Planet Redemption: Episode One - 7. Aurora Borealis

The tequila burned Diana's throat as it went down. She slammed the shot glass down on her office desk and poured herself another round. Her eyes stung with tears. Inside she felt wretched and the tequila wasn't helping as she thought it would - and still she kept drinking.

She had never been much of a drinker. She had witnessed first hand what liquor could do to one's mind and body. Then there was the fact that liquor didn't taste very good. She had always thought it funny that people liked to get drunk not because it tasted good, but because they liked the feeling of being drunk. At the moment she couldn't see what the big deal with that was either.

Politics, even on a planet as small as Redemption, was a dirty game. In order to play it right you had to do things you never thought yourself capable of doing; to play such a game you had to have these skills: lying to the faces of the people you loved, murder, and being able to cover up your mess so that no one knew what you had done. On a penal planet full of criminals that wouldn’t seem necessary. People raped and murdered as they pleased, warden's rules be damned, and there wasn't much that the warden could do about it. But when it came to the other eleven colonies...well the game was a little more complicated.

Colony 12 was the smallest colony on Redemption. It was also the poorest, and when compared to the other eleven it was on the bottom of the totem pole so to speak. Colony 12 had the least funds, produced the least products, and had the smallest population. This was reflected in the plain white buildings that made up the colony. There was no variation. It had been her father's dream to see Colony 12 rise from the bottom. Maybe not to the top, but just enough so that they would no longer be on the bottom. It had been Diana's goal to realize that dream.

Diana hated herself. She'd hated herself for quite some time. She'd hated who she had become, who she'd let the job as warden turn her into. The job had done to her what it had done to her father: blackened her heart. She'd covered up things, overlooked others, and hung people out to dry for her own personal gain. Bud Jackson was another name on that list.

When Diana's father had been warden, Bud Jackson had been his sheriff, and a family friend. Though he'd always been known as the insane red-eyed drunk that everyone had pitied, Jackson had always been respected for simply being a part of Redemption's first generation. He'd been among the first colonists to be sent to the ice planet. And in anyone's eyes that immediately deserved respect. Diana's father had placed Jackson on an even higher pedestal. He'd been able to see past Jackson's consumption issues, past the long list of sociopathic tendencies that ran in his family. Jackson had been more than just his sheriff, he'd been his advisor.

What I did was necessary, Diana thought. What I did had to be done? She'd been trying to convince herself of this all morning. She remembered how she'd gone to the pub, knowing damn well that was where Jackson would be.

"I need you to do something for me," she'd said as she slid a beer over to him.

She had known that he would do it. The situation in the diner had been a setup - for the most part anyway. And in the end Jackson's compliance had cost him his life all so that everyone could see the new deck of cards Diana had to play with in Danni.

The night before, after Jackson's funeral, Diana had cried herself to sleep. If there really was a hell she hoped that she had a first class ticket there. You didn't have to thrust a knife into someone's gut to be a murderer.

The door opened and Natalia stepped in, dressed in full gear for the cold. She didn't see Diana tuck the bottle of Tequila under the desk. All at once it surprised, delighted, and hurt Diana to see her. The tequila had helped to tear down the emotional blockades she always had placed around herself.

For a long time they just looked at one another, waiting for the other to speak. Diana felt uncomfortably exposed sitting there in her chair, her cheeks red and wet with tears. She needed a shower. She needed to brush her teeth. She didn't look like herself. She felt like an exposed nerve.

"Hey," Natalia said.

"Hey," Diana said. And then she burst into tears. She couldn't breathe, couldn't see. The grief and self-loathing and loneliness that she'd been feeling were all-consuming. The fucking thing of it was that she had put those feelings there herself. She had done terrible things, things that she would never be able to forgive herself for. In the clinic she had told Danni that survival and power were the only currencies that mattered on Planet Redemption; what she hadn't told him was that in order to play the game of survival you also had to damn your own soul.

Natalia came to her and hugged her. She kissed the top of her head. It took Diana a moment to realize that Natalia thought that she was grieving over Jackson's death, and she was, she really was, but she didn't know that it was Diana's fault that Jackson was dead. She didn't know what Diana had done.

I'm a coward, Diana thought.

"I want you to come home to me," Natalia whispered, wiping the tears from Diana's face, kissing her eyelids. "I don't like you living out here like this, like a nomad. Forget all that I said, just come home to me when you're finished with everything."

Diana nodded shakily. "I will."

The phone on her desk rang. She answered it reluctantly, trying to keep her voice steady. Natalia opened the door to the office, a raging gust of wind and snow making her hair billow around her beautiful dark face. She blew Diana a kiss before closing the door behind her.

"This is Andy Sorkis," a timid male's voice said.

"Yes Andy, hi!" Diana tried to sound like she was happy to hear from him. Andy was one of the DJs working at the radio station. Another thing the job of warden required was being able to hide your true emotions behind a mask.. "It's good to hear from you!"

"Yes, sorry to hear about Jackson, and to bother you at such a bad time."

She chuckled. "That's quite alright. What can I do for you?"

"Well there's something that I want to show you. It's really fucking strange. Can you come down to the radio station?"

She frowned, not liking the sound in his voice. He sounded scared. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. "What is it?"

"You're just going to have to come down here and see for yourself."

She ignored the shiver that crept up her spine. "Alright. I'm on my way."

If there was anyone that didn’t belong on Planet Redemption it was Andy Sorkis. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body. Because of this Redemption had been unkind to him - and that was putting it mildly. When he was six years old six men had broken into his house in the middle of the night and taken turns raping his mother, before executing her in front of him. Instead of turning him cruel, the traumatic event had made him even more timid and kind-hearted.

The studio room was a large square room protected by bulletproof glass. He sat before a large switchboard with various knobs, buttons, and switches. Diana watched as he worked the recording machine with thin, long fingers that made her think of spider legs. He was tall and narrow, like a beanstalk. His brown hair stuck up in odd places, making him look like a rooster.

“It was so strange,” he said, speaking in a rush. One hand scratched nervously at the back of his hand. The way he constantly fidgeted made Diana nervous. He was always scratching or pulling at something. “I was getting ready to grab a new vinyl when I heard it.”

She frowned. “Heard what?”

“A transmission.”

“What do you mean a transmission?”

“I mean we caught a signal from somewhere else.”

“One of the other colonies, do you think?”

He shrugged. “I dunno.”

She turned away for a moment, thinking. They were five days drive away from Colony 11; it wasn’t impossible but it was hard to imagine getting a transmission from them. The only possibility she could think of was the research station which was just on the other side of the mountain range two days from here.

“Here it is,” he said excitedly, his head cocked to the side.

Static tore from the radio speakers, making Diana cringe. The sound literally made her want to come out of her skin. How he could have caught anything within all that fucking racket was beyond her.

“Sorry,” he said. “Give me a second to see if I can tone down the static.”

She massaged her temples. She swallowed. Her throat was parched. I shouldn’t have drunk that tequila, she thought. She felt hot. It was hard to think. She just wanted to go somewhere quiet and go back to sleep. She wondered if Natalia was home yet; the thought of curling up in bed with her had never seemed as appealing as it did now.

“Do you have any coffee?” she asked Andy.

“Yeah, in the kitchen.”

“May I have some?”

“I dunno why you’re asking. You’re the warden.”

She smiled, patting him on the shoulder. “I can still be a warden who uses her manners.”

The kitchen was a small square room with white tiling and grey cabinets; it was complete with a fridge and a oven. Diana could see why Andy Sorkis loved being DJ so much. He had all of this space to himself with nobody to bother him, no one to make him feel threatened. Perhaps she could even go as far to say it was the safest place on the planet.

The coffee was nice and hot and the smell soothed her. Diana drank her coffee black.

“Okay, let’s try it now,” Andy said, hitting the play button.

The speakers crackled and sputtered with static and then: “...he....Help...”

“Stop!” Diana barked, making Andy jump with a yelp. “Sorry about that,” she said more gently. “Please rewind it just a little.”

He hit the rewind button for a few seconds and then hit play.

“He...Help...Please...Somebody help...”

Andy frowned. “What the fuck?”

“I don’t know. Can you clear it up some more?”

“I can try. Hang on.”

He tinkered with the playback system, adjusting this and that. “Okay, taking it back through.”

“Help...Please...Somebody help…research station...”

Andy stopped the recording. He looked at Diana; his face was as white as a sheet. “Did you hear that? An S.O.S from the research station? What the fuck?”

For a long time Diana didn’t say anything. She was experiencing the same phenomenon that she had felt when Andy first called: the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end, her palms turning clammy. There was something about the transmission that felt wrong, all wrong. There was a voice in the back of her head that told her to leave it alone, go about her business. She had plenty of other shit that she had to do. But the voice was small and it was less powerful than the part of her that hungered for control, that was always looking for something more.

“How long ago did you get this?” she asked

“An hour ago. I called you as soon as I realized what it was.”

“Do you think there’s a chance we could respond?”

Andy looked doubtful. “I dunno. Considering that the transmission has to travel all of the way through the mountain range and that there is, of course, another bloody fucking snow storm on the way, the chances are slim.” At the grim look on her face, he added, “But I will try.”

He put his headset on. “Hello, this is Sorkis from Colony 12 trying to respond to your call from the research station. Can you hear me, over?”

Static answered back. Sorkis waited for a few second before repeating himself: “Hello, this is Sorkis from Colony 12 trying to respond to your call from the research station. Can you hear me, over?”

Almost immediately a male’s voice responded: “Yes, I hear you loud and clear. Please, I need your help. I’m the only one left alive...”

Duke looked sideways at his new work partner and asked, “What are you thinking about?”

Danni took a swig from his beer and gave him a hard look. The pub was quiet on this cold, cold afternoon. There were five other customers in the pub; people were still grieving over Jackson’s death. Rolling Stones was playing softly on the jukebox. Clara stood at her post, eavesdropping on their conversation while blowing bubbles with her chewing gum.

Danni seemed to have changed overnight. Maybe change wasn’t the right word; maybe grow was the right word. Not physically but mentally and emotionally. Sitting before Duke was a completely different person than the one that had been dropped off by the Revelation 5S77. The other Danni had been beautifully naive and curious about everything around him. In his naivety he had been awkward and quirky. This one was darker, indifferent to everything around him. He rarely spoke. He was impossible to read. Seeing this new Danni broke Duke’s heart. Already this planet has changed him, Duke thought. This fucking planet. It’s taken his spirit away.

“Why do you want to know what I’m thinking?”

“Just trying to make a small talk.”

“Yeah, you do that a lot.”

“Do what?”

“Make ‘small talk’?”

“Does that bother you?”

“No.”

“Because I can shut up if you want.”

“If I’m going to talk to anyone on this piece of shit of a planet it might as well be you.”

Duke blinked twice. That was another thing Danni had been doing that was completely new to Duke. He cussed. A lot. He had grown a potty mouth. It was both disheartening and amusing.

Danni smirked, baiting Duke. “I was thinking dirty thoughts.”

“Tell me.”

“You sure you wanna know?”

Duke felt his cock twitch. The temperature in the room had risen considerably. “Uh huh.”

“I was thinking I wanted you to fuck me again.”

That was it, Duke had an official hard-on. He was getting ready to say something equally as dirty when Diana walked into the pub. She came straight over to them, all briskness and business. “Gentlemen,” she greeted them formally.

Duke nodded back. “Warden, what can we do for you?”

“Something very interesting just happened. We got an S.O.S call from the research station.”

“Really? That is interesting.”

“I want you two to check out what’s going on.”

Duke almost choked on his beer. “Are you fucking with me?”

“No, sheriff,” Diana said, smirking humorlessly. “I am not fucking with you.”

“But it’s a two day drive there.”

“That’s why you will be taking weapons and camping gear with you.”

Duke made no attempt to hide his disdain. “Just the two of us?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not enough.”

“Why not?”

“You could be sending us into a death trap?”

“If it was you and Myze I would be more hesitant.” She nodded. “But you have him. It’s enough.” Diana glanced at her watch. “I’d getting going if I were you. It’ll be night time before you know it.”

Duke waited until she was out of earshot and said, “Fuckin’ bitch.” He glanced sideways at Danni again. “What do you think about all of this shit?”

“I’m just a stupid clone,” Danni said darkly. “What do I know?”

Duke glared at him. “Is that how you really choose to regard yourself?”

Danni shrugged. “Everyone else in this shitty colony does.”

“I don’t.”

“One person’s opinion doesn’t make a difference.”

That hurt Duke more than he cared to admit. “Not even mine?”

Danni sensed Duke’s hurt and more gently said, “It’s the truth. There’s not much way around it.”

Two hours later, just three hours before nightfall, the snowmobile was ready and their gear was packed. Duke hauled the last duffel bag into the snowmobile and tugged his winter hat farther down on his head. “Fuck, it’s colder than a witch’s tit.”

Danni wasn’t listening. He leaned against the side of the snowmobile, looking towards the range of mountains. He was standing very still, unnaturally still. He wasn’t blinking. Duke was starting to worry that the boy had frozen to death. Then he remembered that as far as he knew Danni couldn’t freeze to death. Something else was wrong.

“What is it?” Duke asked.

When Danni didn’t answer or look at him, he stepped closer. “Danni?”

“I don’t like this,” Danni said.

Duke let out a small sigh of relief. “I don’t either. Are you getting one of your feelings?”

“Oh yeah,” Danni said. “But I don’t know what it is. Your warden is going to get us killed.”

Duke didn’t miss the emphasis on your. “Let’s get going. I want to get as far as we can before dark. It’s going to be a bitch setting the tent up in the middle of a snow storm.”

They climbed into the snowmobile; Duke got into the driver’s seat and Danni got into the passenger’s seat.

“Before I forget I made a present for you,” Duke said, reaching back into the duffel bag on the seat behind him.

“What is it?” Danni frowned at him suspiciously.

Duke handed him an MP3 player. It was one of the old 21st Century models. “I noticed you nodding to Led Zeppelin the other day and figured you’re a metalhead so I downloaded a bunch of a music for you. These little things are basically antiques by now but they’re still one of mankind’s greatest inventions.”

A smile split Danni’s face in two. Duke was glad to see that the boy could still smile like that, that all emotion hadn’t been completely sucked out of him by Mike Myze. As Duke hit the gas pedal and steered the snowmobile in the direction of the mountain range, Danni put the ear buds in his ears, jabbed the play button and nodded off to Led Zeppelin.

After two hours of driving through nothing but boring white expanse the Redemption Bridge slowly came into view; the bridge went directly over a steep cliff edge. Duke had only had the privilege of seeing the bridge twice and each time it took his breath away.

Anchored into the side of the cliff, the Redemption Bridge was a mile across and made of stone. Excitedly he reached over and tapped Danni on the shoulder, imagining that this was what it was like to be a kid at the zoo. Danni sat up and looked over at him sleepily. “What’s the matter?”

“Look. I wanted you to see this.” Duke pointed out the windshield.

Danni’s eyes widened at the sight of the bridge. “It’s beautiful.”

“My grandfather used to tell me stories about this bridge,” Duke said wistfully. “It was one of the few times the twelve colonies came together to do something like this.”

“Are there any more?”

“Yes. There are twelve of them in all. I’ve only ever been across this one. Once we get to the other side we’ll set up camp.”

The glass of the window felt cold as Danni pressed his face up against it. He had never been up so high before. Just beyond the sides of the bridge was a thousand foot drop with a frozen ocean at the bottom. He imagined plummeting through the air and hitting that ice, the impact shattering every bone in his body, cracking his skull open and spilling his brains across the ice surface. It was a silly thing to be afraid of. Duke wouldn’t let something like that happen. But if they did fall somehow, would the billions of tiny little nanites crawling around inside his body regenerate the damage that was done? Just how much damage could they heal exactly?

They went several kilometers farther before Duke shut off the engine and they started making camp. Their breathing masks and parka jackets helped to stave off the cold while they put up the tent. Putting it up was easier than Danni had initially thought it would be. Though he had never put up a tent before his body seemed to know what to do. Once again he had the sense that his brain was like a computer breaking down data and feeding everything back to him. The longer he was on this frozen ice planet the more he discovered about himself. It was both scary and exhilarating. There was just so much that he didn’t know about himself.

Once the tent was set up Duke went about fixing dinner. With a small battery operated heater he was able to warm up two cans of potato hash. Danni didn’t like the potato hash much: it tasted too much like the can. It was worse than the shit that Alexander had made him eat at the facility. Still he ate it without complaint, knowing that it was better than starving. Is it possible for me to starve to death? he wondered. Or am I immune to that as well, due to the nanites? Am I invincible?

He stretched out next to Duke on the full sized mattress and listened to the sound of the wind slapping against the outside of the tent. Already Redemption’s twin suns were sinking. The day is too short and the night is too long on this planet, he thought. It’s depressing. Still, he tried to look on the bright side. He’d never been camping before. That’s what he was doing now, wasn’t he?

“You’re awfully quiet,” Duke said. His eyes were closed and his arms were folded behind his head. “Everything okay over there?”

Danni swallowed. “I’m overwhelmed. This is all so new to me. All of it.”

“I’m sure it is if you’ve been a lab animal your whole life.” He rolled over, looking down at Danni. “Are you frightened of what we’re doing? I mean we have no idea what we’re heading towards. Plus we’re alone...just you and me...”

“Not at the moment. For the first time since I arrived on this piece of shit planet I feel safe.”

Duke laughed. “You’re always calling it that, this ‘piece of shit planet.’”

“That’s because that’s what it is. It’s a piece of shit planet.” Danni stopped. There was a bright green glow shining through the neon-orange fabric of the tent. He sat up. The light bleeding into the tent reflected the curiosity in his eyes. “Aurora Borealis.”

Duke frowned. “What?”

Danni grinned. “Aurora Borealis. It’s the name of the northern lights. You have them here on this planet too. I remember them talking about it on the Discovery Channel back on Earth.” He unzipped the flap of the tent.

“What are you doing?” Duke said in alarm, curling under his blanket as the snow gusted in. “You’re letting the fucking cold in!”

Danni stepped out into the night and looked up at the lights hovering in the sky, vivid red and green seeming to dance together. His wide blue eyes reflected Redemption’s twin suns. Beautiful, he thought. So beautiful. He thought of a commercial he’d seen once for air freshener called Winter Fresh. On the commercial it had shown a ballerina dancing under the northern lights. He heard the tent flap unzip and Duke come marching out. The snow crunched under his feet as the sheriff of Colony 12 approached. They stood shoulder to shoulder.

“They’re beautiful,” Danni said.

“Yes they are,” Duke agreed.

“I suppose not all things on this planet are shitty.” Danni unzipped his jacket and threw it into the snow.

Duke gawked at him. “Are you insane? You’re going to freeze to death out here.”

Danni merely smiled, pulled off his T-shirt, and threw that into the snow to join the jacket. The pants went next. He was only wearing his underwear. His pale skin seemed to drink in the moonlight. Goosebumps broke out all over his skin. His nipples shriveled up into hard little knots of flesh. Drinking in the sight of him, Duke felt himself grow so hard that his balls ached. He literally had blue balls.

Danni began to make his way back towards the tent. He danced and swayed as he did, his movements graceful. He seemed to float over the snow, as if the very laws of gravity did not apply to him. Then he disappeared inside of the tent. Duke adjusted the bulge in his pants and followed a few seconds later. Danni was lying on the mattress, his eyes seducing Duke with their icy blue glow. Duke stripped out of his clothes. He was so bewitched by Danni that he barely noticed the cold. Danni scooted over so that Duke could crawl in under the blankets next to him.

This time Duke exercised all the self control he could muster. He took his time kissing Danni, exploring the inside of his mouth, roaming his skinny little body with his hand; he felt the ridge of each rib, the sharp angle of his hip bones. He sucked on the tip of his hardened penis, tasted the salt of his precum, silently relishing the moans that Danni made. Danni’s body though fragile looking, wrapped around Duke’s as if it was meant to. He was flexible and unbelievably strong.

Duke mounted Danni from behind and took his time fucking him. He enjoyed the satiny feeling of Danni’s ass, clenching his butt cheeks as he pushed in and out of him. He wrapped a large hand around Danni’s skinny little throat and felt each bob of his Adam’s Apple whenever he moaned or swallowed. And when it was his time to cum it couldn’t have been anymore perfect. Under the shimmering lights it was like something out of a fairytale - or a dream.

I’m falling in love with him, Duke thought as he listened to Danni’s peaceful breathing sometime later. It doesn’t matter what he is. I’m falling in love with him.