I Got No Fight Left
Posted on October 18th, 2021 by D'bryn Zoë

Holodeck 2
USS Atlantis
October 14, 2400

Zoë reached for the measuring spoon, then retracted. She snapped her fingers, took up the bottle of olive oil, and spritzed an eyeballed amount into the cast-iron.

Angela said, ‘There you go. You’re learning.’

As she sautéed the onions, capers, and thyme in with the mushrooms Zoë said, ‘The ol noggin still has that capacity.’

‘Give that about a minute, then hit it with the garlic salt and black pepper. Not too much of either though.’

‘I mean, I absolutely support it, but why garlic salt when the recipe says regular salt?’

Angela sipped her Chablis, half-toasted with it as she imparted her advice. ‘Unless you’re making something sweet, always sub garlic salt in for regular salt.’ Another sip. ‘To taste, obviously; don’t take my always seriously. Did you already mix the truffle mayo?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I’ll get the patties ready for ya then.’

‘Thanks!’

‘Don’t mention it. No one likes handling raw beef, even replicated. Everyone always has me do it.’ Angela paper-toweled the beef, split it in half, and formed two thick, pink pucks. ‘Once those aromatics are good and soft, add the verjus rouge. So, Zoë, you’re telling me you lived almost twenty lifetimes, and you never learned to cook?’

‘I tried a couple times, but… You’d be surprised what habits—and I guess non-habits—we non-programmable beings will develop. Especially when replication technology just continues to improve in the future.’

‘I’m programmed to be a chef and culinary mentor; I guess it’s literally beyond my capacity for understanding.’ Big sip of Chablis.

Zoë smirked. ‘Sometimes even the wisest, most curious, knowledge-hungry people will look at the issue and go, “Why would I go through the effort of possibly fucking up a meal when I can just ask the magic food box to make it perfectly?”’

Angela laughed. Whomever programmed Chef Angela nailed materteral characterizations to the wall—from the giddy, shameless laugh and the continuous flow of white wine to her stout frame and frizzed-out salt-and-pepper hair. Lingering stereotypes in Earth culture gave her a soupçon of Italian energy. Zoë made a mental note to continue cooking lessons with her.

She said, ‘Well, as long as I can exist for the true niche hobbyists, I can’t complain.’ Then, ‘So. Zoë. Why burgers for this romantic meal?’

‘Why not burgers? Hannah likes burgers. I like burgers.’

‘Oh, nothing wrong with it. Just not what people usually want to for romantic dinners. Usually romantic dinners at least necessitate a fork.’ Angela pointed at the cast-iron. ‘Those are done, by the way. Scrape em off into a bowl and cover it. Another drizzle of olive oil the pan, then it’s burger time.’

‘In every one of our lives together,’ Zoë said, ‘foods like this always made us feel the most comfortable. At one point Hannah said, Junk food is our love language, and I never forgot that. We got down to some fancy meals and stuff, but we never strayed from burgers, pizza, corndogs, ponchiki, deep-fried hasperat, chicken nuggets… Nothing better than getting home, ripping off the bras, repping a big bowl of chicken nuggets and several sauces and just lumping on the couch.’

Zoë could tell Angela would not, if she were flesh-and-blood, share the same home habits. But the love of food was simpatico, and that seemed more than enough. ‘Sounds lovely,’ she said.

‘It was.’ Zoë sighed. ‘Plus it got us motivated to eat healthier food the rest of the day, and get out and move our bods.’

‘Alright, garlic salt and pepper the uncooked sides, then flip em.’

‘Man, I can’t wait for tonight.’

=Λ=

The Skylark
That night

The Skylark sat in its usual space, looming over a smaller shuttle. Zoë caught butterflies just seeing the old girl. Hannah took her on so many trips. In the iterations in which Zoë left Starfleet after meeting her, they called the Skylark home for almost two years before settling elsewhere. The resident aromas were lovely and dizzying.

Zoë approached the starboard hatch and thumbed the control panel with her free hand. Locked.

She rolled her eyes; I guess Scott’s back to snooping around on her again. Silly boy. Badge. ‘D’bryn to Ziredac. I’m here, love.’

No answer.

Badge. ‘D’bryn to Ziredac, you there?’

Several long breaths passed. The nagging returned: that thatch of cobwebs just out of reach, visible only in direct sunlight, draping the corners of her consciousness. There was something off about Hannah ever since they woke from their lifetimes, but it couldn’t be addressed amidst the havoc of war. Zoë supposed she understood; she too felt the sheen of wonder flake off and shed upon waking in sickbay. Maybe Hannah took it harder.

At last a reply: Oh hey. Hey Zo. Whassup.

Drunk again. Jesus. A great funereal bell rang somewhere inside Zoë at this realization, a dark resonance of such a frequency that rattles your bones from beyond the veil of hearing. She saw wine glass after wine glass in Dad’s hand; she saw his eyes looking through rather than at; she saw the nightly surrendering of control and the barrages that followed.

Hannah liked to drink. That much Zoë knew from the hundreds of years she spent with her, but it never became that ill-advised medicine. Not like now.

Zoë ummed. ‘I’m outside? I have dinner? Like we planned?’

Oh. Ri-ri-ri-ri-right. Uh, yeah, come on in.

Zoë tried the panel again. ‘It’s locked.’

It is? Oh shit. Hold on.

The hatch opened to a lightless tomb filled with morose and noisy music cranked to migraine fuel. Zoë found Hannah sprawled in her pilot’s seat, one leg up on her console, grasping consciousness with naught but luck and prayer. Her attire was the same top and underwear she was drunk in a couple days ago. She held a half-empty bottle of vodka. An empty bottle of a yet-unidentified liquor lay beneath the chair.

‘Jesus Christ, dude,’ Zoë said.

Hannah grinned like a harlequin caught mid-transgression, and so ended her acknowledgment of the situation. She turned the music down and said, ‘Sorry, babe, I forgot.’ [It should be noted that each of Hannah’s slurred syllables were mashed together like wet slices of bread, but the narrative will translate it to legible English for your convenience.]

‘It’s…it’s fine,’ Zoë You didn’t eat already, did you?’

‘No.’ Hannah made an urpy face. ‘Probably to my de…deti…dert… Probably not a good thing.’

‘I made burgers.’

‘Gellish.’

‘Like, I made them.’

‘Like on a [sic] oven?’

‘Yeah. Ran that cooking class holoprogram, found a really yummy recipe.’

‘Yeah? What’s it got on it?’

‘Really good seasoned patties, uh, fontina cheese, sautéed onions, capers, and mushrooms…’

Hannah crunched her nose. ‘Mushrooms?’

‘Yeah. They’re really good.’

‘Mushrooms being good is a paragon [sic].’

Zoë knew what she meant. ‘You like mushrooms, though.’

‘It’s a matter of public record that I do not.’

Zoë was back on that goat farm in Vermont, emptying her basket onto the towel on the kitchen counter: the chanterelles, lobster mushrooms, black trumpets, white porcinis, morels. She and Hannah were in their late twenties; Hannah was knuckling up to knock on Thirty’s door. Hannah came in from the living room, grabbed Zoë from behind, asked what she got there, made a yucky face. Zoë tried cooking the morels herself but fucked them up, so she repped a replacement and convinced Hannah to try them. Instant conversion to full mushroom fanatic. Started going hunting with Zoë too, even went to other parts of the world to find new ones.

‘No,’ Zoë said, her voice somehow both hollow and heavy. ‘You like them. You ate a bad one as a toddler, so your parents just kind of always told you that you didn’t like mushrooms. One of those brain tricks. I’ve seen you eat a mushroom-centric dish and ask for more.’

‘Huh. Weird. Well, I’m hungry enough to try anyway.’ Hannah rolled off the chair, landing hands-and-knees with the grace of an elderly dachshund. She stood erect, grabbed the vodka bottle, and stepped forward.

Zoë stepped back.

‘What’s up, babe?’ Hannah said.

‘Why don’t you remember liking mushrooms?’

‘I…’ Drunk people like to think they have grace. They do not. Zoë watched the dishonesty break out on Hannah’s face like record-setting eczema. ‘I mean, I’m pretty drunk. I probably forgot.’

Zoë shook her head. ‘How many of your lifetimes did you spend with me?’

‘Uh, why?’

‘Just answer the question.’

‘Why, though? Why’s it matter?’

‘Did you spend any lifetimes with me?’

‘I…yeah. Yeah, a couple of em.’

‘And I, someone who loves mushrooms, never convinced you to try them?’

Several games of 3D chess ran in Hannah’s brain. ‘I don’t see why this is a problem. I forgot about the mushrooms, I’m sorry.’

‘You didn’t spend any of your lives with me, did you.’

‘Babe, come on—’

Zoë sharpened her tone. ‘If you had, you’d absolutely know that you do like mushrooms, and that I don’t like being called babe.’

Hannah recoiled. Her jaw quivered; she had nothing to say.

‘What’s my favorite book?’

‘Uh…’

‘Who’s my favorite musician?’

‘I don’t…’

‘What’s my mom’s name?’

Hannah went blank.

Zoë said, ‘That last one was a trick question. I told you my mom’s name before we had our…our whatever-it-was.’

Hannah went more than blank; she looked like she was dissociating.

‘How did you spend your lifetimes?’

‘Oh. You know, uh…’

‘Did you have someone special, or did you just…you know, do what you said you did before you met me? Casual stuff only, that kind of thing.’

‘No, I, uh… There was… There was someone.’ The word almost visibly clawed its way out of Hannah’s windpipe. ‘’Erika.’

‘Erika.’ Zoë set down the food bag, crossed her arms, leaned against the far wall of the Skylark’s cockpit. ‘This is beginning to be an underlying problem. Not only do you not know me, but you haven’t shared much about you. Who’s Erika?’

Hannah’s eyes drew floorward. Her voice sank into the next octave to the left. ‘First girlfriend.’

‘How many lifetimes did you spend with her?’

‘All but one.’

Zoë could not parse how this made her feel. Jealousy was not native to her biome, but it slithered into the taller grasses of her menagerie. At a loss for any other forward movement she resolved to continue asking questions. ‘And that one life. Was it with me?’

‘It wasn’t with anybody.’

‘Look, Hannah, I realize that what we went through was fucking beyond extenuating, but you have to realize how this could feel for me. You’re telling me that, when faced with infinite lifetimes, you didn’t choose one of them to spend with me? They were all for this Erika person?’

Hannah made a slow wince, as if each of Zoë’s words increased a headache by hearty increments. ‘It’s not that simple.’

‘How is it not that simple? How am I supposed to interpret that, Hannah? I’m happy that you got to revisit your past love, but what do your choices say about our real-life love? The one between the real us?’

‘I dunno.’

‘Well let’s start with a simple question: Do you love me?’

Vodka swig. ‘Yeah.’ It had the tone, facial expression, and body language of, Why not? but Zoë would accept it for now.

‘Okay. And did you miss me at all? Did you think about me?’

‘Yeah.’ Follow-up vodka swig.

‘Did you see me at all?’

Hannah went blank again, took another pull from the bottle.

‘Why? Why not just once? I mean, shit, Hannah, I’ve never really been into the idea of monogamy; you could’ve potentially had me and Erika in your life.’

‘Is there something you’re really asking?’ Hannah was a new species of herself. Her drunk-eyes weren’t like Dad’s; they didn’t look through, nor at, but into. Zoë couldn’t tell if it was rage, hatred, fatigue, or some other variable.

She said, ‘I shoot straight, Hannah; you know this. Or I guess, you should know this. I’m asking why you say you love me, but didn’t spend any of your lifetimes with me.’

‘Because…’

‘Because, what, you love Erika more?’

‘No, it’s… That’s never that simple. Because—’

‘Because she’s less complicated.’

‘It’s… It’s becau—’

‘Because she’s not asexual. If you could choose, you’d be with someone you could ha—’

Hannah growled, ‘Will you shut the fuck up and let finish a fucking sentence?!’ and hurled the vodka bottle across the cabin in the opposite direction.

The glass was too strong to shatter. The report of its collision cracked like a gunshot. Zoë started back, her extremities tingling from the surge of fight-or-flight. Part of her closed the chapter then and there, compelling her to leave, never look back. She never figured out why she stayed any longer.

In the grim silence Hannah said, her words still slurring but given a gleaming edge, ‘It’s because I couldn’t get it right. Eighteen times. Eighteen fucking times, Zoë, I tried, and tried, and tried to get it right, and never did. It always ended, no matter what I did differently, no matter what lesson I learned. Longest we made it—by far—was our late forties. She was almost fifty. And you wanna know why she left? Because we,’ and the dragged angry finger-quotes through the air, ‘“outgrew each other”. That was it. She even said I was “perfect” but that she just wasn’t in love with me anymore. That ever happened to you, Zoë? In any of your lifetimes?’

Hoping Hannah would pick up on the implications, Zoë said, ‘No.’

‘Well it fucking sucks. It fucking sucks that you can learn all the lessons you need be your perfect person’s perfect person, and your perfect person can still just…’ Hannah bit her bottom lip and made a harsh and final ffft sound. ‘And they’re gone. Like it’s part of the universe’s genetic fuckin code that you aren’t together.’

‘We lived the rest of our lives together, each time,’ Zoë said. ‘Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’

‘There’s no guarantee that you won’t fall out of love with me in the real world.’

‘There’s no guarantee that you won’t fall out of love with me. There’re no guarantees for anything.’

‘And that fucking sucks, Zoë. I could use a guarantee; just one fucking guarantee of anything.’ Beat. ‘Except death. But you know what I mean.’

‘How’s this for a guarantee? Despite all of this, I love you. And I always will love you. I have loved you for centuries. Even if we’re apart, that love will survive. Do you trust me on that?’

‘You’re an idiot.’

Zoë’s eyes widened. ‘Excuse me?’

‘I don’t fucking deserve love, Zoë. Look what I did with it. Eighteen times, nineteen if you count the real one. I squandered it. I hurt her. And it’s more than her. People on this ship treat me like shit before knowing me for more than thirty seconds. It’s obvious: I’m a piece of fucking trash, everyone can see it like a fuckin comet, and you’re powerfully stupid for being blind to it.’

‘Don’t you dare say that to me. Don’t you fucking dare.’

‘See? See what I mean? I don’t deserve it.’

Zoë advanced on Hannah, stuck a furious finger in her face. Hannah stumbled back, catching herself with the back of her pilot seat. ‘One: I am not stupid. Two: Your shithead brother shaped you like this. This is his fault. Right there in your home, you felt unsafe, undeserving, unseen, and unknown by the people who were supposed to love you, and he swung that wrecking ball. You deserve love, Hannah. And I never want to hear you say that you don’t.’

Hannah sniffed, moved Zoë’s hand away from her face, and looked her in the eye. ‘Well, I don’t deserve love. And I don’t want yours.’

A spike of negative space ran Zoë through. Breath, blood—all somatic function gave way for a microsecond, and through that cold aperture flowed a sorrow beyond reckoning.

‘This isn’t you,’ Zoë said with a quiver, holding tight the reins on what was to be a debilitating cry. ‘You don’t mean this.’

‘It fucking is, and I fucking do. Leave the fuck alone.’

The path from the Skylark to her quarters was a quantum field, soundless, airless, devoid of gravity and matter. There was no friction. Zoë could not detect speed or lack of speed. Her legs moved outside of conscious control, and the nerves there felt no impact or motion. She did not know if she began crying before she reached sanctuary, or if anyone would have even seen her if she did.

=Λ=

And Hannah, she bore such a molten hatred for every booze-drenched word that came out of her mouth. No catharsis here. Nothing off the chest. Just an old rancor: an obsidian-black seed pod sown since childhood, spreading its roots, dispersing its noxious deterrents.

She knew what Zoë had told her, had known for years before they met in this life. This sourness was her brother’s work; this was Mom and Dad; this was that sad little household that, after its own traumas, wanted to eschew any intrusion of imperfection, any deviation from a perfect, happy little life. What’s more, Hannah knew that she couldn’t lean upon this blame. Though she was blameless in the sowing of that seed pod, she alone was responsible for clipping its stems, shortening its roots, eventually scooping it from the earth.

But she had no fight left. She knew not when she lost it—before her time loops or during—but she searched her stores and found them depleted.

There was still some vodka in the bottle she had thrown, about a shot’s worth. She knocked it back, let the bottle fall from numbing fingers. The music had gone silent, the lights were still dim. With a word to the computer she could have alleviated this, redirected this rage and sorrow into an escapist diversion, or even a therapeutic session with a punching bag that looked like Jason, or something. But she couldn’t. For an uncountable mass of minutes Hannah sat in her pilot’s seat and stared at nothing, letting all stiffnesses go unstretched, letting her restlessness go still, letting her fatigue go uninterrupted.

Just what I deserve, she thought. And thought. And thought. And thought again. This is just what I deserve.