Pip's Ophidian Book 1: Beatlebug & The Provider

Chapter 14: No More Choices

Back at quarters, they did a puzzle.

It was the same puzzle they'd been doing over and over again for years. The twins and the littles didn't like it; that was the secret of this puzzle. Only Lil and Pip liked it. It was the only way to get time alone at the kitchen table–or anywhere else, for that matter.

This puzzle had approximately 10,000 pieces, all of which were very small triangles. The image was calm as anything: just some old painting of swirling stars and a city street back on Earth. The edges of the triangles were peeled up, the cardboard warped and worn. They got it out as soon as they got back to quarters and stopped only once, for Lil to water the plant she'd got him in a pointed kind of way. It was somehow already dying.

For a while the twins uncharacteristically watched, but scattered as soon as Ma came back for the day. The littles and the wives–even Aviva–had avoided them both, giving them the space that had clearly been ordered for him.

Ma stopped behind him and watched when she came in. Then asked, her voice gruff, "You doing good?"

"Yes," Pip said. "Yes, I'm fine."

He was surprised to feel her touch the top of his head lightly. He shut his eyes as the touch just as soon left him, and she said, "Good," and then went back towards their wing.

Lil's smile faded soon as she left the room. She glanced up at him, and then down.

They finished the edges. Then, when Viv and Bib had finally called it a night, it was time to go. Lil placed the plant in the center of the table, under the sunlamp Pip always hit his head on. Along with a letter to Aviva, Lil's mother, nestled amongst the wilting leaves.

"The guard changes at midnight," she whispered as they snuck past the door to Aviva's wing. It was approximately the fourth time she'd said so this hour, but Pip nodded as if it was the first, heart hammering. He half expected the door to deny them exit, but Lil had regular nightly duties and it wouldn't be so odd, her logging that she had left and returned.

Pip wondered if he'd return. The thought hurt. It hurt less than the notion of doing nothing, though.

The halls were dimly lit for sleeping hours, so it was simple enough to just avoid the places they'd always seen nightwatch before. They slipped along the edge of the atrium, around the mess hall, past the anti-grav gym and down, down to the greenhouse in the belly of the ship.

All the way, Pip reached out his mind. Felt nothing. Ached from the emptiness of it, and tried to ignore the fear.

There were no more choices.

The greenhouse was empty at this late hour of its usual gardeners and introverts with tablets. The stars twinkled calmly beyond the steady whir of the shield overhead, and somewhere, sleepy chickens clucked. They passed through all of this to a small door near the back, dingier than any other, stenciled in his sister's own hand with the bright pink words: 'Sustainability Center.'

She keyed in her code and the door opened.

It all felt very easy.

That was, of course, when the alarms began to blare.

Lil jumped; Pip grabbed her and pulled her back into the shadows, half expecting a swat team on all sides to descend. Instead, however, there was a cry from inside, male, and a muffled oath, girl, and–

Pip pushed forward through the door in an instant, reaching out his mind, and he found her there a half second before she nearly collided with him, a whole-ass incubator dragging behind her.

"Jesse," he whispered.

She froze. Stared at him for a moment. And then glared, lifting a gun that seemed infinitely too big for her gangly form. "Next," she said, and then hissed at him, seeming for all the world like an Ophidian in the dark pulse of red light.

Behind him, Lil let out a muffled shriek, and he held out a hand to stop her as she ran forward towards him. "I didn't think you were real," he said to Jesse, and then tried hard to reach out his mind and think an explanation quickly, to tell her, to tell her so much, but hit an immediate wall.

"Really? Cuz I thought you were." she said. She was still holding the gun on him. Something twisted in her face, though, and she wasn't making any move to pull the trigger.

Behind him, shouts, thumps of nightwatch headed their way.

"Come on," Pip hissed, and tried to grab the incubator but she hissed again and he held up his hands. "I'm trying to help, Jesse."

"Really. Why all of a sudden? And who's the chick?"

"The chick," Lil said, and her voice shook, but it was terse, "is his sis, Lil. You can't take the incubator."

Pip had a moment of betrayed fear before Lil darted forward and grabbed a portable bio-chamber. She turned and held it out to Jesse, who stared blankly at it. "The incubator's wheels will lock if you try and take it out the door. This is a hand-held bio chamber, though, and it'll keep the egg warm until–"

Jesse grabbed it, turned and thumbed the wrong button on the incubator, which beeped unhappily at her. She did it three more times in quick succession before Pip darted forward and quickly pressed the right one, and there was Little Bean.

There was-

No.

The word echoed between them, and for a moment they just stood there. A crack interrupted the freckles on the egg, a spiderwebbed punch of lines where it had clearly been dropped. Pip's heart was in his throat. He'd failed. He'd failed.

Jesse burst into tears.

Pip looked, felt for her and found the mental wall crumbled, and held her in his mind as he reached shaking hands in and lifted the egg delicately none-the-less, placing it carefully in the biochamber and closing the handles together with a soft wssp.

"Come on," he whispered, grabbing Jesse's hand and squeezing it. She was almost exactly his height. She was–he knew now–his same age to the day. She looked tired, small, and desperately sad. "The others are in the brig."

"No," she wobbled out. She looked up at him, eyes awash with pain. "Sharp is in the brig, if he's still alive. Jesus is dead, I think. They took her to interrogation too, and I haven't seen her since. Pops is in the lab, locked down on a table, if they haven't already dissected him. And Mel... Pip, I don't know where Mel is."

Fear clutched at him like a fist. He shut his eyes for a moment and swayed, but Lil's hand found his back and when he looked up, she nodded. Onward.

No more choices.

"We'll find him," he whispered, and together, they slipped quietly down the back garden path. The main one flooded with nightwatch making a beeline for the room they had just left, the biochamber with the cracked egg cradled like it might live in Pip's arms.