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I had snorted, hugged her, kissed her cheek.
Unlike Beli, we did not fuck against a wall.
Then it was just me and Ali. By then, PsiCom headquarters had set up shop around the Neanderthal homeworld. Spark scientists - including that fucking sketchy as balls dude that had given us our upgraded guns - were working with human engineers to upgrade and upgun the ship. Ali and I were sitting at the observation deck, just as we had while watching Doyen Prime burn.
"Wanna retire?" she asked.
"Fuck yes," I said, immediately.
"Good!" Ali said, grinning at me. "By the way, I was elected High President of the Doyen Republic."
I felt a punch to my gut. A sudden crushing weight seemed to descend on my shoulders, pressing down like a smothering cloak. I could see it ahead of us. Years and years of dickering, bickering, doing the heavy legwork of rebuilding a galactic civilization, to turn it from something hideous and grotesque to something new and hopeful. It was a good, honest job to have. But...I was barely out of high school. The idea of surviving all this craziness and having to march immediately into that nest of vipers was so horrifying that...that...
Ali was laughing. Her head rolled back as her shoulders shook. "Y-Your face!"
I slowly scowled. "You weren't elected were you?"
"I didn't even run!" she giggled, wiping at her eyes with her thumbs.
I grabbed her and started to give her a vicious and yet highly respectful boyfriend noogie.
The two of us came to the gateroom, smiling as we did so. Lt. Commander Amelia nodded to us, grinning as she looked us up and down. "Mustering out too?" she asked, clicking her tongue. "You know, we do need to keep some skilled psychics. What if an army of brain devouring space spiders attack?"
I grinned. "You have all of our numbers," I said, cheerfully.
She punched my shoulder, then reached out and touched the star-gate. The psychic field warped, puckered, and the two of us stepped through onto Earth. Ali and I stood next to one another in the room that I had been in beneath the Cheyenne Mountain Missile Complex. This was...not the place where this had all begun. But it was close. The place where it had all begun had, really, been a tiny room where I had managed to draw the attention of PsiCom. I had hacked into government files while the internet in my neighborhood had been down. Latent cyberpathic powers.
"And I never even used by cyberpathic powers!" I said, shaking my head.
"Hmm?" Ali asked. She frowned. "Where is the door?"
"Oh, it's this way," I said, pointing. "But..." I realized how long it had been since I had seen my parents. And...it wasn't like we were still in the military, right? I just had to muster out. It suddenly seemed like an awful lot of work, considering...
I took Ali's hand, smirking.
I stepped forward and bridged the points between the base and my home. We stood before the door and I grinned at Ali. "So, here's my house. And my parents are-"
The door opened and my mother stepped out, carrying a newspaper to put in the recycle out front. She stopped dead, looking at me. I grinned at her. "Hey, Mom, I-" I started.
Mom started to scream.
As I remembered I wasn't exactly Abadai Hatem anymore.
I was a naked weapon.
The naked weapon.
Derp.
THE END
- COMMENTS
Anonymous3 months agoI've truly enjoyed this epic journey that you have provided. I like your writing style, and would love to see it in longer, full-sized novels. Keep up the good work!
Anonymousabout 1 year agoI agree that both the right and left have become less willing to listen to each other and compromise, but apoliticalism is not the answer. Politics is the means by which we govern our society -- nothing more and nothing less. Apoliticalism, by its very definition, means opting out of being part of the governance of our society. To put it another way, you are abdicating your responsibility to be part of the solution -- which makes you part of the problem because if the middle opts out, only the extremes influence our governance.
Also, we cannot allow the search for a middle ground to become an excuse for tolerating inappropriate behavior. Failure to speak out against injustice because you don't want to take sides is an abdication of the responsibility of all human beings, both individually and collectively, to promote the welfare of those around them. Don't get me wrong; I'm not advocating for (or against) the 'welfare state'. I'm simply pointing out that when a government is engaging in cruel or injurious behavior, everyone has a responsibility to speak up. Furthermore, the assertions that words don't matter (except when you want them to) and that facts either aren't real, don't matter, or can be changed at a whim are false, and tolerating the promotion of those viewpoints is injurious to the fabric of society.
As for the story, I enjoyed it. The premise was creative, and the unlikely plot was nicely matched by the light tone. There were some holes in the plot, rough transitions, places that could stand to be filled in or fleshed out, and typos, but nothing that couldn't be fixed in a second draft. And even Trump's supporters will admit that his election was unlikely, so there's no valid reason remove that point, though the tone could be moderated. Overall, I'd say it deserves the high ratings. Keep up the good work!
dlcline54over 1 year agoI am sorry to hear you think that way. I enjoy your writing and find many of your ideas fresh and intriguing.
But I personally find that apoliticalism is the only sane refuge in a world where both the left and the right are becoming more and more insane in their extreme views of the political process. I reject both sides of that extremism and will continue pursue a middle ground of sanity where I find it.
DragonCoboltalmost 2 years agoAuthorApoliticism isn't an inherently positive facet of writing. Being 'apolitical' in a world where some people are being targeted by far-right political movements simply for existance is an exercise in cowardice and I won't have it.
Basically: If you support Trump, or if you find an active, seething contempt for Trump to be a problem, you can kindly stop reading my stories.
If you do not actively despise everything Trump and his followers stand for, I do not want you around me. I don't want you to speak to me. I want you to go and think about your life and try and figure out where it all went wrong. I'm writing this comment as more and more news reports are coming out about the literal goddam concentration camps that Donald Trump's administration is running in our country, and I cannot begin to express the amount of pure, utter loathing that this fills me with.
So, yeah.
I hope that makes things clear.
Anonymousalmost 2 years agoYour a masterful writer and this was a great story with a brilliant premise the only thing that besmirched it was your inability to be apolitical. You are absolutely correct though Dan Abnett is NOT obscure!
First and only!!
