Attention: ALL
Subject: RC Presence
According to our allies at Guanghan Base, Blackstone Lunar Research Facility has officially surrendered to the Royal Corps after a days-long standoff. Casualty reports are expected by the end of today, though preliminary statements from the RC number them between four and five thousand. We understand that many among us will have lost friends, family, and colleagues, and we ask for patience and compassion as we grieve.
—Vice President Barre
“Sweet girl, I’m sorry I waited so long to tell you.” Andrek traced a curling pattern up and down my arm and held me against his chest.
It wasn’t like I was starving or anything, but I had missed him.
This. Us.
His skin moving with mine. The easiness of who we were together.
We lay on a mattress, a double, wedged into a tiny room that was more like a cubicle than a proper bedroom. Andrek’s surprise—I was still deciding how I felt about it—had been a converted storage room concealed behind the back wall of the kitchen, only accessible through a hidden panel along the side wall behind the pantry. New quarters, ish.
It was about the same size as our family quarters, minus my parents’ room, except he’d set it up completely differently to cordon off three minuscule bedrooms, saving the largest space for a living area, which was where we had left the others.
He could have asked for his own quarters, probably should have, but he hadn’t wanted my parents asking why he wanted it. So Andrek had designed this for all of us, a world of our own free of prying eyes or a wall comm, and Joule had been helping him commandeer materials and locate other spaces for everything that used to be here.
Short version: Andrek was moving out, from our shared quarters to this forgotten storage closet.
The longer version was a lot more complicated and would take me longer to process than it took for him to come up with.
He hadn’t wanted to spring this on anyone, he said, and he’d planned to get all the boxes and extra equipment out before he showed me. The pressure had simply been too much, between the guilt he carried about his connection with the RC, the increased need for secrecy in light of the investigations. He needed to be able to let his guard down somehow after holding that in all day, somewhere he wouldn’t be noticed.
“It’s not that I want space from you. Not you, or even them exactly.” He combed through my hair and planted a kiss on my forehead. “I just can’t stay in the middle like I’ve been, you know? You have every right to be angry at your mom, to feel whatever you need to feel, and I want to always take your side, but you’ve got to see where that leaves me. I’m still new at this whole ‘family’ thing, and I can’t always be ‘on’ like everyone needs. There’s stuff you don’t know about what they’re going through too, but it’s not my place to defend them, not when you need my support.”
I snuggled into his chest, mussing my hair worse but not caring. “What kind of stuff?”
“I just said.”
“Come on.” I pinched his jumpsuit, pulling it into my fist. “If I have to give up sleeping next to you every night, I want to know why.”
“First, you don’t have to give that up. You can stay here whenever you want. But it’s not my place to say.”
“Yes, it is! They’re basically your parents too, and you know they’ll never tell me if something’s wrong.”
He wrapped his hands around mine. “They’re falling apart, Lane. Working non-stop, as you know, but you don’t see all of it. Your mom, she’s struggling. A lot. She naps in her office sometimes, when it’s too much. She’s been taking antidepressants, but she hasn’t found the right fit yet. They’re not working. And your dad is paper-thin, you know? It’s so hard seeing them like that, like mushy, scared people, and then to see them screwing up so bad with you.”
I studied the ceiling stipple, thinking. Mom was on antidepressants? That actually made me feel better about wanting medicine for sleep. And Andrek said my parents were mushy?
Mushy.
“I had no idea.”
“Of course not. That’s the way they want it. I know you say you can’t handle more secrets, but please don’t let on that I told you.”
“I won’t.” How would I even bring that up if I wanted to? No way. “But maybe…”
“You can’t.”
“I’m saying that maybe I can cut them a little slack.”
“That’s my girl.”
“But I’m not moving here. Not permanently.” I thought of Faraday’s urn in the living room and how I liked waking up to her every day, even when it broke my heart. There wasn’t a chance my parents were ready to let that go yet either, so while she stayed with them, so would I. “Not yet anyway.”
“Oh,” he said, barely covering his disappointment. “What about the whole not sleeping thing?”
“I’ll take pills. The way I should have been since forever ago. In the meantime—” I freed my hands from his and twisted to face him. “You have nearly a whole week of apologizing to do before I let you go back to saving the world.”
“Is that what you think I’ve been doing?” he asked, smothering a smile.
“Not successfully, no,” I answered. “But I do think we’re about to change that.”
After grief group the next morning, I trailed behind Dr. Fromme, not sure what to say to get the pills I needed for sleep. Medical was swarming with patients when I checked myself in, and far busier than I’d ever seen it. I guessed the whole trust was a bundle of nerves.
An attendant got my name, and I took a seat in the corner. One after another, people approached the desk, then searched for an empty place. They were like me, with some diagnosis they hoped to manage better, or some invisible crisis likely brought on by stress. I sat straighter and met their gaze as they passed.
We were the same, and this was what health looked like. Everyone had their own special suck to manage. I was no different. I was not dangerous.
My smile rippled across the waiting room as I caught others’ attention. I liked to think it did at least.
A nurse emerged from the psych hall. “Tanner?”
I jumped to my feet.
“Please follow me.” She guided me into triage and settled me onto a reclined chair to take my vitals. This part was always the same, on Earth or the moon or anywhere else humans ended up. Blood pressure, temperature, eyes and ears and throat exposed before the medical gaze. Normal. “Any symptoms? New concerns?”
I coughed, but I didn’t know why. “I’m having panic attacks.”
It was easier than I expected to say aloud. Like breathing. Like saying, “I caught the flu,” or “I’m thirsty.”
Perfectly normal.
She gasped, not a big gasp, but this sharp intake of breath like she knew she shouldn’t react but it was too late already.
“Oh dear,” she whispered. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
Why was she sorry? Was I supposed to comfort her now? Tell her it was okay she didn’t know? How could she have?
“I don’t wear a special pin to announce it to everyone. So no worries.” I didn’t want to comfort her or be comforted by her now. I was here for them to tell me what to do, not for sympathy like this. I chewed my lip, watching her, waiting for her to take her polite pain back, so I didn’t have to hold it.
Hot potato, lady. Heads up.
She shook her head, just enough. Maybe at herself. “Are you having symptoms right now?” The tablet in her hand angled toward me. Another check box.
“I don’t think so, but... I might not know. Is my regular doctor on shift? Dr. Fromme? I’m in one of her groups.”
She tapped the screen. “She knows you’re here. You’ll see her shortly. So, what’s happening this morning?”
I pulled my legs to my chest. “I’d rather talk to her.”
“Of course, I understand. A few more questions.”
I craned my neck to see her screen, but I couldn’t make out the words. I’d been in such a good mood before! Lots of boxes left to check. “I’m not hearing voices except the ones I make up. No visions either. But, like, would I even know? My appetite’s fucked, and I’m hardly sleeping, but I’m not sure. I’m all dysregulated. I feel... Off. Sad. Distracted. Restless. Lonely when I shouldn’t be.”
“Have you experienced any—”
“Suicidal thoughts? No.”
“That’s good, Lane. What about violent thoughts?” She didn’t lift her gaze, which I was glad for, because I could tell she was afraid for me even though she tried to hide it.
Hot potato, back in my fumbling hands.
I was afraid too. “Not yet.”
“And you’re autistic but haven’t been on any medications before?”
“Just birth control.”
Her finger trembled as she tapped her screen some more. “That’s it then.” She was all confidence and routine. Now that she’d dumped her pity on me, she was free. “Wait here, and I’ll have some lunch brought around. We can’t have our dessert cook skipping meals.”
“Thanks,” I said, though I wasn’t sure what for.
She hovered over me when she rose, and I felt like a bug behind glass. “Wait here, please.”
“Oh.” That was it then. That was the best she had to give. “Thanks,” I repeated for no reason. I didn’t want to be angry with her, but I couldn’t wait for her to leave. When she did, I breathed easier. I had enough feelings to sit in by myself without hers too.
Alone in the room with nothing to do, my senses sharpened, desperate for something to hang onto. The trust was never truly quiet, not with the gravdrive and the air filters and who knew what else running all the time.
Now I heard it all distinctly. Ticking and churning, distant groans, and the yawning silence of space above it all that one forgot to listen for.
In the collective’s clinic in Masdar, the quiet had been much louder than this. Busier. Thick with insects and birds and bats. The far-off roar and howl of wind, scattering sand, and the metallic grind of the city industries. The hollow whistle of clay walls and tile rooftops. And always the call of human life, the horde of voices rising like a musical din.
I tried to slip into my last good dream, dragging the memory closer and swimming into its sounds. Though I could name what they should be—the forest full of wildlife, punctuated by fox cries, the stream’s song, the lake’s bank, my father’s copper-wound strings, my mother’s precise brush strokes, even my sister’s staccato breaths—I couldn’t put them back into my ears. I was too far gone.
My tail bone went numb from sitting too long in the chair, so I paced awhile in three short steps like a solo square dance. When the door opened, I came face to face with V, and it was the weirdest reversal of fates, because she was handing me a tray of food.
“You did good yesterday. Impressed me.”
Her eyes were embers. She had a lot more to say, but her ice armor was on, and she gripped her tablet like it was trying to jump out of her hands. She leaned the screen so I could read it.
George Rhodes. Our last suspect.
“Wish me luck?” she whispered.
“You won’t need it.”
The flare of her smile melted me, and I stole a kiss before pushing her out the door.
Dr. Fromme came in right after I finished my lunch and took me to her office. It had softer sofas than my quarters, a fainting couch, a couple desks, and the light shone from lamps instead of overheads or trim lights.
“Have a seat,” she said.
“No, thanks. I’ve been sitting for a while.” Pacing felt more like normal walking in here. I passed by a row of shelves and ran my fingertips over the artificial wood grain.
I saw her in my peripheral vision, for the first time noticing her as a regular person instead of just my grief group’s wise leader.
She was short like me. Cute. Younger than my mom but older than Faraday had been. Her tight curls were cropped short and chunky, and she didn’t have a uniform under her white lab coat. She wore some sort of painted jumpsuit, its pattern like a kaleidoscope. She projected so much Halle energy, I didn’t know how I never put together that they were mother and daughter before.
“I didn’t expect you on my calendar today,” she said. “Couldn’t get enough of me, I take it?”
“That’s it exactly.”
She laughed brightly. Why had I put this off? “So, trouble sleeping still? It’s good you came in. I was concerned. And you mentioned panic attacks to the nurse?”
“I keep seeing her on that day, you know? When I try to sleep. It happened during the moon quake too.”
“Your sister.” It wasn’t a question. “How do you feel about that?”
“I feel weird about the whole thing. I was... Embarrassed, I think? At first, anyway. I thought it would go away on its own. I didn’t realize I’d have to, like, live with it.”
“The panic attacks, you mean.”
“Yeah.”
“They might still go away,” she said. “On their own.”
“I’m afraid they won’t.”
She leaned forward from her perch atop the fainting couch’s spine. “I have something like that too. Panic disorder. Did I not mention it before?”
I stopped in my tracks.
“How does it make you feel to hear that?”
“I don’t know. Aren’t you supposed to be…?”
“Healthy? Do you think mental health is the absence of abnormality? Nothing funky or atypical happening upstairs?” She rolled her head around which made her curls flop and dance. “I doubt there’d be any practicing therapists if that were the requirement. I like to think of mental health as seeking out and deliberately applying sound mental habits. It doesn’t mean there’s nothing squirrelly to overcome along the way, or that some mental tangles don’t need extra work.”
I respected her more the more she talked. “I think I like knowing you have it too. I feel less on display. Like there’s hope.”
“There’s always hope,” she said, “if you’re willing to fight for it.”
I thought of my date with Joule and Andrek, how Joule had launched himself off the steel beams despite how scared he felt. If I could do that, just a little more, I could join in rather than watching others have fun without me, feeling small and far and outside.
“You mean, like, if I want to fly, first I have to jump.”
“Precisely. Lane, if you weren’t having panic attacks from what we lived through, I’d be surprised. As it is, most of the trustees are riddled with anxiety right now, if not from our lives before, from the RC blowing horns at our gates like we’re their personal Jericho.”
“I get it,” I said, though I didn’t actually.
“You little liar!” She clapped her hands like a delighted child, and I thought of Halle again. They had the same playful gestures and happy hair. “I’m saying that it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Even if we weren’t living in extraordinary circumstances, some of us are simply wired for extra hurt. The good news is that you’ve already done the hard part. Coming here for help was the jump. Now let’s get you flying!”
I smiled back. “You and Halle are so much alike. I don’t know how I missed it. All in my head and stuff.”
She nodded in what I took as total understanding. “Let’s pull you out of there. I want to start you on a low dose of anti-anxiety pills and see you twice a week for counseling starting tomorrow. It’ll be challenging work, but I’ve seen you in the kitchen. Effort isn’t your issue.”
I settled on the sofa to see her better. “How do I find out what is?”
Not simply was the answer. Nor quickly.
Three private sessions later, Dr. Fromme and I were still scraping at the surface of my troubles.
I’d complained to V that it seemed like a waste of time, like I ought to be focused on stopping the RC or, at the very least, Faraday’s memorial, but she insisted that my mental health mattered whether or not the world ended, and that I’d be no help to anyone unless I was able to sleep enough to think. So I took my pills and showed up twice a week in Dr. Fromme’s office.
I should have known from grief group that she wasn’t the sort of doctor to send me digging through the past directly. The farthest back we’d discussed was our first day here, drawing a heavy line between before and after, with her reminding me repeatedly that when it came to the grief and trauma of the invasion, I was already well inside my feelings about both the moment I stepped onto the moon. We returned to that day again and again, each time sorting through another loaded moment.
“Let’s rephrase,” she told me for probably the tenth time in so many minutes. “Minus judgment.”
I picked at a loose thread on the armrest of her couch and tried to figure out another way to say I was too numb to do anything but stay on autopilot. “I guess then... I felt numb and didn’t know how to act.”
“There you go, yes! We aren’t the feelings police, remember. Emotions aren’t good or bad, even when they summon positive or negative connotations. Keep going. When you say ‘numb,’ what do you mean?”
“Not feeling anything—Wait,” I caught myself in the lie. “No, I was feeling a lot. Too much. I had this lump in my throat that made it hard to breathe. Moving was hard too, like my body didn’t want to do what I told it to. I knew the moment we were having was supposed to be this wonderful thing, historic and important, so I was trying to pay attention instead.”
“Instead of...?”
“Experiencing. Like, if I paid enough attention, I could hold it for later, to feel the specialness then.”
“This is an example of what we’ve been talking about. Dissociating. It’s your brain’s way of protecting you, of maintaining a sense of control when you think you don’t have any.” She scratched on her tablet then folded her hands over the screen. “But you aren’t a camera, Lane. No matter how much you want to save a moment for later, once it’s gone, it’s gone. We can try to relive those dissociated moments, but the truth is you were there then, and what you felt then will always be part of the memory.”
I’d worked the thread free and wrapped it around my finger. Her eyes on me burned. I understood what she meant, that I couldn’t revisit memories the way I wanted to, stripped of how I’d felt inside them, but it seemed like I should be able to, at least certain ones.
“Let’s shift forward to today. Can you think of anything happening in your life today that you’re avoiding feeling?”
I glanced up from the string, ready to say “Joule,” but she shook her head, trapping his name in my mouth. What kind of wizardry had she learned in therapy school to dredge this out of me when I hadn’t even realized I’d been circling it?
Even thinking his name brought up a torrent of feelings I’d not let myself name. Guilt, shame, confusion, fear, and—most of all—desire. Could she see all that on my face?
“Don’t tell me yet,” she said with the barest hint of a smile. “I want you to sit with it and explain why first. Why are you avoiding it?”
“Because I didn’t expect it.” His feelings about me still didn’t make sense. If V and Andrek were Joule’s types, how did I fit in? “I’m not convinced I deserve it, so I don’t want to accept it and end up disappointed.”
Dr. Fromme’s expressions moved from delight and surprise to sympathy. “Now I’m incredibly curious, but keep going if you can. Why don’t you think you deserve to have and feel this thing?”
I stared at her, unseeing, as my response churned unhappily in my stomach. I didn’t deserve Joule’s affection because he was too good for me.
Because I’m broken.
I’m too broken for anything that easy and good. Joule wasn’t damaged like Andrek and V were, like I was, and unlike them I wasn’t brilliant or talented enough to earn his attention. So his sweet advances and amazingly thoughtful gifts—I’d been acting like I was oblivious rather than admitting that I liked him too.
“I see we’ve reached a sore spot,” Dr. Fromme said quietly, resuming her notetaking. “How about this—instead of pushing this train of thought more today, how about you try a little experiment? Sometime today, allow yourself ten minutes to feel whatever comes up, no matter what that is, inside that moment. During this experiment, there is no before or after, just you feeling the emotions within your body in that present moment. Can you try that?”
I nodded and chanced meeting her eyes just as her lips spread into that Halle-like smile her voice had been promising.
“Good! Let me know how it goes? I believe you’ll find the more you practice allowing yourself such moments, the more control you’ll have over how your emotions affect you. Feelings are so important, but they’re only part of the machine that’s you. When you give them their due, they can stop trying to run your whole show.”
Despite what she’d said, I spent the rest of the session not fully listening. I’d made up my mind to do her experiment, but I wanted to do it when I was with Joule to see what I might feel about him, or for him, without half my brain playing denial games.
He’d be in our makeshift headquarters after dinner, but so would everyone else. Better if I could find him on his own, and if it were just the two of us. A few quick messages let me know he was in the greenhouse lab and “would welcome company.”
The entertainment department was hosting some kind of event in the main hallway, so I decided to use the back route to the lab, since it was clear across the middle of the dome. I knew from experience that if I ventured through the kitchen, I’d get lured into some task or another, even if it wasn’t my shift.
I rounded the corner before the junction next to Andrek’s-slash-our new headquarters and bumped into Stephan, scattering the contents of his cart across the floor.
“Whoa!”
“Shit, my bad! Sorry, sorry!” I ran after the line of water tubes rolling precariously close to our secret entrance. I spoke loudly and made as much noise as I could justify while putting them back on the cart to warn anyone who might be inside that I had company. “I didn’t know you were working today.”
“Technically I’m not. Ty wasn’t feeling great.” His voice edged toward suspicion. “What are you doing back here?”
“Looking for Ty,” I lied automatically, not knowing why I felt like I ought to but trusting the instinct. “Or whoever’s delivering. I wanted to grab a couple dinners to go.”
“Help yourself,” he said, stepping clear of the cart for me to rummage through the mess. “Got a hot date? Guess you and your guy worked things out.”
“Oh yeah, we did. Everything’s good.”
“Awesome. I’m glad to hear it,” he said, and he sounded so genuine that I felt awful for lying before. And I’d have to lie again if he asked how we worked things out, because I couldn’t say the truth.
It sucked, honestly. Stephan was my favorite work partner, and he was always so real with me. Plus he’d helped with the holiday tasting when I knew he hadn’t wanted to.
“Thanks,” I said and gave him a quick side hug to console myself for not being a better friend while subtly nudging him and the cart further from our headquarters. “Seriously, thanks. I’ve got to run though. See you later!”
I raced away before he could reply, grateful to shift my attention to the guy I needed to be thinking about instead.
Joule.
I found him crawling on all fours between the vertical garden towers in the lab, his face basically brushing the concrete floor. I said his name, and he sprang upright, a beatific smile stretched ear to ear.
“Look!” He held out his hand to show me a ridged black beetle prancing over his pink palm. When I grimaced, he covered it quickly. “Not a bug person? That’s okay. I think I found the last one who got loose. The labs mostly rely on bugbots, but there’s no replacing the real thing sometimes.”
He prattled for the next fifteen minutes about the wonders of ground beetles for compost and pollination, and though I had zero interest in bugs outside of pictures of butterflies, I loved listening to him talk about his special interests. He had so many to my spare handful, and he entertained my unclever questions without batting his thick eyelashes at them.
I came to realize that listening to him talk about anything at all might actually be one of my special interests. We were halfway through our dinner burritos in the lab’s lounge before he finished and asked why I’d come looking for him.
“I don’t even remember now,” I said with a laugh, then felt my face start to burn as the reason returned to my mind. “I just wanted to hang out with you.”
The way he bit his lip and looked away sent a shiver up my neck. Dr. Fromme had told me to “just sit” with my feelings, so I tried to do exactly that, sensing heat in the way it pulsed over my skin. When he looked back toward me, his dark brown eyes colliding with mine, it was like being punched in the chest.
“Just you and me.” Joule put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me a few inches closer. “Cool.”
“I think so.”
Under the weight and warmth of him, my mind started to race. At first I fought it, but then I got to thinking that my mind counted as part of my body, so I let the thoughts run as we snuggled.
We were alone in the lounge, the lab staff away doing whatever their jobs were, and the couch we were on was perfect for cuddling. I liked that we weren’t in a place where it was safe to discuss RC stuff or secret plans, because it meant we could just “be” for a while without anything too heavy.
He felt different than Andrek—bigger and stronger, like a whole man. Not that Andrek wasn’t a whole man, but his build was much slighter.
In Joule’s arms, I felt different too. Aside from the familiar pangs of attraction, the magnetic urge to trace my fingertips over his wrist or to test exactly how sharp his jawline was, he emanated this cozy sense that sapped all that urgency, folding me into relaxation. I wondered what it would be like to fall asleep being held by him. I doubted I’d need pills if that ever happened.
“I worried you’d be mad at me,” he said, his voice breezing over my head. “For helping Andrek move out. I should have known you’re way too cool for that.”
A laugh burst out of me. “I’m totally not, but I can’t blame you for Andrek’s choices. I was mad at him for weeks because I missed him and felt left out is all. I never thought about what he was going through.”
“Still.” He brushed my hair back and rested his chin on my head. “I never want to make you mad. Let’s not be the kind of friends who wait to share things till it’s too late.”
“Okay,” I said, and I pivoted so I could see him better then surprised us both by planting a kiss on his broad cheek. “But I don’t want to be just friends.”
He gaped at me, letting his attention dance over my face. Curious and hopeful. Yearning.
“You mean...” he whispered, and I gave him a decisive nod. I watched his expressions change, too many and too fast to interpret, enjoying the way he made no effort to hide his reactions. After a full minute of him processing and me grinning back at him, he scooped me up into his arms and carried me out of the lounge.
I laughed again and pounded lightly on his chest. “Where are you taking me? What in the world, Joule!”
“I don’t know yet. Everywhere probably,” he said happily.
“I still want to go slow, I think.”
He slackened his pace. “As you wish.”
“Not walking slow!” I was giggling like a kid and couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to. He kept on holding me tight, my legs swinging uselessly over his forearms.
“Soooo slooooow,” he said, nuzzling my neck as he inched over the threshold of the lab.
Maybe this wasn’t what Dr. Fromme had meant, but that didn’t matter anymore. For once I wasn’t letting my self-doubt be in charge. Now that I knew it could feel this good, I might have to do it more often.