Rebirth (Cross Book 1)

by Hildred Billings

  Even in the darkness of the loft, Miranda could still see the infamous grin on the major’s face. “Don’t give me any bullshit about some sorry recruits of yours.”

  “I had to see her for myself. She’s quite the creature. I wouldn’t expect any less.”

  Miranda had half a nerve to raise her hand to Syrfila. “Stay away from her.”

  Syrfila snorted, a plume of smoke blowing through her nostrils. “That’s not for me to decide. Do your part and I won’t have to touch her.”

  “Don’t even think about it in that twisted head of yours.”

  Dark eyes found Miranda’s face in the midst of the darkness. “You’re growing soft. You’ve spent the past twenty years terrified of this day, and now that it’s here all you can think about is what you want. Don’t be a twat about it.”

  “You know nothing about any of this shit. You do whatever he tells you.”

  “That’s what he pays me for, babe.” Syrfila leaned forward and blew smoke toward Miranda. “Don’t make an enemy out of me. I know that deep in that fucked up head of yours you’re thinking about turning on him and helping those children out. Don’t be a defector. Or at least have the decency to not tell me and make me have to hurt you.”

  Miranda looked away. “Don’t do anything rash. I know how you are.”

  A sniffle. Was Miranda crying? Perhaps. Either way, Syrfila did not care for, nor was moved by tears. “Hmph. You always crumple like this before me, even when you were some little emo bitch in loose socks.” Syrfila snatched Miranda’s wrist. That was all it took to freeze the poor woman up. And shut her up.

  “Don’t. Please.”

  “C’mon. We hardly get to see each other lately, what with all the preparations going into the end of the world. The least you could do is give me one kiss.”

  “Don’t touch me.”

  “We could have fun like we did in your office today.”

  “That was embarrassing.” Miranda didn’t want to think about it. Let alone the way Syrfila practically manhandled her the moment she walked into the office. The only reason Danielle didn’t walk in on that spectacle was because she knocked loudly enough. “Stop it.”

  Miranda shook off the other woman. Syrfila shook her cigarette into an ashtray. “No wonder you always fail. You’re such a pussy.”

  By now, Syrfila was sprawled across her bed, arms pushing aside dark sheets and making herself at home. Miranda hopped off the windowsill and faced her. “I know I’m weak-willed, but you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Weak, huh? I’d say so. That’s why you’re always coming over to my place, right?”

  Miranda froze. She was right, wasn’t she? From the moment they first met outside of her school twenty years ago, Syrfila had been a cancerous growth. One Miranda could never shake, never cut off, never remove no matter how much she tried to purge her body and soul.

  Even now, she took her steps toward the bed and not the door.

  Miranda couldn’t fault the other woman. Syrfila was as weak-willed as her. They needed each other like the crutches they were since they were the only two of their kind in the world – and as vastly different as they also were, Miranda knew that there was no one else for her to communicate with, for her to express the real secrets burning inside of her for the past thirty-five years of her life on Earth. Although Syrfila was far from her ideal partner, Miranda accepted that if she were to have any solace in that world, she would have to suck up her pride.

  She was already beside Syrfila on the bed. The other woman made her intentions known when she clasped Miranda’s wrist and pulled her down onto her stomach. Miranda was already a doll with no greater purpose than to go with the flow of the cosmos’ sick will. Syrfila’s smoky breath caused Miranda to gag as she kissed those stagnate lips for what felt like the millionth time in the span of infinity.

  It never became easier to kiss them. Only easier to pretend that she was a corpse.

  ***

  “Do you ever wonder about it?” Ramaron Marlow asked his assistant as they readied to end their long, arduous day of research and fielding questions from the relentless intergalactic press. Evan looked up from his tablet, where he communicated with his wife waiting for him back home. “What it would be like to be stuck in the Process, that is?”

  “Could just ask Lanelle, Boss. She’s had the honors for five lives now.”

  Marlow ignored that. He wasn’t asking Evan for Lanelle’s opinion. He wanted this fresh soul sitting beside him to give a raw, honest answer based on what he had seen. “You and I can’t imagine it. I live for thousands of years, and you for a couple hundred at most. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be in the Process. To start over and over, never knowing what life you will have next, but knowing innately that you must accomplish some great task to release your soul to the Void once more.”

  Evan sighed.

  “We don’t think about the Void. Even I don’t think about it as much as I should.” Big words for a man who once studied to enter the priesthood. “We’ll get there someday, yes, but it’s so far away into the future that we don’t care until it happens. Those in the Process, though… I guess they try, again and again, and if they can’t win, they lose their current life like it was nothing. But when they break free… do you think they feel a joy that they have never felt before? That they can finally return to the Void? That they are normal again? That they have accomplished the greatest goal that they have ever set for themselves?”

  “No idea, Boss.” Would it be uncouth for Evan to tell his wife about this later?

  “What if your own goal is wrapped around someone else, someone who will return to the Void before you have the chance to make them help you escape the Process?” Marlow heaved a deep sigh. “I hope I never meet someone like that. They would truly be the most depressing person in the whole universe. Trapped in this realm of constant life, worse than an immortal. Can you imagine the pressure to succeed if you were someone like that?”

  “Why are you talking about that? We don’t know anyone with that kind of fate.”

  Marlow continued. “Even if they achieved their goal, they would still be the most soulless person I know, simply because their soul has been robbed by these agonizing thoughts. But you don’t care, right? Because you’re never going to know that hell. We could wink out of existence with Earth, and you wouldn’t give a shit, because you’ll have gone Home to the Void.”

  Evan wordlessly packed up his stuff and said goodnight for the day. The door softly closed behind him on his way out of the office.

  “I think even a person like that would be jealous of you, Charlie.” Marlow peered beneath his desk to find his sleepy dog. “You’re guaranteed after-death bliss while a person like that doesn’t have a soul to contend with.”

  THIRTEEN

  “You’ve gone completely mad, you know that?”

  Danielle slumped over the park bench. After they finished their dinner, she decided to tell Troy everything… after all, he was supposed to be her confidant. But as they meandered toward a nearby park only occupied by wayward couples at that hour, Danielle became more apprehensive about sharing something so unbelievable. And after she spilled everything, including meeting Marlow for the first time, what little she knew of the Process, and even what the Relics were and their role in saving the planet, she knew that his reaction would be less than supportive.

  “Does this have to do with your mental illness?” Troy asked. “You need help, and I say that with love.”

  “I don’t have a mental illness! What I had when I was a kid is over – I haven’t seen anything like that in nearly twenty years! Give me a break. You asked me what was wrong, and that’s what’s going on. I know it sounds completely fantastical, but you have to believe me.” She turned away again. “I feel alone enough as it is.”

  “Danielle…” Troy extended a hand toward her knee. “I’m worried about you. I think you’re stressed out. What you’re talking about isn’t possible.”
<
br />   “I wouldn’t have thought it possible before last week either.”

  Troy sighed. “What would you have me say?”

  Danielle ignored him as she stared down at her tattoo still inked on her wrist. “Look at this thing. I can’t get it off. I’m cursed with it. It’s my reminder that all of this has the chance of being true. Troy, I hate this! It scares me! What kind of shit am I spewing? Even I think I’m nuts when I say it out loud! Oh, God.” She hid her face in her palms.

  “Danielle,” Troy put an arm on her heaving shoulder. “Go home. Go to bed. I’m going to pretend that you didn’t mention any of this, okay?”

  Now Danielle was the one shaking her head, breath caught in her throat as she considered what else she could say to redeem her sanity. “Wish I could pretend none of it’s happened.”

  Troy grabbed his jacket off the bench behind him. “I’m going home,” he began. “Will you be all right?”

  Danielle nodded. With that subtle cue, Troy left the park.

  ***

  About one hour north lived Regina, the woman who raised Danielle. Her small homestead sported a dilapidated farmhouse and two horses older than the dirt they trotted upon. It had also been the scene of Danielle’s adolescence. Now it was only the quiet hideout for a retired military officer and her second husband, who spent a majority of his days hanging out at the VFW in town.

  Regina sat at her kitchen table, a deck of cards splayed out in a rousing game of solitaire. She did not have the energy to get up and start dinner, let alone prepare food, eat it, and put her horses to bed. Instead, she dissolved her card game, got up from the table, and wandered over to the phone hanging on the wall. As the setting sunlight reached through her kitchen windows and washed over her kitchen sink, Regina called her granddaughter.

  “Who died?”

  Regina scoffed into her phone. “Nobody’s dead! Jesus. Hello, by the way.”

  “Oh, God. Are you the one dying?”

  “What is this? Because I’m calling you, somebody must be dead?”

  “That’s the only reason to call me this late. I know how early you turn in.”

  “The sun’s not even fully set yet!”

  “Because it’s May, Gran. You go to sleep the moment the sun sets.”

  “For the love of…” Regina pressed her knuckles against her temple. If Danielle had not always been this impertinent, perhaps her grandmother would have verbally kicked her ass. “Is there something going on that I should know about? Didn’t break up with someone again, did you?” Regina would be the last person to let her granddaughter forget what happened after Ally left the picture. Crying. Lots of it. In Danielle’s old bedroom, no less.

  A pregnant pause filtered through the phone. Was Danielle afraid to open her mouth and spill something? If she did, would nothing but mischievous shit come spilling out like a horrendous campfire story? Would Regina think she was fucking nuts and inheriting her mother’s mental illnesses?.

  “…No?”

  “Nothing’s going on in your life? Nothing? Not seeing anyone? Getting engaged to someone you’re hiding from me?”

  “No! What the hell! Did you call me just to grill me about my love life?”

  “Humor your old gran. I don’t want you dying alone.”

  “For fuck’s sake, if you ain’t got anything else to say, I’m hanging up.”

  “There will be a time in your life when you need to realize that you’re surrounded by love, honey! You never know! Maybe someone you work with, hang out with… a nice young man or woman.” Regina was hip to bisexuals, and that included her chronically single granddaughter.

  “That’s it. I’m hanging up. I’ll come by to visit you soon, promise. Bye.”

  Regina hung up the phone. Approaching the fridge to find something to heat up for dinner, she said to the woman sitting behind her, “Can’t say I didn’t try. Again.”

  Miranda put down her cup of tea. “I didn’t ask you to. Thanks, though.” Did the sarcasm drip from her lips? Bad enough she had sat through that embarrassing scene. Regina had been trying to hook Miranda and Danielle up for the past decade, consequences be damned.

  “No, but it’s not like I’m going to let you sit there and sulk like you’re the loneliest creature in the world. You must be sick if you came out all this way to bug me.”

  Foregoing a response, Miranda pulled over that day’s newspaper and reread the headline talking about the president’s latest trip to the Middle East. “I’ve been dealing with some shit lately. You know how I am. I don’t know where else to go.” She flashed Regina a cheeky smile. “Like you’d ever turn me away at this point.”

  Regina grinned back at her. The cool air from the fridge tickled her skin until she found a leftover casserole good enough for reheating. Yet by the time the dish was in the microwave, Miranda’s smile had already disappeared, replaced by a forlorn look that left Regina practically gob smacked.

  She fondly remembered the day a young and quiet Lieutenant Miranda Hotchner transferred to the data entry division. The only time Miranda had come to the farmhouse while she was a lieutenant was one fated Thanksgiving. Now, Miranda looked out the window toward the pasture, where a sorry fence line in dire need of repair attempted to stand.

  That was it. That was the first time Miranda saw and recognized Danielle. Sitting on that fence post, back when it was stronger and not afraid to stand up straight. The surly teenager hadn’t wanted anything to do with Thanksgiving dinner, content with stewing in her own misery for reasons Miranda hadn’t yet understood. Not until Regina shared that her granddaughter had just broken up with her first girlfriend, anyway.

  Even though Miranda had known that day would come… when a fog-filled Danielle bumped into Miranda in the upstairs hallway, neither was prepared for the crack of thunder that exploded between them.

  For Danielle had recognized her. But with her brain so averse to regression, she transformed into a frothing monster ready to rip Miranda’s head off.

  Not that Miranda blamed her. The things she had done a thousand years ago? She should have slit her own throat every time she was reborn.

  Wasn’t this how the universe worked, though? People put through that kind of turmoil together were bound to find one another again. It was the mechanic of fate, of the universe, of that blasted Void Miranda was tired of hearing about from both its fanatics and those who would bring its demise if they could. Miranda would always find Danielle at one point or another. Their fates were the most twisted together of all.

  And Danielle never, ever remembered her. That was the hardest thing to accept.

  The beeping microwave brought Miranda out of her thoughts. Regina waited with two plates.

  Miranda didn’t want to eat. It didn’t help that Regina always stuffed her casseroles with as much meat as possible, a total digestive nightmare. Yet the aroma of leftover homecooked food was so pleasant, so normal that Miranda couldn’t think of anything else she would rather do that evening than take comfort in something so domestic.

  “Back to the topic at hand,” Regina said with the mischief tone of a meddling mother, “when are you going to bring home a nice lady for me to meet? At least Danielle has had a few. Who have you had since I’ve met you? Nobody. I know you have your side hussies, but honestly.”

  Miranda snorted. Of course the conversation took this turn as she was presented with a plate of food and more water. Regina resumed her place on the other side of the table and ate with eagerness. Miranda, however, only stared at her food. Where had her appetite gone? To the damned Void. “Nobody takes me seriously enough to romance me.”

  “Yes, well, you build that image for yourself. I was there when you started to shamelessly flirt with everyone in the department. I was also there at the Christmas party where women started fighting over you. You dated two of them at once!”

  “I’m okay with the single life.”

  “You don’t seem okay with it.”

  Miranda still did not touch her s
upper. “It’s my nature to want what I can’t have. You’ve met my mother. You know how much she approves of my ‘lifestyle.’”

  “Your mother doesn’t have anything to do with this. And your ‘lifestyle’ is as strange to me as my granddaughter’s, but I don’t care. You know that. Stop being a Gloomy Gus and get yourself a steady girlfriend already. I’ve known you too long to have never seen you act lovey-dovey with somebody.” She cut Miranda off before she could get another testy reply. “I know somebody. Little younger than you. Single and could use some companionship, all right?”

  Miranda rolled her eyes. “She’s not interested in me. Besides, it’s verboten.”

  “Don’t give me that. You think Danielle’s going to last much longer in the military? Between you and me, she’ll be leaving as soon as her contract’s up. Or, God forbid, she’s discharged for one reason or another. You think I’m going easy on you two after that?”

  “My twenty years will be up soon enough.” Miranda was still on the fence about whether she would walk away after that. Assuming the world was still around, of course. “Why are you so adamant about this? She’s never shown any real interest in me like that before.”

  “I can’t help myself. I see two people with chemistry and want them to be together. Even better if they’re two people I consider a part of my life. Besides! She’s lying. She’s sweet on you. You’re both just being stubborn.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Regina leaned back in her seat, water glass in hand. “You’re exactly her type, looking at other women she’s dated. Stop smoking and she’ll be putty in your hands.”

  Might as well ask her to cut off her arm…

  It didn’t matter, anyway. Miranda had long learned to stop pursuing something as impossible as winning back Danielle.

  She never remembered her. She was adamantly against it, based on their interactions over the past millennium. Why push for something so hopeless when they were just going to die again anyway?

  “It’ll be over soon,” Miranda muttered.