Falling from a window when you know you are more than ten meters in the air is highly unpleasant. You have enough time to realize there is a good chance to die, but it isn’t enough to say goodbye and accept your possible end. It happens for about a second—just a blink of an eye—but it’s the hardest second of your life.

My fall seemed a little bit longer, however, because all the while, I wondered if Marty would appear in the window frame and shoot me before I hit the ground, thus not letting me die by accident. It was a ridiculous thought, but somehow, it planted itself in my mind and wouldn’t let go. When I finally knew Marty wouldn’t appear, it was too late to celebrate—I was already dead.

Incidentally, I might have died a little bit earlier—somewhere in the middle of my fall—because I never actually felt the impact. Instead, I began my frightening journey to the afterlife, still flying, experiencing every bit of it as a separate, fragmented moment. It happened in slow motion: at first, my acceleration rapidly decreased until I stopped moving; I hung there for a while, wondering what was going on, and at last, I started ascending—toward heaven, I hoped. And then, all of a sudden, the tremendous pain came. It was frustrating because I didn’t know I was supposed to feel pain in heaven or what to expect.

Confused and dizzy, I opened my eyes, afraid that I was being redirected toward hell, but what I saw didn’t fit my expectations of such a place. I was in a cradle of leaves and thorny twigs, and if it was really hell, it was one I had never heard of. It took me almost an eternity to realize I wasn’t in the afterlife but in the shrub at the base of the trellis, lying there on my back, totally disoriented.

As soon as I knew I was alive, my previous obsession hit me, and I worriedly reached into my pocket to pull out my gun and point it up at the window. It was a stupid gesture for three reasons: first, there was no one in the window frame; second, I had no bullets in my weapon; and third, it was quite an effort. However, at least it made me realize I could still move.

I slowly put my hand down and thrust the gun back into my pocket, after which I tried to turn around. When I moved, I instantly grasped the reason for my terrible suffering—the twigs. They were everywhere, and their long, sharp thorns cut deeply into my flesh. Unfortunately, there was no way around it, and I had to endure it, so I clenched my teeth and gave it another try. I rolled over, but I had to stop almost immediately because I felt I would lose consciousness. The problem was that while the old thorns pulled out, new ones pushed into my body, which was excruciating. I felt like Jesus crucified in a shrub instead of a cross.

I wearily closed my eyes and remained still for a few moments to allow my body to adapt to the pain. The pause gave me a bit of relief, but I knew I couldn’t wait too long because the clock was wildly ticking. The sound of gunfire was echoing not far from me, and since it was getting scarcer, I expected to see the survivors coming around any minute. I had to hurry if I didn’t want to return to my dying! Soon, I clenched my teeth again and forced myself to keep turning over. Almost unconscious, I did it three times, and at last, I reached solid ground. By that time, the rivers of Babylon were rolling down my cheeks.

I feebly rose to my feet, shaking. The two black Comatsus were left nearby with their doors open, and I briefly hesitated about “borrowing” one of them. Eventually, I had to give up, though. The cars were unfamiliar to me, and the moment wasn’t exactly right for adventures of this sort. Instead, I just limped toward my old Ford as quickly as I could—it was parked thirty meters down the road—and all the while, I cursed myself for being so damn precautious. Had I stopped the car a bit closer to the building, I would have spared myself at least some of the suffering I experienced. Eventually, I managed the distance, but when I got into the vehicle, a new set of problems presented themselves to me—I had too many foreign objects in my butt to drive!

In fact, under different circumstances, the entire situation would’ve been quite comical, but I had no strength to laugh now. I carefully sat in the front seat, started the engine, turned the Ford around, and drove down the road in a position I would have previously thought impossible. I had the backside of my thighs barely touching the seat, my buttocks sticking up, and my chest resting upon the steering wheel. In this weird pose, I swayed left or right with it every time I turned the car. Since my vehicle wasn’t automatic, I had to forget about the clutch completely. I only changed gears as a last resort because I needed my left foot on the floor to keep my balance while switching the right one between the gas and the brake pedal.

Driving slowly without changing gears wasn’t as difficult as I expected at first, and as it turned out, it had an added advantage: I had plenty of time to think. I thought about Sharon. It was probably a pointless and stupid thing to do—in fact, it was stupid for sure—but I couldn’t drive the fucking bitch out of my mind. Perhaps the adrenaline in my bloodstream had its say, but I was utterly obsessed with the idea of finding her and showing her that her plan didn’t work and I wasn’t dead. In a way, maybe I wanted to give fate another chance to kill me because it really didn’t feel right to live after falling from the third floor. In this context, the more time I spent thinking, the more convinced I was where I needed to go. There was only one place on the entire planet where Sharon could hide now.

While thinking of Vorderbruggen and meticulously counting the thorns in my butt every time the car hit a bump on the road, I suddenly remembered I had a flask of whiskey in the glove box. Hoping it would relieve my pain, I reached out to get it and clumsily bit at the cap, unscrewing it with my teeth. Then I spit it out, letting it fall on the seat between my legs, and put the bottleneck closer to my mouth. When the liqueur slipped down my throat, its pleasant warmth made me forget about at least a few thorns. It also led to another situation, which happened to be quite funny—I had a sip right at the moment when a police cruiser jumped out from behind the next turn and rushed toward me.

Surprised, I wriggled behind the wheel, but it was too late to hide the flask. Besides, it was my medicine now, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to. That’s why I just drove by the cops, who stared at me dumbfounded, and because of the road curve, I even swayed to the left with the steering wheel like some drunkard who was about to fall asleep on it any minute. Following that, I passed by four police cars one after another in the same way!

None of the cruisers stopped. Weirdly enough, although the officers inside seemed shocked, they did nothing about it. Since the lamps on their roofs flashed, I just assumed they were hurrying toward the crime scene in Failolo. I explicitly looked in the vehicles to see Peularia, but she wasn’t in any of them. She and her beautiful Indian assistant would probably arrive later in their shiny red Ferrari.

After about forty minutes, I slowly pulled up at the curb near the yacht port without anyone disturbing my little drinking party. Sengupta’s boat was being prepared to leave in the distance, but no people were around. Due to the combined effect of my injuries and the alcohol in my bloodstream, I stepped out of the car more cautiously than a sapper in a minefield and hobbled toward the vessel like an old man who had just shat his pants. It took me almost a month to reach the boat, and when I finally set foot on the gangway, an Indian guy suddenly appeared at the upper end. He was the same one to whom I gave a bump on the head a few nights ago.

I stopped at the beginning of the passage and looked at him gloomily. He looked at me, too. Since he clearly remembered me, I had no hope he would allow me to pull the same trick on him again. Instead, I expected him to beat the crap out of me. Fortunately, we didn’t have the chance to go that far because his cell phone unexpectedly rang after just a short glare. He picked it up, listening to someone for a while, and then he hung up, stepping back and looking away. I slowly started climbing up.

The moment I reached the deck, the guy sharply turned around and silently walked me through the lower level, which I knew very well from my previous visit here. We skipped the lounge area with the dance floor and the pool table and strolled directly to the metal staircase leading to the second deck. When we climbed there, the man stopped again and turned to me, waiting silently. I reached into my pocket and handed him my useless gun. He took it, made me spread my arms aside to tap under my armpits and behind my back, and, at last, he stepped away.

I looked around myself. The upper deck was almost empty except for a pair of lounge chairs at the far end of the stern and a small table between them. A pack of cigarettes, an ashtray, two cocktail glasses, a bottle of sun oil, and an open book were on the tabletop. A naked woman was sunbathing in one of the chairs, and it was Sharon. I awkwardly limped toward her.

There was almost no wind, and the boat was entirely still, but I walked carefully as if we were in the open sea. The yacht port was unusually peaceful for this time of the day, and a few crewmembers appeared down on the shore carrying some stuff. Sengupta’s limousine was nowhere in sight, but I was sure the guy was aboard. I really doubted Emilia was leaving without him.

“You look terrible!” Sharon gave me her usual welcome when I stood beside her. She briefly nodded toward the vacant chair, but because of my injuries, I ignored her invitation and leaned my back against the pushpit instead. “You care for a drink?”

I looked at her. She wore sunglasses, a straw hat, and nothing else. Her skin glistened in the bright sunlight from the lotion, and her fingers and toenails were painted fluorescent orange with accents of juniper green at the tips. I saw no swimsuit on the other chair or the floor, which meant she had come all the way here wholly naked. It was typical of her.

“You did an excellent job of making me look awful,” I said sourly, approaching the table to take the drink. Then I stepped back and leaned against the pushpit again. You shouldn’t be surprised now!”

“What happened to Marty?” she asked me with no emotion at all. Her voice was as cold and passionless as the cosmic void, and I wondered whether she was capable of any feelings. Until now, she hadn’t acted like a normal human being, not once. She had always behaved like a machine, following strict programming protocols.

“I’m not quite sure.” I shrugged. “I left him arguing with the thugs you sent after us. The guy never knows when to give up. You should have known that!”

“Poor bastard!” She smiled indifferently.

I slowly brought the drink to my lips. It tasted like a cocktail of gin and something else I couldn’t identify. The glass was one of those Martian gadgets with a pressurized freezing agent circulating between its micro-cavity walls. Such a thing could keep anything inside cool, even in the hottest summer and in direct sunlight. The drink was good, though, and it was refreshing. It soothed my pain better than the whiskey in my car.

“I thought you hated sunbathing on Mars,” I said rather spitefully, simply because I didn’t know what else to say. “Is your skin capable of producing melanin, or is this just the effect of some fancy pill?”

She turned her head toward me without taking her glasses off. I could only guess what her expression was—if she had any.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Mellrow! Our skin produces exactly what your skin does. We’re people, not monsters!”

“Are you?” I asked derisively. “Judging by your actions, it’s hard to say!”

She ignored the insult and turned her head back to get on with her sunbathing.

“You’re a damn stubborn cop, you know.” Sharon said after a while. “I never thought you’d last this long!”

“Me neither, but you’re wrong about it. I’m not a cop. I’ve never been!”

“Whatever. You are to me. I just want you to know that nothing I have done to you is personal. It was all politics, and you just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s all! I’m actually sorry it had to be you.”

I looked at her, a bit surprised. I had no idea why she was telling me this. Maybe it was a form of guilt, but I doubted it. She was most probably still trying to achieve something, although I couldn’t imagine what she could possibly want from me. It was all over now!

On the other hand, she was right to a point. Things between us were indeed on a business level; perhaps I shouldn’t be angry with her. Business always involves risk, and if I didn’t know how to handle it, it was definitely your fault.

“So? What’s next?” I asked her while awkwardly switching legs because my hip hurt terribly. “Chavez is out of the game, and you’re just leaving?”

“Yeah. I’m leaving.”

“You mean, you’ll live in India now?”

Sharon smiled. It was almost unnoticeable—she barely moved her lips without turning her head toward me. “Why would I do that?” She asked. “No, I’m just going home.”

I took another sip of my drink and silently looked aside. The sea was still perfectly peaceful, and the sky was clear, but it seemed somehow blurred—hidden behind a fine and imperceptible mist. The atmosphere was heavy and threateningly quiet, as if a big storm was coming. Yet it was hot. And very wet, too! I had the feeling I was breathing pure seawater.

“Can I ask you a question? I’d appreciate it if you answered honestly, though.” I looked back at her when she didn’t speak for a while. “Now that everything is over, I think you can do it—at least once, for a change! Why did you have to kill Bobby? Was it really an essential part of your plan?”

Sharon didn’t say anything initially and remained silent for about half a minute. Her bare breasts were going up and down monotonously, and the rest of her body was still.

Then she opened her mouth. “Why do you think I wanted her to die?” she asked me. “I didn’t care about her!”

I kept looking at her, waiting.

“I know you liked Bobby,” she went on. “I’m not quite sure how well you knew her, though. She was a natural double-crosser. And a good one! When I first came here, I had no information on Menelaus or any idea how to get it because Marty was just a stupid chauffeur, and he knew nothing. Besides, he was a dumbass! Bobby seemed to be the only option, but she was sleeping with DuPont at the time, and I hesitated a lot before approaching her. I took a great risk, but it turned out to be the right decision. She didn’t think twice before betraying him, and I’m sure it was because she knew her boss was almost broken. Of course, I was aware she might double-cross me as easily as she double-crossed him, but I guess that’s part of the game, isn’t it?”

She paused for a moment to give me a chance to reply.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I only said.

“No, I answered your question—the first part of it! I didn’t need to kill her because she was irrelevant to me. Now I’m answering the second part—was it my plan? The truth is that Bobby made a terrible mistake when she stole that camera because it made Marty freak out. He was convinced she would eventually slip the film to the cops and screw us over. I tried to reason with him and tell him she was too deep in it and wouldn’t risk it, but he wouldn’t listen. He had already decided to kill her, and I couldn’t stop him.”

I slowly shook my head because I didn’t believe a single word. “So that’s why you gave me those two phone calls the day the bastard murdered her? You just wanted to save Bobby, and afterward, you sent the cops into the bungalow to help her?”

“You miss my point again, as you usually do.” Sharon scolded me, this time turning her head to glance at me. She seemed perfectly calm and obviously didn’t feel any discomfort talking about it, as if it was some practical joke and nothing else. “I already told you: I didn’t care about Bobby. Her little games were insignificant to me. I called you simply because I was angry with Marty and thought you were my better option.”

“You know, it’s strange how you never wish me any harm, but somehow you always end up putting me in a pickle,” I sneered. “No, that’s not why you called. Let me tell you why you did it. You just wanted to make sure the job was done, that’s why! You needed to know who you would deal with next.”

“This is complete bullshit, Mellrow! How could I have known Bobby would ask you to go there? And even if I suspected something, how could I have known you’d be so stupid to do it?” Sharon grabbed the sun oil to rub some lotion on her forearms and shoulders. “I’m flattered if you think I’m so calculating, but the truth is nobody could ever predict what a guy like you would do!”

I watched her silently until she finished and reclined back in her chair.

“And what about this afternoon, then?” I asked sarcastically. “Did you also try to be my ally, but you accidentally miscalculated and sent Sengupta’s thugs into the motel instead? And you did it just a few moments after I arrived there?”

“No, I did not miscalculate this.” She smiled, relaxing under the sun. “This one was simply a fallback. I wasn’t sure who would end up dead between you two, that’s all. Besides, you had already blown me off, so I didn’t owe you anything, did I? If Marty happened to kill you, then Sengupta’s guys were supposed to take care of him.”

“And if I killed Cork? Were they supposed to take care of me?”

She didn’t answer. I kept waiting for a while, but she obviously didn’t think my question deserved an explanation. Maybe she thought it was self-explanatory. It made me wonder again if she was actually a real human being. For all I knew, she might be easily one of those machines they had there—cyborgs. I guess their behavioral pattern closely matched hers: fulfill your mission at all cost!

“The funny thing is,” I tiredly switched legs again, still astonished by the ease with which she practically admitted she had planned to kill me, “I’m a vitally important part of all your plans, Sharon. You’ve been using me since day one: at first, you needed me to eliminate Menelaus, then Bobby, and now Marty! I just wonder how you would have done all that if I rejected you in the first place. Do you realize you would’ve failed?”

She laughed. “Maybe. But, actually, it was you who killed DuPont!” She explained. “Remember when we met for the first time? I came to you with the exact same story Bobby was already trying to sell you. Did you ask yourself why?”

I didn’t answer.

“I needed to stop Menelaus from messing with Greenspace,” she continued. “That was my main goal at the time. You were supposed to suspect something was wrong and reject both cases, but you didn’t. You were too greedy and wanted to take all the money, didn’t you? So, in a way, it was you who killed him!”

“Well, you’ve stopped him—Menelaus is dead now. Why do you keep messing with Greenspace?” I ignored her twisted game of logic.

She shrugged. “I’d like to tell you, I really do, but it’s not up to me. So I just can’t. Many things have changed in the past few days; things always change! But I’m sure you’ll know the answer very soon.”

Sharon slowly rose to take her glass and sip her drink. Her legs parted a little as she did it, and I turned my head to the sea because I didn’t want to look there. I just couldn’t see the woman in her anymore. She was an abstract figure to me—like a naked female body in a wax museum or something. When she relaxed in the chair again, I turned my head back.

“You know, you’re definitely my most complicated case so far,” I said thoughtfully afterward. “You simply don’t fit any normal logic. At first, I thought you wanted to take over Menelaus’ company and lay your hands on his money, but soon, I realized it couldn’t be because your ex-husband was broke. So I moved on to the idea that you were stealing his business and trying to deliver ammonia to the aliens instead of him. You surely pushed your little puppet in that direction to make it look like it, but it wasn’t really it. Was it?”

She didn’t react to my words at all. Nothing even suggested she had heard me.

“Then I saw you with Sengupta,” I went on speculating, “and it almost made me believe you were seducing him because you needed his ships and influence in the region to drive Greenspace out of the way. You know what I think now? Now, I don’t believe any of these things is true. Now I believe you just work for the Couloongs.”

Sharon suddenly stirred, turning her head toward me. Then she slowly reached out to remove the sunglasses, and her green eyes fixed on mine. They looked cold and unsympathetic, as usual, but there was also a hint of surprise in them—at least, I imagined there was.

“You’ve always struck me as a very, very weird dick, Mellrow!” she admitted unexpectedly with a faint smile on her face. “No, in fact, you haven’t. Not at first! At first, I thought you were just another loser, picking at your nose in your miserable office all day long because you were too lazy to work. But then, somehow, you upgraded yourself in my eyes. You’re like a dog, you know. You never give up, and it’s really an admirable quality in your line of work!”

“Well, thank you so much for your kind words!” I chose to pass on her flattery attempt. “I certainly don’t believe you, and I’m sure you won’t even take this personally. And since you obviously won’t take the high road telling me what it was all about, I’ll do it for you, hoping to see the answer in your eyes. Okay? So here is how I think it goes: First, DuPont somehow developed close relationships with the aliens, making him believe he could lay his hands on the lucrative trade with chemical compounds and be the only one delivering to them. He desperately needed it because his empire was financially ill, so what was at stake was really huge. Ironically, this act also put him in crushing debt, which sped up the decline of his corporation, but that’s irrelevant now. Anyway, I gather that although some Couloongs were his friends, others weren’t, and they didn’t want him to succeed. The reason? Maybe they needed to keep the competition perfect and the prices low, or they just worried they’d become dependent on one person. It’s not that important, actually.”

I paused for a moment to look at her. She listened to me very carefully without saying anything. Before going on, I briefly glanced down at the shore because the boat preparation was over, and it seemed it would leave soon. The crew members had disappeared, and the gangway was empty again.

“So what options did the unfriendly aliens have?” I quickly resumed my theory. “They had to push things delicately because they couldn’t involve themselves in it directly, so hiring his ex-wife to approach him was surely one of the good ideas. I think that’s what actually happened in the end. Now, I don’t know whether the original plan involved DuPont’s physical elimination or if it became a necessity later when the guy refused to comply, but the important thing is that you received the green light, which means the aliens are ready for the next step. So why don’t you just tell me what the next step is?”

Sharon’s cell phone rang at that moment, and she glanced at it but didn’t bother to pick it up. It stopped soon, and she put her sunglasses back on, lit a cigarette, and lay back in the chair.

“You, earthmen, have a saying for this: you can’t see the forest for the trees,” she answered vaguely after a while. If you could see the bigger picture, you would actually realize that nothing you or I do matters. We’re only cogs in the machine and simply serve our purposes. Then, the machine moves us to the next level, and that’s all.”

“What machine, what next level, Sharon?” I rolled my eyes, annoyed. “Life’s not a fucking game or a thing for someone to win! Can’t you just answer my question?”

“But it is a game!” She smiled unaffected. “Whether you like it or not, life is a game of chances. And we are all pawns in it. We pull someone’s strings, and someone else pulls ours. We do what we must and then die, but the show always goes on because no one is special in this world. No matter how exceptional you may think you are, you’re just not. So you should accept your role!”

I sharply turned my head to look at her, surprised. A forgotten memory emerged in my mind and startled me. Jill had told me these exact same words before I left Greenland, and although the context differed slightly, it was still weird to hear them from a Martian at the other end of the world.

“And your marriage?” I quickly asked because I didn’t want to remember that scene. “Was it also part of the string pulling?”

“Marriage really doesn’t mean anything on my home planet, Mellrow,” she said, reaching out to ash her cigarette. “People here are often confused about it. It’s just extravagance for us. Plus, the whole thing happened so long ago, and, of course, it didn’t work. There was simply no chance for it to work since it didn’t fit with the reality on Mars.”

“And why didn’t you divorce him if it meant nothing?”

“See? You don’t get it, too! I told you, the ceremony was only a show. Some of us up there have three or four husbands and wives, and it brings no obligations. Besides, Menelaus didn’t say anything about a divorce when we broke up. Why would I bother, then?”

“Did you know you were going to kill him when you were getting married?” I didn’t give up.

Sharon suddenly laughed quite vocally. It was probably the first sincere reaction I was getting from her since we met. She laughed for almost half a minute.

“Oh, boy! You really have a very demonic idea about me, don’t you?” She said when she finally calmed down, stubbing the cigarette in the ashtray. “I’m a normal human being, for Christ’s sake, just like you! Our perspectives differ a bit, but that’s because we, on Mars, are raised differently and have a system of values different from yours. We simply don’t consider the same things you do here important.”

“Like wearing clothes, I guess.” I couldn’t resist the temptation of teasing her.

She rose a little to look at me behind her sunglasses.

“Actually, yes! The clothes, too, but more importantly, your primitive attitude toward sex, your countless religions, languages, customs, and national pride. You inadvertently cling to these obsolete things over the ages, but they make you weak. In fact, your society is so heavily divided and fragmented that it’s fairly easy to manipulate. Maybe it wasn’t a problem before Couloongs’ arrival, but it’s definitely a problem now. Think about it!”

Her cell phone rang again. This time, she didn’t even glance at it; she just reclined back in the chair. “I think you should go now. Forgive me that I won’t see you off, but I’m naked, you know,” she smiled ironically. “Anyway, I’m sure you’ll find your way. And I suppose this is the last time we meet!”

“Yeah, I suppose so, too,” I mumbled, glancing at the shore. The entire yacht port was empty and quiet, and it felt like we were the only people in the world.

“Unless, of course, you want to come with me.” I unexpectedly heard her voice again, and her words caught me completely off guard.

I turned my head to look at her. She didn’t look back. At first, I thought I had heard wrong, but then the idea she was trying to ridicule me ran through my mind. Her voice lacked any intonation as usual, and since I couldn’t see her eyes behind the sunglasses, I couldn’t tell if she was serious.

“You think I could do this?” I just asked, waiting to see her reaction.

“Sure, why not?” She replied nonchalantly. “You can definitely come to Mars with me. The future doesn’t look particularly bright for you here anyway.”

“After everything we’ve been through?”

Sharon shrugged. “I completely understand your hard feelings, Mellrow, but look at it this way: everything that happened between us was only part of the game, as I said, and now the game is over. To be honest, I never held grudges against you. In fact, I’ve always considered you a crude but kind of charming guy. And now that we both have served our purposes, I don’t see why we should stick to the past.”

“Will it be brighter on Mars—my future?” I asked thoughtfully, picturing myself there—free of my national pride and primitive attitude toward sex, surrounded by aliens and naked chicks in lounge chairs. “What would I do for a living? There are no swallows on your planet to save!”

She smiled.

Right then, the Indian guy who brought me on the deck appeared again and discreetly stopped at the stairs, looking at me urgently. I looked at him, too. Suddenly, I realized the boat engine had started running without me noticing, and this yacht was nervously waiting for my decision.

“Well, I guess I have to say goodbye to you then.” Sharon gave me her last smile, still not turning her head toward me.

I slowly withdrew from the pushpit and went to the coffee table to put my empty glass next to the pack of cigarettes. “Farewell, Sharon!” I said bluntly and then left.

“And good luck with the Chinese!” After a few steps, I heard her voice sending her best wishes to me. I didn’t turn back to answer, though.

Somewhere in the distance at this moment, police sirens started howling anxiously. They seemed to be approaching but would be late. Not much—a minute or two, at most—but still, it was going to be enough. It had all been calculated perfectly, as always. And I wasn’t even surprised.

©2016 S.T. Fargo
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