A Spaceman

Chapter 41--All the devils

So, somebody tried to plant a bomb. Really badly, I might add. He's got it wired to blow, but the timer mechanism looks unreliable at best, a simply circuitry error and could have ruined his entire----wait, yes, it did. okay---so the bomb isn't live that's a good thing.

I step back, slowly. It's still a live bomb and I should tell someone. But who? And who planted it? Tyrell? Titus. Who knows, they're both loose and equal amounts of trouble in my opinion. I can't leave the bomb here. but I also can't pick it up and walk around with it, "I just found this bomb" certainly doesn't seem like a very good excuse. I sigh, I can't just stand here with it either. What am I going to do?

**

This is the perfect place to plant bombs. You don't even actually need that many initiators, one or two real ones and those will trigger the packs of explosives. There were more than enough cleaning supplies to make a few bombs. Plus, all the environmentally friendly materials that they use burn up so easily, this section of the base will go down in no time at all. The rest of the bombs have to look authentic, of course. Can't have somebody trying to move the explosives so that they won't go off. not that anybody is down here---

"Titus---what are you doing?"

Except the woman I love, she is here. needless to say.

"Nothing," I didn't think that would work. If he lives, I'll have to talk to Harris about what it feels like to say the wrong thing, I'm sure it's an emotion he's familiar with.

"What is that?" Tom asks, slowly stepping towards me, her eyes on my nice bomb.

"What does it look like?" I ask.

"A bomb," she says, her eyes darting back to me.

"That's what it is," I say.

"Okay," she says shifting backwards ready to run or take a blow from me but not actually running or attacking me.

"What does it matter though? If they all die?" I ask, nodding at the upstairs. "Nobody came for you. I bet nobody came for me either. Or if they did it was only to make sure somebody was promising to send me to a different planet. It's not as though they care. It's not as though anything will ever change. The Peters will be left alone and the Quentins will kill themselves and the Tsegis will die and life will go on. so why not help it along, the despair? Let them all die."

"I'm sorry your family isn't stronger---I wish your dad hadn't left---I wish my parents had bothered to ever come---but that doesn't excuse this, that doesn't excuse killing them. Just come with me, please---we can fix this, I promise, together---," she says, holding out her hand, her eyes pained. So she's not going to agree to help me. Oh well. it was worth the try.

"Oh,---wait, you think I made this bomb?" I ask, pointing at my bomb, almost laughing. But inside I'm sad. I can never tell her. She can't know what I am. Or she wouldn't love me anymore.

"What—yes," she says, carefully.

"No," I say. we can't fix me. I'm sorry, Tom. We can't fix me.

"Well---why did you just say that then?"

"Ah, I found you down here with a bomb, I thought it was best to go along with it," I say, innocently. Now I'm going to have to defuse it like a gentleman. Optimum use of the preposition, by the way.

"You didn't find me with a bomb! I found you with a bomb!" she's annoyed now, relieved but annoyed.

"Okay, let's just compromise, we'll just say we found each other with a bomb, and leave it at that," I offer generously.