Babylon's Ashes

Her name was Marta. She had a wide face with a scattering of moles along her jawline like she’d been splatted by something. Her hair was lighter than her skin. Of all the people in the club, she was the one who seemed to have the most patience with the new guy. When the karaoke was going, she’d offered him the mic, even though he hadn’t taken it. When the club had gotten crowded, she’d let him sit at the end of her table. Not with her, but not not with her either. She’d grown up in Callisto, born here. Worked for one of the warehouses doing compliance checks. She was about a year older than him. She’d been sixteen when it happened.

She narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. “What was the attack like? For for?”

“Wondered,” he said with a shrug. The club was dark enough she probably wouldn’t see him blushing. “Heard about it since I came.”

Marta shook her head, looked away. Someone jostled against Filip’s back on their way toward the bar. He was about to apologize—was finding the words for it—when she spoke.

“Was eine day, yeah? Woke up in the morning, same same. Got ready for school. Mom made hash and coffee for breakfast. Just eine day, same like otra. Was talking with some friends in the common room and everything shakes, yeah? Just once. Just a little bit, but everyone feels it. We all ask each other, and everyone feels it. Then the teacher come in all rapiutamine and says we have to get to the hard shelters. Something going on over à los Martian yards. Figured a reactor blew. Knew it was bad though. We’re hardly in when the next one comes, and it’s worse. Lot worse.”

“All the hits were on the Martian yard, though,” Filip said.

“Same rock,” Marta said with a shrug and a laugh. “Not like you can kick half a ball. Anyway, alarms are going off y everyone’s crying. And then when they let us back out, it’s just gone. Martian yard’s delenda, and half of ours too. It was just… no sé. It was just everything before and then everything after.”

“But you were okay,” Filip said.

Marta shook her head, just a little. “My mom died,” she said with a fake lightness. “Shelter she was in cracked.”

Filip felt the words in his sternum. “Sorry.”

“They said it was fast. She wouldn’t have known even.”

“Yeah,” Filip said. His hand terminal chimed for the fourth time in the hour.

“You sure you don’t want to answer those?” Marta said. “Your girlfriend’s wanting you pretty solid.”

“No. It’s all right,” he said. And then, “I don’t have a mother either.”

“What happened to yours?”

“Broke up with my dad when I was a baby. Dad always said he hid me away because she was crazy. But I don’t know. I met her first time a few months ago, but she’s gone again.”

“Did she seem crazy to you?”

“Yeah,” Filip said. Then, “No. Seemed like she didn’t want to be there.”

“Harsh.”

“She told me that the only right you have with anyone in life is the right to walk away.”

Marta coughed out a disbelieving laugh. “Kind of bitch says that to her kid?”

The doors to the club were built like an airlock with inner and outer doors either side of a short hall, but to keep the brightness of the common corridor out. A bright streak and a few silhouetted bodies showed both sets of doors opened at once. Filip wondered whether he should tell the girl more. I thought I watched her kill herself, only it turns out she didn’t die. She was only leaving again. It was true, but it wouldn’t seem like it. Some things you couldn’t talk about except with people who’d been there. His hand terminal chimed again.

Someone shoved him, hard. Filip’s stool tilted, and he grabbed the table to stop his fall. Marta yelped and stood up, shouting as she did. “Berman! Que sa?”

Filip turned slowly. The man who’d shoved him was his own age plus maybe a year or two. Deep-green jumpsuit with the logo of a shipping company on the sleeve. His chin jutted. His chest was pushed forward, his arms pulled back. Everything about him said he was looking for violence except that he wasn’t hitting Filip.

“Que nammen?” the new man demanded.

“Filip,” he answered. He was aware of the mass of the gun in his pocket like it was calling to him. Calmly, slowly, he put a hand against the grip of the pistol. Marta shoved her way between them, her arms wide. She was yelling about how Berman—who had to be the guy with the chin—was out of his mind. How he was stupid. How she was just talking with coyo and Berman was out-of-his-head jealous and fucked up too. Berman kept shifting his head to stare at Filip around her. Filip felt his own rage boiling up, like fumes off a fire. Draw the gun, level it just long enough for the coyo to know what was coming, then bang and the kick in his wrist. He was Filip Inaros, and he’d killed billions. He’d killed Marta’s mother.

“It’s okay,” Filip said as he stood. “Misunderstanding. No harm, sa sa?”