Blue Bloods

Walker stared down at the world he'd left behind. Since the wind rushed through, he'd walked the surface of the station, carefully checking each of the antennae, each solar panel, each station keeping thruster. He'd finally figured out why the station hadn't received any transmissions from the surface. A redundant backup relay, only included in the design in case both the primary and backup relays failed, had been knocked out of place by a micrometeorite impact.

The news from the planet below scared the remaining crew of the ISS. With no transmission equipment, they couldn't contact the planet for help, and most of the folks on the planet thought the meteor had killed the crew. The remaining crew could live for quite a while on the supplies they'd scavenged, but without resupply they'd wind up starving.

It was time for him to take a trip.

Despite his and Johnson's best efforts, the shuttle still couldn't fly. Too much damage, and too few critical spares doomed the poor bird to becoming a permanent addition to the station, at least until they had to cut her loose or risk destabilizing the station's orbit. For now, though, she gave the crew a little more space, something vitally important with three of them still trying to recover from injuries.

A knock on the thick window behind him got his attention. Ursula smiled warmly when he looked around, and he returned it affectionately. They'd grown close since the disaster, just another reason he wanted to stay, just another reason he had to go. She pressed her fingers to her lips, then to the glass. He did the same. With a twinkle in her eye, she pulled her hand away and pointed Earthward, then made a shooing gesture. He breathed heavily on the glass and, with a finger, etched the letters 'brb' into the ice which formed.

With that he pushed away from the station and spread his wings.

He didn't glance around to look at them. He'd done that once before, and the memory still forced his genitals to shrivel up in response. No astronaut wanted to be drifting in space with his only means of propulsion a pair of wings so insubstantial he couldn't see them unless a particularly thick eddy of solar wind brushed past. Then again, no astronaut wanted to be outside his ship or station without a space suit, and he'd adjusted to that well enough.

Sculling forward, he watched the world passing by beneath him. He still hadn't decided on a landing point. To pass the time while he watched, he ran through a quick check of equipment. A short-range radio scavenged from Atlantis lay strapped to his right thigh. Johnson's cell phone, useless in space except for playing video games, made a comforting weight in the cargo pocket on his left. His parachute covered most of his back. He tried not to think about how badly his last propulsion unit had been mangled without him realizing it. He could get water and food on the ground, so he'd stripped the rations out of the emergency pack against his lower back, only keeping a few survival tools, the emergency tent, and the raft.

That brought him back to his decision. In space, sculling against the radiation from the sun, Walker could move fairly quickly, but he wasn't sure he could overcome gravity without a little extra help. If he could, he wanted a strong source of directed light to use like a bird of prey used an updraft. He'd considered the Luxor Sky Beam, but on his first try he wanted daylight, and they only had the Beam on at night. Besides that, if he needed to go for a water landing, the options around Las Vegas weren't very good.

That left Paris or New York, at least in the western hemisphere. Every other city had fewer lights or more obstruction. He wanted to land in the States, but orbital mechanics drew him toward the Paris landing, just in case he had to ditch and set down in the Atlantic. Of course, Paris wasn't all that close to the shoreline, either, but it did have a river. Neither one lit up nearly as much in the day as at night, and neither one had strong, static lights pointed at the sky, but city designers didn't often plan on assisting winged astronauts in making laser assisted landings.

Four beams of light speared into the sky from just south of New York. Without knowing what they were, he couldn't know how long they would last, but they drew him, nonetheless. They seared through the sky, a beacon lighting his way back home. He might never have a chance like this in daytime again. Decision made, Walker spread his wings and descended on four columns of pure, blue light.

***

Grace slept, cocooned in warmth, safely ensconced in a fiery mountain. Since the scream nearly woke her, the mountain fretted, each passing moment a greater concern. From an immeasurable distance, infinitely small yet right next to her ear, the voice of eternity spoke.

It begins.

The mountain shuddered in fear, muttering to himself as he jostled Grace about.

Right. Close enough. Need a landmark. Something still standing. Too many fragments.

A pause, and then, What the hell is that?

The voice of eternity sang once more.

A light against the darkness. A battle cry beginning a war. A sword raised in defiance. A LANDMARK in time and space.

Grace wondered if a mountain could blush.

Oh. Right.

The mountain shook, and Grace flew outwards, landing in the surf with a tremendous splash. As the water around her cooled, subliming in the afternoon sun, the mountain brushed her mind again.

Walk sleeping until you find a doctor, and please, do not let me be wrong about you.

Grace slept, but her mind faithfully recorded eternity's answer.

You should wish you were.

***

Damien lay back against the roof of the van, tucking two unseen hands behind his head as a pillow. When Katrina snuggled against his side, he wrapped his real arms around her, wondering at her warmth. Her lips still held a faint blue cast, echoed in the bruises under her eyes.

She noticed him staring. "I'm fine. Really."

He knew he'd lose that argument. Time to change the subject. "What are we gonna do?"

"I'm thinking we lay here, watch the planes land, and pretend we're sixteen and getting away with something."

"Yeah, no. I meant about what happened."

"What about it?"

He sighed, and she twisted around, leaned her elbows on his chest, and stared into his eyes. "Look, those guys were trying to kill you. You know that. They nearly killed me."

"They did kill you."

She grimaced, cute despite the expression, and continued. "I wish you'd stop saying that. Anyhow, they were going to kill you. You defended yourself. Case closed."

"I'm not sure a jury will see it that way."

She nodded, but her next words cut into him with the ease of a surgeon's scalpel. "That's not really what's bothering you, is it?"

"Nope."

She rolled her eyes. "Out with it. You know I won't give up now I know there's something to know."

That drew a crooked smile from him despite his melancholy. An airplane passed over at that moment, headed for the runway a short distance away. Since the Rain, the police didn't have time to check up on every van parked near an airport. That would eventually cause a problem, but for the moment the noise of the jet gave him time to gather his thoughts.

"I could have held them. They couldn't get away. Killing them... was like killing a kid. Even if a kid is coming at you with a gun, you don't kill them."

"Sometimes you do." Her soft answer reminded him of a story they'd covered, one where a child had been shot after shooting five other kids. He still couldn't decide whether the armed security guard had been right or wrong, and now he felt the weight of that same decision settling on his shoulders.

"That's just it, love. I didn't decide. You fell, and I stopped thinking of anything except revenge. I put them down like rabid dogs. I killed the one who killed you as painfully as I had the patience for. I... I became what I beheld, and I had no sorrow for it, only for losing you."

She shuddered against him, and he steeled himself for her rejection. She buried her face in his chest, so he barely heard her words. "I would have done the same."

He reached down with one unseen hand and pulled her chin up until she faced him. "You couldn't, love. It's a burden I have to carry, and I wouldn't share it with you if I could. It’s... I couldn't do that to someone I love."

Her gentle, sorrowful smile twisted as his words sparked her temper. "Oh, you think not?" Before he could reply, she whispered, her voice reaching into his hindbrain and forcing him to obey. "Hold still."

She swung one leg over him, kneeling with one leg on either side of him, and reached up to pull her hair free of its confining clip. She shook her head in a passing breeze, beauty captured against the sun low in the sky. He longed to reach for her, but he could not force his limbs to move. She leaned down, pressing herself against him, squirming as she did.

"Hold your breath," she whispered in his ear.

His ragged panting stopped, and he stared at her as she pushed herself back upright, tangled her hands in her own hair, and arched her back. "You haven't thought about this, D, but I have. Since the moment I realized I could make someone do this. Maybe you're a better person than I am. Maybe I want to be the person you think I should be. Maybe... I don't know."

A wicked smile twisted her lips when she looked down on him. He couldn't tell if the sparkles in her eyes were her madness or his, but his vision faded with every passing second. "You think I couldn't kill if someone took you away from me? You think I wouldn't kill? You grew up in a fishing town in Maine, D. I was born in a town that makes Hell's Kitchen look like a nursery school. The only difference between you and me is that I would take my time with them."

Her lips twisted down into a frown. "Touch me, D. You haven't since I woke up, not really. You're treating me like a porcelain doll, and I want to be touched, to feel like I'm alive."

Resisting a command he didn't want to follow was impossible. Trying to deny something he longed to do left him helpless, scrabbling at her as his air ran out.

"Oh, breathe, you big dumbass." Just like that, his will was his own. His legion of unseen hands wrapped around her, lifting her, pushing him upright until he stood on the top of the news van, her face even with his. She floated, unconcerned, in his gentle grasp, lips parted, eyes hooded, waiting for his next move.

"I still don't trust myself if you get hurt."

"Fine. We'll get more backup."

"The FBI guy?"

She frowned, "I'm not sure I trust him."

"So, who, then?"

At that very moment, a brilliant beam of light stabbed up into the sky beyond the airport. He dove for the ground behind the van, pulling Katrina to him, sheltering her with his body and his legion of unseen hands. She never blinked, just staring at him the whole time.

"What?" he said when he’d set them both back on their feet.

In answer, she took his hand and led him around the nose of the van. She pointed to the beam of light, a rock steady line from the ground to the sky.

"I'm not sure, but whether we're looking for backup or just a new story, maybe we should check that out?"

***

Jane could almost open her eyes. The scratchy, sticky smell of the gauze tape mocked her, but negligence, once her enemy, now aided her.

She twitched. Her eyes slid open just a crack, and sounds leaked in.

Her eyes slid shut. Silence returned, save for tiny, muted noises leaking through her eyelids.

She rested a moment, rejoicing in her success. Every tiny triumph took forever, but she had nothing but time.

A moment, no longer. She strained once more, pushing at the confining tape with the only muscles which would obey, albeit sporadically.

She pushed for an eternity in dry, dusty silence.

A quartet of pure, clear notes punched four bars from Earth to Heaven. Even through her confining lids, even past the scratchy smell of cotton and the awful light of her own filth, those bars beckoned. Deep within her own mind she murmured to herself, the words a feather light brush across her arms.

"My name is Jane. I am lost, but I will find myself. I am broken, but I will heal. I am violated, but I will not rest until justice is done. My name is Jane..."