Steal the Stars

by Mac Rogers

  There was a soft rapping on the door. Your voice.

  “Dak?”

  Shit. “… Yeah…” Not a question, not an invitation, just an acknowledgment I was here.

  The door creaked open. Your hand came in and found me.

  “Let’s get you to bed.”

  * * *

  WE SPOONED in the dark. It helped a little. I was like the Harp, looking for security, I guess.

  After a few minutes, you sniffed and gave a small jolt.

  “Shit, where’s the burner?” You must have fallen just a tiny bit asleep and then remembered something.

  “In my pants pocket,” I said into your neck. “Over by the rest of our stuff.”

  “Do we need it where we can see it?” you asked.

  “Chinese don’t even have the number yet. We’d be calling them, and hopefully not even that.”

  “And I guess if they’ve somehow tracked this one we’re dead anyway…”

  Silence for another few minutes. Maybe you’d fallen asleep. Maybe you were thinking like me.

  “Matt.”

  “Mm?”

  “Can we fuck?”

  You rolled over to look at me. You were awake after all.

  “What time is it?”

  “It doesn’t have to be—” It doesn’t have to be like before is what I almost said.

  “Do you seriously feel like it?”

  “As opposed to what?”

  “As opposed to, I dunno … you think we’re going to die tomorrow and this is our last time?”

  “I don’t know.” You ran your hand down my arm. “I don’t feel like it.”

  “I don’t either.”

  I kept trying to see you in the darkness. Wishing there was a light source. There weren’t even windows. It was the belly of a much smaller bug.

  “But we should,” I whispered finally.

  For a second I thought maybe you’d gone to sleep. Then I felt your lips on my skin. I prepped myself for it to be terrible, but it was actually okay.

  * * *

  IT WASN’T enough to put me out, though. I lay awake in the darkness listening to your slow and steady breathing, trying to run as clinical a diagnostic as I could on myself.

  What was bugging me?

  Jesus, what wasn’t?

  Was it anxiety about how tomorrow would go down? It would go down however it went down, soldier, you know that.

  Was I worried about Patty and what Haydon intimated when he said he’d make her suffer? He could easily have been bluffing—besides, she’s squeaky clean.

  Was I worried Haydon had succeeded in planting seeds of doubt by making his offer over the speakerphone? There might be something there, but … I trust the person sleeping next to me. I do.

  These worries were like waves upon a beach, crashing down but also then receding as another one came in. No one of them was more concerning than the others and there was almost a kind of peace to be found in their monotony.

  All the same, something was sticking in me somewhere—a jagged edge, a loose tooth. What was it?

  I wish I could take a long, hot shower right now—fill the room with steam, scald my skin until the heat rash took over like …

  An answer came to me.

  * * *

  IN THE dark, ultra-modern master bedroom, Teresa was sleeping on top of the covers of the tightly made bed. She looked like an altar offering who’d finally decided to get some rest.

  I sat down next to her and gently shook her awake.

  “Don’t yell, okay?” I whispered. “I don’t wanna wake him up.”

  She blinked, rose up onto her elbows. “Is something wrong?”

  God, she even responds well to being woken up by a stranger in the middle of the night.

  This must happen to her a lot.

  “You said you’re a doctor, right?”

  “For kids.” Her voice was still raspy with sleep but I could tell she was alert now. “Is everything—”

  “I need to show you something. In the garage.”

  “Okay.” She rubbed her eyes. “You’re not taking me to a dead body, are you?”

  “That’s actually what I want to find out.”

  * * *

  THERE WERE a crazy number of light switches in the garage—it’s like the guy wanted each square foot of this empty, utilitarian room to have its own dedicated spotlight. God, the things being rich must do to your brain. We turned on just a few, giving the garage an eerie, shadow-haunted quality, almost as if we had gathered around a campfire, but the campfire was upside down on the ceiling.

  “Okay,” I warned her, “I’m gonna open the van now. You did a good job not crying out before. This time it’s gonna be harder.”

  Her arms were crossed and her mouth was set into a thin line. She was taking me seriously.

  I went to the doors at the back of the van and pulled them open. The noise was ominously loud. Like a pistol cocking.

  “Oh,” I continued as I got into the van, “and I could use your help with his legs. Heads up: it will feel weird.”

  She came over and saw what I was propping up inside.

  “Okay,” she exclaimed quietly. “Oh … kay.” She grabbed ahold of Moss’s ankles, winced at their warmth, but didn’t let go. “Okay,” she said again, still low and cautious.

  We got him laid out on the garage floor, at which point she stood over him and sighed, “I’m gonna get a few more of these lights.” She was doing pretty well, though. She might’ve even passed her final training test at Quill. A few more lights came on, and the eeriness of the garage was beaten back a few steps.

  “So.” She was staring down at the lanky, grayish body. “This is what you and Matt do for a living.” No question; an understanding.

  “Did. But, yeah.”

  “Can I—?” she gestured to move down and handle him.

  “Just be careful not to knock off any of the moss.”

  “Okay, so that’s supposed to be there?”

  “Yeah,” I shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t really know anything.”

  She began to run her hands over the entirety of his body, careful to not disturb any of the rapidly diminishing wisps of kelp-like growth on his chest. The moss was now basically four vertical strands lying across his chest. Less already than when we got here. She lifted the body up in that practiced, careful way that only physicians seem to know, feeling for bones, weaknesses, anything under the skin that would make moving him a danger. But that wasn’t all she was feeling for.

  “No zipper, right? No seams.”

  She looked at me. Her eyes were wild with curiosity. It was a look I saw a lot on the floor of the Bazaar. It was the look of burgeoning scientific obsession.

  “You know what my first thought was just now?”

  “What?”

  “He’s such an organism,” she laughed weakly.

  I nodded.

  “Why can’t I touch the … that stuff?” She waved a hand over the strands.

  “They had a theory where we worked … that when the last of the moss is gone … that means he’s dead.”

  “He’s not dead now?”

  “Probably.” There are times when the absurdity of any given situation is easy to ignore, and there are times when it begins to shriek desperately at you. This was one of the latter. I felt like a child, wrestling with the presence of something under my bed, now finally begging an adult for aid. It was a small, pitiable feeling. “He probably is. He’s probably been dead for years. But. I don’t know, I don’t know, I’m…” She stood there, patiently, giving me room to say whatever it was I needed to say. There was nothing else I could say. “I’m all fucked up.”

  “Okay,” she said plainly, sympathetically.

  “I watched that moss recede for years and I didn’t think anything about it.”

  “But now that he’s in your custody…”

  “But he’s probably dead! I mean, what the fuck am I—”

  “Do you not think he’
s dead?” She seemed more interested in my emotional breakdown than in the unearthly creature on the floor between us.

  “I’m asking you! Aren’t you the, the…”

  “Pediatrician? For human children?” She let out a small, dry laugh.

  “Can’t you like … examine him?”

  She blinked at me, then knelt back down to the body. “Well, I guess I could do a couple things. I could feel around for places where I’d usually find a pulse, right? But—”

  “But there’s no pulse.”

  “And I could listen here, where I’d hear a heartbeat, or here, where I’d hear respiration…”

  “But there’s nothing.” Embarrassment galloped through me.

  “If I shined a penlight on these huge black eyes…” The more she stared at Moss the more rapt she became.

  “… nothing,” I whispered. A shudder passed through me. An image of us preparing his long, thin body for funeral rites.

  “Don’t you already know all this?” she asked kindly, without accusation. I nodded. In the eight years I worked at Quill Marine, hundreds upon hundreds of tests had been performed on Moss. Lights. Noises. Gentle electrical prodding. Hell, one scientist tried the good old-fashioned shouting-at-Moss-randomly-through-a-bullhorn to see if that elicited any sort of response. Nothing did. But now … he was mine …

  “The people you’re taking him to,” Teresa stood up, “do you have some reason to think they’ll take better care of him?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are you doing it?”

  “He’s our ticket.”

  “Yours and Matt’s.”

  I nodded again. “I’ve hurt a lot of people. Getting this far.”

  “So—”

  I couldn’t stop myself; I had more to say. “But what was I supposed to do? I can’t take care of them forever, I can’t take care of everyone forever! At some point it has to be my turn to go home!”

  “And … home is…?”

  We looked at each other. I didn’t say it—I didn’t say your name—but it was loud and clear all the same. She surprised me by walking over to the van, halfheartedly inspecting it, an artifact in a museum she wasn’t quite sold on. We were silent for several moments.

  “Dak … you have to be careful with Matt.”

  “What?” I swallowed.

  “He’s a beautiful man. Almost like, delicate. Even with all the things he can do, it’s like he’s helpless, he makes you want to…” Save him, I thought. “… save him. I mean, look at me. I’m still not past it.” She gave a sad, self-incriminating shrug. “I mean, what’s the first thing I did when you got here?”

  I decided to risk voicing what had been pinballing through me. “What did you mean then?”

  “Mean?”

  “Right after you kissed him. When you said … ‘Your call brought me right back to.…’”

  She nodded. “He was stationed, so I couldn’t see him all the time, we couldn’t have a regular thing. He kept getting called away to do whatever. So we decided to make that exciting instead. We had a room we used a lot. I wouldn’t see him for a long time, weeks or even a month, ’til I was totally wound up and losing my shit, and then my phone would ring. And I’d answer, right, and I wouldn’t say anything. I’d just breathe. And he’d breathe. And we’d keep that going for as long as we could stand it, and finally he’d say: ‘Get here.’”

  And there in the garage, amid the smell of dirt and concrete and van and night, I started to hyperventilate.

  * * *

  “FUCK, SORRY, I’m—”

  “No, it’s okay—”

  “No, I’m gonna stop, I’m.”

  “Can I hug you?”

  I was mid-gulp, sitting against the wall, feeling tears prick the back of my eyes and desperately refusing to let them spill, so at first I didn’t even think I’d heard her correctly. But when I looked up I saw her opening her arms just a little wider, palms upturned, ready to make good on her request.

  “No!” I waved her away.

  “Are you sure?” She stood there, still ready.

  I could have caved. I could have let her. A not-insignificant part of me yearned for it—a connection, a feeling of acknowledgment, even forgiveness, for all that I’d done. I could see myself weakly nodding, her stepping over Moss, holding me in her arms, letting the tears I was holding back spill out against her chest, relieving the pressure that had been roiling in me like a boiler that needed dumping. I could be like Lisa—I could whisper, “I’m gonna stop in a second,” over and over again until, eventually, it stopped. I had so little reason, beyond some damaged instinct, to distrust her at this point. I had so little reason to hold on to this creaking, straining, exploding pain …

  But this was my pressure. These were my tears. She’d had enough of my things. I tamped it down. I forced my breath to slow, my heart to steady. I stood up.

  “I’m sure,” I muttered.

  She dropped her arms and looked at me, concerned.

  “My ex-boyfriend’s downstairs. There’s an alien on my garage floor … and what I’m most worried about is you.”

  I could say the same to you, I thought icily but didn’t say.

  * * *

  A FEW hours later, the sun was up and so were we. I stood in the front hall of the house, watching as Teresa spoke outside with a man next to a large cargo truck—about the size of a fifteen-foot mover with an enclosed bed and a roll-up door. I hoped Teresa got at least a couple hours’ sleep after we’d stuffed Moss back into the van. I knew I didn’t.

  Truck-Guy nodded a few times at some things I couldn’t hear. At one point he looked back at the house. I wondered if he could see me but I couldn’t work up a feeling either way. A few minutes later a taxi pulled up and Teresa said a couple more things to Truck-Guy before letting him go.

  What the fuck are they talking about, I wonder?

  “Whatcha looking at?” You came up behind me. I didn’t turn around.

  “Nothing. Probably.”

  “That’s a hell of a truck. That’ll work great!” You joined me, looking out. Something in your voice.

  “You sound chipper,” I said.

  “Guess I’m just eager to hit the road.”

  And, as if on cue, Teresa bounded back into the house, beaming.

  “We’re good to go!”

  There were a few more tiny logistical things to nail down before we hit that road, however. First, we’d need to keep in contact between vehicles. I asked Teresa for her number to put into the burner, except—

  “Shit.” My pockets were empty. “Where’s the phone?”

  “I think I saw it by the bed downstairs,” you said. “Want me to grab it?”

  “Yeah, we should just get all our stuff up now. Plus…”

  “Right. Yes.” You knew right away what I was referring to. Teresa, however, did not.

  “What?”

  I turned to her. “If you’re driving the truck…”

  “Right…?”

  “It’s called a Lloyd Suit.”

  * * *

  LESS THAN an hour later and we were ready to embark. Moss and the Turndown box–slash–Harp rig were safely secured in the luxuriously large cargo bed of the truck. Teresa had given me the keys to her modest, cozy sedan before getting into her space suit (“Life is weird,” she giggled). She’d have to drive without the helmet, so we’d have to work fast in case there was an unexpected Power-Up, but it was something.

  Before you got into the back of the truck, I pulled you aside. I needed to say something but I was completely unsure how to force it out in words.

  “I’m…,” I began.

  “What?”

  I shook my head, at a loss. You let out a short breath through your nose, not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh, put your hands on my upper arms and kissed me on the forehead. Even though it was a perfunctory gesture, it felt like a benediction. I felt a weight lift and drift to the sky. Not all the weight, a tiny percentage of the weight all told
, but enough for me to think a little straighter.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” you said.

  “I’m not always going to be like this.”

  “What do you—?”

  “When we’re in China and we’re rich, I’ll be”—I shrugged—“I dunno, easier.”

  “I think you should be … however you want to be,” you said. Something was needling you, I could tell. I couldn’t blame you. The last few days had been horrible and we were due for a mighty hangover. But I’d said all I could think of saying for now, so I left it at that.

  “I think we’re gonna pull this off,” I winked at you, and then got behind the wheel of Teresa’s car. “Don’t get nuked.”

  * * *

  FIVE HOURS later, we made it to the rendezvous point without incident.

  I wish that’s where we could end this.

  25

  I’LL GIVE her this much: Teresa knew a hell of a lot more than me about smuggling people.

  After we’d pulled our cars over onto the dusty hardpan she waddled her way to the back of the truck, blessedly ungraceful in the Lloyd Suit, and called to you: “Matt! Cover your eyes! I’m gonna open the back and it’s still bright!”

  Your voice, muffled from inside: “It’s okay, there’s a light in here—!”

  “Trust me, tough guy, it’s way brighter out here.” The sun was just beginning to dip toward the horizon and it was shining straight at us like a spotlight.

  Good call, T, I thought. I would have just yanked the door up and blinded him.

  The door came up and, as soon as the cargo was visible, Teresa put a hand over her eyes and moved around to the side. “I’m not looking!” she said earnestly. “I’m not looking at whatever you have in the truck!”

  As soon as she was out of a line of sight, she took her hand away and her eyes met mine. I felt what could have been shame but was probably closer to admiration. I’d figured her wrong. Good for her, and good for me for realizing it.