on..." Zeke shook his head ruefully and whistled. "Son, that went way the hell beyond tough. That was a total mind-fuck. I only had a small taste of that on Mars, when we first encountered the Cardassians, and I still have nightmares about them."
"They're the stuff of which nightmares are made, Dad."
Zeke laughed. "True enough. But my bigger point is that it isn't about being a hero. You and I both know that. It's about doing what has to be done."
"Yeah. That's how I feel about it."
"Good to know Medal of Ho
nor winners have feelings just like the rest of us mere human beings." His father's grin slipped away. "So have you decided? Will you be catching the Love Boat to Proxima?"
"I'm not sure. It's a six-year mission, including the flight. Assuming it goes as planned."
"Don't worry, son. I'll be a young 79 when you get back, just getting my third or maybe fourth wind. You'll probably bring me a half-dozen grandchildren. About time, I'd say."
"Yeah." Zane had an unwanted flash of his son that would never be – and Val's face when he told her about him. "Or maybe I could just stay here and meet some hometown girl. Someone who's not a lawyer."
"That could work. If you turn Command down I'm sure they'll find you a job cleaning latrines on the moon or something."
Zane forced a smile a grudging nod for his wit. His dad wasn't exaggerating much. Refusing the Mars-Proxima assignment would place his career track somewhere between the Twilight Zone and Bum-Fuck Egypt.
They drank in silence while Zane weighed his options. He detested Beta, but he also detested the idea of cleaning latrines or sitting around home growing fat. He'd always had a pretty bad case of wanderlust; on the other hand, settling down with a family and a predictable nine-to-five job didn't sound so terrible anymore. Maybe Horse could use a hand on his dude ranch? Zane smiled.
Then there was the part about his country asking for his service. As ethically questionable as the Shadow Government could be at times, it was still his government, his people. That tugged his patriotic strings pretty well. Yet he wasn't quite egotistical enough to believe that any of a dozen officers could babysit the colonists as well or better than he could. It was basically a civilian position dressed up in military garb. Unless, of course, something went wrong or someone uninvited showed up.
The doorbell rang. Zeke shuffled to his feet with rolling eyes, grumbling about Jehovah Witnesses under his breath as he headed for the front door.
Zane didn't have much time to speculate who the unannounced visitor was before his father returned with Patricia. Her dark hair was now trimmed short in a way Keira would never do – she'd had an abiding passion for her long, luxurious locks – and wearing more makeup and tighter-fitting jeans than Keira ever would. The result was an alien version of both Patricia and Keira. Still, she was stunning in a newly exotic and a bit scary way.
"I'll leave you two alone," said Zeke. "Got some crap to do in town."
Zane was grateful to his dad for speaking with a straight face and not even the hint of a wink. He imagined Zeke was winking inside.
"You want a beer?" he asked her as his dad departed.
"Yes, thank you."
He motioned for her to sit in his dad's chair and entered the kitchen through the back sliding door to pull a Heineken out of the kitchen fridge. He decided to get another one for himself. He dropped down beside his former crewmate with a slight unease, unsure about what she wanted. They were two months out from the scheduled joint SpaceX-United Launch Alliance charade and she - along with Command, Colonel Hurtle, and his old crew - were no doubt wondering where he stood.
Zane hadn't communicated much with any of them, aside from an occasional email and text. Patricia had emailed him once asking how he was doing. He and David had shared a few beers and almost come to blows as his friend had tried to shame him into coming. Hurtle had sent him a text reading: "Tick, tock." By now they'd probably be interviewing other prospects, if they hadn't already. Zane didn't give a shit. At least he told himself that. He wasn't going to be rushed this time. He'd earned that much, damn it.
"What have you been up to?" he asked.
"Not too much. Some training. Lance upgraded my CU a bit." She smiled. "I can see in more colors now, and I scored higher on their emotional intelligence test. In the .89 percentile – higher than most people."
Great, Zane thought. Who didn't aspire to a higher EIQ? He guessed Keira had the highest emotional I.Q. of anyone he'd ever known. It felt like a perverse coincidence that Patricia would be supposedly following in her footsteps.
"Practically genius level," he said. "Now you'll be able to psychologically manipulate your crew like a pro."
"Sounds like fun."
Patricia was smiling like a schoolgirl. Zane wasn't sure if it was Dr. Spencer's tinkering or some natural evolution, but Patricia had been changing. He'd seen that over the course of the mission and especially during and after the lengthy debriefing. A wider emotional range and a developing sense of humor. She was even turning spunky. Zane wasn't sure he liked spunk.
"I suppose people have been bugging you about whether you're going or not," she said. "And trying to convince you to."
"A few." Zane gave her a flinty smile. "I suppose you're going to join them."
"I'm not going to try to convince you to go. But I would like to know, because what you decide will affect my decision."
"What's to decide? You've made it clear from the start that you want to go."
"Not without you."
Zane's beer bottle was raised halfway to his mouth. He lowered it slowly. He'd been hoping her supposed feelings for him would wither away like an unwatered plant. In the last month, he'd thought that hope had been realized. He'd been surprised that thought hadn't brought him any joy. In fact, in his rare candid moments, he acknowledged it was nice to be liked by some woman, even if she was a reanimated corpse.
"Are you serious?" he asked.
"Of course."
It was time for The Talk. The problem was, Zane wasn't sure about what he wanted to say or even of the conclusion. He'd considered telling Patricia once and for all to knock it off, that nothing could ever happen between them, but for some reason he'd never pulled that particular trigger. David had laughingly urged him to give Patricia what she evidently wanted, to "plow that horny robot within an inch of her digital life." Mallory hadn't relented when Zane had sullenly reminded him that they were talking about Keira's body. "As if you never had a thing for Keira. You'd get the best of both worlds – screwing a hot lesbo who's no longer lesbian. Doesn't get much better than that, dude."
Zane shut out his friend's wiseass counsel and focused on the woman beside him.
"Patricia, do you know what would happen to your career if you told Command you wouldn't go on a mission because of your feelings for someone?"
"Some people, mostly women, have declined certain jobs in the USSC for family reasons."
"Right. But you won't see any of them on space missions."
"But that's the beauty of the Mars-Proxima mission and of our both being Cosmic-cleared! We can go on these missions and still be together! And afterward we're free to talk all about it – instead of being with someone you can't share anything with."
Zane scowled. It was as if she knew about his relationship with Valerie. Aside from that, she was starting to sound like a bubbly cheerleader. Too many exclamation marks.
Though she had a point – often raised by his dad – that finding someone within the USSC made a lot of sense for communication purposes alone. Not that there weren't many clearance levels within the USSC, but at least you were basically on the same page.
"'Be together,'" Zane quoted her. "What exactly do you mean by that?"
"Be together in the romantic sense."
"Boyfriend and girlfriend."
Patricia finished her beer in three ravenous gulps, as if seeking liquid courage. Zane thought he was probably projecting – or hoped he was.
"I was thinking," she said, "more like husband and wife." She covered her mouth a second to late to mute her belch. "Sorry. I'm thinking kids, the whole picket fence scenario."
"Kids?" Zane swallowed down a bit of beer-fueled acid reflux.
"I'd like to have children. A lot of them, actually. My body is quite fertile, I've learned."
"You mean, Kiera's body."
"I understand how you feel about that, Zane." She reached across and covered his hand. "I like that you're loyal to her. But the fact is, she's gone. Her body's mine, now. And it c
ould be yours, too, if you want it."
Zane stared at her hand. He'd never noticed how perfectly shaped it was before. A tiny vein or two suggesting some hard exercise set in hands that could've been carved from alabaster. He frowned, worried about his thinking poetically. That couldn't be good. Even worse was the heat radiating from her hand through him, as if she was projecting her fingers invisibly into parts of him far removed from her hand.
And it could be yours, too, if you want it. Zane tried not to think about those words, but they kept echoing in his apparently hollowed-out head. And each echo had an unwanted effect on his body.
"Or don't you want children?" she asked.
Zane slid his hand out from under hers. He started to stand up, but reconsidered when he felt the restriction in his jeans. He twisted his body away from her into a less revealing position. This conversation – the response of his body – was too surreal for words.
"You told me you have an emotional high I.Q.," he said. "Don't you find this conversation a little weird? We've never even dated or anything else and you're talking about kids and marriage?"
"I know, but it's only logical, isn't it? We both have the same career, the same lives. We're both alone, we're both lonely. You think I'm hot, and I love you. We could have a big family and live happily ever after together! We'd be perfect!"
"Except I don't love you."
Seeing her face drop made Zane half-wish he hadn't been quite so blunt, but it was definitely time – past time – to bring her back to reality.
"I know," she sighed.
"But you're okay with that?"
"No. I was kind of hoping you'd fall crazy in love with me." She smiled. "But you will, Zane, you will. It's just a question of time. I have everything you want in a woman."
Other than being a real woman. Zane winced. His whole way of thinking about her was based on the idea she wasn't truly human. But what if his assumption was wrong? What if she was just as real as he or anyone else was? Dr. Lance Spencer would say he was just being an ignoramus. If she was a normal woman who looked like Patricia/Keira and she was making these crazy proclamations, what would he do?
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