Off Rock

by Kieran Shea

  Jimmy finger-raked his damp hair. Slowly he massaged the back of his neck with one hand and tried to gauge the level of Leela’s nitpicking hostility. Based on their fleeting intimacy, he knew that if he leaned on her too hard, Leela had surprising combustibility. Actually, Jimmy used to get a kick out of winding her up. Sometimes he used to tease her until her cute little ears grew dark. Still, he needed to back off.

  “All right,” he said, “how about, mmm, three shifts?”

  “Three? The best I can go is maybe two.”

  “C’mon, be reasonable.”

  “C’mon, be reasonable…”

  Man, the petulance.

  To bloat out the moment, Jimmy looked up and pretended to be engrossed in the sped-up play on one of the VDT screens. “Fine,” he said with a sigh, “two shifts. Is the boss-lady all happy now?”

  Leela didn’t respond and took a few measured steps toward him. As she drew near, Jimmy looked down and locked eyes with her once again. Like back when they were sleeping together, Leela looked at him as though she was trying to tweeze a loose wire or defective part out of the back of his skull. Such a heady intensity. Her eyes were one of the first things he ever noticed about her. When they first met at a deployment briefing on the Neptune Pact Orbital, her eyes just grabbed Jimmy and wouldn’t let go. It seemed ages ago, but he recalled how he sat there dutifully listening to the Azoick wonks blabber on about the Kardashev 7-A metric ton projections and knew it was only a matter of time before something between them would reach a boil.

  Breaking into a diffident smile, Leela socked his shoulder and put her weight into it. The punch hurt and left a dull ache. Admittedly, Jimmy knew he deserved worse.

  “That’s what I like to hear,” Leela said. She added a jibe as she sidled past him. “Guess it’s good to have a shower, huh? Clean out the pores. If anything, it probably makes you feel a lot better.”

  Jimmy rubbed his shoulder. “A lot better than what?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me, mister. Over the comm link I could hear it in your voice, and now that I see you up close I know the score. Barking at the moon, that hangdog look… you’re not a kid anymore, Jimmy.”

  Jimmy drifted back to his locker. He pretended to sort his gear and waited until Leela took the hint and finally flounced off. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her ponytail switch and disappear as she took the corner. Once she was good and gone Jimmy let out a long breath of relief.

  It could have gone either way with Leela, but a long time ago Jimmy learned a valuable lesson.

  Back when he was a kid in Vancouver, he and his rugby pals used to panhandle after pickup games in order to score enough loose change to buy and share large wax paper cones of greasy fried potatoes. When you were a rugby kid and begging for a handout, panhandling had only one rule: if you don’t ask, you don’t get. Jimmy knew it didn’t hurt to try. The two agreed-upon shifts were a gift.

  It was what he had hoped for anyway.

  3. THE DISTANCE, PERSISTENCE, AND INSISTENCE

  Eight minutes later and back at her console at ASOCC, Leela plunked down in her chair and took a sip from a mug of smoky lapsang souchong tea long since grown cold. Hefty and deep, the mug was a gift from Jimmy, and she liked it not because he’d given it to her but because the mug was formidable and had the words LEELA’S ROCKET FUEL in pink glitter stretched along its side.

  Inserting a bone-conductor mic into her ear, Leela stared out of ASOCC’s long jalousied transoms. Lit by effulgent floodlights, the pewterish expanse of Kardashev 7-A’s surface beyond—with all its sharp-edged hoodoos, hogbacked catenae, and barren plains—was a hoary dead ringer for the front lawn of hell. Unforgiving, frozen, and harsh, it was a constant reminder that Leela was glad she no longer made her living out on the surface.

  Setting down her mug, she absently ran a finger along the spines of several stacks of hardcopy three-ringed binders surrounding her console area, long overdue for re-shelving. She procrastinated at putting the backup paperwork away because she liked to hunker down behind them and disappear from her ASOCC colleagues. During her breaks, when she didn’t hit the gym to push herself on the machines, Leela enjoyed reading whatever trashy bestseller was making the rounds while huddled inside the armature of her binder garrison. She was so tiny that her coworkers would occasionally inquire where she was and invariably Leela would have to shoot up an arm to announce her presence, a signal flag raised from the trenches.

  Hitting the space bar on her keypad, Leela activated her console screens. Like roller blinds going up in a half hoop of cul-de-sac houses, one by one the screens came online and soon she was half encircled in a tawny array of graphs, readings, and assorted analytics. The screens’ warm colors gave her freckled cheeks a cozy glow, but they offered little in the way of tangible heat. While Azoick claimed they did their best to make things comfortable for management in ASOCC, no matter how many layers Leela wore she always felt a chill.

  After pulling on a dingy pair of fingerless wool gloves, she slapped a three count on her cheeks to bring herself into focus, blew into her cupped hands, and got to work.

  Two hours later, when she finished with her tasks and completed deciphering Dickerson’s half-finished and utterly horrendous logs, Leela shut down all her screens except for the largest one centered directly in front of her. Tapping her bone mic, she then audibly requested James Barclay Vik’s file from the station’s central mainframe. In scarcely a second a three-dimensional image of Jimmy appeared in front of her, naked from the waist up.

  Sliding across the screen from the right, Jimmy’s Azoick dossier materialized in a sidebar as neon green circles highlighted Jimmy’s known physical identifiers: two mottled scars from his shoulder surgeries, a blotchy birthmark just under his left nipple in the shape of a fishhook, and a non-cancerous pair of moles on his collarbone. Unlike practically all of the other mining staff on Kardashev 7-A, the rest of Jimmy’s upper body was unsullied save for a sparse delta of chest hair. Like her, Jimmy was one of those eccentric sorts who eschewed florid skin-embossings and tattoos.

  Leela frowned.

  Goddamn you, Jimmy.

  Goddamn that raffish smirk cranked on your lips like you think you invented it. Goddamn those lashy blue eyes of yours straight to hell.

  Leela debated whether she should make an annotation to Jimmy’s file, but then pointedly shook off her hesitation. Now that she was a JSC, it was her responsibility to stay on top of any and all slackers, even ones she used to sleep with. Vigorously pecking her keypad with two fingers, Leela quickly updated the file’s comment section. She added her name and ID number at the end along with the date—Earth time, per Azoick regulations:

  Surface Specialist Vik demonstrated an inability to deal with unexpected occurrences within the scope of standard shaft demolition procedures. Disrespectful manner—unsubstantiated, excessive alcohol abuse suspected. JSC-Pendergast, L. -54776823 / 3.22.2778GMT

  Leela held the tip of her index finger above the ENTER key and felt a tightening in the pit of her stomach. It seemed vindictive of her to add that second sentence, but she pressed the ENTER key anyway.

  There, that’ll show him.

  Since their breakup, Leela thought she’d done her best to tamp down her resentment toward Jimmy. Yet, despite her best efforts, deep down she knew she was failing. The thing was, for the life of her she still couldn’t figure out why Jimmy had hit the brakes on their budding relationship. One day out of the blue, bang, it was over. Sitting there with Jimmy’s torso rotating before her, Leela closed her eyes and summoned up the exact moment of their breakup with uncanny clarity.

  It was a Tuesday (whatever that meant out in space) and her day off. She’d gone down to Jimmy’s quarters toward the end of his scheduled sleep cycle to surprise him, and as a wakeup token she’d brought along a cup of black coffee and a foil-wrapped toasted bagel smeared with raspberry jelly from the canteen. It was Jimmy’s favorite breakfast. When at last he opened his hatch, Jimmy looked he
r right in the eye and without fanfare calmly announced that they were through. Speechless, Leela thought at first he was pulling her leg, but when he shook his head and crossed his arms she knew he wasn’t. It was all so unexpected and bizarre.

  Jimmy was always a talker. Frankly, it was one of the things that had first attracted Leela to him, the way he was always telling stories and narrating his day, how he drifted off into funny, third-person tales. Frequently he’d start off with the phrase “Did I ever tell you about the time…” and then riff on from there. Jimmy had this wonderful way of milking trivia and mixing facts with fancy that was wildly entertaining. Leela herself wasn’t much of a talker, and she half-anticipated a long, rambling excuse for why he was calling it quits at least. But all he ended up saying was that he was sorry and that they were finished.

  His exact word.

  Finished.

  At the time Leela tried not to fall apart. Gathering the affected coils on her emotionally swamped deck, she demanded to know if there was someone else or whether she had done something wrong. Jimmy told her no, adding that the mature and responsible thing for them to do henceforth (henceforth!) would be to adjust both of their work schedules to avoid as much contact as possible. Of course, much later Leela regretted throwing the hot coffee and toasted bagel at him, but in the heat of the moment she wasn’t having any of it. She was angry and she insisted that Jimmy let her inside to talk it out. When Jimmy shut the hatch on her and threw the lock it sent her through the proverbial roof.

  Damn it. Leela wasn’t some besotted, doe-eyed schoolgirl. She wasn’t so inexperienced to think she was actually swooning head over heels for him or anything, but what the hell? The two of them got along. They made each other laugh (which was rare for Leela with anyone), and their lovemaking was inventive and satisfying. Jimmy did this powerful roll with his pelvis that never failed to push her over the edge, and when they shared time together they honestly seemed to get a blast out of each other’s company. When you were working in space for extended periods of time and under uncertain conditions, having things like that was like hitting the damn jackpot. Yeah, their personality contrasts often seemed extreme, but people always say opposites attract, don’t they? Leela felt their connection compelling. It was edgy and fun, and she missed it.

  Leela eased back in her chair and rubbed the cold tips of her fingers on her temples. She was painfully aware of her dispositional tics so once again she wondered whether she’d pushed Jimmy too far. Leela didn’t like to think about her overly assertive attitude, but whenever she spoke of the future and life outside mining Jimmy’s demeanor would change. He’d turn inward somehow and a look of gimlet cynicism would brim in his eyes. Maybe she shouldn’t have pressed the idea of him shooting for a promotion—but hell! At nearly ten years her senior Jimmy’s lack of professional drive was beyond perplexing. To be content as a surface specialist with all of his know-how? She believed she was justified in arguing he ought to strive for something better. Something with legs. System guidance or perhaps photometry analytics—anything other than dangerous surface work. For him to still be mulishly wailing away at rock at his age was nuts.

  One time during one of her rather epic jeremiads on his professional obstinacies, Jimmy just laughed at her.

  “But I like the risks!”

  “Oh, stop it,” Leela replied. “No one likes the risks, Jimmy. To say you like exposing yourself to that much danger on a day-to-day basis is just—”

  “Cycle.”

  “What?”

  “It’s cycle-to-cycle, not day-to-day. There are no days out here in space, remember? Only object surface time. Days are for back home on Earth, not moons.”

  “Whatever. It’s like you saying you like cleaning a loaded gun two inches from your forehead.”

  “Wow, now there’s an image.”

  “I’m serious, Jimmy. You know the statistics.”

  “That I do.”

  “Sooner or later something will go wrong.”

  “It might, but then again it might not.”

  “But it could be the simplest thing,” she argued. “The tiniest lapse of judgment and that’s it. You’re done. It might not even be your fault. Somebody else could screw up. There could be a malfunction or an accident. Everybody’s luck runs out eventually. What’s wrong with having a little ambition?”

  Jimmy said, “Well, for one thing, I think ambition is kind of overrated.”

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  “Not at all. Look, I realize ambition has been good for you, Leela. And really, I’m happy you have plans, but you’re the exception not the rule. I’ve bounced around this industry for a long time. Present company notwithstanding, in all that time I’ve found that only insecure, elitist wonks have to be defined by what they do. Granted, being a surface specialist isn’t the noblest of professions or the best paying, but so what? It’s a paycheck. I’ve got other interests. And in the long run the endgame is the same for everybody. You’re born. You live a while. If you’re lucky, you get to have a few laughs along the way and then it’s over. Why can’t you accept that? Why can’t you accept me for who I am?”

  His ambivalent outlook was, in a word, infuriating.

  Leela opened her eyes and lowered her hands. After accessing Jimmy’s file again with a few keystrokes, she scrolled down to the comment section and slowly tapped the DELETE key on her keypad to adjust the entered field.

  Surface Specialist Vik demonstrated an inability to deal with unexpected occurrences within the scope of standard demolition procedures. JSC-Pendergast, L. -54776823 / 3.22.2778GMT

  Leela shut down the file once more and finished off the last of her cold tea. A staccato buzzer sounded, and the long transom shutters in front of her started to close. She checked the time. Regulations specified that between operational shift cycles, the SPO’s days and nights ostensibly, the transom shields were to be closed to prevent unnecessary radiation exposure and wear and tear. Leela popped up her head from her binder bunker and looked around. She hadn’t noticed, but once again she was the last one still on duty at ASOCC.

  When the last of the transom’s slats finally clanked into place, she stood and found herself recalling a time when she and Jimmy witnessed a terrible accident just outside the ASOCC spider. The mishap occurred only a day or two after they had first stepped off the intimacy ledge, and they happened to be in the same airlock vestibule. Jimmy had just finished suiting up because he was scheduled to relieve another surface specialist, a wooly-bearded bear of a Russian by the name of Chesnevsky.

  In a libertine flash of yearning, Leela had snuck down to the vestibule under the pretense she needed a little lip-lock action to get her through her shift. Jimmy, of course, was happy to oblige. He removed his helmet and swept her into his arms. It was just as he pulled her close for a kiss that there was an explosion.

  Azoick later classified the accident as a negligible chain-reactive occurrence. After being dropped off by one of the surface trams, Chesnevsky was making his way back to the outer staging areas for the ASOCC airlocks when a turbine strut on a conveyor over a hundred meters away overheated and ripped apart. Chesnevsky hadn’t even realized there’d been an explosion, but in the airlock’s vestibule Jimmy and Leela felt the concussive, rumbling wallop through the soles of their boots. In the outer airlock proper, both of them plastered their faces side-by-side at the airlock’s dilated outer aperture and watched helplessly as a piece of shrapnel the size of a beagle sailed toward the unsuspecting Russian. The shrapnel’s flight seemed to take forever, but finally the fragment struck Chesnevsky square in the head. Later internal investigations by Azoick revealed that the integrity of Chesnevsky’s helmet had initially remained solid, but knocked down and dazed, the big Russian knew something was wrong. After getting to his feet, Chesnevsky started hotfooting it back to the outer staging areas like he was being chased by a cloud of killer bees.

  Inside the airlock, Jimmy wheeled at Leela and screamed at her to get out and
seal the inner vestibule. Leela didn’t argue, and even now she could still recall the nauseating hitched strands of panicked Russian over the comm link just as Jimmy secured his helmet to his spacesuit. Powerless, Leela sealed the vestibule’s inner door and watched on an adjacent monitor as Jimmy quickly ran through his final checks. Jimmy pounded on the door waiting for the chamber to equalize, but in the next instant it was too late. Twenty meters from the outer staging area Chesnevsky’s visor splintered apart and crumpled inward like a squeezed egg.

  Later Leela told Jimmy that she had nightmares about what happened. She grew teary and explained how she imagined it was Jimmy who’d died out there instead of Chesnevsky. At the time, Jimmy was putting the finishing touches on his HMS Victory model—Lord Nelson’s flagship from the late eighteenth century. The model had taken Jimmy close to three months to assemble and the mizzen mast rigging still had him vexed.

  “Jimmy? Say something.”

  Jimmy only looked at her and smiled. “Hand me that tube of glue, would you?”

  4. BLUE EYES, SCRUTINIZE

  After Leela went back to whatever obscure, tedious drudgery JSCs like her did, Jimmy took his rucksack from a hook inside his locker, slipped the straps over his shoulders, and plodded his way back to his quarters.

  It was a ten-and-a-half-minute, ant-farm-like slog from the ASOCC locker room out to the residential spider. Following a long mazework of interconnecting ramps, gangways, and ladders, Jimmy kept his head down for most of the way lest he run into somebody and end up having to talk with them. The gold sample he’d cut from the shaft was stored in a pint-sized, radiation-proof container at the bottom of his ruck. Carrying the pilfered chunk on the sly was giving him a serious case of the heebie-jeebies.

  Most thought that Jimmy had gotten a bad deal in the housing lottery when he first arrived on K7-A because he drew a living unit at the very bottom of the residential spider. His quarters were in a longish oubliette formerly used for utility storage next to the spider’s fragmite waste incinerators. The fact was, even with the nearby incinerators’ excessive heat and occasional tremors Jimmy embraced the monkish seclusion of his lonely, hothouse domicile. With all his years in space he’d pretty much had his fill of the grab-ass ambiance of the regular residential offerings. Most of the time those upper honeycomb quarters could be downright crazier than a jailhouse. The screaming, the latest bassed-out Kryp-Bop song volume at eardrum-piercing decibels, the primal slap of men and women balling their brains out to ward off boredom—all of it imbued Jimmy with a dull, cheerless weightiness. He saw the separation from his colleagues as a blessing, a refurbished troglodyte hideaway carved out just for him.