Chasing Stars: Chapter 12

  As they walked back up to the street Markus hailed a skypod with a thought to his scroll.   By the time they had climbed the wet grassy hill, the aircraft was landing in the street for them.  It had a similar central structure and interior to the road version, but in addition to the four wheels it also had four guarded rotors splayed out in four directions.  Once they were inside, Markus wordlessly ordered a destination towards the focus light at the front of the pod’s cabin.  They felt the vibration more than they heard the noise of the engine as they were lifted into the sky.  The rotors tilted to angle more lateral instead of vertical, and as they increased speed, the pod turned more to face the direction of their ultimate destination.

  “Guess you’ve never been to the cottage, have you?” Markus asked Molly.  He was looking out the rain-streaked windows somewhat distantly.

  “No,” she answered.  “You never really took me out much.”  The observation stung him a bit, but he knew she didn’t mean it as an attack.  It was simply an unfortunate truth.

  “I haven’t been out there myself in quite a long time either.”  He watched as they passed over the downtown area, and then over the harbour which he knew from looking out of Lucas’s office window.   They then swept over the water and up the coast, passing the seemingly innumerable little islands.  “It supposedly belongs to the family,” he explained, “but since Lucas had his kids and they started spending a lot of time here I’ve come to think of it more as theirs than ours.  I used to come out for Christmas when they had it here, but they haven’t for a while.  Not sure why.”  

  Markus saw the way Molly was looking out the window with rapt attention.  “Have you not been in a skypod either?” he thought to ask.

  “Not in a long while…” she admitted, “maybe once or twice.  This is certainly the first time you’ve taken me in one; people generally don’t tend to take their sex robot out on romantic getaways.”

  Markus chuckled.  He really did adore her self aware sense of humour sometimes.

  “How is Donna doing with all this anyways?” she asked, not taking her eyes off of the window.

  “Haven’t really had the chance to talk to her much since the accident.  She seems distraught, obviously, but she seems focused on trying to be strong for everyone else’s sake.  She’s preoccupied with trying to manage what little time Lucas has left, and trying to make things work for everyone.  I don’t know what Lucas would have actually wanted to do if Donna hadn’t insisted he come to the cottage.  I suppose it doesn’t really matter at this point.”

  The sun was low, and the gold of the sun was playing interesting tricks of light against the thickly wooded islands and coastal mainland below.

  “What’s the history between you two again?  I thought you mentioned something happened a long time ago.”

  “Oh it’s a… it was a long time ago.  Lucas and I met her basically at the same time at the same party and were both very into her.  We were both hitting on her pretty hard and instead of playing us both she made a choice early on.  If nothing else, I did ultimately appreciate that.  She wanted marriage and kids and the high life and everything and… well, so did Lucas.  I wasn’t there yet.  Maybe I’m still not.  Maybe I never will be.”

  “Did you love her?”  Molly asked.

  “I’ve come to love her, in a way… I think.  I didn’t really know her well enough to love her at the time.  She was just so beautiful and fun and charming… I think I wanted her more than I actually loved her.”

  “I wonder if you just wanted to win against Lucas at something.” Molly suggested.

  The idea stopped him.  “You think that’s me?” he asked.  “I’ve never felt in direct competition with him like that,” he stated distantly.  “At least I don’t think so.”

  “Maybe you never tried because you never thought you could win.”

  “Interesting premise.” He conceded, without conceding this was the case.

  “Don’t think so?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”  It was the truth, but it left him looking out the window ruminating on it.

  “Was that the last time you really wanted someone?” Molly gently asked.  “I mean beyond just wanting to fuck them?”

  “Maybe… I don’t know.  I mean I haven’t been very open to being in an actual relationship with someone in a long time, if ever.  That’s what ultimately led me to you I think, just a lot of flings.”

  “What about before Donna?” Molly pried.

  “Where is this coming from?”  He became aware of how interested she was in his feelings for Donna.

  “You just react… oddly when I bring her up.” she observed.

  “I used to very badly want a relationship,” he conceded.  “In general, with Donna… I just wanted to love, to be loved, to feel loved…  but I think at some point I just grew out of it.”

  As they approached the cottage property, the craft slowed down and the blades tilted more towards the ground to control their descent.

  “If there’s one thing I learned as a professional lover Markus, it’s that humans never outgrow their need to feel loved.  They may develop some unusual ways of needing to feel it or avoiding it, but half of the people who came to me wanted nothing more than to cuddle and be held.”

  “Really?”

  “Okay maybe a quarter…” she conceded.  “Okay maybe ten percent,” she laughed.  “The point is, something went very wrong if you stopped feeling that and you shouldn’t accept it just being your permanent state.  Something is blocked and you have a think on that.”

  As they descended further the cottage came into view.

  “Jesus Markus, you call this the cottage?” Molly balked.

  The building was in reality a gorgeous sprawling mansion property with multiple buildings.  As it came more clearly into view in the waning light, they could see the various tennis courts, swimming pools, and other amenities.

  “Oh,” Markus chuckled.  “Yeah, kind of an inside joke.  It used to be a rehab facility for the over privileged, but our parents bought it when we were young, back when the company was really hitting big.  It wasn’t just for us, then and now it is used for a lot of company retreats and functions and things.  Tax thing I guess.  If you look over there behind that tree line, there’s a full 18-hole golf course, it’s ridiculous.  Over there is a blasted out deep-water port that can accommodate any mega yacht.”

  “Overprivileged indeed…” Molly reflected.  “Even Maggie Kind didn’t have this kind of money.  Although,” she mused to herself, “she certainly did frequent a rehab facility or two of this caliber.”

  The rain had completely eased, and the skypod came to the kind of perfectly smooth and barely noticeable landing only a highly refined automated system could accomplish, and his brother’s family’s simulant servants came to the door to assist them.  Alfie, a humanoid wearing a tuxedo and monocle under a basset hound head, apparently now repaired, took Molly’s hand then Markus’ to assist them out of the road pod, while Katie the humanoid with the friendly furry face of a cat, gathered their bags out of the pod from the other side.

  “Lovely to see you again, sir,” Alfie offered in his proper elderly British accent.

  “Yes, always nice to see you return to the cabin,” Katie added in her sing song-y voice.   “Been a while meow, hasn’t it?”

  “Thank you Katie Kat.  Yes, it has been some years.”

  As they walked towards the main building’s main entrance, they let the sim servants advance some so they could speak privately.

  “Just wish it was under better circumstances of course,” Katie said as they dropped behind.    She had a matronly old lower class British woman’s voice.

  “Cats and dogs, hunh?” Molly asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Oh,” Markus laughed, realizing she was not familiar with them as he was.  “Yeah… special orders.  Rich kids tend to get what they want too often, I guess.  I think they got these instead of actual cats and dogs.   You should see their elephant.”

  “Elephant?” Molly stopped.

  “You’ll see.” Markus chuckled as he led her on.

  The large heavy dark stained wood door opened and Donna, Kaz, and Susie came out to greet them.  The mood was somber as they all exchanged welcoming hugs.  Markus noticed that although the kids seemed unreserved about greeting and dutifully hugging Molly, Donna and Molly themselves both hesitated at the sight of each other before seemingly deciding to pretend to be perfectly fine with it and promptly hugging a polite hello.  It was the first time Donna had actually met her.  

  The kids seemed non plussed; they were familiar enough with simulants and were too young to be in any way phased by the fame of the original Maggie King.   Being of a younger generation they were also quite uninterested in the idea that their uncle would be dating a simulant.  Donna was clearly a different story though.  Although she tried not to let on, it was clear how bothered she was by Molly for whatever reason.  Maybe it was just her general level of distress at the impending death of her husband and the father of her children.  Maybe she just had no energy left for feigning pleasantries over someone she didn’t care about.  Maybe there was something else, it was hard for Markus to tell.

  Markus kissed Donna on the cheek and told her he was going to go in and say hello to Lucas.   She answered back that dinner would be ready in twenty minutes or so.  He acknowledged, and headed deeper into the building.  The ‘cottage’ had a private fully equipped medical facility hidden away, and it was where he rightly assumed he would find his brother.   Walking into the medical bay was like stepping through a portal to a different time, or onto some sort of modern spaceship.  Everything outside was dark wood and warm colours, but the door opened onto a sterile feeling medical facility; bright, white, and rather small.

  Lucas looked as well as could be expected.  He’d been cleaned up and was obviously getting the good drugs, whatever they were.

  “Hey there big brother, how are you feeling?”  He stood beside his brother and took his hand.

  “Pretty good for an animated corpse, yourself?”  Lucas gestured for him to have a seat in the chair beside the bed.   “Thank you for coming.”

  Markus chuckled as he sat down beside him.  “You kidding?  And… yeah, so I’ve had an interesting day.”

  “Do tell.” Lucas sat up with noticeable effort.

  “I went to their graves after coming down.”  He paused.  “Haven’t been there in a long time.”

  “Guess I’ll be there myself pretty soon.  Hadn’t thought about that until you brought it up just now, we have plots right beside them for us…  They have anything interesting to say?”

  “Not really… it was more about what I had to say to them I guess.  I thought a lot about how much life I have left to live, how I’m about as old now as they were when they died, how I’ve got a whole life ahead of me, that even if I’ve wasted the life I’ve had so far, it doesn’t mean I have to waste the rest of it.”

  “Glad to see you’re finally acknowledging that you have been wasting it.” his brother dryly remarked.

  “Yes.”   The concession was bitter in his mouth.

  “I also went to the Cheshire Cat, saw some of my buds, I think… probably for the last time.”

  “Last time?” Lucas asked, seeming to want to glean some insight into why he’d say that.

  “Something is waking up in me Lucas, a part of me that’s been dead a long time I think.   Seeing them today, they seemed so… small.  Not in the ‘we’re masters of the universe and they’re just peasants’ sense, but in the ‘they are small minds leading small lives’ sense… if that makes sense.”

  “I think it does.  It’s certainly an intangible, but it’s definitely a thing you notice.  I think that’s what’s always frustrated me so much about you.  I knew how much more you had in you, but was frustrated that you were choosing to live such a small life.”

  “It was safe,” Markus stated simply.  “It was… easy.”

  “No great victories come easily.” Lucas assured him.

  “No they do not,” Markus sighed.  “I also went to the company, as you asked.”

  “How is everything?”

  “Running perfectly fine without me as a matter of fact,” Markus reported with a raised eyebrow.

  “Well, that won’t last forever.”

  “No.   Thing is… me taking over, whether I go on the ship or not… look, it’s just a terrible idea.”  Lucas frowned so Markus continued hurriedly.  “Hear me out.  Even if I wanted to, even if I was qualified, which I don’t and I’m not by the way, I think a lot of people at the company would resent me for it, resent us, the family.”

  Lucas tried to speak up, but Markus put up his hand to stop him.

  “Look… I still may.  I haven’t made up my mind yet.  And if I do, I’ll throw everything I have into it instead of just being an idle placeholder.  I get why you think it’s important to keep it in the family, I really do.  But I think you need to decide between what’s best for the company and what’s best for you, for us, and if there’s really a difference between the two.  When you took over, it worked because you were qualified whether you were legacy or not.   Susie may come to that point eventually, or she may not.  She may get there just to honour the memory of her dead father, sure.  But then she may find she hates it there.  She may grow to resent you for laying that burden on her.  I may be stuck there the rest of my career.  Hell, I may even rise to the occasion and do an adequate job if I really try.  But the fact is, there are better people, people who would be better for the company than any of us, people who could do a better job than me on my best day, on their worst day.

  “I was talking with Hui Yin yesterday.  Did you know she has a doctorate in engineering AND an MBA?  And I’m sure she’s not the only one.  I get not wanting to bring in some outside hotshot asshole CEO, but there are already people there at the company who are loyal, who live and breathe the place the way you do, and who would actually do a great job on purpose instead of me just hopefully muddling through.”

  “Maybe…” Lucas finally conceded, but not abating.  “But maybe I’d still rather it be you.  Still rather it be Susie.  Still rather it be one of us.”

  “I know man, I know you do… and I’m still thinking about it.  I do get it.  Honestly, I do.  It would be nice to honour our parents like that.  But I could see handing it off to someone like Hui Yin as a way of honouring the company itself.  And isn’t that how we should really honour them?  By honouring what they built as best as we can?”

  They were interrupted by Donna opening the door and announcing that it was dinner time.   She walked in followed by Alfie, who wheeled a wheelchair over to the bedside and Markus helped him help Lucas into the chair.  They then made their way out of the medical bay’s future aesthetic into the rustic past, to the dining hall which housed a long wooden table suitable to seat several dozen people in the large long hall, but with just the six of them bunched towards one end.

  Molly pulled him aside with mild distress when he arrived.

  “Something’s… off with Donna.”

  “You mean her husband and the father of her children is dying?  Of course something’s off.”

  “No, not that.   I mean yes obviously that, but not just that.  It’s something with me specifically.  She’s being oddly… catty, I don’t know how else to describe it.  Not overtly mean, but just like, dismissive and salty, passive aggressive.  I’m used to people disrespecting me based on being a simulant, but this is something different.  She seems to have some sort of problem with me specifically as a person or something but I can’t fathom why.  I’d guess something to do with you I though.  It’s weird.  Maybe I’m imagining it, but I really don’t think so.”

  “Hmm…”   Markus felt he could trust Molly’s instincts about this kind of thing, but it was hard for him to imagine what it might be about if she was right.  She was almost describing jealousy but that didn’t make any sense.   Donna was grieving her husband and he and Molly were no longer together.  “Well, she’s pretty devastated… let’s just grant her some latitude for now.  If you’re right, whatever the reason is, it won’t be too long before you never have to see her again.”

  “Alright,” Molly conceded with unabated concern.

  The two joined the others at the table as Alfie and Katie brought food to the table.   To Markus’ surprise it was a full turkey dinner with a giant roasted bird, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, the whole deal.

  Markus looked at his brother who answered with a chuckle: “They asked me what I wanted for my last meal, I said turkey dinner leftovers.”

  Markus laughed as he reached for the potatoes, dolloped some onto his plate, then passed them on to Susie on his right.  “Do you really want to take over the company when you’re older?” he asked her.

  “Of course,” she answered nervously.  Her parents were watching closely as she answered, and she seemed to be able to feel the heat of their attention.

  “What part of that appeals to you?” Markus asked.

  “What do you mean?” she asked with uncertainty.

  “I mean the engineering versus the business side, which appeals more to you?”

  “They both do, I suppose.”  He could tell she was trying not to give a wrong answer.

  “It’s okay Susie,” he reassured her by momentarily resting his hand on hers on the table.  “What I mean is, if you could only do one, if you could only do the business stuff but never do any engineering, or just work in engineering and never touch the business stuff, which would you choose?”

  “I don’t know,” she stated flatly.

  Markus smiled at her.  “Are you sure?”

  “The… well the engineering I guess,” she sheepishly answered.  “I love that stuff, I love the math, I love the creative aspect… the business stuff is more just something I need to do.”

  Markus raised an eyebrow at Lucas.

  “And that’s perfectly okay.  Maybe you’ll develop an appreciation for the business stuff as you get older, maybe you won’t.  Maybe one day you’ll wake up and decide you just want to be a painter.  That would be okay too,” he reassured her.

  She seemed to appreciate the sentiment but tried to hide it from her parents.

  “Kaz,” he turned his attention to his nephew.  “Your plan still to become a famous big time streamer some day?”

  “Oh yeah, up to ten thousand subs already,” he answered disinterestedly through his hair half covering his face.

  “Is that a lot?”

  “Not really.   It’s not a lot but it’s a start, it’s more than others.  I want to get to a hundred thousand subs by the end of next year.”

  “And that’s really all you’re interested in?  Nothing in school, no… sports, no arts or anything?  Just getting people to watch you play video games?”

  “It’s not just that,” he seemed defensive.  “It’s… personality.  There’s a whole psychology to it.  People are lonely, they want to feel like you’re their friend.”

  “Interesting.   And what do you get out of it?”

  “Well money of course, but recognition too… I want to be able to reach out to the streamers I like and have them see me as one of them.”

  “Hunh.”   The boy had clearly put a lot more thought into it than Markus had given him credit for.  He thought it was just laziness, an idle wish to generate income through indulging his hobby, or just a general attention seeking wish to be famous.   He and Molly had spoken at length about her progenitor, and what Maggie King had really been like.  She’d described her insatiable need for recognition, the black hole at her core that drove her need to fill the void with ever larger crowds of faceless adoring fans.  He had previously figured that this alone was what motivated Kaz to want to be a big-time content creator, but there was more.

  “You’ve looked into the psychology of it then?” Markus asked.

  “Oh yeah,” Kaz nodded.  “There are some really good books about it.”

  “So it’s really a business at the end of the day, one you’ve studied up on of your own initiative?”

  “Yup, the business end is really important too, it’s all marketing and audience metrics.   Susie may not be into it, but I think it’s the business side that’s really interesting.”

  “Well there you go,” Markus said to his brother.  “Just smush them together.”  He brought his hands together flat to mime the smushing.

  Markus really liked the kids.  He’d been pretty set against having his own kids up until this point in his life.  Now he felt he was probably too old to start having them himself.  He was glad these two were around though.  Among all of the reasons to stay, wanting to support them and help them grow, especially after their father died, was the strongest impulse he had to stay behind on Earth, regardless of whether or not he stepped into Lucas’ role at the company.