We walked side-by-side to the dining area. We’d glanced at it earlier but not gone inside. It should be around the next corner. “Judge.” A thought dawned on me. “When you took Artemis, did you turn off my signal?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t. It’s such a low subspace frequency I didn’t consider it a risk. The other corporations know we’re here. It’s not like it’s a secret. Is that how you plan to alert your family where you are?”
“Yes,” I took a deep breath. At least that wouldn’t be a fight. “Thanks. I figured they’ll be here in six months. Or around then.”
He quirked his head to the side. “Really? That’s fast. Want me to look at your math?”
“No, that’s right. Trust me. We always come for each other. As fast as we can.”
He nodded once, his eyes hooded. I wasn’t sure he believed me. Only, he didn’t know my family. They’d never leave me here a minute more than they could get to me. I steeled my shoulders. I had to believe. I was their problem, but they loved me just the same.
****
Dinner turned out to be vegetables with a light sauce made out of some kind of oil and vinegar. They also had potatoes, grown in the pod, and chicken. I tried not to picture the chickens in the farm section. Chicken was delicious. I wasn’t going to obsess about how it ended up on my plate. Much. Which one of them was responsible for killing it? I rubbed the back of my neck and took a deep breath.
“This is delicious. Thank you.” It had been a long time since I’d eaten anything other than synthetic protein. Real food after all this time was a true treat. “Thank you for letting me eat your food.”
Cash sipped his tea. “As long as you’re living with us, it’ll be our pleasure to feed you.”
“Thank you.” He spoke so formally. I wondered if, on the planet he came from, speaking like he did was common. “But I would like to carry my weight. I realize your corporation allots you a certain amount of food. I must be taxing on your budget.”
Damian quickly shook his head. “Don’t worry on that subject. We are a self-sufficient group. Our farming unit produces quite enough for our food intake. You shouldn’t be a problem. Unless you eat half your body weight.”
“Damian.” Sterling set down his water. “Even I know women don’t like to talk about their weight.”
I smirked. I couldn’t help myself. Damian and Cash were serious. Sterling seemed to like to make jokes. Judge had energy to spare, and while he could fall into seriousness, he was mostly funny. And Lewis hadn’t uttered a word since we’d sat down.
Damian shot Sterling a look before he spoke again. “I need to ask you some questions, Diana. I’m sorry to sound so investigatory. The circumstances of your joining us are unusual, to say the least. I need a thorough report. I have to get some information about who you are, where you came from. And Evander may have their own questions.”
I braced myself. I had to get through the time I would spend with these men, fix Artemis, and figure out how to leave without them stopping me. Evander had questions? Fine. They could have answers. I wouldn’t be here when they came to collect me.
Damian cleared his throat. “You’re from the other side of the galaxy.”
“No. I was born here. On a space station. The day Olivia Jackson took control of the galaxy with the nuclear bombs. She attacked my grandmother’s ship, the Bridge, and my mother gave birth during the attack.”
They were all silent, staring at me like I’d spoken a foreign language.
Finally, Lewis said something. “That’s not possible.”
Cash finished. “Fifty years ago.”
Judge grinned. “Space-time continuum is a real bitch. The black hole isn’t a set figure. We can do guesswork for math, but who knows, really? Ten years. Eighty. All the same in that hole.”
My heart pounded so fiercely against my ribs I thought it would explode. “I don’t understand.”
“Black hole physics doesn’t work like regular physics. The same trip that once takes one year, can take eight the next time or one hundred. We really don’t know. It never makes sense. Vacuums don’t hold up to scrutiny.”
If his words were true … when was my family coming?
“You could be our mom.” Sterling grinned. “Hottest mom I’ve ever seen.”
“Sterling.” Cash rolled his eyes.
Sterling shrugged. “What? She is.”
Damian played with his pencil, moving it along his fingers. “How old are you chronologically?”
“Twenty-two. What month is it? Year?” I suddenly didn’t know anything, understand anything. And I was stuck. On this side of the galaxy, at least until I got Artemis fixed. How long would that take? And then how much time would pass in the hole? Would my family even be alive? Remember me?
Lewis, who sat to my left, touched my hand, saying nothing else. Immediately, some of my panic cooled. I could breathe. I could think. I nodded to him to say thank you, and he quietly winked.
“It’s September,” Cash finally answered.
“Then I’m still twenty-two. For another month.”
It wasn’t quite my birthday yet. I hadn’t missed out on Uncle Nolan singing, my mother trying to bake a cake, and my dad telling me I was the best thing he’d ever done in his whole life. I breathed through my threatening tears. I didn’t know these guys yet. They couldn’t see me cry. That was too much vulnerability.
They had basically told me I had to be here, whether I wanted to or not. That was some form of kidnapping.
Damian nodded. “Okay. You were born on the day Olivia Jackson destroyed everything. On a ship called The Bridge. The famous one?”
“Is it famous?” I didn’t know. My parents, especially my mom, didn’t like to talk too much about that time. “We moved around a lot after. My father and uncles had been sent through the hole right before Olivia closed it with the bombs. They managed to get back through and find us on a cold planet, although not as bad as this one. They were involved in the ending of Olivia, although I don’t have all those details, and then we went through the hole again. I was six.”
Silence was thick, like the air when it was too hard to breathe. Cash spoke in a low voice. “Damian?”
“I know,” the man who spoke for the company answered. His voice was low, and his neck muscles strained. Something I said had upset him. “What’s your mom’s name?”
“Melissa Alexander.” The president of the Mars Company, a living legend wherever she went. A woman who had her mind messed with twice and still came out a superstar. Unlike her daughter who some days …
“Then your father is Cooper Jackson?” Damian spoke the words hard, like if they had substance he’d have thrown them at me.
I shook my head. “Coop’s my uncle. I’m Diana Mallory. My father is Geoff Mallory. Cooper is my brother Asher’s father.”
Was he still famous? They’d just told me fifty years had passed here. Why did anyone know his name? He’d be horrified if he knew people still knew thought of him. Cooper enjoyed the world better when no one knew his identity used to include the word Prince. Asher certainly didn’t act like royalty.
“Cooper is my Uncle.” Damian glanced away when he spoke, as though the wall was really interesting.
I didn’t know everything about my uncle’s family history, but the last thing I ever expected was to run into his family my first stop after coming out of the black hole. “How?”
“My father was his older brother. Not the one who was going to rule, but one of the ones who got locked up in the cage for the years Olivia was in charge. He fled Ochoa with my mother and raised me on a small farm two planets away. We used her last name because of the hatred for the Jackson last name. Cooper is something of a family legend. The man who killed my aunt to set the people free and then ran from the fallout.”
I had to catch my breath. The air coming out of my lungs after his statement felt more akin to running a race than sitting still. “He didn’t kill Olivia. My Uncle C.J. did. And he left be
cause my mother wanted to, and there’s nothing more important to him in the universe than my mom’s happiness.”
“Even more than that of the entire universe.”
I nodded. “She is his entire universe.”
Damian scooted back his chair. “Sterling, would you mind finishing? I need a walk. A fast one.”
Sterling took a tablet out of his coat pocket. “Sure thing. I’ll take notes.”
I’d managed to make an enemy out of Damian simply by standing up for my uncle. What else was I going to bumble?
Judge took a long pull from his ginger soda. “Damian is sensitive about the Jackson story. He’s lived with a lot of abuse. When people find out, they immediately associate him with Olivia, even though all of that was before he was born.”
“I am sorry it causes him so much pain.” No one should have to suffer for their family. We all had our own stories to write, our own mistakes to live with. Like getting sucked into a hole …
Sterling drummed his fingers on the table. “Do you have any reason to want to overthrow the Evander Corporation?”
I shook my head; exhaustion suddenly rode me hard. “No.”
“Will you sign a document expressly promising to not share any intellectual property with competing corporations, even under the pressure of torture?”
I sucked in my breath. What the hell? “What kind of torture?”
Cash shook his head. “We’re not asking her that. If Evander wants that answered, they can come ask it.”
Sterling set down the tablet. “Guess we’re done.”
“Great.” Cash smiled. “Is there anything you want to ask us?”
“Yes.” I had a whole slew of questions. I wouldn’t ask them all, but some I wanted answers to right away. “Just to clarify, you—Cash and Lewis—you’re the doctors.”
“We hold different degrees in medicine, but yes, we’re both doctors. Sterling and Damian are company security. Judge is our tech god.”
I cleared my throat. “I could help you. While I’m here. I’m an engineer. Not like Judge is. But I can fix things, and you could point me at the things you can’t get to. I’ll get them done. That’s what I do at home.”
Cash and Judge looked at each other before looking at me. Finally, Cash spoke. “You want to work?”
“I want to do something. I know perhaps it’s unusual for women or whatever. But I’m used to holding my own.”
Lewis answered, “I’m sure Judge can use the help. He’s always said this place really had enough work to warrant a head engineer and an assistant. Looks like you came right in time. He has to redesign the storage unit to hold more Infected. Project might take a year.”
I played with my fork. I’d help Judge up until the point I got out of this place and found somewhere I wouldn’t be held prisoner myself. “If Judge is willing, I am.”
Judge nodded fast. “Don’t get me wrong, it’ll be weird for me. I never thought of a woman as being an engineer. But as long as you think you can keep up, I’m game.”
Cash laughed, throwing back his head. “No one can keep up with you. You move a hundred times a minute. Give the girl a break. How about if she’s smart and competent? Good enough?”
Judge’s cheeks turned red, but then he howled right along with Cash. “All right, fair enough.”
I was so relieved. The idea of not being busy while I bided my time made me feel slightly ill. I had to keep my hands occupied and my thoughts to myself. I never wanted to be a lady of leisure.
“One more thing.” This was hard, but the sad fact was it might happen and so better to address it now than later. “I have a problem. Kind of a glitch in my internal programming.” The description had always worked in the past. Four sets of eyes on me didn’t blink while they waited for me to continue speaking. I took a deep breath. “Look, um, sometimes if I get really stressed, I quit talking. I can’t help it. There’s nothing physically wrong me,” I made sure to make eye contact with Cash and Lewis when I delivered this fact. “I’ve been checked over and over. It happened right after my third birthday. I talked just fine, and then I quit. There had been some distress with my mom right around then. Then I started up again, right before I was six, like the whole thing never happened. Over the years, there would be occurrences of it—a few days here or there—until I was sixteen. Then after a bad attack on my home, I lost the use of my voice again for a year. It came back. I don’t know what would have happened with this most recent incident getting myself thrown through the black hole. I was alone. I know Judge went through my logs. The days I didn’t record were hard ones for me. I can’t help it. I can’t control it. I wish I could.”
There. I’d laid it out to them. Lest they think they’d gotten a real prize to sell to Evander—of course Damian wasn’t in the room, but presumably Sterling would tell him. For good measure, I added, “I can still think during the time I’m silent. I can do jobs. Follow directions. Sometimes I can write. Sometimes I lose that too. I’m not comatose or anything. I just can’t find my voice.”
Lewis furrowed his brows. “These times that you lose your voice come after stress. Presumably a psychological trigger. No amount of therapy worked? Behavioral or otherwise?”
“I went through it all. I’m just … glitchy.”
A muscle ticked in Sterling’s jaw. “I hate that word for this. Who called you that, and why did you adopt it as your own?”
“I came up with it alone. Seems fitting.”
He shook his head. “The people with you should be ashamed they didn’t stop you from saying it. You’re not glitchy. You’re not a computer on the fritz.”
So far, I’d ticked off Damian, and he’d stormed from the room. Now I’d upset Sterling. I was two for two and not surprised. I had to get Artemis fixed as soon as possible. I wasn’t good with people. Voice or no voice.
Chapter Five
The cold, cold, nasty wind and how it blows.
Lewis walked me to Artemis as though I needed an escort. I wasn’t unaccustomed to the way some men felt around women. On the station, a lot of the regular residents had to get used to the idea that both my mother and I would walk alone as we saw fit and not blink an eye.
I could have argued with the doctor, but I didn’t want to. It was nice to have someone to walk the halls with. I hadn’t yet figured out where everything was and getting lost wasn’t in my game plan for the evening. I needed sleep, to be back on Artemis, and to get my head straight.
“Damian can be sensitive about his family. His story to tell. I doubt he even knows how rude he was. And Sterling has his reasons, too. We’re a rough bunch here, although I suppose it could be argued the whole universe is a rough patch, made only for those who can survive the onslaught.” We got to the outside of Artemis. She looked pretty good to me, but I could see what Judge meant when he’d said she wouldn’t survive much longer. The door needed to be entirely replaced. I’d get to work on it in the morning in between working on whatever Judge wanted. I’d play the game, as my mother would say.
I regarded Lewis’ strong profile. He implied something he wanted me to understand beyond what he said. I could make out that much. But reading subtlety wasn’t my forte. I could tell him as much or pretend I’d gotten what he said to me.
I had to say something. “I’m not good with people. I tend to step on their toes without having any idea I’ve done so. I tend to speak my mind. I never mean to be unkind. But my existence has always been riddled with me screwing up, badly. I’m sorry that my uncle upset Damian and my speech issue bothered Sterling the way it did.”
He shook his head. “It was how you referred to it that upset Sterling, not that you have the problem.”
I didn’t really see how my own personal experience would make someone else so completely upset. Truth was, I didn’t want to get into it with Lewis right then. “Thanks for walking me back.”
He nodded once. “You’re welcome.” He pointed to Artemis “I never saw it. I stayed with you. The others came an
d examined it, but I didn’t. She doesn’t look too badly damaged.”
“I think we can get her fixed. She’s been through a lot. Somehow, she survives again and again.”
He licked his lips before he answered. “The best ships are like people, right? They can come out of a fight damaged but fixable.”
I extended my hand toward Artemis. “Would you like to come inside?”
“Not tonight, but soon maybe. Thanks for asking.”
“You’re welcome.” I stepped toward Artemis when his voice stopped me.
“Don’t run away, Diana. Don’t take her out before she’s ready and get into worse trouble. People have a tendency to surprise us. Don’t run tonight in a ship with a hull which might fall apart.”
I touched the side of the ship, putting my hands on her. I could feel where they had scratched her nearly apart. “I’d have to be really foolish to run with the ship like this. I am many things; foolish has never been one of them.”
“Sometime, would you tell me about Earth? The others all have their interests. If you tell Judge about the black hole, you may never get to stop talking about it. Despite his hurt tonight, I suspect Damian is going to want to hear about his missing uncle at length. I want to know about Earth. I’ve dreamed about her …” His voice faded off. “Sometime. If you would.”
“I …” He sounded so wistful I couldn’t help but respond to it. “I only lived on Earth a few months. I know what I remember and what I’ve heard from the constant comings and goings of people on Mars Station who travel frequently to earth. I’d be happy to talk to you about it.”
His grin could have lit up the night. “Thank you, Diana. Sleep well. I presume Judge showed you our living quarters.”
“He did.”
“Then find us if you need us. Also, you can always try the comm. One of us stays awake most of the time. We don’t have to. Sleep sometimes eludes.”
I should go, but I didn’t move. I wanted to ask him something, too. “What do you bring out every morning into the trash compactor?”