Page 36 of The Brightness Between Us

“But after. Let’s enjoy this for now.”

“I can go along with that,” he says, taking my hand and guiding it lower on his body.

Given the full-body workout Devon Mujaba and I gave each other, combined with the cocktail of synthetic depressants in my bloodstream from all the PepsiRum, I’d have expected myself to sleep the sleep of the ages. But instead I snap awake with the dawn, easing off Devon Mujaba’s delightful body and standing before the tall windows of the suite to watch the sun turn the clouds shrouding the planet below us from blue to purple green. I hadn’t expected to have this long before the Cusk goons came for me, and this morning moment is more peaceful for being stolen.

I imagine the storms below streaking through thered-and-pink dust that coats Mari. The refugees and peace councils, the academy and Cusk compound where I was raised, feel very far away from up here. Sunrise is even more beautiful when you’re above it.

Devon Mujaba is lain out on top of my black silk sheets, grappling a pillow. Totally naked. I take a moment to drink the sight in.

I don’t think he and I will be having sex again—both for all the usual one-night-stand reasons and because, after this trick I pulled, I have no doubt that my mother will make sure Devon Mujaba and I don’t cross paths ever again. I might not even leave the Cusk family compound ever again. Assuming it hasn’t been obliterated by a missile. I should check the news. What is happening down below?

What did I tell Devon last night? I think I remember, but the details are fuzzy. What did he tell me?A spacefarer. From Dimokratía.He’s probably also been cloned and stocked into a ship. Twenty of him, the sole companions for twenty of me.

I return my attention to the glory of Devon Mujaba’s body in my bed, then try to order breakfast via my bracelet. The wordunavailableblinks in the air in front of me.

I slip on a robe and pad to the door. Locked.

I trigger the unlock function.Error.

So that’s why I was able to sleep in. I’m already in prison. Mother has found me, which means Devon Mujaba and Iare in a holding cell. I debate waking him up to tell him, but what would be the point? We both knew this would happen. Guards will be barging in here soon. Better to let him sleep. I sit on the edge of the bed and watch him breathe, this human beside me.

Chapter 5

On my way back to the Earth’s surface, I sit on the edge of the bench seat of the elevator car, Cusk goons on either side. One of my mother’s assistants perches across from me. He probably thinks he’s keeping his face impassive, but I can tell from all the smaller details—his knuckles are white with tension, for starters—that he’s brimming with fury. My regular assistant has probably been fired by now, and all it would take is one misstep for this one to follow.

“Perhaps you’d like an update on what’s been going on in your absence,” the new one says primly, calling up the latest news to project in the air of the elevator car.

Over footage of the emptying hall, the anchor reads a statement from the Cusk press secretary: the Cusk Corporation was saddened to report the end of the distress signal, and made the reluctant decision to cancel the mission to Titan. Unfortunately, the news about the scrapped mission hit Ambrose Cusk especially hard, and they were asking everyone to honor his—my—need for privacy to mourn.

There’s no mention of Devon Mujaba, and the reports don’t cut to any footage of me on Disponar—I guess noneof that has leaked yet, or this assistant really earned their paycheck, rushing the tech department to scrub all footage and mentions of me before they made it out of the satellite’s digital space. I guess I’ve done my mother a favor by going on my bender in a sealed location. Everyone in the world is imagining me sobbing prettily in a lonely tower, lit by a single ray of divine light as I suffer the renewed loss of my sister.

“Well, that’s not so terrible,” I say, volleying my words to the assistant through the news projection in the air between us. I’m glad it obscures my view of him, because those white knuckles were making me tense. “It’s perfectly reasonable I’d appear distraught over my sister being dead. Iamdistraught over my sister being dead.”

The projection blinks out as the assistant nods, hands denting the box of papers at his waist. He doesn’t really have any options. Even if he’d love nothing more than for me to take a long walk off the satellite’s short launch bay, he knows I am my mother’s son. The life of Ambrose Cusk is full of unfairnesses, and most of them benefit me.

The elevator slows to a stop, switches over to the magnetic handlers that ease it into the Earthside landing bay. We’ll have ten minutes to deboard, and for attendants to clean and restock the onyx elevator car before it fills with new wealthy customers to fling into low orbit.

Automated voices instruct us to keep track of thedeveloping conflict and to have a nice day. I stop a few feet out of the craft, and the goons stop on either side of me. “Are you all permanently attached to me now?”

“Just until I get you where you’re going this morning,” the assistant says. He guides me to the edge of the bay, away from the curious eyes of the waiting travelers. “Your mother needs you to make a recording.”

“Trying again to get me to perform the good son, mourning my dear sister in front of millions?” I ask. “I was hoping I wasn’t going to have to go through that performance after all. To be honest, I’m not sure how convincing I could be at the moment.” I emit a wild ginger burp for emphasis.

“No, this recording is private.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Now I’m intrigued.”

“Follow me,” he says, heels clipping down the hallway that leads deeper into corporate headquarters.

When I follow, the landkeepers hang back and start to chitchat, becoming slightly less goon-ish as they do. We leave the public areas and scan ourselves into the corporate sanctum. Cusk employees shoot surreptitious looks at us as the new assistant and I pass through the central atrium. Real koi and projections of frogs swim through the marble-bottomed fountain at the center. Before we scan into the management tower, I stop. “What’s going to happen to...”

“Your famous bedmate?” the new assistant asks crisply.

“Yes.”

“He’s been invited to remain in the Cusk Suite for a few hours. We’ll administer him some electrolytes to help with the hangover, like we did you, and then he will return to his life. He has a second concert to play on Disponar tonight. He has done nothing wrong. There is no crisis there.”

I’m relieved. All the same I remember the information Devon Mujaba told me about Dimokratía’s plans, about the other spacefarer. Things my mother was very careful to keep from me. His suggestion that I could throw a wrench into the gears of our world. How appealing that still feels.

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