Arm pressed to his cheek and hers, eyes narrowed, Gene points to the cluster’s left appendage. “That little speck in there. That’s Atlas.”
He stares. “It’s blue.”
She drops her hand. “Yeah, it is.”
Her side brushes his and then doesn’t touch; warm air cools him. Head turned before his eyes release his star, Atlas rolls onto his cooled side. Gene’s already rolled onto hers. They stare at each other.
“Gene,” Atlas says.
She stills.
“I wish for you to know—” he trembles, “know. Before morning, before I can no longer—”
“No,” she says. “I—” She touches his jaw, breathes, lets her hand fall again. “Don’t want to hear it.”
“Please.”
“You know she’s waiting for you in Pittsburgh.” Gene dictates from an instruction manual from behind a mask, a shell upon previous vulnerability. “You’re going to your death. You’re curious but think there’s no real point to the coin and Presage. In the morning,” her mask thaws in tiny spasms, “you’re going to kill Eden and you think she might kill you first.”
Atlas hooks his thumb around a lock of her hair and draws it from her face. With his eyes, his hand, he follows it down.
“It’s stupid. The war’s much more than Eden, you know.” She inhales an earthquake. “You kill yourself killing her and Earth’s still in danger. Pylon could still open and all her groupies could take over. A corrupt leader is the fruit of corruption, not the tree.”
He presses his palm to her cheek and touches the corner of her lips with his thumb.
“Are you listening?” Gene chokes a laugh, pulsing heat he feels in her face. “We need you. Atlas, don’t die.”
Atlas looks at the highlight on her lip and the constriction in his gut urges him forward. His brows tense. “I am listening.”
“Atlas didn’t hold Earth on his shoulders like people think. The Greek guy in our stories—the star you’re named after—” She motions upward without looking. “He held the sky day and night. Kept it from falling.”
He pulls his hand down and frowns. He meets Gene’s eyes that hold a thousand layers, thousand shades.
“I need you,” she says.
The fire in Atlas’s gut climbs up this throat and waters his eyes. “I didn’t come to Earth to uphold the stars.”
“Freedom’s a burden to carry.”
“I’m not strong enough.”
“You are.”
Atlas scoffs, rolls over, grass staining his tunic, and stands. He paces back and forth. Gene sits up.
Clenching a fist, opening it again, he stops and faces her. “Why won’t you allow me to wander as I will, as we have been? To walk, run without thought?” He rasps breathless. “Let me be a coward.”
She pushes herself onto her feet. “Atlas,” Gene smiles with her face’s bottom half, “you don’t want to be. You’ve never been.”
Atlas rubs his lips, twists his face. “I only wish to be free.”
“Ever since my Mazda got hit with a Titan, I’ve watched you go out there—” Gene sharpens her stare “—bruise your face, cut your back, get tortured nine tenths of the way to death—and prayed you’d come back without blood dripping from your shirt because I’m tired. I’m tired of my chest collapsing and, too often during these never-ending days, I can’t sleep and I can’t breathe. But I let you go. And I let you because The Presage’s yours and your name’s just a fraction of a portion of how important you are and you were born with beautiful eyes and courage three dimensions still can’t understand. You’re so much more.”
Gene shakes, her voice, hands, bottom lip, and she grabs her arm. Frowning, Atlas steps toward her. She speaks first.
“I love you.”
Glacial heat spills through Atlas’s veins. He stops breathing.
“Much—” Gene chokes. “Much too, very much.”
His vision blurs.
“Atlas?”
He stares.
“Are you all right?”
“Feeling somewhat nauseous.”
“Okay. I—” Gene wipes her eye and lowers her voice. “Sorry.”
She turns toward the forest.
Atlas watches her hand swing in motion, lift as she spins, and steps, reaches, and grabs it. Sweat prickles his hairline electric, charges blood hot. He holds her fingers and she turns around.
He steps again. Releasing her fingers, Atlas grips Gene’s neck with his left hand, her jaw with his right, the hair that drapes her ear brushing his knuckles. He steps; she stares. Her lips part and exhale draws the pounding of his throat to his face, where warmth then disperses in their inhales and cools, pulls the fire from his cheeks.
Gene looks up. Atlas draws his chin down. He rests his forehead against hers, blinks a second too long, and meets Gene’s wide eyes. They soften: hers and his. She blinks. He does again, seeing black for longer than last time, and when he opens his eyes, Gene’s remain closed.
She curves her hands around his neck. They spark a hundred living conduits to flow and web some tightness, some ionic warmth, some chilling, bristling midsummer wind down his spine, to each limb. Atlas closes his eyes and sees more.
“Is this normal?” he says.
Her clicks of a whisper answer his with finality. “Does it matter?”
His heart jolts. Atlas leans into Gene, parts his lips to match hers, and kisses her. He tilts his head and compresses his lips; and finds a well-oiled, autonomous machine pumps his blood that beats his thumb that brushes her cheek. Gene tenses her fingers slipped under his tunic collar. She presses back.
Wind rustles distant treetops and its fringe funnels between Gene and Atlas and plays with the hair sweeping his knuckles. It douses his pulse. The breeze swirls into a gust that traces the sun-soaked softness on his lips.
He withdraws and inhales. Eyelids crinkled, forehead against hers, he rolls again toward her.
But Gene slides a hand down his shoulder. He pauses. She breathes sharp air, rate quickened, temperature heightened, and eases pressure on his neck and shoulder. Atlas rolls back his forehead and opens his eyes a second before she opens hers.
Her cheeks burn red. Eyelids pink. Hill’s gust quiets, lays to rest its petals and perfumes drifted from under willow tree gossamers one hill over, bumps permeating Atlas’s skin, and Gene smiles and drops her hands. She steps back. Brow furrowed, she smiles an askew smile and glances around the grass, hushing the rise and fall of her next shoulders’ breath.
Atlas lets his heavy arms pull toward earth. Face blank, he stands still and stares at Gene.
She sways and shifts and tucks her hair behind her ear. She peeks up through her eyelashes and, her lips curved, their highlight now brighter than one minute past, glimpses his eyes. The embers behind Atlas’s sternum burst a millisecond’s flame. Then Gene spins around. She walks for the forest.
He trails. His legs wobble, his breath sputtered, and he ducks beneath branches and steps with Gene the journey back to Samuel’s Mustang without knowledge of it. The crunch of twigs dissolves at his ears. The weight of each footfall bears no shock. Their edges smooth, suspension limber, Atlas touches leaves before his face and becomes them.
“Curfew’s at ten, you double-crossing punks.”
The sound reaches Atlas seconds late. He squints through black and at Samuel leaning against his Mustang, arms folded. Samuel scowls.
“Where have you two been?”
Gene grins and shrugs.
“Ah.” Samuel purses his lips and relaxes posture. “Attie kissed you. About time.”
Gene’s mouth falls open. “Samuel.”
“Not my fault the feminine toddler likes you.”
She points at him, says a breath, and closes her mouth. She steps around the vehicle. “Don’t talk to me.”
Gene gets in on the passenger’s side and slams the door. Atlas wanders to the Mustang. Samuel nudges him on the arm.
“Was it good?” Samuel whispers.
“Uh-huh. Don’t be a daffodil.”
“I only—how long is permissible to sustain it?”
“That’s up to her body language. What did it tell you?”
“I don’t know. My eyes were closed.”
“Good, good. That’s good. Were you wearing cologne?”
“I was wearing my clothes.”
“Very conservative.”
Atlas gazes over Samuel’s shoulder, his forefinger touching his bottom lip, vision fogging, and doesn’t remember entering conversation. Sky slivers of navy peek through the trees. Birds chirp in the canopies, atmosphere’s gradient washes stars dim, and Atlas blinks. His heart jumps two beats.
Samuel follows his stare. “Better get going. Eden’s waiting to suckle our blood through a bendy straw. Cherry flavored.”
They climb into the Mustang. Engine humming, ears adjusting, they back from the trees, skid grass tracks onto asphalt, accelerate down the road that curves with earth to horizon. Gene sits in the back and Atlas twists to glance at her. She presses her lips to a smile, her hair glowing amber in rising sun, and he doesn’t smile back.
He faces the windshield. Sun weighs on sky and his shoulders count each gram.
XXXII
Stacking the Pyre
“You’re the one who bled all over my six-thousand-dollar leather seating and didn’t apologize.”
“And you misplaced a, and I quote, ‘hallowed Twinkie’ in this vehicle for two days, discovered it, and placed it into your mouth.”
“It was hallowed.”
“It was out of its wrapping.”
“They’re not making Twinkies anymore, noodle bundle. Sorry if I’m savoring—”
“Samuel, Twinkies returned to the market eons ago.”
“Go die, Denim. This doesn’t concern you.”
“Accordingly, the ringed onion sustenance fallen under your seat was also hallowed?”
“My leather seating was hallowed. You left your bod glass on my floor mats. Minus seventy points for you.”
“I intended to sweep them—”
“I intended to sweep them out. You know what the road to hell is paved with.”
“No.”
“Also, I’m taller than you. Boom. Bonus right there.”
“Such relates how?”
“Don’t give me that. You were scouring me with your unblinking snake eyes that one time I shaved my face and we all know why. And the first time you showered was a couple weeks ago.”
“In Sidera, I had experienced thorough, frequent contamination purges.”
“Were you frequently, thoroughly contaminated?”
“N—”
“I’m up to 228 points.”
“You shave publicly.”
“You probably contamination purged publicly.”
“Such wasn’t my choosing!”
“229 to negative seven.”
“I can drive wind.”
“Think about what you said just now. Think about it.”
“Gene.” Atlas groans and reels to face her in the back.
Elbows on her lap, she blows an exhale that lifts her face from her palms, red indenting her cheeks.
“Which of us is more elegant?” Atlas says. “Me or Samuel?”
Samuel makes a noise. “No, no, no. I never used the word ‘elegant.’ I probably said ‘swank’ and you muddled it.”
“You said, ‘Attie-fatty-ba-batty, have you hardly seen—”
“Even.”
“—even seen brick fist among tiff-and-ease—”
“Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”
“—and I expressed, ‘No, please cease,’ and you said, ‘Then you have zero elegance.’ ”
“See. Elegance. Not elegant.”
“Hold your tongue. Gene,” Atlas turns to her, “which of us—”
“—has more elegance?” Samuel says.
He takes his eyes off the road and onto Gene for seconds too long. Atlas leans toward her. She rubs her temples.
She says, “Samuel—”
“I knew it!” Samuel points at Atlas. “You’ll never be as elegant as me.”
“—your fuel gauge is on empty.”
He squints at the dashboard.
“There’s a Chevron up there.” Gene motions to the two-story-tall sign peeking from trees a couple blocks down the road. “Stop there. We can drive into Pittsburgh after.”
Samuel mutters something. Atlas looks into the reflection on his window and, bushes blurring, asphalt morphing into a gray river, thinks of last night. His center constricts. A vortex spins in his chest and its friction sparks a fire equal the sun blinking between trees, settling gold on his cheek. His lips’ corner upturns.
The Mustang brakes. They turn, park at the first pump under the gas station canopy, and Samuel gets out. He walks for the building. Smile falling, Atlas rubs his hands, glances at Samuel, then Gene and the purpled scratches healing too slowly across her collarbone. He slumps under a new constriction that steals the warmth in his chest.
He faces Gene. “I’ll return. Remain here.”
She tenses her brow. “Okay. What—”
Atlas closes his door on her voice. He strides across the lot, around a moving vehicle that blares its horn, and through the building doors. He scans the tops of aisles of shelves of colorful lettering, wrapping, shapes, sizes, rows. Samuel’s black hair caps the far shelves. Atlas walks into his aisle.
His back to Atlas, Samuel clenches his jaw and sighs at the ceiling. “Can I ever have one, just—please, good devil—one minute away from your boob mug?”
Atlas stops and stands.
Samuel spins around. “A mug is a face. You have boob face. I’m saying you have boob face.”
“I must speak with you,” Atlas says.
“I’m browsing. We can chat later.”
“Now. It is imperative.”
Samuel bends down and leans into a shelf on the right. “Mmkay. Let me grab an herbal tea, my Brian Eno mixtapes, and a yoga class seasonal admission and then we can talk about our feelings.”
Atlas curls his fingers into fists. Straightening posture, Samuel places his finger on Atlas’s forehead and pushes until he steps back. Atlas cringes. And narrows his eyes caustic, though his mark barely budges his dead gaze. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Samuel scans the section of food bars where Atlas stood a second past.
Breath ragged, Atlas locks his jaw, squeezes his fist, and pops up and back his elbow. He thrusts his knuckles into Samuel’s cheek. Samuel staggers backward.
He rubs his face. “What the he—”
“We,” Atlas flexes his fingers, “need to talk.”
Cheek scarlet, nostrils flared, Samuel glares into Atlas with woken interest and shakes his head. He reaches inside his jacket, for the bulge Atlas well knows. The attendant behind the front counter, meters distant, tilts his head at them and Samuel meets his eyes over Atlas’s shoulder. Samuel smiles, pulls out his hand; he holds a package of gum. The attendant resumes business with a walker at the counter.
“That hurt,” Samuel chucks the gum at Atlas’s head, “my feelings.”
Atlas scoffs. “I apologize. Do you wish to converse about them over an herbal tea?”
Samuel grinds his teeth and points. “You don’t even know what that is and your sarcasm was way too obvious. Three out of ten for effort.”
“You can’t drive into Pittsburgh.”
“Pretty sure I can.”
“After I reach the city’s edge,” Atlas squints around the aisle, through the building’s front windows, “you must accompany Gene and drive far away—away from here, this province, away from Pylon.”
Samuel’s forehead crumples. “You kidding me? No.”
“I beg you.” Atlas’s voice trembles. “Accomplish this one deed and you can finally be free of me, doing all you wish whe
rever you wish. You can enjoy every indulgence and freedom from responsibility. You never have to see me again.”
Samuel stares and his eyes lose their luster. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve got plans. And do you plan on stopping war by yourself?”
“Eden is the war’s lead. I will kill her.”
“Mm-mm. You can’t, Attie. Sorry.”
“Who then? Imperium knows you wouldn’t.”
Samuel twitches and raises his voice and stretches his neck. “She is,” he pounds his palm, “stronger than you and this war’s bigger than her. You need to spice up your strategy.”
“Do this.” Atlas meets his eyes and frowns. “Please.”
“There was this unspoken agreement we’d find the Pylon opener guy and keep the little key safe together, remember?”
“And you wish to die in the process.”
“Well, psh, yeah.”
“Only a coward hopes for death.”
Samuel leans back. “You knew this whole time that I—”
“Living is the harder option. Make what you live to die for worth the sacrifice.”
His eyes gleam and face contorts. “I—” Samuel throws his hand through the air. “You know what it’d be for. Those people—the ones I took lived to die screaming.”
“Gene needs you.”
Samuel looks into the linoleum and rubs his neck.
“We don’t know what travel Eden is preparing this day. If it is what I fear, Pylon could open within hours and I didn’t escape Sidera to live among it on Earth.” Atlas lowers tone. “The Presage, Pylon’s prophecy, is for and about me. Not you. Not Gene. Protect her.”
“Eden’s luring you.” Samuel raises his eyebrows. “You know this, right?”
“Yes.”
“You never change.”
“Allow me to discover why I escaped Sidera. I’m trusting you, Samuel.” Atlas inhales six liters of air. “I’m asking you to trust me.”
He looks for Samuel’s smirk; Samuel only stares, arms folded.
“Pick my gum up,” Samuel says.
“What?”
“Bitty package. Pick it up.”
Atlas bends down, grips the package, and hands it to him.
“Hey, thanks. Don’t ever hit me again or I’ll sit on your face while you sleep.” Samuel pockets the gum and walks to checkout.
Atlas: A Pylonic Dawn Page 40
