by D. Brumbley
He flinched when she touched him, but only because he hadn’t been expecting it, and he put an arm around her quickly to hold her. “Yeah, of course. Whole reason I designed these hunks of junk in the first place. Give everybody around here a little more peace of mind and maybe a little more peace and quiet instead of driving themselves crazy trying to get anything done.” He didn’t let go of the hug immediately, but she did feel him chuckle rather than hear it. “I thought you liked this shirt?” He plucked at the back of it as he let go of it, since it had clearly seen better days after her assistance in the engine.
“It’s already dirty now. It won’t hurt to get a little more of your dirt and grease on it.” She actually looked up at him and smiled, but she knew it was a mistake immediately. She was so close. Anna glanced at his lips for just a moment, and it was long enough. Long enough to bring all sorts of fantasies to mind that she had spent years trying to banish.
Logan’s smile got a little wider than it had been since she arrived, and he moved around her to get one of the stations up and running, dancing past her in the tight confines of the control room. It was built for one person to use in operating all the machinery inside and just barely outside the hangar. Maneuvering past her involved a lot of contact transferral of the dust and oil covering him, and did nothing to silence the thoughts she’d been trying not to have.
He had to clear his throat again as he brushed past her in exactly the wrong way, and he quickly turned away to face the panel closest to him. “I’ve, um, got one through twenty-three going, but I need to check through their scans. Can you run startup tests on the rest?”
“Sure.” Anna did her best to keep distance between them as she worked, mostly because she was going crazy every time they brushed against each other. Anna took a minute to reacquaint herself with the system to run the tests, since Logan had shown her how to use the beasts as soon as he had finished building them. She caught on pretty easily with machines anyway. “They look pretty good…only one that isn’t responding.”
He stepped over to take a look at the one she was talking about, and growled a little. “I just fixed that piece of…oh well. I’ll go take another look once we get the rest of them out on trial runs in the near field.” He had to get up close against her back to take a look over the harvester’s internal scans, and he ran his fingers just above the screen to take in everything that needed to be addressed. “Always something broken in the world, I guess. Some places more than others. One out of thirty-four ain’t bad.”
“No, I’d say that’s pretty darn good.” Anna unconsciously pressed her backside into him and barely stopped herself before a groan could escape her lips. “What, um, what else do you need me to do?”
Logan didn’t answer immediately, and pretended to be engrossed in the technical specs on the screen in front of him. Oh, there were a lot of reasons he had kept himself away from people for the past year. Anna in particular. It was just too easy to be around her, and too difficult at the same time. “I um, I’m gonna go back down and take care of our non-responsive friend. Power that down for the time being so it doesn’t start while I’m wrapped up in it. If you can start mapping trial runs for all of them just to make sure all the moving parts still move right, we can get them going. Then we can get inside and get cleaned up. Nothing else should really need engine grease once they’re all moving.”
“Alright.” Anna responded softly as he moved to get away from her like she was on fire. She supposed she deserved it, since she was getting all bothered by his presence. Clearly he must have realized it. Anna didn’t even look away from the screens as he exited the control room, but once he was gone, she ran her hands over her face, dirty as they were.
What was she doing?
She wiped her face off with the bottom of her shirt and went back to doing as Logan had instructed. Apparently her sticking around the Bickford estate until the harvest was completed was going to make for a long few days.
Repairs and routing the harvesters took most of the morning, Logan doing most of the work on the ground while Anna kept an eye on things from the control room. Eventually all of them were up and running and headed to work on the closest field as a trial run for the rest of the harvest, which left Logan waiting for Anna at the bottom of the steps leading up to the control room. He didn’t look any dirtier than he had been when they got started, but it would have been hard for him to get much worse without actively trying. “What I should really do is just let you run this place. You handle them better than I do, and I designed the damn things.”
Anna laughed as she climbed down, and she hopped down to the ground without his help. She never was the type to ask for help, even when she probably should. “Well, you’re a man and you designed them, so it makes sense that a woman can handle them. What man do you know that doesn’t like a woman all up in his controls?” She smirked and shook her head. “I hear your brother now has three.”
He rolled his eyes so violently his head rolled with them, then started walking next to her toward the house. “Yeah, he picked up a strawberry blonde a while back. Brianne. Nice girl, pretty freaky, according to him, which is a change of pace from the two he’s already got hanging around. Crazy idiot.”
“Freaky, huh? I guess your brother likes all the flavors he can get.” She shook her head and kept walking, though she really couldn’t look at Logan and even briefly talk about sex. “I’m surprised that he can convince three girls to stick around. Your brother must really know what he’s doing in bed.”
“Well, Larissa and I did finally exile him to the north wing of the house. It’s nothing a few soundproof doors couldn’t fix.” Logan looked over at her with a smile, though it was followed by falling back half a step so he could look her up and down without her knowing. “I just hope he doesn’t whip any of them into the kind of frenzy where they’re really gonna come and kill him for stringing them along like this. I know I used to joke about that as a possibility, but it feels more real every freaking year.”
“Well, I know Margo pretty well, and I started to get to know Rachel at the last get-together in town. They don’t seem the type to actually want to hurt him.” She looked down at her dirty hands, and at the mention of Larissa she felt as though she needed to talk about Larissa and Cory. Especially because she didn’t know what kind of chance she would have if she was going to go for the Jannah project. “Since you mentioned Larissa, I have something to ask, actually.”
“What, to borrow some of her clothes for the next couple days? I figured that went without saying.” He looked her over again with some of her playful best friend behind the smile, for a change.
Anna looked down at her clothes again and laughed. “No, I came somewhat prepared with a few changes of clothes. But I wanted to talk about something else, actually. I was talking with Cory this morning and I actually thought it might be a good idea if Cory and Larissa…get to know each other.”
That made Logan miss a step, but he recovered fairly quickly, looking her in the eye just to make sure she was being serious. “Cory? Last time Liam talked to me about it, it sounded like Ben was the one who was interested.” In the majority of cases, whether Ben or Cory was interested wouldn’t have mattered, only what Larissa was interested in. Logan still had his sister’s desires as the top of his priorities. There were broken bones and rearranged faces scattered across the district as proof of how protective an older brother he was, all of them belonging to men who had decided their interest in Larissa was more important than her interest in them. “Whose idea is that? Yours, your dad’s, or Cory’s?”
“Mine. And for the record, Ben isn’t actually interested in her. Susan thinks he needs a second wife and that Larissa would be a good fit for our family. While I agree Larissa would be a good fit for our family, she wouldn’t be happy with Ben. Ben is moody as fuck. He wouldn’t ever hurt her, but I don’t think he would make her happy. He loves Susan. Cory, though, I think Cory and Larissa would be good together. He’s sweet, an
d he would be sweet to her.” She finally looked over at Logan, since she couldn’t believe she was trying to get Cory with a Bickford when she had wanted one nearly all her life. “I hate to take her away from you and Liam, but I would also hate it if someone else snatched up your sister. Cory doesn’t need to be hung up on some girl across the world bound for Jannah. He needs someone like Larissa.”
She knew him well enough to read every thought he had in the smallest gestures and expressions. Acknowledgment, consideration, pros, cons, anxiety over the choice itself, resolution to make it anyway. “He seems like a good kid, from the little I’ve ever seen of him. And if you think the two of them would be good together, I trust your judgment. I’ll talk to Larissa and see what she thinks about it. But I’m on your side, I don’t like the idea of her with Ben. I like him just fine, just not for my sister.”
“They would both be happier not together. Susan will forgive me.” She smiled at Logan again, then sighed. “Never thought Cory would beat me to it.” She mumbled, her eyes stubbornly forward.
Logan couldn’t bring himself to smile at that, and stayed quiet as they walked. “I assume Jamie hasn’t exactly been rushing to get down on one knee? Or is that not really happening anymore?” It had been months since he had last actually inquired about her love life, and a lot longer between the last time and the time before that. Thoughts of Anna with anyone else had never been welcome in Logan’s brain.
“I could never marry Jamie.” She shook her head quickly to dismiss the idea. “He’s good looking. That’s about all he has going for him as far as I’m concerned. I’m sure he’s chasing all sorts of tail, and I haven’t seen him in over a month.” Jamie wouldn’t matter anyway, if she was going to Jannah. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what else I might have to offer the world if not babies. Maybe I don’t have much of a purpose here. Babysitter, maybe.”
“You’re good for a whole lot more than just babysitting kids.” Logan said with a glare as they finally reached the house. “Everything looks great, guys!” He called up to Lenny and Karen. “Pretty sure those windows haven’t been cleaned since the last time you were here.”
“I know they haven’t.” Lenny called back with a smile. “You look like shit, by the way. In the fight between you and the machine, looks like the machine kicked your ass.”
“Yeah it did.” Logan agreed with a chuckle and a wave, not missing a beat. “Don’t stay out too much longer, Larissa’s gonna have lunch set up here in a little while, I’m sure.” He opened the front door to the house for Anna when they got there, and sighed when it closed behind them like a bank vault door, every bit as huge and every bit as secure, thanks to the house’s paranoid builders. “What are you thinking about, then?” He said when he finally looked back at her, obvious concern on his face. “Head out to the city somewhere? St. Louis? Try your luck out in the Rockies district?”
Even Anna’s shrug lacked the necessary energy for real uncertainty, since she didn’t have anything else on her mind other than Jannah. “Who knows, maybe I should try to go to space or something.”
For the first time that day her mention of space wasn’t met with immediate amusement or scorn. The look in Logan’s eyes was deeply thoughtful as he looked back in hers, and she could see wheels turning in the storm of his irises. “You think so?” It was a good thing he had lived in his house his entire life and didn’t need to look where he was going to navigate. He moved around to one side of the fountain in the grand entry hall that they had never once activated, and headed down a broad hallway toward the part of the house he and his siblings actually occupied, all without looking away from her. “What would you do up in orbit, do you think?”
Anna shrugged again. “I heard they need people who know how to farm, and I’m pretty good with learning how to use machines. I think I could be pretty handy up there with those soft Orbitals. I don’t know. Working toward Jannah sounds like a worthy cause. At least for someone like me who isn’t doing shit for the benefit of Earth.”
“You don’t have to be a saint ending the world’s problems to be doing good in the world.” He bumped into her side as he said so, just to shove her briefly off-balance. “Jannah seems like a dream to me. I want it to be true. I want it to be real. Or just possible. Possible would be enough for me.”
“I want it to be real too.” She didn’t bump into his side in return or seem at all playful, since Jannah weighed so heavily on her mind. “Everyone else seems to think it’s a cruel joke waiting to happen, but I…I don’t know. I don’t think it would be so terrible to investigate my options. My family doesn’t need me as much as they think they do, and there’s nothing else tying me here.”
“I don’t think it’s a joke.” His voice almost sounded sad, for some reason. “I think if somebody wants to go to space, go to the city, go to the bottom of the ocean, for all I care, then they should do it. If Jannah works out…” he hesitated, giving a short, humorless laugh, “if it’s real, and that’s a big if, then it would be worth any sacrifice.”
“So you think I should go?” Anna actually stopped walking, looking over at him and adding hastily, “I mean, do you think I should apply?”
They had finally gotten all the way down the main hall of the wing containing his family’s main rooms, passing a spacious kitchen that actually looked used, as opposed to the other three they had passed along the way. There was a wide lounge with one wall devoted to entertainment projection, comfortable couches, and papers scattered over the available table space. Logan paused at a smaller hall that led away from the lounge toward the bedrooms, looking back at her with an eyebrow raised and his voice lowered, in case Larissa was around. “I think, if you’re asking me, it sounds like you’ve already asked everybody else. I also think if you’re asking me, you’ve already applied.” Most people would have thought he looked angry as he said so, but Anna knew Logan too well to make that kind of assumption based on the fact that he wasn’t smiling. “And my next guess would be that you’ve already gotten accepted. Otherwise you wouldn’t be asking at all.”
Anna didn’t respond immediately, which she knew was giving it away before she was ready to talk about it. She wasn’t going to lie to Logan, but at least she knew he wouldn’t tell anyone if she asked him to keep it quiet. “I applied…more than a year ago, and I never thought they would accept me. I just felt like I needed to get away from here, and it sounded like a good cause to work toward. I didn’t tell anyone, and I still haven’t. No one else.”
The storm in his eyes was quiet for once as he turned and started toward his room, beckoning her to come with him without saying anything else.
It was hardly the first time she’d ever been in his room, but it was the first time she’d seen it in a long time. It was cleaner than she remembered, which was always a bad sign. It meant he was keeping himself busy on purpose.
The wall across from his king-size bed was kept blank for projection, brightening as Logan went to the terminal by the bed. It only took a few taps to fill the blank wall with words. Familiar words.
Logan Bickford,
We are pleased to inform you that your application has been accepted.
Attached, you will find introductory documents regarding the expected timeline and initiatory procedures of the project to which you have applied. It is expected that the contents of these documents will remain confidential, as they are intended only for Jannah Initiative personnel.
You will also find contact information for your local recruitment officer, whom we ask you to contact within two weeks of receipt of this confirmation, to claim your offered place in the Initiative. During this contact, you will receive further information about your role in this great endeavor.
From all those at the Jannah Initiative and the Governing Board of the Orbital Consortium, we thank you, both for your willingness to participate in this Initiative and all that you will do for the human race. We hope to see you soon.
With Sincerest Gratitude,
; Hugo Vance, Initiative Director
Anna had to read over the letter twice just to believe that she was looking at something real, since she wasn’t entirely convinced that even her own letter was real. After the second read-through, she met Logan’s eyes. “You applied?”
His voice was still low when he spoke, and he took every excuse not to look her in the eye, instead focusing on shutting off the screen and closing up the computer again. “After Mel…” He had never said out loud that she died, and certainly not that she had killed herself. For Logan, it was only after her, as if she was a movie or an event that had ended. It was easier to think about that way. “You already know I ran off for a month. When I came back, getting back into anything here just seemed…wrong, for a while. So I applied the day before they stopped taking applications. I figured if I could just go through the motions until I got accepted, maybe I could go upstairs and be useful as a pair of hands repairing whatever ends up getting broken. Things always do. I never expected them to be dumb enough to think I’d actually be worth having along.”
Although she knew he certainly hadn’t applied to hurt anyone, Anna still felt a knife twist in her chest, thinking he would just leave them all behind, even if she understood why. At least in her case, she had applied because she wanted to be working toward something instead of running away from everything. Still, she had considered that it would be nice to run away from seeing Logan with his wife all the time. “So have you decided, then?”
“No, I’ve got no idea.” He finally looked back up at her when she asked that question. “I really didn’t expect to get in. Certainly didn’t expect to know anybody else who made it. They said they were only taking two thousand people. Worldwide.”
“I know.” She said softly, but she hadn’t expected to be accepted either. At least from her acceptance, she was assured that she was actually fertile, since she had started to wonder after so many years childless. Birth control was illegal on Earth, so Anna was amazed that some of her ill-timed hookups hadn’t resulted in anything. The Initiative wouldn’t have accepted her if she wasn’t capable of helping further a colony. “I guess you’ll have to let me know what you decide.” It was the only thing she could say without giving her opinion either way. Logan’s future was his to decide, and she didn’t have any say in the matter. As his best friend, it was simply her job to be supportive, no matter what.
