The Way of All Flesh: Illusions Can Be Real

by Corey Furman

  Time crawled, but eventually the day arrived. He received notification that the Wunderkind was in orbit, and once the crew was fully awake they would rouse the few passengers and ferry them down to Twilight City. It would be a couple of hours yet, but he waited for the shuttle to land in the terminal in his best dress uniform. He had a few scraggly flowers and his palms were full of water. If he had thought time had crawled before, he had been sadly mistaken.

  At last the shuttle arrived, and the hatch lowered with the sound of escaping compressed gas. Larissa shoved her way out, to the chagrin of a couple of the other folks who were disembarking, and ran to him.

  She stopped just short of him, and they stood looking into each other’s eyes. Her clothes were rumpled and her hair looked as if it had been combed with one of her shoes, but she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. She was so radiant that he couldn’t breathe. The seconds ticked by and the world receded.

  As if drawn by gravity, she began to move toward him. Only centimeters separated them, and he caught the heady scent of her perfume in his nostrils. Careless of his uniform, he dropped to his knees, and as he put his arms around her, she took his face in her hands. His mouth hung open just a bit, awestruck and speechless at the sensation of the return of the missing half of his life. As the tears dropped off her cheeks and onto his, she said, “I’m here now, and I’m never going to leave you.”

  But she’d lied.

  Nine

  After Joss was decommissioned, he and Larissa plunged into the normal routines of life.

  By then, Larissa had already been working in the research labs in Twilight City for two years as an assistant to one of the Ph.D’s. Currently, they were taking the opportunity provided by Zarmina to study the effects of constant solar wind bombardment on the mantle. The whole region under the subsolar point was slightly depressed, most pronounced at the center, but gravity’s constant pressure kept trying the force the shape back spherical. Minor quakes were a frequent part of life on Zarmina’s World. Most folks blithely ignored them, but it was a source of wonder for a couple of geologists.

  Joss, on the other hand, didn’t have the pick of jobs his wife did. Although his grades had been quite exceptional, he hadn’t had the time for practical application, given his service in the Marines. As a result, he’d had to take a job in the samples collection and maintenance group. At least it was supervisory, though only over gabachos. Still, it made him mad every time he thought of it.

  Fortunately, his and Larissa’s skills were useful to the companies that controlled Zarmina’s capital interests, and that would afford them the opening to settle on world. But because of the method by which they’d found themselves living on Zarmina, as opposed to the normal immigration process, the companies were able to negotiate a more beneficial compensation package from the Breylin’s for themselves. Desperate people in a monopolized market make fantastic customers.

  The consequence of their position was that they made a little less money than their peers, their medical care was relegated to class B – adequate, but not top tier; they would have to continue to use the house they had initially chosen. Though the top of the ridge was always windy and the house was old and sand-scoured, it was sound, and the view from up there was often quite nice. If they had chosen something in Twilight, the best that would have been made available to them would have been a small apartment, as it was for virtually all other Twilight residents. In the city’s heyday, anyone who could afford a nicer place found it in one of the settlements. As it was, most had stood unused for decades, and could be had for the same money as something in town.

  The last notable concession they had to make was to take a single simulant, even though settlers were afforded one for each working person who signed on. Joss didn’t actually trust the gabachos, but mostly he could take them or leave them. Frankly, it didn’t bother Joss if the laundry and the dishes were only done as they needed to be, but that was flatly unacceptable to Riss. And she had been the one to point out that they wanted to have children. Living remotely as they did, they would need simulants to care for them. Otherwise, one of them would have to stay at home, and it wasn’t going to be her. Since the prospect of a permanent apron didn’t appeal to him – even when posited against the job requirement of an EV suit – and it was clear where Riss stood, he quickly gave in.

  Joss was glad he left the contract negotiations to her because she was a quick thinker – as she often kidded, all business – and it showed. At the bargaining table, she managed to exchange one exceptional model for two standard ones. Going through the promotional holos, they agreed on a set of twin females. The pair were only remarkable in how normal they were. Still, they should perform admirably in a home with children, and were rated to last about ten years. With a sample of Larissa’s DNA, they could even be configured to produce breast milk identical to hers. Larissa, ever the queen, overrode his objections and ordered it done. They would be ready in about twenty one months, serendipitously close to Joss’ exit from his Marine commitment. It was time to begin planning a family.

  Two years later, Joss pulled the lift into the garage and cut the power to its plant. His own tears had long since ceased, but they sat there for a few seconds in a pained, turbulent anguish punctuated by Riss’ continued sniffling. She was winding down now, but he wasn’t so foolish to believe she was feeling better – quite the opposite; it would be a long night, and the worst of it would probably stretch for days.

  He started to reach for her hand, to tell her that it would get better, something, anything, but she climbed out and ran into the house. He reached over and shut her door, then sat there trying to get his own emotions under control. If he went inside without having done that, then he wouldn’t see straight enough through their shared pain to be what she needed. A failed pregnancy was a lot harder the second time around.

  If only her doctor – that useless bastard, I should have broken his scrawny neck! – had been able to offer an explanation or provide some meaning, then maybe it would have been more tolerable. No such luck, though. “You’ll just have to keep trying,” he’d said. “If it was meant to happen, then it’ll happen. You just have to be patient.” Joss’ hands gripped the steering handles and shook with rage at the thought of those words that had fallen uselessly like shit dropping out of a dog’s ass. “Yeah, doc?” Joss had replied with Riss crying into his shoulder. “It isn’t happening, so I guess it wasn’t meant to be. Is that what you’re telling us?” And Riss had silently screamed, then.

  After four heartbreaking years of failure, Joss and Larissa gave up trying to have children. Apathetic doctor after doctor had done pointless test after test, and they’d been unable to detect a reason for the failed pregnancies. Nothing they tried to do made the slightest bit of difference. Maybe if they’d been a little more interested – or intellectually engaged – they might have done a better job, but it wasn’t meant to be. Remaining aloof might’ve been an emotional shield for all those contemptible charlatans, but to the Breylins neither truer nor more painful words had ever been uttered.

  Larissa would sink into a pit of despair a little deeper and take longer to snap out of it each time. Joss had felt useless and black during each period, but he never gave up on her. He was fed up with the failures, but instead of becoming depressed he became murderously angry – though without a valid outlet for all that negativity he did his best to bottle and hide the pain inside.

  The only option left to the Breylin’s was to keep trying to have children, and so they did, but it had finally proved to be too mentally exhausting. Fulfillment would have to come from something else.

  Their lives became fairly solitary. All of Joss’ friends from his time in the Marines had moved on, including the Styers’ down in Twilight City. He had opted to leave the service and had taken a corporate security job. He would be supervising an entire security detachment, but it meant that they would have to move to some new colony on the outer rim of human
settlement. They would be in hyper-sleep a long time.

  Between bouts of despair, Larissa had been working on her doctorate, spending time in the evenings with the Ph.D’s. Their sponsorship meant that the university on Mars would accept the experience of her current role and apply it as credit instead of class time, provided she somehow demonstrated a contribution to the science of geology. It would be five, maybe six, years in the works, but it drove her professional satisfaction – as much as anything did, anyway. It meant that there would be less time for the two of them, but Joss was supportive. He was very proud of her, his queen, and in some ways he managed to live vicariously through her efforts. Anyway, if he couldn’t successfully give her a child, maybe he could do this to make her happy.

  Joss spent long hours out in the glare and heat of the wastelands among the gas taps – any time spent in an EV suit was long – but he returned home each evening to Riss and their girls, Maré and Luna. Pleasant enough, the girls were, and though they were physically about nineteen years old, they had become sort of like daughters, and their presence added to the family atmosphere. It wasn’t what they had planned, but it was maybe a little bit better than just good enough.

  Joss hadn’t lost his taste for exploring in the traverses, hillocks and crags to the north, and Riss and the girls would accompany him to some of his favorite spots on a few occasions. They were his favorite times, as they would eat food prepared by the girls, and Riss would read to them by firelight. Afterwards, they would bed down near wind-sculpted, rock-strewn fields or immense crevasses, the sun large and perpetually setting in the distance, turning the sky and clouds a royal mélange of purple and orange. Overhead, the sky would be purple, fading to black towards the east. Sometimes the clouds would completely part, and the view of alien stars would be breathtaking. It was as if the universe had put on a show for them, its only inhabitants.

  As they grew accustomed to the form of their lives, Riss decided to take the girls to work with her. She enjoyed their presence, and if they assisted her, the four of them would spend more time together as a family. It sounded good in theory, and seemed to work in practice, and if it made his queen happy, then so be it. The subtle change gave Joss a notion, and once he figured out how it might work, he decided to offer Riss a way to take their pseudo-family a step further.

  In the dark that night, with his chest hair tickling her cheek and his fingers moving over the nape of her neck, he said quietly, “Riss, I’ve been thinking, and I have an idea. I think you’ll like it.”

  “Tell me, my knight,” she breathed.

  “Maré and Luna may be simulants, but I don’t think that plays a part in what we feel for them. Would you agree?”

  “Um… I guess you’re right. As you say, I hadn’t really thought about it. We’re just who we are.”

  “What if we removed their collars and had them call us Mom and Dad? You know that I used to mistrust their kind, but I’ve changed how I feel about them – at least our girls anyway. We could treat them like people.”

  She was silent for a few moments. “I’m not sure how to feel about that. You know they’re supposed to be collared…”

  He shook his head. “As long as we keep it low key, I can’t believe it would become an issue.” He paused to squeeze her to him. “There’s no rush. Think about it. If… if it would give you something, then let’s do it.”

  She pushed up, leaned across him and turned off the light. Laying her head back down on his chest, she listened to his heart beat and thought for a few moments. “We’ll see,” she said quietly, but he thought he could feel the gears of her mind working.

  It took less than a day. Riss and the girls came home early from work. She bid them to make supper, whatever they wanted, and while they were at it, she drew Joss into their bedroom.

  “You were right, my love, they have become like our children. But… someday they will pass. Have you thought the consequences through?”

  “I have, Riss. Their lives are temporary, but aren’t ours too? Regardless of whatever plans we make, there’s no such thing as a guarantee. I could die in a flaming lift wreck on my way home, or you could have an accident at work. All we can do is hold on and roll with what life hands us. And when their time came, we could get another pair just like them. Until then, we would make their lives happy.” He held his breath before speaking further. “This could help make your life happy, too.”

  Stepping closer she looked up at him, and he could see by the set of her eyes that she was afraid, yet daring to hope. “It might be something of an illusion, but illusions can be real. As real as we make it, right?”

  He smiled and delicately caressed her cheek with the back of his fingers. “Precisely, my queen.”

  Over dinner, Maré could feel the eagerness of their masters. They had been nice to them, particularly so recently, yet the unusual tension at the table, the forced small talk, made her nervous. She could feel the bewilderment rolling off of Luna, too. Certainly the Breylin’s had never given them any reason to be afraid, but their collars and the threat it represented was always there in the back of her mind.

  It was Luna’s turn to clear the table and straighten up the kitchen. When she rose and began to pull their empty plates into a pile, Mr. Breylin spoke up.

  “I’d like you to sit a moment, Luna. This is a special night, and I will clear the table. Riss, would you help?”

  “Certainly, my love.”

  As Mr. Breylin removed the dirty dishes and started making coffee, Mrs. Breylin got out four spoons and small bowls and set them down in the center of the table. She dug out the last small container of Ice Cream, an expensive treat normally reserved solely for her consumption – not even Mr. Breylin would dare cross that line. Yet she divided it into the four bowls and set one down for each of them. Mr. Breylin made them each coffee, and set down a small, steaming cup at each setting. He had never done that before.

  Something must be wrong, thought Maré.

  Luna broke the silence. “Are we in trouble, Mrs. Breylin?” she asked fretfully.

  The Breylin’s looked at each other in confusion. Mrs. Breylin said, “No Luna. Why would you think that?”

  “It’s just… well, you’ve never allowed us to have Ice Cream and coffee. We know how enormously expensive it is. We were just a little scared that if you would waste it on us then maybe we did something really bad.”

  Maré‘s eyes were downcast and on the verge of crying, but she nodded her agreement. “You’re getting rid of us, aren’t you?” She didn’t know what else to say.

  Larissa got up and came around the table and knelt between them. She put her arm around Luna, but she hugged Maré to herself. “No dears, listen to me, it’s much the opposite.”

  Joss reached across the table and took a hand from both of them. The girls were really crying then, but he couldn’t tell from relief or fear, so he spoke up. “Girls, we have grown quite fond of you, please don’t be afraid,” and he gave them a small, comforting squeeze.

  Riss took the ball. “We want to change our relationship. You know that we haven’t been able to have children of our own.”

  “Yes…” said Maré, as she held onto Mrs. Breylin.

  “We would like you to call us Mom and Dad. What do you think about that?” she said.

  Luna looked up, as her eyebrows rose as high as they would go. “Really? Is that what you want?” Passively, she wondered if her face looked as surprised as her Chroma did.

  “I…” Luna faltered. Maré couldn’t think of what to say. She wasn’t sure how this would go, but it wasn’t anything like this.

  “Tell you what, would you like to think about it?” said Joss.

  “Yes, please.”

  “That will be just fine, girls – you go think about it for tonight. Joss, take off their collars.”

  Joss obeyed. For the first time, Maré and Luna didn’t have a snug band around their necks reminding them of who and what they were.
It was a stunning – and maybe scary – thing.

  “What about the chores?” said Maré said as she wiped her nose.

  “Don’t you worry about that – we’ll take care of it,” said Mrs. Breylin.

  Still fearful that this would be taken from them, Maré and Luna held onto each other as they left the kitchen.

  Back in their room, the girls got undressed and crawled into bed.

  “Hold me,” said Luna, and Maré took her in her arms, laid her head down on her breasts and stroked her hair.

  After a long silence of laying that way, they talked it over.

  “What do you think about what they said?” Maré whispered.

  “I don’t know what to think, Maré. What would our real Mom and Dad say?”

  “Real? I thought we were Chroma.”

  “I know you know what I mean. They’re dead a long time, and they weren’t our real parents, but we both remember them as if they were. How would they feel?”

  “Okay, I give,” Maré said with a sigh. “They loved us very much… I believe if they couldn’t be here, they would want what’s best for us.”

  “Yes… but what’s best?”

  Maré thought it over, then spoke up. “I think these people are serious. I don’t know if they love us, but I think they care for us.”

  “They owned us an hour ago, Maré.”

  “Yes, they did,” she said. “And then they took our collars off.”

  “I suppose they’ve never mistreated us…”

  “No, they haven’t. I guess this could be some kind of trick… but I don’t think so.”

  “If you believe them, then I do too.”

  She hugged her tightly. “I love you, Luna.”

  “You’re my Chroma – I love you, too,” said Luna as she snuggled into her small cleavage. “Let’s give them a chance.”

  “That Ice Cream was pretty good, wasn’t it?” Maré said with a laugh, but dessert was quickly forgotten as Luna began to suckle.