Paradise-1 (Red Space)

by David Wellington

Then a green plastic monkey jumped on her arm, and she found the breath to scream.

“It was a parasite,” Zhang said. “A psychic parasite. It killed all the people on Titan through some kind of telepathic infection.”

“It didn’t feel like a war,” he said. “It felt like I was pinned to a glass slide. Under a microscope. Like a great, cosmic eye was looking down on me. Judging me. Like I’d spent my whole life blissfully invisible, hidden because I was so small and insignificant and now, now for the very first time, I’d been seen.”

“Interesting,” she said. Zhang scowled in frustration. “What? What’s so interesting?” “You fought so hard to get away. And now you’ve come back for more,” she said.

“Listen. Okay? Listen! You’re exactly who I want down there. The thing about you, Zhang, is you’re one of those people who just gets better in a crisis. You think you’re broken. You think you’re not strong enough. All I see is that when life throws shit at you, you keep getting stronger.”