Exodus

by Toasha Jiordano

  I watch as he rolls Penelope into her bedsheets like a taco. The back of his shirt rides up as he turns to carry her away. Thick leathery scars weave in and out of each other, up his back and around both sides.

  Unmistakable burn marks. Just like the hundreds of bodies piled outside charred buildings in the first few weeks after the Glitch. I can’t look away. My eyes follow the trail of scars like the winding roads they are, up up and… Vallon catches me staring.

  He doesn’t cover himself. With a strong stiff back he walks off, Penelope slung over his shoulder like a doll.

  //Howie. They’re all gone. You’re all I have left. Please answer me. Please?// I sink onto my bed, not ready to wash my friends off my clothes and skin yet.

  Later that night, after two scalding hot showers, each, I find Vallon leaning against Marshall’s room again. Dressed in full fatigues like he’s on duty or something, he manically punches numbers into the keypad, trying to gain access to the one sacred place left on this ship.

  “What are you doing?” Sliding myself between him and the door, arms stretched as wide as they’ll go, I add, //We discussed this.// I transmit the warning.

  His face is too close, musky breath hot on my cheek. Sucking in a deep lungful of our shared oxygen, Vallon inches closer to breathe his musky response into my nose. “If we’re gonna land this thing, we need those manuals.”

  Here we go again.

  “Those manuals could be long gone for all we know. This is his private living space and he doesn’t want anyone going in there. Most of all not the likes of you.” He’s a wall of stone but I push against him anyway.

  Moving closer instead of farther, Vallon places his large hands on my hips. My thoughts wander to Howie for an instant, the time he touched me like that, and how much I wanted it.

  Mistaking hesitation for permission Vallon presses himself to me. A flame erupts in my center and radiates outward against my will. I’m surprised he doesn’t jerk his hands away from the heat. But then, I remember he’s no stranger to fire.

  The thick bulge in his throat bobs once; a gulp. “Maybe you should distract me somehow,” he purrs.

  Just the right amount of douche to bring me to my senses. “Not if you were the last –”

  “I am.” His long fingers crawl down my backside and dig in, closing the gap between us. He leans over, lips grazing mine.

  “We have more important things to worry about right now.” I push against him, trying to squirm my way out. Every inch of my body is squished between him and the door.

  Vallon sucks in more of my air, expanding himself further, leaving me less room to breathe, to think.

  Another flash of memory; this time it’s not my beautiful sweet Howie. Vallon’s camouflage jacket becomes a worn dusty thing that smells of smoke and sex. Three sets of invisible hands grope at me, cover my mouth. Things I blocked out for so long come rushing back. A panicked whimper pours out of me and Vallon jumps backward.

  “Dude, chill. I was just –” He swallows the words and stands there, arms up in surrender. It only takes a moment for the shock on his face to soften. “What the hell happened to you?” When he reaches out a hand to touch my arm, I bolt.

  I spend day three in bed, begging Howie to answer me, apologizing for the thoughts he must have heard.

  There’s a saucer with a heart-shaped glob of slop waiting on my nightstand when I wake up the next morning. Beside it, Marshall’s perfect forgery of the Queen of Hearts. Carefully sliding it into my back pocket, I wonder if there’s a bipolar shot in the infirmary. I know I miss having people around, but two Vallons is two too many.

  ###

  “Still no answer,” Vallon doesn’t give me time to ask as I enter the rec room. It’s starting to sink in that Gliese has no use for us. I made my peace with it a long time ago. I guess Vallon’s a bit more stubborn. His sorrow is palpable, yet so is his determination. I can tell from the faraway look in his almond eyes, he spends most of his time railing against the inevitable.

  These early morning card games are the only time he smells like a real person, before the musk takes over. I tell myself it’s not pheromones, not the call of nature wrapping us together in a shroud of propagating the species. Last man in the universe or not, he’s no Howie.

  Our cards are already on the table, my stack one short. I pull the Queen of Hearts out of my back pocket and toss her onto the discard pile. Without looking at my hand, I stack it and drop it on top of the Queen.

  “Wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Vallon grins.

  When I sit without saying a word, he picks up my cards and fans them out for me to see. All four Queens and two Aces. “Peace offering.”

  I gather all the cards and push them toward him to reshuffle, something to keep his hands busy. “We need a plan.”

  “I had one but you shot it down… two actually.” His eyes cut to the right, where Marshall’s door would be if there was no wall. The knot in his throat rises and falls again.

  My cheeks catch fire at the return of the Vallon I’ve grown to know and hate. “Marshall barricaded the control room so he didn’t have to face the truth. Those manuals are long gone.” I repeat the mantra I’ve been telling him since he woke up.

  “And my other… idea?” Vallon slithers down in his chair and runs a foot up my leg.

  I kick him.

  “Of all the people to be stranded on a wayward space ship with,” Vallon sighs, scooting back up and dealing the cards.

  “Tell me about it. Penelope had a much better personality.” My lips curl upward.

  Two games of Crazy Eights, one to one, pass in silence. In the back of my mind I call out for Howie the whole time. From the faraway look in Vallon’s eyes, I assume he’s just as frantically trying to make contact with the base camp on Gliese.

  I have the Queen of Hearts again. She keeps popping up everywhere now. It’s distracting. I wonder if he’s doing it on purpose.

  Vallon lays down the three of clubs, winning our tie breaker. Then he pushes away from the table and walks off. “I wasn’t gonna hurt you,” is the last thing he says to me before it happens.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The measure of a man

  Is in the blood he spares

  Not the blood he sheds

  - General Pativi

  (Addressing his men before the 3rd Civil War)

  Day five passes in silence. Precious hours we could be spending on our survival are brooded away at opposite ends of the ship. Well, he’s brooding. I’m obsessing.

  It’s been one hundred sixty seven days since I saw Howie’s face. And nine hours. Thirteen minutes. Forty-two seconds. Not that I’m counting.

  I lose count of how many times I’ve cried his name over this five months, too. How many grains of sand are there in the desert? A red, unforgiving, cruel desert.

  It’s not fair. Howie spent his life taking care of others, especially the last half after his dad ran off. I don’t care what my mom said about him doing it for the cause. Where is he? Not where she said he’d be. Not at the launch site — either of them. No, he abandoned Howie again. All of us. And now?

  Now Howie’s gone, dead and alone on a planet the Sister Nations never bothered to terraform. No mention of it at all in the logs.

  Where does that leave me? No way to find him and bring him home, if there’s a home to bring him to. Gliese doesn’t want us. They’ve made that clear.

  Stranded. That’s where I am. Wishing I was still alone on this ship. Forced to live out my last two days in awkward silence with a man who doesn’t deserve the life he stole. A man who insists on wallowing in self-pity instead of helping me save us. That’s who I get stuck at the end of the world with.

  I’ve half a mind to tell him, too. Storm into his room and let him know how much of an ass he is. Probably catch him coming back from the shower and — I shake the slippery wet image from my mind.

  Just as I’m standing to go, willing to risk it, an explosion knocks me off my bed.r />
  //What did you do?// I yell at Vallon through the airwaves before the dust stops falling. I’m on my feet in an instant, doing a quick mental once-over for broken bones as I run toward the sound.

  //Why do you assume it’s me?//

  Because you didn’t check if I was alright, is the first thing I think, but would never say. Not worth the air he breathes. Instead, I huff a clipped, //Your tone.//

  “Maybe I just don’t like you that much,” Vallon says as I round the corner. Whether a response to my transmission or thought, I don’t know and don’t have time to care.

  Smoke fills the room and burns my throat. I try to pull the bottom of my shirt up over my nose and mouth but it’s too tight. Vallon leers at the flash of skin. For the life of me I don’t know why I leave it exposed. More important things to worry about. Let’s go with that.

  “What. Did. You. Do?” I cough, sending more dust and smoke to my lungs. The acrid burn reminds me so much of the fires Howie and I walked past on a daily basis, and the one we wished we’d never seen. My body aches for him. I want nothing more than to have him here with me, instead of this ass.

  True to form, Vallon ignores me. With an arrogant wave-off, he turns and disappears into the smoky darkness. It’s at this moment I realize where we are.

  I chase after him, fully aware of my own budding curiosity. “Get out of there! Have you no respect for privacy?” Still choking from the explosion, I’m not sure if he’s ignoring me again, or just can’t hear my soot-caked voice. Either way, he doesn’t stop.

  It’s pitch black in Marshall’s room. I find myself straining to see past the gray fog, despite all the lectures I’ve given Vallon. What did he do in here that was so secret?

  “Vallon. Vallon? Vallon…” What starts as an admonition ends in a panicked cry. Where is he? I reach out into the black nothing and, for the first time since meeting him, hope he’s there.

  “Chill,” he says, grabbing my hand roughly.

  As soon as he has the nerve to be flippant, my seething anger returns. I yank my hand from his in a huff. “We need to get out of here.”

  Light fills the room, spreading out from a pinprick dot on Vallon’s uniform, over where the heart should be. “Better?” He says it like I’m some child scared of the boogeyman.

  “That’s not what I meant.” Although, the light is a comfort for which I won’t thank him. I wave my hand around to the now-illuminated tomb without averting my eyes from his. “You don’t understand what it’s like to be —”

  “Oh, I understand,” he says. “What I don’t, is care.”

  With that, Vallon turns abruptly, stealing the precious thin rays of light and casting them elsewhere. I wish he hadn’t.

  Marshall’s walls are covered with paper. Long lines of text are broken by other, darker, lines of redaction. Not an inch of the thin metal wall is visible. His bed is covered in hand drawn diagrams and full-page math equations. Blue and black ink fade in and out of each other like waves on a charcoal beach. It would be beautiful if it wasn’t so sad.

  I stumble in my darkened part of the room and catch myself against the corner table. My hand swipes a small jar of red ink which crashes to the ground before I can react. Ink sticks to my fingers, along with shards of glass. Iron and decay waft off the stringy goo. Wiping the substance on Vallon’s shoulder, I beg it not to be blood, even as my mind wanders to the rich red Queen of Hearts so recently in my hand.

  Vallon begins to unceremoniously toss Marshall’s belongings around the room. I do my best to gently place the more personal items in stacks along the wall. But Vallon soon kicks them out of his way to get a better look at the new wallpaper.

  “That explains it,” he says to himself. If it weren’t for the occasional shove or dirty look, I’d think he forgot I’m here.

  “Explains what?”

  Vallon turns to look at me… through me. His eyes bounce back and forth like he’s deep in REM with them wide open. Is he trying to reach Gliese again? Throwing everything he has at the walls around the onboard manual?

  When he snaps out of it he shakes his head and takes a deep breath. He walks out of Marshall’s destroyed room without another word.

  ###

  We sit at my table with untouched bowls of slop between us.

  I don’t know what he expected to see in Marshall’s room, but it got to him. I’ve never seen Vallon this quiet the entire time I’ve known him. The thought makes me chuckle and earns me an icy glare. Funny how you feel like you’ve known someone a long time, when you really don’t know them at all. Less funny how it’s not always your soul mate who can make you feel that way.

  “I’d like it to go on record that I was right.” Vallon breaks the silence with his usual douchery.

  “I’m sure he had his reasons.” What I want to say is ‘what does it mean for us’ but I can sense that any push from my end will be met with total shutdown from his. For all his faults, and there are many, Vallon is only five days into what I couldn’t wrap my feeble brain around in five months. So I sit, stir my lukewarm water with my finger, and talk to Howie.

  //I think of the most random things to miss about you now. Regrets. Last night I was thinking about our tree. How I was always too scared to join you on the higher branch. Stupid now, huh? I was so terrified of ten feet, and here I am millions of miles off the ground, and you’re not here to keep me safe. Just like I’m not there for Bit.//

  “Will you shut up?” Fingers rubbing his temples, Vallon doesn’t make eye contact.

  “I can’t.” If there’s any chance of Howie being out there — somewhere — I have to keep the channels open. I’ll broadcast wide open until the day I die, if it means finding Howie. By the look on Vallon’s face, that will be one and a half days.

  “He’s dead. Give it up.” The table vibrates with a hard slap of Vallon’s palm. The offending hand slowly raises back to his temple. Those eyes that moments ago wouldn’t meet mine I now wish would turn away.

  “That’s what you said last time and you were wrong. You don’t know everything.” I try to sound defiant and sure buy my ears pick up a tremble.

  “I know more than you do… about death.” Where my words shook with fear, Vallon’s are smooth and cold as the ice planet we’re not wanted on.

  “I’m sure you do.” At first my thoughts drift to the people Vallon helped send to their black airless graves. Then, the air around us changes, presses down on me, and I remember the gnarled welts on his back. Softening my tone, I whisper, “You don’t know about Howie.”

  “You can’t feel him anymore.” It’s not a question or jab, but a flat statement.

  My mouth opens, and a long moment later, “If you let me help, maybe I wouldn’t be so chatty.”

  “If only,” he says, and stands. Taking my hand in a most unfriendly manner, he leads me to the control room.

  We haven’t dared go in there since his first day awake. Everything is eerily how we left it, although the opposite would be much more dangerous, I suppose. He sits me down roughly in the same chair I was recently tied to and I fight back.

  “Stop!” Vallon squeezes my arms harder than necessary, then lets go. He pushes me toward the nearest monitor. It’s the same one I got nowhere with all those months ago. “I’m assuming Synta is your real name.”

  I stammer. How did he…

  “Like I said, I wish I couldn’t hear everything you and your little boyfriend talked about.” Vallon sighs and waves the thought away. “But if you’re a Syntax, you need to do what you do best.” He shoos me toward the monitor.

  “You think I didn’t try? I spent the first two weeks in this chair, trying to trace Marshall’s steps, undo whatever he —”

  “He disabled hyperdrive. We’re on a sailboat in the middle of the cosmos… with no wind behind us.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The right thing is the right thing

  Because your heart won’t let you choose differently

  - Dayne


  (Honor Bound)

  “No wonder he locked us out.” I push back from the monitor in the early hours of day six. Now that I finally know what to look for, following Marshall’s breadcrumbs was easy. Making sense of his motives, not so much. “He was prepared to die.”

  With a shudder, I understand why being in Marshall’s room felt like walking in someone’s burial chamber. He filled it with seemingly random things, pieces of every person he was trying to save on this ship. Then I remember that I, too, was doing the same thing when Vallon dragged me back to reality. Only worse. I collected people along with their possessions.

  “What now?”

  Vallon bites his lip in a way that would be hot on anyone else.

  This must really be bad if he’s asking me. Unable to respond, I blink away the shock. “Should we try one more time? Maybe we’re close enough now.”

  “What do you think I’ve been doing for the past six days?” He rakes dirty fingers over his tight curls, still pulling at their mocking length as he did when he first woke up.

  “Six.” It’s not an accusation, more like a realization that our time truly has come. With nothing left to do but count seconds, I stand and walk toward the door. “I’m going to take the hottest shower my skin will allow.”

  Following close behind, Vallon breathes, “Good idea.” His need prickles the hairs on the back of my neck.

  I stop abruptly and he crashes into me. “Seriously?” Every cell of my body wants to crush him, except the ones that don’t. Either choice would be welcome.

  “Come on.” He almost sounds human, with wants and needs, and possibly even emotions, until he adds, “If we sync up first, you can pretend I’m him.”

  “You could never be him.” Placing a stern hand on his muscular chest, I feel his heart pounding out a rhythm. I push hard enough to knock him off balance. “I’m taking a shower. Alone. When I finish, we’re cleaning up your mess, putting Marshall’s room back the way we found it. And then I think it’s time to wake everyone up.” I turn and march off before he can respond.