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Angel is watching the sunset.
Several screens hover around her, each of them depicting a corner of planet, a dull surveillance of minimal activity. Pandora is quiet; some would call that unusual, but Angel’s seen these places at these times and understands the deceptive tranquillity smothering the horizons. On one screen, loader bots mill around a Hyperion facility in the south. The one next to it has focused on a skag digging a hole. Each screen has various sceneries, from bandits huddled round a fire to threshers kicking up waves at the beach. In the center of the array of screens, Jack is sat in his office, feet on the desk and thumb flicking through some papers.
But she isn’t watching the threshers, or the skag, or the bandit campfire or even Jack. Her eyes are wide, fixated on one hacked Hyperion camera from a facility on top of a hill. It’s pointed towards the sunset, as it is every night. The sky slips from orange to purple, vibrant colours tinted blue by the technology they’re portrayed on, and Angel gazes intently as the stars begin to scatter across the canvas of space.
The words, “I love you,” echo distantly from above, and Angel’s eyes snap towards the security camera outside the Control Core. Her heart skips a beat – Tim had once said it was sad she felt nothing but anxiety hearing those words – and her eyes find Jack, standing outside, mask intact and shoulders slumped.
She looks back at the screen of Jack in his office, and holds her breath, genuinely uncertain who she’ll be facing at this time in the day.
With a flick of her wrist, and a muttered, “Disabling phaseshift,” the screen depicting the Pandoran sunset dies immediately and dissolves out of existence. She eyes the space where it was, mournful at the loss of her only evening entertainment, before straightening up to look for Jack entering the facility.
“Angel?” she hears, and it’s Tim’s voice doubtlessly. Her body slumps, slightly. She exhales.
“You scared me,” is her reply, swinging her legs up onto the bed to hug her knees. Timothy comes into sight, now, stepping through the doors slowly. Angel frowns. “Jack’s got you wearing the mask, too?” she asks. “That – can’t be comfortable.”
He looks up at her, and she sees his face, with defeat etched into his expression and dull pain gazing through his eyes. Something’s wrong. “Tim?”
“Jack,” he corrects her monotonously, and stays where he is by the door. “I told you, you can’t –”
“It’s just us in here,” she interrupts, voice quiet but firm. “You don’t mind me – you’ve never minded – what’s happened to you?”
“I…” Timothy glances away, nervous, afraid. He’s more on edge than she’s ever seen him since the first time he visited the Control Core Angel. He seems to instinctively lift his hand to wipe it over his face, but the moment his fingers brush over the mask, he drops it with a disgusted downturn of his lips. “I shouldn’t be here, should I.”
It’s not a question, but she says, “Jack wasn’t expected. Nobody will dare ask why he’s here, though. You’re okay. Now tell me what’s wrong.”
They stare at each other across the expansive room for a long moment, and then he presses both his hands to his face. “I didn’t know where else to go,” he mumbles through his palms, and Angel stands up worriedly. She briefly wonders if he’s crying, but soon realises he’s actually unlatching the mask on his face to remove it. As his hand lowers, mask gripped between his thumb and forefinger, Angel’s wide eyes remain on the uncovered face he’s revealed.
“Oh… no. Oh, Tim.”
A thick, deep red scar, shaped like an upside-down V, stretches over Timothy’s features, cutting through both his cheekbones and slicing through his left eye. Angel’s hand covers her mouth, horrified at the sight, and she grits her teeth to hold back tears.
“Jack did this to you.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m… so sorry.” A moment of silence stretches between them before her bare feet are padding across the cold floor, striding towards the body double and throwing her arms round his neck. He staggers back at the weight but strong arms curl around her waist in reciprocation automatically, tightening after a moment. She feels his nose press into her hair. Now he’s crying, she thinks mutely as faint tremors wrack through his body.
“He called me up into his office,” Timothy mutters after a minute, and his voice is thicker than before. “Said he had a mission, I’d get some money for it. Turned out the mission was to get my ass down to Medical so I could get strapped to a chair and –” He hiccups, but it might have just been a hitch in his breath. “No painkillers, nothing, just a brand to the face and a whole lotta screaming.”
She thinks he huffs a laugh, then, but there’s no humour behind it. Just an empty, tired chuckle. “Docs gave me the money. I came straight here. Didn’t know – what to do –” The voice cuts off, and he’s not crying, now, just breathing raggedly.
A spark of anger curls in her gut at her father’s actions, but Angel pulls away, presses a small hand to his marred cheekbone and traces her thumb over the scar. “Can’t have any imperfections,” she mutters bitterly. “He gets a scar, his body doubles need it too.”
His fingers encircle her wrist gently, tugging her hand from his face and lowering it. He opens his mouth to reply but Angel cuts in. “I could – I could digistruct an Insta-Health injector,” she offers. “I mean, if you came right here, there might still be enough time to avoid scarring and –”
“Nice try, siren,” he says, making the effort to smile at her. “But if he finds out I got rid of it, he’ll probably just brand me all over again.”
Angel doesn’t want to admit it, but Timothy’s right.
So instead of digistructing Insta-Health and removing Tim’s scar, she catches his hand where his fingers are still loosely wrapped round her wrist, and pulls him back to where she was before. “You just missed the sunset,” she tells him, sitting down on one side of the bed and patting the space beside her to indicate for him to join. “But I have access to the whole planet, here, so I’m sure we can catch a sunset somewhere.” She raises her tattooed arm, flicking through security cameras at various Hyperion bases until she settles for one further south.
Timothy remains standing by her bed, looking confused. “What are you…?”
“We’re watching the sun go down,” she replies, glancing up at him. “It’s fun, I promise.” With a reassuring smile and another pat on the bed space beside her, Timothy eventually stops looking like some lost puppy (which is a really strange expression on her dad’s face) and joins her on the bed.
She promised him a sunset, and she gives him many. Once the sun sets, she flicks to the next security camera, showing the next glowing edge of the horizon. The siren skips through six in total, before looking at where Timothy is sat.
The body double is asleep, slowly slipping sideways to lean on Angel as his cheek presses against her head. She exhales shakily, before reaching out and squeezing his hand softly where it sits on the duvet between them. “Goodnight,” she whispers, closing all the glowing screens around them one by one.
Soon, all that’s left is the security footage of the stars, stretching out above the bed like it were a real night sky. She leaves that one open; it’s easier to fall asleep under the gaze of the heavens above.