Crashing Into Destiny

  It was Sterling who answered. “Nothing is ever going to happen to you. I won’t allow it. You’re safe. Judge made these containers so safe for all of us. We have security measure after security measure in place. The Zombies aren’t getting anywhere near you.”

  “I can show you the schematics. Maybe that’ll make you more comfortable. It would take an incredible amount to go wrong all at once. I’d stop it before that happened,” Judge added. He had a robot in his hand. A medium-sized toy robot and a remote.

  Judge had momentarily distracted me with the toy. I found my words again. “All of that being said, promise me, okay? You won’t let me be a Zombie.”

  Sterling nodded. “I promise.”

  “Me too.” Judge nodded. “I’m sure the others will promise too. We’ll tell them. Truth be told, I wouldn’t let any of them become Infected. You’re safe with us.” He held up the robot. “Still want to check him out?”

  “Does it involve the Zombies?”

  He shook his head. Judge reminded me of my brothers or the kids on the station when they got a new toy they wanted to show off. “I built it to assist with the Zombies, but he does all kinds of things. I never get to show off the other things.”

  Sterling patted my cheek before continuing on his rounds. I’d have to ask him what he looked for and why, if we were so perfectly safe, did he and Damian carry three guns between them. I never accidently ran into Damian during the day. Where did he go?

  Judge ended up bringing me to his bedroom. It was a ten-by-ten room that fit a bed, a dresser, and a small bookshelf that also seemed to double as a desk. He’d taped pieces of papers with equations all over his walls. He sat down on the floor and patted the spot next to him, which I took.

  “Diana, this is Cruiser. Cruiser, say, ‘Hi’ to Diana.”

  As far as robots went, Cruiser was funny looking. The design made me smile, and from what I knew of Judge, I could see his handwork all over it. The robot had a mouth that was currently turned upwards in a smile, although I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it had the ability to frown. He was multi-colored. Blue, red, green, yellow. If I stood, he’d come up to my waist, so right now I had to look up at him. His hands currently resembled human ones, yet the slider device on its wrist told me they could shift into other things if the user so wanted. I suspected that was what the remote was for since Judge talked to him instead of pressing buttons right now.

  “Hello, Diana.” Cruiser said to me. He had a pleasant voice, soothing, like a warm bath.

  “Hi, Cruiser. How are you?” I didn’t usually ask machines how they were doing. Although I thought of Artemis as alive plenty of times. What would Cruiser say? How far had Judge designed his programming?

  “Better now that I have a pretty lady to play with me.” The robot lifted his eyebrows.

  I gasped and elbowed Judge. “Did you tell him to say that?”

  “When would I have told him to?” His eyes sparkled with mischief.

  “When you were fooling with him in the viewing area by the Infected.”

  Judge sighed dramatically. “What can I say? He has good taste. You told me I couldn’t tell you that you were beautiful. You didn’t say anything about Cruiser.”

  “You’re sneaky. You know that?” I looked down at the floor. “It was never a factor in my life. I’m not sure how to …” I didn’t have the words. Process? Incorporate? Take it in? Make it mine? I didn’t know. So I stopped.

  Judge didn’t push. I expected him to complain. He didn’t. Instead he turned to Cruiser. “Cruiser, we’re not going to do Infected work today. Diana, Cruiser does a lot of the interacting with the Infected. He sometimes sedates them for the doctors so they don’t have to go near them while they are worked up. It’s important work. What he was designed for. Or, at least, that’s what I told Evander so they’d fund him. I couldn’t very well suggest Cruiser needed to be made so he could juggle.”

  Saying the word, a compartment opened in Cruiser’s stomach, and he pulled out some balls. Seconds later, he juggled them.

  I giggled. It was one of the funniest things I’d seen. A sophisticated robot, designed to work in hazardous conditions, was juggling balls on the floor of Judge’s room.

  “Or do cartwheels.”

  As I watched trick after trick, I laughed more and more. Judge’s smile grew wider while he showed off his robot. He scooted closer to me, and eventually I put my head on his shoulder. This was fun. He’d called it playing, and he was right. Cruiser was more than a functional tool in the fight to save the Zombies; he was a toy.

  Judge didn’t know the full extent of what Cruiser could do. He’d programmed him with circus tricks and games, yet he’d never had the time to check them all out. Sterling liked to watch him too, and the others were impressed, but he wasn’t their cup of tea. We started testing him. I got him to hop on one foot and meow like a cat. He’d have been a great asset to have when I’d taken care of my siblings. We could have made hours pass this way when we had to be confined to our rooms for safety. Judge entwined our fingers. We’d missed lunch. I didn’t care. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d ever been so relaxed. Happiness trumped hungry for me. I’d eat dinner.

  We were quiet. Judge shut Cruiser down for recharge. His power cells were big enough that he could last for days, but in the event of an emergency, it wouldn’t do to have him at half power because we’d played too long and hard with him.

  “Do you like comics?” He turned to me, an eyebrow raised.

  “I don’t know.” We didn’t have them where I was from. I knew what they were; sometimes C.J. lamented that he’d lost his from the time he was a boy, yet I’d never gazed on any myself.

  Judge jumped up and grabbed a tablet. He sat back down and picked my hand up again, placing it where it had been on my thigh, and held my fingers with his own again. With his other hand, he pressed a button to turn on his tablet.

  His fingers moved fast over the device. We had similar ones where I came from, personal storage centers where we kept books we were reading, messages sent to us, appointments. If we had bills due, they popped up there. In school, our tests were administered on the devices. My brother Colin had lost his twice already. That hadn’t gone over well. I pushed thoughts of them aside. Thinking about my family wasn’t making me happy, and today, with Judge, I was determined not to be dour.

  Judge scanned through his device. “What kind of heroes do you like? Flying ones? Fast ones? Big ones? Scary anti-heroes?”

  I shrugged. “Show me your favorite.”

  His eyes brightened. It was so easy to make Judge happy, and all I was doing was learning about him. Something I really wanted to do. He pulled up a comic of man who wore all black. Whoever drew him had made him seem ominous. They called him the Sewer Man. He lived on Ochoa. Judge continued to show me picture after picture. He knew everything about the fictional character—who wrote him, who drew him, when the artist had changed. I watched his mouth move, not hearing every word he said. I cared much more about Judge’s telling of the story than anything to do with the comic itself.

  “When Evander sends in reports—we get them about every six weeks, and Damian sends a carrier back—I get new ones delivered to the tablet. They like to keep us happy, keep us out here.”

  I had never been brave when it came to touching, and yet still I felt perfectly comfortable in his quiet room doing so. I ran my hands down the back of his hair. Judge kept his short, the dark strands off his face. His eyes widened when I first touched him, but then he settled into it, leaning back a bit so I’d have an easier time. He closed his eyes and sighed.

  “And are you?” I asked it as a whisper. The moment felt special, like it should be heard by only us and not any other ears anywhere in the universe. Or maybe I had suddenly become sentimental.

  He opened his dark lids. “Am I?”

  “Happy?”

  He cupped my cheek. “I was never unhappy. I’m a guy who can make myself okay just about anywhere you drop m
e. I’m twenty-three years old.” A year older than me. I hadn’t known exactly. “I’ve been without family since I was five.”

  I gasped, and he shook his head. “Don’t be sad for me. People have it much worse.”

  “How did they die?”

  He was quiet for a second. “They’re not exactly dead. Somewhere in Evander they’re kept locked away. They got Infected. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was lucky. My father worked for Evander. He was pretty high up. So the corporation took me, evaluated me, and I found out early I had certain gifts when it came to tech and engineering. Someday, when Cash and Lewis solve their puzzle, there might be hope for my parents. To answer your question, I learned long ago to make myself happy wherever I landed. The corporation decided to send their two most brilliant minds to solve a problem, to stick them where no one could steal their work, where there were plenty of Infected to study. Cash doesn’t work well with everyone. Large labs make him nuts. The psychologist determined this was the best place. I had to go. Keep everything working. Help where I can. I’m happy.”

  I didn’t stop touching him. I got what he said. Happiness was found where it was found, and sometimes I had to make my own if there was none to find elsewhere. Sometimes, the right song playing on a speaker could change the day from bad to good. Judge knew how to make it work, how to stay upbeat and be happy.

  “I’m glad.”

  He scooted slightly closer to me. “But I’m happier now.”

  “I think you’re all crazy to want this with me, Judge.” I spoke the words plaguing me. “You’re all amazing guys. Brilliant and capable. Gorgeous to look at.” He blushed, and I wasn’t upset to give him a taste of his own medicine. Not always nice to be complimented. “I’m really an ordinary girl who got really unlucky and fell through a black hole.”

  He touched his forehead to mine. “I knew when Damian carried you in through the air lock that you are mine. I love these guys. I’ll share you with them and be glad to. If they didn’t want you like they did, that would be fine, too. He set you down on Lewis’ table, and I knew—you are mine. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “The universe changed.”

  Chapter Nine

  Judge Tomlinson

  His words moved through me like a sigh. I shivered from them. My whole body was aware of him. He thought the universe had changed when he saw me. I stroked my hand down the side of his face. “That’s the most beautiful thing … ever. I have a hard time believing it, hard time not wanting to say to you that if I were a girl in a crowd, and you had your choice—as you should have—you wouldn’t look twice…”

  Judge interrupted. “Di …”

  I placed my hands on his lips. “Don’t. I’m explaining, not disagreeing. I’ll tell you something. Where I’m from, I’m valued for how I can help us politically. No one has asked me to say yes to the three brothers who want me. I know doing so would make things better for a lot of people. I haven’t ever wanted anyone, not really. I look away. I don’t think about men. If I met you there, if you were somehow on my station, I’d have noticed you. Dreamed about you. You move me, Judge.”

  His mouth met mine gently. I expected Judge to push. He didn’t. Light kisses over and over. I wanted more, but I didn’t press. The drugs were still affecting him. He wasn’t going to get worked up like I could, and maybe not getting too heated was actually nicer to me. I’d have no relief unless I gave it to myself.

  Judge tugged me on top of him until I straddled his lap. He wasn’t hard. I hadn’t expected him to be. He wanted me closer, and I was glad to be.

  Eventually, I had enough. If we couldn’t do anything else, frustration was going to become my constant companion. I pulled back. I wasn’t sure what emotions I saw in his eyes. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m so happy I can kiss you. For now, it has to do.” He scooped me up and carried me over to the bed with him. “Dinner’s in an hour. What would you like to do until then?”

  “What other things would you like to show me? We’re having a fun day, right? Show me.”

  He pulled me to his side before he grabbed his tablet off the floor. “We have a whole lot of stuff we can look at.” Judge handed me the tablet. “Find anything on it.”

  “Really? You’re letting me go through your tablet?” To do so, where I came from, constituted a really big deal. It was inviting someone into your absolute personal space.

  He kissed my temple. “I feel like I’ve been through yours. I watched all the videos of you, listened to the logs, checked out things on Artemis while you were unconscious and they were desperately trying to save your life. I had to be busy. They wouldn’t let me stand over you. You can go through mine.”

  I almost argued some more and then decided to take the offering as the gift it was. I flipped through, clicking on more comics. There were three folders to choose from. One said Hero, one said Anti-Hero, and the last one said M. I clicked on M. What comics were in M? The comic inside was called Mercedes.

  Judge sucked in his breath. “Oh, you found that right off.” He rubbed his eyes. “All right.”

  “What is it? Would you rather I not look?”

  He shook his head. “It’s a pet project of mine.”

  I stared at the screen. “Are you making this comic yourself?”

  “The nights can be long here.” He groaned. “It’s terrible.”

  Except it really wasn’t. I flipped through the pages he’d drawn. He must have done it with his art app, drawing with a stylus or his hands. The main character, Mercedes, was a woman lost. She only had one arm. She wandered streets looking for the man who’d killed her lover. She wanted revenge. The skyline was elaborately drawn—bleak, broken. In the fifth frame she looked straight at the audience. She had blond hair, green eyes, and the saddest eyes I’d ever seen on the page.

  “She’s beautiful. Why is she sad?”

  He leaned up on his hand. “I don’t think she’s beautiful.”

  “But she is.” I ran my finger over the screen. “Striking. Unforgettable. You made her. This is … I mean, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You made Cruiser. You fix ships. You run this place. You’re … astounding. When you start writing more of this, can I read it?”

  His face was totally serious when he nodded. “Absolutely. Tell me about you. I want … all of it. What’s your favorite color?”

  I almost made one up simply to answer the question. “I never saw the point of having a favorite color. I’m not …” What was the word? I didn’t know.

  “All right.” He sat up. “Do you not have favorite things then? At all?”

  I chewed on my lip. “At home, I had a favorite wrench. A favorite pair of shoes. A favorite blanket. Practical things, I guess.”

  “Favorite memory?”

  That was a good question. A picture of Asher laughing as a baby while I twirled him in the air flashed through my mind. His baby face. His chubby cheeks. His little smile. The way he giggled and smelled. I loved babies.

  I shook my head, clearing it. “When my brother was born, I was twelve. They had seven kids. Boom, boom, boom after Asher. But he was the first. I loved him. He used to stay with me a lot. After his birth, before Colin’s, they found paid help. They didn’t have any when they had Asher. I loved him. So much. And there was this one time when we were alone. He crawled around the floor picking up little toy shuttles. He’d hold them up, and I’d say, ‘Shuttle,’ and he’d laugh. We did that for hours. I think that’s my favorite memory.”

  “I never had any siblings. That must be amazing.”

  If I had my tablet, I could show him their pictures. “I have some photos on Artemis’ computer. Do you want to see them tonight? Assuming you still want to stay.”

  “I do.” He brought my hand to his mouth and kissed it. “I really, really want the chemicals out of my body, Di. I want to kiss you and feel it everywhere, not just in my mind.”

  “What’s it like in your mind?”

  “Like heat that h
as nowhere to go.” He scooted around me off the bed. “Come on. Let’s put Cruiser back where he belongs, and then we can go see what Damian is cooking tonight.”

  He’d lain around too much. I could see it in the way he jumped from foot to foot. Judge had a lot of energy, and he’d been calm today. I wondered what a lack of activity did to him. I had to make sure to remember that about Judge. If this arrangement we’d all agreed to was going to work, I needed to keep their individual needs in line. I couldn’t keep Judge cooped up all day doing nothing.

  I took his hand and kept up with him as we practically jogged to the viewing room together. Sterling wasn’t present—probably on his rounds somewhere else. Judge placed Cruiser back in his casing in the room.

  The Zombies were pacing the room. They seemed more agitated than usual, pacing the room, moaning. “What’s going on with them?”

  “I call this time of day their witching hour. They get really upset. I don’t know why. We’re down to a low number of them. Cash will want us to go get more soon. Don’t worry. It’s safe.”

  I approached the glass and put my hands on it. “I’m not scared.” Maybe if I said it, I’d mean it. “I saw you do it one day while I was hiding on Artemis.”

  “Oh yeah?” He leaned next to me. “What else did you see?”

  “Lewis at the garbage every morning.”

  His eyes sparkled. “Exciting viewing.”

  “For me it was.” I’d never imagined I’d be here now … trying to figure out if I could ever be the woman I needed to be to make this work.

  *****

  Dinner was fun, easy going. Damian had put together a stew with carrots and onions. The meat was so tender it practically fell off the fork. I’d never tasted anything like it and told him so. I sat next to Judge—it was his night with me. Lewis sat next to Cash, across from me. Tonight, Sterling and Damian took the ends of the table.

  “Did you have a good day off?” Damian smirked at Judge and me. I shifted uncomfortably. I’d wondered if Damian was going to have a problem with our fooling around the way we had.