Something about an end
Reeni Black guided her ship towards the docking point in the north ring of World’s End, a space station at the end of known civilisation. The thrusters nudged the rusting old speeder into position and, with a jolt, the clamps fastened over the body. As it did her console flashed green and she unbuckled herself. She was at the exit door within minutes, swiping it open to meet the familiar face of Rosa, the on-watch customs agent. She flashed her brilliant white teeth, bright against her rich dark skin and intense purple eyes. Eyes that sparkled humorously.
“Back again and you look barely a day older!” Rose declared, stepping forward to embrace.
Reeni laughed and hugged her, then followed her aside as her team swept in to inspect the ship.
“You say the same thing every year,” remarked Reeni.
“And every year I hope you’ll tell me your secret – seriously, how do you stay so young?” Rosa eyed her like she always did, wondering what the secret to eternal youth was.
Rosa’s long battle with illness meant she was always after a cure or a treatment. It drove her broke, which was why she worked as a customs agent in a station far from any decent trade routes. Still, the harmless questions didn’t bother Reeni. Very little bothered her in the past fifty thousand years she was alive.
“Good diet and plenty of sleep?” Reeni said with a smile. “Now, when you’re done just exit, the ship will lock up.”
“That’s a new feature,” said Rosa.
“Bought it after a good job. Anyway, there is a bar with a stool that has my name on it. Also, a very handsome bartender that I may just have to have my wicked way with,” said Reeni. “So, if you’re all done with me?”
For a moment Rosa looked like she wanted to argue, anything to grill Reeni further. In the end, her tablet chimed and she was forced to let Reeni go. Before anyone could argue Reeni was through the door, out of the docking zone and into the nearest mag lift. It ferried her down the main body of the station, past dozens of levels where houses were cluttered together on the inside of a long, singular tube. From the middle the lift raced through stations that led to markets and factories that churned out supplies from the minerals ferried from the last few asteroids close by.
When the lift finally slowed at her stop she leaned forward, peering out through the glass. The Underworld was what the inhabitants of the station designated to floor Alpha Zero Foxtrot. It housed a plethora of bars, stocked full of both legal and illegally imported spirits from far across the universe. Some of it was unique to the station, which was probably why Reeni kept coming back – well, one of the reasons anyway.
As she stepped off, a stream of people with her, she bled into the thick crowd. The music grew louder as she pushed on towards the streets packed with bars, The stench of booze and sweat and something sour curled through the air, thickening above the densely moving crowd. Drunks stumbled out of one place, then into the next other, shuffling on until the money ran out or they were ‘tapped down’ by enough bars. Then, they’d stagger into the nearest lift and somehow find their way back. It had been Reeni, for a time. Then, even that got boring.
Life, for all she’d seen, both bored her and surprised her. Of late, she was restless. She needed something new but what?
Frowning, she slipped into the nearest bar, an old favourite of hers. The guard, recognising her, smiled affectionately and ushered her inside. At the bar she took her usual seat, ordered her usual order, though from a girl she didn’t recognise. As she sat there, listening the low thrum of some new age music – nothing at all like music had been when she was young and mortal and stupid – she wondered how long she’d been waiting.
How long he’d keep her waiting.
“Fancy seeing you here!” A deep, masculine voice drawled.
Reeni turned slowly in her chair, smiling languidly as the familiar figure sat next to her. Death looked the same as he had back then; young, dark haired, handsome with a winsome smile. Funnily enough, there was scarcely anything wholesome about him so she ordered him a drink anyway. As it came he downed in a single go, slammed it down with a grin and leant forward.
“Ready to die?”
She ordered another drink, smiling like a Cheshire cat. “You ask me that every year and I swear every year you grow less and less keen on me saying yes. I’m a pet of yours, aren’t I?”
“An amusing creature to be sure,” he said, winking. “I am so busy of late – wars and all that. Can’t blame me for always wanting to come back and visit my favourite human. Still, can’t help but wonder why you continue to say no. What do you live for?”
With the conversation taking a familiar turn she finished her drink and pushed away from the bar. She stood and exhaled deeply.
“I’ll say the same thing I say every year – for all your immortality and power, for all your meddling, you just don’t get it, do you? You never will get it,” she said quietly. “That’s what separates us.”
To her surprise he didn’t follow her. In truth, he never did but she’d begun to hope that he would, that he’d understand. For all his flaws, being whatever, he was, he was still immortal, like her. They may not like each other but they’d always been in each other’s orbits. Drawn, inevitably, for the fact they were two of the same – ageless souls.
By the end of the third shift cycle she’d wandered much of the station, bought numerous supplies and had arranged it to be delivered back to the ship. She stopped at two more bars, enjoyed a drink alone, then went on to the jobs quarter. There, she spied off several advertisements for work and noted a couple of them. A couple of merchants approached her, too, and offered up their details. It was, for the most part, a productive ‘day’ and when she found herself at the station’s main message board again, a new advertisement emerged.
Seek adventure? Excitement? Join the Discovery today!
A science expedition, by the looks of it. A collection of ships setting forth into the unknown. The longer Reeni stared at it the more she liked the idea of it. A calling, a future. Colonising a new world or several. Ideal for an immortal. Not to make herself a Goddess but to do something more, something she hadn’t been involved in before.
“I know that look,” said Death, appearing beside her.
She slanted him an arch look, the edge of her mouth twitching. “Scared this will amuse me for another few thousand years?”
The withering look was all the incentive she needed. She swiped her hand over the panel at the bottom, downloading the information into her holoscanner in her eye. With all the contact information done she stepped back, ready to smirk at Death but he was gone.
Alone in a sea of people she sighed. When he wasn’t around she couldn’t say that she didn’t feel the distant thump of loneliness. A kind of dull ache in her chest, one she’d become too accustomed to.
Sighing, she pushed into the crowd, darting amongst the throng until she hit the mag-lift. She punched in the floor for her ship, then took a seat at the back, far away from the few onboard. As she leant her face against the cool pane of glass she watched as the station blurred past her and she found herself ready to step onto the next part of her life. To say goodbye to her time as merchant. Perhaps a scientist might suit her better?
Back at her ship she went into her cabin and stripped off. In the shower she scrubbed the grime off her body, then stepped out, flicking the water off. She sat on her bed and dragged a comb through her hair before braiding it out of her face. As she finished dressing the intercom for the ship chimed.
“Captain, answering,” she called out.
The comms hummed, then the reply came. “Reeni, it’s Rosa. Can I come in?”
Reeni wondered what Rosa might want, so she got up and went to the door. As it hummed up Reeni froze. A gun was levelled at her. Attached to it, Rosa. An old, irrational stab of panic flashed through her, then dimmed and she arched an eyebrow.
“You’re going to shoot me?”
“No, I just have questions and you’re going to answer them.”
Reeni opened her mouth to argue but Rosa fired. Only, it wasn’t a bullet. It was a dart. She felt the sting before she saw it. Yet, before her mind could understand, darkness swam and yanked her under, sending her spiralling into oblivion.
From the cloudy haze that the drug blanketed her mind she perceived very little at first. All she felt was the biting chill of the air, then the hum of machines, like in a hospital. As the effects dimmed she sensed something cold wrapped around her wrists and ankles. Straps, she assumed, to keep her down. She heard someone move close by, muted steps against a tiled floor. Their breaths, soft but steady, calm and collected.
After what felt like an eternity she forced her eyes open, wincing as the harsh, sterile light bit into her eyes. Several moments later the pain dimmed, her eyes sharpened on the layout of the room – and Rosa standing there, needle in hand, watching her.
“How did you live so long? You haven’t aged a day!” Reeni went to say something but Rosa ploughed ahead. “Doesn’t matter. This serum will tell me everything I need to know.”
“Death made me immortal,” said Reeni calmly. “I think it was a joke of his. Maybe he was lonely – or an arsehole. Who knows?”
Rosa frowned, not expecting that reply. With a shake of her head she injected the serum into the needle already in Reeni’s arm. The cold rush of liquid flooded her arm. She shuddered, already feeling her mind slip into obedience. Little did Rosa know that Reeni already said the truth. When she said it again Rosa frowned, staring hard.
“How are you immortal?”
Reeni smiled with a drugged glaze in her eye. “Death. I told you he’s a real prick but I won’t let him win, you know? It’s funny though, I actually kind of like him. He’s like me. We can’t die. There has got to be a joke in there somewhere…or not. Maybe he was lonely. I was lonely when he said yes. I mean, I was young and stupid and some hot guy at a bar offered to make me immortal. Drunk me thought sure, why not? What could possibly go wrong?”
“Then he did and I didn’t notice, not at first. Then, I watched as everyone I knew and loved die. A boy I thought was my world. I don’t even know his name now or even what he looked like. I don’t remember what any of their names were, those people I liked. Loved, I think. Then before I knew I didn’t die and I tried, you know? Became a kind of hobby for a while. Then I got bored of that, so I did things, grand things and bad things. Now I’m bored again and all I can think about is Death coming with me on that adventure. Do you think he will say yes? I plan to ask him next time?”
Rosa couldn’t make sense of it. She spun away in a huff and grabbed another needle. Before Reeni’s hazy mind could process anything, the needle was in and she was on fire.
She started to scream. Her body burned, every limb felt like it was being shredded, strand by strand. The scream tore from her throat again, louder, shrill, pain choking her. Soon, all she knew was pain, confusion, more pain. The screaming, the fire. The world blackened around her –
Then, in a burst, a cold rush of ice flooded her body and the pain was gone. A scream choked into silence as she slumped back into the bed, gasping painfully for air. Tears stung the edge of her eyes as she tried to blink them away.
Death stood over her, looking at her with the strangest expression in her. Not that quiet anger whenever she’d said no. it seemed different, a confusion over something he hadn’t seen before. Something that turned his own little world upside down.
“Do you mean it?” He asked.
Her mind swam. “What?”
“That you want me to come with you? Why? Why me?”
Reeni stared up at death, feeling the world close around them, grow quiet and hold its breath. She felt her own seize, caught in her chest, held prison by a rush of fear she hadn’t felt in years. It made her feel young, like a young girl afraid of rejection.
“Because we’re the same. You made me like you…and I don’t want to be alone anymore but I don’t want to die. Not yet. I’m not done. I want to live.”
She expected him to say no, that it wasn’t his place, that she was just an immortal human – a mistake he made a long time ago. It was, in truth, what she’d heard him say in her mind every time she thought of asking him to join her.
Then he threw back his head and laughed. Reeni could only stare until he sobered a few moments later and nodded, that devilish gleam in his eyes.
“Well, it’ll be an adventure at least.”
On the bridge of her ship Reeni wasn’t alone as the station fell away. Before them, several ships accompanied them, sailing out into the distant stars, seeking two new worlds identified for colonisation. She wasn’t any special ship but brought experience and knowledge, which it seemed the collective was after.
She sat back in her chair, reclining, exhaling with pleasure. It felt good to be leaving the station behind; plus, there had been a need to leave quickly. Death and dispatched Rosa and, to avoid questions, they both left quickly. He’d healed her, burned the drugs from her body and they were off.
“You’re in a good mood,” remarked Death.
She glanced up at him, smiling. “Adventure beckons.”
“There’s something else.”
“Nothing I’ll tell you – yet.” She laughed and looked back at the procession of ships. “I make no confessions yet.”
“You will someday,” he said with humour.
“Someday. For now, let’s just focus on today – then whatever happens next.”
ns 15.158.61.48da2
