Alien Isolation: A Light In Dark Places

by Kevin Duffield

Finding love in the vast loneliness of space can seem unlikely, but for one member of the crew of Sevastopol it is a certainty worth killing for.

12

A Light in Dark Places

(An Alien: Isolation Tale)

By

Kevin Duffield

Have you ever been in love? I'm fairly sure you might think so, all puppy-dog-eyed and pining away over the one who makes the world scream as it spirals into chaos while making everything seem perfectly rational. I'm here to tell you it isn't real. Not that it isn't without merit but you have to understand that it is just a fleeting thing. You would like to think it's forever, that your passion and fire will burn like the brightest star in the sky but even stars die, my friend. They exhaust themselves, consuming all they are made of until they become bloated with hunger as they struggle to devour more and failing to understand they have nothing left to fuel them. They explode and die and float in the darkness as a faint memory of what they once were. That is what your love is. That is the reality. I doubt you would even know what real love feels like.

But I know.

Her name is Tiffany. If ever there was a light in dark places, a true eternal brightness that could never be dimmed, it is her. I knew what she was the moment I saw her and let me tell you I was lost beyond words. I knew her. I had known her for years, watching her and holding her in my heart. I knew she had no idea who I was or had any clue at all about the secret fire that scorched me to my soul at the simplest mention of her name. This didn't matter. I knew there was no chance we would ever be together, but it did not stop my mind from going to those places, those wonderful landscapes of fantasy in which our lives were intertwined in a bliss so deep no other person could ever hope to feel such a thing.

I had written letters, dozens upon dozens of them. They were letters to Tiffany of my love and the contents of my heart saturated every word, but I sent to her none of them. They were never quite good enough. They were a poor representation of my feelings and I cursed the limits of the English language in its ability to properly convey my emotions. If I thought them inadequate, how would she perceive them? No, it was better to keep them private, keep them as a fond memento of my deepest fantasies, knowing that my love would forever remain unrequited. How could she love someone like me? I, just a lowly maintenance worker. She was so far above what I could ever give her.

I resigned myself to my fate, serving out my sentence in the service hatches and endless bundles of wires and circuit boards of Sevastopol. It was a sentence, I should add, not even deserving of the most aberrant person to step through the gates of the harshest prison. I had always dreamed of working on a nice corporate vessel or Class M colony world. There I could tinker endlessly with the touch screens, quantum computers, DNA processors, and all of the other latest and endlessly fascinating gadgetry that mankind had to offer. Fate had other plans and I was given a stern lesson, one that taught me no matter how much I believed I knew there was always someone who knew more and could test higher in placement. So now I had the pleasure of sullying my skilled hands on technology so old it was a miracle anyone could accomplish anything with it. I remember reading about the history of space travel, how early astronauts left Earth's atmosphere in craft that were essentially tinfoil and aluminum cans wrapped around a metal frame with processors with about as much power as a pocket calculator. This seemed only a slight step above that.

It wasn't completely unbearable. The hours were long and the systems aboard Sevastopol were in constant need of repair but the food was not terrible and the view from the observation and lounge decks was something to behold. There was equal measure of the vast array of stars and the haunting and almost psychedelic swirl of the clouds that comprised the gas giant Sevastopol orbited. I especially enjoyed the occasions where I could slip on a suit and walk out into the void.

It was not long after the purge, as some called it, that all my hopes and fantasies had become closer to reality than I ever would have believed. Everyone knew Sevastopol was not long for this universe. Rumors had been discussed both in hushed whispers and in loud, drunken voices for months but it was not until the transfer orders came through that all of the talk of the station being decommissioned was confirmed. Other rumors floated around to the contrary, word that the station was being sold and the personnel being shipped off were just to make room for replacements, Seegson was simply reorganizing to streamline profits, and a crazy theory that the station was to be scuttled with those left on board to minimize costs but no one could deny that there was the distinct feeling that our time aboard Sevastopol was numbered.

I did not care about any of the rumors or conjecture. My mind and my heart found other matters to be concerned with. Four days after the last of the tranfers left aboard the Dāku Sutā I received the most wonderful surprise of my life. As a natural consequence of losing so many people the duty roster aboard Sevastopol had to be restructured. I was assigned to preform maintenance on the communications level. It was here I found myself closer to Tiffany than ever before.

As I had said, I had only before been able to watch her from afar and those occasions were few and far between. I would catch glimpses of her here and there, passing by her in the tight hallways of the station, a brief sight of her as she rode one of the transits between the spires, and once I saw her as she was leaving the medical wing. Each time I saw her she captivated the whole of my attention. The bounce of her blonde hair on her shoulders, the sway of her hips as she walked, and the way her breasts shifted as she moved. All of these filled my senses like a drug and I could never get enough. Like a drug the withdrawal was maddening and painful. After each encounter the image of her would not leave my brain and I longed for another glimpse of her. As a remedy I had managed to sneak a picture of her, one that I carried on me as I carried her in my heart, but even this offered only temporary relief. My reassignment had placed me closer to my love. I knew then I would always be by her side.

It was on that first day that she smiled at me. I had arrived at the coms center to begin my new shift and stopped cold when I saw her. She was seated at her station, talking animatedly into her microphone as her fingers danced across her keyboard.

"No, Carl, that's not the right one! I said relay station twelve! You just shut down relay twenty-one! Now we're dark on both sys-tech and medical! Jesus!" She vented a blast of air from between her perfect lips and growled as she tore her headset and flung it onto her station. She rounded on a young man sitting next to her who looked as though he wanted to be anywhere else other than next to the powder keg to his left. "This is such bullshit! Seig takes away most of the people who were worth a damn and leaves behind all the techs with an IQ smaller than my fucking shoe size! I told that dumb fuck three times which relay needed to be fixed!"

I had never heard her speak before. Even angry as she was her voice sounded like pure crystal. I could only stand across the way from her, staring like a child looking through a storefront window at the most wonderful toy he had ever seen. It took her a moment to realize I was even in the room. She turned to face me with a fire in her green eyes that threatened to burn me if I dared to cross her.

"What do you want?"

I did not answer. I couldn't answer. I felt so small before her, so inadequate. It was a sensation I hated and yet I loved her all the more for it. I think I tried to answer. Did I? I don't remember. Perhaps I stammered a bit before my brain got it together and I looked too much like just another idiot like the man on the com who had pissed her off. I hope I didn't stammer. That would have been embarrassing.

"I'm just reporting for my shift," I was finally able to reply.

"Do you know how to repair communications relays?" Tiffany demanded shortly.

I had not messed with those types of systems in years but I knew that the cheap retro systems used by many corporations were not all that difficult to repair. I was confident that it would not be that big of a problem.

"Sure," I said.

"Good," Tiffany said sharply. "Get your ass to relay twelve. Not twenty-one, not two-hundred and ten, not one hundred and twenty. Twelve. Got it?"

I didn't say anything more. I just nodded and hurried out of the room with my heart lodged squarely in my throat. Here was my opportunity. I would show her how worthy I was. I would show her I was not just another wrench-monkey and she would see, oh, yes, she would see me for the kind of man who would be good to her. She would know that I was the man her heart longed for. There was no way she could deny it.

The repairs took only slightly longer than anticipated. This was mostly due to the need to exit the station and replace a bad conduit that ran from the relay to the external transmitter. As I worked images of Tiffany danced in my head, steadying my hand as I used my plasma welder, giving me strength as I fought against frozen bolts and fasteners, focusing my mind as I analyzed the circuitry for defects. Four and a half hours later and I could hear Tiffany singing my praises as each system test returned positive results. When I returned to the control room she turned in her seat to face me as I entered and I let my gaze again linger on her as she spoke.

"That was some amazing work! What's your name?'

She then smiled at me, broad and genuine, her perfect lips parting in just the right way to create a single dimple on the left side of her mouth. It was then I knew. It was in that one, breathtaking moment I felt my heart skip and hammer as if it were born again with some supernatural energy.

It was then I knew she loved me in return.

The next several weeks were a blur to me. It was like living in a utopic cloud that was surreal compared to the broken disaster of my environment. It was strange, ethereal, and absolutely frightening. I knew Tiffany's heart belonged to me, that she had found in me everything that she could have ever wanted. I was her soul-mate and there was nothing in the universe that would ever keep us apart. But there was a problem.

I had spent so long loving her from afar, pining away at a distance and never knowing for certain if we would ever be together, I still had no idea how to tell her of my own feelings. Between the bouts of euphoria and the image of that beautiful, loving smile was an anxiety I could not reign in or control. How could I talk to her? Wat if I came across to strong and drove her away? What if I said the wrong thing and she took from me her smile that tangled around my heart like twisting rose stems. The thorns dug deep but the beauty of it could not be denied. I had to find something, some way of expressing myself that did not turn me into a fool in her eyes. I could not lose her. I had gone through too much already to see all that I had dreamed shattered into pieces in one weak and insecure moment.

I dug through all the missives I had written and never delivered, reading each again in hopes that maybe, just maybe one of them was good enough to actually send. They were, every one of them, trite and amateurish. I tried to write more. Every day at the end of my shift I would lie in my bunk, scrawling away on scraps of paper and angrily crumping them up and tossing them aside like the garbage they were. Tiffany, it seemed, was my inspiration but I had no muse that allowed me to express my soul to her in the manner that she deserved. In despair, I burned every last outpouring of my heart, certain that my chances of ever giving Tiffany the life and love she deserved were forever out of reach. For the next few days I wandered about the station, performing my duties like the simple, mindless Working Joes that sauntered about the decks in their unsettling pantomimes of the human condition. I was unaware if anyone noticed the change in my demeanor and I did not have the capacity to care if they did.

Assignments to conduct repairs in the promenade were always a welcome break from the routine of working on core systems. The Xing Xang was experiencing disconnects from Central, wreaking havoc with the restaurant's ability to control inventory and make regular updates in the business ledger. It took only twenty minutes to determine the source was a loose cable junction and less than a minute to shove the plug securely back into place, hardly worth the effort for someone of my talents. I left to head back to the Coms Center and was greeted by a sight I had not noticed before. A young woman had set up a small kiosk to sell flowers. There were not many, only a few dozen, but they looked healthy. Under different circumstances I would have wondered at how she had managed to acquire live flowers so far out from the frontier, but my mind had become burdened with a different matter.

The idea that I should try giving Tiffany flowers seemed so antiquated… so pedestrian. After failing to adequately define my heart's passion in writing with language that would have made Shakespeare swoon, and was still deficient, how would giving her a bundle of plants begin to compare? Still, what progress had I really made? All I had accomplished until that point was to destroy all my missives and mope about the station like some wayward pup that could not remember its way home. If I were to make Tiffany see what she meant to me, make her understand how she was my only light in the darkness and desolation that was Sevastopol, I had to do something.

The cost of the flowers was, in my opinion, akin to space piracy, but the price was worth it in light of what I stood to gain. I took the flowers to her quarters and laid them carefully at the base of her door where she would find them. There were few enough of us left on the station that only two or three other members of the staff walked the halls and none of them appeared to notice or care what I was doing. After placing my offering I stood to leave only to be stopped by the realization I had left nothing that would allow Tiffany to know who the flowers were from. She would know they were from me, of course, but some form of confirmation would solidify in her mind the love we shared. I removed a slip of paper from the notepad I carried in my uniform pocket and wrote simply:

From the first day you smiled at me I knew you were meant to be mine

I folded the note and slipped it between the stems of the flowers and then returned to my quarters, my skin tingling and my heart racing with nervous tension. Would she accept the gift? I shook this thought away immediately. Of course she would. I imagined her coming to me, that smile brightly shining into my soul, with my gift to her in her arms as she kissed me gently and whispered in my ear that she felt the same. She knew I was always meant to be hers. This waking dream did nothing to quell my anxiety.

Once back in my room I tried to sleep but soon realized how useless an endeavor this would be. My mind was too active to allow for rest and my nerves were on fire in a manner that did not allow for physical relaxation. While lying on my side my eyes focused on a black marker sitting on the stand beside my bed. Without thinking, I took hold of it and rolled over to face the wall and, without understanding why, wrote her name. The tension in my mind and body released a little as I formed the letters of her name, as if the act of writing brought her closer to me in spirit if not in form. I wrote her name once again, then again, each time feeling the softening of my nerves and the easing of my thoughts. Like a mantra, I continued writing, allowing my passion to flow as each iteration of her name flowed from the instrument in my hand. Excitement welled up in me with each inscription and I moaned softly as my other hand found something else to occupy itself with.

The release I felt was the euphoria I needed to allow me to finally let sleep wrap itself around me, with visions of Tiffany guiding me to my rest as I slipped away.

Morning arrived with the cold light of the fluorescents kicking on and the shrill beep of my alarm piercing my brain. I rose from my bed, dressed, and headed to Coms. My mind had returned to its anxious state, growing worse with each step toward my destination.

Entering Coms to receive my morning assignments, the sight of Tiffany filled my vision again. She was relaxed and smiling, talking to the young tech who sat next to her. Tucked away in her hair was one of the flowers from the bouquet I had left for her. It was a silly thing, but it somehow made her seem to glow in a way I had not thought possible. My heart soared. She knew! She had accepted my gift and confirmed the link we shared within our souls!

"You are so full of shit, William." Tiffany said playfully to the tech seated next to her. "I know it was you."

William shook his head and chuckled. "I'm serious. It wasn't me. It sounds like you have a secret admirer." He then looked at her and grinned. "Should I be jealous?"

Tiffany shot him a mock glare and crossed her arms over her perfect breasts. "Fine! I'll let you play your game." She then leaned in close, their noses almost touching. "Just remember, I know how to play games, too."

What happened next caused the floor to fall out from under me. The entire station felt as if were falling out of orbit, careening to a fiery death into the atmosphere of the planet below.

They kissed.

I felt cold and numb. I felt flush with the heat of my stomach trying to reach up and strangle my now rapidly beating heart. Have you ever felt such a thing? Have you ever felt the entirety of your world stab you repeatedly with a dull blade while mocking your agony? No. I do not think you ever have. How could you? You've never loved. Not in the way I have.

I turned away and left Coms. They had not noticed me and even if they had I would not have cared. I stumbled through the corridor, my mind spinning with the image of that terrible kiss and yet I was still numb and empty. My breathing was hard and heavy. I think someone tried to ask me what was wrong, tried to offer me help. Did I push them away? I cannot remember.

I somehow made it to my quarters. Everything felt disjointed and out of place. If there was a god in the darkness of space, he was laughing at me as he ground what little was left of my soul under his thumb. I stared blankly at the writing on the wall next to my bed for how long I do not know. What I do know is that, during my mental fugue, the emptiness and dulling of my senses slowly transformed into rage.

How could she do this? How could she betray what we had? I knew her, knew her soul, or so I had thought. I knew she liked to wear her hair short but not so short it could not be tied into a small pony tail just off-center to the left. I knew she liked her after shift meal served with a salad made with kelp imported from the Thedus colony when it was available. I knew that when she let her mind wander she would gnaw on the pinky finger of her right hand. All of these things and more were recorded in my brain, every moment I had watched and studied her. I knew her and in that knowing understood the love that was ours alone. So I thought.

The fury in my heart and the betrayal that was lodged in my heart like a chunk of scrap metal released itself in a storm that would have rivaled even the strongest winds of the gas giant the station orbited. I flew about the room, overturning the table and chair set, smashing my fists into the walls until I bled. I picked up the overturned chair and used it as a weapon against the bed where I slept and dreamed of a life of joy and contentment with my soul mate at my side. I clawed and scrubbed at the marks on the wall that had set my anxious mind at ease, willing the name to be erased both physically and mentally from my existence. Time did not exist, my dirge for the loss of my dream taking on a life of its own until I fell, exhausted, onto the ruins of my bed where I let sleep take me away from my waking hell.

With time came a sort of healing and an understanding. This was not so early on. I wandered about as before, a lifeless shell that knew only the passing of identical days spent in work performed by hands that no longer felt like my own. It was as though my body took over the activities of my life, freeing my mind to contemplate and analyze the nature of my experiences. The routine of the station continued on around me, orbiting around the black well of emptiness that had become my life. I heard more rumors of people leaving Sevastopol, some even claiming people were disappearing with no warning, some even claiming it was conspiracy of some kind, but I paid these no mind save to wonder if I would be missed if I vanished as well. Would she miss my absence? I doubted it very much.

Angry as I was at Tiffany, I found I could not blame her. The fault was partially my own, after all. I thought of all the time I had wasted trying to quantify my love in notes or the days on end spent in contemplation rather than action. It was all that was needed for the young coms tech, William, to steal her away from me. Make no mistake, it was a theft. It was not her fault that our bond had been broken. I had left our love suspended between us yet had made no real effort to provide any means by which to reach it. I had left her stranded and she had taken hold of the first hand that had reached out to rescue her. His hand. This thread of understanding finally allowed me to contemplate the matter at hand with a clearer, more rational mind. I came to the only natural conclusion that I could. The only one that made sense.

I would have to steal her back.

This was not correct, though. Could I just win her back? After all, if I were willing to make the effort to repair the bridge between my truest love, would not the young man who now held her heart fight just as hard to keep it? I believed he would. I realized I could not spend the rest of my days looking over my shoulder, wondering when the time would come where young William would insert himself once again between us. I was not willing to forever contend with the unwanted attentions of a suiter who was little more than a placeholder for a truer, purer bond. There was nothing else for it. If I were to truly have what was deservedly mine then I had no choice but to deal with William in the one manner that would guarantee he would no longer be a threat to my heart's desire.

Following William was not a difficult task. Like many aboard the station he had developed a routine that he repeated almost exactly, with only minor variations and distractions depending on whatever whims struck him. The ever-thinning population of people made it difficult to blend into crowds and prevent the young man from noticing he was being followed, but I was careful to not be noticed.

It was a painful experience, I have to admit. Having to constantly watch the man who upended my life while having to restrain myself was not the easiest thing to do but I had to be patient. If I wanted Tiffany as my own I needed to hold my emotions in check and follow the plan I was laying out. For three weeks I followed him, noting every place he went, noting the location of his quarters, his mannerisms, the nature of the environment, the number of people who were typically nearby, and discovering when he slept. This last one was, perhaps, the trickiest of all. I had to generate a fake work order allowing me the authority to override the lock to his door so I could enter. Once I was in, to repair a "faulty" electrical junction picked up by a false sensor reading, I hid several small cameras around his place so I could monitor his activities while he was out of normal viewing. The risk of the transmission to my personal data pad being noticed was minimal. If Sevastopol had been constructed with a standard higher than the more cost-effective, retrograde technology that was the station's norm the cameras would have been easily noticed and my plans certainly cut short.

The week following the installation of the cameras I felt I had enough to proceed with what I had planned. Was I at all nervous? I suppose you could say I was. I had never killed anyone before. There had never in my life been a cause to do so before now. I wondered what it would be like. Would there be joy? Relief? Would I find myself disgusted and nauseous at the sight of my work? I did not know. I believed I knew myself well enough yet I could not decide on how I would react. I ultimately put such ponderings aside and instead focused my thoughts on the one thing, the only thing, that really mattered.

Tiffany.

The morning I decided the time had come I accepted my assignments for the day and performed my duties with a focus and dedication I had not mustered in weeks. I imagine this surge in energy was born from the excitement and anticipation of what was to come. I felt as though pushing hard to complete the day's maintenance schedule would in some way speed up the time. I was anxious to finally accomplish what I had set out to do. The time seemed to pass slowly, in spite of my efforts, as if it were aware of my intent and sought to taunt me. When my last task had been completed it oddly seemed as though the day had flown by, a paradox if ever there was one. Instead of storing my repair kit in my locker as I always did at the end of my shift, I carried it with me through the halls until I had arrived at William's quarters. Across the hall there was a sealed air duct which I opened and crawled inside, pushing my kit ahead of me. The only other person walking the hall barely gave me a glance. I was a tool-pusher, after all, and was likely working on the ducts. I removed a maintenance jack from my kit and sat crouched near the opening, waiting until the man who stole my heart from me to arrive.

The motion of the air moving through the ductwork felt cool to my skin, which burned hot with my growing impatience. I realize now that my perception of time had been distorted, as it had been throughout the day, but it still felt like there would be no end to the waiting. I tried meditating to the sounds echoing through the air duct. The hum of the fans as they forced air throughout the station, the soft drip of water condensation as it built up on pipes that ran parallel to the vent and fell, the random hissing and scratching sounds that were not familiar to me but were likely the cause of some debris caught in the system, which was not unusual. All of these calmed my nerves, but only slightly. Thinking back on it all, I was probably sheltered in the confines of the shaft for only a few minutes until I heard the soft footsteps of someone approaching.

I slid closer to the opening, making sure to keep the maintenance jack close to my chest for fear of it scraping against the metal interior of the duct and alerting whoever was approaching to my presence. I was sure it was William, come home after a long day of working hard at the coms and driving a wedge between myself and my dream, but I was not that sure. There was also the need to make sure no one else was in the corridor. I stayed close to the hatch yet remained back far enough to stay out of immediate view. I strained my ears, focusing hard for any other noses but all I could hear was the solitary footsteps approaching amid the echoing sounds of the air duct. Sure enough, it was William.

He stopped in front of his door, facing away from me as he worked the door mechanism, keying in his passcode into the antiquated numerical pad. I slid out of the duct behind him, repeating my plan like a mantra in my head as I silently exited from my hiding place. Do not talk to him. He would only try to buy time to get away or fill my head with lies to throw me off. Don't do anything fancy. Swing the jack as hard possible, hitting him in his head and putting him down before he can react or alert anyone who happened to be in earshot. I quietly stood and raised the jack over my head as the door to William's room slid open. It felt heavy in my hand, weighed down by the gravity of the cause it was to be used for. My arm tensed, building itself up for the moment it would release all of my loss and anguish into a single, vicious blow.

My chest froze and a chill bolted down my spine as a clanging noise from the duct rang out in the hallway. Had I failed to secure my toolkit? Did something fall out of it or did I leave it set in a way that left it unbalanced so that it would allow fate to play another cruel joke on me? It did not matter. The noise was enough to cause William to turn around and he paused, stunned, as he saw me standing with my weapon at the ready. I did not waste any more time, I swung at him for all I was worth.

He was much faster than I anticipated. He side-stepped the jack and lashed out with his knee, catching me squarely in the gut. The hit was powerful enough that I instantly felt as though he had ruptured every organ in my lower abdomen and I felt immediately nauseous. I fell back against the opposite wall and William dove through the door to his quarters, cursing loudly in confusion as he slammed his palm against the inner switch of the door.

"What the fuck?"

Doubled over with pain, I felt my opportunity falling away. This awoke a rage in me I had never felt before. Fighting against the pain and nausea, I shot forward as the door slid closed. I knew it was a race I would not win but I thrust out the jack, catching it between the door and the frame. Fortune was on my side. The door sensors were in working order and registered the blockage, immediately opening to allow me the opportunity to pursue William. The young coms tech had retreated further into his quarters, backing away from me as I lurched forward.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, man?" he questioned, breathing heavy with panic.

I ignored his question, sticking to my rule of not engaging him in conversation. With a short scream I lunged at him, again swinging the jack at him, not bothering to aim, only caring that I at least injured him enough to allow me the means to keep hitting him.

Maddingly, he was again much faster than me. He ducked under my swing and launched himself into my midriff. We tumbled to the floor and rolled, the jack clattering across the floor as it fell from my hand, each trying to get the better of the other. I strained against him, but the fire in my guts had weakened me. This was made worse by the blazing white light that enveloped my eyes as his fist connected solidly with my cheek. Dazed, I could do nothing as he rolled on top of me, pinning my shoulders with his knees. When my vision cleared I could see him looking down on me, his fist cocked back and ready for another strike. The weight of him on my chest made it hard to breathe causing me gasp hungrily for every breath.

"What the hell is your problem?" William screamed in my face.

It was over. I knew it was over. Everything I had planned was for nothing. She was now lost to me forever. I did not want to admit it. Part of my mind railed and thrashed at the idea, but there was nothing for it. I let the vision of Tiffany materialize in my brain, holding onto it with all my strength. My memory would be the only part of her I would ever be near again and with that knowledge my heart shattered once more. I am not ashamed to admit that, in that moment, I wept for my loss.

"Answer me, goddammit!" William, furious at his assault by my hands and his lack of understanding, brought his fist down, knocking one of my teeth loose and breaking another. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

I smiled up at him, working the chunk of broken tooth out from under my tongue and spitting it out as I labored to continue breathing. If he wanted an answer I would give it to him. Perhaps knowing that the love he now shared came at the cost of another man's heart would somehow forever taint his connection with her. My reply was as broken as the breaths I struggled to take.

"She was…mine. She…was supposed to…be mine."

William appeared perplexed by my words, as though he had no clue at all what I was referring to. It was a lie. I knew he would feign ignorance. The guilty always acted as if they had no knowledge of their own actions. I could see though the facade as easily as I could see through the tempered safety glass of Sevastopol's welcome areas. I knew exactly what his reaction would be and William did not disappoint.

"What are you talking ab—"

Something dark and impossibly huge rose up from behind Williams, towering over him like some shadowy, ineffable god. I caught only a glimpse of it before William's shoulder erupted in a spray of blood. My eyes clamped shut as droplets of crimson fell on my face and my ears filled with the sound of William's brief, anguished cry mixed with the deadly hiss of whatever had just happened to Williams.

It was the same hiss I had heard in the air duct.

The pressure on my chest was suddenly gone. It hurt to breathe, but my body greedily drew in every sweet gulp of air. Free to move, I wiped the blood from my eyes and examined the room around me. I was alone. There was no sign of Williams or the strange shadow that had appeared behind him. The only sound I heard was the rasp and cough of my own breathing and the sound of something scraping through the air duct across the hall.

I sat up, feeling sore and exhausted, trying to comprehend what had just happened. One moment I had been lying on my back, defeated and ready to accept my fate and the next I was free, rescued by some unknown angel. That's what it had to be, an angel. The universe had understood, as I had, the connection in my soul with my dearest love and had acted to preserve that link when I failed to do so myself. It was the only answer, the only explanation as to why I had been spared and William, the unwanted interloper, had not.

I was interrupted from my thoughts by the sound of more scraping, muted now from what it had been before. I realized my angel was still close by. I longed to see it, to get a closer look at my rescuer and witness the full glory of the divine hand that had preserved my soul's desire. Excited by this prospect, I ignored my injuries and pushed myself to stand. I stumbled over to the hatch and crawled inside, eager to meet my salvation.

It was not difficult to figure out which way to go. The blood from William's injury was my trail of breadcrumbs. The air ducts had no lighting of their own and I had, fortunately, remembered to retrieve my flashlight from my tool kit. I had discovered my kit upended and its contents scattered. I realized then the noise that had alerted William to my presence had been the result of my guardian's presence. It had been in the duct with me the whole time, likely waiting to see how I would fare and ready to aid me if needed. Why it had knocked over my kit, I do not know. It was not my place to question it.

I followed the trail of blood as it wound through the complex network of ducts and junctions, encountering areas with tools and equipment left behind, carelessly abandoned I reasoned, by others of my station who were in too much of a hurry to be done with their shifts. In these areas I also found some form of thick fluid I could not identify. The charge in my flashlight began to wane and I conserved it by turning on the beam only when arriving at a point where the duct branched into different directions. It did not take long for me to finally see where the streaks of blood were leading. I could hear the distinct racket of the power core that fed life to the station. I had been assigned to this section once before and knew the way to go. The noise became louder as I approached my destination and I could see light ahead of me without the aid of the flashlight. I reached another hatch, jammed open with some strange, viscous substance that coated the interior of the duct for several feet that was similar to the fluid I found at the junctions. I approached cautiously and peered outside and was elated to see before me the angel that had restored my hope and my faith.

It was as black as a starless night, with a smooth, elongated head that brightly reflected the flickering fluorescent light from above. It was crouched over the prone form of Williams, regurgitating what looked like the same thick fluid I noticed in the ducts onto the wound in the man's shoulder. I could see William's blood still dripping from the long, serrated tail of my savior as it finished its work. It was so beautiful.

It then gently lifted Williams and placed him against the wall of the room. The room looked to be one of the power junctions but it was difficult to tell. The entire place seemed coated in a hardened version of the substance in the ducts, leaving only a few hints as to what the room had once been. My angel had transformed the place into its home and I could only marvel at the glory of it all.

Williams was being coated with this same material, having it lathered over him. It stuck easily to him and quickly hardened, attaching him to the wall. My angel did all of this with what looked to be great care. Its movements were almost as mechanical as the Working Joes that swarmed about the station but it was also fluid and organic. There was a perfection in it that moved me to my very soul. I understood everything in those moments I watched. Saving me, saving the love that was written in the fabric of heaven itself, the manner in which it gracefully nurtured Williams, like a mother tending to its young, all of it was nothing less than a physical representation of love. It was the manifestation of the spiritual knot that tied my heart to hers. I wanted with every fiber of my being to reach out, to present myself to my angel and give myself over to the purity of the love I had been witness to. In my delight, I started to climb out of the air duct to present myself but I stopped. I knew in my heart this was not right, what I was about to do was wrong and I could feel the essence of that in my bones. If I were to confront perfect love with pure love I had to do it right. I could not sully such an experience by being overzealous and blundering forward like an idiot child.

There was a right way to go about such things.

I quietly left, crawling stealthily back the way I came lest I interrupt my angel in its work and anger it. I made my way back to William's quarters and then on to my next destination. Excitement exploded like a miniature sun in every cell of my body. I felt blessed and transformed by the knowledge and understanding I had come to possess. I could not wait to share it with the only other person in all of creation who mattered most to me.

She is lying on the bed nearby now. I startled her and, though I regret it deeply, I had to hit her. She fought at first, but I got her to rest, to sleep for a bit to calm her. I can understand, now, why she was afraid. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror of her bathroom and it was not until then that I realized I had not cleaned myself up before coming to see her. If a blood-splattered man showed up at your door I am certain you would be reasonably afraid, so I can understand. She will likely be angry that I struck her, but I have faith in one of the oldest of sayings.

"Love conquers all things."

As I watch her sleeping I cannot help but think how beautiful she looks, so peaceful. My sweet, immortal love. I also cannot help but think of our future together, forever entwined and gazing into one another's eyes and never tiring of baring our hearts to one another. She may not understand it now, not like I do, but she will. I understand everything now.

I had tried to put it into words before, in letters and poetic prose that always fell flat and I realize why. I even tried the pedestrian route of presenting her a gift and this, too, was inadequate for reasons that are now clear. They were just shadows of love. They were hollow reflections of the true nature of our destiny together. Now I can show her. I will take her to see my angel, the one who was there in my darkest hour to be a light in the darkest of places, as Tiffany is to me, to preserve the essence of what we have together. I will take her to my angel and she will see for herself and she will also understand and see what I see.

She will see what it means to truly love.

END