Better Hands

1

“Good morning.” Mumbled Charlie Way to nobody in particular. He simultaneously wiped the sleep from his brown eyes and stood up. As he brushed away the small pieces of gravel that were stuck to his muscular back, his voice echoed off of the small cave walls.2

He picked up a cloth bag that was lying next to his feet and secured the strap around his shoulder as he walked from the cave. A nearly blinding wave of sunlight shot from the sky, reminding his to put on his sunglasses.3

“How many miles until I’m home?” he asked himself, squinting across the bare lands, trying to see the cell that he had lived in for three years now. “Ten? Maybe fifteen miles? Ah... I can make it home by tonight if I hustle. Circumnavigating the asteroid in less than five days. That’s a record.” He said it with a flat tone; there would be no rewards ceremony, no cake or engraved plaque waiting for him when he got back. There were no other people on the asteroid. Otherwise, he reminded himself, the point of solitary confinement would be defeated.4

Charlie began to run in what he judged to be the right direction, though his only landmark was a small mound breaking up the monotony of the horizon and allowing it to continue.5

While he was running, he lit a cigarette and took a long, slow drag. He had restrained from opening a new pack of smokes for a week, but felt no remorse when the raspy smoke filled his lungs.6

This will be my last pack. He swore, crossing his heart but knowing he would not follow through.7

It was easy to run in the lowered gravity of the asteroid-prison, but weighted clothing helped him get used to it within a week of his arrival. Other things, however, had taken much more time to adjust to; such as the invariably flat, rocky landscape, and the knowledge that creatures not found on Earth were prowling around.8

Creatures, Charlie often thought, that haven’t been tamed, and that still think they own this hunk of rock.9

Charlie reached into his bag, as he was running, and reached for the handle of a shotgun, just to make sure it was still there.10

Soon, the cigarette was nothing but a smoldering bit of paper hardly large enough to stay in his mouth, so his allowed it to simply fall to the ground. Realizing that none of the goddamn environmentalists would be mad at him if he littered, he pounded the piece of garbage into the ground with the heel of his boot.11

Charlie looked up, and his jaw dropped. He saw Earth on the horizon. Earth, the planet whose inhabitants had tried to kill it with pollution, deforestation and over using the soil. Earth, the planet that, until recently, had thought itself the only planet able to sustain life (but realized it’s misconception too late). Earth, the planet that had deemed him unworthy of blessing it’s soil and shipped him into space, swept him under the rug.12

Mars sat next to it, and Charlie could not help wondering how it had stayed united enough to wage war on another planet. Honestly, Earth was only losing the war because its nations were fighting amongst themselves.13

Wondering how the war was going, he continued to run at a steady pace until he came to a tree with bright red leaves. They were not the shade that one could expect to find on Earth, but bright enough to cut through and illuminate the darkness that covered the asteroid like a virulent, inescapable, disease for days at a time. ‘Beacon’ he always called it. A fitting name.14

Looking around, Charlie saw his cell (which he tried hard not to call ‘home’) less than one kilometer away, and made straight for it. It appeared to be nothing more than a cement slab. When he arrived, it was obviously just the roof to an underground home, with a steel trapdoor in the center. He opened this and climbed down the shaky ladder inside.15

Even after his feet had been planted solidly on the wooden floor and he had taken off the sunglasses, Charlie’s eyes took quite a while to adjust to the dingy, dusty, dark atmosphere of the crowded room. Its walls were lined with bookshelves, which were crammed with horror novels and old records. He selected one of these records at random, and put it on the record player.16

John Lennon began singing his song ‘Imagine,’ preaching peace and love. Charlie began to talk to the voice.17

“John,” he sighed. “I’m trying. I’ve been imagining an and to the war between Earth and Mars for years, though I’m not sure if it’s still going on. I’ve been imagining the day I get off of this rock for years. And I hate to criticize your philosophy, buddy, but daydreamin’ ain’t helping much.”18

Charlie turned the volume up and walked into the kitchen, through one of two doors in the wall. This room was as crowded as the one he had just left, with pots and pans instead of books and music.19

He ate his usual meal of twelve different pills, designed to give him all the nutrients he needed to function. The capsules left a strange, powdery taste in his mouth, but he washed that down with a glass of water that came from a well deep below the surface of the ground. He was stepping back into the living room, mid-sip, and reached for another record, but stopped dead in his tracks. 20

Another human was just descending the latter. He was well-shaven, with pale skin and deep blue eyes. He wore nothing bit blue jeans and a sweat shirt; not nearly enough to face the cold that came with the dark on the asteroid.21

“Are you Charlie Way?” he asked, panting slightly when he stepped onto the floor. There was no telling how many time’s Charlie’s Rolex, the one his wife had given to him just before the first hearing, ticked before he spoke again. “Are you?”22

Charlie could hardly speak.23

“Who...Wha...Oh. Yes, I’m Charlie. Who are you?”24

The man stuck out his hand, and Charlie stared at it silently. The man withdrew it after several moments.25

“My name is Paul Cook. I’m here to get you off of this asteroid. Not much of a prison, is it. You have more things here than I do at home. Are you just allowed to wander around on this rock as you please.26

Charlie nodded, knowing that it would not seem like such a hell-hole from an outsider’s perspective.27

“It’s worse than it appears.” He said. “Every other month, it gets so dark you can’t see your hand, but that doesn’t matter because it’s so cold you can’t feel it either. The other six months, on the other hand, are so bright you can’t go outside without sunglasses, and the sun penetrates your eyelids—if, in fact, it is the sun that I see, and I’m not stealing light from some other solar system.”28

Charlie took a deep breath, realizing that he hadn’t taken one for a while. He reached into his bag and withdrew a gun that resembled an oversized revolver.29

“Let’s go now.” He said, smiling. “How did you get here?”30

“I have a space shuttle. It’s home-made, and not registered with NASA, so they won’t know I’m out here.”31

“Ah...” sighed Charlie. “I worked with NASA before I came out here. I was in charge of making missiles, mainly. Actually, that’s why I’m really out here. I had them launch a missile to shoot down a space shuttle in 2008. I lied and said that the thing would hit earth. Anyways, we broke it up, and it all fell down. The pieces, combined, had enough plutonium in them to give every person on the Earth lung cancer.”32

“Oh!” laughed Paul. “The government had a hell of a time trying to keep that under control. They paid any person who found a piece ten-thousand dollars, assuming that the person had not touched it. They never told us it was because of Plutonium, though. They said it was for research.”33

Charlie wondered why he had gone into such detail this time. When he had gone through this day in his head— the day he had been rescued—he had always said “I tried to extinguish the human race, because they were destroying the planet.”34

It would have made the same amount of sense both ways. Now, Paul Cook’s eyes darted towards the latter, but before he could take a step towards it, Charlie had the gun pointed for his chest.35

“You won’t be leaving me here, though.” He smiled.36

“I wasn’t planning on it.” Replied Paul. Lying.37

In a matter of seconds, both men were outside again. The sun was still incredibly bright, and Charlie had forgotten to grab the extra sunglasses for Paul.38

The shuttle was not far away at all; it’s metallic, pill-shaped exterior was gleaming in the sun. Charlie walked towards it and thought of how much he hated riding in unapproved shuttles. He had not been inside Earth’s polluted atmosphere, it’s too-thick ozone layer, in three years. He kept his mouth closed on the matter. He was in no position to be picky.39

One side of the pill slid away to reveal a seat just large enough for three people who did not mind being squeezed together a bit.40

Charlie took the passenger seat, and Paul sat before the steering wheel. The gun was still pointed at the latter of the two men, but the hand that held it had relaxed slightly.41

Paul pressed some buttons on the steering wheel and the engine admitted a low hum, adding to the sound of Charlie’s generator. The soon-to-be-escaped prisoner took one final glance at his cell, knowing he would not miss it. 42

When he looked back to Paul, his mouth preparing to speak, the gun fell from his hands. Paul held a mask designed to look like—possibly was human skin. The scaly green face of a Martian grinned at him, complete with a set of yellow eyes and two slits where a nose should be.43

“Paul!” He exclaimed, though it was more probable that his name was something entirely different. “You’re a Martian!”44

Paul nodded, and the spaceship whirred into space, and several minutes passed before Charlie could speak again, for he was so shocked, and scared. The Martian spoke eventually, when they were surrounded only by stars and darkness.45

“Do you see these stars, Mr. Way? These bright, shining, stars. Each of them is surrounded by it’s own solar system, along with billions and billions of beings. Earth and Mars both are insignificant in the universe. However, no planet knows this when it is first created. You know this Mr. Way; you tried to end life on your planet when it was in this infantile state. I, however, have succeeded where you failed. I have destroyed your species, along with my army. We did it not, however, to end life in the universe, but simply to give our race more space, room to live. So, we needed a new planet. Yours was the next planet in line. Every human on your planet has been destroyed, except for you, Mr. Way.”46

Charlie saw the knife too late. It came from the side and slid easily between two of his robs. Blood began to pour unrelently, and, in the vacuum of space, nobody but Paul Cook could here him scream.47

In a strange way, however, he was happy to die. The Humans would not destroy their planet anymore. Perhaps the Earth was in better hands now.48