Beth Revis - Across the Universe

Harley backs up to the hatch door. He places both palms against the door and presses his face to the glass window.

“No good, no good,” he mutters.

“What’s no good?” My voice is even, calm now. I’m remembering how Doc locked Harley up for weeks last time, certain that he’d try to follow Kayleigh in death. How closely the nurses watched his meds, how Doc always made sure Harley took the extra ones.

“Harley, why don’t you come with me? I’ll spend the night down here; you go back to your room and rest.”

“You want it all to yourself, don’t you?” Harley snarls.

“What? No!”

His face crumples. “I know, I know. You’re my friend, I know.” He turns back to the window. “But still, it’s no use. There’s no frexing point.”

“No point to what?”

“Doesn’t matter how long I stare. We’re never going to land, are we Elder? We’re never going to get off this frexing ship. We’re all going to live and die in this metal cage. 74 years and 263 days. Too long… too frexing long… This is the closest I’ll ever get to the outside, isn’t it?”

I want to tell him no, that he’s wrong, but I know that’s a lie. And I understand now, oh, how I understand why Eldest lies and makes the people all raise their children with the hope of planet-landing. If we don’t have that, what do we have to live for? Does it matter if it’s a lie if it keeps us alive? Taking away the chance for planet-landing has left Harley nothing more than an empty, desperate shell.

Harley has sunk all the way to the floor. He has a canvas there, but it’s covered with muslin, and I don’t have the heart to ask him what he’s painting. Instead, I leave him here, the closest to freedom he can ever be.

I’m not going to be the one to drag him away from the stars.

Back by the cryo chambers, I hobble together a pile of lab coats and a stray blanket and make something of a nest for myself in front of the big open room. I cannot stay awake, but I hope my presence forestalls the murderer-and if not, I hope that I’ll at least awake when the elevator dings. I’m so exhausted- so exhausted-and the weight of the ship, the stars, the hopelessness, Phydus, Amy, and Harley all crash on me at once.

I wake to the smell of paint.

Harley , I think.

I struggle with the lab coats I am lying on. Their arms drag me down, but I eventually disentangle myself from them.

“Harley?” I ask, breathing deeply.

I turn from the elevator to the cryo chambers behind me.

At first I think it is blood, but as I step closer to the cryo chambers, I see that it is only red paint-thick, not-yet-dry red paint. Dripping giant Xs mark some, but not all, of the cryo chamber doors. I touch the one closest to me-number 54-and leave a red fingerprint in the paint. Looking down this row, I see six doors marked with Xs; the next row only has three, but the row after that has twelve.

My immediate thought is that this is the killer’s doing, that he has marked the people he plans to unfreeze next.

I shake my head. Could the killer have been down here, while I slept beside the elevator? No-it must have been Harley.

But just in case…

I creep down each hall, looking for someone who might still be here, counting the marked doors. Thirty-eight doors are marked in total, and none of them give any indication of who painted them.

I envision the killer here, silently marking the doors of his victims while I slept. I shake my head again. Paint means Harley. This is Harley’s revenge for our shouting match last night; this is Harley trying to scare me or spook me, or he’s just being stupid.

Harley, it has to be Harley.

I can’t have let the killer stroll past me while I slept. I can’t have.

“Harley?” I call.

Nothing.

I run straight to the hallway, to the hatch, but before I get there, I know something is wrong.

The muslin-covered canvas is gone. Paint is splattered everywhere. For one sickening moment, I think that this is a crime scene and that the paint smears all over the floor and wall are blood splatters from a murder, but then I shake myself all over, and I whisper, “No,” because if this was a murder, then Harley would be dead, but he’s not here.

The control box beside the hatch door is broken.

The cover to the keypad has been pried off, and thin wires extend from the box through the shut door of the hatch.

Harley is inside the hatch, holding the keypad in his hand. He’s already tapping out the code.

I pound on the hatch door. Harley gives me a watery smile.

“I can get closer,” he says.

“Don’t!” I shout, banging against the glass.

Harley turns toward the hatch. He finishes the code on the keypad. The hatch slams open and Harley is sucked out into space.

For a moment, he looks back at me, and his farewell is in his smile. Then he turns to the stars.

And he is gone.

The hatch door swings shut, leaving emptiness.

Harley is gone.

I WAKE UP WITH THE PAINTBRUSH STUCK TO MY FACE. Harley would laugh if he could see me now, call me his Painted Fish.

By the door, there is a flashing red square of light. It’s the button to the small rectangle metal cubicle beside the food cubicle. When I push it, the tiny door zips open and a big blue-and-white pill pops out. So that’s what that door was for.

The Inhibitor medicine. The medicine that keeps me sane.

I stare at it, disgusted. It sticks in my throat as I swallow it. It burns going down, and fills my belly with a sense of revulsion and urgency that leaves me sick to my stomach. I push in the button to the food door, and it leaves me a pastry filled with something that is almost eggs and that oozes with something that is almost cheese. I’m done after a bite. I’m tired of almost. I want something real.

I return to my wall. Taking Elder’s advice, I ignore my name and my list of characteristics. What can I or anything about me have to do with murder?

With my name gone, I see it, standing out before me as brightly as if the words were written in different colored paint.

The military .

Each victim, even the woman who hadn’t died-all of them had worked for the military. Tactical specialists, offensive operations, bio-weaponry. They were frozen for their ability to kill-and they were the ones being killed.

But why me? Why was I unplugged? I have nothing to do with that.

Elder had said, Maybe you weren’t meant to be unplugged, maybe you were an accident or something .

An accident…

Maybe the murderer had meant to unplug someone else…

Someone else in the military.

Like Daddy.

I jump up and race to the door, my heart thudding. Everything falls into place if the killer meant to kill Daddy, not me. He’s killing people with fighting backgrounds.

The door slides open, and I crash into Orion.

I start to mutter my apologies and step around him to go to the cryo level and tell Elder what I’ve figured out, but Orion grabs my wrist with viselike strength.

“Let me go,” I say. He’s gripping me just where the men held me down before Harley saved me, his fingers pushing into the same bruises.

“Harley painted this,” Orion says in his soft voice. I stop trying to pull away from him and notice the muslin-covered canvas in his hands. “He told me to give it to you when I gave him some wire.”

“What is it?” I ask, curious.

“A painting. For you.”

Orion releases my wrist and presses the canvas into my arms. As I look down at it, he fades into the shadows.

I step back into my room, set the canvas up on my desk, and peel off the muslin, which sticks a little to the still-wet paint. It is the most beautiful painting I’ve ever seen. It’s a self-portrait-Harley floats in the center of the canvas, surrounded by sky and stars, his face upturned in an expression of rapturous joy, his arms spread wide as if he’s about to wrap me in a hug. A tiny koi fish swims amongst the stars around his ankles.