Betelgeuse VII: Finale
When both of them were tired, they decided on shifts for the night. Cindy watched the sun go down and the clear-lit moon rise up, lighting the sand to blue crystals. She relaxed and allowed her eyes to droop just slightly. Suddenly out of the corner of her eye, the man she had met was being dragged ever so slightly behind her. She turned around quickly and grabbed his ankle in one movement. The black shape behind her pulled him faster, and she scramble to keep up with his moving figure. He had awaken by then and was trying to put his feet down to run, but couldn’t because she was holding on. In the darkness, she felt his hand grab her shoulder and she let go of his ankle and grabbed his outstretched arm. Their hands linked and she felt safe again; she became conscious of her heartbeat and tried to slow it down. Minutes went by when she spotted another single spot light on a box. They stopped in front of it and another pair of hands pushed her into the circle of light alone. She opened the box carefully and peered inside. Surprisingly, there was no rolled parchment, but a small pistol that she had seen before in movies set in the nineteen forties. She reached to pick it up, but stopped and withdrew her hand. Remember he likes theatrics. Fine, she thought, I’ll give him theatrics. She kicked over the box and stepped back to the edge of the light. Silence followed the crash of the box falling and the skid of the pistol across the floor. Then there was a click of a pulley being let down before a final click where it stopped behind her. Maxwell 700 got off the elevator and stepped beside her. For a few moments they stood staring at each other before he walked over and picked up the pistol. Aiming it at her he click off the safety.
“At your word,” he said firmly.
She took a deep breath. “It’s roulette,” she said moving closer to the small barrel. “Shoot.”
The gun went off and silence followed; both stood motionless for the unknown amount of time to follow. Then she took a step forward and the lights came up on a warehouse filled with wires. The single door at the end of the long room shuttered and clicked as someone struggled with the door. Quickly, she ran to the 700 and wrenched the gun out of his hand. He stayed statue still with his hand still hovering over an imaginary trigger.
“Cindy, what the hell?” Aaron yelled. He coughed suddenly and fell on the floor. Cindy ran over to him, but stayed quiet. She felt a tug at her stomach as invisible hands tried to pull it and the rest of her digestive tract out her mouth. She lurched forward. Cold hands pulled her backwards and slipped a gas mask over her face. Through foggy lenses, she saw people collapse, a few managing to scream as the motionless robots stood perfectly still through the haze. She turned around to see who had joined her and met Margarita’s glassy eyes.
“I’m half robot,” she said, pulling Cindy up. “I’m only half fading.” She smiled and gave Cindy a little push. “The door is straight ahead if you follow the left wall. Get the hell out of here before he wakes his robots up.”
Without second warning, Cindy ran. She ran up the stairs past the point of her lungs bursting and her legs burning with pain. She ran until she reached the top of the stairs and her outstretched hand met resistance. Pushing with all of her weight, she reached the bathroom stall where she had first met Trish. She had knocked over the toilet in her haste and it lay cracked on the tile floor. Cindy replaced the trap door and just for good measure, put the pieces of the toilet over the door. Only then did she stop to breath and take of the mask. She dropped the mask on the toilet debris and stepped out of the stall. A girl with fire engine red hair was looking at herself in the mirror and putting on matching red lipstick.
“How long will you be gone?” she asked, but Cindy ignored her and walked out of the bathroom back into the terminal. The river of people was still continuing its separate ways, ignoring the black holes of doorways in the walls. She heard a crash behind her of smashed porcelain and with a final rush of adrenaline, entered the stream of people.
She followed a small group who broke off from the stream to a terminal returning back to Earth. Hesitating about whether or not she should sneak on, she bought a ticket at the booth and waited at the terminal. The intercom buzzed on and announced boarding just as a medium height boy with rustled black hair came running up to her. Everything except his face looked like Aaron. She turned away and hurried onto the airbus. She heard the boy being stopped by the guards at the door for not having a ticket before the door closed and eliminated the sound. The threesome argued for a bit before the engines kicked in and she flew away.
A few months later a package arrived in the mail. In it was a box of flowers and an obituary: “Aaron Cane, age 17 was found dead in the middle of the Betelgeuse VII terminal on August 24. He was apparently asphyxiated. May his body and soul rest in peace.” She found no name attached to the letter, but she put the flowers in a vase and the newspaper clipping on her bulletin board. Then, she locked her office door and took a shuttle down to Betelgeuse VII. Taking a deep breath of the air, she just sat down in the middle of the terminal where she had imagined him being found. She meditated for hours that first day before getting up, her face streaked with tears, and getting on a shuttle back to Earth.
Eventually the flowers wilted and the obituary faded, but she would still visit the Betelgeuse VII terminal every month and sit in the spot where she imagined he was found. She didn’t know why something in her needed to go back for closure, but she would satisfy it anyway. Every month she would stand back up after an hour had passed and buy another ticket back to her office on Earth. Although she never really knew him and couldn’t figure out why she would get so depressed on August 24, she would half imagine a medium height boy with ruffled black hair nonchalantly walking on the bus and sitting next to her.
“I’ve got a problem,” he would say pulling out a videotape, “my friend’s gone missing.”
She smiled. I think we could all say that, she thought and watched the Betelgeuse VII terminal out her window slowly getting farther away.
