“I know,” Logan says, sadly, “She was nice. I don’t understand why people keep dying here.”
“I’ll do something,” I promise Tom, taking a drink of my milk.
“What are you going to do?” she asks, turning to me quickly.
“You’ll find out tomorrow,” I say, “Or tonight, depending on how well my plan goes.”
“What are you going to do?” Logan asks.
“Is there an echo in here? I’ve said, you’ll find out tomorrow,” I say.
“Why? Titus, is it dangerous?” Tom asks, “If you know something just tell the MPs, please?”
“No, she’s your friend, you’d like it if her murderer was made to suffer, right?” I ask.
“Yes but---I don’t want you torturing people,” Tom hisses, “Or whatever you’re going to do, just let the police handle it.”
“Yeah, can you torture people?” Logan asks they are both staring at me suspiciously.
“Have you tortured people?” Tom asks, slowly.
“Only my brothers and my mum cut them free before they needed to go the hospital for long, no---I’ve not to time for that sort of set up, as I said, you’ll see how it goes in the morning, but we do need to re-establish order,” I say. High time Tyrell knew who was the master here. This is my game and I am the one who sets the rules. And Tyrell had broken them.
“Please, Titus, why won’t you just tell whatever you know to the police?” Tom asks, “Let them handle it?”
“I’m cleverer than they are,” I say, flatly.
“Be that as it may it’s still their job,” she says.
“Yeah, you’re just a cadet,” Logan says.
“Yes, exactly, please keep telling yourself and anyone who asks you that, that,” I say, emphatically, to Logan, finishing the last of my milk.
“But you are---Titus,” Tom sighs, “You don’t need to get hurt, Tsegi wouldn’t want that.”
“I won’t get hurt, badly,” I say, starting my second glass, “Why aren’t you eating?”
“Because I don’t trust the pies anymore and drinking milk is disgusting now because I watch you do it too much, don’t change the subject,” she says, annoyed.
“I’ve told you, I’ll fix things for your friend,” I say, annoyed now, “I thought you’d be glad.”
“I am; I don’t want you hurt,” she says.
“Me neither,” Logan says.
“Titus, you’re our friend, we don’t want anything to happen to you any more than we wanted it to happen to her, we don’t want to lose you too,” Tom explains. Her hands are on her lap, and she reaches over to squeeze my knee.
“I see,” I say, looking at them both. They genuinely like me. But that’s because they don’t know who I am. Why though? They don’t know my thoughts or that I am a murderer, but they do know I’m callous and poke at bodies and tell people to create distractions who then set themselves on fire, and they do know I put guidons on roofs. Yet they still like me. I won’t chop Logan’s head off, then. I hope he gets out of Spaces Forces, I don’t want him playing in the game. Tom will play on my team, like it or not. I’ll make sure she’s always on my team. He’s too stupid to play on my team but I don’t think he belongs in the game.
“No you don’t, because you haven’t said you won’t do it,” Tom says taking her hand away damn I liked it there.
“But it’ll be fun!” I say, “We marched all day long I’m positively ennui I need some entertainment I can’t just go to bed tonight and try to sleep that was really boring I don’t think the experiment is worth it.”
“Are you always this bored?” Tom asks, with a sigh.
“Yes,” I say, nodding.
“Just don’t die,” she says, we all three stand.
“You wouldn’t be so lucky,” I say, just as we push in our chairs so she can’t respond. She doesn’t know what I mean. At that moment, I hope she never does.
“How could you possibly have known?” Wilde is staring at me. She’s insisted I get drunk because she can’t stand me sober much longer.
“It’s the end times, endgame, no moves left to make just total destruction before we descend to darkness,” I say, taking a drink from my hydration system which I spiked. It’s a really awesome way to consume copious amounts of alcohol throughout the day whoever invented the things must’ve been an alcoholic.
“Okay but why?” she asks, “How did you know what made you think that? I don’t deny the things happening here are---strange.”
“I looked in his eyes,” I say, looking in them now. deep sapphire pools of evil, portals to the next world where all is death and despair. I want to drown in those eyes and let it all end in burning pain now rather slowly let them leak into the world.
“He’s sixteen years old,” I say, “And he didn’t cause what happened to Peter and he was in the brig when Tim died, and last night he was only just out of the hospital he’d have been too physically weak to move the body and do all that, the MPs told us that when you told them your---”
“Delusions---”
“I was going to say theories but yeah—earlier today,” she says.
“No, I’m not saying I know how,” I say, shrugging, “I wonder why the gods sent him here? Their angriest, saddest, loneliest angel. Do you think he knows what he is? Or do you think they let him forget and he doesn’t know why he’s trapped here in this body, and that’s why he lashes out, he just wants to be free again to roam the caverns of hell?”
“Ebbel was right we do need to seriously get you some help,” she sighs.
“You asked,” I say, “I’m not doing anything, I’m not trying to slay him or anything. I’m just warning you because you’re engaged to my best friend and I do want you to survive as long as you can, and to know what we are fighting.”
“Why aren’t you? Slaying him or doing something, I mean?” she asks, “Since you’re so sure he’s the anti-Christ.”
“I’m not completely positive. He could’ve been sent to save us from the anti-Christ, I don’t know, it’s hard to say. it is him, he’s not of this world. That is for certain, but I don’t know if they sent him to slay the beast, and he’s just frustrated and lonely because he doesn’t know why he’s here, or if he is in fact the beast. But either way, I cannot defeat him nor would I dare. He could be a force to fight evil.”
“But you say he is evil,” she says.
“The only thing that can destroy true evil is another evil,” I say, “Don’t you read?”
“Not what you do,” she says, flatly.
“I shall have to get you some books on the subject,” I say.
“No please don’t.”
“No, really you’d enjoy epics.”
“I’m sure I wouldn’t.”
“What happened to the one who set himself on fire?”
“Don’t call him that,” I say, scanning the DFAC for a sign of Liesel. I haven’t seen her since yesterday when we had PE day. I hope she’s holding up all right I don’t know how well she knew Peter but she had told me his name so she must’ve been friends with him. I wanted to go and thank her for telling me. It was a fine excuse to talk to her and I wanted to look at her and talk to her a little. Just have a conversation. But I would probably screw it up and stand there like an idiot. I tend to screw things up. But I always give myself the benefit of the doubt that I won’t totally screw up all the time.
“Well I have to distinguish him from the one who got eaten and the one who got cut up,” Ebbel says. I really get sick of him sometimes.
“What one who got cut up?” I ask, my stomach dropping.
“Oh, yes, you’ve only just gotten back from the hospital. One of the little gremlins cut another one up into about fourteen different pieces,” Ebbel says, calmly.
“What?! Who?!” I ask, my heart double beating as I scan the room where the hell is Liesel? I asked Card to watch them but what if he was dead, I didn’t see him either?
“I don’t know their names, and I certainly don
’t know who did it,” he says, “But it was one of the small dirty people.”
“What do you mean? Who was it?” I ask, my voice rising in panic.
“Cadet Stowe reports.”
I whip around, nearly crying in relief. Liesel stands at attention behind us, her face grim and eyes forward as they should be.
“Do not scare me like that, thank god,” I say, chocking with the flood of joy that I see her alive and not in fourteen pieces.
“She walked up behind us what is wrong with you?---Report Cadet,” he says.
“Sir, am I to return my flight to the barracks?” she asks.
“No, the MPs are still in there, march them around outside till we tell you to stop,” he says.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” she says, turning to leave. I want to call her back to thank her for telling me Peter’s name and to tell her that he’s okay, but I don’t. Ebbel is too busy staring at me as it is and I don’t want him speaking to me more than necessary.
“Yeah it happened in the barracks, we’re gonna have to have them camp out on the runway tonight, that should be fun, not,” he says, “Anyway, what took you so long at the hospital?”
“I had left,” I mutter.
“Yeah but was it that interesting staring at crispy kid sleep?” he asks.
“No,” I say, shrugging. I don’t want to tell him the real reason I stayed. I found out they were taking him to an institution. So I had filed for guardianship. That meant that I could check him out of there and take him home with me if I wanted. I had a flat. He could easily live there, once he got a bit better. someplace quiet, away from hospitals. Even if he needed a nurse or somebody to watch him. it was far better than letting him be locked up the rest of his life. Everybody deserved somebody. But I had no intention of telling Ebbel or anybody that. They would think I was strange and hell they already did. But I just didn’t want to tell them why I had a soft spot for the Project 10s. I was still ashamed at ever being involved with those poor lost souls. At least I could rescue him, and my Liesel.
“Oh, you’re still alive, that’s nice,” Thorn says, “I was thinking you might’ve died as well by now.”
“Is he drunk?” Ebbel asks.
“You didn’t like him sober,” Wilde says, holding up her hands.
“What is he talking about?” I ask.
“Oh, you haven’t heard my theories? Come, let us talk about the end of all things,” Thorn says, swinging an arm around my shoulders.
“While you are, requisition the camp out stuff for the cadets, they’re spending the night on the runway,” Ebbel calls after us.
I wait patiently in the interrogation room. I should not be so familiar with this place. Now I’m not being interviewed, though, they cleared me from Tsegi’s murder. Apparently, she’d died hours ago, back when I was with Thorne cleaning the laundry rooms, so they said I couldn’t’ve done it. that didn’t make me feel better. because she was still dead.
Now I am waiting here because they’d said they would bring my mum here and let me see her. I am taking them up on it because they’d already called her off of work and I wanted to convince her I was okay. which was going to be hard because I was pretty damn far from okay. I look down at my hands. I can still see blood on them even though I scrubbed clean hours ago.
I am in my SBUs now, just waiting for them to let her in. then I will go and march my flight in circles, then we’d get to go to sleep. Probably out in some deserted field or something since the barracks were still under investigation. I sigh and lean back. Ginny hasn’t talked to me all day which is good cause she is probably with our mum but I missed her. it was nice to have somebody around in my head. but I sincerely hoped she hadn’t seen what had happened last night. she didn’t need to see that. she hadn’t commented and she surely would’ve if she’d seen. I still felt bad them coming down, but I am guiltily glad to see them. it is awfully lonely here, and after all the horrible, miserable things that had happened to me at the expense of the space forces, I felt as though the least they could do was to let me see my family a bit.
I feel bad for Thorn too. He seemed like a lonely person. even if he did show up smelling of whiskey and making me wish I could have some. No, I don’t. I didn’t like being that person, I like being lucid. Even if being lucid means waking up next to bodies and accidentally eating people. That was awful but it was better than being hungover and not even realizing you were sleeping next to a body. I shudder at the memory. Poor Tsegi. She had been sweet, I had liked her more than any of the others. And she’d been good and kind to me like people usually weren’t here. and for half a second I’d thought she’d crawled up to sleep with me and keep me company during the cold night and then I’d realized she was dead. I hoped she wasn’t lonely anymore. I hope wherever people go they aren’t lonely. and I hope I never see her like I see Ian. And I hope I never see him again either, not that awful thing of him that came when I was drunk or very ill. Sadly, the likelihood of my becoming very very ill or even dying myself seem awfully good. people die here.
“Please tell me they aren’t all singing like Card does,” Ebbel says, his head in his hands. He’s not having a good day, none of us are. We’ve not been to bed since the discovery of the body in the barracks, then again nor have the cadets but it’s good for them.
“Oh, believe me, they are. But that’s Harris’ fault he’s the one who told Card he could do it,” I say.
“It does actually help them,” Wilde points out, before going to get tents ready for the kids.
“But it’s disturbing,” Ebbel says.
“The death march usually is to me, but now it’s sort of peaceful, like knowing what will happen as they lead us down to hell,” I say, comfortingly.
“Yes, that makes it feel so much better,” he says.
“I hate leading Leavitt’s flight, they don’t like me,” Harris says, coming up.
“That’s just because Card and Stowe can march flights better than you can,” Ebbel says.
“Be that as it may I still don’t like it,” Harris says.
“Who’ve you got doing it?” Ebbel asks.
“That girl who flirts with everybody, Darla,” he says.
“That’ll have to do, you want to go and get Leavitt?” Ebbel asks.
“I’ll do it, there’s a bond there,” I say.
“That’s why I’m asking him to do it, Leavitt is not your emotional support animal,” Ebbel says.
“But he can be used as one!” I say.
“No, Harris, you go and do it, Thorn, why don’t you go and help Wilde with preparing the tents and crap we have to issue the hormonal teenagers?” Ebbel asks, “She likes you.”
“Oh, no she says she wants to shoot me,” I say.
“Be that as it may, why don’t you go and help her all the same?” he asks.
“Fine, just don’t lose Card okay? It’s a beautiful night and I’d rather not die now,” I ask, taking another drink.
“Has he got whiskey in that?” Harris realizes.
“No,” I say, not at all convincingly.
“Probably but if it’s between keeping him sober and stopping more cadets from dying I’d rather stop more cadets from dying,” Ebbel says.
“Ha, good luck.”
“Shut UP, Thorn.”
I stand outside waiting for them to decide to let me in. Apparently letting me see my son isn’t their top priority. That’s okay. I don’t know what to say to him anyway. I never know what to say to him. I always try and everything I try comes out wrong. And he just looks at me with those sad, lonely eyes. and I know each day I’m losing him. I swear when he didn’t talk I died a little every day. he’d look at me and wait for me to answer words he hadn’t spoken. And I died more. Because I was losing him. failing him worse than I’d failed Ian. Ian has gone, Quentin leaving me too, slowly, bit by bit, breaking away. I didn’t know how to handle him how were you supposed to raise boys? Boys who came home drinking at night, who lay in their beds and star
ed at pictures of girls who didn’t talk to you who tried and couldn’t talk to you no matter how hard they tried.
I’d actually gone to see a therapist about him. Because he scared me, terrified me not talking like that. It was after about six months, he still wouldn’t talk. But he looked at me like he’d spoken like he wanted me to hear him. so I went and paid the money and went to a good doctor. And all they could tell me was it was unusual. But they didn’t see what they could do. they didn’t see what they could do they could try, try for money I didn’t have. I left and didn’t go back. and all I could do was wait every day praying each night I’d hear his voice again.
When I did hear it, it was different, not my little boy’s voice. it was rough and hoarse, and getting deep like his dad’s. He looked like his dad as well, big and tall, strong, handsome sweet face with those innocent, eyes. acted like him too come to think of it. quiet, calm, sensitive. Big hands that could break you so easily but he didn’t know it.
I never told him that. Never told him about the man he looked just like. Maybe I should have, I didn’t know. I don’t know anything. I have no idea where his dad is now, I’d never been able to find him after I’d found out Quentin was his son.
I didn’t know, not until he got older, then he started really looking like his dad. I tried to look for him then, because by then, by when I was sure who his dad was, Quentin had quit talking. I didn’t look very hard. I’d figured he wouldn’t want to know he had a son, he wouldn’t believe me or wouldn’t care. He probably wouldn’t have. But his boy looked just like him, now.
He’d been military, I wondered if he was dead, or if he’d meet his son one day and never know it. I didn’t tell Quentin about him. I thought it was better that way not talking about it, about how he or his brother came about. I don’t know maybe their imaginations had been worse they were old enough---Ian had been old enough---to have a general idea knowing their dads weren’t around and we didn’t get money from them. well, I had gotten money from them just nowhere near enough to care for their sons.
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