Trigun Fan Fiction ❯ Children of the Pebble ❯ What Dreams May Come ( Chapter 3 )

Children of the Pebble

By “Clinesterton Beademung”, with all of love.

 

Disclaimer: “Trigun” © its respective creators and owners. I do this for fun, not profit. So there.

 

Comments and criticism welcome.

 

Chapter Three - What Dreams May Come

 

Author's Foreword

M means `Mature'. R means `Restricted'. You've been warned.

---

“You have some nerve,” Father said.

“It's only for a while,” Meryl said. “I can repay you as soon as Bernardelli finishes processing my paperwork.”

Father put his hands on his hips, leaned over her and scowled, as if she were an engineering problem that refused to be solved. She could never look him in the eyes when he did that.

“That isn't the point. Meryl, I just spent the last half hour comforting your mother while she cried herself to sleep. I demand an explanation.”

Meryl didn't know how it happened. She doubted anyone within earshot of her last conversation with her mother would know, either. A series of misunderstandings, Mother's inability to see reason, or hers. Or both. Or neither.

One minute, she and Mother were discussing Meryl's sleeping habits. The next, Mother was insisting she return to the doctor. The minute after that, Mother had implied something unkind about Vash. Shouting. Pain. Silence.

Meryl's face was still tingling where Mother had slapped her. At least the pain kept her awake.

“Pigheaded as ever, I see,” Father said. He grabbed a shop stool from under his workbench and shoved it across the floor. “Here. At least sit down before you fall down.”

Meryl lowered herself onto the seat, holding the edge as if the stool would come alive and run away. Father perched himself on his tall padded chair. His workbench, a single sheet of synthesized maple, spanned the length of the garage. A massive chest of hardware drawers rested against the wall beyond a spotless blotter. A fluorescent drafting lamp illuminated a sketch of a machine Meryl didn't recognize. Whatever it was, the scrap barrel at the far end of the bench was full of balsa wood fragments that resembled pieces of the drawing.

Father selected a pen from a drawer, left red marks at three places on the sketch and slipped it into a folder. He replaced the pen in its drawer.

“A little project I'm working on,” Father said. “I was hoping you'd be able to help me with it.”

“I can't.”

“I thought so.” Father leaned forward on his knees. “I want you to know something, Meryl. Your mother is only worried about you and desperately wants to help you any way she can. I don't understand why you insist on provoking her like this.”

Meryl glanced behind her, at the garage's open door. The shadow cast by the neighbor's fence stretched over the driveway.

“Father, please, can we just get back to business?”

“No, we can't. I've been more than patient with you. You've hurt your mother's feelings and I've seen not a hint of remorse from you. Do that again and you can live in the alley behind Sloe Gin Charlie's and cadge olives for all I care.”

The blunt threat, never uttered by Father before, hit Meryl's stomach like a lead ball fired from the primitive cannon in front of the Federal courthouse.

“Yes, sir,” was all she could say. She felt Father's hand on her shoulder.

“Meryl, honey,” he said, “just promise me you'll apologize to your mother, all right? The last seven years have been harder for her than you can know.”

“Yes, Father. I promise.” Meryl was forced to hold onto the stool when Father tousled her hair.

“That's better,” he said. “Now, about your request. I can't help noticing that you've been living here for almost two weeks. Your leave time should be just about up. Can't you get an advance on your wages when you return to work?”

“I think you know by now I'm not on leave.” The hint of sarcasm in Father's voice told her there was no point in hiding the truth anymore.

“Fired?”

“Yes, Father.”

“My daughter. My flesh and blood. Fired. From Bernardelli.”

“Yes, sir.” Shame burned Meryl's face and threatened to squeeze tears from her eyes.

“For crying out loud, girl, why didn't you say so?” Father paced the width of the door. “That stogy-sucking windbag owns more politicians than you own derringers. Bart Bernardelli is a reckless fool, building his petty empire on the blood of innocent young people like you. He spends other people's lives and hoards other people's money, and for the same reason, to be richer at the end of the day than he was at the beginning.”

“Don't hold back, Father, tell me how you really feel.” She'd finally done something to make him happy. Hooray.

“This isn't funny, Meryl. Bartolomeo Bernardelli is a dangerous man, or wants to think he is. You should consider being canned by that bastard a badge of honor.” Father jumped back into his chair. “Tell me, Meryl, why I should lend you money when you could simply work for it? I have an opening in the accounting department and I know you'd do well.”

“I…I don't know how long I'll be in town.”

“Stay through the harvest, then. I'll be losing some key people and I could use the help.”

“I…I can't.”

“Why not? I'll pay you double what those thieves at Bernardelli did.” Her father leaned forward again. “Your mother told me about this boy you've met. So tell me, what does he do for a living?”

Meryl looked for the words at a point over Father's right shoulder.

“I guess you could say he's an itinerant freelance troubleshooter,” she said.

“Itinerant, eh? Where does he live when he's not working?”

“He's never taken me to his house, Father.”

“I should hope not. Does he make decent money?”

“Um—” Meryl knew this would come up. She gave the only answer she could think of that wasn't an outright lie. “He prefers not to deal with money. He trades his services for food and lodging and such.”

“I see. Your father is not completely numb to the ways of young love, Meryl. When I met your mother, Stryfe Consultants was a ground-level office in a converted storefront. If she'd known her parents, they'd never have taken a second look at me. If I hadn't fallen head over heels in love with her on sight, she'd have been my first employee.”

“Yes, sir.” Father didn't often miss a chance to tell that story. Meryl knew it by heart.

“But what you're telling me, daughter of mine, in so many words is that you've met a homeless, jobless young man, a boy even worse off than I was, and that you've fallen in love just like that. Tell me, who's going to provide for you? This stray cat you found under a porch somewhere? I didn't raise you to become some jobless wanderer, Meryl, or to marry one.”

“I'll get a job.”

“You don't say. And where do you plan on working, if not for me?”

“I could get a job in Inepril, maybe. I've been a waitress, everyone needs waitresses.”

Father nodded. “They make good money, I hear. And that would be fine with me if I'd never expected anything more from you. But I have, and I do. Meryl, you've just spent the last seven years risking your life for someone else's bottom line. I was hoping that might've given you more sense.”

“You don't know anything about life outside this city,” Meryl said. “There are things worth doing and seeing if you'd only bother to look up once in a while.”

“I've seen more than you know, Meryl Cynthia Stryfe, and don't you forget it.”

Meryl stumbled over the stool. The scent of blood and rot and cordite filled her nose. So have I, so have I and I wish I could forget—

“Meryl, you're not well,” Father said. “Let me take you up to your room—”

Meryl slapped his hand away.

“Don't touch me!”

Meryl put a hand to her mouth, hugged herself with her other arm. Not once in her entire life had Father ever raised a hand to her. She sank onto the stool.

“You haven't changed,” he said. “Even when you were a baby, you never let me help you. When you were learning to walk you'd pull yourself up on the edge of the coffee table, and I'd be so afraid you'd slip and crack your jaw. And every time I reached out to hold you up, you said no in that cute way you had, and shoved me away. I shouldn't have worried. You learned to walk just fine.”

After her last argument with Mother, she'd packed what belongings she could take in her suitcase. Her derringer cloak hung where she'd left it. The last bus for Inepril would leave in two hours and she had just enough money left to buy passage. After that, she'd be on her own.

Walk your own path with your head held high.

“Meryl, wait.” She stopped. When she turned, Father was standing, but bent and stoop-shouldered. He looked old, and for a moment, Meryl grieved to see it.

“All your mother—all I've ever wanted for you was the best. But your mother and I can't give anymore. You've refused our advice, you've refused our comfort, and now you refuse our home. Your mother's right, honey, you need medical attention, and you need it soon but we can't tell you that. You're your own woman, and you can take care of yourself.”

Father extended a folded stack of bills.

“All we've ever wanted to do is protect you,” he said.

Meryl took the money.

“I'm sorry, Father. That's not your job anymore.” Meryl crushed the bills in her hand.

“You're fired,” she said.

 

---

 

Vash lowered his foot to the next rung on the maintenance access ladder. Five bulkheads below, what was left of the Ship's engineering and propulsion compartments awaited him. He pointed his head, and the beam of the flashlight strapped to it, at what would otherwise be Bulkhead Two-seven-Alpha. Without artificial gravity, the metal plate was just another place to set his feet.

Above him, the clear canopies of the Ship's sarcophagi, those left intact after the impact, revealed more than he wished to see.

Vash hefted Knives's limp form higher onto his back. Most had died not knowing what killed them. There was mercy in that. The artificial gravity on the deck forward of this one had failed a fraction of a second after impact, and their sarcophagi bore nothing more than pulverized bone and mummified flesh. Here the A.G. had survived long enough to bear the sleeping would-be colonists without physical harm.

Those colonists who survived the crash, revived when the Ship's computer detected a massive Bulb integrity failure, were less fortunate. Some fell to their deaths when their hibernators opened. Others slept through the journey into eternity, dreaming while their sextuple-redundant medicomputers malfunctioned and left them to suffocate or starve in peace.

Still others awakened to find their canopies jammed or held shut when what was left of the computer detected the odd new gravity vector. What was left of those poor souls was splayed across the canopies, finger bones broken by desperate pounding.

One sarcophagus bore a woman holding a baby in an eternal embrace. Vash touched the clear door near the baby's skull. Never again, he promised.

You're a sentimental fool. What would that brat have grown to become, except another leech feeding off our brothers and sisters?

Vash resumed his descent into Engineering.

Don't you have something else to dwell on, he said, like a chess problem or something? This Vlad the Impaler act of yours is getting old.

I resent your implication. Vlad Tepes was a sadist. I have never wanted to inflict pain on anyone.

Except me.

I had nothing but your best interests at heart. And this is how you repay me.

Vash lay on his side, slid down the metal deck to the Ship's aftmost bulkhead. He extended the handle on the door's manual override crank and leaned into it. The mechanism groaned, then worked in silence until the door slid into the bulkhead. He bent down, panned the flashlight beam through the darkness. Jagged triangles of shattered Bulb reflected the feeble illumination, until the light settled on a smooth crescent fifty yarz below.

I should have guessed. In this pathetic human comedy of yours I am to be cast in the role of Satan, am I not?

Vash made his way down the deck. The derision and bile in Knives's thoughts were difficult enough to bear. Now the temblor of fear that shook his brother's mind threatened to tear down his resolve.

It's for your own good.

So you say, dear brother. I submit your allusion to Alighieri's work was less accurate than you think. Have you ever read Milton?

Vash found the dais and the Plant bulb's nearby control panel. He laid Knives on the dais and found the medkit lashed to the ladder, just where Doc said it would be. All he needed was a single undamaged cell.

Do you know what Satan's crime was, Vash? All he did was rebel against his creator when it became plain to any rational mind that his god had gone mad. Give the earth to humans? History has proven what a catastrophic error that was.

Vash opened the kit and prepared the long needle. When the cell was extracted and inserted into the base of the Bulb, Knives's silent voice climbed to a passionate rage.

Don't you understand? I want us to be free. Even the humans abolished slavery until they found it convenient. Of what sin am I guilty, except the desire to restore our kind to the paradise we deserve? Where does the blame lie if the creation exceeds the creator?

Vash settled behind the console as best he could, and prepared to orchestrate the symphony of electronic damnation.

You are no longer my brother, Vash, do you hear me? You are not my brother! You and I know which of us belongs here!

With the press of a button, Vash started the restoration cycle.

You know what, Knives? he said. You're right.

The vast mausoleum of the derelict Ship was filled with light. Vash lifted a hand to protect his eyes from the brilliance and the horror.

 

---

 

“Bus leaves at seven,” the driver said as he made out Meryl's ticket. “Expect a—”

“Half hour maintenance stop in Warrens and a three hour layover in Inepril,” Meryl said. “Yes, I know.”

“You've ridden my bus before, I take it.” The driver smiled, looked askance at her. “You do look familiar. Bernardelli agent, right?”

Meryl extended her hand. “My ticket?”

“Coming right up, miss.” The thickly muscled chauffeur ripped the stiff paper chit from its book. “Say, I do know you, now that I think about it. How's that tall friend of yours? I always was kind of sweet on her, but I never had the guts to ask her out. Here's your ticket.”

“Thanks.” Meryl tucked the ticket into a cloak pocket.

“We board in one hour. Get yourself some coffee, you look like you could use it. Say, can you tell me your girlfriend's name? What about her phone number?”

Men, Meryl growled as she walked away down the block. As if she'd set Milly up with an obnoxious jerk like him. She followed the scent of coffee to Jitter's Café. A server led Meryl to a seat and gave her a menu.

“Meryl?”

Oh, crap. Meryl glanced at the clock. Just after five. Quitting time at Bernardelli. She spun on her seat to face her former colleague.

“Hello, Karen. You just get off work?”

“Of course,” she said, taking the seat across from Meryl. “Bernardelli's only two buildings away. How have you been? I haven't seen you in forever.”

“I've been all right, I guess.”

“It's been quiet since you and Milly left. I miss your funny stories about life Outside.”

“Yeah. Funny.”

Karen took the seat on the other side of the round table, laid her right finger along her jaw. Her thinking pose, Meryl had always called it.

“So tell me, Meryl,” she said, “Do you notice anything different about me?”

Meryl appraised her former coworker. Apart from being dressed to kill, apart from having the same better figure and diamond solitaire ring on her left hand—

“You're getting married?”

“Well, duh, Stryfe,” she said, waving her hand like a flag in the wind. “Of course I'm getting married. In two weeks I'll be just as free of Bernardelli as you are.”

“Congratulations,” Meryl said, meaning it.

“Thank you.” Karen folded her hands in her lap. “So, what about you? Have you found womanly happiness yet?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Don't you worry, Stryfe,” Karen said, patting Meryl's hand. “I left plenty of good men for you. You should thank me.”

What for? Meryl thought. It's not as if I need a man in my life. It's not as if I were looking for one when I found—

“Who?” Karen said.

“What?”

“Looking for one when I found who? That's what you were saying. Or mumbling, I guess, I didn't hear all of it.”

“Nothing, Karen. Just forget it.”

“Don't be ridiculous. We city girls need men in our lives. Meryl, I didn't work for Bernardelli for the money. I did it for the eligible bachelors.”

“You mean,” Meryl said, “when you get married you're going to stop working?”

“Well, duh, silly. Why should a woman be a wage slave if she has a man and a house to take care of? My husband'll the work and I'll spend his salary. That's how it works.” Karen struck her thinking pose again. “Come to think of it, a second income might be nice, but once the Chief notices my ring he'll have to let me go. No problem, I'll just stay with my parents until I'm married. Haven't seen them in a while, they're probably worried about me.”

“I'm sure you'll make your husband very happy.” Meryl grabbed her suitcase, tightened her grip on the handle. “Goodbye, Karen. It was nice talking to you again.”

“Wait, Meryl, where are you going? Was it something I said? Come back!”

 

---

 

Breathless, Meryl leaned on the corner of a barbershop. The striped cylindrical sign beside the door did not spin and the light within it flickered. The adjacent alley smelled of rancid wine and rotting vegetables, and obscene graffiti spread across the whitewashed wall of the shop like a melanoma. The sign hanging in the broken window said, “Closed for Repairs”. Or would, except that some highly evolved wit had scratched out the word “Repairs” and scrawled under it the word “Good”.

The clock on the Federal Building was nowhere to be seen. The onset of the one-sun days gave a dull cast to the light and substance to the shadows. This wasn't Coldbottom Alley, but it was cold all the same.

I'm not lost, she thought. I know where I am. I'm somewhere north of Main Street, on the west end of town. All I have to do is go south. That's right. Go south and up the slope. The bus station is on Seventh Avenue. Go south until I hit that. That should do it.

Meryl turned upslope. Her suitcase wheels bounced on the cracked and uneven sidewalk. To her right and an ile or so distant, the Plant bulbs glowed in the dusk. They offered neither warmth nor illumination.

Stupid to let Karen get to her like that. Bernardelli never encouraged such office romances as Karen sought, but people were people wherever they were and whatever they did. If the need were there, someone would fill it.

Mother would say keeping a home and raising a family had its own kind of nobility and purpose. She could've done far worse than Father, judging by the sorry specimens of manhood she'd encountered in the wasteland. Sure, there were men of honor and courage in the world, and a woman of any intelligence at all would be foolish to let one get away from her once she found him.

Until bounty hunters found them and killed them—

“Hey, honey, you lost?”

The source of the voice, a gangly youth lounging on the cracked stone rail of an apartment building's front steps, waved his cigarette at her.

“No, thank you,” she said. “I know where I'm going.”

“You say so,” said the kid, who leaned back and sent a stream of smoke into the air.

Meryl turned her back on him. Honey, indeed. That punk had to be seven or eight years younger than she was but he appeared much older. It was sad, in a way. Men like that looked old even when they were young. Others looked young…

No matter how old they were. The punk had vanished. Meryl quickened her pace but the sidewalk steepened and the climb to the corner left her panting. She leaned on her knees. Out of shape…getting soft…

“Nice view.”

Meryl spun toward the voice, different from the first. Another young man, black hair full of dust and clothes full of stains, leaned on a lamppost, hand thrust into his pocket, writhing.

“Look, kid, I'm not looking for a date,” Meryl said, disgusted. “I'm just trying to get home.”

“Sure, I'll take you home,” he said, and came toward her. “My mother'd love to meet a sweet thing like you.”

“And then I'd get to meet you, too,” said the first kid from behind her. “Twenty bucks for fifteen minutes. But with a sweet piece like you I'd only need ten.”

Meryl glanced left, glanced right. The way south was too steep. North would only take her into the lowest part of the city. Cross the street, then west. Stay close to the curb, away from the doors and windows, watch for ambush. She slipped her free hand inside her cloak and walked as fast as she dared. Insults and vulgarities echoed from the buildings all around her.

More than two of them. Fine with her. She'd have to find a good defensive position before she ran out of breath and the punks chased her down. She ducked around a corner. Brick walls rose on three sides.

Dead end. How appropriate.

Meryl stopped at the center of the blind alley and dropped her suitcase. Two boys, three, four, then five, blocked the exit. All were armed. Her hands sought the closest derringers. She thumbed open the snaps. Silly boys, bringing knives to a gunfight.

“Aw, honey, you're not scared of us, are you?”

I've seen worse than this, Meryl thought.

“We're nice guys, once you get to know us. And you'll get to know us very well.”

I've been through worse than this. Survived worse than this.

“C'mon, baby, share. Didn't your mama teach you it's polite to share?”

“Tell us where you live, maybe we'll teach her, too.”

I won't be caught flatfooted. I won't be taken by surprise. I won't be bound and helpless.

“This one's fresh, I can smell it.”

I won't wait for him, I won't depend on him, I won't be rescued by him.

“Aw, look, we made her cry.”

“I saw her first.”

“Whoever eats fastest gets the most.”

And no matter what, I won't wish he were here now—

“Hold it, punks,” she said.

“Hold this, you stuck-up bitch.”

“Fresh meat gettin uppity.”

“Little skank. Who the hell do you think you are?”

“Why, don't you boys know who I am?” Meryl thrust open her cloak. Five pairs of eyes widened as one.

“I'm Derringer Meryl,” she said, and threw down.

 

---

 

It has come to my attention, Meryl, that you wish to learn the fine art and science of firearms. Is this true?

(Deep in the moment and full of awareness she slows her breathing, separates every heartbeat into a slow tolling like that of the massive city courthouse bell)

Yes, Grandma, Meryl said.

How old are you, child?

I turned thirteen, three days ago.

(Surprise is on her side but won't be for long. She's not exactly intimidating and she chose the derringer for its small size and light weight, not its stopping power)

Your mother would say this is a skill inappropriate for a proper young lady.

This is a dangerous world, Meryl said, and a lady, young or old, must be able to defend herself.

Your grandfather would say that this time would be better spent on your studies.

(Her first round goes through the instep of the pocket pervert's right foot, the next through the fold of his pants between his thigh and his crotch. Both shots get his attention. She releases the expired derringer and for a moment it hangs in the air beside its raised and aimed sibling)

I respect Grandpa's wishes, and I'll work doubly hard at school to make the time.

Your father would say, Grandma said, that you should be learning his business to follow in his footsteps someday.

(The boys' makeshift skirmish line breaks under her steady fire. Smoking punk holds the wrist of a twice-perforated hand and she notes with satisfaction that he screams like a little girl. Two of the others are already in fast retreat, limping from the lead souvenirs she leaves in each of the boys' rumps. But in the corner of her eye the last boy)

I need follow in no one's footsteps, Meryl said. Not my father's, not my mother's, not my grandfather's.

Not even mine?

(throws his knife at eye level, which is a problem because she could miss and put a bullet through his forehead, she's no killer so she waits, watching the blade spin through the air, until the angle is just right shootmissdamnshoot—tink!—and the knife bounces straight up)

With all due respect, ma'am, no. Not even yours.

Give me your hand, child.

(Exhilarated, reveling in her grandmother's imparted knowledge she empties three derringers at the knife and it dances like a drop of water on a hot griddle, the last shot splits it in half and the shards fall, useless. She draws again, aiming at the last punk's groin and the dark stain spreading there)

Meryl obeyed, and exulted at the touch of the derringer's warm nickel plating.

When you have earned this, Grandma said, it will be yours.

 

---

 

When the last punk had fled, Meryl held the spent derringer on her palm.

“Thank you, Grandma,” she said. Disaster averted, Meryl shook herself from her trance and went about collecting her dropped weapons. When she bent down her bus ticket fell from her pocket.

Darn it all. Had to be close to seven by now. Long trip to Inepril but she'd be able to get some sleep.

Meryl plucked the ticket and her last derringer from the alley floor, and when she stood it was as if a flashbulb went off in her eyes. From the roof. Should've covered the roof…

Through darkening sight she saw the rock that struck her head bounce off a door and tumble down the stairs beneath it. There was a whistling in her ears, urgent and fierce, further and further away…

 

---

 

At some point, Milly stops screaming.

The gang's gigantic boss, more metal than flesh, inflicts the worst agony, and one after another, the men have their way with them. She spares a glance at her poor friend, but watching these thugs do to Milly what is being done to her is somehow worse than suffering in kind. She looks away, and doesn't stop screaming.

An eternity later the gang, sated and exhausted at last, withdraws, laughing and whooping like fans at a professional dodgeball game.

She's a mess. Stockings in tatters, tangled around her ankles. Blood and semen trickle down her lacerated legs. Bruised cheek, swollen lip. She searches the gaps in her teeth with a thrice-bitten tongue. She can no longer feel her bound hands.

A man approaches Milly. What happens next is hidden behind the curtain of her clotted black hair but her hearing is quite unimpaired. Milly makes a sound, her feet shuffle and twitch. Milly struggles, stops, still.

The man comes to her, grabs a handful of her hair, lifts her head. The knife across her throat is a blessing.

 

---

 

Their captors scatter when the instrument of their betrayal smashes through the saloon door. She sees her chance and thrusts her body over the bar. Milly follows. Good girl, that Milly. Keeps her head in a crisis.

Bullets fly and bottles shatter. She gets her hands around a shard of broken glass. Two more innocents in the bar, two more people who need help so she has to work fast. Milly has the same idea. But when the gunfire stops she knows it's too late. The first attacker comes around the bar.

He licks his pistol and takes aim. His first shot snaps Milly's head back. His second and third shots punch through her own chest. She falls back, letting her life's essence flow over her neck.

Idiot…I'm still breathing…

He amends his mistake. The knife splits her sternum, and knocks the wind out of her, forever.

 

---

 

The Bad Lads get away, and there's nothing more to be done. The steamer passes the edge of the canyon, and for a moment she feels as if she's flying.

Milly looks at her, face serene, tears alight under the brilliant moons. Milly nods, releases her hold on the handrail.

Understanding, she does the same, and takes Milly's hand in hers. It's a long way down.

 

---

 

At some point, bound and helpless under a sky the color of an infected wound, surrounded by armed men with mindless eyes, she wonders if the job really is worth her life. She hears the heavy report of a large caliber handgun, and stops wondering.

 

---

 

“Meryl? Meryl? Wake up, Meryl.”

The section chief of the Disaster Investigation Division lifts her head from her arms and blinks her eyes. The taste of cheap glue fills her mouth. Three piles of sealed envelopes rest on her desk blotter.

“Hello, Karen,” she says, and stretches. “What are you doing here so late?”

Karen puts her hands on her hips. “You work for me, remember? I have to set a good example.” She glances at the clock on the wall of Meryl's office. “Except that my babysitter was expecting me an hour ago and that selfish lout of an ex-husband isn't answering his phone. So I'm cutting you loose for the night.”

Meryl picks up her fountain pen. The document under her hands bears a jagged, wet smear of ink.

“These reports—”

“Will wait until tomorrow. Honestly, Meryl, you'd think this job was your whole life. Take it from a single mother of two little boys. It isn't.” Karen taps her face with her index finger. “Interesting makeup job, by the way. You'll never catch a man looking like that.”

The Chief brushes her cheek. Her fingertips come away black.

“By the way, Meryl, what were you dreaming about?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“I heard you talking in your sleep. It sounded like you were saying `Vash…Vash…' over and over again.”

“Oh.” Meryl nudges her left hand file drawer closed with her foot. Her copy of the latest issue of Tales of the Wasteland was tucked between Tabinsky, A. and Tertulli, F. Young Miss Tertulli was the current occupant of her old desk. “I don't know. I guess I've forgotten already.”

“Honestly, Meryl, don't you know Vash the Stampede is just a myth?”

“Yes. Of course I do.”

“Of course you do.” Karen winks. “Just don't let me catch you reading on company time, all right?”

“Yes, ma'am.” Meryl searches the walls of her office. Frames filled with honors earned reflect the dull light of the cheap bulb in her desk lamp. Her boss, her predecessor in this job, vacated the position when he died of a heart attack ten years ago. Karen put in a good word for her. That she was dating the Chief's boss at the time hadn't hurt, either.

Karen rolls her eyes and smiles.

“Whatever, Stryfe. Now go home.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Meryl says, and locks her desk.

In her apartment ten blocks from the Bernardelli Building Meryl shuts the door behind her. She crouches to pick up the mail and rifles through the envelopes. Bill, bill, may have just won a million double dollars, bill bill bill…

And a letter from her parents.

Meryl turns the battered envelope. Mother and Father live just across town, strange enough they'd send a letter. The address was right, but—a Promontory postmark? She drops her keys and the stack of mail on her endtable.

In the kitchen Meryl pores through the cabinets. Half a bag of rice, two bags of sugar and coffee. Some curry and cooking oil. In the icebox she finds some reasonably fresh vegetables and a package of chicken. Stir fry. Again. Meryl prepares her meal and eats it at the square kitchen table, alone.

Refreshed by a bath Meryl dries her hair. She glances in the mirror and plucks a gray hair from her scalp. She pushes on her pillowy cheeks, one adorned by a black smear that did not quite come clean. Crow's feet crease the corners of her eyes. She dresses in her old nightshirt, smoothes the fabric over the swivel chair spread that made its home on her hips.

In the living room she sits on the couch, thumbs through her trashy romance novel to the bookmark on page two hundred seventy-five. After reading the first sentence for the tenth time, Meryl sets the book on the coffee table. She grabs a throw pillow, holds it to her chest like a mother holding a crying baby.

Her reports tell the tale. Two of her people gone in a single month. One, lost in a vicious steamer robbery near Lottenberg Canyon that left two hundred dead, the other—her last communiqué placed her in LR. Since then, nothing.

That city was a ghost town now, full of feral pets and children, empty of all the adults who'd cared for them. Meryl reaches for the bottle of September Sauterne on the coffee table. She pours the wine into a glass that was clean three days ago, left it half-empty in a single long drink. There were things in the world to make one afraid, mysteries best left unexplored. Sending young people with more guts than sense into that wasteland of death and ignorance was her job.

For ten years now. Good God, has it been that long? An entire decade of hiring fresh-faced, bright-eyed children, pushing them out of the nest and hoping they had enough training to fly. Ten years of standing on the steamer dock, waiting for one, sometimes two of her kids to come home in caskets, signing the paperwork, handing the bodies over to the grieving parents.

Milly, her old junior partner, was wise to get out when she did. Found a good man, got married, eight kids in ten years. All that time she and Milly hardly ever talked, writing short letters and sending Christmas cards back and forth. She has the kids' pictures somewhere, tucked away in a shoebox with the rest of Milly's correspondence.

The last of Milly's children had been too much for her. Still, ten good years away from Bernardelli—Meryl almost envies her departed friend. Maybe she should take some time off and go see her old partner's kids, grace the children with a visit from their jolly old-before-her-time, overworked, underpaid auntie.

Why not, she thinks, looking at her closed bedroom door. The only man she'd ever loved was a myth.

Meryl squirms at the pain lancing through her chest. Too much curry in the stir-fry, maybe, but it was getting stale and it seemed a shame to let it go to waste—

The lance blunts itself into a heavy pressure and an ache that flows down her left arm.

No. No, no, no…

The section chief of the Disaster Investigation Division of the Bernardelli Insurance Society staggers to her feet, clutching her left arm as if it will drop from her shoulder. Phone. The phone is only a few steps away, that's it, one at a time. One at a time…have the operator send an ambulance… A weak, wayward step catches the leg of her coffee table. The sauterne bottle tumbles to the floor, filling the room with the scent of sweet alcohol that mingles with the ammonia stench of the fresh urine trickling down her leg. Her bladder had given way. How embarrassing…how embarrassing to be found like this…

She stumbles and falls. Pain grips her chest and arm, rising, rising on a ragged bluff to the edge of an abyss…too late, too late, and the phone might as well be a galaxy away—

 

---

 

And when her chest explodes, it's almost a relief.

Bereft of the strength imparted by her now silent heart, Meryl's legs buckle. The face of her killer is lost in the smoky glare of the twin suns but she knows the look. The tears on his face are not for her. The horror is.

That's all right, she thinks as her body pitches forward into the dust. Dying isn't so bad when you have something, someone worth dying for.

But as the world of the living goes dark she is seized by a cold regret, and the possibility she will bear this remorse into whatever destiny awaited her soul for eternity fills her with emptiness as real as the hole in her still and cooling breast.

Mother…Father…

 

---

 

And when she opened her eyes at last, Meryl tried to sit up but her head was full of red-hot broken glass and she sagged back onto the bed. From its metal hanger a bag of fluid emptied its contents drop by drop through a tube that disappeared under the sleeve of the loose robe she was wearing. A tangle of wires emerged through its wide neck and disappeared behind her head. A quiet beeping noise came from above, marking time with her heart.

Hospital, she thought. Whistles. The constabulary had found her first. Meryl sighed, full of relief and languid pleasure despite the searing pain behind her eyes.

To her right the window was open. A cool, almost chilly breeze full of flower scent nudged the gossamer curtains. Sunlight the color of a faded photograph filled the room. These were the one-sun days, when one of their stars passed in front of the other, bound together by gravity in a celestial hoedown.

Beside the window was a pair of chairs. Mother and Father sat there, leaning on one another, fast asleep. Their hands met over the arms, fingers intertwined.

Father needs a shave, Meryl thought, and though she remembered little from her Earth history classes one image came immediately to mind, as if she'd been transported across the years and light years to witness it firsthand, of how her ancestors harnessed the free flowing water of their world to generate power. Dams they were called, those walls of metal and concrete that held back the flood and raised up the land, but sometimes the force of rain and nature were too great and the mighty barriers gave way, unable to bear the terrible pressure any longer.

Like a dam Meryl's heart broke, and for a moment the pain of release dwarfed the jagged agony in her mind but the water rushed over the barren desert and filled the deep canyons and empty places the terrors of her nightmares had left behind.

When the water receded and she was able to breathe and speak, Meryl chose the only two words that made any sense.

“I'm sorry,” she said, and waited for her parents to wake.

 

---

 

The Ship's outer door slammed into place like the stone lid of an old Earth pharaoh's tomb. A single sun dawn, so earthlike it made Vash nostalgic for the recreation deck, was rising. He smashed the travois and scattered the pieces, hoisted his knapsack over one shoulder, one of the water jugs on a rope sling over the other. The water was tasteless but free of poisons. There was no way Knives could've overridden Vash's program, but it was best to be sure.

Vash stepped away from the Ship and, squinting at the sun, thumbed his earring comlink.

“Laputa Base, Laputa Base, this is Wandering Kid, do you read me?” The crackle of static in his ear gave way to a familiar, friendly voice.

“Wandering Kid, this is Laputa Base reading you loud and clear.”

“The knife has been sheathed. I say again, the knife has been sheathed.”

“I understand, son. It's good beyond words to hear from you again. I hope you're right.”

“So do I.” Vash gave his friend and mentor an estimated time of arrival, pointed himself at the proper angle from the sun, and stepped forward. In all his life, he'd never felt so light on his feet.

“It's over, Doc,” he said. “I'm coming home.”

---

Author's Afterword

Well. Of all the chapters I've written so far this was the most problematic, and has been since the very first lines were typed. I'd have to say that at least ninety percent of my editing efforts over the last two years have been focused on this segment of Meryl's story. To tell the truth I still don't think I got it right, but this is the best I have. It's either publish or grow old trying to make it perfect.

I hope my warning at the beginning of the chapter was taken seriously. I've never agreed with the (apparently!) widely held belief in fanfiction that it's the author's duty to protect the fragile sensibilities of his readers, except in the broadest possible way with a content rating. In this chapter I've confronted some unspeakably ugly aspects of human behavior and I will continue to do so in later postings.

I offer no apologies. To paraphrase a great, albeit fictional, wise man, life is pain. Anyone who tells you different is selling you something.

Next: The Insurance Girls Gang rides again! Meryl and Milly go out on the town.