Her house, while humble for the burbs, was larger than any house Marco had ever been in, three stories tall and glowing with lights. Within its enclosing dome, trees and flowers bloomed. Once they stepped into the dome, Marco was surprised to see that the sky turned blue and pristine, no longer the dusty, swirling orange and gray.
"It refracts the light like Earth's atmosphere," Anisha said. "That's what they told us when we got it installed. Blue Earth skies, they said. You could also buy a Mars dome, but who wants that? Does it look realistic to you? I've never seen the real thing."
He looked up at the shimmering blue glass. "It looks perfect."
A Golden Retriever ran out to meet them, tail wagging, and jumped onto Marco, licking him.
"Wilson, leave him alone!" Anisha said, laughing. "I'm sorry. He's the worst guard dog ever. He loves strangers."
Her father, a balding man of Old English ancestry, wore a sweater vest and smoked a pipe at the dinner table. Her mother, a beautiful woman of Indian descent, wore a purple sari and looked barely older than her daughter. Their maid served dinner: crab legs, fresh garden salad, steak, and mashed potatoes, all real, nothing lab made.
Marco sat stiffly, eating little, feeling self-conscious. On his plate, the crab legs looked like the claws of aliens. When he tried to crack one, to reach the meat inside, his hands shook, and he ended up spilling butter onto his lap. He quickly lowered his hands, cheeks flushing, trying to hide the stains.
"So, Marco," Mr. Morgan said. "What do you do for a living?"
Marco clasped his hands under the table, fearful of dropping more food.
Marco and Anisha spoke over each other.
"I work in a call center."
"He works in sales."
For a moment, silence.
"He's an excellent salesman," Anisha said.
Mr. Morgan took a bite of steak and chewed thoughtfully. He swallowed. "So where did you go to school, Marco?"
"Actually, sir, I trained in the military with computer systems. I'm thinking of taking some night classes too." That last sentence was a lie; he could not afford an education beyond what the military had paid for.
"He's also an excellent writer," Anisha said. "He wrote two novels. They're wonderful."
"Mmm." Mr. Morgan sipped his wine. "Who's your publisher? Is it Magpie? I know the CEO of Magpie. We play golf every summer."
"Actually, sir, I'm still looking for a publisher," Marco said. He was beginning to feel dizzy. He didn't want to talk about his pile of rejection letters at home, about how Loggerhead or Le Kill never sold, about how he was a failure of a writer, about how he wasn't a real salesman but just sold potato peelers on the phone, about any of it. He felt under the spotlight. Beneath the table, his fists clenched, and his pulse quickened. He felt trapped. He felt like an ape placed among humans. He didn't belong here.
For a moment, they all ate in silence. Insects began to hiss, and Marco almost jumped, and his pulse pounded in his ears, but it was only the sprinklers coming on outside.
"So, Marco!" Mrs. Morgan said. "Are you enjoying your crab legs?"
"Oh, yes, ma'am, they're very good," he said, hoping nobody was staring too closely at how he had mangled the shell. "Thank you so much for preparing this meal. It's nice to finally have a homemade meal. My roommate's idea of cooking is roasting hot dogs on a rake."
They stared at him, silent. Under the table, Marco dug his fingernails into his palm.
The dog barked. Marco winced. Gunfire. Gunfire in the deep. He stared at his plate, and he saw the meal Sergeant Singh had cooked in the tunnels of Corpus. He saw his sergeant torn apart.
He raised his eyes, forcing himself to breathe deeply, to calm his shaking legs. Sweat soaked him. A painting hung on the wall, abstract, and in it Marco saw spiders. Spiders scurrying.
"Is that a Kandinsky?" Marco asked.
Mr. Morgan turned toward the painting, then back toward his plate. "Pollock, I think. Is that Pollock, dear?"
"Definitely Pollock," said Mrs. Morgan.
"Oh." Marco reached for his knife, dropped it onto his plate. It clanged. "Excuse me, please."
He went into the bathroom, trembling. Sweat soaked the new shirt Anisha had bought him. And it seemed to him like the button-down shirt was a costume. Like his fresh haircut was a disguise. This wasn't him. He was an impostor. He didn't know how to eat this food. How to talk about these things. An alien. An alien invader. An insect at the dinner table. He washed his face.
Anisha drove him home, and they sat in silence, the storm whipping the tunnel around them.
"Did you enjoy dinner?" she finally asked, glancing at him hesitantly.
He nodded. "It was very good, thank you."
They drove the rest of the way, an entire hour, in silence.
She parked outside his apartment.
"Do you . . . want me to come up for a bit?" Anisha said.
His hands kept shaking. He looked at the pimp leaning against the wall. The junkie in the alley. The shadows of shrieking birds outside. He thought of the glittering, snow globe houses in the north, and art by famous artists, and crab legs that cut his hand, and stock prices and CEOs and golf and all the other things Mr. Morgan had talked about, and the sprinkles hissed like insects, and spiders were in the painting, and—
"Anisha," he whispered. "I don't think this is working out. I'm sorry."
She frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I . . ." His throat felt too tight. "I need time alone. I can't . . . I can't do this."
Her eyes dampened. "Are you breaking up with me?"
"I'm sorry, Anisha. I'm sorry. I just . . ."
"I love you, Marco." A tear fled her eye. "I love you. Don't you love me?"
"I need time," he whispered.
"Is this because I asked you to get married? I was joking, Marco!" Anisha touched his arm. "It was a joke!" Her tears flowed. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Don't do this. Please."
But she had not been joking. Marco knew this. Knew she would never live with him here in the slums. Knew he could never belong with her there in the burbs. And he was shaking. And he had to run. He was trapped here in the car. He was trapped in the mines. He had to go. He had to run. They were after him.
"I'm sorry," he whispered and fled the car.
"Marco!" she cried after him.
He walked through the darkness, legs shaky. He ignored her cries.
"Hey, Marco buddy, you want a girl tonight, huh?" The thin, short pimp approached. "Choose, choose a girl!"
The burly, ugly pimp in the jeans jacket approached. He held out the album. "Choose?"
Marco couldn't see the album. His eyes were burning. He couldn't breathe. Blindly, he tapped one photo, then shuffled on toward the building.
"Excellent choice!" said the thin pimp in the dress shirt. "I'll send her up to your place in moments."
He stumbled on. Tears burned in his eyes. He couldn't breathe. His legs shook, his chest constricted, and he was having a heart attack, and he was scared, and he didn't know who he was, where he was. A soldier. Just a soldier without a gun. He made it into his apartment, and Addy wasn't home, and his bottle of whiskey was empty. He had another. Damn it, he had another bottle somewhere. He needed it. Needed the drink. He emptied drawers, yowling, scattering his possessions until he found it. His fingers shook so badly he could barely unscrew it. He drank. He guzzled it down like water.
A knock sounded on the door. He opened it, blurry-eyed, to see the woman there. One of the prostitutes from downstairs. She was a petite Asian woman in her forties, haggard, dressed in a ragged frock. She could have passed for a struggling cleaning lady, a poor soul coughed out from the dregs of the inner city, barely alive, cancerous and cadaverous. A wretched soul.
Like me. Like me. This is all we are.
He took her into his bedroom, and she pulled off her clothes. Her breasts sagged, and her belly showed the stretch marks of past pregnancies. And he held her. He held her and he wanted some comfort. H
e wanted sex. He wanted to forget. But he could only kneel by her, shaking, head spinning.
The apartment door opened.
"Marco!" Addy's voice boomed. "Marco, what the fuck did you do?"
He tried to rise to his feet. He fell to the floor, head spinning with booze. The naked prostitute knelt beside him. Before Marco could close his bedroom door, Addy burst into the room. Anisha, her eyes full of tears, stood behind her.
Both women stared.
For a moment they were all silent.
Then Anisha let out a sob and turned to flee. Addy gave Marco a shocked, furious stare, then turned and followed Anisha.
Marco lay on the floor.
"I think you should leave," he said quietly.
"You need pay." The prostitute pulled on her clothes. "You pay half hour."
He paid her. He paid with the last money he had. She left, and Marco lay on his bed, trembling. He needed more booze.
Hours passed, maybe only moments, and Addy returned, this time alone. She stood over his bed. She stared down at him, silent.
Marco closed his eyes. "I'm not feeling good."
She punched him. Hard. On his jaw.
He rolled on the bed, fell to the floor, and touched his jaw. Pain flared.
Addy kicked him hard in ribs.
"Addy, stop!"
She grabbed his shoulders, shook him. "What the fuck is wrong with you!" Her eyes burned. "You get drunk? You bring whores into this house? I found Anisha crying outside. She said you left her for no reason. Why, Marco? She was good for you. Why?"
"I want to sleep."
She shook him, shouting. "Why?"
"Because this is who I am now!" he shouted back. He stood up. "Because I saw her house. I saw how she lives. And I can't be that man. I can't live there. I can't make it to the burbs. We're never going to belong there, Addy, we'll never be like them."
"We can—"
"We can't! I can sell a book, and I can make a million dollars, and I can marry Anisha, but I can't be like them."
"You don't have to." Addy wept. "You don't have to be this person. You're addicted to sex. To alcohol. To doctors. To . . . to hurting yourself. That's all you do now. Hurt yourself. Until there will be nothing left. Marco . . . it doesn't have to be like this. You can still find a good life. We both can."
He stared at the wall, blinking too much. He spoke softly. "They died. Elvis. Beast. Caveman. Sheriff. Our corporals and sergeant. Our friends. They died in the war. And Addy . . ." He turned toward her. "I died there too. I died somewhere in the mines of Abaddon. Whoever left that place, whoever made it to Haven . . . he wasn't Marco. He was never truly alive. Just a ghost. Just a ghost."
Addy shook her head, tears on her cheeks. Her voice was a cracked whisper. "I never should have flushed your pills away. I was wrong. You are crazy. You need help, help that I can't give you."
He met her eyes. "I'm not the one who comes home with bloody fists. Tell me, Addy. Are you really fighting criminals down there, or are you just punching friends in the jaw?"
She sniffed. She rubbed her eyes. She left the room.
The next day, Addy moved out.
She packed all her things in a cardboard box, and a friend from the security firm helped her move, and she was gone. She said nothing to Marco. Not even goodbye. She gave him one last look, eyes haunted, shook her head, and left.
Marco slept in the living room that night.
"Good," he said. "Good. I have the place to myself. Good!" He rose to his feet, and he shouted. "Good!"
He lay on his back. He stared at the ceiling. He trembled. And he prayed.
Please, God. Please. Let me die. Please. Please. Please.
Yet the heavens remained silent, for there were no gods in space, only endless, lingering darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
He lay on the floor, alone.
The sun set. It rose. It set. He lay on the floor. He paced his apartment. He lay down again. The sun rose and set. He was alone.
The trains rattled.
He shuffled between the desks at work.
A snort. "There goes the weirdo."
"I heard he went crazy in the army."
"I heard he exterminated like an entire species."
"Hey, weirdo!"
He lay alone in bed.
He paced his apartment.
The trains rattled.
He called Addy. He called her again, again, again, again. She never answered.
The sun rose. The sun set.
He stood on the observation deck on the thirtieth floor. He ordered vanilla ice cream with real strawberries, but he had no appetite. He stood where he had first kissed Anisha. The storm was thin up here, swirling gently against the glass walls, abstract paintings, always changing. Marco found a service door in the back, and he stepped outside onto a rail, and a ladder led him to the roof.
He stood in the open, the world of New Earth around him. The tops of skyscrapers rose from the mist. Below the atmosphere was thicker, but as the clouds swirled and moved, they revealed the lights of roads and low buildings, a painting of darkness and light, ever-changing like the sea. The haze danced around Marco, whirled around his feet, and rose to coat the sky with indigo and black.
He approached the edge of the roof.
He stretched out his arms.
Standing here, Marco could imagine that he floated in the sky, and he wondered if he could float forever, if in death his soul would dance in the storm, free, rising higher and higher, vanishing over the clouds and the pain and the dreams. That was all he wanted. To fly forever. To never come down.
He took a half step. His toes no longer touched the roof. Only his heels kept him grounded.
He did not look down. It would spin his head. All he had to do was take another step. No—to leap. To fly.
Marco.
It was Addy's voice, echoing in his mind.
"There's too much pain," he whispered.
You need to live.
"It's too painful. It's too painful. I can't take this pain."
Don't, Marco.
"You don't know how much it hurts."
I hurt too.
"You're stronger than I am. It's too much to carry. It's too heavy."
We'll carry the weight together.
"You left, Addy. You left. I'm alone."
You need to be strong alone. I can't help you.
"I'm weak."
You can fight.
"It hurts too much."
You don't want to die. I know this. You just can't handle the pain. But you don't want to die.
"I do. I do. I can't stop thinking it. I want it so much. Too much pain. Too much . . ."
His tears flowed, and he stared down at the storm. He could fall through those clouds. There would be no pain. Before the end, there would be freedom. Relief. His soul had died long ago; let his body join it. All the world was the clouds. There was no bottom. There was no sky.
Marco raised his eyes, and the clouds shimmered, a glittering veil. Wind flowed and the clouds parted above, pulling back, wisps of white trimmed with gold. And above, for the first time since landing on Haven, Marco saw them. The stars.
The stars where he had fought.
Where he had met Lailani.
Where he had served under Lieutenant Ben-Ari.
Where he had seen horror, lost friends, shattered into a million shards of light.
And among them—a bright star, brightest in Haven's sky. A star only four light-years away. Sol. Earth's star.
He stood on the roof in an alien world, and he gazed up, and there—it seemed so close he could reach out and grab it—Sol. A small light. The sun.
From here, he couldn't see Earth. That pale blue dot was too far. But he could imagine Earth as he had seen her from space long ago, back when he had sat in the spaceship with Addy, with Lailani, with Ben-Ari, with his friends. A blue marble swirling with white, beautiful and fragile. A world he had fought to protect. A world out there�
��just above him.
The light reaching him now from Sol was four years old. On this light from Earth, he was a younger man. He was hurt, he was broken, but he still had hope. He still saw a future. He still felt joy.
A star fell above like a wink from the heavens. Marco stepped away from the ledge.
He lay on his back, and for long hours, he watched a thousand stars fall above. And it was beautiful.
"Marco."
The voice came from behind him, soft, feminine.
"Marco."
He stood up, turned around, and saw her there. The girl in the kabuki mask. His muse. Her tattered dress and long black hair flowed in the wind.
"Who are you?" Marco said.
"One who has been watching you," said the girl.
"Why?" Marco took a step toward her.
She took a step back. When her dress billowed in the wind, he saw that her legs were inhuman. Animal legs. Her hands were too large, each with three fingers tipped with heavy claws.
"It is not yet time," she said.
"For what?"
"For shadows. For despair." She held out one hand. On it rested a silvery conch that gleamed in the starlight. "A gift from the cosmic ocean. May it shine in your deepest darkness. Take it."
He took the conch and turned it over and over in his hands. It was beautiful, smooth and cool to the touch.
"Who are—" he began to ask again, but when he raised his eyes, the girl was gone.
He looked at the conch. A gift from the cosmic ocean. He raised his eyes back up to the stars, these mementos of ancient light.
He placed the conch in his pocket, and he pulled out his tablet instead. Long ago, when they had parted, Ben-Ari had given him her messaging address. She had been his commanding officer. But she had also been his friend. Marco hadn't spoken to her in years. He had seen the reports about her coming from Earth. He knew she was imprisoned for various crimes—assaulting an admiral, accessing forbidden information, leaking military secrets. He didn't know if she would receive his message. He didn't know if they'd ever speak again. But still he wrote to her. Because he needed to write this. For himself.
Earth Fire (Earthrise Book 4) Page 24
