Put Up My Thumb and Shut One Eye
Minkyung, Yebin AU

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.
Neil Armstrong

“Don’t you touch me with your filthy hands.”

Yaebin holds her gloved hands up, “Ok. I have them where you can see them. Not going to touch you. You, me, touching, nah. They’re not dirty though, I swear. I just washed them.”

The prisoner growls, flips a wave of red hair that had fallen over her face to reveal sharp eyes and teeth bared in a snarl. Yaebin knows she said she was not going to touch her but by the god are her hands tingling and it has just been so long, so long that she has spoken to someone else, she just kind of wants to shake this stranger by the shoulders to know that she is still here, still alive.

But Yaebin is a woman of her word so instead she sits down directly in front of the prisoner, puts her hands together.

“Do you know who I am?”

The prisoner rolls her eyes, “What is this, Twenty Questions? A movie? Whoever wrote this script .”

Yaebin shrugs, “Ok.”

The prisoner eyes her warily, tugs again at the chains that hold her hands apart. They jangle merrily and she snarls again.

Yaebin waits.

It takes them a while but then they see her. They always do.

She watches the prisoner’s eyes trace her, watches her gaze travel up from Yaebin’s boots to the hems of her sleeves, then upwards to her epaulettes and finally as they land on Yaebin’s tie and collar. Yaebin waits.

“You’re a general,” the prisoner says.

Yaebin nods, “Sorta.”

She sees the flicker of recognition, then the look of sheer panic and the shaking of the chains that accompanies them. Yaebin waits for the prisoner to tire or give up. She wonders if this particular prisoner is going to try to actually spit on her. Sometimes they try.

She does not.

“Why,” the prisoner says, “why are you here?”

“In this room, on this ship, or orbiting this planet?”

Yaebin pauses and looks up at the prisoner from where she is seated on the floor, her head to one side.

“Why are you doing this?”

“I haven’t spoken to anyone in three months,” Yaebin says, “don’t mind if I try-”

“Three months,” the voice is low and threatening, “who was it that you-”

“I liked them,” Yaebin says, “I liked her. She was a cool person even if she didn’t want to talk all that much. Really did surprise me with her strength but I mean, there’s really not all that much point to trying to kill me. It’s really not very useful. They’d just find someone else who likes to talk less and drain more and really, where would we be then?”

“You said she,” the prisoner says.

Yaebin nods, “Nayoung was a cool person.”

The chains still.

“N-Nayoung?”

Yaebin nods again.

“Was?”

“Oh,” Yaebin says, “she’s still alive. Past tense in the sense that I have not seen her in a while but I don’t really do the killing thing. You people are far more useful alive. I think they set her to work somewhere else. I don’t know where though, so don’t try asking me. People don’t tell me things because I talk too much. Or that’s what they said five years ago over the comlink.”

“Where is she? What did you do with her?”

Yaebin sighs, “Can you pay attention for a moment? Didn’t you hear what I just said? I don’t know. She’s not dead though. I didn’t kill her, at least. I didn’t drain everything either. I told you, I said liked her. She’s cool so I left her with just enough to know it’s still there but not enough to well, kill me. Then they took her back down out of orbit and I don’t know anything anymore.”

“You.”

Yaebin shrugs, “I know, I know, short little old me. Sue me for wanting to stay alive.”

“Is that why?”

Yaebin stops.

“Is that why you do this?”

“Ah,” says Yaebin, “yes. I’ve heard this one before. Yes. I like staying alive. It’s kind of nice.”

“But you-”

“I have also heard this one before,” Yaebin says, “and I happen to be relatively comfortable here.”

“What about-”

“The people? Man, and here I thought you might be different.”

The prisoner scoffs, “People? Who cares about the people.”

“Ooh,” says Yaebin, “you have my attention. Not that you didn’t already have it, but you certainly have it now. I like this. Keep going.”

“The people fend for themselves just fine, one dictatorship to another, what’s the difference - no, there’s nothing interesting there. It’s not about protecting or helping or anything. Think about the money. There’s a ton of money out there for various jobs and with your skills and talents I can’t imagine you wouldn’t be able to rack up whatever you need to be comfortable again in less than a week, Angel of Death.”

“You know,” Yaebin says, “that would all be very believable if I didn’t know who you were. Also, I really haven’t heard that name in a long time. Didn’t realize people still used it. It’s really not accurate though. I don’t kill people. Also I k