Dead Time

by D. L. Orton

  I take a pencil out of a side pocket and scribble a heavy line on the concrete. I add the words “Danger! Guns!” and arrows pointing toward the three working rifles. After I get a drink of water, I crawl away from the guns, dragging the backpack behind me.

  I find my shoe lying on the edge of the concrete and gratefully put it back on. Then I hike across the mountainside, heading for the trees and hoping to find a stream and a flat spot to pitch my tent. I haven’t taken fifty steps when I see something bright red tucked behind some scrub oaks. I veer off course to investigate and discover a biosuit lying facedown in the rocky dirt.

  The discovery gives me the creeps—but it also gives me hope.

  That environment suit had to come from somewhere protected, and I’m betting that it originated inside the mountain. Which means, at the very least, there were people here after Doomsday.

  I do a quick once-over, looking for a cut or hole, but don’t see any.

  Maybe he ran out of oxygen?

  The CO2 detector is electric, and the battery is long dead, so there’s no way to know for sure. But the breach detector is probably mechanical, same as it is in our biosuits.

  I use my foot to flip it over. It’s too light to have a body inside, and I wonder how an empty biosuit got out here in the woods—until I realize it’s not empty.

  It’s full of bones—human ones.

  Yikes!

  There’s no nametag, no way to know who was inside, but the breach detector is fully red: contaminated.

  “Whoever was in there was killed by Doomsday. But how?”

  I check the front for damage.

  The fabric is bright red where it was protected from the sun, and I don’t see any obvious holes. The boots and gloves are on tight, and the faceplate is cloudy—probably from the moisture of the body decomposing inside—but intact.

  Except the helmet looks… weird. When I poke it to see how loose it is, it falls off and a skull slips out, short brown hair still attached to one temple. The head rolls down the side of the mountain, bumping and tumbling over the thin ground cover until it disappears over a ledge.

  I swallow and force myself to breathe.

  He unsealed the biosuit on purpose?

  I back away, trying to decide if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that I found the biosuit.

  Perhaps both.

  An hour later, I finish setting up my campsite and then put in a radio call to the Bub.

  Mindy’s cheerful voice greets me. “Howdy-do, Doc. What did ya think of that loop-dee-loop we did to free the backpack? Fucking awesome, huh?”

  Usually, I would scold Mindy for using language like that, but this time, I have to agree with her.

  “Fucking awesome, indeed.”

  15

  Outside the Lines

  Diego

  It turns out that C-Bay suffers from the same problem that took down the Lou, and the next morning, I begin work Outside.

  The weather is cool and fallish, and my heavy sweater and jeans feel odd given that the ground below me is crawling with red spacemen.

  There was a training session this morning—how to make the repairs while wearing a biosuit—but most of it wasn’t applicable to me. So, I left early. I managed to get through the airlock before anyone else, load everything into a handmade trailer attached to an old gas-powered scooter, and get started by myself.

  That was a couple of hours ago. I’m only on my third repair now, but each one is going faster.

  As I’m waiting for the sealant on the fourth repair to harden, I lean against the biodome wall, shut my eyes, and let the memories come flooding back…

  I can almost see the outcropping of rock near the cabin, hear the stream rushing down below me, smell the mountain air. I visualize Isabel inside the cabin, working on her biome research or cooking dinner, both of us looking forward to an evening in each other’s arms.

  What the hell am I doing in this godforsaken place?

  I take a deep breath and get back to work.

  Still, after nearly a year of being an invalid—and a week of being a pincushion—I have to admit, it’s good to be working outdoors again, good to be using my hands and doing something productive.

  Mierda, what a mess you’ve made of things.

  First, misleading Lani into thinking I was in love with her, and then turning Shannon over to those wackos, and now tearing open old wounds for Bella and Soleil.

  Of course they all hate you. You’ve done nothing but fuck things up.

  As ironic as it sounds, Dave is the only one who doesn’t want me tarred and feathered, and as much as it pains me to say it, he seems like a decent—if arrogant—guy.

  If you achieved half as much as he has, you’d be arrogant too.

  By ten, I’ve finished a handful of repairs—but the suits have completed only a couple between them.

  Each repair—of which there are 180—requires covering a seam with sealer goop and attaching two heavy metal plates welded together at an angle. It’s not particularly difficult, but it’s hard manual labor—and I neglected to bring leather gloves, so my hands are taking a beating.

  I watch the suits lumber around for another minute and then get back to work. I check that my metal plates are secure and climb down the ladder. I’m stiff and sore, but for once, I feel like I’m actually doing something useful.

  The day after we arrived in C-Bay, I gave Shannon’s rebreather plans to Kirk, but it turns out no one believed a kid could come up with a fix for them. So no one bothered to investigate. This morning, I mentioned that Matt was involved in the project too, and Kirk promised he’d have someone follow up.

  Better late than never, I guess.

  Until they get some rebreathers fixed, the crews must climb forty-foot ladders, heft bulky metal plates, and apply quick-acting sealant while wearing stiff, clunky biosuits. Not even the knights on the fields of Agincourt had it that tough.

  I heave a heavy plate over my shoulder and start hauling it up the ladder, shooing away the hoards of crows as I go. It takes me a few tries to wrestle the plate onto the pre-existing bolts, the muscles in my arms complaining. Once I manage to get it in place, I hurry down, mix up the sealant, and scramble back up to apply the goo before it sets. Then I screw on six bolts the size of donuts and tighten them down with a pneumatic drill.

  By midday, my arms and back are protesting every movement, but I’m making steady progress.

  The biosuits are assumed to have four hours of air, but with all the exertion required for the repair work, the first crew is forced to quit early. Thirty minutes later, the next crew appears, and I curse Dave and his minions for not listening to me about the masks.

  No idea why the word of the most hated man in C-Bay didn’t carry any weight.

  Except for a short break to wolf down my lunch, I continue working through the day and into the evening. The crews appear and disappear around me until the sun gets low in the sky. In the fading twilight, I place the ladder flat on the ground, load all the tools back onto the trailer, and take everything back to a covered area in front of the airlock.

  It’s been nice to have an entire day to myself. No Bella to avoid. No Soleil scowling at me. No needles stuck in my arm. I’ve completed eleven repairs, and the crews have finished another seven. As long as we don’t run out of parts or sealant—and the weather holds—we should have all the repairs done in a little over a week.

  I hope that’s soon enough.

  I stand for a minute and look up into the dark sky, a brilliant array of stars popping out all over—way more than I’ve ever seen before. I look for the Big Dipper—and find it—but something about it looks… off.

  Maybe it’s all those extra stars you can’t see in a world full of light pollution?

  I draw an imaginary line through the last two stars in the cup and follow it to Polaris, the North Star. It’s right where it should be. And Orion looks normal too, including the orangish glow of Betelgeuse and the bright shine of Rigel. I ta
ke a more careful look at the Big Dipper and realize what’s wrong. One of the stars in the Dipper’s handle is absent, a whole solar system moved or missing in this universe.

  The realization casts a shadow over me, and I shiver.

  What caused a whole star system to vanish?

  I can’t answer that question, but I do know that vast and powerful forces are at work, and my insignificant existence in this universe is tenuous at best.

  I hurry back into the airlock, wait for the all-clear signal, and head back to my room without encountering a soul. I take a shower, eat the baked chicken dinner Nurse Sweet has left for me, and go to bed.

  For the next eight days, my routine is broken only by a failed attempt to find leather gloves, two updates from Dave on Shannon (“I’m working on it, but the Catersville people are dragging their feet.” and “We’re hashing out the details now.”), and three evening trips to the Vampire Lounge—sans Soleil.

  As I’m walking across the lamp-lit park on the eighth night—heading back to my room for a cold dinner and an evening alone—I notice someone coming toward me.

  In the unconscious instant it takes to recognize that walk, my heart leaps into my throat and sweat breaks out on my palms.

  Isabel.

  I don’t realize I’ve made a mistake until she stops in front of me, her eyes glistening in the lamplight.

  “Hi,” she says, looking completely different. Her hair is no longer blond, and instead of a dress and high heels, she’s wearing old jeans, a loose turtleneck sweater—and tennis shoes.

  “Dr. Kirk?” I manage to croak out. “You’ve changed… your hair.”

  “Yes, I should have let it go gray years ago. What a relief it is to stop trying to be someone I’m not.”

  “Why the sudden switch?” I ask, not sure how to take the new Bella.

  She glances around the park, not meeting my gaze. “At a certain age, a woman must decorate herself or lose her husband to a younger woman. Seeing you made me realize I’m past that age.”

  I laugh, finally seeing my Isabel underneath all the pretense. “As far as I’m concerned, age isn’t important unless you’re a cheese.”

  She pins her gaze on me, her eyes defiant. “I don’t believe that for a moment,” she says. “But I appreciate the sentiment. I was hoping I could buy you dinner—or even just a drink.”

  “Mierda, you have bars in here?” I say, still feeling off-balance. “Why didn’t someone tell me that sooner?”

  “Haven’t you heard?” One corner of her mouth twitches. “We all hate you.”

  I look more closely at her face, my heart still racing. She’s not wearing any makeup either. “It’s nice to have you back, hun.”

  She blows right by my words. “Well?”

  “I’d love to have dinner,” I say, “but I need to take a shower and change my clothes first.”

  “Right,” she says, looking a bit off-balance herself. “Meet me at Milliways in an hour? It’s a block west of the hospital. You can’t miss it.”

  “Make it thirty minutes,” I say. “I’ll hurry.”

  She smiles for the first time, and it twists my heart into a knot. It’s the closest I’ve been to Isabel in over a year, and it’s sweet torture.

  “I’ll wait for you there,” she says and turns away. “Table in the corner.”

  I watch her walk away, memories of Iz swirling in my brain.

  Bella’s a little older, a little warier, but she is, most definitely, the same woman I fell in love with.

  I take one last look and then jog off into the night.

  Twenty-seven minutes later, I walk into the bar at the end of the universe.

  16

  Ruby Red Slippers

  Shannon

  At dinner, I set Peter’s plate down in front of him, my back sore from scrubbing the cafeteria floor. He grunts, avoiding my eyes, and I hurry off to the women’s table to wait for the men to finish eating.

  The other women have been ordering me around all day, yanking my hair and scolding me when I make a mistake.

  “Hasn’t done a day of work in her life,” the woman with a bad eye says when I sit down at the table.

  “Too busy whoring,” another says and shifts away from me. “Probably crawling with diseases too.”

  The others grumble and scowl—all except one.

  I venture a glance in her direction, and she meets my gaze, nodding once, and then averts her eyes.

  While the women sit and eat, I’m instructed to clear the men’s tables. When I’m done, I sit down in front of the watery bowl of soup and dry cornbread they’ve left me.

  There’s no spoon or other utensils. I lift the bowl up to my mouth.

  Someone shoves me from behind, spilling the soup across the table. “Hurry up, you lazy whore.” The woman with the bad eye knocks my cornbread onto the floor. “And what a clumsy oaf you are. Go get something to clean up the mess you’ve made.”

  I grab the food off the floor and shove it into my mouth.

  She snorts. “You’re no better than a filthy animal.”

  I carry my dishes to the kitchen and come back with a dirty rag.

  She stands over me, her hands on her hips. “You leave one crumb, and I’ll have you beaten for disobedience.”

  For the rest of the evening, I’m forced to wash pots and pans—and then wipe the tables and mop the floor.

  After I finish, the woman who nodded at me earlier escorts me back to the Room of Release.

  She unlocks the door and bows slightly, holding the heavy wooden portal open for me.

  “Thank you,” I say, meeting her eyes. “You’re very kind.”

  She offers me a sad smile.

  “Why aren’t you mean to me like the others?” I ask.

  She shrugs.

  “Have you lived here all your life?” The moment I say it, I realize it’s a dumb question.

  Of course she has.

  But she shakes her head.

  “Where are you from?” I ask. “Did they kidnap you too?”

  She nods and then hesitates.

  “What is it?”

  She opens her mouth and shows me her stump of a tongue.

  “Oh my God! They did that to you?”

  She nods again.

  “I’m so sorry!”

  She takes my hand and squeezes it.

  “How can you stand to live here?”

  She puts her hand over her belly and forms it into a fist, pumping it open and shut like a beating heart. It takes me a minute to realize what she’s telling me.

  “You’re pregnant?”

  She smiles.

  We hear footsteps in the hallway, and her eyes widen. She pushes me inside, shuts the door, and locks it.

  I stand there in the half-lit room and cry.

  When I run out of tears, I drop the cloak on the floor and crawl into the huge bed, exhausted.

  But sleep won’t come.

  I lie there thinking about Mom, wondering when she—or Diego or Madders—will come rescue me.

  What if the plane crashed? What if no one knows where you are?

  The thought makes it hard to breathe.

  What if you’re stuck here? What will happen when forty days goes by and you’re not pregnant?

  I shudder and pull the covers up tighter.

  You have to get out of here, Shannon. Before you run out of time.

  “But how?” I say aloud. “You don’t even know where the airlock is, and the only person who’s nice to you can’t speak.”

  I vow to keep my mouth shut so I don’t end up like that poor woman—or Peter’s mother.

  So what are you going to do?

  “Go to sleep,” I tell myself. “Like Mom says, things are always better in the morning.”

  But first I have to pee.

  I crawl out of bed, rubbing the sore spot on my arm where Peter grabbed me this morning, and use the bathroom. When I’m done, I dive back under the covers and try to sleep.

  So
metime later, there’s a soft knock on the door.

  Peter?

  I hear the lock turn and the door open and shut.

  “Shannon?”

  I pull the covers up over my head.

  He walks across the room and sits down beside me. “Are you okay? I’m sorry about this morning. I didn’t know what else to do. I’m afraid they’ll take you away from me if I’m not…”

  I turn away from him, tears spilling down my cheeks onto the pillow. “Leave me alone.”

  He sets something down on the bed. “I got these for you. To help you escape.”

  Escape?

  Curiosity wins out over indignity, and I glance down at what he’s brought me.

  “It’s a map of the biodome,” he says, holding up some blueprints. “And I stole a security card off Mikey. He’ll just think he lost it—wouldn’t be the first time.”

  I look at him, stifling a sob.

  “I know you despise me,” he says, “and I understand why, but I’m not really like that. I’m not hateful and cruel like you think.”

  “You hurt me today,” I say, rubbing my bruised arm.

  He bows his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I just meant to… show you how important it is that you listen to me.”

  “Or they’ll cut my tongue out?” I say, thinking of that poor woman.

  “Yes,” he says, sounding relieved.

  I know he’s right, but I can’t help feeling cross at him.

  “I’ll be more careful,” he says, taking a cautious look at me. “Please forgive me.”

  I swallow and then nod. “Okay.” I pick up the access card and turn it over in my hands. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” He picks up the blueprints and points to a small, square room on one edge. “This is where we are now,” he says. “And this is where we brought you in.” He drags his finger to the other side of the drawing. “I don’t know where they put your biosuit, but I’ve been looking for it.”

  “I appreciate that, Peter, really I do, but my suit is almost out of power—and the oxygen is low. Without batteries and a truckload of O2 tanks, it’s useless. What I really need is something light and self-contained like a rebreather mask.”