What are we supposed to do?
What are we supposed to do?
What the fuck am I supposed to do?
“She’s probably at the hospital,” Enzokuhle said, wrapping his arms around him.
He jumped at his contact, not realizing he’d dissociated.
Their living room came into focus. He tried to ground externally in it. The books on the coffee table had been knocked off. One of them lay open, turning pages of glossy galaxies. A chandelier dripped frosted tears against the dark walls of the vaulted ceiling. Some of the bulbs in it were rattling still in distant, periodic shockwaves.
“Even on leave, she can’t sit still,” Enzokuhle tried to remind him. “You know how she is.”
Still, worry was a pit in his stomach.
Enzokuhle’s eyes revealed the same pit in his own.
“We gotta find her and get out of the city.”
“I know.”
“We--” he shuddered, losing his train of thought and wrapping his arms around his friend.
They were silent and shivering for a while. A door slammed from up the hall. Footsteps ran down, past them then away from them. Then, they ran down the stairs, skipping as many as they could on their way down.
Lithos’ mind drifted down to the officers on landing four with a shiver (and then another one).
“Take a second,” Enzokuhle said, patting him on the back and letting go. “You didn’t eat anything, right?”
He shook his head, his eyes following the line of paintings of trees and nebulas to the kitchen table against the vaulted windows. The vase on the table had been knocked over. It was dripping water and foliage onto the floor.
Enzokuhle gave his shoulder a squeeze, “Let me at least grab something for you for later?”
“Mm,” he started to protest.
You haven’t slept. You haven’t eaten.
“Coffee?” his friend offered.
“Always,” he laughed, sadly. “Yeah, yeah, that’s… that’s a good idea.”
“Alright,” he was through the archway and disappeared into the kitchen.
As he made suggestions to the computer, testing its capabilities, Lithos made his way down the hallway. He slid the door of his office open and sighed at the desk. It reflected the orange glint of the sun off its surface, and threw the room into that off-kilter hue. The monitor of his desk was off, but he still shuddered at it, uncertain if he had fully shut it down the last time he’d been home.
He took the risk of being seen, regardless. He crossed the small office to the closet and rolled it open. Inside, on the floor, were two emergency grab-bags of comms equipment.
How am I going to explain this to him?
He sighed, grabbed one of the bags, and made his way back to the dining room. He cleared his throat in the archway, and Enzokuhle’s eyes bounced from him to the bag on his shoulder.
“Woah.”
“Plenty of comms in here,” he said, holding it out to him.
Enzokuhle put one of the mugs of coffee he’d collected on the counter Lithos stood beside. He took the bag from his hands and grunted under its unexpected weight, “Uh, friend?”
He still wasn’t sure how to explain its existence.
I’m the next in succession.
It was on a need to know basis.
“Did you… already have this packed?”
“Two of them.”
He seemed alarmed as he dug through it, “This is comprehensive, Lithos.”
“Yeah,” he shrugged weakly in his guilt.
“What happened?”
He closed his eyes, shook his head, turned around, and walked back down the hallway.
“Friend--”
Oh.
“--coffee?”
He walked back, grabbed the mug from the counter, and smiled sadly down at Enzokuhle, who was pulling a small tablet from the main pocket. “Thanks.”
His friend frowned at it, then up at him.
Before he could repeat his question, Lithos hid his face in his mug and continued back down to their bedroom. He frowned at the door, his mug, his broken arm.
He jumped, as Enzohkule asked his question from beside him, tucking the tablet under his arm, holding his hand out, “What happened?”
Lithos handed him his mug so he could slide the door open.
Inside, their typically pristine bedroom was a catastrophe. Every book, it seemed, had fallen off the bookcase on the far wall. Tchotchkes and photos on their bedside tables had toppled to the ground. The bed was unmade, which was unlike her.
He took the mug back from Enzokuhle, trying to find a sense of normalcy in its steam against his face. He found none. He drained it quickly, content to let its contents burn down his throat. He put the empty mug on the empty shelf as he crossed to her side of the bed. He didn’t mind all that much (but, not at all) that his friend was there as he pulled her pillow against his face and cried into it.
“Don’t count her as a loss.”
“She’s in danger,” he said, his voice muffled.
“Alright, so are we.”
“We’re all in danger!” he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed, his knees shaking.
“Mm,” Enzokuhle was out of his depth here.
They all were.
“How… am I supposed to help ensure nominal safety,” he sobbed, gritting his teeth in the pillow, “when I’m too busy trying to save my friends?”
“Well, I’d argue your friends are the team you need to collect?” it wasn’t so much an argument as it was a question. “Right? In order to save anyone? I mean, you’ve got me, I’m the head of programming; you’re trying to get to Aaliyah, right?”
“Mm….”
“Head of medical?”
“Mm,” he lowered the pillow to find his face print printed in ash and blood.
“Alexander? Head of teleportation?”
“Enzo--”
“Stavros? Directing Officer of Nominal Peace?”
“--I appreciate what you’re trying to do,” he said, staring at a particularly dark and long stretch of blood he’d left on the pillowcase, “but I’m actively hiding from information.”
“Let me push that program, okay?”
“I don’t want whatever’s got the head administrators to ping our location and find us.”
“It’s better to do this sooner so they lose that access, Commander.”
“You don’t have to do that, Enzo.”
“Lee, look,” Enzokuhle showed him the powered-off tablet. “We can’t do nothing.”
He nodded slowly.
“It’s a risk, yes, but it’s--”
“--necessary, yes, you’re right.”
“It’s not about being right.”
He smiled, grateful entirely for his friend to take the weight of the world for a moment. He stood back up from the bed and slapped a hand on his shoulder on his way past to the bathroom.
“Wise man once told me,” he said, watching him go past, “‘It’s not about being right--”
Lithos’ weak smile strengthened just a little sliding the door open.
“‘--it’s about doing your best until you can do better.’”
“Thanks, Enzo,” he said, hovering in the doorway with his hand on the light panel.
“So,” he sighed, “permission to push the program?”
“Yup,” it was his fist command, and it made him feel ill, “granted.”
The tablet blipped on; so did the bathroom lights.
“Deactivate location ping for this device--”
Enzokuhle’s commands were lost to the whine in his ears. Aaliyah’s ring was still in the dish by the sink. Her CosmoCorps credentials were missing from their hook on the wall. The soap had fallen out of its dish and into the sink basin. The shower door had shattered. He beelined for their closet and found her uniform missing, not her scrubs.
“Aaliyah, what are you doing?” he whispered. He grabbed her ring from the dish and attached it to the chain his own credentials hung from around his neck with a shaking hand. He finally caught his own reflection, and it gave him pause.
There were lacerations all over his face. The ash stuck to blood that was tricking from a head wound, and was cleared away by a riverbed from his eyes. Blood and ash was smeared across his face from when he’d rubbed it. His nose was broken. His eyes were bruised. There was a line of a laceration that had almost taken his vision from him, but he had no idea until now. The expression of the face in the mirror shattered from surprise into the terror he’d been swallowing back (just barely).
He turned on the water, watched the soap spin and sud and steam.
“Alright--”
He jumped.
“--the program’s been pushed. Should be instant.”
He looked over at him through the mirror, hollow-eyed.
“What’s going on?” his expression softened.
So, he told him, “Her uniform’s gone, not her scrubs.”
“Oh?” his eyebrows shot up.
“Her credentials, too,” he pointed at the empty hook.
“Oh,” but Enzokuhle’s eyes were focused on his broken arm, “right.”
“She left her ring in the dish.”
“Lee, one thing at a time, okay?”
“Enzo--”
“Let’s get your arm fixed, okay?”
“--what is she doing?”
“She’s got doctor’s kits here, right?”
He pointed at the cabinets below, and Enzokuhle went searching. Lithos brushed the glass off the toilet seat with a towel and sat down on it.
“Well, look,” he said from inside the cabinet, “it’s probably protocol to go into the hospitals in uniform to be able to register as help, right?”
He wasn’t sure. In a chaotic catastrophe, it made sense to be as blatant about intent as possible. He relaxed, a little.
“You’ve got enough to worry about right now,” he said. He thunked his head against the roof of the cabinet and cursed.
“Find it?”
“Mm,” he groaned, emerging from the cabinet and frowning at him, “no.”
“Shit,” he muttered, rubbing his face again. His stomach lurched and dropped as he fought another swell of panic, “She probably took all the fucking kits with her. I told her--” he cut himself off.
Enzokuhle raised an eyebrow at him.
He rolled his eyes, then his neck back.
Shit.
“Lee,” he said, firmly. He straightened and leaned against the counter in front of him, crossing his arms.
“Mm,” he groaned, closing them.
“What happened.”
“I don’t know.”
“Why is she on leave?”
“Enzo--”
He sighed, frustrated, “Why do you have emergency comm bags packed?”
“--please.”
He was quiet for a moment, shifting against the counter and between his feet. “What did you tell her?”
“To leave me a note,” he sobbed, opening his eyes up to the ceiling, “if we ever got separated!”
Enzokuhle rolled the drawers open, and sighed. There was a rustling of paper as he said, “Like this?”
He blinked, rolling that lazy look back over to him.
In his hands was a note in her elegant cursive. It was uncharacteristically messy.
“Honey,
I won’t leave you up a creek. I’m at the ER closest to qtrs. Be safe. I love you. Come find me. Let’s get the FUCK out of here!!
Love always,
A”
He hugged the paper to his chest, hunching over it and sobbing as he nodded.
Enzokuhle unzipped a bag and clicked his tongue, “Here it is.”
His world was crashing down around him.
I don’t have time for this.
Get back up.
Take a deep breath--
In for five…
Out for five…
--and get back up.
“Let me see your arm, friend.”
“What?” he asked, finding himself blinking disoriented stars out of his eyes.
“Alright,” Enzokuhle said, kneeling on the towel in front of him and pulling the makeshift bindings off. “Let’s do some breathing together, okay?”
“Ye-...” his heart was hammering in his ears. He barely heard him. “Yeah.”
“Yeah,” he laughed, his voice wavering, “I’m freaking the fuck out, too, Lee.”
“In for five--” Lithos started them off verbally, but they continued for a several cycles of
In for five…
Out for five…
as Enzokuhle finished slicing off the bindings with his laser knife; as Lithos shot his eyes to the shattered glass of the shower door, and as it shimmered like garnets against the tile floor; as the device in his friend’s hand hummed; as the pain in his arm was gone.
He tested his hand, smiling in relief at a friend whose expression had hardened in focus and upset.
His and the device’s focus was on his head, along the line of a laceration down his face and through his cheek. As he focused on his nose, he inhaled sharply and asked, “What happened.”
Lithos winced, “We need a plan.”
“We check in at the hospital, then call Savros and Alexander en route to the Subterranean with Aaliyah,” he dismissed his attempted distraction, quickly. His eyes sharpened in his, a spotlight, “What happened.”
“I’m not authorized to tell you that.”
“You are the entire leading entity of the corp, Lee!” he shouted. “Why won’t you talk to me?!”
He stammered, to his own detriment, “It was, uh, it--”
His hardened expression doubled down, incredulous.
“--it… was… weird--” he shuddered against another dual shiver down his spine.
What is that?
Yet another dual shiver traced his spine.
I don’t like that.
“--sp-ace… shit….”
Then, he was furious, “Are you kidding me?! Do you think I’m an idiot, Lithos?!”
“No,” he whispered, shaking his head. He kept his eyes in his. “I don’t think you’re even remotely a fool, Enzokuhle.”
“What is that?!”
“It’s a secret I told Aaliyah I’d keep,” he said, softly. “It’s not my story to tell.
“We tell each other everything.”
“This is weird--”
“You’re some of my best friends,” he sobbed, “and neither of yah’ll even tell me why she went on leave.”
“--dark--”
“You told Alexander, but you didn’t tell me?!”
“--I did not tell Alexander!”
“Then, why do they know and I don’t?!”
“They were the supervising teleportation officer,” he insisted. “It’s both of their story to tell, not mine.”
“You shut me out,” he said, putting the medical device back in the bag and zipping it shut. “Lee, you’ve got emergency bags, packed from the perspective of two different departments.”
“I was in a dark place,” he pleaded, “and it was the only way I could deal with it.”
Enzokuhle’s heavy, furious breathing was his only response.
“I couldn’t talk to you about it,” his voice was hoarse, “because she begged me not to. Alex promised. I promised.”
His breathing was slowing, counted.
“I tell you everything,” he said, looking him back in the eye.
Enzokuhle had tears carving down his face, still twisted in its upset.
“It’s so hard,” he said (whispered, really) through a lump catching his voice, “to not tell you about this, Enzokuhle.” He sobbed, “It’s so hard, and I couldn’t take it, so I had to do something.”
Enzokuhle held his eyes for a moment before he nodded over his shoulder.
Lithos stood and made his way on shaking legs to the closet. He sifted through hangers for a moment with his formerly broken arm, then pulled two shirts off and held them out to his best friend.
“What are these for?”
“Post-garbage chute phase.”
“Ah, smart move.”
He pulled two pairs of pants, too, and carried them through the bedroom to the office. He grabbed his pack from the closet and unzipped the main compartment. He heard Enzokuhle walk in behind him, so he continued, “So, I did this.”
“I know you can’t tell me details,” Enzokuhle said, his voice hoarse, “but did this kind of… of--”
“Apocalypse?”
“So, yes?”
“Yes, knowing how the corps handles protocol and standard operating procedure--?”
“What a well-oiled machine it is?” Enzokuhle had his lips pursed to the side as Lithos shoved the pants into his bag.
He held his hand out for the shirts as he scowled, “PoSC-FPS.”
“Piece-of-Shit Cluster-Fuck Power Structure,” his friend muttered, passing them over.
“It, uh,” and he shuddered again against that double shockwave of a shiver that haunted him, “it was inevitable.”
I hate that.
Another pair; the way they seemed to respond to his distaste directly was becoming more of a pattern.
I don’t like this.
“I understand,” he sighed, “for what it’s worth.”
“It means everything to me,” he sighed, too, standing up and pulling his backpack on, “that you’re trying to and doing so.”
“I missed you, is all.”
He shrugged, staring at the closet floor.
“Let’s go find her, okay?”
“Okay.”
“You want to grab something else to try to eat?” Enzokuhle shifted out of the doorframe to let Lithos lead them out of the hallway, “or is what you have--”
“We need to make do with what we have,” he interrupted, quickly. “We’ve spent too much time here. We need to get Aalie.”
“I saw the snacks in your packs,” he said, trying to catch his attention. “Hey.”
“Hm?”
“Look at me, please?”
He did.
“I love you, my friend.”
“I love you, too.”
“Okay?” he asked, looking him intently in the eye.
He stared back at him the same, and nodded, “Okay.”