Steal the Stars

by Mac Rogers

  I had been in its blast. I knew firsthand its levels of dosage and what they did to a person. I had felt it for about ten unprotected seconds right before I sealed Chatty Andy into the engine room and I stayed icy and numb for about an hour. I had felt it for about thirty seconds, the day you and I tested the suits, and felt its effects lingering overnight. I had seen what had happened to those who had taken a full dose for over a minute and had been reduced to apathetic zombies who would lie on the ground until starving to death. I knew the Harp, I carried a visceral understanding of it in my body, the body it had passed through, the way a tree must understand the wind.

  I also knew that it went off when you carried it.

  If they knew the Harp as I did, they would already be running.

  It was taking its time to prove me right, though. I’d made it almost a quarter of the way through my giant circuit when Patty’s paralysis broke.

  “Next person that has a clear shot—take it! But don’t hit the Harp!”

  Come on come on come on

  Someone called out, “I’ve got it!” Patty bellowed, “Take it!” and I turned to try to face the voice. As if it sensed the imminent potential threat, finally the Harp began to hum in my hands.

  “Shit—everybody grab a suit!” Patty screamed. “Wait—no—fall back! FALL BACK!”

  “Fall back where?!” Another guard, I couldn’t tell who. I knew everyone on this team backward and forward, yet in their fear and panic they were becoming anonymous.

  The Harp grew louder.

  “Object E!” Patty waved them toward the ship. “Get to the engine room!”

  The scientists and crew all broke in that direction. I felt a flash of pride for her—of love. I can admit that now. Patty thought fast. She didn’t tell them to hide behind something, or run to the elevator. She figured out right away the safest place to be—the only safe place, really. It was a damn good idea and it would have fucked us over completely if it had been carried through. But the Harp grew louder and everyone scrambling for the ship began to sag, like their joints had all been coated with lead.

  A spasm of fear suddenly crossed my mind: Had Matt thought to hop onto the elevator right away? He only has a few more seconds to get down here—

  But there you were, sealed in your suit, the insulated duffel in your hand, by my side just in time to watch them all start dropping like bowling pins.

  You held the bag low and open and I heaved the device inside.

  “Close it, close it, or they’ll all die,” I breathed, but you were already on it.

  The Harp grew louder, close to its climax, as you sealed it inside the bag. Every person in the Hangar had been blasted, completely unshielded, for about thirty-five seconds. They lay scattered across the floor, still and silent.

  “Hi,” I said to you. “It’s about to go dark. Hold on to me.”

  The Harp whirred to its highest point and the lights went out.

  * * *

  WE MADE our way through the dark, careful, feeling for bodies with our feet. They seemed everywhere, an impenetrably dark battlefield carpeted with casualties. I led the way forward, testing with my foot, through the Tent, to the ship, where I edged our way around its perimeter until we reached the entryway. Someone had almost made it inside—I rolled the body to one side, gently, and then we eased our way in.

  It was a relief to be on the ship, where the omnipresent glow somehow made the world make sense again.

  Grant was still face down in his slowly congealing pool of blood. Moss sat stately by, in his chair.

  We carried Moss to the fissure and then you mindfully made your way outside the ship so I could pass him off to you. Moss was so tall, almost foreboding when he wasn’t in a seated position, that the thought of him passing through that slim crack in the ship’s wall seemed like an impossibility—but of course the ship was made for him. Creatures of his kind who were lanky and imposing, yet when they turned to the side they almost disappeared.

  “Careful not to scrape any of his moss off,” I called to you as I fed Moss through the fissure. “They might want to study that, too.”

  “Who’s they?” you asked, the tiniest hint of frustration already in your voice. “Can you tell me the plan now?”

  All this, what already felt like a full day’s worth of work, while the Harp was still humming. As I made my way out of the ship, the hum began to whir down, the lights began to flicker back on. You stood there in the strobe, cradling the tall creature like a drunk, amid a field of bodies. I can’t lie—the image was almost erotic.

  “Dak?” you asked again.

  But the power was almost fully restored. I held up a finger: one sec. “I gotta make some calls.”

  “Calls?!”

  “Get Moss in the box.” I switched on my comm and let the necessary people upstairs know that, yes, that had just been an unscheduled Power-Up, that everything was okay down here, that we didn’t need assistance, and that, unfortunately, we were coming up with a Turndown box. I made one unusual request:

  “Is the Turndown van here already?”

  “Confirmed,” the voice of one of our topside security staff radioed back. “In the parking lot, like normal.”

  “Have them meet us outside the front gate.”

  “You … want them to drive back out?”

  “Yeah. Just outside the gate. I’ll explain why when I’m up top.”

  “Uh. Copy.”

  So far so good, but our already short window was closing fast.

  “How’s it going over here?” I asked you. You had the box open and were carefully trying to negotiate Moss inside. I hustled over to help you. “Thank God they make these so big, huh? We’d never get him into a real coffin.” I made a noise that, under normal circumstances, might have resembled a laugh.

  We gently laid Moss to rest inside, bending his stiff joints with care, tucking him in as securely as possible. The way his abdomen curved within the box made a natural cradle into which we were able to place the Harp next.

  “How are we gonna wheel this through with all the…” You didn’t want to say “bodies,” but there they were. A certifiable obstacle course.

  “We made it in the dark, we can make it with the box.” I began to push the garish coffin forward.

  I remembered a time in [REDACTED] when I had to throw a newly legless ranger into a wheelbarrow and maneuver him through the aftermath of a mortar shell hitting a tent full of people. This was somehow better and worse. Better because there was no stench of death, no smoke, no need to keep one ear open for another round whistling toward us. Worse because the box was way more unwieldy, there was a clock ticking against us … and all the bodies on the ground were awake and blinking. The scientists and guards—my team, my charges, my colleagues—were, for all intents and purposes, corpses, except I could hear the collective sound of their breathing over the sound of the casters underneath our Turndown box.

  Making our way through was torturous. For every stretch of open floor there was another knot of human cordwood. And then I saw Patty.

  “What’s wrong?” you asked, as I let go of the box and knelt down.

  She had fallen forward when the Harp finally got her. She was lying on her stomach, her face squished against the floor. She could breathe but it looked unbearably uncomfortable. Still, she didn’t make the slightest effort to adjust herself. I rolled her over. Her ponytail flopped down first and was crushed under the weight of her listless head.

  “Patty, I…” I swallowed. “Look. The ship’s still here, okay? There’s still the ship, so they won’t close this place down. And they’ll give you my spot. The way you ran things while I was gone? They’ll give it to you. You’re gonna be great. I know you are.”

  Her eyes stared straight ahead. Not unlike Moss’s dull, black, inscrutable pools. She said one word, barely audible.

  “No.”

  * * *

  THE ELEVATOR stopped a few seconds into its journey up. Then I realized:

 
; “Lose the helmets. Gnome needs to see who we are.”

  We unsealed ourselves at the neck, removed the helmets … and then waited.

  And waited.

  I wondered if you’d been through this enough times to understand how the Gnome liked to operate. He always kept us stopped for just a little longer than you’d expect. Just long enough for any guilty questions to start bubbling up to the surface. You have a little countdown in your head: “If everything’s okay, they’ll restart … now.” And then it’s always a minute longer.

  “Jesus, Gnomie,” I sighed at last. “In the middle of my second Turndown Service in two weeks?”

  I looked over at you. It was getting to you. Your eyes were beginning to bug. Your skin was getting slick with sweat and—

  “We should open our chest seals,” I said casually. You looked at me, not understanding.

  “So we can put Lauren’s electrodes on in a minute.”

  “Oh. I—”

  I unsealed my suit and a moment later you followed my example. Whoosh. Buzz.

  We stared straight ahead.

  We waited.

  And waited.

  “Feels better,” you said, putting on a cheeriness that maybe read as false, maybe as noble.

  “These suits are stuffy,” I agreed.

  “Yeah. I was … I was just thinking that.”

  What would we do if they came on and said, “We caught you. We’ll have a team waiting topside to take you to prison”? Would you look at me like, “At least we tried”? Or would you look at me like, “You ruined my life”?

  We should be moving … now, I thought.

  (What the fuck was the Gnome doing?)

  Now.

  (Were we unconsciously giving off the wrong kind of stress vibes?)

  Now.

  (Were you going to hate me for the rest of—)

  The elevator started moving again.

  * * *

  DOWN THE hall from the elevator, I could see Lauren looking miserable as we approached her station. Between what had happened earlier and now a Turndown container, this had to have been her worst day since active duty.

  You stopped abruptly and bent over the box, inspecting one of the wheels below.

  “Answers?” you asked through clenched teeth.

  I knelt down next to you to see if I could help with that darn stubborn wheel.

  “Say ‘Yes’ to both of them. Don’t say anything else you don’t have to.”

  You had your back to Lauren, so she was directly in my line of sight. She wasn’t looking our way, though. She moved over a bit in her booth and I could see someone was standing behind her.

  It was Harrison.

  Goddammit.

  “‘Yes’ to both of them,” you repeated, “okay.”

  “I’ll do the rest.” I stood up and resumed pushing the box toward Lauren. At first she didn’t even look up when she sensed us coming.

  Cccrackle. “Please put on the apparatus and apply the elec—” That’s when she decided to see who was coming: a giant colorful coffin flanked by two people in half-open space suits. “O-oh.”

  In the booth, leaning against one of the walls, Harrison looked up at that. I could see him sway the tiniest bit on his feet.

  “You understand the same protocol statement is in effect as last time, right, Lauren?” I’d placed my helmet on the coffin and was already sitting down, picking up the Cowboy and looking to you. “Salem, you good to go next?” You nodded, tight-lipped.

  Cccrackle. “Okay. Please put on the apparatus and apply the electrodes to the appropriate areas—”

  “Hello, Director Prentiss.”

  Harrison was leaning over Lauren, speaking into her mic.

  “Director Harrison,” I responded coolly. “I’m in the middle of a Turndown S—”

  “I thought, ‘She pretty much has to come this way,’ so—”

  Lauren, ruffled and slightly off mic: “I need to complete this process before any unrelated convers—”

  “Lotta excitement for your first day on the new job.” He was holding down the mic button, amplifying everything in the booth: his breathing, the slight slurring of his words.

  “Yep. That’s why we’re dressed like this.” I tried to sound disinterested, distracted, while I applied the electrodes. One last time performing this trick. “Grant snapped. Started messing with the Harp. Had to put him down. When we tried to put the Harp back—”

  “Blackout!” He practically belched into the mic.

  “I’ll do a proper report shortly. I’m ready, Lauren.”

  Lauren commandeered the mic. “All right, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know I don’t understand things now, but it’s supposed to be questions first, before anything else!”

  “Oh, shut up, Lauren,” Harrison snapped.

  And she did shut up. For just a moment. She stared at her (now former) boss with big, wounded, furious eyes. Her hand still held the mic switch open. Harrison continued:

  “Things change, Lauren. Get that through your head. Everyone thinks, ‘Someday I’ll hit a certain age when I just get it’”—he tapped his temple—“‘and when that day comes I can just kick back and enjoy my little rut like it’s a hammock—’”

  “Just ask the questions, Lauren,” I told her. She looked at me with those same furious, confounded eyes. Harrison was still monologuing.

  “But what actually happens is you never get anything—because things never stop changing! And the energy you need to deal with that change just gets less and less and less. That’s all the Harp does, it just fast-forwards you to where you’re going anyway: flat on your back, too numb to—”

  Lauren finally switched off the mic and turned to say something to Harrison. I gave you a quick look. I had given the folks downstairs a Harp blast potent enough to keep them down for something like a few hours. But what if the math was wrong? What if Patty’s crawling for the emergency phone right now? What if someone shows up early for the next shift?

  “Lauren,” I barked, more annoyed than I would have liked.

  Cccrackle. Lauren back on the mic. “Yes, Director.”

  Harrison laughed in the background. “Which one?”

  “Go ahead, Lauren.” I slid the plate down over my face.

  Cccrackle. “Are you here at this facility with the intent of sabotaging or removing any materials or personnel on site?”

  “Yes.”

  I could hear Harrison laugh. I could imagine him shaking his head, saying something I couldn’t quite hear.

  Cccrackle. “Are you here at this facility with the intent of damaging, removing, or otherwise interfering with Moss, the Harp, or Object E?”

  “Yes.”

  Lauren kept shutting the mic off after every time she spoke—honestly, I think that was always part of the reason she wanted this position and why she kept her station so technologically anachronistic: so she could shut the world off at her command.

  Cccrackle. “Thank you. Assessing now.”

  At the same time, Harrison was laughing, “—even gave you the whole week to make it happen—”

  The mic switched off as the machine ran its course and analyzed my responses.

  “Director? Director?” I couldn’t see him but Harrison could hear me. I knew he would have stopped his muted mumbling and would be listening. “Once I’ve completed Turndown, you and I can have an in-depth conversation in your office. Okay? Right now I’m carrying out the most solemn duty a soldier ever enacts and I’m asking you, respectfully, not to impede in me doing so.” I stared into the darkness of the plate in front of my eyes.

  Cccrackle. “Director Dak Prentiss, you are cleared to depart Quill Marine.”

  “Great.” I slid off the face plate, ripped off the electrodes, and turned to you. You were already sitting down.

  I watched you apply the electrodes to your exposed skin (remember that heartbeat). You’d gotten almost as fast as me. I didn’t notice the sound of Lauren’s booth opening and closing—I onl
y noticed Harrison was heading toward the elevator when he crossed my peripheral vision. I sprang to action, leaving you and getting in Harrison’s path, barely covering my panic.

  “What are you doing?!”

  “You know what, Dak?” he wavered in front of me. “Take your time. Finish your Turndown. Enjoy the sunshine. I’m going down to the Hangar.”

  “What? Why?” The edge in my voice was brittle and unpleasant. He looked at me with half-focused eyes.

  “They’ve just had Turndown and an unscheduled Power-Up. They need leadership down there. In your temporary absence, I’ll provide it.”

  You started to rise, voicing protest. Lauren barked at you to remain still, that her questions took priority. Everything was getting out of hand far too quickly.

  “Okay, everybody, chill the fuck out for a second!” I ordered.

  Harrison kept his steely, rheumy eyes on me. “It’s all right, Dak,” he said, calmly, patronizingly. “You’ve got your solemn duty; I’ve got mine.”

  Distantly, I could hear Lauren asking you your first prompt. Harrison and I stared each other down while you waffled your first response.

  “No—YES. Yes. The answer’s yes.”

  Cccrackle. “Single-world answers, please!”

  “Sorry, I’m just not used to saying…”

  That made me blink and look back at you. Harrison took his opening and left for the elevator. He’d already pressed the button by the time I sprinted over to him.

  “I do not want you down there, Director.”

  He leaned himself against the wall as he waited.

  “S’lemme—so let me ask you, then. You think I’m gonna spend my last day up in my office doing … what? Packing a box? Wouldn’t take me very long.”

  “Not this.”

  “I wanna be with my colleagues. I wanna say goodbye to my people.”

  “This isn’t your retirement party, that’s not how this works.”

  “You know how long I’ve been here?” He was getting too close to me. I could smell the booze on his breath. This felt all too familiar—the subconscious tug of a past life. “Tomorrow morning, who the fuck am I? Who do I talk to—?”

  I could hear the elevator approaching.

  “Then I will take you down to say goodbye after—”