Only Human (Themis Files, #3)(11)
I know what you’d say if you were around. Stop whining, Vincent, and find a way out of this mess. I’m trying. Believe me, I’m trying, but I’m running out of options. We’re stuck in a ball of metal fifteen floors high with no food or water. The controls have somehow been turned off, and Themis won’t move. We can’t call for help, we can’t get out. Kobayashi Maru. I’m all for not giving up, but I can’t just will us out of here. It seems so anticlimactic. Fight an alien invasion, get whisked away to another planet, then slowly die of thirst in a room that smells like piss. What was the point of getting this far? I could have just stayed with you.
I’m not complaining. I guess I am. But one hundred million people died last week. What’s four more if this is the end of it, right? I’ve lived plenty. I know Eugene has seen his fair share. Rose…Well, Rose lived twice and saved a planet. That’s hard to top. I mean, really, what do you do after that? Stare through a microscope all day? Open a restaurant? When we realized no one was coming to get us, I could tell the three of us were ready for what comes next. But Eva isn’t. She’s scared shitless. She wants to live. We all do, but she wants it in a pure, animal way. She’s a lioness. She’s like you. There’s such strength in her. It’s beautiful to watch, and it’s heartbreaking.
She’s just a kid. She’s been through more grief in her short life than most war heroes, but she’s still a kid. There’s no “good death” for a ten-year-old, but she sure deserves better than this. This is a shit way to go. I feel like I’m failing her, again. That’s what hurts the most. I want her to live, of course, but I wish I could have given her a normal ten-year-old day, one week, something of a regular life, if only for a short while. These aren’t normal times, I get that, but I wish we could play pretend.
It was probably never in the cards for her to be a regular kid. Imagine those robots never came. Maybe we broke Themis? I don’t know, but let’s say you and I were together, raising Eva. Can you picture us with a regular job, coming home after work for a family meal? Neither of us can cook. Poor kid would be raised on pizza. This is going to sound insane, but I think the end of the world is the only thing that remotely qualified us as parents. We could have done well, though, you and I, under extreme circumstances. I don’t know how we’d fare at a PTA meeting, but we sure could rock World War III together, “together” being the operative word. Without you, I’m not sure I can do anything.
Don’t tell me I’m being too hard on myself. Believe me, my standards as a single parent are about as low as they can be. She didn’t come with a manual, but if there is one, I’m pretty sure there’s a bit in it about not stranding your child on another planet, dying in front of her, letting her deal with your body. I know. Keep her alive. But part of me sometimes wishes she would go first. We haven’t had the how-to-survive-a-plane-crash-in-the-Andes talk yet. I’m not even sure what I’m going to tell her. I don’t think there’s enough water in human flesh to keep her going. Is there? I wish we had Internet. How do you even start that conversation? “I’m not hungry, but you should eat Eugene, honey.” I don’t know if I’d do it. Would you? Yeah, you would.
It’s hard to test your principles against hypotheticals. We’ll know soon enough, I suppose. Eugene won’t last the day. He just moans, rambles for a few seconds, then he’s unconscious again. I wish there was something we could do for him. I wish Eva didn’t have to watch.
It’s frustrating. I don’t mean the we’re dying part—obviously, that is—but I feel like I’m missing something, like someone’s explaining things to me and I’m too stupid to understand. What was that thing Wittgenstein said? Something about a man imprisoned in an unlocked room because it doesn’t occur to him to pull instead of pushing on the door. Blame the scientist in me, but I want things to make sense. This doesn’t. Themis has been gone for thousands of years. You’d think they’d be curious enough to inspect her, hose her down, something. They have to know she’s back. They’re the ones that brought her back, they must be. We didn’t do anything in the sphere.
They can’t wait indefinitely. If I can just keep Eva alive a bit longer, someone will come. I don’t know if that’s even a good thing. Whoever comes, you can bet it won’t be a friend. These are the people that attacked us. They killed millions. Rose thinks that might not have been their intent, but regardless of why they came, we also killed a few of them. And by we, I mean me, and Eva, and Rose. The only three humans to have hurt any of them are inside this sphere right now, slowly dying of dehydration. That might not be a coincidence.
How do they treat their prisoners of war? That’s probably how they’d see us. Do they even take prisoners? I’ll do everything I can to save Eva, but I’d rather she died here, peacefully, than be tortured for months on end, then die. I don’t even know if I’m making the right choice looking for a way out, but I am. It’s a puzzle. One piece at a time. For now, I just have to keep her alive for another day. If I’m still around tomorrow, I’ll try to do the same. And the next day, and the next. You don’t have to worry about me trying, Kara. I am. I’ll do anything to keep her alive. I’ll set myself on fire if I have to.
Come to think of it, that might not be such a bad idea. This is a fairly small confined space, kind of like a submarine. What’s the one thing you don’t want on a submarine? Actually, I have no idea if that’s true, but it’s true in movies anyway. Themis doesn’t have a radio or A/C, but there might be a fire alarm. Rose, the other Rose, used to carry a lighter around in her purse. I hope that was an old habit. Gotta go, love. If this works, I promise to write every month. Yes, every month. I’m not writing to my dead wife every day. Our daughter already has visions. I’d like to keep the crazy to a minimum in our family, if I can.