Faint lattice of silver, just below the skin. It crawled from fingertips to palm to wrist. He spun an overhead monitor into the light, saw even in the reflection of the dead display that the silver was working its way underneath the skin above his skull.
Lilith sobbed as she activated the shield mechanism on her cardiac plate. The phase gelatin engulfed her form as she stood from the vacuum chair. “Hunter, I—”
“No, it’s not—”
“I’m so—”
“It’s not your fault!” He cried out as the silver gave one last twinge in his head that brought him to his knees. “It’s not your fault.” The pain subsided as Lilith’s shielding provided a buffer between his flesh and her affliction.
She knelt at his side, dragging the slosh of phase behind and around her.
“It’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.”
Hunter nodded, although he knew that their love would kill him.
“We’ll meet up with a galleon. We’ll find a way to hide you. We’ll split up. I can take the Fleet back to Earth and—”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“You have to. When she finds out that we’re off-target—”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Lilith.”
“Hunter.”
The phase shield was an echoing frustration. He longed to hold her, reassure her. The silver wouldn’t allow any contact at all very soon.
“Our first concern right now is to outrun the Rebecca.”
“We can’t outrun them. We’ll have to fight.”
“Are you willing to kill a destroyer of humans?”
She tripped over words. Heart pounded beneath cardiac plate. “It would appear I have been all along.”
“Lily—” He exhaled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“I know.”
“We’ll find a way to end this.”
“We will.”
“Us.”
“Just us.”
They flew into the void, machinery of night and war, wounded soldiers without certainty, grasping what hope they could from the dream of ending the jihad of silver.
“What’s that?”
He placed the Bic micro metal black ink pen on the countertop, reached for his cup. Slow sip, clink, napkin to lips.
“Just something.”
She smiled, releasing solitary dimple, hiding her eyes. “It’s a new book.”
“Nope.”
“Yes it is! What’s it about?”
“It’s not a new book.”
“A short story?”
He tapped the pen against the counter. “I don’t know.”
“You have to know what it is.”
“It’s something.”
“A journal?”
“Do you remember when you first came here?”
The shop was empty, past closing time. He wrote while she made order of cups and saucers, filled sugar dispensers. He’d helped her put the chairs on the tabletops earlier. She walked around to his side of the counter, took the stool next to him. Her eyes studied the floor, the pen, his hands. Not his eyes, old eyes now gray, old eyes now buried in furrows of wrinkle and thought.
“Yes.”
He reached, took her hands in his. Gently, so gently raised them to lips, traced knuckle and fingertip, slid over ring and ring. He tilted her face up with fingertips layered in callus, guitar callus of decades and night. Her bottom lip trembled, mouth opened to say something, anything. He kissed her cheek.
“I knew it would happen…I wrote about it months before it happened. Something inside me knew.”
“Paul, I’m—”
“No.” They embraced. He spoke into hair and ear. “Sweet girl.”
“Please know.”
“I know. And I knew. And I knew that we’d be together again, someday, somehow.” He pulled back, tip of nose meeting tip of nose. “And now I know something else.”
“The journal?”
“Something’s been speaking to me for years. Long before they found her, long before the wars and the troubles. I hear it in the night, in the loss, in the stillness, in the—”
“Silver.”
He nodded. “It’s gotten worse since it’s begun. Since she’s begun.”
Susan thought of the intersections of that day: the young engaged couple: soldier and silver ring, the author and his girlfriend: Deus Ex and Demian, the man with a white curl.
“‘And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.’”
“Hmm?”
“Gatsby.” He found double-meaning in her response.
“I’m sorry I didn’t dance with you.”
“Stop it.” She grinned.
“This is where the fish lives.”
“I have come again—”
“To wound the autumnal city.” Her smile was wide, forgiving, forever. “Delany’s going to sue you someday.”
They laughed, and it was good.
She pulled back from their embrace, tangle of arms, warmth of bodies, scent of coffee, sound of raindrops. Eyes tear-wet, blinking. Blinking.
“Please know, Paul.”
“I know.” He closed the blank book, left in mid-sentence. “I’ll finish this journal another day.”
They walked into the unsteady night, clouds lifting to reveal a sky of stars and starships, the men of war within the machinery that would take them beyond heaven, beyond time and tomorrow. They walked into the night, knowing that it was time, almost time, almost time. Their hands clasped tightly under stars, under stars.
“Susan?”
“Yes?” Blue-green eyes in the light of the moon. Dimple.
“I love You.”
And in these final moments, in this final terror, I find stillness.
I remember her eyes.
They give me silence, the pause to reflect, the stillness that exists between two old souls brought together
