by TJ Klune
Alex didn’t speak at all. Nate thought Art wasn’t expecting him to.
“You set me free,” she whispered. “And now I can see the stars for myself. Nate. Look. Can you see it?”
Nate followed her finger to where she was pointing.
“It’s faint,” she said. “The star. Do you know it?”
“No,” he admitted. “I don’t.”
“You call it VL62 Cass. Which—honestly—you’re all terrible at coming up with names for things. Where’s the imagination? Your ancestors were so much better, even when they thought the stars were gods. I mean, who the heck looks up and says, oh look, it’s my favorite, VL62. How pretty.”
“Art,” Alex said.
“Yeah, yeah. VL62 Cass is in Cassiopeia. It’s also one of the farthest stars that a human can see with the naked eye.”
“What about it?” Nate asked.
“Beyond it is home. Far, far beyond it.”
Nate hadn’t thought he’d had it in him to be surprised at anything anymore. After all he’d heard. After everything he’d seen. He didn’t think he was capable of shock.
He was wrong.
“I don’t…” he managed to say. “That’s…”
“I know,” she said, and he believed her. “You’re all capable of such great and terrible things. And in such a short amount of time. You are surrounded by millions of those like you, yet you can still feel alone. You’re so angry and powerful and wonderful. And so fragile. You can break into pieces and feel so lost. I didn’t get that. Not… before. I don’t think any of us did. You’re complex and yet so simple at the same time. It’s a dichotomy that shouldn’t be possible. When you smile, it’s like the sun is out. When you cry, it’s like you’re trapped in shadows and you can’t find your way back to the light. You can hold a gun to your enemy’s head and pull the trigger in the name of what you call God. You drop bombs and scorch the ground beneath your feet. You hurt each other. You love each other. You scream words that fall on deaf ears. You hate that others aren’t like you. They scare you, even though they want nothing more than to be you. You make yourselves a home out of nothing. You carry each other until your knees give out and you stumble. It’s almost impossible to understand. None of us could get that. Not until they felt a heart beating in a chest like I have. Not until I felt the bones beneath my skin. We’re not alike. Not really. We’re separated by time and space. And yet, somehow, we’re all made of dust and stars. I think we’d forgotten that. And I don’t know if you ever knew that to begin with. How can you be alone when we’re all the same?”
Nate blinked away the burn in his eyes.
“Also,” she added, “you have bacon, which to be honest, I might recommend a total planet takeover just to have. Like, complete human annihilation.”
Nate felt like he was choking. “Artemis Darth Vader.”
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you before.”
“I should hope not. If you had, I would have to ask if you’d been anally probed before, and that would have been awkward. I probably would know the guy who did it.”
Alex surprised them both by laughing.
They stared at him as he bent over, arms wrapped around his waist, and laughed. It sounded as if it came from deep within his chest, forcing its way out as if it’d been waiting for a moment to break free. It was rough and quiet, but it was there. Nate felt warmth blooming inside him at the sight of this man, this strange and delightfully scary man, laughing over something as childish as an anal probe.
Nate could do nothing but laugh too.
Art followed them both.
There, under an expanse of stars so very far away and a comet growing brighter by the hour, they laughed.
She slept between them, out almost as soon as her head hit Alex’s rolled-up jacket that Nate had given her to use as a pillow. Her eyes closed, and she started snoring immediately, the sound so much larger than it should have been from such a little girl. Nate would never not be impressed by it.
He brushed his teeth before drinking from a water bottle and swishing it around. He spat the water into the remains of their fire, hearing the embers hiss and sputter. He thought that maybe he should visit the pit toilet, but he couldn’t bring himself to stumble over to the lean-to in the dark. He’d tough it out. If push came to shove, he’d wander off a little ways and piss out in the open, something he hadn’t done since he was a kid.
Alex was already in the bed of the truck, sleeping bag pulled up to his chest, hands behind his head. Nate swallowed thickly at the sight of his biceps straining against the sleeves of his undershirt, and looked away. He climbed into the truck as carefully as he could, not wanting to wake Art.
The sleeping bag was warmer than he expected it to be. They’d been in the cabin. His parents must have bought them before they’d… well. Before. He wondered if they’d used them, if they’d taken them from the cabin and down to the lake and slept underneath the stars, the sound of waves against the beach lulling them under. The thought alone caused him to shiver.
He pulled the top of the sleeping bag up to his chin and laid his head down on his duffel bag. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep.
He couldn’t.
He turned on his side toward the other two.
Alex had shifted into the same position, watching him over Art’s head, eyes glittering in the dark.
“Hey,” Nate whispered quietly.
“Hey,” Alex whispered back.
He opened his mouth to ask what the plan was, what they were going to do tomorrow or the next day or the day after that. Instead, he said, “My father killed my mother.”
Alex inhaled sharply but didn’t speak.
Nate thought he should stop. That Alex didn’t need to know any more. That this wasn’t the time or place or person he should be telling this to. “He shot her. And then he shot himself. I hadn’t seen them in years. I wasn’t… what they expected me to be.”
Alex nodded slowly.
“I didn’t—I didn’t even go to the funeral. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel. Sad because they were my parents? Angry that they let me go like I was nothing? I told myself I didn’t owe them anything. I told myself I was a coward.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did they… What did they expect you to be?”
“Straight,” Nate said, and it was freeing. It was terrifying. There was a chance—though Nate thought it was smaller than it once had been—that Alex would look at him with disgust, but it felt good to say it out loud. There’d been people who had known, but they weren’t… important. Ruth, maybe. She’d known. But then wasn’t like now. This was Alex.
“Oh” was all he said.
“Yeah.” Nate chuckled weakly, hoping he hadn’t just made a mistake. “I think I surprised them. Well, I know I surprised them. They walked in on me and my boyfriend.”
Alex coughed. “That’s what you meant. Back at the cabin.”
“Yeah.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s… rough.”
“Always know the right thing to say, don’t you.”
“I’m trying.”
Nate winced. “I know. I didn’t—mean it. Not like that.”
“I don’t care.”
And yeah, that hurt. More than he expected it to. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
“No,” Alex quickly. “I didn’t—I meant I don’t care that you’re… not straight.” He sounded flustered.
“Oh,” Nate said. “That’s… good? Yeah. That’s good. Thanks. And I don’t know why I’m thanking you. That’s weird. I just… Thanks. I guess. And I thanked you again, what the hell—”
“Nate.”
Nate snapped his mouth shut.
“It’s fine. I don’t—it’s not a big deal.”
“Good. That’s g
ood.”
Alex looked like he was steeling himself for something. He looked away, then back at Nate, then away again. He opened his mouth once, twice. Then, “I’m… a little like that. Um. Both. I like… both.”
Nate blinked. “Bisexual. That’s… cool. Cool. Yeah. Cool, cool, cool.”
“Did I break you?”
“Shut up.”
Alex’s eyes crinkled again, like he was amused. “I think I broke you.”
“You didn’t break me. I’m just… surprised.”
“Why?”
Nate shrugged. “I dunno. You’re… you know. All… you.”
“Because that cleared things up.”
“I don’t know what else to say!”
“Shh. You’re going to wake her up.”
“I doubt she can hear anything above her snoring.”
Alex chuckled quietly. “She’s always been like that. Like a chainsaw.”
“It’d be endearing if it wasn’t so obnoxious.”
“You get used to it.”
Alex would know, right? He’d had years to figure that out. “She’s… happy.”
Alex’s smile faded slightly. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Was she ever happy? In the Mountain?”
Alex’s gaze hardened slightly, but Nate didn’t think it was directed toward him. “Sometimes. When I was with her. They… There were times when they kept us apart. They wanted to test and see how far and how strong the bond was between us. The longest time they kept us separated was almost seven months. She… Neither of us did very well toward the end.”
Nate wanted to ask what was going to happen when she went home, if that bond would break. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he said, “They didn’t care about her, did they? The people in the Mountain.”
Alex shook his head. “Not really. Not like I did. There were a few. They… treated her all right. But even they thought she was nothing more than a parasite in a little girl. An animal in a cage. They didn’t see her for what she actually was. Not like—not like I did.”
“What did you think when they first told you? I wouldn’t even know how to begin to explain her to anyone.”
Art snuffled in her sleep, turning her face toward Alex. Her hands twitched. Nate wondered if she dreamed. And if she did, what those dreams were made of.
“I—they brought me in. To the Mountain. Told me that I was being granted access to a special project. That I was going to be part of something extraordinary. That if I agreed to what they were asking me, sight unseen, without explanation, I could never go back. I had nothing left. So I said yes.”
And as Alex spoke and Art slept between them, Nate’s eyes glazed over and the stars above melted around them, streaking brightly toward the Earth as if they were falling. He could see the images in his head, flashes growing sharper through the haze and he—
He thinks, sure, yeah, whatever. Classified. He’s heard it before. He knows how it works. They know he knows how to keep his mouth shut. He’s a lifer. Career. Enlisted when he was eighteen years old and never looked back. His mom was a drunk, and his dad was in prison serving twenty-five to life for armed robbery where a gun had been fired. That was what had nailed dear old dad, the discharge of a firearm in the commission of a felony.
And Alex Weir, scrawny little Alex Weir, knew even then that if he didn’t get out, if he didn’t break the cycle, he’d end up just like them.
So when he marched into the recruiter’s office, ink barely dry on his high school diploma, he knew he was making the right choice.
Eleven years later, they tell him that he’s going to be part of something unlike anything he’d ever witnessed before. He’s numb, his heart lying in pieces in the pit of his stomach, but he’s listening. He’d never been the curious sort. He’s need-to-know, a good Marine doing what he’s told. He knows how to follow orders, which is why he almost hesitates when they ask him questions instead of telling him what to do.
A man is sitting across a desk from him, and Alex has no idea who he is. He’s not in uniform. He’s wearing wrinkled khakis and a polo shirt, and he says his name is Greer. He has a thick file folder on his desk that he’s barely glanced through that Alex briefly saw his own picture in. Alex wants to ask what this is about, wants to know what his file says. He thinks momentarily that he’s getting discharged, and that terrifies him, until Greer says, “This is… big, bucko. Bigger than anything you’ve ever seen in your life. You gotta be sure about this because there’s no going back.”
He’s never been curious.
But god, is he curious now. Even through the pain that’s soaked into his bones, he wants to know what this is all about.
He has nothing left, so he says yes.
Greer’s smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
They test him. They poke and prod him. He undergoes an EKG. EEG. MRI. He’s x-rayed. They hook him up to wires from head to toe and say it’s called 3D mapping. They take his blood. His plasma. His semen. They do a spinal tap. They test his vision. His reflexes. He runs on a treadmill, mile after mile after mile until he thinks he’s going to drop.
It goes on for six months.
Greer comes back, after.
He says, “It’s time.”
Alex is flown from Phoenix and taken to the Mountain for the first time in the spring of 1985. He’s thirty years old, and he has lost everything.
He thinks it’s going to be experimental weapons. Or armor. Maybe even robots. His imagination had never been something grand (his mother always said he was far too dour and serious as a child), but he’s seen movies. He knows that sometimes science fiction really isn’t fiction at all. There’s always going to be a new type of warfare, and he’s good at what he does. He’s decorated. People follow him. He’s street-smart and quick on his feet. His body has been honed. He’s ready.
Which is why he falters when they take him deep inside the Mountain to a room with floor-to-ceiling glass walls.
Inside the walls—the cage—is a little girl.
She’s wearing pink sweats and a blue tank top. She’s sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, head cocked to the side as she watches him with bright eyes. There’s a bed. A bookshelf filled with books. A partition with a toilet and a shower behind it. A green, leafy plant that looks as if is growing wildly out of control.
And her, of course.
He thinks, oh, you bastards, you bastards, you knew what you were doing, you knew why you asked me to do this, how—
He says, “What is this?”
This, Greer tells him, is the Seventh Sea.
The little girl rolls her eyes.
“I don’t understand.”
“I know,” Greer says. “But you will.”
They take him from the room. From her cage. Before he’s through the door, he glances back at her over his shoulder.
She waves at him.
He doesn’t wave back.
And when they tell him what she is, where she’s come from, how long she’s been there, everything, he says, “Bullshit.”
Greer laughs. “I said the same thing, bucko. But I can assure you, it’s true. All of it is true.”
(Nate felt it here. This moment. This terribly singular moment when everything Alex had ever known about how the world worked shattered with the greatest of ease. In the bed of the truck, he trembled.)
They give him a few days to… process. He meets with people who talk to him about things like biology and genetic makeup. They say things like no verifiable DNA and Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. He doesn’t get it. He can’t comprehend. He’s a grunt. Give him a gun and tell him where to shoot, and he’ll pull the trigger. Give him a map and point to where the enemy is, and he’ll figure out a way to flank them. But tell him that the little girl in the room is an extraterrestrial, and he doesn’t know what to do with that. He doesn’t know how to reconcile it with everything he knows.
They take him back
into the room.
The girl says, “Hello again,” and Alex’s knees buckle beneath him.
No one moves to help him up.
The girl says, “People do that a lot around me. It’s weird, right?”
They don’t give her a name. Not a real name anyway. They call her Seventh Sea or it or that thing that came from outer space.
It takes four months for Alex to work up the nerve to actually talk to it without being angry. To the thing that came from outer space.
To her.
The leaves are changing color on the trees in the forest on the Mountain when he says, “Hey.”
She blinks, just once, and says, “Hi, Alex.”
He lets her in. God help him, he lets her in.
She’s… not what he expected. She likes to read. She laughs when he tells her about a dog he had when he was a kid, a stupid mutt that always seemed to trip over its own feet. She asks him questions about anything and everything. What is his favorite color. Has he ever been to the ocean. Has he ever ridden a horse. Has he ever petted a penguin. (Blue. Yes. No. What the hell?)
(Nate laughed. Or at least he thought he did. He couldn’t be sure.)
At first, there’s always someone in the room with them. Multiple someones. They stay in the background, typing on their computers, writing on their notepads, poring over the readouts that never seem to stop printing. They whisper behind him, always speaking in low voices, never interrupting Alex and the Seventh Sea until it’s time for him to go.
He’s in awe of her.
He resents her.
He doesn’t know what to do, because this is tearing at him. The first year is the worst because he’s still in mourning. He’s still grieving over everything he’s lost. And here she is, this thing that came from outer space, and she smiles at him now, every time he comes into the room. She tells him she doesn’t like it when he goes away. She asks if they can watch a movie. There’s a TV set up, a big black VCR underneath. They bring in tapes. Comedies. Cartoons. Westerns. She loves those the most. She’ll sit on the ground against the wall that separates them, elbows on her knees, chin in her hand, and she’ll be enraptured by the sight of cowboys and Indians, of bandits robbing a train.