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i. Hail Mary, full of grace
"Knock knock," Eva Stratt walks into the middleschool classroom with a folder in her hand. She has taken to greeting nearly every stranger she meets the same way, but only once. She doesn't need people to get the idea that she was some sort of joking person. So, best to get it out of the way from the start.
The man sprawled at his desk splutters as he attempts to sit up. "What— who's there?"
Eva stills. That's him. She can finally stop saying the godforsaken joke.
She heard many variations of similar responses before, and only about half included the expected "who's there?" response, given her line of work. Most had more incredulous preamble. Not many humoured her like this.
You see, the problem with knowing her soulmate's first words to her is that she could make an educated guess on what might happen before then. A number of situations can prompt this response, but Eva thought it would be more efficient to just force it out right off the bat.
The second problem with her soulmate words however, is that it is so damn vague. She knows that the words have to be directed at her and not just from talking into the air from being startled, but that still left a disconcerting number of situations for the words to be spoken.
"Not good at jokes," she moves to tell him about her soulmate words when she remembers what she's here for.
"Not good at jokes who?" He grins cheekily. She ignores that.
Eva does not actually have time for this soulmate thing. The sun is dying, world leaders are trying to call her everyday, and she is trying to go down the list to recruit everyone who could possibly slow down doomsday onto the team.
Now, next on her list is one Dr. Ryland Grace, who has a doctorate in molecular biology he is not using, seeing as he is teaching middle school science.
"Dr Grace?"
"Maybe." He makes no indication that the exchange held any deeper meaning for him. Of course, her words are so common he probably hears them everyday.
"Eva Stratt, I'm with the Petrova Task Force. I need your help." She bulldozed on, ignoring the tattooed words on her wrist, suddenly flaring with phantom pains. She can deal with this much later, talk to him about it like normal people. Allow them to meet again like regular people and reintroduce themselves without the threat of an apocalypse looming over them.
A part of her still has hopes, foolishly.
Eva cannot do that now, when she is half-sure she is going to kidnap Grace to the science facility.
Hi, I might be your soulmate. I'm also in control of the whole world right now and you're coming with me, whether you want to or not.
He does not look willing to even talk about his own work, a paper he must have spent years working towards. Much less go with her to some undisclosed location.
Eva has never believed in romance, for herself, but she still wants a better relationship for herself than this. She does not want for much anymore.
Besides, Grace seems rather unsurprised thus far, or at least holding an expected amount of surprise for most people when faced with her. For all she knew, someone else will say the same combination of three words to her after the Project ends. It could be someone else.
Predictably, Grace moves to leave the classroom. She fires off a text to the security detail and follows him.
This would be so much easier if people just went willingly. Why does no one else want to join the Task Force? Is a little discomfort to save the world too high an order?
"No one in your field wants anything to do with you because you refused to back down from a very unpopular view," Eva chases after him. "I can give you the chance to prove them all wrong."
She can see the future of her recruitment going similarly. The thing about recruiting the best in their fields is that they tend to be very headstrong and stubborn. She would know.
But it does make convincing them such a chore. What good was a little soulmate magic if it cannot even convince one guy to listen to her?
In the end, Eva won with a good old fashioned police car ambush. Surrounded, Grace did not have much choice.
Dr Ryland Grace is successfully escorted to the chamber housing the Petrova line samples, and Eva Stratt is standing in a room with about 12 other world leaders watching him.
Her personal feelings on that does not matter.
ii. the Lord is with thee
Eva respects Grace on an intellectual level. He is well-respected by his peers — those that he did not chase away with his defensive personality and ad hominem attacks. When she contacted the top astrobiologists from Cambridge back to NASA, they told her to look for a Dr Ryland Grace, disgraced middle school teacher instead. His belief in his theories and ability to remain steadfast despite mass disapproval would have made him a great scientist one day.
It is a pity that belief did not extend to himself.
Grace put up quite a spectacular tantrum upon finding out the cells were primarily made of water. She honestly commends his ability to be so sure of his theories at the same time as being so unsure of himself.
Following first contact, Eva orders the facility to clear out and be shipped off to research laboratories all over the world. Likely to scientists with much better emotional regulation than Grace. She sees him sulking on his way out. Honest to God, sulking. Teaching middle school must rub off on you, she shudders.
With Grace out of the picture, Eva steels herself to continue her "Knock, knock" crusade, and hope someone with better sense responds.
Instead, after a whirlwind of administrative work and a few phone calls saying yes, yes we can only spare you 3, please learn to share, Grace comes running back.
She had hoped — it will be a such a waste to lose a potential leading astrobiologist with a background in molecular biology to middle school science. And while she can simply force him to work on the project, evidently, there is not much she can do if his heart is not in it. If he does not even believe in his own work.
Most remarkably, he came back of his own volition. Because he wants to make a difference. In a time where everything she does seems to have push back and government officials doubting her every move — even if they are unable to do anything about it — Grace had stormed into the room with an intensity so momentarily unshakeable it could match hers.
Eva should have known then, that it was too late to turn away. She should have lasered off her words and forgot about them when she 18.
In the time she left him with 3 dots, she recruited more scientists onto the project, most of whom were normal academic professors working in their field in university or government research labs. Thankfully.
Less importantly, Eva has tried the "knock, knock" joke on a number of them, and received none of the response that she was looking for.
She is on the aircraft carrier when his call comes.
"Carl and I made a baby."
"What?"
There's not a lot of people who can get through to her personal number. Most of the Astrophage handling labs belong to institutions or governments who will pass along the message through their chain of commands until it reaches one of her team. Not the most efficient, but governments feel safer if they get to keep meaningless things like red tape and bureaucracy, and Eva can work faster if she let them keep some things. Lose the battle, win the war.
But Grace does not have a team or an institution backing him. He is working alone with a rotation of security guards she left him for the lab's protection. She wrote down her contact as they packed up with explicit instructions to call her if he discovered anything, and tried not to think about the implications of exchanging numbers. In another world.
It is a testament to how he has been wasting his talents that a few days alone in the lab and he is able to make the second significant breakthrough regarding Astrophage. Eva mentally notes down to consider putting him in charge of Astrophage research. If he can get himself together enough.
"Stay there."
In 12 hours, Eva sees him again. The first time they meet play at the back of her head.
iii. blessed art thou amongst women
Eva is sure of many things, and feels like she is sure of nothing at the same time. It is a feeling she has quickly gotten used to. As long as she is sure of work relating to the Petrova Task Force, the rest does not matter.
The sun is dimming, Astrophage breeds by duplicating, and workplace romance is a waste of time. She has decided early on, that the primary crew should be comprised of people who will not end up having a romantic relationship with each other. It irks her that Ilyukhina is a woman with 2 heterosexual men, even if both were currently attached and Ilyukhina herself uninterested in either. They have to send the most qualified people, so there was no question about it.
As Eva waits for the crew helicopter to touch down, she thinks about failsafes and probabilities and worst case scenarios. The Project does not have time for dalliances. She hopes all the astronauts, primary and secondary, keep things professional.
Eva feels nothing but the utmost respect towards Ryland Grace, and the certainty that he was far more capable than he believed. She knows that if anything were to happen to her, he would be the next-in-command. He already is, even if he does not know it.
She makes sure he is there, ice cream cone in hand, to welcome the flight team. She sees them look between her and Grace and draw their own conclusions. She does not clarify.
It is just another one of the many conversations she keeps avoiding having with him. None of them are relevant to the Project's success, so there is no reason for her to have them in the first place. Grace will be able to do his job whether or not he is aware of what is entails.
This, she knows is unusual. Her callousness is strange. Part of her wonders if she's wrong and her mysterious soulmate is someone else entirely.
Walking in front of him as the astronauts are given a tour of the aircraft career, Eva listens to him sing praises of their bravery, completely ignoring the part he has to play in sending them up.
Grace could not go to space, he is not brave.
Eva disagrees. She has watched him pour his soul tirelessly into his research and could think of very few people smarter and more capable. So few in fact, that the whole pool of candidates are on this carrier now.
She wonders if she could ever get Grace to see himself from outside his own broken perspective.
As the tour heads down to the laboratories, Eva finds herself walking side by side with Grace as he explains the different departments. she catches many of the crew staring. They could be staring at any member of the group of course, but she knows what a picture she and Grace makes.
Eva is not deaf, she would be a terrible director if she was not aware of the rumours. If they bothered Grace, he does not let her know. If anything really bothered Grace, he does not let her know either.
Oh, he whines and complains a lot. About missing land, about being kidnapped, about the substitute teacher who will not be as good at teaching as him. It is how he ends up on the deck with fresh soft-serve ice cream in his hand, from the machine she had to be convinced to place an order for.
But at the end of the day, Grace takes his work seriously. He takes his work that he does not know is his seriously as well. He seats in meetings, attends conferences with world leaders, and gives advise on anything from coma dilemmas to ship assembly.
What Eva admires the most about him is his ability to throw himself into work like there is no one else in the world more important. Astrophage is his "baby" (his words, from the first phone call) the same way directing the task force is hers.
Sitting in a room with him, silently working on their own projects with the same goal is the most at peace Eva ever feels. For a wonderful moment trapped in time, Eva feels like this is what she is meant to do, tapping away at her tablet.
If the work was not so morbid and situation not so dire, Eva thinks she could almost be happy.
These feelings towards him do not match up with what she knows about soulmates. She has heard countless stories, watched enough movies about them. Once on a whim, she took an elective: History of the Soulmark, a study on how the understanding of soulmates' connections has shaped human's approaches to romance, marriage, and reproduction.
Eva is not in love. She has never been in love, and so realistically cannot say for certain what it feels like. But there is no adrenaline rush, no whirlwind of butterflies in her stomach. Anything people have ever described resembling love she has only felt towards the Project. She is afraid she will never love any one person more than she loves all of humanity, in all its virtues and sins.
Most importantly, she cannot see a future of her with anyone. She knows what it says on her right wrist. She thinks she might go her whole life without telling her soulmate she has met him. It would be unfair to put this onto Grace when there is no budding romance, even after months together.
She does not realise until a year later that she has stopped introducing herself with "knock, knock" jokes.
iv. and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus
Eva considers telling Grace far more often than would be efficient. Every time her eyes gloss overs from the countless documents and emails, every time she zones out in another world leader negotiating meeting, she finds herself looking for him.
Grace never looks like he wants to be in any of these meetings, but he sits dutifully at her side scribbling some science calculations she cannot parse out. He would explain to her, if she asked. He would do anything, if she asked. Grace is predictable like that.
At first she had Grace around for most of her science meetings simply because he was the one who kept making the breakthroughs that warranted them.
Then, she came to realise the unexpected usefulness of hiring a middle school teacher: Grace is really patient, and really really good at explaining foreign concepts. He does not talk down to anyone, in the sense that he tends to talk like everyone is a 6th grade child. She does not think he even notices. There are scientists who think him unintentionally patronising, but Eva finds it endearing.
After Grace talked through their decision to put the astronauts in comas, she has taken to including him in every significant scientific or recruitment meeting.
She wants Grace with her now. Of course, he is the Project's first officer, the leading researcher on Astrophage, and her science communicator. But it is his steady presence she craves.
Beside him, the day feels manageable. Beside his steadfast presence and laser focus on the research, Eva can believe the mission will succeed simply because he has never thought of the alternative.
Eva has come to learn a lot about Grace in the past few years of unexpected time together, but with all that information she still cannot predict how he would react to being soulmates. And that scares her. In a time where she has every possibility calculated out, SWOT tables drawn in her mind before her every move, she is not ready to go into this blind.
She does not think that it is possible to burden him with this, when there are worse secrets she cannot share. Surely Grace deserves to have someone who loves him fervently, who could bare their heart to him and give up the whole world for his happiness.
It gets more tempting in the 30 second walk between the helicopter and their car. On solid ground, where she can look into the distance and see mountains or buildings staring back, she can almost pretend it is years back and the Petrova line has not made itself known to humankind yet.
She walks side by side with Grace, temporarily equals. He rambles about whatever breakthroughs he has figured out during the meetings, surprisingly adept at multitasking and entertaining state ambassadors. She does not have to respond, or even pay attention to his words — he's just sounding out ideas and he will collate them into an understandable report when he is ready.
For those 30 seconds, Eva can look at Grace with almost the ghost of a smile on her lips and drink in the illusion of normalcy. Try to imagine an alternative universe, a future. She still cannot imagine one.
In a different timeline, maybe she could have negotiated something out of this minefield of emotions she cannot identify. The possibilities choke her up.
Eva has spent all of her time not working on the Project to lay down failsafes and stopgap measures. She has considered countless proposals on how to ration food and stop infighting, and back up plans on how to use the last of her power and network to slow down Earth's descent into chaos before the beetles can come back.
Eva has put all her hopes and efforts in the Project's success and then found some more strength to consider every single way it could go wrong. She needs Grace's confidence and belief in her on days she wonders what if everything she does is for naught. What if she has wreaked Earth's ecosystems for nothing? A lifetime in prison will not be enough to atone for everything she has done.
But Grace forgives her for them. She hopes he can forgive her if it ever comes to… if she has to…
v. Holy Mary, Mother of God
It's not very hard to ask people to die for the purpose of the greater good, Eva finds. Not when would all march to their death at her command, the leash on their lives in her hands.
Most of them volunteered of course, and there is a long list of people who will also volunteer in their place. After testing for the coma gene, the list significantly shortens.
But still, the hard part is not so much giving the orders or facing the consequences.
Instead, Eva thinks of her past self and wonders if this is what she would have wanted. Bright-eyed prospective university student Eva with the world at her fingertips and no idea what to do with them would not have imagined this.
With a summa cum laude doctorate and the past decade of studying the moral failings of humanity, freshly graduated Eva would have been horrified by everything she has done now.
She envies Grace's ability to look at the world with the same unchanging hope and joy as he does when he is teaching. She envies that the world has given him space to run from the difficult decisions so he can tinker in his lab and avoid thinking too much about the people he will be sending to die.
Like now, as he climbs up to the ship deck and finds her staring at the sunset. There is no one else here but them, because half the ship is partying in the break room.
She knows he cannot face them, so he is here. He is discomfitted by how happy they are, he does not believe how one can stare death in its face and embrace the inevitability.
"Camraderie helps them do their job, you know?" Eva knows he does not really get it.
Despite his charm and personality, Grace does not seek people out. Most of his lab research are run alone, and only passed along once he has the results self-reviewed and confirmed. But people come to him all the same. For friendship, with questions, or sometimes just because they cannot find her and they want a second opinion on something. He holds the morale of the ship in the palm of his hands, and laughs it off like he is a mere contractual research assistant.
Her work is done alone, because she cannot ask anyone else to make these decisions. She does not know where to find the same conviction she once had.
It is easy to acknowledge that fact, in theory. Faced with him, Eva wishes she was a better person, in a better place, who met him at a better time.
She wishes, selfishly, just for one moment before she puts this behind her, that they can have another first meeting. She will say "knock, knock" as she does to everyone. He will be startled and say "what— who's there?"
And in this alternate reality, where the sun is not dying and so there is no reason for them to meet, Eva would tell him, "That's funny. That's what my soulmate's first words are."
Instead she tells him actually it isn't hard to ask people to give up their lives as she stares at his face and wonder if it will be hard to ask him. He has already given up 4 years.
He asks if she believes in God, and what can she say but that it "beats the alternative," when the alternative is her absolute power against the fallibility of humans. She thinks that God will be kinder to Earth that she has been, but she knows that God will send her to Hell for everything she has done. It still beats the alternative.
Eva descends from the ship deck and slips into the break room. The karaoke machine sits unused, autoplaying a random song now that most of the room is varying levels of inebriated.
She looks around the room, at the team of people she all had a hand in picking. She had personally recruited many of them, willing or unwilling. She had signed off on all.
This is the happiest they will ever be, together.
Eva thinks about everything she has done, and the lives lost by her hand. She thinks about what she will continue to do, once the carrier reaches shore.
She thinks about nineteen year old Eva, who would not believe that this is who she will become. She thinks about the Eva who has learnt about the worst of humanity, finding out that she will become no better than them.
She looks at Grace, in his corner at the bar, scribbling in his notes. The conversation flows around him, used to his presence but not his response.
The words she cannot tell him, someone wrote it into a song.
vi. pray for us sinners
She hates his cowardice. His ability to run from anything that scares him on a personal level. She thinks it makes her a terrible person, because it does not change what she has to do.
By now, Grace probably know he has the suitable coma gene. He has to have realised that he is second in command on the Project. Someone must have brought those up to him.
Grace probably also ignored the first and scoffed at the second. He might have filed away both those information, and disregarded what it meant that he has been trained in everything that a non-astronaut can be trained in, and has been involved in every step of the ship building process. He has been laser focused on studying Astrophage, spending little thought on extraneous administrative work unless directed by her.
She has laid out every dot in his mind, but the connection remains undrawn.
The order for the French retrograde amnesia drug arrives, and she has it kept away in a secure part of the medical facility. Grace would never go snooping, and the rest of the personnel who operated on a strict need-to-know basis does not even know what the drug is for.
The launch date inches closer, and the drug lays unused. Months has turned into weeks, and now days. She can almost hope. The finish line is within reach. The end of the Project is almost here, Eva can taste the freedom.
Three days before launch, Grace walks up the road outside the launch area with two cups of coffee in his hands. They have allowed themselves this respite amidst the bustle of preparation, to stand and watch as everything comes together in the distance.
They did this. They made this, together.
She will not have much time after the launch before the world goes to shit and the world needs someone to blame. Without immunity, they would turn to her. It is her paving of the Sahara, her nuking of Antartica, that has disrupted global ecosystems and weather patterns so severely that thousands have died before the sun's dimming effect can be felt. She might be put behind bars for the rest of her life.
But in the few years before then, Eva thinks she wants to give herself a shot at a normal life.
Eva looks at the man who had a tendency to run away from his crises and yet remains standing by her as they faced dilemmas after complications. There is a hope budding in her chest that they can put this time behind them. "Three days, huh?"
"So… what are you gonna do for the next 20 years, you got a plan?"
Eva does. She grins at him drinking his coffee, her answer on the tip of her tongue.
The plan goes like this: hey Grace, now that the Project has ended, I want to tell you that we might be soulmates. Sorry I did not know how to tell you earlier. I still want you, soulmate or not, I still want to find out our futures with you. Can we try again?
Instead, she watches as an orange glow light up half his face. There is a resounding boom and she is thrown to the ground.
vii. now and at the hour of our death
Eva knew, the second the deaths were confirmed, how the conversation will go. She feels like she has been having many of these premonitions lately, trying desperately to bend hopeless situations to her will when she already knows it's over.
Grace will say no. She will tell them about all the people who will die instead of him. He will insist anyway.
Why must you force my hand like this? There is a brave man inside of you, I have seen him before. Where is the man who believed in himself so much he demanded Astrophage be left behind just for him?
She will say something to him then, she doesn't know this part. Her final words to him. Grace might realise. The betrayal will be all the worse for it. The 5 year long mystery will reach its conclusion.
She will still win eventually, of course. It does not make it any easier.
When Grace enters the room, she allows herself a moment to panic. In between the door opening and him sitting down in front of her. One second.
She breathes in.
She does not know what her final worlds to him will be. It makes her second guess everything she says, afraid that the next one will be the last thing she can ever say to his face. She waits for the spark of recognition, braces herself for understanding to dawn on him.
Eva Stratt has told a total of 6 people she will be sending them off to die in space. She has forced more than half her management team together against their will, Grace included.
None of those moments have prepared her for this.
Grace throws a chair at the officers. She texts the security team. It brings her a sickening sense of deja vu of the first time they meet, and she told security to surround him too.
They did it then, they'll do it again now. She doesn't want them to. Her hands hang uselessly by her sides, grasping at air.
Grace climbs onto the table, back hugging the cabinets. The officers hover around him, afraid to spook him.
Her voice dies in her throat. She does not know what to say.
I'm sorry. She's not.
We're soulmates. I'm sorry I never told you. It's too late.
Please, Ryland.
"Sit down and we do it differently," the words choke out. Eva does not realise she has said something until Grace stills.
One of the officers makes a grab at him. Grace goes quietly with him, sliding down the table like his strings were cut.
He has not said his final words, so she knows it isn't over yet. She clings to it.
The clock ticks at the back of her head. They have under an hour left to wrangle Grace, so she will have to end it soon, whether or not she hears those words. Fates be damned.
Now they stand on opposite sides of the room. Grace has 2 officers on either side of him, gripping his arms. The medical doctor at the side holds the kit, unmoving. Waiting for her.
Grace's face crumples. She has never seen anyone ugly cry with such desperation before. She drinks it up, memorises his furrowed brow, the tear tracks down his face, the sobs wracking out of his body.
He gasps in a breath, and then another. She can imagine everything he would say in another time. How could you?
You're betraying me. You're sending me off to die. I don't want to die.
Please.
He does not say anything yet. They both know this is their last conversation.
For a moment, it's just the sounds of his sobs and her breathing in the room. The clock ticks at the back of her mind.
"It's really you."
It has always been me.
Eva Stratt waves her hand. The doctor moves in with the needle.
Amen.