The Master Key

by T. K. Toppin

  And then, getting through space was tedious enough. Hours upon hours with nothing but endless blackness around you. Strapped into a small, uncomfortable chair with nothing but a nagging husband for company. I could think of a hundred other things I’d rather be doing than sitting here now, next to him.

  Granted, he wasn’t nagging at the moment. Just being overly polite and concerned. And it drove me ape-shit mad. He treated me as if I were made of very thin glass.

  “Please, will you have a little more?” he said again, offering me a rehydrated steak sandwich.

  The Bullet was a bare-bones, no-nonsense vessel stripped of all its niceties. And that included the food choices. I had no more inclination to eat another morsel of the tasteless, rubbery, artificial sandwich than I did for wanting to step into a pile of shit. No matter how hungry I was.

  “No, thanks.” I spaced my words as if speaking to someone hard of hearing.

  “You’ve barely touched it.”

  “I don’t eat shit.”

  “You need to eat something.”

  “I notice you didn’t eat it.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Because it tastes like shit.”

  “Josie…” he sighed.

  “John…” I mimicked. “What is your fucking problem?”

  “Might I remind you, you’ve just been injured—not four hours ago. You need to keep your strength up. You’re going on nothing more than pills and adrenalin.”

  I knew John was trying very, very hard to keep his voice level and calm. It must’ve been quite difficult, because his jaw had been clenching for the last two hours. I can’t imagine what that did to his teeth.

  “I’m fine! Have you never heard of, of—oh, here it is—feed the fit and starve the injured?”

  “Josie…”

  “I’m not hungry—not for that, anyway.” I looked inside the so-called lunch box before us, a large metal container crammed full of suspiciously bulky packages in vacuum packed foil. “What’s this one? Why don’t they just tell you what’s inside instead of putting stupid numbers on them? What’s number six? Feels like a log of shit.”

  “It appears you have shit on your brains,” John muttered under his breath. “Six means juice.”

  “This?” I whipped my attention to him and stared in disbelief. “This turd-like thing is juice? How are you meant to drink it?”

  “Add number one to it.” John rubbed a knot at his brow. “Water.”

  I rootled around in the box until I found a bulbous packet labeled “1.” Screwing up my face, I stared at both packets in my hands, looking left then right.

  “How the fu—”

  “Oh, give it here.” John, seething with impatience, took both packets from me with force. He pulled at a corner from 1, extracted an extendable straw and used it to punch a hole at a red dot on 6. He squeezed 1 and let it fill 6. The foil wrapping expanded like magic. With an angry tug, he pulled the straw out of 1 and left it sticking out of 6. He pinched the end of the straw, shook the packet a few times and handed it to me as I watched with great interest.

  “There,” he muttered, and then added, “try not to choke.”

  “I heard that,” I snapped.

  “Hmm?”

  “What is the matter with you? You know, not everyone knows how to read this military-food-shit thing.”

  “I could ask the same of you. What is the matter?” John turned in his seat to regard me with his sharp stare, as if prompting me to talk.

  “Nothing’s wrong with me.” I slurped up some juice, gagged and made a face. “Holy fuck! That is bad. It tastes like—”

  “Shit. I know.”

  I glowered at him for a moment. “I was going to say, piss. Look, if you’re going to behave all snippy like this the whole way, you might as well put me off right here.”

  He clenched his fists, as if resisting the temptation to do just that. “Josie.” Anger seasoned his words. “Don’t you want to talk about it, at least?”

  “No, I don’t!” My voice clipped up higher. “What’s there to talk about?”

  “Josie, you’ve just found out—”

  “That I’m a freak. Read my lips. A total, fucking freak. I’ve been one from the day I woke up. My whole goddamned fucking family are freaks. I mean, think about it? Oh, wait—what’s there to think about? It’s just too bizarre to even wrap your head around. Look at us! Mad as fuck from cradle to grave! And, and, that business with the cloning, giving birth to yourself? I mean, who the fuck does that kind of thing? That’s just sick! It’s just…wrong. Jeez, John! If…if you want a divorce, I don’t blame you. And I won’t stand in your way. I would divorce me in a flash. Get rid of me already. Eww, I’m gross,” I muttered and made a sound of disgust. Even my stomach pitched at the thought, so I swallowed. “Dig a ditch and just chuck me in while you’re at it.”

  I flung the vile-tasting juice across the narrow confines of The Bullet. It hit against the back of another chair with a wet splat. Folding my arms across my chest, I scowled out the window, my mood as black as the fathomless space around me. And the juice sat acrid in my stomach.

  After a moment, John cleared his throat and tried to sound as unperturbed as he could manage. A feat, I tell you. “I don’t want a divorce. I quite enjoy being married to a freak.”

  He waited for a reaction. I twitched a corner of my mouth. Bringing my hand up, I fisted it over my mouth, and try as I might, a giggle made my shoulders shake.

  “You crying or laughing?” He drummed his fingers on the armrest, still staring at me.

  “Fine,” I said airily, pushing up my brows. “Then I don’t want a divorce either. I enjoy being married to a nagging, stubborn-assed man who can’t let things alone.”

  Catching my fisted hand, he brought it to his lips and kissed it. “I need to talk about it,” he mumbled into my fist.

  “Oh, you’re such a weepy girl sometimes, you know that?” With a tone of mock exasperation, I finally turned to face him. I wasn’t scowling anymore; my mood had shifted. In fact, my eyes were a bit watery. Maybe I was crying a little.

  “Honestly, John…” I tried to keep my tone serious, but my mind was frayed. “I don’t know what I’m feeling. Sick, for one thing. Shocked and horrified. I don’t know. I just want it to go away—to end. Pretend it never happened. That…that I’m just a normal person, not a three-hundred-year-old relic with a fucked-up niece who’s gone and copied herself and gone off in the head and…” I sighed, slumping back in my seat. “Fuck.”

  He nodded and clicked his tongue, cupping a hand to my face. “I do too. I’m sorry I pressed you. It makes me sick, too, after what we saw—found out. It’s also just unbelievable, I still can’t bring myself to make it make sense.”

  “Imagine how I feel, then. It’s all fucked to hell up. I’m beginning to see, now, where and why Ho is so messed up in the head. And Margeaux.”

  We linked hands and pressed close together, shoulder to shoulder, head to head. For a long moment, we were silent. Time seemed to stand still, with nothing to remind us that it passed but the constant sound of the engines and the floating space debris beyond the bulkhead windows.

  I turned to study his face, committing it to memory. He watched me watching him, and his face clouded over. He knew me so well, but I had to say it. “If I die—not that I’m planning to just yet,” I added quickly. “But if I do…will you promise me Margeaux is cared for?”

  John didn’t reply immediately. He sat looking back at me, clearly thinking. He seemed to stop breathing. When he spoke, it sounded like he was in unimaginable pain. “I can’t imagine a life without you. But recent events seem insistent I face that truth one way or another. I promise, Josie. Margeaux will be cared for.”

  “And by taking care of her, I don’t mean committing her to some mental asylum.”

  He scowled. “I know. But she’s been brainwashed from very young. The damage may be irreversible. And considering her family history of, well…inbreeding is t
oo gentle a word. I didn’t mean you, by the way,” he added as he saw my face pinch.

  I shrugged it off. “She’s still young, and with the right sort of guidance and direction, maybe…”

  “She will try to run, you know that? First chance she gets. She’s not the sort to sit quietly and let fate take over, regardless of her so-called dedication to her religion. She’s a schemer, a manipulator.”

  “I know.”

  “I thought you didn’t care for her anymore.” John frowned at me.

  “She’s still a part of me.” My voice sounded small. But a distasteful tang pricked my mouth. “Like I said, she’s still young and there’s still a glimmer of hope she might…change.”

  John nodded, understanding. “Don’t worry about her now. There’s time for that later.”

  “But, what if something happens to—”

  “If you dared to die, Josie, rest assured, I would kill you myself. Don’t speak so foolishly…please.”

  “And you know as well, if you started talking of dying, I’d freak out too.” I scowled back, saw him flinch, and felt bad immediately. “We’re the same, John. Seems we’re each fated to kill ourselves before we allow the other to die.”

  John snorted out a soft laugh. “I wish I was a different person. But then, would I have ever met you if I was?”

  “See? We’re stuck. So don’t go around doing heroics like you usually do.” A deep sigh escaped me, tiredness pushing me down. What was I even doing here, jumping headfirst into danger like an adrenalin junkie? This future I lived in had changed me. But I had to fix this gross wrong. It was my fault, or, at the very least, caused by me in some way.

  “What is it?” John asked in a tender voice.

  “I know it’s pointless to blame anyone right now. But I can’t help thinking—wondering—that if I hadn’t been around, down in their basement, then none of this would be happening. Fern wouldn’t have become obsessed with immortality, of doing those…things to herself. Of giving birth to…to… You know.”

  “I wondered that, too. You can’t change it, Josie.”

  “I know.”

  “And I also thought that if you hadn’t been there, with them, you might not be here now. Despite everything, they looked after you. They made sure you lived. Fern, however twisted her mind became, cared for you. Well, you mattered to her on some level.” John squeezed my hand and whispered in my ear. “She brought you here, to me. So I have to be thankful for that.”

  I smiled, warmth spreading inside me. I sighed again and made a helpless noise. “I can’t believe she killed my brother—her own father. Kellan. I always thought maybe they were all killed—you know, by the people who killed my father. But all this time, all this fucking time…it was her.” My breath caught in the back of my throat, and I swallowed hard. “And Conrad. Poor, little Conrad. Dying all alone, old and forgotten. All by himself and no family of his own. And she spoke of him as if he were…what’s the word? Collateral damage? Jeez. What a cold bitch. Shit—” words jammed in my throat. The image of Conrad sitting with me in that basement, alone, eating his dinner, just about killed me. And how Fern just laughed, how she mocked him like he was some sad old man. She was a jerk. A deranged, bullying jerk.

  “Josie.” John gripped my hand and brought me closer.

  “I wanted to know what happened. Now I do. Every single question answered. John, I don’t feel so good. I think I might puke.”

  “It’s all right. Just take a few breaths. Space travel does that to some people.”

  John comforted me, trying to distract me. I felt sick again, weak, and clamminess slicked over my skin. Tears threatened to spill. We sat in silence, resting against each other. Time ticked away.

  After a while, I stirred and gazed out the window. “Do you think she’s still alive? Somewhere, sleeping? Is that possible?”

  “Until I met you, I didn’t think much about things that were too far-fetched. But now, I’m not so sure.” John blew out a breath. “Josie, if she’s still out there, you do realize that she’s so far gone from the girl you once knew.”

  “She’s a fucking lunatic, I know.” I chuckled, but the effort hurt.

  But I did feel a little better. The queasy sensation, the light-headed vertigo, it all evaporated as John’s solid presence bolstered me like a revitalizing tonic. Space travel, my skinny ass, I snorted. It’s the chalk food and putrid juice that made me sick. Okay, and the knife wound. I needed more painkillers.

  And, I had to admit, talking about it, hearing it out loud, made it more believable, more real. I pushed the thoughts away with force. They only made my head hurt—confusing things. I didn’t need that right now.

  “Okay. I shouldn’t think about it now. I don’t need to,” I said, more to myself than to John, and inhaled, swiping the tears from my face with purpose. “Right,” I cleared my throat. “What’s the plan once we hit the Scrap Yard? Who goes in high, who goes in low?”

  John let out a long laugh—a rare moment, as he hardly ever allowed himself to laugh as long and rich and unabashedly open as he did then. The tension that had been visible on his face evaporated like mist in sunlight. He wrapped his arm around me, hugging me tight until I squeaked in pain. I pulled back, rubbing my sore shoulder with an amused frown.

  “You know,” John said, knocking his forehead gently against mine. “You lied. You’re not really a freak. You’re the most annoyingly normal woman I’ve ever met. Soon you’ll be knitting. I want a refund.”

  I grinned, then laughed, my mood lifting like his. “You’re such a soppy idiot. Hey, ever heard of the mile-high club?”

  John’s face screwed up in an uncharacteristic expression of ignorance. “Eh?”

  Chapter 29

  The mechanics of space travel, and a little thing called centripetal force, keep you grounded like on Earth. But it left a strange sensation in the middle of your stomach. A vague fullness, like you’d eaten something and then jumped straight into a pool of water. An odd, compressed sensation as though your stomach was somewhere between where it was supposed to be, and where it was not. Of course, it seemed I was the only one who suffered from it. It took some getting used to but, considering my stomach had been fairly empty to begin with, the puking sensation went away eventually.

  The smells were also quite distinct. Not that space itself had a smell, since I never got the chance to actually stick my nose out a window to find out. Who would, since that would be the last thing they ever did before being sucked out like a vacuum and tumbling breathlessly into the black void beyond. By smells, I meant inside the vessels we traveled in.

  Aside from the constant metallic tang of machinery and the oily smells of lubricated engines that mingled with the dull undertones of fabrics, upholstery and disinfectant, were the distinct and surprisingly earthen smells lingering in every single corner.

  People. Crowds of people. Different kinds of people, all crammed together for extended periods, festering together despite the mandatory hygiene washes and cooled air—the cooled recycled air.

  It stank, sometimes, like a lingering fart. After a while, I suppose you got used to it, which I did in the end—somewhat—as I had other smells to deal with. It also helped that I became more and more distracted, so ended up forgetting to take notice. But to begin with, I couldn’t help but wonder if my lungs weren’t festering from the vile fumes of human b.o.

  At least I could pick out John’s smell from a mile away. Whether he’d been scrubbed clean or unwashed for days, I knew his scent to the point it struck me first among a crowd. It smelled of home. Safety. Something I’d grown so accustomed to that I barely noticed it. Until it was among others.

  His was the clean scent of male sweat mixed with the complex spice of his cologne. Compared to the other human smells around me, his was a breath of fresh air. At least I didn’t gag when he was near. I couldn’t say the same for the swarm of space troopers surrounding us as we boarded the heavy-artillery cruiser, The Sloop. Breathing through my m
outh, I thought I could taste them.

  Space travel. No, it wasn’t everything it was cracked up to be.

  Once on board, we were escorted straight to the observation deck and given an impressive view of the Scrap Yard. Between us, floating like an aerodynamic dick, was a stocky yet luxuriously sleek gunship—a sci-fi fanatic’s wet dream. The ship was riddled with mounted guns both seen and unseen. At this precise moment their guns were aimed at both us and the Scrap Yard. From the looks of it, we were in stalemate.

  “How long has it been like this?” John asked the captain.

  The captain, a sharp man dressed in severe black, wore something like a jumpsuit with knee-high boots to match. At his shoulders, thick molded guards extended down to his elbows, and a sort of neck guard framed the back of his head like a scalloped hood. A protective guard also ran down the center of his spine to his tailbone. At his waist, he wore a thick belt loaded with every conceivable gadget, weaponry, and compartment imaginable. It seemed to be attached to a sort of twin-tailed guard-flap that curved seductively between his thighs—to protect the arteries there, I was told later. Along the front, across his chest, more of the protective material fanned out like a mesh. He wore black gloves too, lined with the Lancaster midnight blue; the wrist guards had barbs like the back of a lobster. He was the living, breathing specimen of what one would imagine a futuristic space soldier would look like.

  I made an audible gasp when we first encountered him. Sexy outfit aside, the captain was very handsome. Dark-haired and sharp-featured with a hawk-like nose that fit his face perfectly; he had blazing blue eyes that seemed to see everything at once. His mouth was set firm and straight, and to top everything off, a wickedly jagged scar ran from his left cheekbone to the side of his nose. The angle of the scar and its color were just right, making him both ruggedly handsome and vulnerably romantic. His name was Captain Sandvik.

  There were more like him, dedicated to the defense of space much like those privately funded Junkies I’d heard about, only these were the Lancaster-trained and government-approved Space Militia. They were the space version of Simon’s Elites. And Captain Sandvik was the best of them. Apparently, he was a big deal.