Session 2
Night in Tunisia
ACT 1
Space swallowed one whole like a toothless, gaping mouth, breathless save for the slow pulse of stars. Two stately pillars - a ruined, cold reminder of a distant era - marked the entrance to the stretch of space that housed a planet fossilized in a century that had come and gone quietly in all other avenues of the solar system. It - Earth - was the enzyme that sheltered its substrates and facilitated the beginning of the end: the end of her first life, and, now, the end of her second.
Faye accelerated and passed into the hyperspace gate, stifling the terror that snaked its way from the pit of her stomach to her lips, terror induced by the sensation of being consumed by some great beast. Galaxies stretched out on either side of the monster's throat, and it vomited her out at the feet of a blue ball, the broken surface of which was characterized with deep brown stains, scars left by the impact of hurtling fire-rocks.
For a moment she was unable to breathe, her head dizzy and tight with apprehension. A lifetime ago space travel had frightened her, and she thought then that if only her fragmented memory would allow her to know the source of her fear she would not longer be debilitated by it. The fear had dulled with time, but in the wake of her newfound memory it had returned with a horrible vengeance, and she knew now this fear was nothing imagined:
behind her eyes space opened up like a head being bashed against concrete, spilling light like blood and innards.
Faye clutched the controls, worn smooth by use; they were cold now, without warm gloves between them and her skin. The imaginary current of a spherical river forced her downstream, the pull of which was so slight that it went unnoticed, and quite suddenly she was in a place made only unfamiliar by the passage of time.
Her communicator thrummed with electricity and static in response to a long abandoned security station. She ignored it.
ACT 2
"Macintime!"
"Macintyre, sir."
Appleberry smiled broadly and clapped Macintyre on one shoulder, leaving a dark print of dirt and grime on the pink cotton of the slighter man's neatly pressed button-down. The latter grimaced. "Terribly sorry, Macinwoot!" Appleberry boomed. "Would you like an egg?"
"I'm allergic." Macintyre said, his voice dry.
"Macinwoot! Woot, hoot, Macinwoot!"
Appleberry's daughter spoke little and, if Macintyre was not mistaken, often hid behind a veneer of concentration, beneath which he suspected was a chasm of idleness. It had only been in the past few weeks that Macintyre had observed the beginnings of a transformation in her, as if she was regressing to some wild state.
Edward hooted like an owl in Macintyre's ear. He started.
"Gosh, Francois, be a little more considerate, would you?"
"Right-o, Mac-person!" Macintyre! It was a wonder he hadn't forgotten his own name. 'Mac-person', however, exuded some odd appeal. "Also, Edward wants Mac-person to know that she is not Francois. Ed is Ed." There was a seriousness to this he was not accustomed to hearing.
"Sure, Ed." Edward smiled and nodded vigorously, and whispered, very quietly, as if relating some great secret,
"Mac-person has earned the respect of many elephants."
Ed and her father existed, he concluded, on a separate plane of reality than normal beings. It was good that his work paid well. He frowned, realizing that his apprenticeship paid nothing for sixth time that afternoon. The fact continually astounded him.
ACT 2 and 1/2
A chilling Earthen night descended on the stretch of barren rock the trio had chosen for a campsite. Tough grasses and moss wormed to the surface of shallow pockets in the rock's face. Macintyre squatted near a boulder, perhaps once a falling star, and watched Edward work. She swayed and chanted with a new, energetic and almost mischievous vigor.
Appleberry collapsed beside Macintyre and encompassed the vast openness before them with a sweep of one gigantic palm. "It really is exciting work that we do, Macintosh. We're explorers, is what we are, real ones, not fools on the fringes of space - the greatest discoveries are made closest to home, my father always told me. Egg?"
After a moment Macintyre said,
"Have you noticed how differently Francois has been acting lately? It's as if she's up to something, if you know what I mean." Appleberry smiled obliviously and reassuringly.
"I didn't raise my girl to be the type to find trouble." Appleberry clapped Macintyre on the shoulder and lumbered to the shelter they had erected. Macintyre did not follow. He contemplated the boulder behind him, asked himself how many light years it had traveled to fall in a heap of rubble on this broken planet, and for how many thousands or millions of years it had journeyed. His thoughts turned to his work: tomorrow morning they would rise and fruitlessly map a new expanse of rock, only to return weeks or days or hours later and find that the living landscape had been destroyed or changed to such an extent that it was no longer recognizable.
ACT 3
Faye laid one cheek down on a chilled block of white marble. The frigidness of the evening made her eyes burn and her breath turn to a smoky cloud. Beside her lay the disembodied head of a lion, its fountain mouth a small 'O', now dry and cracked, and its marble eroded by exposure to the elements. It was very different from the beast she recalled from her youth, a stately, muscular thing that spat sparkling spring water beneath a heavy, bright moon. Adults in black gowns and suits danced behind beaded, silver masquerade costumes and drank red wine from translucent glasses.
She felt pressure behind her eyes but did not cry. Why did she come back to this empty place; what did she expect to find?
Her dreams were confused, a jumble of syndicate men in suits, triggers pulled, blood pooling on tile, and things left unfinished.
A/N A slightly longer, more eventful chapter. Revised. Session one has also been revised, if anyone is remotely interested.
Thank you M., rouge night , PerfectGrammar and jadedghostgurl. I hope you guys have read and enjoyed this chapter, too!