July 29th, 2085
Tonight, the night had teeth. And it chewed on Brenda's nerves.
Wind clawed around the edges of the Manor with a dogged persistence—branches tapping at the glass like forgotten hands, old boards creaking in protest. Somewhere in the distance, a transformer let out a metallic groan and then fell silent, as though even the infrastructure was done pretending it could hold this world together.
Brenda didn’t flinch.
She was deep in the library—the reinforced one with the false floor and the lead-lined walls. Once a sanctuary of ink and theory, it was now part-time lab, part-time mausoleum of failed miracles. Dead prototypes littered the workbench. So did three greasy mugs and a cold cup of cinnamon tea she hadn’t remembered pouring. The air stank of ozone and fatigue.
She’d been staring at the same line of code for nineteen minutes. Not typing. Not correcting. Just there—like a statue no one had the heart to move.
Richard leaned against the doorframe like guilt that had taken on form. He hadn’t announced himself—never did, not when she was this far inside the machinery of her own mind. He just was, folding into the silence like he'd been waiting there for years.
She spoke first. Didn’t turn. Didn’t blink.
Her voice sounded like it had scraped itself raw on its way out.
“The guy who invented the hammer... think he felt bad when someone first used one to open someone’s skull?”
Richard didn’t move. Didn’t exhale. The pause was a mercy.
Then, deadpan and low, “Only if he was human.”
That one hit something—some buried nerve just below the bruises.
She tilted her head slightly, like she was trying to recall the shape of a feeling she'd forgotten how to wear. Her eyes never left her hands: chapped, stained, steady. The hands of someone who had built too much and broken too little by comparison.
“I’m tired of being human,” she said, voice hollow. “Tired of caring. Tired of watching everything I build get turned into something else. I didn’t make the submarine. I didn’t weaponize gravity. I never asked to be sainted. But somehow I’m always the fucking constant. The one thing everything circles back to.”
Richard crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bench. He picked up the tea mug from her hand, took one sip, and made a face like he'd just tasted regret itself.
“You were already mythic when I met you,” he said, setting the mug aside. “Heard tales from the moment I crossed the river. Saint Brenda. Beacon of the new world. That’s why I kept my distance. Moved in with the bunny girl for a while before I made my presence known. You didn’t ask to be sainted,” he added, “but you sure as hell didn’t mind the cathedral.”
That one landed. She flinched, barely. But she didn’t argue.
Instead, she closed her eyes.
And said the quiet thing out loud.
“I think I want to leave.”
He didn’t speak. The overhead light flickered once, then steadied again—like even the wiring was holding its breath.
“Leave the lab?” he asked, even though he already knew.
“Leave Earth.”
Her voice cracked on the second word. Just a little.
She opened her eyes. Met his for the first time in what felt like weeks.
“I thought I could fix this world,” she said. “But maybe it doesn’t want to be fixed. Maybe it just wants someone to blame when the duct tape peels off.”
Richard exhaled slowly through his nose. Not annoyed—just thinking. Like he was weighing whether tonight was for gentleness or surgical cruelty.
“If you go,” he said eventually, “do you get to stop being the hammer?”
She didn’t answer.
Instead, she reached under the bench and pulled out the tiny BioNano model he’d once given her—the impossible little latticework, shaped like the dream she used to have. She set it on the table between them.
“I don’t want to be the hammer,” she said. “I just wanted to be the hand that built something good.”
Richard leaned forward and tapped the model with a finger. It spun once. Wobbled. Settled.
“Then don’t leave,” he said. “Build something better.”
She stared at it. At the delicate little lie of it. The thing that had once made her feel infinite.
“I don’t know if I can,” she whispered. “And don’t think I don’t feel you holding back. Waiting for the perfect time. Waiting to say I told you so.”
She let go of her sleeves and folded her arms tightly instead, guarding her ribs.
“You’d only say that,” Richard said, picking up the mug again like it might have improved, “if you either needed an argument… or already had your retorts lined up.”
He took another sip, winced harder, and set the mug down like it had insulted him.
“So. You want your pound of flesh?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Are you coming on to me?” Brenda deadpanned.
Richard paused, momentarily short-circuited.
“What—? Oh.” His expression reset. “I hope it weighs more than a pound.”
“I have no idea,” Brenda muttered, eyes drifting. “I never was good with the imperial system.”
The wind picked up again, clawing at the windows like it knew their names.
The library creaked in sympathy, or maybe judgment.
They didn’t move. Just sat there in the flickering hum of everything they’d survived, with the smallest pieces of what they’d built between them.
Waiting.
Not deciding.
Not yet.
“You know,” Richard said slowly, dragging the words out like he wasn’t sure he should say them but had no interest in stopping himself, “if you’re more than half-serious about us leaving Earth… you really need to get immortalized. You’re not going to help build a new world in outer space in this beautiful body that looks one step from death when it’s tired.”
Brenda didn't laugh.
Didn't look at him either.
Just muttered, “Richard… when I look one step from death, don’t poke the bear. It'll happen when it happens. When I can’t put it off any longer.”
She paused, then blinked up at a speck of dust hovering near the rafters, as if trying to measure how long it had been since she last cleaned or cared. Her voice softened.
“And thank you so much for saying us.”
That caught him.
He shifted his weight, not entirely sure what to do with the gravity in her voice. Then, after a beat too long for comfort:
“Well, you know,” he said, reaching for a smirk that had barely survived the week, “I figure if we’re going to colonize the stars, someone has to keep your genius ego from collapsing into a black hole.”
Brenda snorted, low and tired. “That’s astrophysically inaccurate.”
“Yeah, but emotionally on point.”
She didn't argue.
Instead, she reached for the BioNano model again and turned it in her hands like it might whisper an answer if she held it just right. The silence stretched, but it didn’t feel like distance. Just weight. Familiar weight.
“I’m not saying yes,” she murmured. “I’m saying... I hear you.”
“That’s enough,” Richard said, softer now. “For tonight.”
The wind rattled the shutters again, louder this time. Something in the walls answered with a groan—old stone remembering the cold.
“Come on,” he said finally, standing and offering her a hand. “Let’s go pretend we sleep.”
She stared at the hand for a long second, then took it. Her grip was firm, calloused. The kind that didn’t ask for saving, but still held on.
They left the lab slowly, lights flicking off behind them one by one—each a small goodbye, or maybe a promise.
Not deciding.
But walking forward.
Together.