Heroes Don’t Exist

Chapter 12: Space in Between

It’s morning, probably nine o’clock, and Ella refuses to move. Ella shifts in bed, under the covers, feeling cold and hot all over simultaneously. She knows she has to convince each limb toward the edge, but her body fights her. Her hands simply hold on to the sewn hem of the mattress easily palpable through the thin covers. Her mutinous senses even put up a clever farce of a potential cold, not yet here to make her miserable but still looming in some hot gland strengthening with each minute. It is one of those days when every cell knows she should stay in bed. Nothing good can come out of today. Even her stomach, no matter how hungry, understands this. But little by little, she convinces herself that to earn a living she has to get up. Starvation for a nineteen-year-old is not a viable possibility.

In the bathroom, like every morning, she’s confronted with her own personal hell. Her coarse wavy hair sits on her head like a beast, stretching its wooly limbs out in all directions. The purple streaks have faded to a bleach blonde, and it looks downright horrendous. She has been meaning to re-dye it for weeks but hasn’t decided on a color—green, hunter, not neon, perhaps. She shakes her head. No, not yet. She takes a break from her ghastly reflection and turns on her music. She closes her eyes for a moment as she moves head back and forth and mouths a few words. She sighs. The music will keep her moving.

She brushes her teeth, gags a little, and then rinses. She maims her hair into a tall ponytail, and then puts on her standard tee and cargos. The pockets down her legs are heavy with trinkets from work, gum, chap stick, money, and other nonsense she’s already forgotten. She picks up a notepad sitting on the kitchen counter and reads the list of scribbled appointments. There’s only one today: a busted cargo truck. Work has been slow lately, but Ella has enough dough thanks to selling Keeper’s ship in spare parts. It broke her heart, but the old man believed in recycling and would have never forgiven her for treasuring his junk. Junk is junk because it belongs to everybody, he used to say. After his sight went, it was only a matter of time before his body gave out in one clean, fast cardiac arrest.

She smiles as soon as she hears the synthesizer notes of one of her favorite French songs. She grimaces when her speaker doles out a bit of static at the louder parts. She fucked them up the other day, and now they are busted for good. She sighs, still enjoying the song, and turns to the fridge. She finds two half-empty boxes of Thai take-out and a quarter-full carton of orange juice. That’s all she could recognize at least. The rest of the contents are older than a week. She grabs the half-liter carton and downs it. She nearly chokes on it when she hears the beeping. She looks at her communicator sitting on the counter next to the notepad. It is asleep—its screen grayed out. Her eyes move to her messenger bag sitting on top of her tool box next to the futon.

Run, run, run, je rentre a la maison

Run, run, run, pas d’autre solution

Her heart drums along with the fast beat of the song. She holds her breath as the beeping persists. She opens her bag frantically and searches for the pager.

If I ever need to contact you, I’ll do it through this, Shin had said when he handed her the pager. I’ll only use it if for some reason I can’t call you, so this is important, okay? I won’t get lost again.

The rectangular screen of the pager flashes with a long number. It’s not even from Mars. It’s from a colony district, Phobos maybe? She runs to her communicator. Her hands are acting of their own volition now, and she is grateful for that. The line rings and a man answers. She’s startled by its deep throaty tone. She doesn’t recognize it.

“Who is this?” she asks.

“Ella? I’m calling on behalf of a friend. He’s in a bad shape.”

The communicator nearly falls out of her trembling hands. The song changes, and she turns off the stereo. Two hours later, she’s at a makeshift doctor’s office staring at Shin who lies half-conscious on a gurney in front of her. The doctor keeps saying something about detox and inducing a comma. Ella doesn’t understand the jargon, and hearing it in simpler terms only makes her feel stupid when she still fails to grasp the situation. She feels that if she hadn’t quit high school maybe would know what he was talking about. Did they cover these kinds of things in high school Anatomy?

Shin awakens for a moment and looks at her with numb gray eyes.

“Ella,” he says slowly as though the two syllables barely make any sense to him. “Stay away from Faye.” His eyes roll backwards, and he is unconscious after what seems like an eternity.

“It’s all I can do to cleanse his system and stop the seizures. We won’t know any long term effects until he wakes up,” the doctor says to her.

“I’m going to get a catheter. I’ll be back.” He leaves into another room. Ella’s head is spinning. She is so furious she is nauseated. She knew this would happen. Now what can she do? She can’t take him back to Mars. She has to think but nothing is coming to her. All she has is Faye, but it could potentially cause more problems because Ella doesn’t know what Shin had meant. What if Vicious is after Faye now, or worse… Then she remembers. She takes out her notepad and rifles through it. She grabs her communicator and starts dialing the number written on one of its small worn pages. She holds her breath for the thousandth time today when somebody answers. She lets it out and speaks.

“Jet, you may not know me, but I’m Ella, a friend of Faye’s. Faye told me to call you if I ever needed something, and I couldn’t reach her. She said I could trust you. Today, I need your help.”

Two hours before Ella called Jet, he woke up with a throbbing headache and the goddamn phantom pain again. It was the fourth day in a row that he had experienced these bouts of pain from his head to his mechanical limb. The same length of time he had been searching for a good head to hunt—something not too easy and of course worthwhile for the money. Faye and Spike quickly became tense whenever they had no one to shoot at, so Jet had more problems on his hands than just lagging finances.

He sat up and rubbed his temples for a few seconds. He mustered the will to get up, take a shower and get dressed. Ein met him in the hall and walked with him for the rest of the way as the dog usually does before his morning meal. Upon reaching the galley, Jet spotted the dishes that once again no one but him bothered to clean. He shook his head in reproach though he had no contrite audience to witness it. Realizing this, he focused on the task of fixing this headache. It had been messing with his common sense lately. He opened the First Aid kit laying under the sink and popped two aspirins into his mouth. He opened up a can of cheap dog food for Ein who pushed the plate toward Jet’s feet. He rinsed the coffee pot and set it up. They were running low on filters. This latest knowledge did not help his headache, so he went into the commons area and turned on his computer. He reviewed more pages of minor wanted criminals for theft or robbery, a few hundred thousand here or there, not enough money to make it worth the effort. The faces said little about their crimes. When they saw mug shots, most people would find something stern, heartless, and even wicked in the facial features or expressions. I can see him being a rapist, they’d say. He has that look about him. What look, Jet always wanted to ask. If they saw the same man walking down the street with a suit and briefcase, the thought would never occur to them. That was why most people made such unreliable witnesses. They never noticed enough and with the power of suggestion, they noticed details that were mere figments of a weak imagination.

When Jet examined these mug shots and surveillance pictures, he saw normal faces. He saw the guy serving him a drink at a bar or the woman standing in a cashier’s lane with a toddler on the shopping cart’s seat. He saw ordinary people that had been children once with parents who had been as ordinary as they. Perhaps, for most, that was a more frightening prospect. Even the most ruthless of criminals had such ordinary qualities. It made everyone of us a potential robber, murderer, and convict.

As a potential bounty caught his eye, he heard the voices of his two shipmates entering the common room. They were up earlier than usual.

“It was nothing. Would you let it go? I was just surprised to see the door open,” Spike said.

“Right, which is why you jumped half a yard when I tapped your shoulder,” Faye mocked. They walked into the galley without saying anything to Jet. It was early, and the children were already at it.

“I don’t know why you even care that I was staring into a empty room.”

“I don’t really,” Faye said, walking back out of the galley with two cups of coffee. “I was just curious. You looked like you had seen something interesting.” She set down one of the cups next to Jet’s computer and smiled at him. Faye had strange moments like these, when she behaved as though free of any preoccupation. These moments came intermittently. Usually, she could be as broody as Spike, but then something playful and kind erupted from her.

“What are you two going on about so early in the morning?” Jet said, and took a sip of his coffee—black and two spoonfuls of sugar—she was good.

“Apparently, Spike is less stable than we suspected.” She rolled her eyes and smirked before bringing the coffee mug to her lips.

“Fucking yuck it up,” Spike growled, already losing his temper. He slumped on the seat next to the couch. Faye ignored him and glanced at the computer screen.

“You found us a new bounty?”

“More like a lot of worthless midnight runs, but there’s a new most wanted.” It was a remote possibility in Jet’s eyes, but he was up for a little exercise. The main problem with this one was that they had no picture or description in the system. It was a decent excuse to go after a hacker, but when no one knows what he looks like, it made it a pain. Lucky for them, the hacker had recently become more outlandish and public than in the past.

“What’s the pay off?” Faye asked.

“8 million woolongs,” Jet said.

“That’s more like it.”

“What did he do?” Spike asked.

“This guy is a threat to Interplanetary peace, but the price tag comes for defacing Earth, which is a historical landmark with enough problems of its own.”

“I don’t like it. Count me out,” Spike said.

“What? Too much for you, honey?” Faye smiled, swayed her head in that same old way which annoyed Spike.

“No, it’s not my style.” Faye rolled her eyes at him, and turned back to Jet.

“Defacing how?”

“With big giant lasers from old satellites. They have no idea what the access codes are to turn them off.”

“Wait, it can’t be.” Faye set down her cup on the table. Her hand was against her mouth pensively or withholding shock. “You’re looking for Radical Ed.”

“Who?” Spike muttered.

“You know him, Faye?” Jet asked, suddenly very interested. At least she was proving more useful than his so-called partner.

“You could say I’ve kept in touch for sure.” Spike stared at her a little too intently.

“I was going to check with ISSP, but if you know something—” Jet said.

“I know how to find your hacker.” She glanced at Spike.

Faye had only begun explaining how she could find Ed, when Jet interrupted her. He held up a finger which indicated a pause. There was a distant beeping coming from the bridge of the ship. Jet stood up.

“Who the hell is calling now?” Jet walked toward the bridge and left. Faye shrugged and sat down on the yellow couch. She was pensive once again.

“So how do you know this guy?” Spike wasn’t exactly curious. He just wanted to know a little bit more about her past. She was terribly closed off, and from having spent months hunting with her, she was still as enigmatic as the first day he met her. He still didn’t know whether one day she would kill both him and Jet in their sleep.

“I play the field,” she said with that mocking smirk. Her chin dipped down toward her left shoulder with an air of mischievousness. Of course, she played the field. She probably thought she could coerce any guy with her powers of seduction. He didn’t understand what was so sexy about a tomboy type like Faye. She was rude, obnoxious, and pathetically feminine—if what was meant by feminine was actually condescension.

“What’s going to be challenge is luring Ed out. We had a bit of a fight last time we talked.” Her eyebrows and shoulders raised when she said the word fight. It was downright irritating. Faye sat up and rested her elbows on her bare thighs. She glanced around the room. When her eyes fell on Ein, who trotted from the galley towards them, she paused for a while. A smile pulled at the sides of her mouth.

Jet came back in the room and looked paler but serious.

“You two will go on ahead to Earth,” he said in his cop voice. “I’ll meet you there. I have another tip I want to follow.” Spike held in a grunt of protest. He was about to pry when Faye interrupted him.

“Suit yourself, but we’ll need the dog.”

“Ein?” Jet raised an eyebrow.

“Yes.” Her hand brushed her hair from her face. Jet clenched his jaw as though he had no choice but to comply with Faye. Whatever this thing was that Jet had to take care of must have been serious enough for him to comply with Faye’s wish so easily.

“Bring him back in one piece,” Jet said. Ein yelped then huffed. Faye picked him up and pet him briefly.

“I promise.”

Spike still had the urge to resist this mission on Earth. Faye could handle it. He looked at Jet for moment. Jet in a somber shadow nodded at him. He had to take care of this alone.

“Keep the dog alive. I’ll be there in a few hours tops.”

Spike shrugged in agreement and headed towards the hangar. Jet went back to the bridge to deploy their monopods. Spike stared at the expanse of the universe before him as Jet set course for Phobos.

Spike Spiegel hated Earth. From a distance, it appeared perfect and flawless in its blue-tinged glow. It was unlike all the other planets. Its air was pure, no metallic taste like on Mars, or heaviness like Ganymede, or unsettling thinness like Venus. The ring that had begun to form around the blue planet only softened its appearance, making it more mythical and majestic. On approach to any other planet, you would be overwhelmed by the neon signs of civilization—billboards, arrows, traffic delays, government advisories. When you approached Earth, all that waited for you was a halo, a shield of debris which from a distance only emphasized its Eden-like attraction. But like many beautiful objects, when you got too close, you saw its fragments. You saw the bits of rock, not unusual around many planets, mixed with shattered metal pieces from ships, satellites, space stations and the Gate, the harbinger of civilizations greatest achievement and worse nightmare. A small distance from this halo was the largest piece of them all. The half-eaten moon was nothing more than a big asteroid now. It has been predicted that one day this rock will split Earth apart through a terrible but rather plausible collision with any large debris around Earth or any rock outside of it.

Yes, Earth was a tomb.

As they descended into its fiery atmosphere, it was no better. The uneasiness didn’t leave Spike but worsened. The moon was supposed to be Earth’s anchor to life, but besides the constant barrage of debris which mostly burned before impact, Earth had uncannily recovered with indifference to the billions of lives lost. No plague, no war, nothing in history could compare. Old cities were now flooded or overgrown. Some weren’t even recognizable. Whole forests had usurped towns, and those concrete graveyards that remained were like gray deserts. People were forced by the Biblical weather to move mostly underground. But it was when Spike set foot on Earth that he could feel its emptiness. The constant wind no matter where you were and the unpredictability of the weather was enough to make it barely tolerable. Above everything though, it was those people who refused to move—it was them that he hated the most. When he had to come here to apprehend someone, he often encountered these people—like ghosts attached to their birthplace, as hollow as Earth and its moon.

“So where is Radical Ed?”

“Asia, anywhere from 35th-40th districts. Ed roams around there.”

“That’s a big place.”

“When Ed sees us, we’ll be contacted. For now, we just fly.”

After only twenty minutes, Faye had to land because Ein was barking at her, and she feared the worst. They landed on a stretch of desert in the Southern hemisphere. Spike stepped out, a little dizzy and disoriented by the pressure change and the breeze. From a distance, he watched her stand still as Ein scurried a few yards away in search for the most suitable place to do his business. On the Bebop he was like a cat, trained to go on a sandbox that Jet had acquired for him. It was bizarre and unsettling that such an animal should go against his instincts, but Jet had somehow convinced the dog not to piss all over the place.

At first Faye watched him go, but then, distracted by the wind, she closed her eyes and her chest rose high as she breathed in deep. Spike imitated this action but instead smelled the same disgusting scent, like the back of those cheap restaurants on Mars with trash bins full of discarded over-steamed vegetables mixed in with cleaning fluid. It permeated most of Earth, though in some places it filled your nostrils and in some others it just half-lingered. Faye opened her eyes and so did Spike. They stared at each other as she walked towards him. He noticed a change in her. It was too dramatic to miss. Her dark hair shined as it waved in the breeze. Her usually pale skin looked slightly darker, and her cheeks were tinged with red. But her eyes, they were this blue-green—aqua was it?—that he had never seen before in his life. It was like the Faye he had known all these months was a ghost, dimmed by the vastness of space, and this woman in front of him was the real Faye.

You were born on earth, he would say.

How did you know? She would ask.

You look beautiful—no, he wouldn’t say that—You look like you belong.

“Hey, are you listening?” Faye asked.

“What?”

“Did Jet tell you how long it was going to be? You don’t want to refuel on Earth. It’s nasty place to find fuel.”

“A few hours,” Spike said. She made a face of disapproval or dismay. Then suddenly her shoulders jerked. She quickly grabbed her bracelet. One of its gems was blinking red. Faye called back Ein.

“Get back on. We have our coordinates.”

Three-hundred miles to the Southwest is where Faye’s coordinates took them. They landed on a dirt patch surrounded by concrete and metal ruins. When he stepped out of the Swordfish, the breeze hit him with that uncanny scent but ten times stronger than before. He shielded his face. Through watery eyes, he was barely able to see Faye tying Ein to a metal pole jutting up from the ground.

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked him.

“What is that smell?”

She scrutinized him for a minute and then pivoted her head around trying to spot this smell he spoke of.

“I don’t—” she started to say, half-confused, but then she turned against the wind. “You mean the sea?” She immediately laughed. She didn’t cover her mouth like most women. Her bare shoulders pulled back and one of her hands rested on her hip as her middle folded inward. All teeth unabashedly showed. Her laughter ended with a soft sigh.

“No, I guess there are no seas like these in the rest of the Solar System.” Her tone was somber. Her blue-green eyes became a little heavier with color, darker, older. She sat down and lay back against a piece of concrete rock. She glanced up at the sky and stretched out her legs. Her dark jeans were already covered with the white dust surrounding them.

“So what’s the dog for?”

“A peace offering.”

“Or a sacrificial pig.”

“Hardly. I figured Ed might like dogs.” His mouth fell open. This was their brilliant plan. It was hot, smelly, and dusty as hell, and for all they knew the twenty percent chance of rock showers could turn into ninety percent in a second.

“So we just sit and wait until whenever he feels like showing up? This is insane. I don’t know why Jet listens to you.” He slid down next to her and pulled off his jacket. He patted off some of the white dust in vain. He took out a cigarette from the front pocket.

“Not going to offer me one?” she said in a coaxing tone. She had pulled her legs to her chest. Her face rested on her knees and her hand was laid out before him with her fleshy, pink palm up. Though her eyes were still heavy with age, the rest of her only seemed more youthful.

“I’ve only seen you smoke a couple of times,” he said, pulling his lit cigarette from her mouth and handing it to her. His fingertips touched hers upon exchange. He took out another cigarette.

“I only smoke when I’m bored,” she said after taking her first drag. They both smoked in silence for a while. The breeze blew stronger and suddenly he felt the emptiness of the space around them. The air made him feel unusually light. His nose had grown accustomed to the smell, but he felt overwhelmed by something different altogether. His body was like a teenage boy’s, overcome by a dozen bodily and psychological urges. The idle hand without a cigarette wanted badly to touch a bare shoulder or remove the strands of dark hair that constantly fell across the bridge of her nose. His whole arm in fact planned to betray him if it mustered the courage to slide behind Faye’s back. He wanted for a moment to just closely take in her face and the color of her eyes. His legs begged him to jump up around her or run back into the Swordfish. It was the breeze and the ghost smell making him woozy.

“Come on, Ed,” Faye muttered. She glanced back at Ein who had lain down a few feet away from the rusted pole. From the west, they heard the echo of a loud crash.

“Goddamn rocks,” Spike said and lit a new cigarette. Faye shushed him. She was still observing Ein. Spike turned and saw the small contraption flying toward Ein. The dog finally got up and protested at the incoming object. His whole body bounced up with each bark. The toy helicopter flew in fast and rather close which startled Ein into a whimper. It flew past Faye and Spike and then doubled back. Faye jumped up and waved. She was strangely giddy. Maybe she liked the guy a lot more than she had let on.

“Faye-Faye!” a child shouted at them. Her face scrunched up at the nickname, but she quickly moved to where Ein stood still alert. A dark child with a head full of unruly red hair ran towards Faye and grappled her leg with all small limbs. Faye had that annoyed yet pleased expression again. Ed muttered something in a language Spike didn’t understand.

“I know, but I came as promised,” Faye said. The kid pulled back and sat with legs folded and arms crossed.

“Long time coming,” she hissed.

“Settle down. I brought you a present. His name is Ein.” Faye pointed to the dog.

“Ein? It’s not fair that a dog gets to be a member of the Bebop before Ed.” Spike’s dizziness was turning into a headache.

“What the hell is going on? Does this kid know Ed?”

The kid’s hazel eyes lit up when they noticed Spike. He found his own leg entangled in child limbs in the same way Faye’s had been.

“Ed is Ed, silly. Like Spike is Spike.”

He was seriously starting to get creeped out by this kid.

“This is Radical Edward in the rather bony and small flesh.” Faye smiled, amused by the surprise.

Ed was a kid—a little kid. In a way it made sense. The drawings surfacing all over Earth were childish scribbles, stick figures, and connect-the-dot animals. Ed explained in a flurry of words how the cops were after her, and that she had blown up a couple of the vehicles already. But the real culprit, she said, was out there above Earth. An old satellite, lonely in the graveyard of debris, was drawing pictures of the Earth it used to know.

When Spike received the coordinates of the Bebop, Faye set about tying Ed and her—yes, the kid was a she—computer contraption to the Red Tail. They hadn’t discussed this whole issue of Ed being a member of the Bebop. The three things he hated were across from him and possibly aboard the ship for good. Spike had to have talk with Jet. This was getting pretty ridiculous.

“What did Jet say?” Faye asked.

“Nothing. He just sent the coordinates.” There it was again—that dour expression that filled only her eyes.

“Okay,” she said and boarded the Red Tail. Ed grinned with deep content. She didn’t mind riding strapped with rope to the monopod. Ein had already scurried inside. Faye didn’t complain this time about Spike riding with the dog. It was her idea, he had told her before they left. After about twenty minutes, the Bebop came into view. Spike noticed that the Red Tail began to slow down and descend too soon. It was preparing to land near the ship.

“What are you doing?” Spike asked over the comm.

“Something’s very wrong,” Faye answered.

“I don’t get it.”

“Call it a woman’s intuition.”

The Red Tail touched down. Spike considered heading for the hangar anyway, but if he’d learned anything in the last ten years is that a woman’s intuition is somehow rarely wrong. Spike got out of the Swordfish and headed to meet up with Faye who quickly untied Ed.

“Just stay here, okay? Then I’ll let you fly them into the hangar when I know it’s clear.”

Ed rogered and plopped down on the dirt. Ein circled around her, still undecided about this new presence. Spike didn’t know what Faye had meant by “fly them into the hangar,” but she was already walking toward the Bebop. The closer they became, the faster she moved. Every muscle in her body had tensed up, and her legs finally broke out into a trot. His own adrenaline began rushing through his veins. Before he climbed the ladder, he reached to unfasten his gun so he could pull it out in a moment’s notice. Faye stopped running as she entered the hangar but did not pull out her gun.

Neither of them stopped to examine the unfamiliar monopod parked next to the Hammerhead. It was black, luxury class, with silver trim. Faye glanced back at Spike. Every rigid muscle in her face asked him if he recognized it. He shook his head. She still didn’t pull out her gun, but he kept his hand on his. Her pace had moved to her usual decisive stroll—calm, revealing no urgency or anxiety.

He entered the common area only a few seconds after her. She had stopped dead without making a noise. He moved sideways and saw the elephant first then the girl. She had her hair pulled up and two large red headphones cupping both ears. She hadn’t noticed their presence yet. The tattoo of the elephant nearly covered her entire shoulder blade revealed mostly by the shape of her tank top. It wasn’t really an elephant on closer observation. It was an adorned elephant head, like from a circus, on top of a man’s body. He was sitting, legs folded in front of him, four arms surrounding his torso: one outstretched greeting them, one holding a spear, another a bowl, and the upper left holding what may have been a scepter in the shape of a cobra.

Faye’s finger tips touched the face of the elephant. The girl turned around and stood up. Her green eyes gave no hint of surprise. She pulled off the headphones. Both women stared at each other; Faye, in surprise, and the young girl, in fear. They greeted each other in silence.

***

Dear Shin,

If you are reading this, it means that whether I succeeded or failed I’m dead. It also means that Faye is finally ready. I don’t think of it as leaving my legacy to her but rather that I was simply holding her place until she came along. I know you of all people will never understand my choice, but when you meet her I can hope you’ll see what I saw. I have no right to ask you a dying wish, but I am compelled. I need to find Faye Morgan—who she was, where she came from, and who is after her. You’re the only person I can trust with this. I have to know, but now I can’t. I am asking you to find her forgotten past because she needs it. I needed it once, and one day, you’ll probably need it too.

Ella will tell you all I know.

Thank you. I know you won’t turn your back on this.

~J.

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Chapter inspired by John Baldessari’s Space in Between (One Risky), 1986.

Lyrics from “Un Gars Fragile” by the Prototypes.