Black Mirror

Epilogue - Thank God- Oh, Please Don't

"Here's your key, Mr. Graz...Mr. Gracie...sorry, I'm so bad at this."

"Graziadei." He said it with a smile shining brightly against his light brown skin. Lighter than his own son's, but then he'd never found himself spending extended periods of time out in the sun, naked.

Josh wasn't much of a scientist, but he supposed those periods had a compounding effect on his own melanin levels. Maybe one of these days he'd wind up spending so much time naked in broad daylight that his tattoos would no longer be visible. Just what the parental unit would want.

"Love your accent," the concierge said, underlining her words with a gentle titter.

"Just on my name, though." His father shifted to a plain old generic American accent to prove his point. "I can never resist."

"Enjoy your stay in San Francisco, then!" She waved them goodbye, and before Josh could turn around, she caught his eye and held up one hand to her face, thumb and pinky extended, mouthing, "Call me?"

Josh sighed as his father's arm on his shoulders steered him away. He didn't even need to keep him sheltered from women - he could easily shelter himself. But he supposed his father just wanted to make a show of power over him, in microaggressive gestures like these.

It was only when they got up to their room, overlooking downtown San Francisco under a sunny green sky, that his father let go of him. "Just stay up here for a while," he said. "I'll be back soon. But first I have to go find our friends at Peppermint, try and get them to play nice."

"Yeah. Sure." Josh sat on the end of the bed, pulling his knees to his chest. If he could visibly radiate how uncomfortable he was, his father might just grab hold of him and tell him to cowboy up or some shit.

Only when he was alone did he start to relax, even if he knew his reprieve was only temporary.

He got off the bed and found his way to the bathroom, where he looked at himself in the mirror. Years and years and so many different guises, and here he was, a brown-skinned young man staring at the world with even darker brown eyes that had seen too much, wondering who that kid was in the mirror wearing a suit like he was attending his grandfather's funeral.

Did he even have a grandfather? His father would have him believe he didn't. But then who begat him, huh?

He shook his head, then unbuttoned and untucked his outer layer. Underneath that, a dark gray tank - his personal form of rebellion against his father's insistence that he wear only white above the waist. That came off too, revealing the inked-up torso that was his true center. Beautiful patterns, all courtesy of Ahmad Pirzada back on Earth. Blessings be upon him and his hands always.

Before he could go in the shower and wash the smell of his father's arm off - not that it really had a smell, but its presence lingered enough, toxically, in the back of his mind - his phone buzzed, and he pulled it out of his pocket, consulting the screen.

"Keep an eye on these two." Michael had sent these words under a pair of pictures - both depicting teenage boys wielding ice knuckles. One was light brown, like Josh's father, and the other was blond and white. Like Michael. "I think Dad's gonna want to put them through Purgatory."

In spite of himself, Josh asked, "Why?"

"They're Breakers. And you know what Dad's like about people fucking with *his* experiments." He shuddered as he read this, then jumped at the sign of a new text. "You all right? You want me to take you away? Keep you safe?"

"I'm good," Josh lied.

"You don't have to do this, baby brother."

"I said I'm fine." Josh couldn't help but feel, however, that his father was almost certainly monitoring all communication between him and his brother, so he felt unable, at all times, to tell him that he really needed out. Biting back bitter tears, he asked, "What are their names?"

"Alex Snow and Gabe Snow. In the order I sent the pics."

Though Michael couldn't see it, Josh was nodding at the phone as he shut the screen off. Then he laid his phone aside on the bedside table, stripped off completely, and stepped into the shower.

There, he let himself cry, his tears mingling with the cold water (he didn't turn on the heat) as he wished he could have had the balls to resist his father sooner.

Maybe two thousand years sooner, he thought as the shower chilled his wingless back.