Titans

The Genesis [06:32]

Location: The Hermes Starship

We do a sweep of the ship, collecting anything that might be of use and piling it in the centre of the mess deck – a wide open room with two long tables sharing the space. The ship is built with a tangle of insides, corridors that bend and curve in seemingly random directions. On a trip to hopefully find a bathroom, I somehow find myself back in the crew quarters instead. I go to turn back, but not before I spot the boy – Merc – in the room next to the one Atara currently sleeps in.

I step inside. The room is long and rectangular. At the far end, a bed is squashed up against the wall, right next to a window that currently overlooks nothing but darkness. The rest of the walls are lined with locker and compartments, shelves and drawers – one of which hangs open.

Looking at Merc now, seated on one of the low, stiff-looking couches common to all the rooms, I see that he has something in his hands – something he only tears his eyes away from in order to notice my arrival.

“Hey,” I say. He doesn’t respond in kind. “What have you found?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know – it’s, well, it’s a photograph but–”

“Can I see it?”

He nods and hands it up to me. The photo is framed in dark wood and is only slightly bigger than my hand. In it, I see the smiling faces of a family. A father, dressed in a suit and tie. A mother, dressed with similar formality, her hands resting on the shoulders of her daughter. And their son – a crooked smile, a mess of dark brown hair.

“Shit, mate. Shit.”

“What is it?”

“That’s you.”

“What?”

“You’re in this picture. The little kid. It’s you.”

Merc stands and takes the photo from my hands. He peers down at the image. “Is that what I look like?”

“Well, clearly you’re older now. But the resemblance is obvious. You don’t see it?”

He frowns. “I thought the family looked familiar but I didn’t…”

“What, you don’t know what you look like?”

His frown deepens as he looks sideways at me. He almost looks…disturbed. “Do you?”

Now I understand why. I try to tug the image of my face from the recesses of my mind but come up empty-handed. Truth is: I have no idea what I look like. And neither does Merc – or anyone else on this ship for that matter.

“Christ. What the hell happened to us?”

At that moment, there comes a knock by the door and I spin around to see Lilith standing in the entrance. “I found the galley,” she says, tossing us each a small rectangular package. Without thinking, I catch mine in my left hand. Once I get over the fact that I’m left-handed, I see it’s a granola bar. “There’s enough food to last us months.”

“Hopefully we won’t need that long,” Merc grumbles. Straight away, I can see how his demeanour has changed. Suddenly he’s rigid, closed-off, angry. He crosses his arms and looks at Lilith with a cold stare.

She pretends not to notice, but I can see it’s bothering her. And the sudden silence is bothering me. I speak up. “We found a picture,” I tell Lilith, “of Merc when he was younger.”

She looks shocked. “What does that mean?”

“Well, this is just a guess, but I think it means that this is our ship.”

There’s a moment of quiet as everyone lets this sink in. Then Lilith asks, “If it’s our ship, then why weren’t we in it – when we woke up or whatever? Why were we dispersed all around the place? It was like we’d all been sprinkled across the ground at random.”

My brain is spinning like gears in a clock. I recall the remote that fell from Merc’s pocket and called the ship. The gun Lilith had clasped to her belt. The flashlight I clung to as I fell. And with a whoosh, I’m falling again – down through darkness, the air roaring in my ears, my stomach pressed up against my ribs. Only this time, I look up – at the unending darkness above, the starless sky. Where was I falling from?

The answer is obvious. I was falling from the ship – had to be. But none of the others were. They woke with two feet firmly planted on the ground. Clearly, I was the last one on the ship before we blacked out and lost our memories – if that’s how it happened, anyway.

Remote. Gun. Flashlight. Why did I have a flashlight? Why was I using it? Why did no one else have one?

Why did Lilith have a gun? Why was her first response when we saw the others to shoot Atara?

Why did Merc have a remote that called the ship?

“Something happened here,” I say. “Something bad.”

Lilith swallows. “Do you know what?”

“No. But I’m going to find out.”