Light Shaper (40 page)

Nervous?

Rigel understood in a flash of insight. The long, awkward silence. Steve had not been ignoring him—he had been too nervous to talk. And now he wasn’t sure that his move had been right. The look he gave Rigel was apologetic and, unbelievably, a tad insecure.

That was all the confirmation Rigel needed. He grabbed Steve’s hand with his own before he could lift it away. He smiled, and the slow smile Steve gave him in return was heartbreakingly sweet. They did not say anything, but Steve gave his hand a little squeeze before he turned his attention back to the road. And suddenly the silence they shared wasn’t awkward anymore. It was the best kind of silence Rigel had shared with anyone in a long time.

They drove on through the gloom, and eventually Rigel looked back the way they had come. Past the glow of the city, he could begin to make out the faint gray light of dawn creeping up from the east. He settled back into his seat, giving a silent thanks that they had made it out without being caught. From here on out, they were unlikely to run into anyone. Aside from archaeologists who made the trip once or twice a year, not many people ventured this far out of the city by land.

They veered off from the path a few minutes later, and Steve stopped the car. As the motor died down, Rigel realized the night was completely silent. It was weird, not hearing any kind of background noise like you would always have in the city. Peaceful, in a way. The sky overhead seemed bigger, like nature was all around him.

“We’re close now,” Steve said. “I don’t want to go any farther in the dark, though. I found where the Haven III site is supposed to be in this onboard map, but I have never come this way by land. The climb up to the mesa can be tricky for big vehicles like this one. If we wait for the sun to come out, we stand a much better chance of reaching the place quickly without falling down or getting lost along the way.”

“Okay. It’s only a little while until morning anyway.”

“Yeah. And I don’t know about you, but I could sure use a couple hours’ sleep.”

“I agree,” Rigel said. “We’ve been awake all night, and it’s been one of the worst of my life. Well. Also one of the best.”

Steve smiled. Rigel felt something flutter in his stomach and hoped it didn’t show on his face.

“For me too,” Steve answered. “It’s been both.”

The silence of the dying night settled over them again. Rigel wanted to say so many things that he didn’t know where to begin. He also wanted to get closer to Steve, but the partition between the seats made it awkward, and so he stayed where he was.

“I’m sorry about before,” he decided to say finally. Better start with the truth.

“What do you mean?” Steve asked him, pushing his seat back all the way so he could stretch his legs.

“Earlier tonight. The way I acted with Zoe.”

“I wondered about that. I didn’t want to disturb you, though. I figured you were just thoughtful at the bar. I mean, I’ve lost my home once before, so I know what it’s like. But for you it was the first time, and you have it much worse than I ever did. I thought you needed some time to think things through.”

“Well, part of it was that,” Rigel admitted. He didn’t want to say the next bit, but he made himself say it anyway. “The truth was that I was jealous.”

Steve crossed his hands behind his head, leaning back on his seat. “Jealous? Of what?”

“Of… Zoe.”

Steve gave him a blank stare. “Huh?”

“I had no idea you knew her from before, not at first. And you guys talked for hours that first night and spent all the time together afterwards… I assumed….”

“What?” Steve asked, and Rigel wondered if he could really be that clueless.

“Steve, you spent the night together with that woman. In your room.”

Steve blinked and was silent for a heartbeat. Then he burst out laughing.

It was an easy, booming laugh, and it was the first time Rigel had heard it without a wall in the way. He tried to protest over it, but Steve was laughing too loudly for it to do any good.

“You thought….” Steve gasped. “You thought that I….”

His laughter was contagious, and Rigel found himself laughing along, breaking the tension that his little confession had created in his mind. It was a strange and wonderful thing to see the normally fearsome and stoic Steve become a much younger man when he had tears of laughter streaming down his face. Maybe it was all the events of the day, but as Rigel laughed, he felt a lot of the stress of his situation slipping away from his shoulders, not exactly forgotten but no longer so foreboding and oppressive. It felt good to feel happy again, and even better to be sharing the feeling with someone else.

“Oh man,” Steve said finally, the final chuckles dying down. “Sorry about that, Rigel. Didn’t mean to make fun of you or anything.”

Rigel smiled. “It’s okay.”

“Zoe is like a sister to me,” Steve explained. “Well, at least she used to be. I left the slums a very long time ago, and I was really happy to see her, that’s all. We talked a lot about what we had done in these years, remembered some of the old times, that kind of thing.”

“How did you—no, never mind,” Rigel said. He had wanted to ask him about his past, but he stopped his curiosity just in time.

Steve looked at him. “You want to know how I ended up in the slums in the first place?”

“Um, no, I didn’t—”

“It’s okay,” Steve told him. “It’s not a story I tell everyone, but you are not just anyone.”

“If you don’t want to talk about it….”

“It’s fine. There’s not much to tell, really. I was born in Aurora like you, had a pretty normal childhood. When I was fourteen years old, there was a fire in the apartment building where my family lived. Almost one hundred people in the upper floors died. It was a big tragedy at the time.”

“The Jameson Street fire?” Rigel asked, eyes wide.

Steve nodded grimly.

“I’ve read about it,” Rigel said. “Well, they told us about it in school. They say it was some kind of problem with the electronics in the building because of a heat wave. There was an explosion, too, I think. It’s in the history books and everything.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed and looked away to stare into the night. His expression grew somber, troubled. “But it was much worse than that. The thing that failed was the electronic building access mechanism. It had been badly designed, and when the fire started, all the outside exits locked shut, even those leading out into fire escapes. People couldn’t get out until somebody thought to call for an override, and some tenants didn’t even know the fire was even happening until it had gotten out of control. It started at night when people were already asleep. I was… I was right on the roof of the building, hanging out with a guy. I remember my phone kept buzzing, but I ignored it at first. I liked the guy, you see. I wanted to make a good impression, and everything else could wait.”

Steve grimaced as if disgusted with himself. Then he shook his head slightly and continued.

“Eventually the buzzing stopped, but then I smelled something burning. I saw the smoke coming out of the windows below us. I took my phone and saw the many missed calls from my father, who was at work on the other end of the city. He had heard about the fire first, and he was frantic. I quickly called my mother, who was inside the building with my sister, but there was no answer. I tried to get back inside—I couldn’t. There was only one door that gave access down into the building, and it was locked. A crowd of people was gathering below, and I heard the sirens approaching. I began to panic and looked for another way down, but the highest fire escape ladder was one story below, and it meant dropping from the roof. I don’t even remember what the other guy did, but I do remember dropping down and landing safely, just to get a lungful of black smoke coming from one of the broken windows. I raced down and got to the ground, looked for my mother or my sister. They weren’t there. I didn’t see anyone from our floor.

“Then I got a text. It was from my mother, saying that the doors wouldn’t open. I didn’t even think. I started going back up the emergency ladder before the firefighters could stop me. I was maybe one story below them when all the emergency exits finally opened, and everybody began pouring down the fire escape. I got lost in the crowd, fighting my way up, and at one point I almost fell over the railing because somebody pushed me. I made it to my floor and went inside, coughing from the smoke and heat that was coming from everywhere. I couldn’t see the fire, and I could barely make out the doorways under the emergency lighting. I tried to get to our apartment, but when I was halfway there I saw the hallway had collapsed. I couldn’t go any farther.”

Steve paused again, closed his eyes, and took a long breath. He held it, then released it slowly. Rigel’s mouth was hanging slightly open, and he was horrified because he suspected how Steve’s story would end. He didn’t dare speak but waited until Steve was ready to go on.

“I tried to find another way past the blockage, and I ended up in a big ventilation duct. I crawled forward feeling the heat all around me, my phone buzzing in my pocket nonstop. Then things got oddly quiet for a little while, and I was terrified but kept going until I ran into a section of the duct that was also blocked by whatever had collapsed onto that part of the building. There was a gap through which I wanted to squeeze, but it wasn’t big enough. I pushed against a broken concrete slab, but I couldn’t move it. I kept at it for almost a minute, and all I did was get stuck, unable to move, unable to back out even.

“Then I heard them. Barely and from far off, but their voices carried oddly inside the ventilation duct. They were calling for help, Rigel. I was meters away, and I couldn’t reach them. I couldn’t move the slab that was blocking me. I wasn’t… I wasn’t strong enough….”

He fell silent for much longer this time. Rigel had never heard anything so horrible, and he didn’t know what to say. He wanted to reach out to Steve, but his expression was so angry and sad at the same time that it made him look scary. Rigel saw him close his hands into fists and tighten them, the carefully defined muscles in his arms bunching up under the effort. He looked like he wanted to hit something, probably himself. It took him several deep breaths to calm down enough for Rigel to risk putting his hand over his.

“The rescue workers found me and pulled me out before it was too late. They say I was lucky, that the blockage was actually preventing the worst of the smoke from reaching the place where I had gotten stuck. They carried me down, and I was conscious all through the rest of the rescue efforts. They eventually brought my mother and my sister down, but…. They took them to the hospital. They died on the way there from the smoke. I was in the ambulance when….”

But he couldn’t continue. He choked up, and Rigel reacted instinctively, reaching out to him across the seats in an awkward hug. Steve returned it without hesitation, holding him as tightly as if he was afraid to fall off the world with Rigel as his only anchor. He didn’t cry, but he held Rigel for a very long time. Rigel returned the hug as best as he could, horrified at the thought that Steve had been carrying the blame of his family’s death all these years. He wanted to tell him it had not been his fault, but Steve probably knew that already and yet, from the way he had spoken about the incident, still refused to believe that there had been nothing he could have done. Rigel could not even imagine what it would be like to live with that kind of a tragedy constantly weighing him down.

Eventually Steve calmed down enough that Rigel let go and settled back on his own seat. Steve looked slightly embarrassed and refused to meet Rigel’s eyes. He spoke to the windshield instead.

“My father couldn’t handle it. He killed himself after the funeral and left me with nothing since most of our things had burned down with our home. All I recovered from the fire was this key to our front door: half-melted, blackened, a reminder of what happened.

“I ended up in the slums then, homeless. I almost starved a couple of times. Then I met Zoe and the others. I was sent to prison for a stupid mistake. Eventually, though, I got back on my feet and returned to Aurora. When I got my first job aboard an airship I left for good, rising through the ranks and eventually working aboard the
Titania
. I would still be working there if it weren’t for that scumbag Jonathan.”

“The man you killed,” Rigel said, speaking up at last.

“Yeah. He was a beast, but that doesn’t make what I did right. I had to leave my job, and I always wondered when his family would come seeking revenge. You saw what happened back at the repair shop. I put us all in danger. I’m sorry.”

“I’ve also killed a man,” Rigel confessed in a small voice.

Steve focused properly on him for the first time. “What? When?”

“I shot Jared. He didn’t see me at first, and I knew he would kill me, so I fired first.” Now it was Rigel’s turn to shut his eyes for a second, to try to block the image of the dead man from his mind. “I keep seeing his face, Steve. If I hadn’t done it, I would’ve died. But I still feel awful.”

“I know how you feel,” Steve said to him. “You did what you had to, Rigel. I know this won’t help, but I’m glad you did it. If you hadn’t we would’ve all died in that fire, not just you.”

Rigel nodded and sighed. They sat in silence for a little while, each lost in his own thoughts. Rigel began to feel the weight of the day’s exertions again, and he started to drift off. He had almost fallen asleep when he felt Steve’s hand over his own. Rigel opened his eyes and looked at him.

“Thanks,” Steve said softly.

“For what?”

Steve only shrugged and smiled.

“I don’t know what we’re going to find where we are going tomorrow,” Rigel told him, “but I’m glad you’re with me, Steve.”

Steve gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. Then Rigel closed his eyes and was almost immediately asleep.

RICHARD TANNER
had a headache, and the bumpy ride wasn’t making it any better.

“No, Delegate,” he said, speaking calmly into the commset in front of him. The screen showed him the stern face of the special envoy from Haven Prime, who had arrived yesterday to assess the damage the sudden collapse of Otherlife had initiated. The Mayor of Aurora was sitting next to the Delegate meekly, saying nothing, as if he hoped keeping silent would mean all the blame would fall squarely on Tanner’s shoulders. With an inward sigh, Tanner continued. “While you are correct when you state that at present all of CradleCorp’s commercial functions have been brought to an indefinite halt, let me assure you that repairs are already underway, and I am confident we can bring Otherlife online within the month if everything goes according to plan.”