An Unexpected Debt

by S. J. Pajonas

  “I’m afraid it’s not possible. You left the party too early last night for this information to make it to you,” he says, sipping his coffee. “Ms. Vivian needs for you to attend a charity function in her absence on Palo Alto.”

  I groan and return my head to the back of the chair. A charity event? This can only mean boring, boring, and more boring.

  “Really? Do I have to?”

  “No whining,” he warns. “The event is in” — he checks his datapad — “five days. There won’t be time for a jaunt over to Laguna, especially if you want to grab the Amagi from space dock and then get back to see your family on the Mikasa. We’ll be cutting things close as it is.”

  “Right, right.” I sigh and sip my coffee. I guess there’s nothing to be done about this. “I want to do both those things. There’s not enough time for Laguna right now.” I point my finger at him. “But don’t think I’m going to forget about it. Laguna better be top of the list for after this charity shindig.”

  He raises an eyebrow.

  “Top,” I stress, bringing my hand up to a level position at eye line.

  He cracks a smile. “Fine. I’ll see what I can do. But you owe me something.”

  I sip my coffee again. “Oh yeah, what’s that?”

  “Information.”

  My stomach sinks.

  “The first thing I need to hear about is this man you met at flight school.”

  I throw back my head in a guffaw. Hearing Marcelo call Kalvin a ‘man’ makes me want to cackle, but I keep it to myself. Kalvin is more of a precocious boy than anything, though I’m sure he’d like to show me differently.

  Oh yes, he would.

  “I’m not sure whether I should find that laughter promising or foreboding.” Marcelo laughs too.

  But my mind is still on Kalvin. Ahhhh. If his parting kisses were any indication, we’ll be hopping into bed with each other the very moment we meet again.

  “Well, I can tell from your sneaky smile that this one will be hard to give up,” Marcelo says.

  I wipe the grin from my lips. “I have to give him up? You don’t even know him yet.”

  Marcelo touches his chest. “It’s my job to make sure you meet the right matches, correct?”

  I swallow the knot in my throat. “Of course.”

  “And while you may meet a few men along the way who will be good for you, we will still need to vet them all and make sure they will be the right people for your relationship network. We don’t want to take any chances, right?”

  “Right. We don’t,” I mumble.

  Because bad matches are exactly what I want to avoid. Looking at my mom’s network, I need to stay away from any men like them. Marcelo helped Mom find Juan, probably the most helpful of her consorts, but the last of them, too. I was doing all the family work by the time he joined us, and Juan only had to pick up some of the slack.

  For a hot second, I consider talking to Marcelo about Mom’s men and my past. But Marcelo knows nothing of what I’ve endured for my family. I’ve been too ashamed to confess anything more than the barest of facts. He knows Miguel does his part and stands by Mom. He knows my father retired years ago and has been living a life of solitude. But Marcelo doesn’t know that Miguel, Dominic, and Juan passed off every responsibility to me as soon as my father moved out.

  I trust Marcelo now to pick out the right men, but…

  “Vivian got to choose some of her men,” I point out.

  “Under my supervision,” he stresses. And he’s right. Though he cautioned her about one of her choices, that match turned out to be one of the better options, despite his family. “So…” Marcelo waits for my response.

  “His name is Kalvin Vidal. His family is from Concord City, and I think he’s back there now. I’m not really sure. Last I saw him, that’s what he said he was going to do.” We ended our last moments with a kiss and a promise to get together soon.

  But my desire to see him again has already waned. I’m sure he’s forgotten about me, despite calling me ‘princess’ approximately one billion times and promising we’ll see each other soon. Most men do not last more than a night with me. They never have. They are almost always disinterested the next morning, or I have to leave to fly somewhere else. My life has never been conducive to relationships.

  I’m quiet as I sip on my coffee, and Marcelo watches me. He takes a few long breaths before clearing his throat.

  “I’m going to extend the same courtesy and invitation to you as I did to Ms. Vivian when we first started working together,” he starts. “Let me be a sounding board for you, a friend you can talk to about whatever you need.”

  I set my coffee cup down.

  “I’m not your mother, and I’m not your boss… I’m not Vivian or anyone else. I’m only here to help you find the life you want and need. You should consider me a confidante. Someone you can trust.”

  I laugh and shake my head. “Marcelo, you are off your rocker. I’m fine, thanks.”

  He frowns, and I immediately regret saying anything. Why can’t I keep my mouth shut?

  “Where did you go last night after the party?” he asks, his eyes narrowing. “I know it wasn’t here.”

  I smile and trace the fabric lines in the chair. “How do you know that?”

  “It’s my job to know where you are at all times.”

  All the blood leaves my head, and a chill washes over me like a cold winter rain. “If you’re so smart, you tell me.”

  He pauses for a moment, and my heart skips a beat. “The Red Room is your favorite place in Sakata City, although Mighty Caretaker is a close second. You like the generic bots like Steven and Daniel, but you’ll settle for the lithe and lean Thomas if you have to. Oral is always your number one pick —”

  “Stop.” I turn my face to the side and calm the anger raging in my belly.

  My face burns with humiliation, and yet, I’m kind of glad someone besides me knows this secret I’ve kept for the last two years. An eligible woman like me should not be visiting sexbots. That’s the sign of something very wrong — wrong with her, wrong with her family, wrong with the men and/or women in her relationship network.

  “Ms. Skylar, tell me why you’ve been going to these places instead of coming to me about your problems.”

  I stand up abruptly and spill even more coffee on my pajamas. This time I don’t bother to do anything about it. Deflect, Skylar. I am full of problems, full of shame and regret and ache. But no one can know about that. A Broken Skylar is a liability.

  “There are no problems. I just… I needed to blow off some steam a few times, and sexbots were all that was available.”

  I stride into the kitchen and dump the last of my coffee in the sink. Marcelo follows me in.

  “Sixty-four times in the last two years is not ‘blowing off some steam.’ And that’s only the three places here on Ossun and the two places on Palo Alto I know about.”

  I close my eyes and breathe out a long, relieved breath. He doesn’t know about the places on Sonoma then.

  “Talk to me,” he says, and my heart breaks a little.

  “There’s nothing to talk about, really, Marcelo,” I say, sighing. What convenient truth can I tell him? Ah, I know… “I like sex. It’s an easy way for me to relax. There’s only so much yoga and walking a girl can do, and I don’t want to become a drug or alcohol addict.”

  “You can be addicted to sex, Ms. Skylar. It’s been known to happen.”

  I close my eyes and thank all the known gods that Marcelo is the only person in this room right now with me.

  “I’m not addicted to sex, but I am stressed out beyond all belief, and flight school isolated me from my friends and family for two whole years.” I point at the floor. “I was up every single day at five. In class and in sims for ten hours at a time. Every other spare moment was spent on vidcalls fixing things my family had broken while I was gone. I had one day free every weekend, and most of the time, I couldn’t go any farther than the Californiko
s System.” I tick everything off on my fingers. “No dating. No parties. Nothing fun besides sneaking in some alcohol and drinking with Amira. Hell, I even contemplated screwing Amira at one point, and I am the furthest person from being a lesbian.” I hold up my hand. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

  Marcelo winces. “That’s pretty bad. Why didn’t you contact me?”

  I load up the dishwasher with our mugs. “Because you made it quite clear before I left for flight school. I was not to get involved with anyone. I was to stay on the straight and narrow and wait for you on the other side of my graduation.” I sigh as I slam the dishwasher door shut. “I knew I wouldn’t have the chance for a relationship, but I didn’t think it was going to be as difficult as it was to be celibate during school.”

  His stare is penetrating, looking down into my soul and figuring out what makes me tick. It’s not a lot, I can tell you that. I have some fundamental basics to get me through this life. I fly. I eat chocolate, preferably every day. I have sex. I’m mouthy and angry, and I’m sick of the life of lies I’ve led up to now. And I don’t connect with men, even when I really want to.

  “I think…” I stop and bite my bottom lip. I should confess to Marcelo that I believe I’m broken and incapable of having a genuine relationship. I’ve never had one. I tried to tell him years ago, but I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth. I did tell Vivian, and it looks like she’s kept my secret.

  But is it a secret I should even keep?

  Marcelo is like a father to me, more than my dad, who sits in his house a few kilometers away painting portraits and baking pies. He figures he’s done his job. He made sure I didn’t kill myself as a toddler and got me through my early teen years. But Marcelo has picked up the slack in the last five years.

  He’s supposed to be a matchmaker, not a parent, Skylar. Don’t make his job any harder than it should be.

  “I think I just need to get going.” I nod and decide this is a better path to take. Marcelo doesn’t need to hear my doubts. He needs to see me in action. “So, you should set me up with your top contender for this charity event, and we’ll see how it goes.”

  He pauses a moment to assess me. “Are you sure about this? We can delay while we figure out what’s going on with you and the best way to move forward.”

  I shake my head and raise my shoulders. “Nothing’s going on with me. I just need to move forward with my life. School is done, and I have a ship to fly, a network to build, and a business to take over. So, let’s do it. Find someone who will sweep me off my feet. I know that’s your specialty.” I wink at him and try to dispel the tension in the air.

  It works.

  “Okay,” he says with a shrug and a smile. “But don’t forget to come to me if you need anything. I’m always here.”

  “Got it. Will do,” I say, but I would rather eat ants than admit to Marcelo that I have an intimacy problem.

  No one needs to know that.

  Not even him.

  3

  “Failure, failure, failure,” Vivian says, sighing.

  The flames in the fire bin climb higher as she tosses more plant matter on top of the burning mess. And what a mess it is. I squint my eyes against the smoke and move upwind.

  “This was the fifth attempt to cultivate this plant from the DNA level up. The eleventh failure to propagate these seedlings.” Vivian kicks dirt. “One of the many Rio plant failures Renata Dellis will be disappointed with after our initial success.” She sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Everything looked so promising in the beginning. Everything went to shit soon after.”

  Rio, the other inhabited planet here in the Brazilianos System, is a wealth of dangerous animals and plants that will either make you into superheroes or kill you. Plants that Vivian is trying to adapt right here in her greenhouses. When Vivian and I flew together a few years ago, she found several worth enough that Renata Dellis, CEO of Athens Industries, bought Vivian out and put her on the payroll. We still have so much to learn from Rio and why it evolved the way it did. Vivian is starting her education with the plants. They’re highly adaptive, and when consumed, they can provide almost superhuman capabilities. Trust me, I know. She wants to take the adaptive part and train it for use on other worlds. So far, she’s had only a modicum of success.

  Three other farmworkers approach with their arms full of vines, and each of them tosses their burdens on the fiery pyre. Vivian stretches upward and forward, a clear sign that her back and shoulders hurt, probably from working in the lab and rocking her baby girl to sleep each night. But little Ilaria is worth every ache and pain.

  “Only a little left, Vivian,” her foreman says, approaching with another armful of vines. “The guys are taking care of the soil right now.”

  “Thanks,” she says, nodding and stepping farther from the fire. Two of the workers stoke the flames, and the smoke reaches higher into the darkening sky. “You can run the kiln all night if you need to.”

  “Will do.” He nods and touches the brim of his hat as he saunters off.

  “What do you use the kiln for again?” I ask, pulling her farther away from the smoke.

  “We’ll cure and dry the soil in the kiln before returning it to the compost pile on the farm. It’ll never be used again in the greenhouse. Gotta be careful.”

  “What about the plants in the greenhouse? Are those doing okay?”

  She bobs her head from side to side. “Yes and no. They seem to thrive on their own, and I’ve made a few with Old Earth hybrids that are doing okay. But my recent experiments, the ones we’ll need to seed new worlds? Those have all failed.”

  I frown at her slumped figure and dull skin. “You look exhausted, Viv. You should take some time off.”

  “Can’t. Too much work to do.”

  I pull my bottom lip into my teeth and wonder if there’s anything I can do to help. I know nothing about plants except what Vivian has taught me and what I learned in far-school growing up. Far-school showed me which plants on Ossun, Sonoma, and Palo Alto were edible and which to avoid. But they didn’t teach me anything about cultivation.

  “What am I doing wrong?” Vivian asks, and I know she’s not asking me, so I stay quiet. “There has to be a reason my experiments for the last six months have failed. All the plants we’ve harvested from Rio behind the backs of the military have thrived for a month or two before dying without warning. The ones I raised from seed did moderately well but turned infertile. Many of them are missing key elements, and they don’t thrive for long.” She digs her fingers into the back of her neck. “So far, my job to make hybrid plants for the colonization of other worlds is going bust.”

  I raise my face to the sky and spot the brightest shimmering star in the sky — Rio, the next closest planet to our sun. It’s the key to humanity’s future on other worlds. It’s the diamond of the Brazilianos System and one of the wealthiest places to live. People vacation there all the time in the floating cities. It’s also under a blockade from the military for any non-tourist traffic.

  “Vivian!” Gus’s voice cuts through the crackling of the fire, and we both turn to see him approach with Marcelo on his heels.

  I relax a little at Gus’s smile. He’s the third member of Vivian’s relationship network and a good friend to me now. He’s a homebody and loves taking care of the homestead with Ilaria on his hip all day.

  “Hey,” he says, coming up to stand next to us at the fire. He cups Vivian’s cheek and pulls her close for a kiss on the forehead. I step away to give them some space. “Another dud?”

  “Yeah.” She sighs and deflates. “I’m getting nowhere. Just spinning my wheels.” Sandwiching her gloves under her armpit, she rubs her face with both hands. “What’s Ilaria up to?”

  “Jin is feeding her dinner.”

  She frowns. “Is it dinner time already?”

  “Past dinner. We sat down for a meal an hour ago with Marcelo. We were wondering where you both were.”

  “Sorry,” I
say, stepping in. “Vivian was explaining everything to me, and we got caught up when another batch had to be burned. I offered to help.” I hold out my dirty hands and swipe them on my soil-stained jeans.

  “Why didn’t anyone call us?” Vivian asks.

  Gus shrugs. “I could see the smoke from the house, and I knew you’d be busy.”

  “Are you getting ready for a bonfire?” Marcelo asks, his smile trying to lessen Vivian’s anxiety.

  She huffs a brief laugh. “Do you have marshmallows?”

  He shakes his head. “I’m fresh out.”

  A gust of wind stirs up the fire and blows smoke around us. Gus coughs and moves aside with Marcelo.

  “Let’s all go back inside.” I motion everyone away from the fire. Vivian hesitates. “Come on, Viv. There’s nothing more you can do here today.”

  She nods as she follows us along the path to the house. Her down-turned eyes and slumped shoulders worry me. Vivian is my best friend and my cousin, and she’s the reason any of us are even alive and here right now. I would do anything for her, but I don’t know how to help with this. Rio plants and their strange ways are far out of my wheelhouse. I’m a space girl. I’m terrible with dirt and fresh air.

  Well, the fresh air is really nice, I must say.

  I hang back a bit to walk with Vivian as we approach the front porch.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” I ask. We slip off our dirty shoes and leave them by the front door. “I hate seeing you like this. Even though you are doing a lot better than you were a few years ago.”

  “I don’t know,” she says, folding her arms over her chest and looking out at the smoke curling into the sky. “I have lots of help now, but this doesn’t seem to be a problem with a solution yet. There must be something I’m missing. Some key ingredient to making it all work together.” She tosses her gloves on a nearby chair. “Things were progressing so well in the beginning. And then they all started failing. I’m going to get fired from Athens Industries if I can’t make it work.”

  I shake my head. “They’d be crazy to fire you. Absolutely insane.”