It seemed hours before Sam matched her descent and she landed gently on his back. He coasted along the shield layer, swept upward on an exit vector.
girl, you’re crazy.
“I know.” She couldn’t force her grin from her face.
By the time Sam had reached the atmosphere barrier, Alina was snuggled into her command chamber, sleeping peacefully the sleep of those who had fallen into a sun.
They left Fort Myers forever.
“Mmm hmm.” Judith looked at the bear with skepticism. “That’s it? A toy?”
“Not just any toy, Jud. Honeybear Brown.”
She picked him up and turned him over. “And this toy is important to our mission how?”
“He’s a character in both timelines. A potential Delta crossover in and of himself.”
“Paul,” her metallish eyes betraying her disbelief, “it’s a fucking toy.”
“Not to Hunter.” He took the bear from Judith’s grip. Static and shift and
The bear moved. Jud jumped.
“Honeybeeeeear, Honeybear Brown!” The toy’s eyes lit up. “I’m the nicest little bear in the whole darned town!” He looked around the room. “Where’s Windy?”
Jud looked like she was about to answer Honeybear, but she shook her head. “Paul, that thing’s god damned scary. I should know. I’m god.”
“You’re neat!” Honeybear smiled at Jud.
Paul stifled a chuckle.
“Take that talking bear and get back to work, author. Next run, you’d better bring me back a human being. No stuffed camels or ostriches, you freak.”
“Gotcha, sweetness.”
He picked up Honeybear and faded with a smirk.
She’d heard that their counterparts on the Judas side of the Delta bleed piloted vessels powered and protected by black holes, and the captains linked with their ships through mechanical gauntlets and webs of silver (not exactly her silver, but a silver nonetheless). She’d heard that they had fought a war against an army of consciousnesses emulated with machines from the future. She’d heard that they were cannibals. She liked cannibal movies; she still believed in werewolves.
Sam draped her with her silver, the veil webbing and penetrating her skin, concentrating over her cardiac shield plate. Locked securely into the firing chamber, she shared all that was her existence with all that was Samayel.
She wondered how different she was from the Alina on the other side, if there even was an Alina on the other side.
“What’s on the plate for today?”
smash and grab mission. we’re meeting up with remnants of the fort john wayne fleet.
“Frosty’s fleet?”
captain frost, yes.
“Wait.. This is a frag or a bleed?”
bleed.
“Oh.”
well, lock and load, kid. we’re hitting the stream.
“Jim?”
shut up.
“Jimbo?”
shut UP.
“Come on, pardner. You gotta talk to me sometime.”
no i don’t.
“You just did.” Hank grinned from his command chamber. “Anyhow, what’s it look like out there?”
whiter than jo’s inner thigh.
“That white, huh? That must be pretty white. You know, one time I was at a saloon in—”
for the love of all things holy, shut UP.
Crawl, crackle.
“You feel that?”
certainly did. initiating full sensor sweep.
“Looks like we ain’t alone out here, buddy.”
They fell through time.
tomorrow and tomorrow and just make a thread that says “no” and
“Hey, dude.”
I won’t lie. His voice caught me off-guard. No one had ever been with me before, not there, not in the little bubble I’d carved for myself, just for myself, deep within the registry of the Judith ME.
“What’s goin’ on?”
I’d thought people into existence before, but they’d only been characters. Whistler and Hank. Benton and West. Jacob’s voice slammed into and through me, echoed through the sphere of nothing within which I floated, and all became my parents’ living room: the old green carpet snaked with guitar cords, the bite of woodsmoke, brownies for us in the kitchen. I knew this without vision; I was too tired and broken to open my eyes.
Lithe fingers climbed over nylon strings, coaxed forgotten songs from a long-dead soul.
“I don’t know anymore.” I knew that choke in my voice.
He stopped playing.
They’d told me, of course. I’d asked to be inserted into the fourteen-seven variant, just two years into the future from which West and Benton had removed me. Hope had come with me, had stood with me behind the mourners at the burial. Wraiths. She’d held my hand between its frequent trips to my mouth, choking back sobs that no one but she could hear in that when.
When my future self placed a guitar pick on the coffin and touched it, he looked up for a moment, and in those eyes, I saw everything that I knew I must end. What tragic cycle, what series of events could inspire such madness in those once-forever eyes? The then-gaunt frame sweating under a gray suit suddenly entirely too big, the sun-burned nose a red foil to those pools of teared ash, hands and wrists shaking, scarred with
He was the madness I must end.
Other friends would have asked if I wanted to talk about it. He knew better. He started playing the guitar again and
bonfire, scorching the leaves of the ice storm-tilted tree that was now entirely too close to the pit and the wind was entirely too cold for the early-summer night I knew it was from the taut skin on my nose and arms and neck, the slivers of chaff now roiling beneath the surface of my forearms, placed there not tenderly by hundreds of bales of hay stacked mindlessly into the mow.
His song never changed, never faltered. He hummed along sometimes.
“I miss you.”
A string snapped. His hand went to his neck, found the speck of blood and wiped it away, red from flesh too lifeless, too gray. I thought color back into him.
“Miss you, too, dude.” He pulled the broken string from the guitar and threw it into the fire. He kept playing; he could do that.
There were so many things I wanted to ask: the hows and whys of his hanging, those last moments. What happened after the electricity had flickered away? But I knew that there were no answers in this place. No one within the Judith or Judas programs had any idea what happened when we died. I guess I’d written it that way for a reason. I didn’t really want to know.
“We’ll have to get together the next time you’re home. I should be around.”
The broken string crimped and danced as it burned.
“Yeah.” From that side of the fire, he couldn’t see eyebrows furrow, lips twitch, two lines of tear slip down stubbled cheeks. “I should be home again soon.”
“It’s easier when nowhere feels like home.”
Jagged exhalation. I struggled to maintain.
“Well, the bed is looking pretty good right now.” He placed the guitar back in its battle-scarred case: stickers, newspaper clippings, scatter of plectrums. Snapped the snaps, stood up, brushing ash and bark from his knee-holed jeans.
“Damn, I want some eggnog.” He smiled that sly, shy smile. “Goodnight.” He started to walk down the driveway.
“Jake?”
“Yeah?”
“What do I—How do I—What am I supposed to do?”
He frowned. “Huh?”
I forced a smile. “Want me to drive you home?”
“Oh. Nah. I’ll walk. Stars are out.”
“Be careful.”
“Yeah.”
He walked down the driveway and the image faded to nothing: bubble.
I sat there for a long time.