SOMA (LGBT-scifi-romance)

Chapter Eleven: The Long Road Home

Sector 06: Cita Avis

Jan. 17, 462 A.C.

Leanne's second message to Soma was a string of numbers: geocentric coordinates. Gemini knew nothing of navigation, so it was up to Soma—who was taught orbital positions by inebriated synthetic pilots—to decipher that Leanne was in Cita Canis, their neighboring colony.

To get there, Soma and Gemini would have to travel across sector six to one of the titanic hexagonal gates at the barrier. They needed to time the alignments of the colonies, sneak past the Lamia-class sky fish that guarded passage, and leave Cita Avis—for Soma, it would be the first time since he was abandoned twelve years ago. Leanne, he was sure, would meet them beyond the gate.

The emergency pod ran low on fuel sixty kilometers out of the city core.

Soma leaped from the hatch, snatching a nanocable twelve meters from the ship. Then, he clutched the cold metal ropeway between his thighs and held out his good hand. Gemini jumped, but he must've been misaligned because he missed—absurdly so—and Soma had to attach a towline and dive down to fetch him. Gemini's glare silenced Soma's mockery.

By then all the lights in Cita Avis had gone out, leaving the colony black as crude oil. For five hours each day, sunlight struck at just the right angle to illuminate the lunaroid buildings and nanocables: like great fetal aliens on their umbilical cords. In those five hours, Soma and Gemini could orient themselves, keeping Old Earth overhead and South Pole to their right, and climb slowly across their colony.

Gemini kept up well enough. Though he wasn't as adept at climbing trash spheres and nanocables—no one was quite as good as Soma—he wasn't injured and could use both arms.

They slept the rest of the time, in windowsills or empty buildings; the lack of gravity caused them to drift when they were not enclosed. In some buildings, the taps still produced water, though most choked up yellow shards of ice instead. Starlight was starved and cold in space, dim through the smog. The only sounds were the brushes of sky fish against the nitrogen winds and the scuttling of feral synthetics over the nanocables.

Whenever possible, Soma perched on residential lunaroids and pried loose the pressurized water boxes with his screwdriver. He drank a little from the globs of milky, calcified fluids that floated free, rubbing the scuds between his back teeth, but left the majority for Gemini, who chewed mouthfuls of water and spat out white grinds like expletives.

They had several more run-ins with feral synthetics.

The first time, Soma was ambushed under a vending complex, as he slurped from a can of spinach. A ravenous feral smacked the can away from him, and he cut his bottom lip badly on the serrated metal. The half-rotted attacker kicked Soma twice in the side before Gemini barreled into the fray.

None of the ferals were capable of speech or any thought beyond their own survival. After several vicious scuffles over cans of sustenance, Soma's injured right arm hung awkwardly in its sling and he had a darkening splotch just below his ribs on his left side that spread every day and looked like blueberry mulch. Even Gemini had sprained an ankle.

The journey was not dissimilar to what happened before Leanne found Soma all those years ago. The only difference was, back then, Soma didn't go to sleep with the milky eyes of Cain and Maria in his dreams. Neither did he wake up with a surly companion, salt crusted on his lashes, and a string of numbers to guide his way.

Jan. 22, 462 A.C.

They arrived in the suburbs of Cita Avis, closer to the climate generators. For the first time since Christmas, Soma's eyelashes were free of frost, and he had feeling in his ears again. Lunaroids were spaced further apart and better maintained there, with colourful sidings and short curbs that indented into each property. One massive apartment lunaroid even had a miniature barrier around it to keep its air clean.

There were fewer ferals in the outskirts of the city, and Soma had become rather adept at recognizing places they congregated. He and Gemini kept away from collapsed buildings—which crumpled together in the absence of generated gravity—as well as from larger stores and apartments with broken windows.

He could see the terraforming barrier now. Schools of wild sky fish gathered at the film, mending tears with their saliva. Farther, beyond their sphere, was colony sector nine: Cita Canis. Every few days, their gates would align, interlock, and travel would be possible between the two colony spheres for about ten hours. Most syns wanted to move to Cita Canis for its abundant oxygen and diligent climate controls, but it was a human colony—no place for syns.

They crawled the rest of the way, across the sleek, cold cables towards the colony gate. Gemini stared at his blisters in worried confusion, as if he didn't understand the concept of injury. They entered the Gray Zone—the region of gathered pollution lining every colony barrier. There was no more shelter, and progress was slow because Soma's inhaler was empty and a mild bout of asthma haunted him. They slept together in the dark hours, huddled with their cheeks pressed together and their towlines keeping them anchored. With Gemini lukewarm against him, Soma sometimes woke thinking Cain was still with him.

The supplies Soma looted from lunaroids emptied at an alarming rate, until one day he realized he hadn't eaten anything except frost for several days. Dehydration made him see colourful stars at the edge of his vision. Gemini, too, broke his lips whenever he cursed or spoke.

In his daze, Soma rambled about Leanne, who was born shrieking on an oxygen farm on Old Earth, to an indifferent mother and a callous sister, about the girl in the fire, who burned alive because she tried to save syns.

Emycee's Notes: Thank you everyone!