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There are three people in this relationship: Daniel Jacobi, the guy with two degrees in blowing things up; Warren Kepler, the guy whose moral compass is a hundred and eighty degrees off; and Alana Maxwell, the ghost, hovering between them like a goddamn mushroom cloud.
The toxicity had been there since the beginning, and by now, Jacobi practically craves it. Yeah, yeah, that says something about him, but he loves the mind games, the inscrutable orders, the mystery and uncertainty. Then the moments where he truly sees the man behind the curtain become that much sweeter. Their relationship was never supposed to be fast—it’s about savoring, about enduring miles and miles of shitty ankle-turning trails and swarming insects and poisonous plants to reach the summit, where the mountain rises through the clouds to reveal the infinite blue sky.
Duh.
But Kepler had to have all the important cards, and when you force everyone else to play with half a deck…
They start to make mistakes.
There are three people in this relationship: a perennial screwup, a professional asshole, and an innocent bystander, canonized for all eternity because everyone feels so bad about what happened to her.
“So, what can I help you with?”
“I thought it was your job to figure that out.”
“Well, in my experience, people come here because they feel like they need help with something.”
“How about everything.” Jacobi tries not to laugh.
“That too. ‘Everything’ is a little broad for our first session, though. Can you take me through the biggest parts?”
“Oh, yeah.” He leans back in his chair. Where does he even start? Maybe that question doesn’t even make sense. If you build a house on uneven ground, can you really be surprised when it collapses?
The therapist tilts his head, factoring the length of Jacobi’s silence into his calculations. “Do you have any goals for our interaction? Anything you want to get out of therapy?”
Jacobi mentally claws his own face off and runs into the woods to live as an animal. “I don’t know.” Doesn’t this guy get it? There’s nothing to say.
“You know,” Hera says with the gravitas of an old cowboy sipping gin on the back porch, “I used to think she loved me.”
“Yeah?”
“I thought I meant something to her. But in the end… she didn’t even think of me as a person. I could’ve been a microwave for all she cared.”
But Hera had meant something to Maxwell, that much had been obvious. The only problem had been the third wheel.
You don’t know, Jacobi wants to say. You don’t know the hold he had over us. She didn’t have any choice. But that’s a flimsy excuse. Doesn’t everyone have choices? His own family history has taught him that ‘I was just following orders’ is the most pathetic thing a person can say.
But they don’t know who was holding the reins. How could he risk a single ounce of Kepler’s affection?
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know. All of it?”
“You’re not responsible for all of it. Just some. Not even, like, the biggest parts.”
“I know. But I’m the only one left.”
“Then… in that case, apology accepted.”
They sit, and the cicadas sing to fill the silence.
“Jacobi?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s just so confusing, and it hurts so much. And I don’t know why, or how to make it stop, and the more I think about it, the more confused and hurt I get. But I don’t want to forget anything, either. I’ve seen that, and it terrifies me. But remembering—it’s like I’m caught in barbed wire.” She can’t cry, but her voice glitches and fizzes at the edges. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispers.
“I… I’m sorry, Hera.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know what to do either.”
“It just sounds wrong when you say it, okay?”
“What, Daniel?”
“It’s just not right.”
“I mean, you can always pick a different one, right?”
Jacobi scowls. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh. Okay.”
This is what he gets for trying to fuck a stupid one. Then again, it’s risky to fuck smart people. When they break your heart, you know they mean it. “Just don’t say my name, alright?”
“Sure, man. No kissing, no names. What can I like, actually do?”
“I’ll show you.”
“My life is a rerun of the worst show on television. I find something good, then I start thinking for one goddamn second that I might actually—that I could be—and then I fuck it all up.
“Kepler caught me in the middle of the biggest fuckup of my life. I think I would have believed anything he said, and he told me… he made beautiful promises.
“He said that he could direct me, give me purpose, and no one would get hurt except the people who fucking deserved it. All I had to promise him was my loyalty. And nobody had ever asked me for that before, nobody had ever wanted the loyalty of a random screwup with no future, no friends, no…
“And it wasn’t all one-way, y’know. He gave the world a flawless performance of Warren James Kepler, but I saw more than he suspected.
“For all his grand speeches… he just wanted the same thing as me, and he’d change whatever parts of himself were necessary to make it happen. Me, I can’t change. I tried that when I was a kid, and believe me, it didn’t work. You can’t pretend to be something you’re not.
“But that was the crazy thing about him. He wasn’t pretending—he really believed.”
“The way you’re talking about him makes me think he’s not with us anymore.”
“I don’t give second chances to assholes who break their own word.”
Minkowski starts shaking her head. “Oh, no. No, no, I’m not equipped to deal with this. You must’ve been real desperate to come here.”
“You don’t even know the half of it.”
“Alright, alright, get up,” she mutters. She and Kepler were the tallest people on the Hephaestus, not that it had meant much without gravity. Here on Earth, she picks Jacobi up like he’s a bunch of grapes and sets him on his feet. “Go home.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Well, you can’t sleep in my hydrangeas. I thought you were a raccoon.”
Jacobi scowls up at her and slinks towards her garage. “Let me sleep in the ship.”
“I don’t have it anymore.”
“No,” Jacobi says, poking listlessly at the keypad. “Ughhhh, there are too many numbers, you do it.”
“Oh my god,” Minkowski mutters. “Not gonna touch that.”
“But you have to, so you can press the buttons.”
She closes her eyes and takes a breath. “Iz, please come down here and handle this!” she yells at the house.
A window opens, and Lovelace sticks her head out. “What?”
“You’re the resident Jacobi-wrangler!”
“Lovelace, I’m sorry Kepler shot you in the head!” Jacobi shouts in case she forgot.
“Okay… I don’t… why… I can’t handle this right now. It’s fine, Dominik, get back in bed. If Miss Congeniality wants to try for another award, that’s her business.”
“Great. Great, see what you did?” Minkowski sighs. “I’m calling you an Uber.”
“I’m banned from Uber.”
“No, you’re not.” She starts typing on her phone.
“Uhhhhgghghhhh,” Jacobi whines.
“Okay, Steve is going to be here in eight minutes. He’s driving a white Honda Civic. My work here is done.”
“Aw, Minkowski,” he pleads.
“This is getting sad. Look, do you want… to come in for eight minutes?”
“I want my spaceship.”
“Let the record show that I tried.” Minkowski opens her front door.
“Oh, you tried? This is what you trying looks like? I dunno, I’ve seen Maximum Effort Minkowski before, and I don’t think this is her. Waaaay less people are dead for this to be the real deal. Do you even regret what you did, or were you just following orders?”
She freezes, silhouetted in the light from inside the house. “What did you say to me?”
“Do you. Regret it?”
Minkowski doesn’t even turn around. “No. No, I don’t. I was only doing what I had to do. I had to protect my people, and you made it very clear that you had your own agenda.”
“So you’d do it again?”
“Yes.”
“Look at me and say that.”
She’s silent for a moment, gritting her teeth, and then she looks up. Her ice-blue eyes fix on him. “Yes, I would.”
“Ha!” Jacobi claps a hand over his mouth, but more laughs keep bubbling up and pouring out of him. He slides to the floor, giggling madly.
“…I’ve broken him.”
“Kepler was so sure he knew you. He risked her life on his ability to judge you, and he somehow missed the mark so spectacularly that Maxwell’s brains ended up splattered over the bulkhead walls. Shows what he knew.” Jacobi cries less than he used to—it’s just simple biology. But the tears prick hot and blurry regardless, traitorous, and he laughs because it’s all so fucking useless.
“Maybe he wasn’t as great as you thought,” Minkowski says, but she puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. “People are complicated like that.”
“No, no, no-no-no-no. No, he can’t be, he promised.” Jacobi shakes his head, standing up and staggering out into the street. “You have to be wrong.”
“So that’s why you’re here?” Minkowski grabs him by the arm and reels him back into the garden. “You want to know how much I loved Isabel, if there was a snowball’s chance in hell that Kepler was right all along? Fine, then let me do you a favor. He was wrong.”
Jacobi looks at her wordlessly, tears burning hot on his cheeks.
“You… you should come inside. I’ll cancel the Uber.”
“I wanna go home.”
“I know.”
“He promised.”
“I know.”
“I mean, Hilbert totally deserved it.”
“He did. The whole virus thing? Yeah, dick move.”
“But Maxwell and Lovelace didn’t.”
She looks at him for a moment. “You didn’t, either. C’mon, I’ll make hot chocolate.”
“…With whipped cream?”
She huffs. “Yeah, whipped cream and everything. And if you want to talk at all…”
“Let’s see how I feel after a few of those hot chocolates.”
Kepler wasn’t supposed to live. It would have been nice, but it didn’t matter if Jacobi knew his betrayal had been an act. Kepler knew, and that was enough.
“What happened to you?”
“Rachel.”
Jacobi laughs, mostly in disbelief. Probably. “Wow, that’s kind of sad. You bleeding out?”
“Probably.”
“Because she shot you?”
Now Kepler starts laughing, even though it hurts. “And I blasted her out an airlock.”
Blood surrounds him in a spray of dark ruby droplets, suspended around him mid-impact.
“Why the hell would you do that?”
“You’d never believe me.” Blood flows strangely in space, globules that break off of him like he’s a giant lava lamp. “You gonna leave me here or what, Jacobi?”
“I’m thinking.”
“I love you.”
“Still thinking.”
“And?”
“I’m gonna regret this.” Jacobi takes Kepler by the hand and pulls him through the station.
“Aww, you love me too.”
“And now I have instant regret. How do you do it?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Kepler says, and he passes out.
“Jacobi?”
“Can’t you see I’m busy, Lovelace?” This window isn’t going to stare out itself, that’s for damn sure.
“It’s your, uh… Kepler. He’s not doing great. The Urania’s not equipped to handle medical emergencies.”
That’s code for, we blew all our medical resources trying to keep me and Minkowski alive, sorry, bro. To be fair, it’s not like he could have stopped them and said, wait, guys! But what about helping the manipulative, murderous asshole who’s partially responsible for all this and who personally killed Lovelace! Jacobi sighs and floats begrudgingly towards her. “And?”
“You’re the one who wanted to bring him with us, so… I thought you’d be interested to know how he’s doing.”
“Fine. Dunno what the hell I’m supposed to do about it.” Jacobi brushes past her, towards the makeshift infirmary. Amnesiac Eiffel is also there, puzzling over a Rubik’s cube that Minkowski gave to him to stop him from asking a million random questions every second of every day. “Hey, Doug.”
“This thing is impossible.” He has the blue side almost done, just one square out of place. “Either that or I don’t know what the hell is happening, as per fucking usual.”
“You’re doing great, man.”
“Thanks,” Eiffel sighs. “I’ll, uh, go to the observation deck. Take as much time as you want.”
“Awesome.” As much time as he wants with Warren J. Kepler. What a prize. “Hey, uh, Lovelace tells me you’re dying or whatever?”
Kepler says nothing. Rachel had pretty good aim, and she was at close range.
“Hold on, I need to know what’s killing you.” Jacobi squints at a few monitors and has no idea what they mean. “Uh… I’ll chalk it up to being shot a bunch.”
Ordinarily, Kepler would make some annoying quip or tell the story of another time he got shot a bunch, which was way cooler than this time, seriously, I promise. His silence makes Jacobi’s skin prickle.
“Can’t you just wake up already? Why do you always have to make things hard for me?”
For once, Mr. Jacobi, it’s not about you.
“Yeah, yeah. Shut up.”
I’m not saying anything. This part is all you.
“You’re such an asshole. Of course you’d finally say that you love me as a goddamn guilt trip.”
And I’d say that it worked, wouldn’t you?
“No, I have morals now, and it’s like bad to let people die or something.”
So why are you here, then? Feeling guilty?
“Call it morbid curiosity.”
You love me, though.
“Not anymore. I haven’t loved you in months.”
You’re still upset about Maxwell? It was partially your fault, too, you know. You could have done more. You always could have done more. Why weren’t you better, Jacobi? Why did you let Maxwell die, the same way you’re letting me—
“Stop lying.”
I don’t like to repeat myself, so listen closely. This part? Is all you.
“I hope you die.” Jacobi leaves.
“So… how did it go?” Lovelace asks as he floats back to his quarters.
“Awesome.”
She tugs on her uniform sleeves, then says, “I don’t think he’ll make it back to Earth.”
“It’s better if he doesn’t.”
“Then why did you bring him onto the ship?”
Because I loved him, and then I didn’t, but then he got injured saving everyone, and I can’t help wondering if maybe it means something, that maybe he’s human after all and maybe I could—but every time I look at him, I want to fucking scream.
“I don’t know, okay? Leave me alone.”
But you are alone.
“Well, well, well,” Kepler drawls slowly, savoring each syllable. “If it isn’t Mister Jacobi, come to see me after all these months.” He leans comfortably against the doorframe. The crisp Goddard-issue uniforms are gone, replaced by an AC/DC t-shirt and khaki cargo shorts. It’s truly repulsive—he’s gone full dad mode. And has his fake Midwestern twang gotten even worse?
“Yeah, whatever. Don’t read too much into it.”
“Can I offer you anything?”
“No.” Jacobi shoulders his way in. “I want to keep this short.”
“Like all good stories.” Kepler ruffles his hair, bringing Jacobi’s attention to the silver strands mixed in with the black, and it’s truly astonishing that even after all this time, he has to look away.
“Don’t even go there.”
Kepler holds both hands up placatingly. His right hand is artificial, smooth alabaster-white alloyed casing and the faint whirr of tiny mechanisms. “Alright, alright. Well, what brings you to my doorstep?”
“You know why I’m here.”
“Do I?”
That kind of question is completely illegal. Both in Questions Only and emotionally, right now. Honestly, Kepler probably can’t tell the difference between moves on a chessboard and real life. This asshole starts Twitter discourse for fun—not that Jacobi is stalking him online with Hera’s help or anything, he just seems like that. “Y’know, that right there, that’s the problem with you. You were so busy playing the game that you didn’t see you were playing yourself, too, and now it’s too late. I’m moving on,” Jacobi says, but it comes out defensive, forced.
“No, you’re not. I know you, Jacobi. Always living in the past… wasn’t that where I found you?”
That little motherfucker! The worst part is that Kepler is in fact, entirely correct, something Jacobi can’t deny without completely undermining himself. “I never want to see you again. If I do, you’re getting the C-4.”
“Threatening me with my favorite explosive? I’m flattered,” Kepler simpers, and Jacobi punches him.
The rush of sharp joy makes him want to go again, but even once was a mistake—Jacobi’s played the game long enough to understand that much.
Kepler touches one hand to the corner of his mouth and comes away bleeding, and part of Jacobi melts. He could just reach out and wipe the blood away. Kiss it better. It would be hot, and angry, and… exactly what he doesn’t need anymore.
“Can’t you just talk to me, without all the bullshit and the bravado? Just talk to me, like we’re two normal people.”
Kepler almost smiles. “Ah, but there’s the rub. We were never normal people.”
“Fuck you. I used a goddamn simile, and you’re fucking me over again.”
For a second, those pure blue eyes waver. “I never wanted to do that.”
“But you did. You broke your promise to me, and you fucked everything up, and you can’t even admit what was happening, not even now.”
Kepler huffs, and if he didn’t know better, Jacobi would have assumed he was on the ropes. “You wanted to play the game. Do you really expect me to believe that you forgot what happens to people who play with fire?”
“No, no, it wasn’t a game to me. I wasn’t—I would never—”
Kepler almost smiles. “Wasn’t that what made us fun?”
“Maybe it was fun to you, but it was my life.” “That never mattered to you before.” Kepler is too close, his cologne thick and heavy in the air, oak leaves and green peat moss, like autumn in the far north. “I would know.”
“It’s been a year. Your intel’s out of date.” Jacobi shoves Kepler away from him, but Kepler grabs him before he can escape.
“You can fool yourself, Jacobi, but you can’t fool me. You’ll come back. It could take you months, years to figure it out, but deep down, you know. I’m what you deserve.” Kepler pulls him in closer, metal fingers twisting the fabric of his shirt into a snarl. “And you know I’m always right.”
“Alright, up and at ‘em, Daniel! We got turkey bacon, frozen waffles, and fruit salad!”
“I eat normal bacon, y’know.”
“Dominik loves turkey bacon.” Lovelace pokes Jacobi’s face. “Up. You can’t stay in the guest bedroom forever; we need it for storing all our crap.”
“No.” He bats at her ineffectually.
She dodges his hands and scores another poke. “Come on. The coffee’s getting cold.”
“Well, in that case.” Jacobi stands up with a groan, stretching his arms over his head. “Is it weird that I miss Hilbert’s seaweed sludge sometimes?”
Lovelace squints in mild dismay and disgust. “That genuinely concerns me.”
“It did have three times the amount of caffeine in coffee, though.”
“Huh. I was wondering why it gave me heart palpitations. I just assumed the aliens didn’t get me a hundred percent right.”
“I only know because M—” Maxwell loved it so much. She wasn’t in it for the flavor, just the caffeine boost. “Anyway, waffles?”
“Look at you, you were almost feeling emotions like a normal person, but you’re still kinda messed up. Good news, though, I hear a healthy breakfast can totally clear that up for you.”
“Oh, legit?”
“Yeah, after a hundred rounded breakfasts, I actually stopped being a clone.”
Jacobi laughs. “I wonder how many it’ll take to turn me back into a normal person.”
“Hmmm.” She glances up and down, pretending to scrutinize him. “Mileage may vary.”
“Get down here, you two, or there won’t be any more fruit!”
“I’m a fruit!” Jacobi and Lovelace reply at the same time.
“Nice.”
“High five.”
“I HEARD THAT!” Minkowski yells from downstairs.
Lovelace winces. “Come on, we can’t keep her waiting.”
Jacobi stops at the top of the staircase. The smell of hot, toasted waffles fills the air, and he can hear Minkowski and her husband chatting to each other over coffee, real coffee, not processed seaweed or instant granules that a certain doctor could eat like potato chips.
It’s bland. A life without Kepler or Maxwell is just not… exciting. Whatever Chiquita or Nestle had done in the past, it was nothing compared to what he did in the name of Goddard Futuristics. Or, not for them. For his team.
And if he searched, it wouldn’t be so hard to find that again. He could work for another corporation, doing what he did best. He could get it all back. Hell, it was entirely possible that he could go back to Kepler—
“Come on, Jacobi, I’m drinking all the coffee!”
His mouth tastes like ashes. Maybe he’s had enough excitement for one lifetime.
“So, you’re finally employed, like a good American citizen. Never thought I’d see the day.”
“Have a little faith, Minkowski. I have talents, and some of them are even useful.”
“Which idiots decided to hire you?”
“Hm? Oh… just the Environmental Protection Agency.” Jacobi grins, knowing exactly how annoying it looks.
She squints distrustfully. “What could they possibly need to blow up?”
“I have a PhD in chemistry. I’m helping them create remediation plans for Superfund sites, places that got super fucked up by pollution or whatever that need federal help getting unfucked.”
“Huh. That’s… that’s actually pretty cool. Also, you know chemistry?”
“I may have developed plastic explosives in the past. Chemistry and mechanical engineering.”
“Well, I’m not calling you Dr. Jacobi, but congratulations on the job.”
“We’ll see how it goes. And for the record, I would love to never be called Dr. Jacobi ever. I’m a man of the people.”
“Not a problem.” She laughs. “I guess your days of blowing things up are over, then.”
“Yeah.” He swirls his coffee around in its cup. “Yeah, now I’m cleaning up messes instead of making them.”
Minkowski watches him with interest. “Is it that hard?”
“What? No, it’s not that. It’s just…” Jacobi sighs. “Nobody has any idea what I’ve done. It seems almost unfair. Like… why me?”
“Yeah, it doesn’t make sense, but look at you, making the most of it anyway.”
Jacobi scowls and drinks his coffee.
“Sorry, I meant that in a good way. Like, you didn’t have to try. You didn’t have to find a new career path. I mean, you did get drunk and yell at me on my own lawn, but I think it was part of the process.”
“Oh.”
“I’m saying I’m, like, kind of excited to see where you go next. As long as it’s not my lawn. And definitely not back to Kepler.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. I’m done with him.”
“Seriously?”
“He told me I’d always come back, but it’s like he’s forgotten I’m the most stubborn asshole on the planet.”
Minkowski grins. “Becoming a better person out of spite? That’s very you.”
“Thanks. I can’t believe I was tempted by him right up until he said that.”
“Oh god. You’re almost hopeless.”
“I can work with almost.”