Chapter 14
She had almost stopped missing him. Her will had improved dramatically. No whispers of regret slid by her heart much longer. She had at last reached an equilibrium. Sitting in a damp break lobby of a sleazy diner, her mind wandered to a time she had once assured herself she would never revisit. It came back to her on occasion, spasmodic fits of memories which she attempted to repress the best she could. She would smoke cigarettes so as to quicken the coming of her physical death. She should have died that day, when the world was a blur of pristine raindrops and lyrical doves, and the way that it felt when he held her was how she always wanted to feel.
He was dead now, and she was alive. She was, as someone superstitious might proclaim, the living dead. A walking contradiction: always her style.
She shouldn't have been alive. She was almost looking forward to Hell. How bad could it possibly be? At least Hell admitted its treachery. People in Hell were just like her, sinners, killers, liars. People in Hell were unhappy, jealous, cowardly, vindictive. She would feel at home in Hell. For the first time in her life belong.
"Gwen," said an old waitress, a wrinkled, unhappy woman in a sweat-stained uniform, "are you going to take long?"
Gwen shook her head.
"Let me finish my cigarette, and I'll be out," she said calmly. She stopped disliking authority.
The final ashes burned into the tray and she exhaled and lifted to her feet. Her legs felt heavy and she began to fall, making a quick grab for the table. Leaning on the cheap plywood, she rested her miniscule weight onto her arms and straightened her flailing knees. She closed her eyes tightly and stretched her back, moaning softly from the pain. A look of misery overtook her facial features for a moment, and then her visage entered a mold of stoic dullness. In the most efficient way possible, she limped to the door.
It had been months since the operation, since she was able to walk again, and still she was in confusion. She had a habit of examining her naked body in the mirror, her ruptured spine, the bullet wound, the right leg two inches shorter than the left. She looked like a corpse, emancipated, pale, unclean. Her body had bugun to atrophy during nearly two years of inactivity, confinement to a hospital room full of unsympathetic nurses with cold hands, and she had lost most of her muscle. Following her operation, she was happy to get out and to take care of herself again, to worry about everyday annoyances. Twenty months in the darkness of her remembrances was purgatory enough. She cared about nothing but survival anymore. Her hair, dirty and tied back, framed her diminishing face and her once-graceful cheekbones. Her eyes were blue, sad, and large. Her skin had begun to wrinkle and she wore cheap make-up so as to appear younger to the perverts that facilitated her workplace.
A history of bleak unhappiness, a near-death experience, and a robotic spinal chord could do that to a girl.
Gwen left the break room and approached a table of two dirty truck drivers with a menu. The pair watched her frail body. She may have been thin and flimsy, but she did look best in the tacky pink uniform the managers insisted on waitresses' wearing.
"What would you like to order?" she asked with an air of indifference.
"I'd like to order you on the side," one drunk said.
"Or on your back," supplied the other.
Gwen looked at them with a look that almost resembled caring. It quickly faded. There was once a time when she could have killed them both with a snap of her fingers and a shot of her gun, but times had changed and she realized that.
"Will that be all?" was all she said.
If only he were there.
Spike Spiegel still loved Julia. He would never stop loving Julia. Julia was not the sort of woman men stopped loving.
She was tragedy, drama, adventure, romance. She was a symbol of female sophistication, intuition, and fruitfulness. There was no getting over how much he loved Julia. Otherwise, what man in his right mind would let Faye go?
Faye never told Spike her second secret, and she herself didn't know why. Maybe it was because she knew that deep down inside, Spike was already aware of the truth. Faye had wondered on several occasions why she didn't tell Spike the truth about the night she later on concluded was a dream but knew inwardly was not. Maybe it was because she really did love Spike and didn't want to lose him; but she had lost him anyway. No, that couldn't have been the reason. Something else guarded her from divulging the truth, even to herself. She pretended it wasn't true, but she couldn't deny that it was. She knew.
She knew.
About four months before ending up on Callisto, and half a year since the dark men began to pursue her, she was hiding out on an obscure chunk of space debris populated by unfortunates. It was a Hell of sorts, an overnight fix of red-eye and cheap sex. Callisto was a five-star resort compared to the old immobile asteroid.
The asteroid was perfect for the likes of Faye. Nobody asked questions, nor answered them. Nobody was happy, either. It was one of the few places to which she felt she truly belonged.
Severed from the universe, the haven of the miserables had politics of its own in the shape of a sort of anarchy. No one got into anyone's way. It was the sort of respect even the most respected often vye for. A calm, pathetic, undisturbed existence. Sinners were great at leading calm, pathetic, undisturbed existences. Faye was great at them too.
On a gloomy intersection between yesteryear and the impediment of continuance, where the fork in the road displayed a modest sign, "Annie's Diner" although it was really a place for drunks to get away and no one named Annie had entered the door for about fifteen years, Faye sat quietly at the bar and smoked a cigarette, partially because she hoped it would some day kill her. Her eyes stared into the ceiling, or perhaps the floor, as she drank and cringed from the glass of tonic and gin.
Faye drank all night, drank perhaps because she couldn't cry, perhaps because another damnation of society was that, in the day and age, even women weren't granted the luxury. She drowned in her tonic and gin like one drowns in sorrow, closing her eyes for a moment and perhaps thinking back to a time when things were different, when her husband was still alive, when she thought she had moved on and forgotten old wounds. A fight broke out in the back room over a game of billiard and she heard two shots fired. She sighed and ignored it, calling for the bartender, asking for another.
The bartender, in the shape of an old woman named Sally,ÿhad approached and theraputically handed the young woman another drink. That was her training; she was used to broken down human beings entering the bar and asking for excessive amounts of alcohol. It was all protocol to her. Sally, herself, was an unhappy woman. She didn't much like to think about it, and comforted herself with the problems of her clients. There were plenty of those. When she saw the young woman with tragic eyes, she also sensed (with that acute intuition that develops when one spends too much time around miserable wrecks) that the aforementioned drunk was something of an abberation. She had the eyes of one who had lost everything worth living for, although the bartender didn't quite believe in the state of being. Life wasn't really existence on the asteroid, and consequently neither was death. It was the unwritten law not to fear death. Death was a theorhetical assumption made by those who had too much time on their hands and therefore pondered such things as respiration.
The bartender wanted to hear about Faye's problems. She could not drink alcohol on the job, but had learned to replace it through the fermentation of grief. She felt particularly low that night.
"Another one?" she asked Faye quietly.
Faye looked up and with her eyes proclaimed affirmitive without saying words.
"Something must be bugging you, then."
"Not at all," she said, a sudden smile appearing on her face.
"Rough night, maybe?" the bartender continued, "I heard the news about strangers in these parts. They're all looking for some pretty girl. Came in here even, showed us a picture. She looked a lot like you."
Faye tried to care, "What did you tell them?"
"Nothing. Told them I ain't never seen a girl like that before, and if she really was on the planet she ought to give me a call. I could find a lot of work for a hot piece of ass like that."
Faye's eyes widened for a moment.
"Don't get me wrong. I'm sure you're built for better things. All I got me is some injured, frigid coctail waitress. The skinny blonde, over there."
Faye turned to look at the silhouette of a broken down woman. Empty, emotionless, dead. She was cleaning a counter, her eyes glazed over in the direction of emptiness. Faye's heart was beating faster than it had in years.
"Who is she?" Faye whispered frantically.
"I don't know. No one shares their past around here. She wandered in one day asking for a job. That's all I know. Comes in on time, leaves not too early. Never gives me any trouble. All I know."
Faye picked herself up and walked to the table that the aloof waitress was cleaning. She sat into a chair and stared at the figure. The waitress didn't look at her. She continued staring at a wall.
"What may I get you?" the waitress asked.
"Please," Faye said quietly, "please, sit down and talk to me."
The waitress looked at Faye for a moment, her face stolid. She then sat down hesitantly.
"Do you recognize me?" Faye whispered.
"No," the waitress said without thinking.
"Are you sure?" Faye surely recognized her.
"Will that be all?" the disinterested waitress asked.
"My name is Faye. What's yours?"
"Gwen."
"Gwen?"
"A common name."
Faye never told Spike about that night.
Spike Spiegel entered YAN with a simple stroll, a pleasant smile on his face. He was unnaturally cool for the occasion. Few noticed him, but those that did had the face as if they've just seen a ghost. With a charming greeting, he asked the secretary at the front desk for help. He didn't have to wait until she got off the phone because a group of guards approached him and calmly asked that he follow them. Spike complied.
He was taken to the top level, into a large office that was occupied by two men. He only recognized one.
Messenger and Maxim.
"Spike," Messenger said, a look of restraint on his face.
"Wow," Spike smiled, "it's like some high school reunion from hell."
"Spike," Messenger whispered again.
"You wouldn't have called me up if you weren't in trouble."
"Remember what you said when you first woke up?"
Spike paused for a moment, remembering. The white room, the dullness in his gut. For a moment, he was almost fooled to believe it was heaven. He even laughed a little when he saw a small Japanese man watching over him. He almost asked him if he was God.
"You'll remind me. You always do."
"You said we should have let you die. Like Vicious."
Spike sighed, "You know, all I ever wanted was freedom."
"Faye Valentine came around here. She wasn't with you."
"And you let her go?"
"You know she won't trust us. Not with the password."
"And who's to say she even knows the password?"
"She must. She carries the truth."
Spike was silent for a moment. He thought about Faye, poor, innocent Faye. She always had a way of getting into trouble. He had tried to help her, but she slipped through his fingers.
"We saved your life, Spike. Whether you wanted it or not, you have a debt to repay. If not for the Dragons, then for Mao. For Anastasia. Lin. Those who still believed in the order. We're in tumultous times, my friend. We need that chip, Spike."
"Did you tell Vassiliy about Faye?" Spike asked suddenly.
"No. We hope you'll find her before he does. Few outsiders survive after seeing his face."
Spike nodded.
"There's no way to hack into the database?"
"No," Maxim suddenly spoke up, "even Radical Edward," his voice softened for a second, "couldn't do it."
Spike smiled sadly, "Ed? I should have known. How is she holding up?"
"She's gone," Maxim replied, a pang of sadness in his tone, "she slipped through our fingers."
Spike smiled at Maxim, he was a good judge of character. He could recognize the eyes of a man in love.
"You should watch the news more often."
"Spike, we commissioned you one final time to get the microchip for us. Now, you must find Valentine before it is too late. Before Vassiliy---"
"Let Vassiliy find her," Spike interrupted, "and in return I'll find Vassiliy. I have some unfinished business with him."
"Spike, you don't mean---"
"I do mean. If you want my help, you better not intervene. My life isn't worth much anymore. But the end of his means a great deal to me." Spike paused for a second. "It's like another reason to live."
Messenger stared at Spike, the man he had known from childhood.
"I'll find Faye," Spike said, "I'll get you what you need. But after that, you must keep your end of the promise as well. You will leave Faye, Edward, and me alone. If I find any implification otherwise, you know what will happen."
Messenger nodded. Spike placed his hands in his pockets and carelessly strolled out of the room without turning back.
Maxim watched Messenger in confusion.
"What's this business about Vassiliy?" Maxim asked.
"He killed his old partner," Messenger replied, "now, revenge is Spike's sole purpose to be alive. Same old rubbish."
Maxim's eyes were wide, "Spike Spiegel, the legend. Who would have thought?"
Edward opened her eyes. A white ceiling fan rotated above her. She stared at it for a moment with confusion. Her limbs stirred, and she attempted to sit up from an unrecognized bed in which she was confined. Her joints felt as if they were about to ignite, and she murmured something she, herself, did not comprehend. She began to work herself up, moving gently the tips of her fingers and toes, rotating her neck. She saw a dark window, an empty flower vase on a table next to her. A footstool by the bed. She quivered a little and her body flailed again.
"Where am I? What's this?" she asked herself audibly.
It was then that she spotted Johnny Builder stirring in the corner of the room. He was asleep, but her voice had awakened him. Immediately, he rushed to her bedside.
"Fran!" he exclaimed, taking her hand. She winced at his forcefulness over her brittle bones.
"Johnny," she whispered, her eyes half closed, "what are you doing here?"
"You were in an accident, Fran. You were in this condition for months. I was here all that time."
She smiled briefly, "here? Where is here?"
"The Mars Metropolitan Hospital, Francoise."
"My name," she whispered, "is Ed."
It all came back to her now. Johnny's stolen spaceship, the tanker. The crash. And all the rest was an array of lost pieces of time.
"Oh, Fran," Johnny whispered, "I love you, Fran. Please come home with me. I turn eighteen next month. I can get a job at a garage, fix spaceships. We can have a family, Franny, if you agree to marry me."
She smiled again, "Johnny, you had best get going. Forget about me. I have a feeling I won't be free for a while. Not with all the hospital bills I must have rung up."
"I paid them all," he said, "I've been working, Fran. All for you."
Her eyes widened, "help me up, Johnny, come one."
He pushed her back up gently and she felt a moment of mind-numbing pain. But then it was dullness again.
"Don't call me ungrateful," she said quietly, "I'll pay you back every penny."
"No need!" he exclaimed, "Fran, don't you understand?"
"Ed!" she screamed, "my name is Ed!"
He stared at her quietly.
"The Dragons!" she suddenly remembered. Maxim. "Johnny, were there men looking for me?"
"How did you know?" he asked, "just this morning someone came asking for you. The hospital wouldn't let them up. They only let me in because I paid for you."
Edward raised to her feet, ignoring the pain it caused. She almost trampled to the floor, but, keeping her composure, ran to the door. Johnny chased after her but was too late. She ran, bumping into nurses and patients alike, towards the elevator. Most were transfixed by a half-naked trauma patient rushing through the corridor, but did nothing to stop her. When Edward reached the first floor, she hid behind a plant and watched through its branches a group of men in dark suits populating the sitting are of the front desk. She recognized one of them, and it was like a kick in the stomach. Maxim. Still beautiful, still so profoundly beautiful.
She remembered how much she had been in love.
But it didn't matter anymore. She ran back into the elevator and raised to her previous floor where she found Johnny waiting for her.
"We have to get out of here!" she screamed, "you have to help me get out of here."
"No," Johnny shook his head. "This is insanity."
"A spaceship," she screamed, "do you have a spaceship?"
"If you can call it that, but---" he suddenly understood her line of reasoning, "No, not again. I learn from my mistakes. No way am I---"
She leapt into his arms and planted a kiss on his lips, a sweet moistness of her mouth meeting with his unexpected tongue. He closed her eyes and felt her closeness for a moment. His hands found their way to her waist and pressed her petite body into his broad, muscled plane.
"Let's go," he said, despite himself.
Hand in hand, they ran to the stairs. Opening the door, they tore through the parameter and began to descend quickly. Ed's ankle twisted slightly and she did her best to ignore it. It was little luck. She jumped, trailing her bad leg behind her. Johnny noticed after a while, and lifted her into his strong arms. They moved rapidly down the stairs as one before emerging in the front lobby of the hospital. They kept quiet then, moving ever so slightly toward the exit, trying to slip past the men in suits. It was Maxim who had turn at that moment and see Ed in a blue hospital gown, holding hands with a stranger and running through the rotating glass door. He rushed after them into the parking lot. The pair disappeared into a midst of automobiles and ships. He found his way quickly through a maze, rushing after his mark, before he emerged onto a small landing strip, where Ed stood alone, facing him with her back.
He walked to her. The wind was playing in her hair and the city was quieter than his own, shallow breathing. She turned to him and smiled, a sad and beautiful smile.
"Hi, Maxim," she said lightly.
"Hi, Ed," he replied.
"How are things?" she asked.
"Not so good."
There was more he had to say, to admit. But he was afraid to until the end. Until it was too late.
A piece of metal excuse for a ship landed in front of Ed. The stranger was driving.
Edward smiled her smile, that characteristic, careless, childhood smile. "Aloha!" she screamed and got into the ship. Maxim watched her fly away, feeling bits of his existence dissolving with her in the horizon.
Edward and Johnny watched the wall of an empty parking lot. It was silent for a while, only the sound of the old engine was running. Ed sighed for a moment, and then turned to Johnny.
"I have to find my friend," she said softly, "if that's all right with you."
He nodded, "would it even matter?"
"Of course," she said quietly
They were silent again.
"You didn't mean anything by it, did you?" he asked.
"By what?"
"That kiss."
"Oh," Ed paused, "I'm sorry."
"That man, the one that was chasing us---was he---"
"I'm sorry," she whispered, "I don't want to be ungrateful. I'm sorry."
She turned her head to him and placed her hand on his cheek. She traced it slowly over his lips and down to neck, and then lower still to his heart. It was pounding. She closed her eyes and listened for a second to the prolongued concerto of his rhythm. He sighed loudly, closing his own eyes as well. Ed slid over the shift of the ship and crouched by Johnny's lap. She sat, pressing Johnny between her legs, warmth against his sudden excitement. She licked his ear and looked into his eyes, smiling sadly.
"Don't," he whispered, "not because you're thanking me."
"I'm sorry," she moaned, "so sorry."
He closed his palms against her hips and dug his fingers into her flesh. Then, he ran his hand up her spinal chord and undid the ties of her hospital gown, removing it entirely and throwing it aside. Ed wore nothing underneath. He buried his face in her small breasts; she kissed the crown of his head, smelling his hair. She unstrapped his belt and unzipped the fly, exposing his erect penis. Wrapping her hand around it, she kissed him again.
"Are you a virgin?" she whispered.
"No," he replied, "are you?"
She gave no response. He melted in her essence.
Somewhere on Mars, Maxim was still remembering how it had felt that rainy afternoon, when Ed was in his arms.