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A wide amphitheater, half empty as people slowly filled in, carrying documents, laptops and all things needed to discuss world-ending problems.
Two people on the far end of the room, surrounded by messy notes and open laptops, whispering over a notepad, writing something out of view. Both wore professional attire, the young woman a navy blue skirt with a white shirt, while the man wore a black suit that contrasted nicely with his blond hair. But the haphazardly placed glasses on his ear break any sense of seriousness in their discussion.
Anyone looking at them thinks they make a funny scene. Their shared body language is fast and sharp, as if they were both too nervous to sit still and wanted to run away, but the second one of them so much as twitches, the other one grabs onto their arm with a vice-like grip. Like this, the conference eventually starts.
Different people take their turns on the podium. Different cuts as each of them contribute to something different to the conversations: the state of the paved Sahara, the major deaths of ocean life after nuking Antarctica. One man, dressed in black from head to toe, reads the total death count after sudden flash floods destroyed the coastal cities in his island home.
Eventually, the scene cuts to three people in the podium. A red-headed older woman, and the previous nervous figures. Said nervousness has clearly been erased, or at least well hidden. The man looks serious as the red-headed woman speaks, only occasionally interjecting with explanations whenever someone raises a question. In the back, the young woman sits at a small table, constantly taking notes and moving the slides of the presentation behind them.
The Hail Mary. All conversations lead to the Hail Mary, and it is clear by the audience’s faces that they are tired of their grim last hope, but have nothing better to offer.
A side shot of the amphitheater, the trio out of focus. Instead, the camera focuses on a male figure’s waist.
It has a gun.
A shot back to the rest of the amphitheater. Someone shouts and gunshots start raining. People panic, tripping over themselves as they try to get a way, the space between seats too small.
They are prey animals.
At the stage, the trio are all on the floor. The older woman’s arm is bleeding and she grimaces with pain, but there appear to be no other injuries. The man frets, taking off his own shirt to quench the red flow, despite the older woman’s rebuffs. He is uninjured.
However, when they turn back for their third member, they both freeze.
The young woman is splayed on the floor, her hair open all around her as if a crown of brown curls. It’d look like an oddly peaceful image, of laying in a meadow or even in a beach, had the world not been freezing, were it not for the short, panicked intakes of air and all the blood pooling her stomach and the floor beneath her.
There were multiple gunshot wounds in her stomach and guts. She was not going to make it.
And by the wide, frantic eyes she gives them as they crawl closer, she clearly knew.
Soldiers shout somewhere behind them, more gunshots ring, one of them getting too close to the man for comfort, and more shouts from the culprit talking about conspiracies and stealing money, but none of that reaches them at that moment.
The man is the first to reach the young woman. She’s frantic, her hands grabbing at his hands and arms like a lifeguard, but it never stays. On her wrist is a bracelet tinkling like mad as she attempts again and again to hold on. She can’t, and she keeps grabbing at him, her desperate strength scratching his skin open, but he doesn’t even flinch. Instead, he speaks with a soothing voice. The same one he has used for his panicked students, calming them down to the present so they can speak their worries.
But there is no soothing this panic, and no reason to explain the worries. They are all so clear to see.
The young woman attempts to speak. Instead, blood pours from her mouth, choking her as she tries to cough it out. The man doesn’t know how to help. She’s dying and he can’t do anything.
The older woman’s eyes show the same fear, but her face is far calmer. She speaks calmly to the young woman, insisting that she tries to calm however much possible so she may communicate her final wishes.
The man looks at her, betrayed.
She doesn’t look back.
In her panicking choking, the young woman spits a ball of blood -internal organ tissue, oh God- and immediately starts apologizing. For what, they have no idea, but they let her apologize, until she mentions her mother, her family and friends, and they understand.
She begs her mother forgiveness, for she never wanted to leave her behind for so long. She just wanted to stop being scared and stop watching her life pass through her like that.
She begs her father forgiveness for never being closer, for always wishing to bridge their gap but never attempting because she was too scared, too uncomfortable to just be normal people, instead of two strangers in the same house who love each other, yet could only show it superficially.
She begs her sister forgiveness for not being kinder, for her unintentional cruelty, for never being a better older sister and never expressing enough how much she loves her, and how every time she tried, she was unconsciously cruel and how she always wanted to be better for her.
Most of all, she begs, with short breaths and tears, to not be left alone. How she’s getting sleepy and it doesn’t hurt and she’s so scared, she can’t breath, please don’t leave her alone, please don’t leave me alone, don’t leave, don’t leave, I don’t want to sleep, I want to go back, back, back, back, mami, mami, tengo miedo…
The eyes cloud over. The arms reaching for the man fall limp.
He still holds them by the wrist. They are so heavy.
Around them, the soldiers’ footsteps come closer. A shot of paramedics running through the halls, carrying medicine bags and oxygen masks.
But the shot again on the stage shows it is too late.
The older woman gently closes the younger woman’s eyes. Gently wipes the blood on her lips.
She looks like she’s sleeping.
The man only lowers his head and cries.
///
Grace is really, really, really getting tired of waking up in tears.
It always gave him a headache, made him grumpy all day and most importantly, lately the reasons he woke up crying were all legitimately reasons to be upset about! Universe, why couldn’t you simply give him something silly to cry about so a simple painkiller would wash the worries away, hmm? Noooo, they just had to show him in real life the death of someone he knew, of course!
Hiding her face on his chest, Olesya sniffles.
Yao doesn’t have the mercy of staying quiet, “That was one of your assistants, right? I’ve seen her before.”
Grace considers staying quiet, letting the grief stew a little longer in his chest, but a poke on his side has his flinching away. “Not exactly. She’s no scientist; a bachelor’s degree in literature, Stratt hired her as she was one of the only people actually volunteering on working on the ship as an editor. Stratt has all kinds of connections with the media and the public perception of the project, but even she has trouble softening her words while staying honest. She can’t exactly deal with the entire project and manipulate the public’s perception at the same time flawlessly, and bringing journalists here would be keeping important information classified, open information correctly categorized and the journalist actually willing to stay months on the ship with no stops. So when a young twenty-something, freshly graduated from college with no outside connections, is desperate enough to willingly stay in the alien-microbe-death-bomb ship, her background check comes clean multiple times and she can speak three languages, you take what you can.”
“Three languages?”
“Spanish, English and Mandarin. Most people here speak at least two languages, but not fluently and don’t have media training. Stratt isn’t one to take risks, but when she does, it usually pays off.”
Behind him, Yao winces. “Mandarin…?”
Grace’s lips twitch. “Yep. She’s been an excellent translator this entire time.”
They stay quiet for a while. Grace thinks of the blood. It doesn’t feel as real as when he’s on the Hail Mary, but there’s something about that memory… the other Grace must be feeling the same.
The breathless panic.
The blood coating his hands.
His skin stinged where her nails scratched him.
The fear as he looked in her eyes and knew she wouldn’t make it.
As he rummages through his closet, Olesya says in a soft voice, “What’s her name? I don’t think I ever heard it.”
A lump forms in Grace’s throat and he swallows it down. “Yanira. Yanira Santiago Ortiz.” He grabs a shirt, Jimmy Christmas!, and hastily puts it on. “She, uh. She’s from Puerto Rico. Recently graduated. Being from the Caribbean, you’d think her warmer home has a better chance of holding on longer than further North but it has two major issues: the fact that it’s an island at all and food production. With the nuking of Antarctica and the subsequent warming, the ocean levels will rise. Are rising. The Virgin Islands will be the first devastated, as we saw, and the rest of the Caribbean islands will follow. Completely submerge. Then there’s the food production; after the USA colonized the island, it became entirely dependent on the USA for food exportation. They aren’t allowed to use the land to grow their own food in the quantities needed to maintain the population. The information on how to was withheld for so long, even if permission to use the land was granted, most wouldn’t be able to know how to do anything about it. They were conditioned to helplessness. So, with everything going down, Yanira just. Grabbed her bags and demanded a place on the project. Many back home were already leaving, as finding a job became more difficult, and she wasn’t the first to want a place on the project. But she was the only one who demanded it, insisting on the importance that all parties be heard. The USA, China and Russia uniting for the common good meant nothing, she said, because they were already the ones in power. Always the ones in power. Whether they were allies or enemies made no difference to the rest of the world if they insisted on making decisions that would directly affect them and keeping them silent. Just more of the same.
“Stratt found her utterly audacious and ridiculous, and had her sign a contract within the hour.”
Yao and Olesya chuckle at the image of a stern-looking Stratt approvingly handing her the papers to such a fierce young woman.
Again, it is Olesya that breaks the silence.
“She’s here right now, right?”
Grace takes a shaky breath. “Yeah. I, um,” he coughs. “I’m actually supposed to meet her before breakfast to discuss some notes before posting the astrophage article. A lot of scientists here are already publishing their papers on it, but this one is more for the general public and the main article will be used to start the translations for it.”
Yanira was a very intelligent woman. And ferocious when the situation called for it, as her recruitment proved. She was organized, hardworking, and constantly questioning everything Grace said to make sure she understood what he was saying before starting to work. A perfectionist, like so many on this ship.
She was also, as Grace was viscerally reminded thanks to the dream and his upcoming meeting, a nervous wreck.
She handled stress very poorly and it had been only thanks to constant exposure to Stratt’s terrifying aura that she learned to hide her visible nervousness from others, but there were still tics if you knew where to look. When talking to an audience, her voice was a much higher pitch than normal, needing to take frequent water breaks to make sure her voice didn’t crack in the middle of a meeting. Part of the reason she questioned Grace so much was her paranoiac fear she would misunderstand something and make sure a catastrophic embarrassment out of everyone, she’d be kicked out of the project like a pariah (and it’s not like he didn’t get the fear, as a pariah himself, but Jesus Chirstmas). She reminded Grace a lot of his burnout students: the normally “gifted” kids that breezed through all classes, until one day, something cracked and in the next few years were either given a neurodivergency diagnosis or got ignored until graduation. Even though he wasn’t that much older than her, less than ten years, he found himself more patient with her than with anyone else under his science group (one guard made the inappropriate question that if he truly wasn’t with Stratt, did that mean he was interested in Yanira? That guard was promptly fired).
Seeing her pale face in that dream… Everyone he’d known who had died in his dreams had either done it in the distance or were already dead when he found them. This was the first time someone died right before him. Right before his very eyes and there was nothing he could have done. And he was supposed to meet her in less than an hour and pretend he hadn’t seen her covered in blood and tears, he hadn’t seen how she begged for forgiveness and how terrified she’d been.
When Stratt asked for her final wishes, Grace had hated her, briefly. Hated how she hadn’t even attempted to do something to help, to sooth her as Yanira grew weaker. Now, he knew that had probably been Stratt’s way of comfort; doing something that actually helped.
Grace jumps as hands settle on his shoulders. When he turns back, he feels ridiculous for thinking it could be anyone other than Yao and Olesya.
“She’s alright,” Olesya smiles tiredly. “She’ll be the same anxious wreck she was yesterday and, based on what you’ve shared, if you look at her the slightest bit different than normal, she’ll think you absolutely despise her now.”
Grace grimaces, hating how true that was. He sighs. “How am I supposed to act normal when…” He shakes his head.
Yao squeezes his shoulder, “Just come up with an excuse. Everyone on the ship knows we’ve been behaving very unusually lately. Just give her something that the others might confirm and it’ll prevent her from getting worried.”
Sighing a final time, Grace sends a quick message to the Dream Group to confirm his assistance at the next meeting and marches down the road.
He can totally play this cool…
///
//”The Tinkling Human…”
They were in the Don’t-Go-Crazy room again. The images were of another beach, with big palm and mango trees giving shade under the afternoon sun, with the distant sound of children’s laughter.
Grace’s head snaps back down from the screens. “What, bud?”
Rocky makes his Jazz hands, “Tinkling!”
He only frowns for a moment before he gets it. “Yanira’s bracelets!”
“Bracelets, question?”
“A type of human jewelry worn on the wrists. Yanira’s bracelets are called ‘charm bracelets’ and are normally worn by women.” To explain better, he brings up several images on his laptops, showing them to Rocky, who uses his special light gun.
“Like Eridian celebratory jewelry!” Rocky exclaims in delight.
“Celebratory jewelry?”
“Yes, yes, only worn on special occasions. Very formal!”
Grace nods in understanding. “Yanira’s similar. She normally doesn’t wear jewelry, finding it a hassle for when she’s working on writing, but when a formal occasion comes up, she’ll use a couple.” He thinks about it for a moment. “She said the charm bracelet was a gift from her maternal family.”
While he never understood whether it was cultural or a family thing, Yanira said her bracelet had been a quinceañera gift from her grandmother, and every charm had been a gift from a different relative for every achievement, whether they were more birthdays, graduations, or charms she brought herself to capture a memory. The bracelet may have been a nuisance to wear, but it was a nuisance she cared for and had deep emotional value.
Thinking of its tinkling has his smile vanishing.
Rocky senses his mood, for his carapace droops as well. He hesitates for a moment, clearly thinking over his words, before admitting.
“During final part of the dream, when the Tinkling Human…” A pause. “During final moments, she reminded Rocky of last crewmate.”
Another pause.
“And of Rocky.”
Grace stays silent for a second. What? What had his friend just said. He crawls closer, hands hesitating over the xenonite ball, before pressing them closer.
“Bud, what?” Grace is flabbergasted. “What are you talking about? Explain.”
The eridian stays silent for a moment. He fiddles with the xenonite in his claws, unsure on what to weave. Finally, he puts it down and turns to Grace, letting the human know he is giving him all his attention.
“Last crewmate was the youngest, statement. Not by much, but still. Rocky’s responsibility. Last crewmate was mechanic, not engineer. So stay often working with Rocky but not always. Slowest and last to get sick.”
Even though the computer couldn’t pick it up, Rocky’s voice took a shudder tone, giving Grace the impression he was holding back tears.
“Last crewmate had many, many family members and friends back on Erid. Harmonious in many, stranded on some. Last crewmate told Rocky how much, much, much they wanted to return and fix everything. Be better, for them all, and for themselves. Were very hopeful.
“Last crewmate very weak during final moments. Asked for many songs, for the tinkling of carascapes and for help moving. Couldn’t move on their own anymore. Told Rocky they were very scared of sleeping, because they knew they wouldn’t wake up. Didn’t hurt anymore. We knew. Told Rocky they were so scared and so sad they wouldn’t ever go home again. They wouldn’t ever sing with their parents or clutchmates again. Wouldn’t confess to the one they liked. Too scared, both thens. Though we both thought it futile, last crewmate asked Rocky to give final words to family and friends, expressing lots of love and lots of regrets. Many other things Rocky will not share. Apology. Intended only for them.
“Last crewmate begged Rocky not to leave. Would never leave sleeping eridian, but not what they meant. Rocky knew. So Rocky stayed. And when Rocky was left alone, Rocky also asked not to leave. Even though Rocky knew no one would hear.
“Very scary, to be left alone. Rocky not wish it on worst enemy.”
///
When Yanira Santiago Ortiz walks into her office, a headache already forming at 7 fucking AM, she finds her desk so messy, she actually takes a double take.
She’s never been one to have an organized working environment (she’s tried, okay, she has tried so many times, but it gets to a point where you have to choose if your energy goes into your work, or keeping your space from getting dusty, so), but the upside of that is that she can always recognize her messes. This is definitely not one of them.
Cautiously, she looks things over. There are some meals from the cafeteria, chinese fried noodles, a strawberry smoothie, cookies; any other time, the sugary butter cookies might have been enough to get her watering mouth to ignore her priorities to eat a couple, but time and place!
Carefully pushing the food aside, she grabs a stash of papers from atop her laptop and gasps. The interviews for the astronauts! She was finally getting those! She’d been sending the Director those requests for weeks and while she perfectly understood the woman was busy, it was actually unreasonable to start preparing the personal blogs and questionnaires for the public if she wasn’t granted permission to actually interact with them! Eavesdropping on an unsuspecting Commander Yao could only prepare her so much before the actual interview, especially when Russian was still a mystery, and so, her preparations incomplete.
So busy is she giggling over her success, she nearly misses the final “present”. When she does come back, noticing the letter sitting on her seat, she calmly takes it and actually freezes over the words.
It’s a letter from Dr. Ryland Grace. Head scientist expert of astrophage. Man she’s been working under this entire time as he explained their work a billion times because it simply wasn’t processing for her what he was saying, no matter how simple the words, and she needed them right for her articles. God, the man must have been so annoyed with her by now. Why did he write her a letter like this, instead of discussing it on her face? Did he know she would freeze if she did, either start crying or just looking bored to avoid showing emotions? Would he use the letter to honestly tell her what he thought and that he would be informing Director Stratt that he didn’t want her working for the project anymore? Was this the end of her career?
Well…No, if this letter is to be believed. Dr. Grace is saying he feels very grateful for having gotten the chance of working with her. Says he is excited to see what things she’ll write in the future, whether the fictional novels she has always adored, or start a career creating documentaries of undertalked parts of the world. He writes how he wishes she continues her hard work, as the project has greatly benefited from it, but to not feel shame if she encounters scary moments or decides to step back from something. Scientific or not, always follow your gut, he writes, for it has helped human evolution countless ways. Oh, and he also writes how the astronauts are excited to formally meet her and. pause. What?!
The letter continues in the same vein for a couple of paragraphs more. Yanira continues reading it, utterly bewildered but a small part of her still paying attention, before putting the letter down.
For a moment, there’s silence. The speakers through which she usually sings a wide variety of songs stay silent as she leans on her chair, lost in thoughts. There’s truly nothing interesting about the ceiling of her office, yet she can’t stop staring at it.
Eventually, because she really has nothing better to say, she whispers, “Am I going to die or something…?”