The Lowest Heaven

WE’LL ALWAYS BE HERE ^{S. L. GREY}

Pluto’s skin is sallow, almost grey, when she stands in the darkness, something she does often. She shivers against the bulkheads, wishing that she could just drop this burden, walk outside and crumble to icy shards in the first impossible wind. Sharon, on the other hand, spends all her time in the solarium, playing childish games with the braindeads.

Pluto was cursed from the very start. She grew up believing her parents had named her after the planetoid, and something about that resonated with her◦– the coldness, the peripheral darkness, the loneliness◦– but found out on her last birthday, when she turned fifteen, that they named her after an animal in an ancient fucking cartoon on 2D. A “dog”, they’d told her in the delayed-release message, a symbol of loyalty and friendship and joy, colour and innocence, but she’d never seen a dog and in the pictures she saw they looked like deformed freaks, bent and cowered, using their arms to walk and covered with matted hair. Their holos emitted the most unholy stink of rot and halitosis.

Nice one, parents. She reminds herself what cunts they were every time she misses them.

Pluto and Sharon were sent away when their parents died. Whoever was in charge considered it an unproductive use of Earth’s dwindling hospitable space to harbour orphans, and they certainly weren’t going to be sent to any of the plush new territories on Mars or the Moon. The day after the service they were packed off to Eros, the furthest, really, they could be sent from home without being dead.

Pluto looks out of the viewport across the lilting wastes to the solarium, the colourful, fake terraforming, the sun lamps embedded in its dome outglaring the real sun, which lurches in and out of view as the bone-shaped rock topples through space. Just the thought of that nauseous sun sends Pluto fishing for her motion sickness inhaler. Unbidden, a memory of her mother intrudes, cradling her hand, damping her forehead when she had a fever, her father lying in the next cot, reading a story to Sharon. Pluto was always the sick one; throat infections, ear infections. Sharon would just blunder along through her childhood, always wrapped up in her own imagination; padded, impervious.

She had a vague sense of the enclaves back then, places where they would be made safe from the virus. Some of her school friends and their parents had already gone, sold everything they could to leave, but there was the one-child limit. She didn’t understand it all then; it only played out in those late-night discussions in the lounge. “We can’t separate them. We just can’t.” Both of them crying. She forgives her mother, but she hates her father for crying. It was his job to be strong, to come up with a solution. But he just sat and cried. Until it was too late and they got it too. Just as well, then, that they died before they had to choose. It was only logical that they’d choose Sharon.

Pluto moves to the back wall and touches her hand to the bulkhead, trying to feel the frigid, real vacuum outside. Just a couple of metres and she could be frozen to nothing in the fresh void. She thinks of her parents in those last days, always trying too hard to be cheerful, trying to put a positive spin on it. “The solariums on Eros are beautiful, honey,” her mother would say. “They try to make it nice for you. They know what the young people want. And we’ll always be here.” She’d pat Pluto’s chest, as if that would make everything better.

“It’ll be like a holiday camp,” her father would chip in, but so unconvincingly. She’d watch him turn and wipe his eyes dry.

Sharon has decided that it’s time for another group makeover. As the leader of the Ugly Pretties, it’s up to her to choose the group’s new hair style. After much deliberation, she’s chosen something called a “short Dutch boy cut” from cycle sixteen of her all-time favourite history show, America’s Next Top Model. Last night she managed to procure a pair of scissors and a mirror without L.O.L.A the hygiene bot noticing (an easy feat as L.O.L.A’s surveillance units have decayed past the point of no return) and a comb from the box containing Sister Angelique’s last effects. While she waits for the Ugly Pretties’ feeding tubes to be removed by the canteen bots, she heads to the solarium to practice her walk. It’s hard to keep straight-backed and focused now that Eros’s gravity stabilisers are on the fritz, but she does her best to imagine that she’s striding down a fashion show runway, Tyra Banks and Miss J cheering her on from the sidelines. She loves Tyra Banks. Tyra’s what a perfect mother should be. Harsh yet kind, always full of advice on how to smize◦– smile with your eyes, find your inner confidence and pose for that perfect ugly-pretty shot.

The rest of the Ugly Pretties finally file into the solarium. Pluto calls them brain-fucked retards, which isn’t really fair as they can’t help the way they are. Before Sister Margaret’s bones deteriorated and she went to the great nunnery in the sky, she told Sharon the reason why the Ugly Pretties are unable to speak and understand only the most basic of commands. According to Sister Margaret, their parents put them into cryogenic storage during the Canadian cataclysm decades ago in an attempt to keep them safe. No one knew what to do with them when they were accidentally defrosted and brain-damaged, so they were shipped off, like Sharon, Pluto and the other unwanted girls, to Our Lady of Eternal Resolution’s orphanage on Eros. Sedna is the most damaged of the group (“nothing more than a meat puppet” Pluto calls her), Makemake’s skin is always clammy, and Eris and Haumea’s eyes never seem to focus. But they’re all Sharon’s got since the other girls succumbed to the bone-rot that wiped out the nuns and the counsellors. “You and your little followers,” Pluto likes to hiss whenever they run into each other in the canteen, “make me fucking sick.” Still, Sharon always feels a thrill when her twin sister speaks to her. Insults are better than being ignored.

“Welcome,” Sharon says to the Ugly Pretties. “I see before me four beautiful young ladies. Four beautiful young ladies who are in need of a… makeover!“ Sedna merely grunts, Haumea absently bats at the drool that continuously leaks from the corner of her mouth and Eris and Makemake sway as the gravity pull knocks them off balance. Sharon wishes, just once, that they’d squeal and jump up and down like the models on Tyra’s 2D show. Any reaction at all would be good. Sharon smothers a wave of despair. She can’t give into it. She’s the leader, the queen bee, she needs to keep upbeat and perky. She decides to start with Makemake. “Girlfriend,” Sharon says to her, “I’m going to wipe away that dreckitude for once and for all.”

Makemake slumps obediently while Sharon gets to work with the scissors. She doesn’t even flinch when Sharon accidentally nicks her ear and blood dribbles sluggishly onto the collar of her robe. The hairstyle isn’t as easy to pull off as it looked on the 2D. Sharon can’t get the edges even and ends up cutting Makemake’s limp black hair shorter and shorter until she resembles one of the pre-euthanised oldies on the holos. “There!” Sharon says with forced cheer. “Makemake, you are still in the running to be America’s Next Top Model!” Sharon looks into the mirror and starts hacking away at her own hair, slicing her fringe into what she hopes is a straight line. It’s easier the second time, although the scissors aren’t as sharp as she’d like.

There are only two things that Sharon wants. One is to be able to smize; the other is for her sister to love her. The things Pluto says sometimes, it’s as if she blames her for their parents’ death. But how can that be? She didn’t inject them with the euthanising fluid, did she? She was only eight when they died. Pluto won’t let her see their holos, and Sharon can’t even recall their faces. When she tries to remember them, an image of Tyra Banks and Nigel, Tyra’s fellow cycle-sixteen judge, pops into her head.

But maybe, now that she’s had another makeover, now that she looks beautiful, like a real model, Pluto will want to spend time with her.

“Come on,” she says to the Ugly Pretties. Makemake moans in assent, the others dribble and fidget but file obediently behind her as she makes her way to the library where she hopes she’ll find her sister.

The power stutters again and the screen goes blank. Shit. Pluto considers ripping the tablet out of its bracket and hurling across the room, but she can’t be bothered. Besides, she’s got too much on her mind.

She checked the maintenance rosters this morning, just as Sister Margaret showed her. Everything’s still at optimal levels. There shouldn’t be a problem. “Eskombot? Eskombot?” she calls. “Are you here?”

Bleedity-bleat, goes the logistics system’s voice interface in response.

“I’m trying to read,” she says. “Why is there intermittent power in the library?”

Eedilty-bleat.

Pluto’s grown practised at interpreting the system’s failing voice chip. She guesses he◦– it◦– is saying the power’s been restored. True enough, all the tablets are rebooting themselves.

“Now I’ve lost my fucking bookmark,” she mutters. “When I–” but something makes her stop. A small hitch in the background noise. She spins around, but there’s nothing, nobody. The door’s closed, as always; the library vacant except for her, as always. She listens. The air system is pumping along as inconspicuously as ever.

But now the nuns are all dead and the bots are malfunctioning. If the power can fail, even for a second…

A thump of panic cracks her ribs. She forces herself to calm down and looks around her. She’s sitting in a medium-sized room outfitted to be comfortable, the upholstery smelling of mould, and has been complaining to the wires in the wall. It’s not productive if she’s going to keep this place running. This is her life now, just her and her twin, rolling in darkness, alone. She can’t find solace, like Sharon, in the cold company of the braindeads. She sometimes wishes that her parents hadn’t given them the expensive immune boosters before they died. If she and Sharon died along with all the others, there would be nothing to worry about.

She tries to disappear into her novel about a robot law-enforcer who rides a camel, but she can’t relax. She keeps running through the maintenance tables in her mind. Is it her fault? Is she doing something wrong?

“Eskombot?”

Eedle.

“Send Sister Margaret’s maintenance roster to this screen, please.”

Eedle-doot. The figures array themselves in front of her.

The rock topples just so and there’s a flash from the outside, then a glare. Pluto gets up and walks across to the viewport. It’s probably another panel failing in one of the generator stacks, but she can almost imagine a golden hue to the light, that the air outside is warm and fragrant. She feels the cold sweat of her hands cleave to the glass and closes her eyes. She imagines◦– or does she remember?◦– a place where there was blue water lying all over the surface, and blue sky, and bending trees with huge, green leaves; and people, lying in their underwear in a glaring sun. So many people, little children too, laughing, running, all smelling of fruit and flowers and blue and green, saturated and hot. Something inside her remembers the heat, the sense of being wrapped up in colour and moisture. It doesn’t feel like a holo memory but surely that’s all she’s got. Did she ever go to a place like this when she was small? But places like this didn’t exist when she was alive; the world was burnt black when they had to send her away. All the holos of places like this were from a long time ago.

But still, the memory’s so strong, it’s as if she’s there. She presses her face to the cold surface and breathes in, deeper than she ever has. She’s in a place where she could walk outside and not freeze and not burn and take off all her clothes and melt into the air and the colour. She remembers being there, how the sun thawed them like something sweet and sticky and brown. Her mother was lacing her fingers up Pluto’s neck and into Pluto’s hair. She swears she can recall her father holding Sharon on her hip. Sharon was giggling, eating something◦– that soft, cold thing they used to have◦– and offering it to her father. Who was laughing. If she tried hard enough, she could become one with the –

The door punches open.

“We thought we’d find you here!” Sharon trills. “Why’re you crying?”

One of the braindeads, the egg-shaped one, gurgles hur-hur-hur behind her.

And Pluto’s back here again, locked in a metal box on a cold rock, with a cluster of dense freaks for company. She’s going to fucking kill Sharon.

“Pluto! What do you think of my makeover?” Sharon twirls in front of her sister, who pushes away from the viewport, which she’s been kissing or something, wipes at her face, and takes a hit of her inhaler. Sharon rarely needs hers. She isn’t as susceptible to motion sickness for some reason. Haumea bangs against the bulkhead as Eros’s cycle reaches its zenith and Sharon automatically reaches out to steady her. “Don’t you think I look beautiful now, Pluto?”

Pluto snorts and shakes her head. “You look like a fucking idiot. Take your retards and leave me alone.”

Sharon struggles to keep her smile in place. Sister Angelique used to advise her not to take Pluto’s spiteful words to heart. “Jealousy is a terrible emotion, Sharon,” she’d say whenever Pluto sniped at her during Mass or in class. Still, Sharon has to admit that the nuns and the older girls always gave her far more attention than they ever gave Pluto. She and Pluto may be twins, but they don’t look or act alike. Pluto’s hair is dyed a flat lifeless black whereas everyone said that Sharon’s hair shimmered like the sun. Maybe, Sharon thinks, the way to Pluto’s heart is to make herself uglier, rather than beautifuller. But what would Tyra say about that? She’d say that by not making the most of her appearance Sharon wasn’t being true to herself, she say that Sharon wasn’t owning her look, and that if she’s not careful she’ll be eliminated.

Visiting Pluto was a mistake. Since Sister Margaret went to join Jesus three days ago, there are no nuns or older girls to mediate. “Please don’t be mean to me, Pluto. I haven’t done anything to you.”

“You’ve done everything to me!” Pluto roars. “I was first. I came out first. It’s not fair that they kept you too. You’re the reason our parents are dead, Sharon.”

Makemake shakes her head. “Uh-uh.”

“Shut up, retard,” Pluto hisses at her.

“I didn’t kill them!”

“Maybe not literally, but it’s because of you they had to die. They couldn’t go to the enclave with both of us. They should have chosen me. They should have survived.”

“That’s not true. They got sick, that’s why they–”

“It is true.” Pluto snaps and Haumea flinches. “If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be in this cold, stinking place. I wouldn’t have to…”

Sharon can’t stop the tears. “You wouldn’t have to what?” The Ugly Pretties have picked up on Sharon’s distress and start moaning in unison.

Pluto straightens up and glares. “I hate you, Sharon.”

Sharon backs away from her, tries to remember the words to the Novena of Our Child Jesus, but can’t find the words. “Hail Mary full of grace. The Lord is with–”

“Prayers aren’t going to help you. The nuns aren’t going to help you. Your pathetic life is in my fucking hands.”

They may be twins, but Pluto is bigger and stronger. She darts forward, her dyed hair swinging in front of her face, filling Sharon’s vision. Sharon drops to her knees, covers her head with her hands.

“Ug.”

Sharon looks up. Makemake is swaying in front of Pluto. Pluto is staring in disbelief at her, blood gouting out of her nose.

“Your retard hit me!” Pluto roars. “Get out get out get out get out!”

“Come on,” Sharon whispers. Tears soaking her face, she flees the library, the thump of the Ugly Pretties’ feet close behind her. She stumbles blindly to the hatch that leads down into the chapel. She’ll pray to Jesus and Tyra for guidance and if that doesn’t work, well, she’ll think of something else.

When Sharon and her circle have left, Pluto closes the door carefully. She’d love to slam it but she doesn’t want to risk a leak. She rubs her hand over her throbbing nose and looks at the blood on her palm. She can’t believe that freak hit her but, in a way, she’s impressed that she did. Showed some initiative, some fucking backbone. The blood pools dark in her palm and thins out to scarlet where it slips over the edge, by far the brightest colour in this room, on the whole godforsaken rock. She wipes it into her T-shirt, not in the mood to swallow her pride and go down the corridor to the bathroom. She sits on her chair and leans back, swallowing the warm choke until the flow stops.

At length she straightens and looks at the screen in front of her. The maintenance grids still glow softly, each line checked in green. Supplies are still at decent levels and she knows the system will send a replenishment request before they get too low. Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work.

As Sister Margaret explained it all to her, she said, “Don’t worry, child. You don’t have to remember it all now. There’ll be plenty of time to go through it again.” Her hands shook and her face was shocked through with spasms of pain as she spoke. There wasn’t plenty of time and the fragments that Pluto remembers are shifting and reshaping in her memory. She’s messing it up.

She’s lived here half her life and the coming and going of supply pods every six months was just part of the scenery; she began to take it all for granted. The replenishment system’s supposed to unpack and restock and keep the compound’s supplies level, but what if it’s failing like Eskombot’s voice chip and L.O.L.A’s surveillance unit?

“Eskombot?”

Oodle-weet.

“Bring up the communications tableau, please.”

Barp-oodle-blort.

“I am an administrator. I’m the only fu◦– I’m the only administrator here. I’ve taken over from Sister Margaret. You know this.”

Bloop-eedle.

A box flashes onto the screen. “Enter administrator password.”

Oh, Goddess. What was it? The sign of the cross something, or the stations of the cross. How many were there? She checks the encyclopedia on the tablet next to her. Fourteen, that’s right. And then her pet’s name. She had a pet creature on Earth, which she had to leave behind. One that was small and didn’t take up resources. She kept it in a cardboard box until it ate its way out. Then she kept it in a jar when she found it again. That’s it.

She types in “14xRoachy” and the communications tableau slides over the screen.

She scrolls through the contact list. There are lists of names of the diocesan leadership and, more to her relief, there are contact names of people at the supply station. Someone there will help if things get too rough.

An icon is throbbing red near the bottom of the pane and it takes Pluto a moment to realise that it indicates that there are unopened messages. She swipes the icon and three headers come into the centre of the screen. The first is addressed to Sister Margaret. Pluto taps on it and a small holo of a priest emerges and starts offering the last rites. The second is addressed to “OLER Orphanage: Urgent contact request”. It’s a text message and Pluto skims it guiltily, even though she’s now in charge: “Would at OLER Orphanage contact Security Cardinal Joseph at New Vatican base with extreme urgency.” Then something about a contingency reactor and something about “CA distance in AUs” and “relative velocity”. The header of the third message pulls her eye away. It’s been forwarded to OLER Orphanage, but the message title is “Pluto and Sharon, our brave girls”.

Sharon doesn’t bother with the mirror. She hacks blindly at her fringe, tries not to look down at the pile of blonde hair growing at her feet. Snick, snick, snick, all fall down. Sister Margaret used to say that shorn hair was a symbol of penitence, but she and Sister Angelique seemed to take great pride in their long plaited locks.

The Ugly Pretties grumble and grunt behind her. “I’m sorry,” Sharon whispers, grabbing another hank of hair and slicing through it. “I know Tyra wouldn’t like it. But the makeover didn’t work. If I’m uglier, maybe then Pluto will like me.“

It doesn’t take long. She runs her hand over the uneven surface of her scalp, the tufts tickling her palm. Her head actually feels lighter. She turns to look at the Ugly Pretties. For a split second, Makemake’s eyes catch hers and Sharon catches a shadow of sadness in them before they lose focus again. Sharon takes off the short skirt she spent hours customising and changes into a plain blue robe.

One last chance. If Pluto goes to hit her or shouts at her then she’ll give up forever. She considers leaving the Ugly Pretties in the solarium, but decides to take them with her to the library. Just in case.

Sharon enters cautiously. Pluto’s standing with her back to the door, staring down at a screen, her shoulders shaking. Is she laughing at something?

“Um… Pluto?”

Pluto’s back stiffens. And when she turns around Sharon realises she’s not laughing after all. Her body is wracked with sobs, blood and snot caked on her cheeks. A spike of fear stabs Sharon’s heart. “Pluto? What’s happened?” Sharon has never seen Pluto cry. Not even when they were first brought here. Not even when the other girls laughed at her for spending all her time reading. Not even when they wrapped up Sister Margaret’s body and sealed it in her cabin so that the smell of her decomposing body wouldn’t spread through the compound.

Pluto doesn’t answer straight away. Sharon holds her breath. For once, the Ugly Pretties are completely silent. “Pluto? Are you sad because Makemake hit you? She didn’t mean it.”

Pluto jerks, wipes her face and struggles to get her breathing under control. “No. It’s not that. You need to see this. Come here.”

Sharon hesitates.

“I’m not going to hit you.” Pluto taps a code out. “Look.”

A holo of a man and a woman wearing brightly coloured sarongs shimmers to life. A huge expanse of blue ocean glimmers behind them. In the background, Sharon can hear the sigh of gentle water, the squeal of children’s laughter.

“Who are they?” Sharon asks, but she knows. She just doesn’t want to say it.

“It’s them. Our parents.”

“This is the holo you never let me see? The one they made before they died?”

“No. They sent this yesterday.”

“But … but that’s impossible.”

“Just watch it,” Pluto snaps. Somehow, Sharon’s relieved she’s back to her usual irritated self. Makemake starts clapping her hands and Sharon waits for Pluto to shout at her to stop. She doesn’t.

The mother (Sharon can’t quite make herself think of this woman, with her dyed orange skin and glaring white teeth as her mother◦– she looks nothing like Tyra) glances uneasily at the father. He tries a smile. “Hello, Pluto. Hello, Sharon. It must come as a shock to see us after all these years.” He laughs nervously. Sharon flinches as Pluto reaches over and grasps her hand. Sharon doesn’t recognise these people, the sight of them doesn’t ignite any old memories or flood her with longing. She feels more emotion when she watches the old shows. “We decided it was kinder if you thought we were dead,” the man continues. “We love and miss you both more than we can say.”

“Oh yes,” the mother adds. “So much.”

“But we need you now. Earth needs you now.” He pauses, grimaces. “What we feared is happening. Eros is heading to Earth. It’s… it’s on a direct collision course. It needs to be broken up before it gets here, my darlings. Before it can smash into the world and cause untold devastation. The monsignor says you are the only ones left alive up there.”

Haumea makes a sound that could be a moan of anger; could be an attempt at a laugh.

“This is your destiny. And it’s not just us, your parents, who love you, who you’ll be saving. Look.”

The library fills with swelling orchestral music. The parents’ holos fade and grow transparent, replaced by a sweeping shot of an island, a lush tropical paradise. Sharon gasps. It’s as beautiful as the locations where the models on the 2Ds are sent to do their final photo shoots. The island image morphs into an image of a mewling baby animal, its coat striped black and yellow, then segues into a shining silver fish, followed by a close-up of a bright pink flower unfurling its petals.

The music fades away, and the parents’ holos solidify. “Do you see?” the father says, sounding more confident now. “You can save all of this. Only you can do it. It’s your destiny. Please, contact New Vatican base as soon as you can. They will instruct you on what to do. Destroying Eros is a simple matter and the monsignor has assured me you won’t feel a thing. And remember, we love you. We’ll always be with you.”

The holo flickers. Sharon hears the mother’s voice saying: “Was that okay?”

The image cuts out.

After the holo has faded, Sharon looks straight at Pluto. “They’re alive.”

“Yeah.”

Sharon tries to assess how she’s feeling. Just numb, really. Maybe slightly nauseous. “They didn’t die after all.”

“No.”

“They sent us here, but didn’t die. Did you know?”

“No!” Pluto’s eyes, like Sharon’s, are now dry.

Sharon doesn’t want that orange-skinned woman to be her mother. She wants Tyra. She doesn’t want to think about what they’ve been asked to do. She wishes with all her heart that she hadn’t cut her hair off. If she runs back to the solarium and collects it, maybe she can make it into a weave. Yes. Then things will go back to normal. She turns to leave, but Pluto grabs her arm.

“Sharon. Wait.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry.” Pluto pulls her into a hug, and Sharon’s too surprised to resist. “I’m sorry, Sharon. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Ug,” Haumea says. Eris and Sedna moan and Makemake lets out an ear-piercing scream.

Pluto lets go of Sharon and whips around to where the retard is screaming behind her. Makemake’s hanging by her hair in one of L.O.L.A’s pincers. How can they not have heard the bot entering the library? And fuck, there’s a syringe in one of L.O.L.A’s other protuberances.

“L.O.L.A! Stop!” Pluto cries. The other braindeads are clawing at her chassis and tugging at Makemake’s legs but the more they pull, the more intense the screaming becomes. “Stop!” Pluto shouts again, and runs around to the robot’s power switch. The capacitors whine their release and she shuts down, the crying girl still dangling from the claw, swinging gently.

Sharon’s already pulled a chair over and climbs up onto it, hacking away with those blunt scissors of hers, and at last the girl slumps, crying and shuddering, into her arms.

As Sharon gathers the braindeads together in a corner of the library, Pluto goes to the screen. “Eskombot, why the fuck did L.O.L.A do that?”

Oodle-pat. Bloot.

“Can you show me?”

An order flashes up on the screen from the New Vatican: “Euthanise non-essential personnel.” Logged the moment she opened the message from her parents. They didn’t even wait for an answer before they started. They just assumed.

But the clarity of their task, its decisiveness, is calming. At least this way it will be over soon. They won’t be tumbling out here in the darkness forever. How would Pluto have ever been able to run this place by herself anyway? She wouldn’t, that’s how. At least this way she has the chance to do something right.

A new message indicator throbs on the pane. It’s from the New Vatican Cardinal of Security. The instructions are simple: prime the Contingency 7 units in the kernel room and set the levers to arm. Press confirm when ready. “Kindly effect immediately. There is no time to waste,” he says. “Your rewards will be added unto you.”

Pluto looks across at her sister and the girls. The injured retard is sitting on the floor in front of Sharon, who’s combing her hair and smoothing it down. Two other girls are playing some sort of game with their hands and the round, drooling girl is leaning up against Sharon, her head on her shoulder. For the first time in however long, Pluto looks at her sister properly. She’s like St Francis or the Madonna or something.

It’s too late for regret, she tells herself. The only reason she’s feeling this way is because it’s about to end. That’s what she’s always wanted, isn’t it? She peers out of the viewport at the stark composition of grey and black. She watches how the whirling sun paints slow, perfect spirals in the sand.

She pulls up the parents’ new holo again. She won’t bear to watch it another time, but she stills it at the start, when they show themselves against the backdrop of blue water and sky, the laughing children in the background. Now she remembers; she has seen this before.

She’s seven years old. At home. On Earth. It’s late at night; her parents are watching holos in the den. She’s supposed to be in bed but got up for a wee. She peers into the den. There’s a holo of an island in the sun, she can smell the scent-seep from here. Sweet. Flowers, fruit, skin lotions. “Thank you for choosing the Hundred-Atoll Lodge,” the holo’s saying in an brash voice, “one of the last paradises on Earth. You have made a serene choice to join the privileged few who will not only survive, but will live! Terms and conditions apply. The NADOS one-child policy is strictly enforced at Lodge properties.”

She went to bed. She thought it was a movie. She must have dreamed that night that they were all there. She must have held that dream tighter than any reality they’d ever provided her.

She glances across at Sharon, obliviously tending her flock. “Eskombot, can you establish contact with Earth?” Sharon looks up at her, but doesn’t move to join her. For once, Pluto can’t read her sister’s eyes.

Bloodle-deet.

She logs in as an administrator. A public directory comes on. She searches the names, places the call.

“Hello?”

“Hello, mu– Hello.”

There’s a long pause, filled with distance and static and the violent flares of light failing. The picture is blank, grey foam.

“Oh … Plu– oh. Oh, God. Jeremy? Jeremy!”

“I got your message.”

Pause. Pause. Paaaause. The man comes on. “Oh, thank heavens. We’re so pleased you’ve received it. We can’t tell you how grateful we are. You’re heroes, girls. Everything works out for a reason, doesn’t it?”

“It looks beautiful,” she says.

A pause. The woman. “Yes. Yes, love. So beautiful. It’s the last place on earth, but it’s so … it’s alive.”

The man comes on. “It’s quite big, really. There’s a chance we can… that we can, one day, rehabilitate the rest.”

The woman: “Yes, there’s hope. There really is.”

“It’s a good thing we’re here, then,” Pluto says.

“Yes, love. You and your sister are our saviours. Just think of that. You’ll be at God’s right hand. And you’ll always be here.” Pluto imagines him patting his chest, like he did half her life ago.

“Goodbye, then.”

“Go with the Lord,” the woman says, and she might be crying. There’s a squeaking sound, like an animal chattering. The grey foam on the screen resolves into a patchwork of colours and then goes blank, but not before they hear the woman say, “Not now, sweetie. Wait a–”

“Come, Sharon,” Pluto says and starts off towards the kernel room. She’s never felt such assurance before, such a sense of right direction as she does now. It almost feels good.

Sharon doesn’t move to follow her sister. While she’s been comforting the Ugly Pretties, something has been swelling in her chest. Anger. No, fury. And hatred. She knows that Tyra and Nigel would urge her to use these new, unfamiliar emotions in her poses. She can’t disappoint them. She gets slowly to her feet. She can feel her newfound inner confidence◦– the very thing Tyra would say she needed to work on◦– blasting out of her pores.

Pluto hesitates at the door. “Sharon? C’mon. Let’s go. We don’t have long.”

“No.”

“No?”

“They want us to die so that they can live,” Sharon says in a clear, cold voice. Uncertainty creases Pluto’s face and a delicious thrill tickles through Sharon’s body. She should have stood up to Pluto ages ago. It’s way easier and more satisfying than she ever thought it would be. “They lied to us, Pluto. They sent us away so that they could afford to live in that… in that fucking place.”

Pluto blinks. “Sharon… We have to stop it. Now come on.”

“No.”

“I need you, Sharon. I can’t do this on my own.”

Pluto’s face crumples as if she’s about to start crying again, but Sharon doesn’t feel a jot of pity for her. “No.”

Makemake groans in approval. Haumea gurgles.

“Sharon, come on. We don’t have a fucking choice.”

“We do have a choice. It’s like this, Pluto: You can choose to channel your energy to show the world the true inner you. Or you can stay the same and get eliminated.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“They weren’t true to us. They weren’t true to themselves.” Sharon narrows her eyes and straightens her back. Glances at her reflection in the blacked-out screen. She focuses at a point in the imaginary far distance, takes a deep breath and smiles with her eyes. She’s done it! The perfect smize. Tyra was right: sometimes you have to go through bad stuff to find the strength to get it right. “And if you think about it, Pluto, the parents don’t deserve to make the final. They should really be eliminated.”

The Ugly Pretties gather behind her. Haumea gurgles and Makemake claps her hands.

Pluto glances once more at the screen. “But they’re our parents,” she whispers.

“Pluto,” Sharon says. “It’s time to be fierce and make the hard decision.“ Then she spins on her heel and starts striding down the corridor towards the solarium. Even her walk is better. Miss J would be proud.

They pass the time watching old holos and 2Ds and practising makeovers on the Ugly Pretties. Pluto has been surprised by how quickly she’s been sucked into her sister’s addictive distractions. She knew, as soon as Sharon said no, that she was right. It took a few minutes, that’s all, and she threw down her burdens too, renounced her duties. She feels light, unanchored. That’s what freedom must feel like, surely.

As the last hours approach, Pluto helps Sharon strap the Ugly Pretties in their sleeping bays. She watches Sharon tuck the Ugly Pretties in, like a mother should have done. She watches as Sharon combs Makemake’s hair one last time. Makemake gurgles and grunts and bats at Sharon’s hand. “You’re welcome, girlfriend,” Sharon whispers in her ear as she slides the syringe into Makemake’s aorta.

The Ugly Pretties all go quietly. Not even Haumea struggles.

At the viewport, the dust and blue and white face of Earth hurling itself huge across the pane, they call up the messages for one last look. Pluto’s finger slides over the list. The screen is filled with countless messages◦– some pleading, some threatening◦– but none are from the parents. The title of the latest one, from the Pope herself, shouts: “YOU WILL BURN IN HELL!!!!!!”

“Goodbye,” Sharon says, touching the big red X. “You are so not in the running anymore.”

Pluto gets to her knees and puts her face to the floor, sniffs around the edge of the airlock hatch.

“What are you doing?” Sharon asks.

“I thought I felt air coming in from outside. Warm air. It smelt of fruit and flowers.”

“There’s no air on Eros, Pluto.”

Pluto takes a deep breath, lets it out. Takes another. She disarms the hatch locks. “I’m going outside. You coming?”

Sharon looks through the viewport again, the angry visage of Earth slapping against it like a gigantic, malicious moth, and turns to her sister. “Will it hurt?”

“No. It will be instant. You won’t feel a thing.”

“Not that. I mean, will it hurt the parents? When we hit them?”

“I don’t know.”

Pluto waits for Sharon to join her at the airlock.

“We’ll always be here,” Sharon giggles, tapping her chest. “What a load of fucking dreckitude.”