“Good, let's work on keeping the front entry clear. We better get back for the toast and the exchange of gifts.” Jason smeared the melted mixture across the concrete block.
“Damn it. I don't want to go back. There will be something meaningful and special given to me. I will be forced to dwell on this day forever.” I threw my hands in the air and watched the solidified mix of melted mash-up float and glint in the last of the twilight.
Jason wrapped his arms around me from behind and rested his jaw on my head. I could smell his light cologne and the fabric rinse in his clothes. It calmed me almost instantly.
“How do you do that?” I asked.
“Do what?” he asked defensively.
“Calm me down so quickly.”
“Ah, they pull all the men aside and teach us that technique in our human interactions class,” he joked.
“You're an idiot.” I pinched the slight roll of baby fat that popped over the waistband of his jeans.
Jason hammed it up all the way home. He claimed to be brutally injured, but I was not buying it.
Our conversation turned to the stars and his superpower to magically turn on the streetlights. They are on timers, so it's more power of observation and timing your dramatic pointing towards the lights. Admittedly, I enjoy my time with Jason, and I miss him a little too much when he's gone from my sight.
DREDGE
“Edgar, may I speak with you privately? I have a proposition for you,” Dredge said, holding out his hand to me.
Dredge was an old family friend. His parents and mine would spend Saturday nights together playing cards and drinking until all hours of the night. My mother's humor was always a bit off-color. She joked that Dredge and I were switched at birth, which was impossible. Dredge is two years older.
“Well, you are cutting it pretty close to the wire. I can almost feel the hot flames at my feet,” I said, laughing.
“I accept what you have chosen to do, and I appreciate the physical pain you are in, but I would like you and Constance to live out your years as I'm doing,” Dredge explained.
“You aren't falling apart like I am, Old Man. Besides, you have your grandchild to care for. Our children take care of our grandchildren—even our youngest one is almost settled. We have nothing to concern ourselves with anymore.”
“Yes, Karine, she is another matter I need to resolve,” Dredge grumbled.
“Resolve? What the hell are you talking about?” I set my glass down on a nearby table and crossed my arms. “My grandson agreed to stay local, to stay away from the Guard, if he can convince Karine to marry him. The boy believes he is in love with her.”
“You think this idea of his is so farfetched, the love part I mean.”
“No, of course not, but love is not a good basis for marriage. Not for original families. I have no contractual obligation to marry him off to an original twenty. He can choose his bride, but I lost my daughter to the Guard. I won't have him join.” Dredge's passion for the task was easy to see. His grandson’s well-being tainted his normally calm demeanor.
“Hmm, so you want me, on my last day on this spinning brown dot, to give you my youngest granddaughter, so she can anchor your boy to a safer life path,” I confirmed.
“Yes, I want you to stay here a few more years and give me your granddaughter. You already gave me your son for my lab. He worked out splendidly. He has a gifted brain.”
“He's my son-in-law, and I didn't think he would turn out to be this useful. This isn't the dark ages Dredge. I can't give you a human being.”
“Of course, not literally, but you could join me, join my family line. I cangive your lineage my name, my protection from the government in the years to come. You could...”
“Yes, “I interrupted. “I could do damn near anything I please in the next 24 hours, but why do I need to? Why is this so urgent?”
“I can't share that information.” Dredge clutched his hand over his chest andseated himself on the chair next to me.
“Come on,” I pressured. “I'll be dead by this time tomorrow. What harm would it do? Unburden yourself, Old Man.”
“You can't breathe a word. And I'm not exaggerating here, not a word.” Dredge warned, rising from his chair and blocking my view of the room.
“All right, enough of your bullshit already. I understand.”
“When you left the business, we had a direction. The space elevators and crews constructing the substations were working in unison. The whole planet joined together in the common goal of getting our people to another habitable planet.”
“Yes, and that is still the worldwide goal,” I stated firmly, folding my arms across my chest.
“No, it's not. The plans have failed. We haven't found a viable planet to colonize. Nothing is reachable within the current human life cycle. We will need a generational voyage to reach the nearest planet with a habitable zone.”
“But Dredge, we will be out of water in fifty years. That's a fact. Our planet's water is almost gone.”
“Afew comets can be harvested, and some other conservation efforts will be put into effect. The primary shelter in place format will be imposed. We don't have the propulsion technology needed to find a new planet in time without...”
“Without what?” I demanded.
“A second quell.” Dredge whispered reverently. “We would need to thin the population by fifty percent.”
“No, no, we are above murder as a society. We don't kill our citizens anymore. There is no reason for it.”
“Your life celebration, they are coming back into fashion. Tradition is fashionable. Have you considered why?” Dredge probed.
“I don't pay attention to marketing and money-grabbing nonsense.”
“No, it's media management to help explain why only the original twenty families and their charges are living in
