Текст книги "How to Repair a Mechanical Heart "

Автор книги: J. Lillis

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

Chapter Seven

“I got a screencap. Don’t worry.”

By the time we get to the Cadsim fanjournal on Abel’s phone, the Post of Doom’s been blipped into oblivion. Bec’s prepared, though. When the cab drops us off near our SavMart campsite, she’s waiting for us in the doorway of the Sunseeker with her glasses on and her hair in a she-means-business bun.

“It was so dramatic, you guys.” She yanks us inside and locks the door. “They all attacked like, the second she posted. It was like a steak in a shark tank.”

She points to the laptop. Onscreen is another post by hey_mamacita, featuring a brand-new photo of me and Abel. New as in taken this afternoon, at the Q&A, without our knowledge. It’s a shot of our backs. We’re standing in front of the pull-down screen, watching the fanvids. There’s a very, very creepy graphic overlay on the photo: a big circle with a cross inside it.

Like we’re peering at ourselves through a gunsight.

HELL BELLS ARE RINGING

THANK YOU CLEVELAND SPY

WE ARE WATCHING YOU BOYS!!

(BFC = coming very VERY soon.) Under that:

cavegrrl94:

MAXIE THIS IS IT. BAN HER NOW.

willabelle:

uugggghhhhh this whole thing is SO vile and hideous. I’m actually concerned, you guys. I thought it was all a joke but now I think they’re FOR REAL.

mrs.j.cadmus:

whatever. i used to hate the hell bells thing but now I’m like screw it, have at ‘em

willabelle:

Still, guys. I know we’re all extra angry after today, but Brandon and Abel are people too.

illumina:

THEY ARE NOT PEOPLE THEY ARE HEARTLESS GOONS AND DESERVE ETERNAL FIERY TORMENT.

Another sign. Are you listening yet? says Father Mike.

“They took our picture,” says Abel. “Three feet away.”

What else will they do?

“This is hardcore. We have organized haters.” Abel clasps his hands. “You guys?”

“What.”

He sighs dreamily. “I’m so proud!”

I stand without knowing where I’m going. Dishes. Perfect. They stack up so fast. I go to the sink and fill it halfway with water, hot as I can stand it, and three pumps of Mom’s lemon dish soap. Then I grab a clean sponge and start scrubbing. Hard.

Abel stage-whispers, “What’s with him?”

“I don’t know,” Bec says softly.

“Brandon?”

I don’t answer. I plunge a plate in the little basin and Abel’s disgusting chili remnants dissolve in the white cloud of suds. He’s saying something to Bec. Something I don’t want to hear, about time alone with me or whatever. I try to clearly communicate my wishes to her with the side of my head, but our telepathy isn’t what it used to be, because she gets up from the table and slips out the door.

Abel comes over. I feel him watching me for a minute, leaning up against the counter.

“You’re really freaked out,” he says.

Eternal fiery torment.

“Just tired.” I start filling the basin again. Hot rinse.

“I’m sure it’s just a big joke.”

“I’m sure it is.”

He reaches over and shuts my water off. He lets his hand brush mine as he pulls it back and I get this stupid lightning-flash impulse to grab it and tell him the whole truth. Pull the plug from the drain. Tell him all about Father Mike. Fake Zander.

“I shouldn’t have done that before,” he says. “Sent Ian over.”

“It’s fine.” I don’t look at him. “I was a jerk too.”

“No, you want to know why I did it? Why I care or whatever?”

I stare into the sink, at the suds escaping down the drain. Abel picks up the silver Castaway Planet superball he bought from one of the vendors. He starts bouncing and catching in a slow clockwork rhythm: shthunk, twack, shthunk, twack.

“Jonathan,” he says.

“Who?”

Shthunk, twack.

“My Zander.”

I’m not sure I want to hear more, but that never stops Abel, and before I can make up some excuse he’s pulled me into his tenth-grade trauma and I’m there with him at this holy roller wedding, exchanging sultry looks with the pretty blond boy at the groom’s table. “I knew I was getting in trouble,” he says. “Everyone at the wedding had like fourteen kids with the same haircut and a Jesus fish on their car, and they all made this huge creepy deal about how the bride and groom hadn’t even kissed yet, like not even one single time. I mean, freako.”

Put on the Brakes!, Chapter 5: Avoid “friends” who would mock the idea of a close relationship with God.

“So anyway, Jonathan gave me a couple super-intense looks across the room and then he left, and I followed him outside and there he was all nervous and shy loosening his tie under a tree, and of course I got a total hard-on for the whole situation, like who wouldn’t want to deflower the sweet innocent closeted Christian boy who’s been force-fed poison his whole life‌—‌like, no offense, Brandon, I know you’re cool and you don’t believe all that.”

My stomach drops. Abel goes on and on about how they snuck around that whole summer, how he was so in love, how every time they kissed or whatever it was like some time-lapse film of flowers bursting open and sunrises sprawling across the sky.

“‌…‌And then all of a sudden, he just stopped. Stopped taking my calls, stopped meeting me. Defriended me on Facebook. So I got totally desperate, right, and I sent him this stupid ID bracelet with the date we met engraved on it, and that made him call me but instead of being like ‘oh, baby, I love you too,’ he was like, ‘I don’t identify myself with your lifestyle anymore.’ Your lifestyle. All cold and robotic, exactly like that. And he kept saying things like that, like you know he’d been brainwashed, and I started crying and yelling at him and stuff, and finally he told me his mom had read our emails and they had this huge family blowup and they were going to send him to one of those get-right-with-God lobotomy camps unless he turned his life around. So I told him they were a bunch of sick freaks, and he should lie through his teeth and do whatever he had to for now to keep a roof over his head, and he was like‌—‌are you ready for this?”

I nod.

“He was like, ‘But they’re right. God is more important than feeling good.’ And I said well, can’t you have both? And big surprise, he was like ‘No. I’m sorry. Not like this,’ and then bam, he hung up and that was the last time I ever talked to him.” He flings the superball across the room; it thwacks the moose pillow and rolls lamely off the couch. Abel rakes a hand through his hair. “So, but the point is‌—‌I was absolutely wrecked. I wasted six endless months brooding exclusively over this little piece-of-shit cult-member coward, Brandon. Do you believe it? Like, how many amazing people could I have met in six months? My brother had to literally kick my ass to get me over it.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“I didn’t tell you that so you’d be sorry! The point is, don’t be like me, okay? Because‌…‌” He sighs. “Because you’re pretty much too awesome for that, and I’m one hundred percent sure this Zander tool is not worth it.”

He lays this open, expectant look on me, like now I’m supposed to throw my arms around him and spill the contents of my heart and mind. I dump the dishes in the hot rinse basin and turn to the fridge.

There’s a ketchup stain by the handle where Abel tossed a French fry at Bec this morning. I scrub with my hands shaking. How much would Abel hate me if he knew what went on inside me all the time, what my brain rejected but my guts still half-believed? It would be the end for sure. No more Screw Your Sensors. No more silly photo shoots with our action figures. No long phone calls at 10 p.m. on Thursdays to pick apart the latest episode. I scrub harder, willing him to stay where he is. If he gets any closer, I feel like he’ll know‌—‌one look at me, one little touch, and my whole bad history will scrawl itself on my skin.

“What’s the matter?” he says.

I keep scrubbing. “I just‌—‌I think we should give each other some space this week.”

He gasps. “Are you breaking up with me?”

“I’m serious.” I thump my head on the fridge, right above the apple magnet holding the Castaway Ball tickets. “Just back off me for now. Okay?”

“Brandon, what is your problem?”

“No problems. Zero problems.”

“Are you that mad at me?”

“I’m not mad.”

“All I did was try to be your friend and help you out and you’re acting like I‌—‌”

“Will you shut up? For once? Everything’s not about you, all right? God!” I yank open the fridge and start rearranging. Juice boxes sorted by size, yogurts lined up straight. “I should be focusing on other stuff right now. College. I shouldn’t have said yes to this stupid trip.”

“Then why did you?”

“Because you steamrolled me.”

“Wha‌—‌I did not!”

“You steamroll everyone!” I slam the fridge. “All you care about is making people do what you want. It’s not even worth disagreeing with you because you just talk and talk until people give in and you think it’s because you’re so charming but really it’s to shut you up.” I swoop in for the kill. “The sad thing is, you think you’re Cadmus. When actually you’re just kind of a dick.”

Abel’s quiet for a long time, like he’s waiting for an aw, just kidding! When I don’t give him one, he stuffs his hands in his pockets and scuffs at the kitchen mat.

“You know what?” he says. “I’m done. I’m done trying to help you.”

“Fantastic.”

“Be a bitter loveless loser the rest of your life.”

“I will.”

“Die alone in the back of a Burger King in one of your ugly plaid shirts.”

“Looking forward to it.”

He waits about five more seconds.

“You can go anytime,” I say.

He clomps out of the Sunseeker, and the door clangs shut.

He’s giving you an out, buddy. God’s working through him.

From the window above the sink, I watch him stalk through the parking lot. Bec intercepts him by a green minivan, and he shakes his head and gestures toward me before he strides off in the opposite direction.

I lift the dishes out of the hot rinse. Flecks of hot chili and salsa still cling to the plate Abel microwaved last night, the daisy-patterned one Mom used to use for our after-school graham crackers and Nilla wafers. I grab the sponge and start scrubbing again, and when that doesn’t work I throw the sponge in the sink and attack the barnacles of crud with my fingernails, scratching at them hard until the plate is smooth as Sim’s skin, and Abel’s mess is glugging down the drain.

***

“Don’t do it, Sim. Don’t you dare!”

Nighttime. While Abel chomps on cinnamon jellybeans and glares at a battered copy of Stranger in a Strange Land, I hide in the loft with my phone and watch Castaway Planet with Plastic Sim tight in my fist. When I get to Episode 2-17, I yank Nat’s old patchouli-scented quilt over my head. I need to be in my own world for this one. Especially this scene. Sim is about to destroy his evolution chip.

“Step back, Captain. I refuse to hurt you.” David Darras is amazing in this scene, so intense that his Georgia accent bleeds through and smudges the R in hurt. “Step away, and let me save myself.”

I remember the last time I watched this, two weeks before The Talk with my parents. Dad wandered into the living room with his bonsai shears, watched until Cadmus grabbed Sim’s face, and gently shook his head and walked back out.

“You made a choice!” Cadmus is yelling now, wind whipping through his spiky hair. “What about your whole ‘I-need-to-be-human’ deal?”

“No one told me what doubt was like. What fear was like. What it was like to know how much I still don’t know. It is extraordinarily difficult, Captain.”

Cadmus snorts. “You bet your ass it’s hard.” I roll my eyes. Cadsim shippers love that line. “But look: I’d rather live two minutes as a real person than a hundred years as a robot. Was it really all that perfect before?”

“I was perfect, yes. Perfect by design.”

“Someone else’s design. Someone else’s idea of perfect.” Cadmus grips Sim’s shoulders. “Now you get to find out who’s really in there!”

“Brandon?”

I jump. Bec’s cool fingertips brush my arm.

“Sorry. He’s snoring down there,” she whispers. She’s wearing a black Hello Kitty shirt with the neckband cut off and I smell her vanilla mint toothpaste. “Can I sleep here?”

I shut off Castaway and yank my earbuds out. “It’s not much quieter.”

“That’s okay.”

I shove over as much as I can, and she squeezes in next to me. We used to do this a lot. First when we were kids, curled up in her pink plastic playhouse with our stuffed-raccoon baby between us, and then when we were older and she’d make up some sleepover-at-Ashley’s story to sneak in my window and stay with me. We’d whisper forever about her sister’s creepy boyfriend and what superpower we’d want and whether Bob Dylan was amazing (my position) or overrated (hers), and then when the talking was over I’d give her a cheek kiss and fall asleep with my hand on her soft belly, and she thought I wouldn’t push for more because I was a gentleman. At least I thought that’s what she thought.

Bec’s got Plastic Lagarde with her. She’s made her a white minidress from a fast-food napkin and a twist-tie; the dress looks weird with Zara Lagarde’s buzz-cut and biceps. To the soundtrack of Abel’s snores, she hooks Lagarde’s arm through Plastic Sim’s and walks the action figures up my chest, the world’s most improbable wedding march.

“It’s cozy up here,” she says.

“I have a book light if you want.”

She smiles. “I’m not afraid of the dark anymore.”

“Right.”

Her face is so close I can see the tiny faint freckles on her lips, shiny with a clear coat of white-cherry gloss.

Go ahead. One kiss. Just keep it tame. How do you know you don’t like it if you’ve never tried?

“You can stop waiting, you know,” she says.

“For what?”

“For God to strike you down.”

“Can I?” I fiddle with Lagarde’s tiny machete. “Apparently he’s sent assassins.”

I force a grin. She doesn’t smile back.

“Abel said you had a fight,” she says.

“It was nothing.”

“You have to talk to him, Brandon. Be honest.”

“Like you’re honest with your mom?”

“That’s different.”

“What do you want me to say to him? ‘Oh, see, I have this secret tormented inner life where I’m actually exactly the kind of person you hate’?”

“Abel wouldn’t hate you.”

“Yes he would. Trust me.”

Below us on the couch, Abel shifts onto his back in his sleep. His knees flop open and his arm drops behind his head, exposing a slice of white belly.

“How did you get to be an atheist?” I ask her.

She snorts. “That’s a weird question.”

“I want to know.”

“Well, there was this contest to see who could not believe in God the fastest, and I won.”

“Okay.”

“They gave me a tiara and an Unbeliever of the Month plaque.”

“I’m serious.” I prop Sim’s hands on Lagarde’s shoulders. “How did you decide not to believe everything Father Mike says?”

“Like, the stuff about helping the poor and not being assholes to each other?”

“You know which stuff I mean.”

She shrugs and handstands Lagarde on my chest. “I don’t know. It was easy. I was like, skeptical in the womb.”

“But what if you weren’t? What if you start out believing it because that’s how your brain works, and then you can’t completely shut it off?”

“Oh, well, then you’re screwed.”

“Thanks.”

“Kidding.” Lagarde tips over. “I guess you’ll just have to be braver than me.”

“I am screwed.”

“Oh, stop.”

“Why do boys have to exist?”

“You could always date the Phillie Phanatic.”

“Oh my God.”

“Remember your crush‌—‌”

“Yes. Shut it.”

“That would be an abomination.” She molds Plastic Sim in an evangelical pose, both arms skyward. “An abomination in the eyes of the Lord.”

I grin. “Think of the children.”

“If everyone married a mascot, we’d all go extinct.”

“Marriage is one man and one woman,” I huff, “not one man and one phanatic.”

She erupts in quiet giggles. So do I, but I’m queasy. Her phone chirps in the pocket of her plaid pajama pants.

“That’s your mom,” I say.

“Oh, piss off.”

“She hears your ungodly‌—‌”

“‌—‌Eep! No way.” She covers her mouth.

“What?”

“It’s from that Dave guy. With the Cookie Monster shirt?”

And the stupid hair, I almost say, but I keep my mouth shut. “Why’s he texting you?”

“Because I’m awesome? Listen: ‘You definitely cool girl. Me going to Atlanta con. Me want to know if me see you there.’ That’s kind of cute. He even spelled definitely right.” She starts texting back. “Me see you there. You bring COOKIE.”

Status: System disrupted. Remove foreign object to stabilize.

“You don’t want to do that, do you?” I say.

“What?”

“Hook up with some guy you met at a convention?”

“What should I hold out for?” she teases. “A sham marriage to my best friend?”

I flick her shoulder. “Ideally.”

She presses Sim’s face to my cheek and makes a smoochy sound. I kiss the top of her head. I try not to, but I picture her in this position with that Lego-haired creep Dave, his lips lingering on her hair and his hands roaming the gentle curves of her body, doing all the stuff my hands would never do. My Bec. Not mine anymore. I guess she never was.

She lays Sim and Lagarde on my chest, side by side.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” she whispers.

“Yep.”

Abel snores pornographically, like a prince sleeping off an orgy. Outside on the highway, everyone’s going somewhere fast; 18-wheelers and SUVs and slick two-seaters all streak by together in one deep roar of purpose. I press my eyes shut and pretend Bec’s shoulder is Sim’s, picture his mechanical heart pumping blue in the dark. You are safe here with me, he says, and Shall we watch the skies for falling stars?, but all I see is Abel’s hurt face in the kitchen when I said shut up, and all I hear is Hell Bells. Hell Bells. Hell Bells.

CastieCon #2

Atlanta, Georgia

Chapter Eight

“Fellow Casties,” sighs Abel. “A solemn bonjour from the parking lot of the Atlanta Superion Inn. Also known as Hell’s fiery furnace.”

Abel’s at the RV desk with the camera on, eating cheese curls that smell like dirty socks and fanning himself with a CastieCon program. I’m folding boxers in the Sunseeker kitchenette and deciding which t-shirts need to be ironed. I refuse to look at him. He didn’t even ask if I wanted to do a post, which I guess makes sense because we’ve barely spoken to each other all week. Whatever. I’m used to showy silent treatments. I have an older sister.

“Since we’ve been deluged with three whole comments wondering why we haven’t posted a vlog entry from the road this week, I figured it was time to sit you down for a heart-to-heart and be honest with you.” Abel clears his throat. I turn my back and plug in my iron. “Okay, here’s the thing, kids: Daddy and Daddy had a fight. The particulars aren’t important; let’s just say that Daddy Two was being a raging bitch and Daddy One graciously stepped aside and gave him the space he so desperately needed this week.”

I slam down the tabletop ironing board. “You’re not posting this.”

“Did you guys hear something? Like a gnat, maybe?” Abel cups a hand to his ear. “Anyway, Daddy One has personally had an awesome week. Cadsim ladies, I so enjoyed that new hurt/comfort fic where Cadmus ‘whimpered like a proud wounded cat’ and ‘dissolved into the comforting clank of Sim’s arms.’ Also, the road between Cleveland and Atlanta? Let me tell you guys: Superbly creepy cemetery in Cincinnati. Amazing drag show in Lexington‌—‌Anita Bigwon, you complete me, I’m totally stalking you on Twitter now. Of course, Daddy Two over there spent the entire week sulking in the RV and rewatching Season 1‌—‌”

“I’m not listening to you.” I wipe sweat off my brow with my forearm. “Just so you know.”

Abel rolls his eyes and crunches another cheese curl. “Aaaanyway, kids, just because Daddy and Daddy are fighting doesn’t mean we don’t love you. We’re parked just paces away from the Superion, where we’ll be giving you complete coverage of the Tom Shandley Q&A in‌…‌t-minus forty-five minutes. Guys: Are you ready to kneel before Xaarg?”

“Your phone keeps ringing.” I grab it off the desk and hold it up.

“I busted out my black cashmere t-shirt specifically for this occasion, ‘cause it’s not every day you lift your question paddle before the biggest badass villain on television. Considering he only approves of ‘literary fanfic that probes the psychology of Xaarg,’ I’m preeeetttty sure he’ll be his super duper awesome self and give another fat NO to cave-scene sexitude. We might have to literally worship him then.”

I fling the phone at his chest. “Will you answer this already?”

“Jesus, Brandon!” He shuts off the camera, rubbing the spot where I hit him. “What’s your malfunction?”

“Nothing wrong with me.”

“Normal people don’t throw phones.”

“Bitter loveless losers do, though.”

He checks the screen. “I missed three calls from Kade.”

“Tragic.”

“You know‌—‌”

“Make sure you apologize a million times and ask if he’s mad at you until he is.”

“I don’t do that!”

“It’s pathetic.”

“At least I have someone.”

“Someone with a chicken tattoo.”

“It’s a phoenix.”

I give him a smug chuckle, so he thinks I’m stifling a great comeback.

“Screw you.” He shakes his head. “Seriously.”

Bec bangs in with her laundry bag slung across her shoulder. She looks at me, then at him. I turn back to my Steamium, scrub it across my Castaway Planet shirt.

“What’s going on?” she says.

Abel’s dialing Kade. I shoot a toxic glare at him. “Nothing.”

“How long are you two going to do this?”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“‌—‌Awwww, babe, don’t get pissy. I forgot‌…‌no, I did!” Abel’s saying. “I know, I’m tired too. I was out till two‌…‌No! God, not with him. Can you imagine?”

I slam down the Steamium. Bec shakes her head.

“I’m catching a Greyhound home,” she says, “if you guys don’t stop acting like infants.”

“Thought you had fun this week.”

She sighs a little, but she smiles. It’s been like old times with me and Bec this week‌—‌sort of, when she’s not texting Dave. A few times she’s hung out with Abel, but mostly it’s been the two of us chilling like an old married couple, eating cheese fries and chocolate cream pie in diners, fishing at crappy free campgrounds, doing weird touristy things Bec loves, like the Grave of Doctor Pepper in Virginia. I don’t really care what Abel’s been up to. He goes out at night in whatever town we’re in, and he comes back in at two in the morning with souvenirs: a thrift-store snakeskin bomber jacket, a shot glass with a skull and crossbones on it. Sometimes I’m still awake in the loft, fighting off swarms of dark thoughts or combing the Cadsim fanjournal for the next Hell Bells sighting (nothing else, so far). When the door creaks open, I always pretend I’m asleep.

“It was fun,” Bec says, “but the two of you are‌—‌”

“Talk to him. It’s not me.”

“It’s both of you! I can’t stand you guys like this.”

Abel lets out a hugely annoying look-how-much-fun-I’m-having laugh. “Nuh-uh! No you didn’t. You did not! Oh no, baby, that’s not crazy. You want crazy, let me read you something from this FJ‌…‌Um, fanjournal? I am not a nerd; you’re just culturally illiterate‌…‌”

“This shirt. For meeting Dave today. What do you think?” Bec waggles a narrow green t-shirt with a deep v-neck.

I swallow hard. “Nice.”

“It’s not too boob-intensive, is it?”

I’m just about to push out a “No” when Abel breaks in with a couple expletives that would’ve gotten me three days’ detention back in high school. He’s staring at his laptop, punching the scroll buttons up and down.

“Babe, I gotta call you back, all right?” he says to Kade. “Something’s going down here.”

***

I see her fanjournal icon in my head. It pops up in my dreams: the angel statue, the halo of knives.

“It’s bad, guys,” Abel says. “C’mere.”

You knew this would happen, says Father Mike.

hey_mamacita is back. This time she’s posted a picture I’ve never seen before. Abel in his Thundercats t-shirt, pulling a stern face beside a cinder-block wall.

Under the photo it says:

A MESSAGE OF GRAVE IMPORTANCE.

to miss maxima and the rest of you Cadsim girls: I am officially calling you out. STOP TROLLING US OR ELSE!!! it’s one thing not to agree with our manifesto, but CHRIST ON A BIKE it’s a whole other bag of crazy to come over and attack us and call us, I quote, “psychotic” and “mentally ill.” who are brandon & abel to you, anyway? as far as I recall, you were calling for their heads last year when they ripped apart your fic on Screw Your Sensors every week, so kindly cram it with the mark david chapman references and calling us batshit crazy, especially since you of all people know EXACTLY where we’re coming from.

for the record, YES, we will still have a spy (spies plural) at the Atlanta CastieCon today. they’re already there, and they are READY FOR ACTION as soon as brandon and abel walk in.

and BFC update = plots are thickening. as we speak. there’s still time to join us, IF you dare.

ta-ta.

:-)

We just stand there and blink.

“You guys.” Abel taps the screen fast. “That is a personal photo.”

“Did you post it anywhere before?” says Bec.

“Facebook, maybe. I don’t know.”

“Any enemies? Besides the Cadsim shippers?”

“No. I love everyone,” Abel shrugs. “Except if they suck. But most people don’t‌—‌What is he doing?”

I’m already in the back room, unzipping the canvas storage chest under the bed. I find them right away, under a couple flannel shirts and four awful Christmas sweaters from our last Vermont holiday with Aunt Meg. Dad ordered the SAFE-U vests five years ago when someone got shot half a mile from our house during deer season. When we took our Saturday walks in the woods with our binoculars and bag lunches, he wouldn’t let me leave without strapping one of these on. Always best not to take chances, he’d say.

Abel says to Bec, “What are those?”

“How would I know?”

“I thought you knew every inch of this place.”

I shrug. “Tell him it’s like the vests they wore in Episode 4-23,” I tell Bec. “When they’re rescuing Dutchie from the tentacle robots? Tell him he should wear one too.”

“Did you get that?” Bec asks Abel.

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s like a costume,” I say. “But not so obvious.”

“Tell Brandon,” says Abel, “that I think he’s full of shit, and that those are bulletproof vests, and if he thinks I’m wearing one of those he’s one hundred percent demented.”

“Tell Abel that they’re bulletblocker panels, and when your enemies are stalking you and other people are calling them psychotic, it’s actually a fairly intelligent idea.”

“Tell Paranoid Android he’s officially out of his skull, and that no one in the history of fandom has gotten shot over a ship war.”

“I bet that’s not true.”

“And plus there’s no way Cadmus would wear one of those.”

“Tell him we don’t have writers to save our asses.”

“Ask Brandon how come he’s such a puss all of a sudden.”

“Tell Abel to‌—‌”

“Shut it!” yells Bec.

I turn around. She’s standing in the kitchen nook in a pink bra with red circles, the one that’s always hanging damp from her shower rod when I use her bathroom at home.

“Listen, bozos.” She tosses her sleep shirt on the counter and starts yanking on her green v-neck. “Do it or don’t do it. Fight or don’t fight. Love each other or hate each other. Just leave me out of it. Understood?”

I sneak a look at Abel. He crosses his arms.

“Yeah,” we mutter.

“You have anything to say to each other?”

“Nope,” I shrug.

“Not really,” says Abel.

Bec sighs. She shoves Plastic Sim at me. Plastic Cadmus at Abel. Putting on her best Zara Lagarde sneer, she stalks to the door and wrenches it open, flooding the Sunseeker with heat and the sooty gray smell of exhaust. She quotes Lagarde in Episode 2-11, two seconds after I know she’s going to: “Get it together, men. Or die.”