Been mistaken

Every guy I dated was a pilot. The first one, I went with because he was a pilot. The second one, I went with despite that he was a pilot. The third one didn't tell me he was a pilot. I found out later. The fourth one told me he was a commander, but he turned out to be a lying pilot. After that, I decided the universe was trying to tell me something. I decided to become a pilot.

I only met two other women up here. One looked like a man, and the other one looked like my mother, and I never made friends with either of them. It took me four damn years to get my wings and when that was done, and I started to fly ships, I realized that nobody had any clue what to make of me. Not the other pilots, not the mechanics, not the soldiers-on-contract that were all so bulked up their shoulders pressed against each other when they all sat down. Half of them treated me like a little girl and half of them treated me like an untouchable, and one treated me like his sister, which creeped me out so bad I kept the cabin door locked for the whole flight. Nobody's nice up here unless they want something from you. If you can't figure out what that something is, you better run.

After the universe told me to become only the 16th woman to qualify to steer a freighter, I kept waiting for some other message, like "Start the fourth war," or "Sleep with the commander to steal his secrets," or maybe "Steer the ship into the sun and sing 'Band on the Run' as it goes down," but nothing came. Not a whim, not a thought, not a peep. So I began to get angry. I started to take zeiger pills. I'm not one of those idiots who thinks zeigers improve your performance, I know they're just a palliative, but it's true they make you feel good and it's true they're undetectable, and so I flew one, two, three missions with my blood hot as runny lava.

"India," said Lincoln my nosy co-pilot on my fifth run high on zeigers. "What are you doing?"

"Flying like a zeiger freak, Lincoln," I said, tapping the engines up to full.

He laughed in a rotten way. "Okay, but you're not on zeigers. And you don't want them to think you are."

"I am on zeigers." I looked him full in the eye. How obvious can a girl be?

He twisted so his harness strap was cutting across his neck. "India... and you complain about people not taking you seriously?"

I stared straight forward again. "No complaining here. Woman of action."

"Just throttle down. I can't keep covering for you. You know some of the brass is looking for an excuse to get rid of you."

The anger mixed with the hot love in my blood in the most thrilling way, sending me into a wicked little euphoria that made the hairs stand up on my thighs and set my tongue to clicking in my mouth. All the controls looked a little green to me. The red had drained out of my vision. It had been seduced somewhere else. "Do they think I'd ever do anything to endanger a ship full of..." I fished around in the soup. "...aristocrats and mercenaries?"

"And volunteers? No, not dangerous, they don't think that." He twisted in his harness again. "They want to think you're incompetent. And lately you're not doing very much to dispel that impression."

Anger is like a warm milkshake sometimes, so sweet and thick I can hardly stand it.

He said, "You're not exactly fitting in."

"You're not exactly pilot material yourself," I said, hearing the words come out of my mouth more than saying them exactly, wanting to giggle at my own childishness. I didn't giggle but I did grin.

Lincoln stared straight forward. Through the blur of the zeigers he looked like a rock star, a lit-up mop-haired boy with shiny lips. I drummed my middle finger on the engine lock. These things, these pills, are absolutely the hail and hallelujah for cancer, and if I'm not cancer, a lump of unwelcome matter in the midst of all these men, then what am I?

"You're not on zeigers," he said. "I wish you'd stop trying to get attention. Just do your job. You don't think I get sick of them sticking me with you? Don't you know how everyone sees you?"

"The universe told me to do this," I said.

Lincoln sat there a few seconds then flipped open the cover for the radio.

"And if it isn't going to tell me what to do next," I said, "I'm going to steer this ship into the sun. The universe owes me that."

"The sun is 50 AU from here."

"Five minutes," I said. "If I don't get a sign in five minutes, we're all going down." I was happy because my body felt so good and my mind felt so loopy and supple, but I knew I wasn't happy.

"CT-789, this is CR-990, come in," said Lincoln into the radio.

Jarrod was my first boyfriend. He'd wanted to be a pilot because he thought they had the hardest training. He gambled so much he sold my car to pay a debt, and I called the police and then I dumped him. Micah was my fourth boyfriend; he'd wanted to be a pilot so he could make commander. He cheated on me with another girl, and then he dumped me. Harry was my third boyfriend. He wanted to be a pilot because his father wanted him to. He was a doormat and I dumped him. Skylar was my second boyfriend. He wanted to be a pilot so that he could defend our people if the fourth war came, but he also wanted to be right and punched me in the face when I took that away from him. Then he tried to force my pants off. Then he dumped me. I was as humiliated then as I am ten years later.

"Lincoln. Zeigers don't do anything. They just make you feel good."

"Shut up, India," he said, waiting on the radio. "The crazy act might have gotten Boomer a medal, but it's not doing anything for you."

"Five minutes up," I said. I reached up and shut down the engines. It got so quiet I could hear my red blood cells banging against each other.

When I didn't say anything else, he said, "Some people just aren't cut out to be pilots." His shiny lip curled a little. I saw it.

"I might have been mistaken," I said. "Been mistaken before. But I don't think I was. Maybe it's the pills talking but I still think I was right," I said. That the universe wanted me to be a pilot. But our leaders didn't and they were coming to rectify their mistake. Clap me in irons.

"Give me a break," he said to the control board. "Pretend to be doped out on painkillers but you won't just admit you're not cut out for it."

"Give me a break," I said.