A Solid Core of Alpha (34 page)

C.J.’s head snapped back at the answer. Anderson had preserved those memories, he thought painfully. They must have remembered books, because they wrote books. They remembered videos because they had a library from across all of the human populated quadrants. They remembered music because they had imported music and they made their own. C.J. had a memory, thin as a thread, of a plaintive, yearning woman’s voice, fragile and pure, rendering an unspeakably ugly moment meaningful.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “Yes, I know what they remembered.”

Cass did that thing, where she wiped her eyes on the inside of her shirt and left a big smudge of what she called her “planetside face” on it, because she never wore makeup when she was working. “So do I,” she whispered. “And so does Marshall and Julio, and all of the techs who worked on Anderson’s ship. And baby brother?”

C.J. actually looked at her this time. His eyes were burning and his vision was blurred, but he saw her. “Yeah?”

“So does Anderson. Those people he thinks he killed, he’ll remember who they were. He will. But he spent ten years on that ship being the collective memory of his entire mining colony. He’s going to have to remember all of that first. You don’t need to be here for that. That’s something that’s going to have to happen on his own.”

C.J. nodded, his throat so swollen he didn’t know how he could even breathe. “I can’t leave him when he thinks I’m all that’s real,” he whispered.

Cass nodded and wiped her eyes again. “Well, sweetheart, you’d better hope he comes to his senses soon, because we need you on the station. We can find someone else, but he’ll have to be permanent, because we can’t afford another fuck-up like that X-guy. We can find someone else, but he won’t do as good a job, and he won’t love it like you really truly love it up there, and you’ll have to work under him too when you come back.” She swallowed. “I really think you should come up and take the job, Cyril John. You… I mean, I didn’t see it, when Marshall first told me he wanted you there. I honestly… I saw my little brother, fucking up like always. But these last months, I guess I had to look at you through Anderson’s eyes to see what a good guy you really are, and I’m sorry for it. But don’t let all that good you’ve got going for you drown in Anderson’s pain, baby. I just….”

She actually sniffled, and C.J. stood up and wrapped his arms around her shoulders from behind her as she sat staring down into her empty ceramic coffee mug.

“I’m sorry, Cass. I’m sorry. I… I’m not as good a person as you think. I mean… you
know
what set him off… you
know
how badly I—”

“Shut up,” she cried. “C.J., you didn’t do anything wrong. Yeah, I saw what set him off. What set him off was that you finally gave in. What were you going to do, little brother? Break his heart? Don’t you think that would have set him off too? Don’t you think that would have made him worse? At least now, he knows that
something
is real.” She pulled his arms even tighter around her and rubbed her wet cheek on his hand.

“You’ve been a better you in these past months than I ever suspected, Cyril. Don’t shit on it now. Anderson was… God, baby, he was heading for this from the moment his sister pressed ‘go’ on the remote. We’ve just got to give him time, okay?”

C.J. nodded, but he couldn’t… hell, even with his sister, who could handle any bull, pinniped, mammal, or Artellian octoped by the horns and wrestle it to the ground without bothering to spit in its eye, even with Cassie crying in his arms, he couldn’t commit to leaving Anderson. “I’ll ask him,” C.J. promised vaguely. “I’ll ask him, okay?” He didn’t think about how unlikely it would be that Anderson could let him go. He didn’t think about how on Earth Anderson could even address the idea of letting his one real thing walk away. He just promised to his sister, because he loved her, and because he couldn’t think, couldn’t reason, couldn’t plan, couldn’t
anything
as long as Anderson was stuck in the limbo of madness, the murky white hall of denial of exactly who he was and what he had done.

“Okay, C.J., you ask him. But ask him tomorrow, all right?”

“’Kay,” C.J. said, his vision filling with sort of a white haze around the outside of it. “What are we doing now?”

“Come on, let’s watch one of those horrid comedy things I hated in school.” Cass stood up and grabbed his hand and hauled him back to his small entertainment room. She had apparently moved all of his holo-gear off of it, because the coffee table was clean, and without that reminder of failure, it wasn’t a bad place. It was larger than the one in his quarters stationside, and the walls and furniture were a light, airy, eggshell color, but the cushions and blankets and drapes were all of those solid, bright blues and greens, reds and oranges and golds, that C.J. loved so much in his picture, or at the seashore. C.J. loved color, he thought dreamily. Poor Anderson, existing in that foggy, white-washed world.

“Why would you want to do that?” C.J. asked, truly lost.

“Because you know the words to the dialogue and the words to the opening songs and even the beats between the lines. You’ll be asleep before you can even think that asleep was a thing to be.”

She must have been right. He didn’t even remember sitting with her on the couch, but he woke up late the next morning under a blanket from the back of the couch. His sister was in the kitchen again, fixing him breakfast, singing a song their mother had taught her, something about sailing away. He thought it had come with the original colonists on the ships, and the thought made the decision she needed him to make even harder than ever to face.

Part 5: Anderson

Chapter 17

Human Songs

A
NDERSON
remembered C.J.’s sister. She’d scared him at first—her tongue had been so sharp, and he could tell C.J. wanted to just smack her sometimes, just like Anderson had wanted to do with Melody.

Anderson had a picture of his family by his bedside. It had been one of the few things C.J. had remembered to grab when they had been transported down to the planet. At least that was what Anderson had been told—he didn’t remember that part at all.

He looked at that picture every morning and tried to figure out how he fit into that family at all. He
knew
he was the one boy, but he didn’t know anything else. He had that association of C.J.’s big sister and C.J. wanting to smack her with how he’d felt about his own big sister, but other than that, it was like an old video, faded, even in his memory.

C.J. had told him about the letters inside the tablet with the picture, but Anderson hadn’t read those yet. He thought that maybe he should remember something about the family first—otherwise it felt like intruding, or worse,
cheating
.

Cheating is bad
, he thought somberly. Cheating in little things, like memory games or computers, that was bad.

He couldn’t remember why.

But he remembered Cassidy, with her lovely midnight skin and her high cheekbones, her exotic, almond-shaped eyes and full lips. She reminded him of Kate, not in appearance, but in that no-nonsense set of lines between her eyebrows. Cassidy and Kate had gotten along—he knew that for a fact.

“Yes,” he said serenely, when Dr. Cherry let Cassidy into his room. “Of course I remember you. You’re C.J.’s sister. I had dinner in your quarters.” He smiled a little, remembering fruit juice and laughing a lot. “We had a good time. I’m glad I didn’t kill you when I killed my family. That would have hurt.”

Cassidy grimaced. A lot of people made that face when talking to Anderson these days. He sort of wished they’d stop.

“I’m damned glad you didn’t kill me either,” she said tartly. “But then, it would have taken more than two buttons on a computer program to do that.”

The words made something buzz electrically on the back of his neck, but he couldn’t put any words to the feeling or to the sudden clarity of the world around him. It was like a fog in his vision had grown less dense, but since he didn’t want to explain the fog in his vision to the doctors anyway, he sure wasn’t going to mention when it got better, was he?

“I hope so,” Anderson answered neutrally.

You hope so? Seriously, you even programmed Bobby with better manners than that!

Cassie smiled wearily and patted his knee, and Kate subsided so he didn’t have to answer her.

“I know so,” Cassie said. “Honey, how are you doing here?”

“It’s tranquil.”
And boring! Is there any possible way we could get out and go have some fun?

“C.J.’s sorry he forgot about yesterday. He’ll be here today. Is that okay?”

It is possible that C.J. is not in the best emotional health, Anderson. Perhaps you should tell him that his presence is not needed every day.
“It’s fine.”

Cassidy sighed and peered at Anderson through the fog like she was trying to figure out what was going on inside his head. A whole lot, actually. Kate and Bobby were having a whispered conversation, Henry was taking notes on his tablet about what Cassie was saying, and Risa was simply all big eyes, taking in their conversation. She did so love a diversion.

“Anderson, baby, I need you to do me a favor, okay?”

“Sure, Cass, whatever you want.” There was a voice trying to whisper that he didn’t give a shit about anyone, but he ignored that one. He’d killed that voice. He didn’t have to listen to it anymore.

Cassie sighed. Anderson was getting used to that sound too. “I need you to let C.J. go.”

Everybody was silent. “Go where?”

“Go back to the station.”

Anderson, you need him!

Don’t worry about it, Anderson—we’ll be all right.

It’s not right that he should spend his time here when you’re otherwise talking to us, is it, Anderson?

But Jesus, Anderson, are you
ever
planning to get laid again?

“Why does he want to leave me?”

“He doesn’t,” Cassidy said, her voice rough. “He doesn’t want to leave you at all, not to sleep, not to eat. Even when he’s gone, he’s thinking about you. He missed yesterday because he was trying to reconstruct the hologram program for your friends….”

Well, that’s not a lot of fun for C.J., is it?

Yes! Make him do that! Anderson, we could watch vids again!

That’s not a very constructive use of his time.

Poor C.J., he must be so worried.

“I don’t think he can do that,” Anderson said quietly. “It was too jumbled. Alpha really fucked with the controls before I got there. Anything else that happened probably….” He swallowed. They were dead.

Wasn’t your fault, buddy.

Well, technically, he was the one who pressed the delete button.

That’s not what he meant, asshole!

(Hurt silence.)

Cassie was looking at him with shiny eyes and a full, quivering lower lip. “That’s not the problem, Anderson. The problem is that he’s killing himself looking for a way to fix it. For a way to fix
you
.”

Bullshit, Anderson, you’re not broken!

Dude, nothing can fix you! That’s why we’re awesome!

Anderson, I don’t think that’s healthy for C.J.

Oh, poor C.J.—he must feel terrible!

“I don’t want C.J. to be hurt for me,” Anderson said quietly, feeling a little dizzy. Alpha, he thought. Alpha would have barked over all their voices by now and probably demanded Anderson’s attention on Alpha himself. Anderson could have tuned out this painful conversation, on the inside, on the outside, and let Alpha tell him how this was all his fault, and how loving anybody was only going to hurt the people he cared about, and how Alpha was the only one who knew what was good for Anderson.

But Alpha was dead. Anderson had killed him so Anderson could be with C.J.

“I don’t want C.J. to leave me, though.”

Cassidy took a deep, shaking breath. “Anderson, will C.J. be any less real if he leaves you here to heal?”

“I don’t want to be alone.”

You’re not alone.

Shut up, Bobby. It’s not like we’re real.

Are you alone if your delusions talk to you?

(Hurt silence.)

There was a warm, comforting, and masculine hand on his shoulder, and suddenly Dr. Cherry was there. “Anderson, you won’t be alone. I’ll be here. Dr. Silverberg will be here. We’re C.J.’s friends, and we’ll take care of you.”

Dr. Silverberg was suddenly crouching at his feet, her pretty red hair pulled up behind her and a sweet smile on her face. Anderson liked Dr. Silverberg; she was often quiet, like Risa, except she was confident when she
did
choose to talk, like Henry.

“C.J. needs to heal too, Anderson,” Dr. Silverberg was saying. “He loves you a whole lot, and you were suddenly….”

“Otherwise occupied,” Anderson said grandly, and Kate and the others smirked.

Even Dr. Silverberg smiled. “Exactly,” she said, as though she was fully aware of the people he murdered holding court behind his eyes.

Suddenly Dr. Cherry was crouched at Anderson’s feet too, and Dr. Silverberg’s hand was resting on his shoulder, maybe for balance, but Anderson thought it looked like comfort too. “Anderson, you’ve got to understand. I know you and I have only just met, but I’ve known C.J. forever, and he would stay with you for longer than that, if it was possible. But he’s hurting here. His heart is wasting away, watching you when he can’t help.”

That sucks, Anderson, but there’s nothing you can do about it.

Anderson, you were brought up better than that. If you care about him, you need to let him heal.

Anderson, I’m not sure you’re psychologically ready for a real relationship at this point. You’ve read enough literature to know that your psyche is going to need considerable healing.

Oh, poor C.J.

“I love him,” Anderson said with as much dignity as possible.

Cassidy sniffled and wiped her face on the inside of her red sequined shirt. Anderson liked the way she dressed, and it distressed him to see her wreck something that made her look so pretty.