The sound of a crash jolted Nora from sleep.
She sat up, blindly feeling across the bed. From downstairs, she heard a loud swear. Her heart pounding, she climbed out of the bed, slipped on the pair of sweatpants lying in a pile on the floor, and padded out of the room and down the stairs.
“Jon?” she called, tugging her oversized shirt straight.
“Damnit. Sorry, love,” her husband called back. He was in the kitchen.
She blinked her eyes against the blinding sunlight as she arrived downstairs. Nearly all the blinds were open—Jon loved the early morning light in the summer. Nora didn’t understand it. She much preferred the winter mornings when the sun took much longer to show its face. Eyes watering, she followed the sound of his rummaging. She found him halfway in the pantry in just his underwear, bent over with a broom and dustpan, sweeping up rice. Nora stared. “What happened?” she asked.
He glanced at her over his shoulder. “I was trying to get the new coffee filters,” he said. “The shelf fell.”
Nora bit back a laugh. He sounded so miserable. “Here,” she said, hurrying forward. “I’ll clean this up. You make your coffee.” She took the broom and dustpan from his unresisting fingers. He straightened up, and she leaned in for a kiss. He obliged.
“Thank you,” he said sheepishly. “I’m sorry I woke you.”
“It’s okay.”
He snatched the bag of filters off the counter beside the pantry and retreated to the coffee maker on the other side of the sink, leaving Nora to survey the damage. It was extensive. She dropped the dustpan and leaned on the broom with both hands, taking in the fallen top shelf that had collapsed on the one beneath it, dropping everything it held and knocking most of the lower shelf clear as well. The container of rice was not the only thing that had burst open—brownie mixes, packaged napkins, and jars of peanut butter among other things lay on the floor in a pile of pasta and a broken bottle of teriyaki sauce.
“Jon?”
“Mhm?”
“Make me a cup as well.”
“Will do.”
With the pantry mostly cleared up—the shelf could wait—and her steaming mug in hand, Nora followed Jon into the living room. They had just sat down on the couch, Jon draping his arm around her shoulders, when there was a knock at the door. They exchanged a look.
“It’s six-thirty in the morning,” Jon said, sounding peevish. He still wasn’t wearing a shirt.
Nora sighed and set her mug on the end table beside her. She patted Jon’s cheek affectionately. “I’ll get it.” She stood and shuffled over to the front door, stifling a yawn.
Outside, a familiar figure stood on the front steps. She had blonde curls piled high on her head and wore a long black vest cardigan riddled with pockets, accompanied with jeans and heavy black boots. Her eyes were hidden behind dark tinted sunglasses, though her dark eyebrows arched high above their rims. “Nora,” she said, with a slight upward turn of her lips.
Nora’s eyes widened. She became suddenly aware of the state of her own hair, still a tangled nest from sleep. “Hello Marci,” she said, a bit helplessly.
At the sound of that name, Jon sprang up from the couch and came to join Nora at the door. The two exchanged another glance.
Marci pulled off her sunglasses to take in Jon, standing there in only his boxers with a mug in his hand. She crossed her arms over her chest. “You’ve gone native,” she accused.
He looked affronted. “We have not.”
Nora eyed his bare chest sidelong. “We have, a bit.”
Jon frowned, softening only when Nora sidled up and wrapped her arms around him. “What are you here for, Marci?” he asked, draping his arm around Nora’s shoulders.
Marci grinned, a wild look with too many teeth showing. Her grey eyes were strangely bright. “Apocalypse, baby,” she said, pointing finger guns at the two of them.
Jon grimaced and took a long drink from his mug.
Nora was interested. “What sort of apocalypse?” she asked.
“The kind with a big invasion and a lot of bodies at the end of it.”
“Why do you sound so cheerful about it?” Jon asked, frowning into the dregs of his coffee.
Marci gave him a strange look, and Nora laughed. “Give him a minute,” she said. “Once the coffee kicks in, he’ll be on board.” She poked her head outside the door, watching for neighbors. It was early, but one never knew. “You wanna come inside?” she asked.
Marci arched an eyebrow. “I rather do, actually. I’m curious to see how you’ve been living.”
“Come and see.” Nora leaned into Jon so he would move to the side. Marci planted her sunglasses firmly in her hair and stepped briskly past them into the living room.
Jon watched her with a pained expression as she marched around, inspecting everything. “This is going to mean trouble,” he murmured.
Nora smiled. “It could be fun though.” She poked him in the side. “Why don’t you go put a shirt on? And some pants?”
“You’ll be all right for a minute?”
She watched Marci run her fingers along a wooden picture frame above the couch. “I expect so,” she said.
Jon pressed a kiss to her temple. “I’ll be right back.” He slipped away, leaving his empty mug beside hers on the side table before loping up the stairs.
Nora turned to Marci, who was now holding one of their couch pillows out in front of her with a look of consternation. “Marci,” said Nora. “How did you get here?”
Marci dropped the pillow. “I walked,” she said.
“From where?”
“The bus stop.”
“There’s no bus stop nearby.”
Marci flashed a toothy grin. “There was for me.”
She didn’t elaborate. Instead she crossed the room to the high-backed armchair in the corner and sank down into it, dramatically crossing one leg over the other. From her position there, she watched Nora appraisingly. Nora again remembered the state of her hair. Resisting the urge to try and sort it out with her fingers, Nora took a seat on the couch.
“So,” she said, reaching for her coffee. “What does this apocalypse have to do with us?”
Marci arched one of those dark eyebrows. “You live here, don’t you?”
Nora nodded over her cup. “Obviously.”
“Do you want to keep living here?” she asked.
Before Nora had time to consider the implications of that, Jon returned, now wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Marci’s eyes followed him as he slipped onto the couch next to Nora. She leaned forward in her chair, propping her elbows up on her legs. She clasped her hands together. “Shall we talk business?” she asked.
“It’s a little early for business,” Jon grumbled.
“Ah, but I’m a busy person,” said Marci. “It’s now or never, I’m afraid. I’ve got a job for you both.”
Jon gave Nora a pointed look.
Nora ignored it. “We’re kind of retired,” she said.
“We know,” said Marci. “But I think you’ll like this job, and as I said, it concerns an apocalypse. If you want this,” she gestured around the room, “to stay the way it is, I suggest you consider what I have to say.”
Marci had never been one to use threats to get what she wanted, so Nora took this to mean the apocalypse thing was serious.
Jon had zeroed in on something else.
“Who’s ‘we’?” he asked.
Marci flicked at a bit of lint on her leg. “Specs is helping me out on this one,” she said.
Nora didn’t ignore the look he gave her this time. “You are working with Specs,” he said incredulously.
“Our interests align for once,” she said with a wry smile.
Jon slumped back against the couch. “I find that very hard to believe.”
“Unfortunately, it’s true. You know the saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend?”
“Yes,” said Nora, feeling a growing apprehension.
“We’ve got a greater enemy to deal with, Specs and I. And both of you, if you agree.” Marci clicked her teeth together. “The Trocchi are here.”
Ah.
“I see,” said Jon.
“So, you understand.”
They did. Nora and Jon had often been hired to hunt the Trocchi in the past. It was tricky business—the Trocchi were a race that was very adept at blending in with its surroundings. And beyond that, they had a parasitic, imperial society. They often set out to colonize other planets, and once they had taken root, they were very difficult to remove. Nora and Jon happened to be experts in Trocchi removal.
“How many are already here?” Nora asked.
Marci shrugged. “We have no idea. I have only encountered one.” She grinned. “He is no longer an issue. But we have it on good authority that another convoy will be coming soon.”
“How soon?” asked Jon.
“Before the year is up.”
He groaned and brought his hands to his face, covering his eyes. “That is not good.”
“Indeed not.”
Nora reached over and briefly squeezed Jon’s knee. He uncovered his face and took her hand. “What’s the job?” Nora asked.
“Find the Trocchi already living here. Find out how many there are. Get rid of them.”
“Oh, is that all?” asked Jon.
Nora smiled and squeezed his hand. “It could be fun,” she said. “You’ve been saying you were bored.”
“Yeah, but I was kind of thinking about joining a fly-fishing class, or something like that,” he said. But the hint of a smile was playing at the edges of his mouth as well. “What do we get out of this if we say yes?” he asked.
Marci straightened up slowly. “Apart from keeping your little home here?” she asked. “I am ready to offer fifty cree a head, plus expenses.”
Jon scratched at his chin. “We don’t live in Andromeda anymore,” he said.
“I am aware.”
“What he means is that cree won’t work,” Nora said. “We’ll need to be paid in Earth currency.”
This did not deter Marci. “Which Earth currency do you want?”
Jon glanced at Nora. “U.S. dollars?”
Marci nodded crisply. “Fine. Seventy-five a head?”
“Dollars?”
“Yes.”
“Hm. That’s a little low.”
"Eighty?"
Nora gave a pained smile. "Eighty dollars really isn't—"
Marci rolled her eyes. “Eighty-thousand.”
Jon’s jaw dropped. Nora dug her elbow into his side, and he snapped it shut. He swallowed. “Plus expenses?” he asked.
“Of course.”
Eighty-thousand a head. The Trocchi did not travel alone. This could turn into quite the lucrative endeavor. “When do you need your answer by?” Nora asked.
“Ideally, I’d like to know now. But I’ll hold that offer for you until the end of the day.” She reached into one of her many vest pockets and pulled out a shiny silver card. She handed it to Jon. “I have a bet on with Specs over whether or not you’ll take the job,” she said as he turned the card over. A phone number was engraved there, though it seemed to have a few too many digits.
“What does Specs think we’ll do?” asked Jon.
“He thought you’d slam the door in my face, and then, and I quote, ‘peace out to a little cabin in the middle of nowhere, off the grid, so they can live in the quiet where we’ll never find them again.’”
Jon laughed for the first time that morning. “Specs doesn’t know us as well as he thinks he does.”
Marci grinned wickedly, barring those too-many teeth. “I didn’t think so. You’ll take the job?” she asked.
Nora nodded. “When do we start?”
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