Page 45 of Bred

“That’s amazing. We thought you were dead, and then you were found, but you... well, you know. It’s just so good that you’re alive! Kimmy, put that down. Kimmy... Kim... Kim... Kimmy... look at me, Kimmy. Kim! I said no! Kim!”

I hold on for a few more minutes, but it’s pretty obvious that Kimmy is not putting whatever it is down. I don’t know if Caddy even notices when I hang up. I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s been obvious since I woke up that the world moved on without me, and it’s not like I had a lot of friends in the first place. My career came first and now there’s nobody left to care.

Chapter Fourteen

Veteran’s quartersis filled with people three times my age. I no longer have my own apartment. Instead I have a room in a hall full of rooms. My neighbor’s nametag reads ‘Major Tom.’

“You looking for your grandmother, young lady?”

A voice comes from the doorway. I turn around and meet my new neighbor, who is as confused by this as I am. This isn’t just veteran housing. This is where they put the old ones and the ones who are so badly damaged they need round the clock care. I’m in prison, just by another name.

“I live here now,” I say. “These are my six feet by four feet of real estate. I was thinking of planting a lawn.”

“The nurses always spray them down if you do,” he says, his eyes twinkling. “I sewed corn in the carpet once. Had a bumper crop until the matron said I was causing corn allergies. Come and see my cell.”

Thank god. Someone with a sense of humor.

I follow him out of my little room and into his. His is musty, like a library, but with old people smell instead of old book smell. The curtains are drawn and only a little light creeps in around the edges. There’s little in the way of personal effects, besides a picture hung on the wall, a portrait of a handsome middle-aged man in uniform. Major Tom sees me looking at it.

“They say that was me, back before I was me.”

I look at the man in the portrait and realize that the man I’m talking to isn’t Major Tom. This is Grand Admiral Tomas Venice. This is the man who made everything we now do possible. A brilliant scientist, an incredible tactician, and one of the best pilots the space force ever saw. I can’t believe he is now this crumpled vision in a wheelchair squeaking around me with a bottle of what looks like hard liquor clutched in his lap.

“That’s really you?”

“Mhm. That’s what they tell me.”

“Oh, my god. I can’t believe I’m getting to meet you!”

“Eh?”

He looks at me with confusion. “And who are you that’s getting to meet me anyway?”

“I’m Lyra Patrovich, I...”

“Russian, eh,” he grunts. “You Russians still like to drink?”

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