Orpheus | Installment Thirteen – Unveiling

“Of the dead twinkled at me from above.
The intimate domain of memory
Became an endless field of entropy
Transfigured, inking in the outlines of

Eurydice entombed, Orpheus immured,
And, in the center of their universe,
That subtler diadem of stars obscured
By the brighter constellations, the Hearse.”

– What the Stars Meant, by John Koethe, 2002

Unveiling

“Two there shall be; no more, no less. One to embody the dark side, the other to crave it.”
― Drew Karpyshyn, Path of Destruction

When Lisa and Mike retreated to the disconnected room that had almost morphed into their second home, silence filled the space and the air around them felt static, charged with electricity. Both were strangely calm, and Lisa especially had witnessed Mike keep his cool to a level that had made her wonder if he had truly realized what was happening to them. Either he didn’t or he was too shocked and was completely frozen.

He was neither.

She realized it the moment he stopped mid-track and stood by the locked door, one hand on the doorknob, the other one resting on the smooth metal surface. His head lowered and she saw him take a deep, tired breath. She noticed how his shoulders slumped forward, as if the weight of the world was pushing him down.

“Mike…”

“Take off your clothes, Lise.”

His voice, dark and hoarse, hid something that she had never heard before. She was not sure if she was ready for this, yet her body reacted right away, as if called by a siren. Her skin tingled and he hadn’t even touched her yet. The longing she had felt for him while she was in San Francisco had been staggering and now washed over her once again, threatening to drown her. She had missed him beyond belief – his voice, his skin, his physical presence. His absence had been a thread that had colored all the moments she had spent away. It had stitched them together.

Without a word, she started unbuttoning her shirt, her eyes still on him. Her fingers trembled.

He turned and his gaze burned her. He set his jaw and his eyes followed the movement of her hands, scorching her.

She couldn’t entirely decipher the expression on his face. He looked… mad? Was he angry at her all of a sudden, now? It was hard to guess. Whatever mask he had decided to wear had snapped into place, and nothing unequivocal transpired. At one point he frowned and walked over to her, grabbing her by the wrists, hiding his eyes from her. Lisa didn’t know if he needed to move things along or stop her altogether. What she did know was that she didn’t fear him. His cheekbones were flushed, as if arousal, need and sudden hesitation were all ingredients thrown in the same cauldron.

Lisa acted on pure instinct. Her heart drumming in her chest, she reached up and touched the side of his face ever so slightly. The gesture had meant to be comforting, but she was not sure it worked. What happened next was a blur, a whirlwind. Whatever it was that ailed Mike, it dragged her in too and she got lost in it.

In him.

He roughly finished unbuttoning her shirt as she started fumbling with his zipper, pulling it down, undoing his belt. She heard the clinking sound of the buckles as she managed to lower his jeans down on his hips. He grew impatient and a couple of buttons of her shirt came flying, and at that point Mike hooked his fingers in her pants and yanked her closer to him.

Lisa collided with his body. Warm, solid. Hard. He was turned on as all get out, and the heat he emanated threatened to reduce her to ashes. They stared at each other for a moment, both panting, then he kissed her hard. Taking what was left of her breath away. With a will of their own, her hands found their way around his torso, searching his skin, getting rid of his t-shirt as quickly as possible. When she finally was able to rest her palms on his naked chest, over his heart, she felt as if she had just emerged from underwater. She could breathe again.

It was then that Lisa finally realized that what Mike felt wasn’t rage. Or, if he was indeed furious, his anger was not directed at her. What she now perceived clearly was his utter desperation and fear of losing himself, her and what they had and had become. That was the curse of love – the terror of being deprived of it.

They didn’t even manage to reach the bed. Her g-string was ripped off her with a breathless curse and before she could fully understand what was happening, he had already lifted her from the floor, her body moving in autopilot, her legs wrapping around his hips, her hand coming down and in between them, freeing him, grabbing him hard, massaging him. Lisa shivered, the feel of him heady and intoxicating. Whatever it was that he needed, she needed it too.

He closed his eyes and allowed himself a moment of quiet stillness while his fingers replicated her gesture, finding and tracing her burning heat. He opened his eyes again and she saw the urgency shimmering in hers, too. Her eyes were calling out to her. Was could she do? Nothing. She could only surrender. It was what she wanted.

“Girl… I gotta do it… I gotta have you…right now…”

“Here… I’m here, baby…” Her voice merely a whisper. “…Take me.”

He lifted her just enough for her to position him where he had to be. Their eyes locked and she almost lost focus when his hardness touched her. And then he was inside and they were lost in another universe, where all that meant was them and nobody and nothing else existed. No traitors, no games, no liars, no tricks.

Standing by the bed, Mike didn’t even need any leverage to take her. He started to move and she just clung to him, meeting his slow, powerful thrusts, her fingernails scraping his shoulders, the back of his neck.

Lisa’s head spun. She was drunk on him, all her senses were absorbing him. She found his mouth again, needing to feel him there, too, and kissed him hard, her tongue stroking his. The little whimper he let out against her lips almost made her climax there and then. Yet she wanted this to last, to never end. She tried hard to distract herself from the intense pleasure that bordered on pain by tracing a path of kisses from his mouth to his neck, sucking on his skin, then moving further down, biting his shoulder.

Mike moaned, and the sound came out louder than he had imagined. His jabs became sharper and his pace intensified. Lisa’s nibbled at the slippery skin of his throat, whimpering. His scent and flavor were intoxicating. His sighs and moans of pleasure the auditory equivalent of a different world, a better one. A freer one. Accompanied by the seductive sounds of their lovemaking, the visions came back in full force, in splashes of colors and buzzing vibrations, confirming what Miss Oshi had told them earlier that evening.

“Something unexpected, unpredictable happened. You were never hallucinating. What you both have been experiencing seems to be vivid memories connected to real events in the lives of your originals. Call it a domino effect.” Miss Oshi’s voice was velvety and calm.

“Your visions are the same because those two people shared so much with one another… According to their history and the documents even I have read, they were very connected. Your DNA looks almost imprinted, and that is something unforeseeable even for modern science. I believe all the missing pieces will fall into place…. You hold the key. It’s only a matter of time.”

Time.

Right now, the only thing that mattered to Mike were Lisa’s thighs holding him prisoner. Whatever his life was or would become, he knew that he had never experienced anything more real than this. His legs burned as he kept thrusting into her with force, and he welcomed the stinging pain in his straining body. It made him feel alive, human. He just wanted to lose himself in her, and he did.

“I think whoever has created you is afraid of the same thing. That you’ll end up remembering everything… and if that happens, they won’t have any more power over you… I’ve studied your… originals, but I am not going to say anything specific. It’s not my place to do that. I think it’s up to you, to draw your conclusions about who those people were, especially to one another. I think you’ve been influenced enough by whoever put this thing in motion…”

Akira was chewing on a licorice stick. He seemed to have an endless stockpile of snacks hidden in his pockets.

“Yeah… Plus, love stories are always complicated. Only those involved know what they’re really about.”

His grandmother ignored him and her eyes kept moving from Mike to Lisa.

“Think about who these people might be… about who might be involved in this… let’s call it game, for lack of better words. Whoever they are, it is highly improbable that they’ll want to let you go.”

“Let us go? We’re people, not pets. We’re not… prisoners…” Lisa’s face displayed the concoction of contrasting feelings that she felt.

Akira scratched the back of his neck.

“No, technically you aren’t. But you gotta be careful there. There are so many ways to keep people hooked.”

“What does the law say ‘bout clones?”

Mike spoke up almost abruptly. He was trying to see the whole thing from another perspective. It was hard to think about himself – and Lisa – as something different than ordinary human beings.

“Is there any?” Akira was grinning, but it almost looked like a grimace. The man was nervous, Mike could tell.  His body language was clear, he kept fidgeting. “I don’t think so. In fact, cloning human beings for personal purposes is illegal… for now. There’s still some pretense of scientific ethics, at least formally. But like I said, you guys are worth a shitload of money. Puppet masters stay in the shadows because they don’t wanna be exposed… they know their precious packages would likely be taken away from them…”

“Taken away… where?” Lisa narrowed her eyes.

“I’m not sure. But you two are something. I bet the government would be interested in you… in how your brain works… Get what I mean? Two perfect clones, replicas of people whose entire existences have basically been pulverized for some sick political agenda… clones who remember, no less. You don’t only look like your originals. You somehow are them. Don’t you think it would be kinda interesting for some scientist to pick and scan your smarts and find out how that happened?”

Mike stared at his own hands, clasped in his lap. Like lab rats. The hypothesis Akira was painting so vividly in front of their eyes was staggering. And maybe not paranoid at all, considering the mere existence of a forsaken list. Which was absurd in itself.

“So, you know… it’s not that whoever created you can simply go to the police and say that you guys are missing. Help me officer, I’ve lost my clones!” Akira was being sarcastic. It couldn’t be more obvious. “I mean, they can if they want, but if I were them I would never take that chance. Building a fake-ass day-to-day life is possible… but only if you manage to fly under the radar, without drawing too much attention.”

“Which is not bad, if you think about it. If we leave, they can’t stop us.”

“No, Mike, unless…” Miss Oshi leaned back in her chair. “Unless they still have some sort of hold over you. Like Akira said.”

Lisa shook her head, stubbornly.

“There’s nothing they can do. I know who I am. And as soon as I find out who they are, I’m gonna lay them out cold for what they did to us.”

Mike needed to move.

Still holding Lisa in his arms, still inside her body, he took a couple of long steps toward the closest wall and pinned her there. He wasn’t gentle. She wasn’t either. There was nothing soft in their lovemaking, at the moment. It was urgent, frantic and desperate. As if having each other that way could somehow exorcise and erase the insanity of it all. Their entire lives – made of lies. As if loving each other, possessing each other, could anchor them to reality. After all, how could all of this be unreal? This desire, this passion, this intense feeling of belonging to someone – just because of love. And then the longing, the lust, the jealousy of imagining the other with someone else. All human feelings. Nothing imaginary. Nothing cloned or replicated in a lab.

“Shit… Oh my God…” Once again, Lisa bit down on his shoulder and he winced. The stinging pain yanking him back to reality for a moment as he drove into her furiously. Her labored breath in his ear spun his desire into a frenzy. Her dirty words prompted him to keep going. It was all he wanted to do. “Fuck me, baby… Oh, shit… I can’t stand it anymore.”

He felt her body begin to tremble and surged into her, stilling his movements and allowing her to take her own pleasure.

“There you go… come for me, baby girl… Let me feel you…”

Mike chewed on his lip.

“Akira… your grandmother said you could find out who these people are…”

The huge samurai-looking guy looked unsure only for a moment.

“Well, I can do some cross-checking… and see if something odd pops up… Yeah. I think I can do it, no problem.”

“OK… then… Lisa’s right. Check my firm. The company I work for… Their associates, stakeholders… everything. Everyone.”

He felt Lisa’s cool hand cover his own.

“And my… parents, too,” she added.

“Sure… I got some pretty good machines and some pretty cool friends. It won’t take long.” Akira stayed quiet for a minute. His eyes moved from Mike to Lisa. “And once we know who these fuckers are, I think you guys should just get the fuck outta here.”

“You mean leaving New York?” Mike asked.

“I mean leaving the freakin’ planet! If I were you, I’d move to one of those pretty, cloned little things orbiting around the Earth and start again… Clean slate.” He sneered, but the smirk never reached his eyes. “It would be appropriate in so many ways…”

Lisa’s pleasure became the fuse to his own dynamite.

“Fuck! I’m about to come… I can’t hold it any longer… Oh, God…”

Mike’s voice came out strangled, forced between gritted teeth and he squeezed his eyes shut, his head falling back. He thrust upward with such force that, for a moment, he thought he could hurt her. But Lisa was fine. In fact, she was right there with him. Her climax was tearing him to pieces, unleashing even more pleasure in his ultra-sensitive nerve endings. Her face stayed in the crook of his neck, her arms held him tight around his shoulders. He felt her quiver. Her muscles spasmed and he dissolved in pure light. He became a nebula.

He fisted his hand in her hair and pulled her head back, finding her eyes as he released into her. She was all he saw.

“I love you… oh damnit… I love you so much, Lise…”

She said something in return, but he couldn’t make out her words. It didn’t matter. His soul heard them all, loud and clear. Yeah. He understood what she meant. She too was looking for a lifeline. Just like him, Lisa was afraid to be falling overboard.

Lisa shrugged.

“It makes sense. But I wanna know everything… “ Despite her collected attitude, pain and confusion were evident on her face. “About who we were… our originals…”

“You can’t. Your AA pass doesn’t work anymore, remember?” Akira pointed out.

“Well, maybe we can do something about that.” Miss Oshi stood up and went to the nearby cabinet, looking for some glasses and a bottle. She poured everyone some wine. “Lisa doesn’t need to go to the Purgatory to see those files. I can ask Cromer to smuggle something up here… for her. I think she has the right to see where her visions come from… and not only rely on Micha- …Mike’s perception and memories. They would be partial anyway.”

“Thank you…”

Lisa took the glass placed in front of her and downed her wine in a couple of long gulps. Wanting so much to get drunk and forget about everything for a while.

Miss Oshi eyed the empty glass and refilled it, without commenting.

“You’re welcome. Cromer will probably need a few days to arrange everything, but I’m confident it can be done.”

“Well… if we gonna decide where to go next and how, I think we’re gonna need a moment anyway…” Mike sighed.

“You think you can afford it?” Akira raised an eyebrow. “Moving to those nice little planets is not cheap, man…”

Lisa and Mike exchanged a glance. Their originals were wealthy and powerful. But them? Their future counterparts? Not so much. It was irony at its finest. The only power they had inherited was the one that hid within themselves.

“We’ll find a way…” She muttered. She just had to find out how.

He sank against her body, breathing heavily, still twitching inside of her, sending delicious aftershocks of pure pleasure. His eyes closed, he swallowed and focused on the fluttering of her muscles, the heat coming from her skin, the scent of love wrapped like a blanket around them both. He felt alive. He was alive. The little kisses Lisa bestowed on his temple, forehead, jawline framed a heart-shattering picture and right then, right there, everything was perfect. She kept saying how much she loved him.

“You have no idea… You just don’t know, Mike…”

And she indeed wondered if he knew how she felt. As if her love for him had doubled in size and intensity. That love from the past joining what she felt right now. There was nothing she could do about it. It was simply how it was. Although what was left of the woman she had once been felt still foggy and partial, the emotions and feelings rushing over her were sharp like razors. The original Miss Presley must have taken those with her and cherished them forever.

An inscription on a vase full of silk sunflowers, carefully arranged.

“I will always love you. Eternally.

L.”

The sense of emptiness. The pain. Both unbearable.

He backed off slightly and found the deep blue of her eyes. A clean ocean. They were moist and mysterious and he didn’t know what emotions swirled in there. Lisa cradled his face in her small hands and rested her forehead against his.

“Stay where you are… I know you wanna stay right there.”

He had to smile.

She was right. And despite the powerful trip to the sun, he could feel that his steel was still branding her. It was all part of the magic, and now Mike knew – if his sensations and visions were correct – that their originals had been under the same spell a long time ago. Keeping himself sheathed inside of her, marveling at how he fit into her body like a glove, he walked backward and sat on the carpet, leaning his back against the bed. Straddling his lap, still keeping him encased in her comforting warmth, Lisa snuggled against his chest and kissed his sweaty skin.

“You wanna stay here on the floor?”

“Yeah…” He was still breathless and felt a bit dizzy.

“OK… I guess we can do that.”

He felt her smile and kissed her head.

“Forever?”

“Sure… if you’ll have me…”

His heart constricted in his chest. He had to see her face. Gently, he tilted her chin up to him and stared at her for a moment, before the pull of her lips became too strong to be ignored. Gosh… Her lips felt so soft against his own. Maybe staying right there on that carpet, in that tiny bedroom, until the end of time was not a bad idea.

“You think we can really do that?” Lisa was still leaning into him, her voice soft. Her eyes were looking up and scanning his face. “Would you really? Go away with me, that is…”

“Yeah. I really want to. Let’s leave… Let’s go someplace else, where nobody knows about us… We will have a normal life… a family…”

“Where? I don’t know much about those planets…”

He kept holding her, marveling at how tiny and lithe she felt in his arms, at how perfectly their bodies seemed to fit together.

“I do… I do know a little bit about some of them…”

She pinched his side and chuckled.

“What? Get outta here…”

Mike yelped, then laughed.

“No, I’m serious! There’s Norma 8… which is a carbon planet about half the size of the Earth… with lots of water… barrier reefs… and other stuff…”

“Stuff?” Lisa had started kissing his chest, looking entranced. “Sounds exciting…”

He glanced down at her.

“Yeah…”

It was exciting alright.

“What else?” Her fingertips traced the solid lines of his muscles and he felt himself grow some more inside of her. “This sounds interesting…”

“And then… there’s Copernicus, a terrestrial planet with huge, towering trees… no seas… but a lot of beautiful rivers… I saw some pictures…”

“Uhum…” Her lips captured his nipple and he gasped. “Go on…”

“And… Gosh, Lise…” Before he could even realize what he was doing, his hands cupped her perfect butt and his hips pushed up and into her. He was sure he knew about a couple more of the other cloned planets orbiting around the Earth, but his mind had started short-circuiting. Talking was becoming increasingly difficult, and her ministrations were everything he could focus on. “Ventos Prime… it’s… it’s a…”

“Ventos Prime… That’s a nice name…” She, too, started to move her pelvis, grinding and gyrating against him slowly. She raised her head and stared at him. She was so beautiful. And she was all his. “…What about it…”

“It’s an Earth-like planet with beautiful meadows and huge… Lise…”

“Yeah… huge…” Her movements intensified. Mike closed his eyes.

“Huge… electroluminescent trees and helium swamps…”

Still staring at him, her aqua eyes once again clouded by pleasure, she bit her lip.

“Wherever you want to go… It’s fine… I just wanna be with you…”

The perfect contrast between the sexy movements of her body and the gentleness of her words acted as the most powerful aphrodisiac. He framed her face with his hands and leaned in, kissing her, his tongue asking to be let in. Permission granted. Closing his eyes, Mike explored her mouth thoroughly and all the while found his rhythm. She moved accordingly, their perfect dance resuming, only slower, tamer.

Once again they were clinging to what made them both feel safe and secure. What they had, on a physical and emotional level, was the only safe harbor left. Their silence, their hesitation as far as talking about more painful stuff was a message in itself. They knew they had to deal with the fact that their life the way they had always known it was nothing but a constructed lie. A script that someone else had written for them. They didn’t know the specifics of their creation yet, but guessed their families either did not exist or were a complete sham. Make-believe. It was harrowing to realize that many of the people who, up until that point, had been part of their lives, were probably involved in some sick game. Willing participants, playing a role. Lying. Omitting.

To be truthful, Lisa and Mike were still stuck in a vacuum. Halfway through their journey and walking on a very thin line. Astray, looking at the shore from afar, but still unable to reach it. Floating right in the middle of the ocean. Part of them linked to their originals, yet unable to remember enough about them to feel any real emotional attachment for any of the vague faces that sometimes appeared in their visions. Part of them still linked to their fake lives and everyone involved in them because of some artificial trick. The only real, honest, reciprocal feelings were those they had for one another.

“I wanna feel you again…” She whispered against his mouth. “I wanna take what you have to give…”

She nibbled at his bottom lip, her hips pressing down. Capturing him. Holding him. Sheltering him.

“Lise… babe… You’re killing me…”

His glassy eyes staring at her made her feel way more vulnerable than any nudity. But it was OK. Lisa knew that she would have to be guarded, from now on. Innocence and naivety were over. She wanted and needed to be wide open, at least with him. She needed Mike to be her hope. Just like back then, in that other time. She knew that her original had craved the same thing.

Lisa Marie. That name was o familiar and so foreign.

“Yeah? Want me to stop?”

“Hell, no. Ride me, baby. And keep looking at me…” Mike’s voice had become raspy. “I want you to look at me when you come… And I want you to say it…”

“Wait…”

Breathless, she lifted her body and he slipped out of her. Lisa winced, then leaned forward, her fingers caressing his face and holding his head still at the same time. She kissed him again before he could protest against the sudden loss, keeping herself just above his steel, her heat perceivable.

Mike reached down and traced her wetness, stroking her gently, and she whimpered. With a sigh, she arched her back and his mouth found her breasts, licking and kissing her soft flesh. As his fingers kept playing with her without any hurry, she fisted her hand in his hair, holding his head against her glistening skin. When she spoke, her voice sounded like a balm for his shattered, bruised soul.

“Maybe… maybe even our cells remember how much we loved each other… and that’s how they brought us here… because shit, Mike… I love you so fucking much it hurts…”

Still holding his head in her hands, she pushed him back slightly and looked at him. Her eyes were studying his face so intensely that he had to blink. It was too much.

He removed his fingers and she started gliding along his shaft, sending him into complete sensory overdrive. The moment she kissed him again, he lost it and a sigh sounding almost like a sob erupted from his throat.

“I love you, Lisa… I really do, I swear…”

“Yeah…” Her voice was breathless as she kept caressing him with her body. “Yeah, I know you do… I feel you…”

The dim light in the room seemed to find shelter on her skin and, for a moment, she looked almost unreal. Mike closed his arms around her and held her tight, suddenly afraid that all of this was nothing but a dream. Afraid to lose her.

Still holding her close to his body, he managed to lie down on the carpet, on top of her. She opened herself to him and in one fluid movement he guided himself inside of her once again.

Lisa threw her head back, her legs locking around his hips. Her mouth opened slightly and she let out a trembling sigh.

“I’m here…” She whispered, as if guessing his thoughts. “I’m right here with you, baby…”

As he leaned up, on his hands, he watched her as he started moving. His body undulated in that perfect motion driving her crazy. It took him all his willpower to focus on the moment, on the essence of it, trying to ice out whatever threatened to spoil their intimate connection.

Then his pace intensified, and so did the earnestness of his movements. Lisa’s moans, louder and louder, anchored him where he needed to be and he clenched his teeth, feeling the wave of pleasure mount from the base of his spine and shoot straight into his groin.

Lisa’s body reacted on its own accord and closed in on him and, once again, they were lost.

When Lisa woke up, hours later, she was in bed alone. The moment she opened her eyes, she knew that Mike was gone and sudden panic attacked her. Yet she sat up slowly, leaning her back against the crumpled pillows, her naked body marked by his love and already mourning his absence.

She felt sore and sated. She and Mike had made love throughout the night, and the last time he had taken her, the pleasure had been excruciating in its intensity. Their fingers intertwined, they had stared into each other’s eyes while moving slowly, their sensual tango deprived of any hurry. They had shared so much in their silence. The air had filled with their heavy breathing and the scent of their passion, and when they finally had come together, she had clung to him for dear life, whispering in his ear, her hand in his hair. His lips on her shoulder had held her captive as she floated back to the ground.

Afterward, he had slowly rolled off her and she had taken a moment to watch him. He was otherworldly beautiful. Lying there on his back, his hair wet and clinging to his forehead and temples, his skin shining in the dim light, his breath labored. And those eyes, always looking back at her. Mike had wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close, and she had rested her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. They had stayed quiet until they had calmed down.

“Remember that movie we watched at the movie theater?”.

His fingertips had kept drawing lazy circles on her naked back.

“On our first date… Yeah. Of course. Vertigo.”

“I was thinking about the novel it’s inspired to…”

“From Among the Dead by Boileau… something…”

Lisa had smirked and kissed his chest.

“Boileau-Narcejac.”

“Yeah… What were you thinking?”

The smile had slowly disappeared from her lips. Her eyes had become remote.

“…That we are those dead. And that someone has brought us back to life… sort of. For a fucking game.”

Mike’s fingertips had stopped moving. She had felt the palm of his hand rest on the small of her back.

“I like to think that, no matter what, we’re guided by supernatural hands pulling the strings of our fates and existences… And that’s why we’re still together. We must have loved each other a whole fucking lot.”

His voice was so soft.

It was the last thing she had heard before falling asleep in his arms.

Now, hours later, alone in that same bed, Lisa inhaled a shaky breath and ran her hand through her hair. The handwritten note carefully placed on her nightstand didn’t even surprise her, and she marveled at her own composure when she unfolded it quietly.

Lisa,

Please don’t be mad. I have to do this alone. You were right, and I knew it from the start. I was just not willing to accept it and I retaliated like an asshole. I am still so very sorry for what I said to you – about your father. It doesn’t matter who he really is, I know who he is for you. Just like I know who Sydney is for me.

I thought about it and there’s no other explanation. I know this has to do with her. I don’t know to what extent, but I can feel it in my bones that she is involved. And I trusted her. It’s eating at me and that’s why I need to talk to her. I need to believe that somehow this is not as bad as it looks. That it can get better. But I can’t stand the idea of you being in danger just because I am willingly deciding to be reckless.

Please, stay safe and wait for me. I promise I will come back to you. I just want to hear what she has to say, and if what we believe has happened is true. I still hope it’s not.

But in case it is, I think I can convince her to let us go, maybe even help us leave the planet. She owes us that much. I know there’s goodness in her, I saw it. I know what I have always seen in her eyes. I can’t be that wrong. She doesn’t hate me and she doesn’t hate you. And if she does, she will have to say it while staring right into my eyes.

I am sorry, I just can’t bring myself to leave without doing anything about this. Something has to be done. Something about me and you. I don’t wanna feel like I’m hiding or running away. I am not. You and I, we did nothing wrong and we’ve been paying enough.

I love you. Endlessly.

– Mike

Feeling completely frozen inside, Lisa got up and put on her clothes. She knew that her appearance left nothing to the imagination, yet she barely managed to make herself look decent before she left the room. Her mind was numb, eerily calm and petrified by fear at the same time. Her rationale telling her to just trust the man she loved.

It was early morning and she found Akira in the secondary hall, sitting alone in a corner. His feet were crossed on the desk and he was drinking from what looked like a carton of strawberry-flavored soy milk, his eyes unfocused on the dirty, stained window facing the back alley. He seemed lost in thought.

When she entered the room, he turned his head slightly and smile. He looked tired, as if he hadn’t slept at all.

“Hey… beautiful girl. Good morning.”

“Hey…” Lisa sighed and walked over to him. “Mike’s gone.”

She pulled a chair near the desk and sat down.

Akira’s black eyes studied her intently, assessing the situation.

“I know… I bumped into him ‘bout an hour ago.”

“He didn’t tell me he was leaving.”

“Yeah, I know that too.”

Lisa nodded.

“Was he… OK?”

Akira raised his eyebrows.

“Was he OK? That’s an interesting question. He was very calm, but he also seemed to have misplaced his bag of fucks.”

Lisa averted her gaze. Aki was all in all a funny dude. But there was not an inch of her that could appreciate his attempt at humor at the moment.

“He believes his boss is involved and wants to talk to her face to face. I don’t know if he’s right or not, it looks like he took off just because that was how he felt… And I think it was stupid. He should have let me go with him. And you know what? Maybe that’s exactly what I’ll do.”

“Why?” He yawned. “I think him wanting to go alone was about male pride. So yeah, it was stupid, but maybe he feels like pride is the only thing he has left. So, Lisa… I don’t know, maybe you should just let him do his thing the way he wanna do it and trust him. Did he say he’ll come back?”

“He did…” Lisa spoke in a calm, colorless tone.

Akira nodded.

“Of course… because he loves you. And by the way, Mike is right about something. She is involved. Miss Sydney Bankmann, that is. She is definitely implicated, as far as I can tell.” Akira’s body was perfectly still. His fingers were pulling at his goatee, slowly. “I checked, you know.”

Once again, Lisa was not surprised. A part of her had hoped Sydney had nothing to do with this – simply because that would have resulted in Mike having to admit that he was wrong, and maybe come back to her in the bat of an eyelid. But no, Mike had not been wrong.

“Right. That’s why you didn’t sleep at all. You have been working on this. What did you find?”

“That woman’s a moneybag, literally rolling in it… yet about a year ago she suddenly sold some of her assets for undisclosed reasons… Why? Because of some mysterious internal project involving Electron Enterprises. No specifications, no public data, no results.”

“Nothing?”

“A big fat zero. Which is suspicious in itself.” He grabbed the straw with his teeth and sipped his milk. “I am still checking on a bunch of other people, but Lisa… I am sorry, your parents are involved as well.”

For a moment, Lisa didn’t even reply. She just kept staring into space. She felt emotionally battered. Exhausted.

“How?”

Akira took a deep breath.

“The information I got draws a pretty bleak picture. About six, seven months ago, they received some hush-hush money by – guess who? – the company your… father supposedly worked for. Which is directly connected to Electron Enterprises. A nice little spider web. Only, your father never worked for that company and he is not even a geneticist.”

Lisa’s already broken heart shattered some more. Her face didn’t show any emotion.

“No? And what is he?”

“Their names are Brandon and Linda Hopkins, not Presley. They really are married, but they’re both… well, Lisa… They’re actors. Just like Maxwell Kane.”

She snorted. What could such a little punch do, in the grand scheme of fucked up things that their entire existence had become? Of course, her asshole ex-fiancé was involved, too.

“Yeah, that’s not exactly shocking. So my… father pretended to have a stroke to force me to leave for a few days?”

He tilted his head.

“Ah, no. He did suffer a stroke and was hospitalized. But I guess it was convenient, in a way. They killed two birds with one stone, didn’t they?”

“I guess so.”

“I’m sorry…” Akira lowered his eyes, looking very serious suddenly. “I really am. For you and Mike both.”

“Thank you…”

“Are you OK?”

“No. No, I’m not.”

Lisa clenched her teeth. She just let a couple of minutes go by, realizing that all she was doing was wait for Mike to come back to her. There was nothing else left to do. Nothing else left to care about.

Soundtrack