The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) (23 page)

             
“Why does it have to be hu
mans invading?” Brynna asked. “Why aren't the otherworldly creatures who live on Pangea invading Earth?”

             
“That's been done too many times. How many Earth-invasion movies have we seen, dude?”

             
“We have seen many, most certainly. However, I find your insinu
ation that we would destroy another planet with no thought of the well-being of the natives residing there to be prejudiced and rude, quite frankly. It borders on betrayal of your kind, young lad.”

             
“Maybe so, but you know it would happen. Didn't you see
A
vatar?
”

             
Off they went. They were speaking to each other on a channel the rest of us couldn't quite tune in to.

             
“Wait a minute, do you really think there's other life on this planet?” I interrupted them.

             
“As far as we know, there's nothing there but
plants, water, land and air to breathe.” James explained. “I suppose its a possibility. But after all the explorations they've already done there...”

             
“Whoa!” Elijah exclaimed. “They've done explorations already?”

             
“I told you that they were keeping secret
s.” James answered.

             
“People have been on this planet already?” Elijah was practically bobbing up and down in his seat excitedly. “What was it like, man? Do you know all the details? This is my geek-fest right now.”

             
“Species:
Homo-sapiens.
Classification:
Male Space Nerd. Reproductive Status: Non-existent, now and forever. Live long and suffer, young virgin.” Brynna narrated and Maura, James and I burst out laughing. Elijah just stared at her, fighting a smile. I laughed longer than any of them, forgetting
all about my previous irritation with her arrogance.

             
“I can't even come up with a sarcastic comment to counter that. Do you see what happens when I'm forced to wake up early? All of my knowledge and that entire education Mom and Dad are paying out of the
ass for go right out the window.”

             
“Do you ever worry that it will never return? I know I sure do.” Brynna replied without missing a beat.

             
“I'm ignoring you from now until we get to the ship.” He was trying hard now to contain his
excitement, even at
just saying the word “ship”.

             
“Good luck with that.” James said dryly. “I've been trying to ignore her since about an hour after we met and so far, I have been unsuccessful. She's a fiery, persistent little thing.”

             
“Excuse you, Mr. Maxwell, though I might
literally be a thing, I do not appreciate being referred to as though I am simply an inanimate object. Fiery and persistent though I may be, I certainly do not grovel for your attention as you are making it sound.”

             
“Listen, crazy, it was a joke.” James t
old her as we all laughed somewhat cautiously at her irritation. “Sorry, let me rephrase that,” James kept his voice in its usual dull, sarcastic monotone when he said, “Crazed woman, thou art angered for naught. Thine intention was never to offend nor sco
rn your nonexistent feelings.” He looked at her. “I know you understood that, Ophelia. Now please, accept my apology before you go drown yourself in a river.”

             
“Oh, a Hamlet reference,” Brynna replied in mock awe, “Perhaps Shakespeare's second-best known p
lay so congratulations; your knowledge on eighteenth-century literature is mediocre. Also, how can you compare me to the title character's mentally ill, pathetically devoted love interest? I am not waltzing around, handing out flowers to symbolize the impe
nding demise of us all. If I were, we certainly would not be in such fine moods now, would we?”

             
“Give me your hand.” James told her austerely as he reached out to her.

             
“No.”

             
“Seriously. Give me your hand.” He insisted. “I'm sitting right next to you and
I can easily just take it but I'm asking politely. Come on.”

             
“Take my hand and I will slap you with sufficient force across your smirking face, James.”

             
“Please?”

             
“No! Keep your eyes on the road before you kill us all.”

             
“Only if you give me your hand.”

             
She sighed and rolled her eyes in irritation. Then, she reached out her hand to him. He grasped it in one of his.

             
“Now look at me.”

             
“Your behavior is peculiar, to say the least. To say the most, you are beginning to, as Violet would say, 'creep me out.
'” But she looked at him.

             
“Summon your inner zen. Relax. James doesn't want to offend you. James likes you, though James certainly can't figure out why. Go to sleep. When you awake, you might begin acting like a twenty-two year old again. Right now, your
tantrum is making me think that I need to immediately pull over and install a car seat for you.”

             
She snatched her hand away and smacked him hard on the arm as Maura, Elijah and I laughed again, this time without fear of her reproach.

             
“Or procure a strait
-jacket...” Maura added and we only laughed harder.

             
“Chortle all you want, you contemptuous hyenas, but believe me when I say that the second this scourge of a man closes his eyes, he will cease to exist.” She looked over at him again, “Yes. That was a di
rect threat to your life. I will not kill you for your sarcastic commentary on what you perceive to be a show of immaturity on my part. I will kill you for referring to yourself in third-person. That kind of grammatical and conversational inconsistency is
a capital offense in my world.”

             
“I'm sorry, honey. I zoned out about halfway through that.” James said after a minute. Maura and I were still giggling beyond control but Elijah was beginning his return trek to Brynna's side.

             
“Alright, alright...” He said
, holding up his hands to stop us. “Do you want me to kick his ass, Brynn? I will.”
             
“No, thank you.” She smiled at him. “Though you can surely hold him down while
I
kick his ass.”

             
“No ass-kicking is necessary. Hey,” James said and Brynna looked over at h
im, “I'm sorry.”

             
“You are not sorry. Your apology is useless given that I have threatened your physical well-
being. You are simply trying to avoid great pain.”

             
“Nope. You're wrong. I'm genuinely sorry.”

             
“Shut up, James.” She rested her head against the
headrest and closed her eyes. Elijah reached over and patted her shoulder.

             
“You're a good sport, kid.” Immediately, he changed tracks in his mind. “So were there humans on the planet already?”

             
Brynna sighed, shook her head, lowered her sunglasses, and mu
ttered about attention-deficit disorder. My eyes widened slightly when I saw James reach over and squeeze her hand tightly in his. I was right in the middle of the backseat and had been the only one between Maura, Elijah and me to see him do it. My eyes mo
ved to Brynna, who had turned her head to look at him. I expected her to snatch her hand away and scowl darkly at the fact that he had sought a human moment of warmth from her. Instead, she gazed at him uncertainly, as though she was genuinely confused abo
ut how to proceed.

             
“No. Just rovers, as I was told.” James answered and I watched as his thumb stroked the back of her hand. “Sorry to disappoint you, man.”

             
Brynna's fingers locked around James's for just one quick second. Then, she pulled her hand away,
crossed her arms over her chest and closed her eyes again. James smiled to himself and found my eyes in the rear-view mirror. Instantly, we both looked away, him trying to pretend that he had not touched her and me trying to pretend that I hadn't seen.

             
“
That doesn't disappoint me at all! We will be the first human beings to set foot on this planet. Do you all have any idea what that means?”

             
“We'll be the first to die if it turns out the little computer on wheels was wrong about the oxygen level being ple
ntiful enough to support human beings?” Brynna filled in quickly.

             
“No! It means that we'll be like...” He stopped, trying to form the right words to phrase what he was trying to say. His excitement was rendering him practically incapable of speaking. “Thi
s planet will continue to exist long after we're gone and we'll have been the first people to ever set foot on it! We'll be myths! Old legends!”
             
“So?” I furrowed my brows in confusion. I finally broke my curious gaze away from Brynna and James. I would ha
ve plenty of time to contemplate whatever was emerging between them later. In the present, I was genuinely interested in whatever it was that Elijah was getting at.

             
“Yes, if you're suggesting that people are going to marvel in wonder at our very existence
, I must, as they say, burst your bubble.” Brynna eyed him in the mirror. “While they might marvel, we will no longer be around to experience their worship.”

             
“It doesn't matter!” Elijah replied and I watched Maura start shaking her head slightly as she tr
ied to suppress a chuckle. “We'll be studied. We will be the reference group for whatever culture forms there. For thousands of years, people will talk about how everything started and it will have started with us!”
             
“Your need to be discussed and revered
is worrisome, Elijah Daniel.” Brynna informed him.

             
“It's
immortality
, Brynna!” Elijah exclaimed. “It's what everyone wants!”

             
“Well, though I agree that it is immortality in its own right, I sincerely doubt that all people yearn for an eternal life, physi
cal or metaphorical.”

             
“Bursting his bubble, raining on his parade. You are a monster, Brynna Olivier.” James told her.

             
“Thank you! Somebody says it, finally.” Elijah replied but he was laughing. “I know that you're secretly psyched about this, too, Brynn
. You just want to act all aloof about it because you don't want to geek in front of James.”

             
“I would be more than willing to geek in front of James if I wasn't so very tired. Plus, I am still worried about the world ending sooner than we think. To be mor
e specific, I am worried about it ending while we're still
on it
. Eli, I will make you a deal, right here and now, in front of all of you, the Council of the Toyota Prius. If we make it safely to Pangea, I will gladly geek out with you.”

             
“I know you will.
You don't have to swear anything because I know that once we're on a
different
planet
, you won't be able to contain yourself. You're as much of a nerd as I am.”

             
“I learned from the best, didn't I?”

             
“By 'geek', what exactly do you mean?” James asked. “Yo
u have to explain these ridiculous slang terms to old people like me.”

             
“Giggle, jump up and down, clap my hands. Behave like some puerile little child with ADHD who just downed a two liter of Mountain Dew. The whole nine yards, James.”

             
James laughed
again and Brynna smiled.

             
“We'll all be so thrilled to be alive that I'll be surprised if everyone doesn't break into a multicultural interpretation of the
Thriller
dance.” Brynna continued quietly after a minute. “That's if we make it, of course.”

             
“We'll
make it.” James told her and I gaped at them, my mouth open and my brow scrunched together in confusion. One minute, they were screaming at each other. The next minute, they were clutching hands and reassuring each other gently that everything would be al
right. If that was what being an adult was, then I wanted to remain a child forever. Relationships were too confusing in later years.