The Kids of Station Four: Prologue

“—No.”

Mirim spit the word with a stifled laugh. She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her tone as she continued, “No, Reese, that was the point.”

She spoke slowly, the room’s even lighting leaving few shadows as she paced behind her cluttered desk. She felt tired. Gods she felt tired. It had been such a long time getting here. The years of lies, of concealment. The pangs of anxiety with the raise of any brow. It shouldn’t have worked, she knew.

But, she conceded. The existential threat of dwindling resources on a barren rock will make men believe a lot of little lies. 

Any port in a storm, her grandfather used to say.

Steeling herself, she leaned to look out the window that took up most of the nearby wall. Her reflection on the glass serving as reminder of the price these last thirty years had taken. The knowledge sat heavy in her chest, but this was not the time to mourn. That could come later.

Her focus shifted to the ground far below where, as expected, Mother was dark and quiet There was very little left anymore but windswept dirt and weathered bones which lay as framed pictures within the light from her window and from others nearby.

A collage to the dead.

Reminders of the world they abandoned.

We’ll be out of your hair soon, Momma. She thought to herself before giving voice to the lament.

“You know, Reese. When humanity first moved into the Spheres, I never imagined I’d miss the dying rock I was stepping off of." Her fingers brushed the cold metal of the window's frame. "‘We’re putting Her away for now’, I told myself. ‘We’ll fix Her up and make this right’. I said it with confidence, as we abandoned our Mother...”

Her gaze never left the broken earth, whose scars wouldn't let her forget that particular untruth.

“Do you still take tea, Reese? I fear I owe you an explanation.”

The man responded as one could have expected. His bulk shifting shakily as he composed himself to form out a response. “Unless your tea can put me on the rocket I paid my fortune and then some to be on, you owe me a lot more than words, Mirim.”

This man is at a breaking point — maybe past it. She closed her eyes with the thought and considered before speaking.

“I lied.” She confessed. Taking one last look toward the Mother she’d forsaken.

“This was always the plan.”

She waited, silent and sure of the coming storm.

But the storm did not come.

Past the breaking point then.

When she turned to face him, she found the broken man had fallen into one of her armchairs and sat with glazed eyes and a drink slackened expression. The stench of his boozing made Mirim wrinkle her nose as she took him in. A bit of drool dribbled from his lip and disappeared into a dark jacket that, despite its likely extravagant price, had seen better days in the former century. Around him an air of emotions, like steam in a sauna, trapped him in his stupor and left him unable to parse the complex thoughts needed to decide how to proceed.

You can’t blame this man for indulging. Most do anymore…

She sighed, resigned, and began again. 

“You’re not going with them, Reese. None of us are.” 

His eyes flickered and swam as he spluttered, “This is preposterous! I paid good money for those goddamned rocke– “

“Yes”, Mirim cut him off for a second time, “you did pay quite a lot for those rockets, and we at the Foundation thank you very much for your generous contribution but, as I’m sure you’ve already discovered based on your presence here, those rockets have departed. Neither you, or I, or anyone else on this godsdamned rock, are going with them. It. Is. Done.”

The muscles in her jaw flexed as she bit off the last word. Slowly, her hands fell to rest flat on the desk’s top and she leaned against the dark wood. Feeling the subtle grain of the sequoia against her skin. Belatedly, she tried to relax.

It was done. 

It was over. 

She didn’t need to hold this anymore. 

Reese found it in himself to look up then. Clearly stunned, but his stupor clearing in a moment of confused clarity. 

“You… intended this…?” It wasn’t quite a question. He seemed unable to accept that he’d been the one to be used this time. That despite all his money, despite all his power, and despite all the promises that she had made, there wasn’t going to be a silver bullet to save him in the end. 

No, she laughed internally. She had conned them through and through. To her credit, she did ultimately do what they’d asked. Certainly not in the way that they’d been sold but, she had done it. Humanity would survive the apocalypse and be all the better for it — for not suffering the weight of those who came before. 

But that is a weight I can carry.  

“Pull yourself together, Reese.”, Mirim said, breaking the silence. “You sound like a Ferret. If you want to let your mind go so badly, do us all a favor and do it in the wastes like a civilized madman.”

He looked back at her blank faced.

“What else can I do Mirim? What else can I do when you promised us that there was a way. You promised us that you could get us off world. That it would be sustainable. That we’d live in luxury or... to hell with that. That was always bullshit! It was enough that we’d survive!”

His voice rose as he spoke and his face somehow grew more violently red than it already was as he rekindled his earlier aggression.

“You promised, Mirim. You promised and we trusted you and you lied. You lied to us and now we’re all going to die!” 

She realized with a start that he was standing. Not just that, he was moving towards her. 

“Now, be reasonable Reese. This was the only way. Please, let me explain.”

She took a step back, hands rising to cover her chest in an anxious gesture of peace. 

“Explain WHAT?” He screamed. “You’ve killed us, Mirim! You’ve killed us! You bitch! You’ve killed me!” 

He was ranting, but she couldn’t mind the words for the surge of blood through her ears. His words didn’t matter now anyway. What mattered was how quickly he was closing the distance between the chair and her desk.

“Reese, you’ve known me for years.” Her voice was strained as she tried to defuse the situation and carve herself a moment to think. Her fingers grasping desperately for the silent alarm, though she knew no help would come.

“Let’s just calm down and talk this throu— shit!”, she jumped back from the large man’s outstretched grip.

Too late.

Pain was all she knew as a fat fist caught her chin and jerked her head back violently. She staggered backwards, struggling to stay on her feet. But his hand was in her hair. It felt of hot needles against her scalp as his fingers tightened their grip. The next moment she was on her knees and Reese, somehow having vaulted the desk between them, was screaming something she couldn’t understand. One fist tangled in her hair and the other poised ready to continue the assault. She had only a moment to raise her arms in an attempt to fend off the barrage before his weight was crushing her. Her defense proving next to useless as he beat at her. This man was blind with rage and booze, and he brought his fists down on her arms and face again, and again. 

“I saved us, you idiot!” She tried to shout through bloody lips, “This was the only way!”.

She knew it wasn’t worth the effort. Her lips were swollen so badly that they barely worked, and besides, she had sent away the only ones who’d be listening for her.

A blow fell across her temple.

I’ll think of something. She thought, mind racing. 

A fist broke through her defense and crushed her lip, blood spilling across her teeth and down her chin.

I always think of something. 

The man’s weight shifted off her midsection for a moment, and she writhed herself to get out from under him only to feel his knuckles dig into flesh as he pummeled her ribs and side. 

Oh Gods, it hurts!

With suddenness the man’s weight lifted from her. She couldn’t see him, not with her eyes swollen shut, but she could hear the shuddering breaths as the years of gluttonous consumption racked his lungs. She didn’t care. Air rushed into her lungs and she rolled onto her chest in a vain attempt to crawl away. 

Desperate? Yes.

What can you do.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going, Mirim.”, the man snarled animal-like from behind her. His voice reminiscent of the feral men she'd declared him in jest.

She screamed when she felt his hand wrap around her ankle. A primordial scream that left her empty and weak as she was dragged across the bloodied floor.

Stupid, you need to breathe. She thought to herself, meekly.

It didn’t matter now.

She couldn’t see him really, a dark silhouette moving through her view of swollen eyes and bloody tears. She felt him crawl on top of her. His legs straddling her as his weight settled on her chest. She waited for the blows to come again.

Just breathe.

Inhale… exhale….. inhale……. exhale………

Her breaths were becoming increasingly slow and shallow and loosely, from somewhere very far away, she became aware of the hands around her neck. And the man crying as he killed her.

Something in Mirim's mind snapped, and panic took her. She knew with certainty that there was no salvation. Through some divine comedy — or perhaps divine justice — she had assigned her security team to Mission Success for the launch. “No one is more important than those Stations.”, she remembered telling Arthur as she sent him away that morning. 

She knew it was the right choice still while cursing the necessity of it. Without every bit of military force on the Spheres, those rockets had no chance of clearing orbit. She was so close, and it seemed this was to be the cost.

In a last act of desperation, Mirim flung her arms impotently against Reese’s face, but he paid no mind to it. Whatever the man had been soaking himself in seemed to have dulled his ability to feel pain. Throwing her head frantically, she tried to loosen the fingers imprisoning her throat but only succeeded in drawing blood as Reese's fingernails dug deeper into the tender skin of her neck. Her eyes rolled in their sockets like an animal up for butcher until, for just a moment, a yellow glint caught her attention. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the brass bust that she kept on her desk. The face of the philosopher, Hans Jonas. A gift from her grandmother on the day she’d been offered and had accepted the NAE’s contract.

A reminder.

She discarded the memory, not having time to dwell, and grimaced as she reached for it.

The world was growing dark, the frame of her view edging further to center as the air stopped coming. Her lungs screamed in desperation from the want of oxygen. Her body ached as she stretched to grab purchase on her impossible savior. And finally. Painfully. She felt her fingers wrap around the cold metal. Its polished face digging into her palm as she gripped, white knuckled. With all the strength she had, she swung her improvised weapon where she hoped her assailant’s head would be.

And the world exploded with sound.

A thundering noise split through the room and suddenly she was pushed back into the floor. A warm, sticky liquid running down her face and into her mouth as what little, stagnant air remained in her lungs was forced out of her. She tasted copper and felt a cold fear overtaking her panic as the large man’s weight slowly smothered her. Reese’s hands no longer circled her throat but the fight for breath certainly wasn’t over. 

She heaved against the bulk above her and pulled in as much of that life giving air as she could but, before a full breath entered her lungs, her strength failed her and she fell back into the tiles below. 

What the fuck just happened? she thought, unable to wrap her head around the turn of events. 

She was just preparing to push for another breath when the weight lifted from her suddenly. Her eyes, still completely swollen beyond use from the assault, could just make out the form of two men in what looked to be military garb.

“Thank the Gods,” she muttered through broken teeth, blood dribbling down her chin as she began to cry. “Thank the Mother you came back, Arthur.” 

“You shouldn’t have come back. Oh Gods, you came back. You came back!”

She was crying. She couldn’t help herself. The tears stung as they forced themselves from ruined eyelids and rolled down her destroyed cheeks — the flesh under puffy and dark, the skin broken in multiple places. Reese was dead, she gathered that much. Someone must have heard her scream and come to save her. She drank in breath after breath as she tried to gather her thoughts. That stale recycled air of the Spheres had never tasted sweeter than in that moment. 

Reese was dead and Arthur had killed him. 

Reese tried to kill her and Arthur killed him instead. 

But no...

Her mind went blank, the ringing in her ears dying down and the voices of the men in front of her finding clarity. Neither of these men were Arthur— but did she recognized one of the voices?

“Har..land?” 

Gods it hurt to speak. Her mouth felt like she’d been eating sawdust. 

“What’s... happened? Where’s Arthu—.”