“As if!” Arana threw the headset at him.
Maddy walked toward the doors, pulling out a pack of smokes.
Don’t be stupid.
But I was nothing if not a complete fucking idiot with another twenty minutes to kill. I went after her. Maddy was lighting up when I stepped outside. She took a drag and blew the smoke directly in my face.
“Hello to you too,” I said, following her away from the door.
Maddy leaned against the habitat, arms crossed and cigarette caught between her lips. I stood nearby, not too close in case she had that laser blade on her and still wanted to use it, and finished my beer without a word.
I struggled to breathe properly. Frightened. Excited. Terrified. Hope hadn’t been born within me, nor cultivated. Over my life, the universe reminded me that hope was a meaningless gesture leading to the same destination; disappointment. Though I asked myself how I could have changed what happened, I could never imagine a reality where Maddy survived and we reunited. I didn’t risk playing any conversations over in my head out of fear that I wouldn’t remember her voice or, worse, her phantom would further haunt me.
It wasn’t a surprise that she spoke first after smoking half her cigarette. “Did you come out here to stare at me?”
“That depends. If I talk, will you attempt to take my life again?” I asked.
“That depends on what you talk about.”
It was like standing on the edge of a cliff with nowhere else to go but down, and the water was deep and dark, waves crashing against the shore, threatening to break me to bits.
“Since when were you interestedin botany?” I asked, waiting to discover if I could make it to safer shores.
“I’m not. If I continue, I’m going into geology.”
“Wouldn’t that put you… underground, at times?”
Like our parents had been on that forsaken asteroid that held more corpses than the living.
“Sometimes,” she answered. “The work isn’t like the Colony. It’s safer, pays well, too.”
I couldn’t, no matter what they offered. Spending that time in the cave was more than I ever wanted. To be down there, in a place where we could be lost and forgotten, crushed into dust — I couldn’t.
Maddy and I said we would never do that. Our parents weren’t around often. They worked themselves to the bone to provide for us. Mom and Pops had their addictions. Dad kicked his, but even on their darkest days, when times were tough and we weren’t sure what the future held, they ensured they were home for bedtime. They told us stories or sang us to sleep. We slept in the same bed. The loft was too small, so we’d wake every morning in a pile. Then they died.
We said goodbye that morning — love you, see you later — but all we saw was that stupid message on the broken holo screen on the loft wall;We are so sorry for your loss.And beneath it, the announcement that there were three new job openings, if we were interested.
The next morning, it was only Maddy and me in that big, empty bed where we made a promise. We would never go to the mines. Maddy and I did what we could, anything else, no matter how degrading or awful.
“Then what got you into rocks and shit?” My question made hersnort.
Maddy rubbed the cigarette between her fingers. The ashes reflected in her eyes. “An acquaintance had an extensive gem collection and even better connections. They got me here.”
Ouracquaintancesshould be dead, all killed by those who tried to do the same to us.
She crushed the cigarette to stick in her pocket. “I’d ask how you got here, but I have it figured out.”
“Share with the class, then.”
“Got yourself out on the Katlan but didn’t make it off the dock. It should have landed at the Vaigo docks, which had a heavy militia presence at the time. Once discovered, you were offered a choice and took the best option out.”
I raised my glass and drank the last of it. “Ten years with twenty more to go.”
“If you live that long.”
A definite possibility, one I would do anything to ensure wouldn’t happen.
I watched her head toward the doors. “I’m pretty good at my job, actually.”
