The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) (28 page)

             
James stormed up to Penny and me. When his hand grasped my upper-arm roughly, I immediately snatched it away and frowned at him dangerously. His earlier belligerence in th
e conversation had been directed towards me, I discovered, though I could not have cared any less.

             
“You know, you really should go easy on her.” James muttered to me quickly. Perhaps if he had merely
suggested
that I take a more zen approach in regards to
my association with Maura, I might  have taken his thoughts into consideration. I might have even followed his guidance on the matter. Instead, his tone was harsh, demanding... I would not be told what to do by any man but certainly not one I had only jus
t met. My frown darkened to a virulent scowl that I thought would scare him away.

             
“Yeah, I know that look.” He nodded and furrowed his brows in a show of condescension that was sure to earn him a harsh kick between the legs from me. “It's not scaring me.
Listen, I know this is tough for you. But it’s tough on everyone. You are acting like a nasty, spiteful child right now and it needs to stop.”

             
Already, my resolve to refrain from ever making true, civilized human contact was overtaking my need for attachm
ent. The former was stronger than what I had assumed was a basic, chemical need for James Maxwell. Ordering me around was certainly not helping his case, either. In fact, his sudden embrace of an abusively coercive disposition proved what I had so long bel
ieved about all men: Once they believed that they had a woman under their spell, their entire being changed. They had to feel as though they were totally in control by whatever means necessary.

             
Sometimes I thought of myself as a soldier on the front-line
of defense. Consider it idealism or perhaps even a delusion far beyond grandeur, but I believed that it was my duty in life to guard not only myself and my sisters from the advances of men like James, but to inform all women, young and old, on the ways to
recognize and successfully (albeit figuratively) dispatch a man who hid his beastly nature behind his handsome face.

             
That's what I thought when I was young, anyway. Yes, I was
that
type of feminist, I am sorry to report...

             
I glared at him in scornful sil
ence before clearing my throat in irritation.

             
“James, just because I embraced you does not mean you can now tell me what to do. Do not assume that because you witnessed a moment of weakness in me that I am now suddenly at your command. Resist your nature
as a male, please.”
             

             
“I figured that was coming.” James told me, without missing a beat. “So you’re back to normal. You’re back to being a nasty, arrogant, bitch right? I know that's your thing. We’re back to that?”

             
I smiled at the thought of sticking a
pin in his now laughably large ego. He had managed to weaken me momentarily when we were in the hallway. He had exposed the human being beneath the machinery for a second in time. Now, he gave himself undeserved credit for accomplishing what others believe
d to be an impossibility. The one moment where I had foolishly allowed myself to drop my guard, even if it was only slightly, was a victory for him because he had done what so many others had tried and failed to do in regards to conversational and emotiona
l intimacy with me.

             
I was partially responsible for the lapse in my judgment. But he was mostly to blame. Suddenly, I hated him for it. I was keen to self-loathing in those days so I hated myself as well. However, I was also keen to passing the buck, as t
hey say, and so, James received the brunt of my reproach; he had not
given up his quest to expose my inner fragility until he had succeeded.

             
Because of those things, I would put both him and myself in our respective places.

             
“We were never anywhere else,
James.”

Quinn

             
“Quinn? Quinn, wake up!”

             
When my eyes shot open, they watered in the harsh light that was casting Alice's face in shadow.

             
“Is it back? Is the thing back?” I asked through slurred speech as I sat up quickly. “Whoa…” My hand flew up to
grasp my head that was suddenly spinning in complete circles. “What’s going on?”

             
“It’s okay.” I felt Alice’s arms around my neck and her lips press to mine. “We made it. But it happened. We’re here. But it’s gone.
Everything
is gone, Quinn.”

             
Her face was
buried in my neck and I felt her tears as they streamed from her eyes.

             
“Did you see it, too?” I asked her, feeling my hands trembling as I held her tightly. The familiar smell of her hair and the feeling of her body pressed to mine remedied the horror I
still felt at witnessing the end of the world in my dreams.

             
She nodded and stammered out, “But… but… we’re level. We’re alright, baby. They said we're going to make it...”

             
I pulled away to look her over, making sure that she really was alright. Nothing a
bout her appearance gave me reason to be alarmed and I breathed a sigh of relief.

             
Her hands flew up to grasp my face as she kissed me. We fell back on my cot, kissing passionately, prompting everyone to turn and look at us, some in disgust and some in adm
iration. After we had broken apart, I watched a guy in his twenties pump his fist in the air triumphantly when I looked at him.

             
“It's love, man! It will keep us together!” He exclaimed and because we knew he was just goofing off, we found ourselves cracki
ng up despite the horror we still felt bubbling in our chests over what we had seen.

             
“Let’s just be happy right now that we’re alive, okay?” Alice asked as she kissed me every couple of seconds. “Let’s be sad later.”

             
I looked into her beautiful green eye
s and nodded.

             
“We’re here. We’re together.” I told her and I couldn't help but smile slightly. “You’re right. We need to be happy about that, especially after everything that's happened.”

             
Her smile emerging suddenly at what I had said was all the affirma
tion I needed.

             
“Let’s go see the ship. People have been talking about how awesome it is.” She pulled me up and once I was on my feet, we were hugging again, laughing to ourselves for no reason at all. The world had ended and everything we knew was gone. B
ut there was, admittedly, a certain excitement at having survived. It wasn’t a matter of boasting in the faces of the dead. Every human has the basic instinct to survive and we had. There was no way we couldn’t celebrate our lives being spared, even if we
didn’t understand why we had been so fortunate.

             
Our hands were clasped together as we hurried out of our housing compartment on the third floor.

             
“The lady next to me said that we have to go upstairs. She said it’s amazing!”

             
We were running up the stairs
, laughing like children in the midst of escaping from school for a day off. When we threw open the door with the word “Atrium” printed boldly across, we were stunned into silence. Even our gleeful laughter was rendered inert.

             
We walked forward in a daze,
our mouths open in awe. Outside of the window was a display so fantastical, it was worthy of a place in some medieval fairy tale. Lights were swirling and glittering, the stars around them twinkling in the distance. The window from floor to ceiling allowe
d us to see perfectly this spectacular array of colors and shapes that flew past us at a speed we could not even
begin to fathom.

             
Alice looked at me as we stood with our faces to the glass and mouthed, “Oh my God!” We were both laughing, unable to shake t
he joy we felt so strongly without apology or excuse. When her fingers linked with mine, my grin only grew wider.

             
“I could stand here all day. Can you believe this?” I asked her.

             
She shook her head, her eyes still wide in disbelief at what we were witnes
sing. In that moment, I felt truly lucky to have survived. Our reward for all we had suffered was that sight seen by so few. It was that childlike amazement we felt.

             
We stood for several minutes, staring until our eyes watered. We couldn’t imagine tearing
ourselves away. But then, our curiosity at what other wonders the rest of the ship held overtook us and we turned to leave.

             
“Do you think they have a Ben and Jerry’s stand? If they do, this would pretty much be the coolest ship ever.” Alice told me and w
e both burst into hysterics again.

             
After walking through a hallway lined with vases and flower pots, we walked into a large room with a ceiling made of glass. There were hundreds of tables on the hardwood floors. It looked like a dining room at a vacation
resort; the tables were wooden and adorned with flowers in small crystal glasses. Running along the left wall was a buffet stand that was emptied and dark.

             
“Well, I guess it’s a good thing they were building this thing for uppity morons.” I told Alice, w
ho beamed.

             
“Only the best for them, I suppose.” She agreed with a roll of her eyes. “Well, now it’s for
us
. I mean, look at this!” Her voice echoed around the room as she spun in a circle while walking. “Look up!”

             
I did, only to see the stars whizzing
past us through the window overhead in an unthinkably fast blur.

             
“Do you have any idea how fast this thing is going?” I asked her. “I mean, how much money did they spend for this?”

             
“Not our problem, baby. Don’t think about it.”

             
“I know it’s not our prob
lem. At least, not anymore. I mean, I have to admit that I find it kind of funny that they couldn’t escape even the
apocalypse
unless they were riding in style.”

             
“I know, right? If someone told me I had to fly in a rocket made from a Spot-A-Pot, I would h
ave done it.”

             
“Oh, gross! That's so nasty, babe...” I said as I doubled over from laughing so hard.

             
“I knew you’d like that one.” She told me after walking back to grasp my hand again. She stood on her tiptoes to kiss my cheek.

             
When we left the dining h
all, we walked through what looked like a large sitting room straight out of the
Titanic
.  After that, we discovered a library. Then, we discovered what can only be described as a recreation room. Set up throughout the spacious area were televisions, sever
al pool tables, and through a door in the back, a large swimming pool.

             
“That’s a lot of TVs.” I told her as we stared. “But definitely not enough for five-thousand people. ‘I want to watch
Transformers
!’ ‘I want to watch...' I stopped, screwing up my face
as I tried to think.
“God, what's a girl movie?”

             
“
The Notebook, Runaway Bride,
oh!” She snapped her fingers when she remembered another one. “
Pretty Woman, Dirty Dancing, Flashdance
...”

             
“Okay, okay...” I waved my hands to stop her. “Please stop. If you
cut me right now, I'd bleed pink after listening to that.”

             
When she laughed that time, she fell back onto the couch and covered her face. When she recovered, she held up the tape that was in her hand.

             
“Fine, baby, I can fix that problem for you.
Superbow
l XLVI
.”

             
“Shut the…” I walked forward and took the DVD from her hand when she outstretched it to me.
“They have football, too? Allie, I now know for sure that everything is going to be okay.”