It’s really fun, except when it isn’t. Sometimes I misjudge the bumps and get slammed into the ceiling. Other times, I hit the first low gravity pocket just right and soar through the air like a bird.
Then that makes me think of the parakeet I killed once when Bit and I didn’t have any food for almost a week. So I go lay down on my bed and try to reach Howie until I fall asleep.
And wake up a few hours later to do it all over.
That’s what I’m doing today, when I hear it again. That thing Vallon said when he was trying to kill me.
Unclean.
It doesn’t matter that I take three showers a day… nothing else to do… I know when I smash through his lid and drag him toward that airlock, all he’ll see is a filthy Unclean, Unrein. No better than the skeletal bodies they throw into the ocean on Gliese.
I can’t wait to see the look in his eyes when my unworthy face is the last thing he sees before the cold black death of space sucks the air out of his lungs and turns him inside out.
I unclench my fists and sit up. “I’ll be right back,” I tell Penelope.
I know she knows, but she doesn’t stop me.
Today’s the day after all.
###
My fingers curl and uncurl around the ZapStick. I’ve dreamed of this moment for months. Every nerve in my body buzzes with anticipation.
And electricity.
I stand over Vallon’s pod, ZapStick over my head, waiting for it to recharge after picking it up from the wrong end. At least now I don’t have to imagine how bad I’m about to mess up his day.
“This is for Comier,” I rehearse, and bring the weapon down into his imaginary chest like a stake through a vampire’s heart. His coffin hums and if I listen closely I can almost make out the tour guide’s familiar soothing tone.
If I time it just right, I can zap him at the exact moment the Unrean boy fights back against his captors, tearing at their flesh and screaming like a banshee. A fitting end for something as vile and disgusting as Vallon.
Ugh. Thinking his name brings bile to my throat. Sweat pours into my eyes but I don’t blink it away. The burn keeps me focused. I almost don’t notice the bugs crawling up my legs anymore. Clever little creatures, always run and hide before I can slap them away.
//Howie?//
I check my conscience one last time. No answer.
The cool lavender breeze relaxes my frazzled nerves and steels my resolve. I watch the cloud dissipate as the pod’s lid slides away. That crunching sound is not Penelope’s fingers breaking free at last, I tell myself and squeeze the handle tighter.
“Aaauuugghh!” I mess up my line as the ZapStick swings wildly toward Vallon’s face instead of his heartless chest.
Shit brown eyes pop open and a meaty right hand swipes the ZapStick away like a fly. Before it hits the ground he’s out of the pod, springing to his feet like a cat with many lives left. Anger, not fear, blazes under his orange skin. “What the –” I have to read his lips because the alarm is too loud.
The ZapStick rolls around his feet and I dive for it. A hard rubber sole bears down on my fingers. I brace for the crunch that will make Penelope and me twins, but it doesn’t come.
“What are you doing, Rat? Why are you awake?” Vallon glares down his perfect nose at me. His eyes take their time wandering over my shriveled body. When they reach my long, ratty hair, they widen. His foot eases up off my hand and I jerk it back, cradling it against my flat chest.
“What the hell happened to you?” He bends over, looking me up and down again. It makes my skin crawl worse than the invisible critters.
Vallon reaches out a hand toward my hair, eyes about to bug out of his head. And I bite him.
“This is for Comier!” Nailed it.
His hand rips out of my mouth and I scramble backward before it can come down again across my face. Vallon lunges at me, fire in his eyes, then stops.
His dark skin keeps changing colors, orange and red, orange and red. He looks up to the sky then around the room. And I thought I did a good cornered animal impression.
“What did you do?” Vallon yanks me off the ground by my arm and shoves me toward the door. I don’t think he realizes how strong he is because I fly through the air like a sheet of paper catching a breeze.
I growl at him. Then, I proceed to tell him about his date with Airlock seven, down to the last chest-caving detail.
Too bad he can’t hear me over that damn alarm.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Even the darkest night will end
And the sun will rise
- Victor Hugo
I will say one thing about Vallon; he ties a good knot. I’ve been working at this one for ten minutes while he darts around the control room. Doesn’t help that they’re behind my back.
What else am I to do, though? Watch drones dispose of innocent dead people for the fifth time? I can see plenty of that right here.
“How long has this alarm been going off?” Vallon doesn’t stop sprinting between the control panel and mainframe to wait for an answer. I think he’s talking to himself more than me. I get it. He doesn’t have a Penelope.
“How long? How long? How long!” My voice is shrill and unrecognizable in my ears. “That is the question alright.”
My cheek burns where he slapped me after the first time I gave him the wrong answer. When I get out of this chair he’ll pay for that.
Vallon swoops toward me, putting his face into mine, breathing my air. My air. I flinch, expecting my other cheek to catch on fire.
Instead, he places a calloused finger under my chin and lifts it until our eyes meet. If he kisses me I’m biting his tongue off. I hope he tries it.
Without moving his lips he asks, //What happened here?// Soft, so soft, he almost doesn’t sound like the venomous snake he is.
//Howie…// It’s the only word my chip has said for one hundred sixty-two days.
Vallon shakes me, gently. I expect worse, but hey, he’s just waking up.
//Come on, Rat. What happened?// His eyes are so shit-brown. I wish they were Howie’s eyes staring back at me. Bright green and perfect, not full of water and terror like the last time.
“The numbers were wrong,” I say. I refuse to chip with the likes of him. I’m saving myself for Howie.
“What numbers? Where’s Marshall? Why are you awake?” Vallon shakes me again, less gently, but still unlike him.
“Howie woke me up… when he didn’t die.” Blink the tears away. Don’t let him see your cracks. “I could have saved him. I figured it out. I could have saved him. Save him.”
Vallon squeezes my chin with his rough fingers and talks at me through clenched teeth. “You changed our course to chase after your boyfriend?” He pushes me, hard. There’s the monster I’ve been waiting for. Just wait. First these knots are toast, then you. I’ve been waiting so long for this.
So long.
More running from one flashing monitor to the next. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, the fool. If he doesn’t watch out his suit will short out again and we’ll overheat. We’ll turn red and die.
Wait, no. Not him.
//Howie!//
Vallon’s holding his own head in his hands, now. “You killed us. You killed us all. Over a stupid dead boy!”
“No,” I whisper, tugging frantically at my restraints.
“What?” He’s back in my face again. I almost forgot how musky he smells. His breath tastes like man. Strong, verile. Verile Vallon. What is that?
When I don’t respond Vallon’s right eye twitches. I watch his hand rise up over his head and then hang there. Slowly it falls to the arm of my chair. Guess he knew what was good for him.
“No.” This time I don’t whisper it, I cry it. And keep crying until the tears pooling in my mouth run out of salt.
###
“Eat this,” Vallon says after I’m spent and hiccuping ragged breaths.
My stomach churns and I bat his hand away, my hiccups tu
rning to retches.
“Eat it,” he repeats, pulling rank. He waves it in front of my nose and jams it in my mouth. Not slop. Another one drops onto my lap.
Vallon gives me a stern look and unties my hands. I attack.
The stale dried meat is gone in seconds. I reach out for more but Vallon’s gone, too. Every muscle in my gut pounces on the unfamiliar food source.
Vallon hurries into the control room with a trembling glass of water. “Drink.” He looks behind him then down at me. “When we’re all done here, we need to have a serious talk about your… friends… out there.”
When I raise my hand to take it, he stabs me. The syringe sticks out of me, wobbling. Vallon grabs my flailing arm and holds it steady, pushing the clear liquid into my veins.
“You’ll thank me later.” He tosses the needle to the floor.
‘I’ll watch your lungs collapse later,’ I think, but without much conviction. Killing him seems like such a hassle now.
As I gulp the water I stare back at him, watching. The thick muscle on his arm flexes and retracts as he runs a hand through his hair.
I smile as he pauses, tugs on a curl that’s longer than it should be, and opens his mouth in shock.
“Yep,” I say.
“How long was I asleep?” Again, he’s talking to himself and not me. But I answer anyway.
“He wouldn’t say.” I set the empty glass on the desk in front of me, partially blocking my view of the monitor. The drones are circling the camp perimeter now. Only two minutes to go before the tube. I shake my head and turn toward Vallon. In this case, he’s the lesser of two evils. I tug at my own loose curl, pulling it to its full length, and add, “longer than a year, for sure.”
Vallon sucks in a ragged breath that makes it sound like he’s been crying, too. Although, I’m sure Vallon didn’t cry when his whole family got wiped out in the Glitch.
I reach out a hand for more food but he pats his pockets and shrugs.
“So you didn’t change our course to go find your boyfriend?” He starts pacing the room again.
“No.” Why does he keep forcing me to repeat my shame?
“The numbers? You said –” Vallon points at the wall monitor where lines of flashing red code stream by.
It’s my turn to clench my jaw as I take my sweet time answering. “I figured it out… but I didn’t do it. It was too late. I was too late.” The last words stall in my mouth.
“Rat,” Vallon sighs, not taking a single moment to give a shit about my dead… about Howie. “We’ve been up here too long.” His hand brushes over light stubble on his chin.
I wonder how thick his beard would be if we never glitched. Marshall looked like a caveman when I woke up. But, he was long past puberty when The Glitch happened.
“Focus!” Vallon snaps.
Focus. Yes, I can focus now. Feels good to be out of that fog, whatever miracle was in that syringe. Except… //Howie?//
Vallon lifts me from the chair and puts my nose right up to the flashing orange-red light on the wall. “This should not be happening. What’s wrong with the ship?”
“Oh, that?” I turn to face him. He’s much taller than Howie, but I do my best to raise up high enough to meet his gaze. Eye to eye. “Airlock seven.” I watch his face for the terror I’d longed for. As usual, Vallon doesn’t come through.
“Are you crazy?” He runs out of the room before I can make out his expression.
“What do you expect?” I call after him. What do you expect?
Moments later the boring off-white ambient lighting returns and I can hear myself think again. Not that I want to. That shot is bringing back everything I was glad to lose in the haze. This one-year trip to Gliese has stretched to Stone knows how long. Are we even heading to Gliese anymore? What did Marshall do? How can I go on living now that Howie’s gone? How will I face Penelope? Oh, Penelope’s… not Penelope anymore. How the hell did I eat slop with a dead body staring at me for five months?
“What was wrong with the numbers?” Vallon asks as he catches his breath in the doorway. Then he vomits against the wall. “We have to move these bodies.” He wretches again as more bile threatens to paint the walls.
I catch myself before telling him not to touch my friends. Maybe I need another shot.
It will be such sweet revenge to watch Vallon lose his mind. Why didn’t I think of that in the first place? This is going to be so much better than a quick shove out of the airlock.
“You might want to sit down.” I offer up the chair I was recently restrained in. It’s nearly impossible, but I manage a kind tone.
“Just tell me so I can fix it. Do we need to wake up the crew?” Vallon’s voice cracks. Whether it’s fear or more vomit, I can’t be sure.
I move closer, into the radius of his puke breath. Somehow, it’s less disgusting than his normal breath.
“Bad news number one,” I revel in it. “We are the crew.” I glide closer. “Seems in your haste to kill everyone in the way of your – Penelope’s pod – you didn’t bother to save one for any of the crew.”
A full minute ticks by. I watch that sink in, take in every tremor and shadow crossing his muscular face. Who has jacked muscles in their face?
“And number two?” Vallon takes the seat after all.
“Number two,” I crouch in front of him, mirroring his dominating stance from before, when he thought he had all the answers and I was at his mercy. Pretending to sigh with the weight of the world on my shoulders, I frown. “Gliese doesn’t want us.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Happy is the country that has no history
- Ancient English proverb
“You’re lying.” His words are barely audible because we both know I'm not. “We had orders.”
I shrug. I've been over it a million times already. “Prolly why he blocked off this whole area.” I nod toward the door but spare him the 'with bodies’ part. No need. He’s losing it faster than I did.
Vallon shivers. “Where is Sarge? He's the C.O. He needs to tell us —”
My laugh cuts him off. “He's not talking.”
A quizzical look passes over Vallon's face. “Did you…” he raises a hand in the universal throat cutting motion.
“Course not!” What kind of person does he think I am? Just because I was going to kill him doesn’t make me a killer… that's different. He’s a special case. No jury would convict, if there were juries left. “Sarge is asleep. He was pretty sick when I woke up. Had to give him my pod.”
Vallon stares at me for a long time, considering. Almost as an afterthought, he says, “I wouldn't have.”
“Yes, I’m well aware of that. I’ve gotten to know your last victim very well.” I catch myself digging nails I didn’t know I had into my folded arms.
“Who?”
“The girl whose fingers were hanging out of your pod.” Don't blink first.
Vallon waves the comment off. Collateral damage. “How long do we have?”
“If you have more of that jerky, I think —”
“Til we land.” Vallon stands and goes back to his pacing. I’d forgotten how large he was. His time in the pod did nothing to weaken him. What well of strength did he start with, to be this much of a force after cryo? He returns to me, to breathe my precious air. “How. Long?”
“A week.” I don’t know how he hears me because I do my best not to speak the words.
“Then we better get started.” He turns to the desk before me and keys a code into the drone monitor. A clear black screen erases the horrible images that have repeated in my mind for months.
Man, I should have thought of that.
It takes two of our seven days to clear all the bodies out of the ship. The last day is the hardest. Vallon, in some shred of decency – he must be having a good day – allows me to keep Penelope until the end.
“It’s time, Ratnik.” Vallon uses my whole not-name as if he’s my dad or something. He can’t be much older than Howie… was.
Another point of decency from Vallon, he didn’t make me go near Airlock seven. Or maybe he didn’t want to relive that nightmare himself. He’s only been up for two days. It’s got to be much fresher in his mind.
Vallon clears his throat.
“I’m going,” I snap.
The more practical reason it’s taken two days to clean out the ship is because everyone’s decomposing much faster. All at once, my close friends became unrecognizable piles of goo. Each body takes multiple trips to dispose of, meat falling off the bone like perfectly cooked chicken. Mmm, chicken.
Penelope’s still her perky self, though, if I don’t look too closely.
Her caramel skin has a green tint to it, reddish brown underneath where it breaks apart in my rubber oven mitts. The shirt around my nose and mouth does nothing to block the stench. Reminds me of the good old days with Howie. Our shirt masks were no match for the electric smoke then, either.
//Howie?//
“Have they answered you yet?” I ask, forcing myself to focus on the here and now. Since my shot of whatever, and real food, my mind is mine again. Slipping back into the present is easier. Although, I don’t get to spend as much time with Howie’s ghost as I’d like.
//Howie?//
“No,” Vallon says, motioning with his head that it’s time to lift.
Penelope’s body falls to the floor, her loose fingerless arm still in my hand. I stare at it. Maybe being crazy wasn’t so bad after all.
I don’t know how long I stand there with my latest dead best friend’s rotten arm dripping meat onto the floor. Long enough for Vallon to peel my rubber mitt away from it and sit me down on my bed. “I’ll take this one,” he says, in a tone someone who doesn’t know him would mistake for empathy.
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