Chapter 142: We’re all fucked up

James stepped out before the dead elevator banks that let out into the underground parking structure. They now merely opened to a railing-enclosed balcony that looked out over the tech wonderland that Jessica had created; the air before him thrummed with flying droids and was suffused with various metallic smells and the tang of burned ozone. The walls were paneled in steel shot through with glowing blue circuitry, and the central production spire was in full operation.

James stepped up the railing and gazed out over the factory. A sense of melancholy washed over him. What marvels were being produced here. What incredible technology. What would their world, their future have looked like, as a species, if the demons had shown up not to destroy, but to share?

There were far fewer Fabricators at work below than before. Most of the process now seemed automated. A Cornucopia Seed looked nearly finished at the base of the main exit ramp, its sides complex and closed up around itself like a furled flower bud.

What a utopia they could have created together. Sending such marvels to the poorest corners of the world, bringing unlimited energy and construction to those who needed it most. Ushering the whole world into a new and scintillating future.

Instead the demons had chosen genocide and destruction. James hadn’t heard how the rest of the world was doing in what felt like weeks. India, China, South Africa, Germany, the Philippines… was anybody even still alive? After those endless waves of Nem 4’s, 5’s, and up, how could they be?

The thought weighed on James like a lead blanket. How many billions had died? Six? Seven? How many humans were even left? A few thousand? Had he been selfish in focusing his efforts on the mainland USA? On New York, even? Should he have insisted others amongst their group get teleportation, especially those with international travel experience? Should they have spent their time racing around the world, trying to save as many as they could?

James closed his eyes and sighed. No matter what he did, it seemed like he’d neglected four or five critical opportunities to do better. No matter how many he saved, it still felt like nothing compared to the billions whom he’d let die.

No, he thought. You didn’t let them die. You’re not Superman. You’re just an average guy trying to do his best. You didn’t ask for this. You didn’t make the mistakes willingly. The world is better for your efforts.

“Thanks, Arete,” he whispered, then scoffed. It was hard to wallow in self-pity with an Arete of 800.

“What’s that?” Jessica approached, her footsteps silent on the broad balcony, her Omni floating over her shoulder, a mess of glowing screens radiating around her. She smiled. “What made you laugh?”

James turned, painfully self aware. “It’s good to see you again. You you, I mean. Not just your Omni.”

Jessica laughed. Her blonde hair was mussed, her ineffable elegance somehow making even her rumpled office wear look casual and appealing. “Tell me about it. It was the weirdest thing. Being in that machine felt fine, moment to moment, but over time I began to feel… disconnected from myself? I’m sure a hundred fascinating studies could be done about the consequences of being divorced from your own body, but without -”

James stepped up to her. Stepped in close, not sure even what he was doing, and Jessica suddenly cut off.

The air between them, all of an inch, crackled with sudden intensity.

“I…” His voice was husky and low. Carefully, he reached up and placed his hand on her upper arm.

She tensed and looked up at him uncertainly, her vivid blue eyes wide.

James swallowed. “We don’t have much time left. No matter what happens. Things are coming to an end. We’re… we’re lucky to have gotten this far. But before it ends. Before… well - I don’t want to… for things to end without…”

Jessica inhaled raggedly. She raised her face to him, and she looked so young, so perilously beautiful and delicate and strong at the same time. She leaned forward, into him, and pressed her lips against his own.

Her lips were firm. Her kiss felt more like a statement of intent than anything else, an assertion, a declaration that more words weren’t necessary.

James wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him. She was angular, surprisingly slender, her chest full against his own. They kissed with greater passion, she turning her head to one side, then pulled back with a startled laugh and took off her glasses which had begun to twist across her face.

“Here,” she said, taking his hand and pulling him after her. “Follow.”

James obeyed, mute, heart thunderous in his chest, feeling as if he were following. He couldn’t tear his gaze off of her. How improbably beautiful she was, how real, the sensation of her hand in his, how she pulled him with such confidence.

Was this really happening?

She led him into a side room, motion sensors turning on the harsh lights as they entered. James pushed the door closed behind him. The click of the latch was distinct.

Jessica folded her glasses and set them aside. For a moment she looked like a deer, ready to bolt, but then she stepped back, worked her way up to sit on the edge of the conference table, and extended a hand to him.

“Jessica,” he said as he drew close. Was it a question? A request? He didn’t know himself. She pulled him in close and turned up her face again. Parted her thighs so he could step in between them.

They kissed.

Her hands reached down for his belt, unbuckled him with quick, hard tugs, and then her palm, smooth, and her fingers, cool, slid under his clothing to grasp him in all his burning hardness.

James exhaled sharply and drew back a few inches to look at her. Jessica’s face was pale, her chest was rising rapidly, but something felt off. She began to work her hand up and down but he caught her by the wrist.

Her gaze was almost glassy.

“Hey,” he whispered. “You all right?”

“Of course,” she whispered back and resumed moving her hand. “I… I want this.”

James stepped back, confused, uncertain, but knowing this wasn’t how he wanted it to go. “Hey, wait a second.” He drew her hand free. “What’s going on?”

She blinked and sat up straighter. “Going on? I…” She looked down, and her blonde hair fell before her face. “I… this is right. This is… I mean, you’re right, we don’t have much time left, and…”

James moved in closer again and tilted her face up by the chin. “Jessica?”

Two circles of color had appeared high on her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m ruining this. But I don’t… I don’t know how I should…”

“You’re not doing anything wrong,” he said softly. “It just feels like you’re moving away from me. Disappearing.”

Tears brimmed in her eyes and overflowed down her cheeks.

“Hey,” said James, alarmed. “There’s nothing wrong, just…” He stepped in close and hugged her.

Jessica pressed her brow to his shoulder. Her shoulders hitched. “I’ve been telling myself this moment was coming, and that I wanted it, but…”

“But?”

Her shoulders sagged. “I’ve got… issues with being… physical with people.”

“It’s OK.” James pulled back and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “We don’t have to. Just this is enough.”

“But it’s not.” She smiled brokenly at him. “I want more than this. But now I’m freaking out and ruining everything and…”

James shook his head. “I promise you. We don’t have to do anything.”

She studied his face, her expression one of such loss and pain that it nearly broke his heart. “Why couldn’t I have met you before the apocalypse?”

“Probably wouldn’t have worked out,” he said gently. “Unless you had a thing for older homeless guys?”

She laughed, surprised, and wiped her eyes. “No. Not really.”

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“And I was in a very different place before all this. So maybe this is our best shot at… something. Imperfect as we both are.”

“It’s just that…” She hung her head again. “Sex. Being with someone. I’ve… it’s become very complicated for me.”

James could tell she wanted to explain, felt her need. So he turned off the light and then hitched up to sit beside her, her hand still in his. They sat in the dark. She ran her thumb over his knuckles, searching for the words.

“I had this boyfriend in college. He died in a car accident. We had a… a very intense relationship.”

James recalled what Star Boy had told him, but stayed quiet.

“My whole life I’d been in total control of myself. Model student, perfect boyfriend in high school, and so on. But with him I felt… crazy. We loved each other, but we hurt each other over so much. Our fights… they were… He’d flirt with other girls in front of me, laughing, make out with them, and then I’d go mad in our dorm room, throw things at him, scream. We’d fuck so hard we couldn’t walk. But he kept pushing it. I felt like I was drowning. He’d cry sometimes, talk about how he loved me more than life itself. I felt like the only one who understood him.”

Jessica was shaking, her voice trembling.

“He was taking all this medication, but it wasn’t helping. He wanted to hurt me because I made him feel…vulnerable. I let him hurt me, because it made me feel closer to him, made me feel… special. But our games started getting more… more…”

“Shh,” said James, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to.”

She sat up straighter. “But I want to. You said it yourself. This is it. The end. I want to tell you why I’m having trouble - always have had trouble - with men. It started as games, he brought handcuffs and whips to bed, but it got really dark. We did things… he made me do things - I mean, I agreed to them - that put me in a really bad headspace. And then he killed himself.”

“I thought it was an accident?”

“That’s what people thought. But we’d had a really terrible fight. He’d left me bound inside his closet for over twelve hours with nothing but a straw through my mouth to breathe through. I nearly died of asphyxiation. He brought a girl home, slept with her, and I had to sit there, delirious with oxygen deprivation, and when he kicked her out and opened the closet and let me go, I… it was a terrible, terrible fight. He left and got in that car accident.”

“Oh shit,” said James softly. He was trying to keep up with her revelations, but it felt as if he’d been walking on lake ice which had suddenly started to crack all around him. He’d no experience with this kind of stuff. “I’m so sorry.”

“Nobody knew. What we did. And when he died, I went… not mad, but completely ice cold. It’s like all my emotions just disappeared. And I went to this S&M club that we’d frequented sometimes and signed up for a job. The very next day.”

James blinked in the darkness. “Uh - I mean - you…?”

“I know, right?” She laughed softly. “It sounds like a terrible late night Skinemax movie plot. I’ve done a lot of therapy about it, since. I think I was trying to remain connected to him, by doing what we used to do. But I did it to other men, and it gave me a feeling of power, of…”

James sensed her shaking her head slowly.

“I only did it for sixteen months. But a lot happened in that time. The whole time I felt like I was in control, that I was above it all, different from the men and women who came in for sessions. I felt contempt for them. I was good at it. But I slowly started to crack, to lose control, and realized at the end I was just as fucked up, if not more. They at least could ask for what they needed. I couldn’t even admit that I was dying on the inside.”

“Your friends? Your parents?”

“Nobody knew. I kept it strictly private. Until the end, when I was falling apart. I got fired from my internship, I barely graduated from college, and…”

Jessica drifted off.

They sat in silence for awhile.

“I moved back home for a year, started therapy, but the therapist sucked so I quit. I worked at Trader Joe’s, told my parents I was broken up over my dead ex, but in the way they’d understand. I didn’t tell them I felt completely hollowed outside, a stranger to myself.

“Eventually I moved back out, got a job as an intern at a non-profit in Brooklyn. I worked there for a year, but once they promoted me I fell apart and quit. That became my pattern. I’d interview well, start somewhere new, then as soon as people started praising me I’d implode and walk away. And I’d get into these terrible relationships. It was like I had a sixth sense for guys who could fuck me up. Who could treat me like shit without any of the passion or love that Matt showed me. I felt like I sleep-walked through my twenties, right till I found this great therapist who finally started to really help me. I got a job at the NYCEM, and for the year before the apocalypse things started to feel like they were falling into place.”

“And then the apocalypse happened.”

Jessica laughed bitterly. “But you know? I was about to quit my job. I could tell I was starting to self-sabotage all over again. But when the Nem1’s appeared, suddenly all my inner panic just… disappeared. All my strengths came out, and my weakness, my pain, it all seemed to irrelevant. I felt like I could just be my machine-self. Till…”

“Till?”

He heard her, felt her turn toward him. “Till you took me on that ride on the Wing. Remember? Around Manhattan? I’d denied there was anything between us till that point, but that night… I realized being around you, being with you, felt… safe. Good. Right. I’m sorry, that doesn’t sound… I mean, with you, I felt like I could be myself without being tempted… without wanting to be hurt. Like I could trust you. Could be happy with you. Feeling alive, before, meant risking the madness returning. The need to be hurt. But I didn’t want you to hurt me.”

A great sadness arose in James. “I don’t want to hurt you, either.”

“I know.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I wanted us to connect, to hook up, I’d been expecting it for some time, but…” He felt her shake her head. “Instead I’ve just scared the shit out of you with my fucked up story and drained the romance right out of everything.”

“Shh,” he said, squeezing her shoulders gently. “It’s OK. Thanks for trusting me. For telling me.”

They sat in silence in the dark. He made her feel safe. He made her feel happy. But he was too old, too wise, to think there was real passion there. He was important to her, he’d shown her there were alternative ways to be, but wasn’t what he’d wanted.

He ran his hand gently up and down her back. This wasn’t what he’d hoped, but that… that was all right.

Jessica snuggled in closer against him. “Thank you, James.” Her voice was barely audible. “I’m… wish I wasn’t so fucked up.”

“Haven’t you realized yet? We’re all fucked up.”

“I just wanted to have a good time with you before… before everything… but - sex gets me in this really bad headspace. Too many bad memories. It’s like I’ve forgotten how to be myself once I start… I feel the old role coming on, the old voice, the….”

“Shh,” he said again. “This is good. We don’t need to do anything more than this.”

She didn’t reply.

They sat in silence in the dark.

James thought of his dead wife, Laney. Pictured her perfectly. Pain stabbed into his heart, literal pain, and he closed his eyes against it but didn’t stop remembering her face. Holding Jessica close, he thought of his long dead wife. He felt old.

Old and tired.

If only they’d had more time. More time to get to know each other. For Jessica to come to terms with her past, her feelings, their potential.

More time to grow into something good.

But the demons had robbed them of that, too.

A little longer. He just had to keep it together a little longer, and then he could finally rest.

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