The mission for this month is to finally finish the sequel of Dark Space, so far entitled (very creatively) Darker Space. Writing a sequel can sometimes be an unexpected challenge. Mostly, I think, because when I wrote Dark Space I did it with absolutely no expectations that anyone would actually like it. But it turns out they did, which suddenly brings in a whole lot of those creeping insecurities that I usually just ignore: What if I completely stuff this up? What if I take it in a direction that everyone hates? What if it just plain sucks? Because Brady and Cam aren’t just mine anymore, are they? They’ve been shared with a whole stack of readers out there, people who are really excited to see what happens to them next. It’s incredibly flattering, and also a lot nerve-wracking! I may end up dedicating Darker Space to the good people at Banrock Station, who supply all my Dutch courage when it comes to writing this!

Anyway, here’s the opening to Darker Space. I’ve written it six million times, and will probably rewrite it six million more. But for now, here it is, and I hope that soon I’ll be able to announce that yes, this story is done, and yes, I’m happy with it. And despite the way I’ve wrestled with this one, and I’m still wrestling with it, it’s been great fun getting back inside Brady’s head. It’s a jungle in there!

***

Some guys are meant to be heroes. I was never one of them.

There was probably never a time in my life when I didn’t want to try and become a better person, while at the same time seeing the sheer fucking impossibility of striving for anything at all, so fuck it, right? Disappointment was always easy enough to get used to, whether it came from my dad’s quiet, rueful smiles, or from that hot, angry place inside me that knew exactly how worthless I was, how pointless, and how I’d never be anything better than the reffo piece of shit I’d been born.

I stole. I lied. I got in fights.

I dropped out of school to look after my baby sister.

Kept stealing, and lying, and fighting, because even though I wanted to be better, those things had become the pattern of my life. The wanting came late at night, in the quiet moments, in the dark, and the certainty came with it: I could change. I could be better. But all my certainty, all my dreams, were as fragile and ephemeral as moments captured on old photographic negatives, created in the darkness and the quiet. Light and rough handling destroyed them. The daylight killed them.

In the daylight I wanted to be better still, I wanted a better future, but I discovered I had nothing in me but resentment and nowhere to direct it.

My dad’s job in the smelter ate his lungs away, day after day, but I didn’t know that yet.

Stole. Lied. Fought.

Drank.

When I was sixteen I was conscripted. After four weeks of basic training I was sent to Defender Three, into the Black, to sit and watch for the Faceless. To protect the people back home, except nobody ever said how being cannon fodder for aliens helped anyone at all. The Faceless could rip through our Defenders like they were rice paper, if they wanted. If they ever came back.

Then, one day, they did.

First they sent Cameron Rushton, captured years before, as their messenger, harbinger, or whatever. I was his medic, his pacemaker, or whatever. When I touched him, it happened. Suddenly, we shared a heartbeat. We shared our thoughts, and our dreams. I saw everything the Faceless ever did to him. More than that, I felt it. Claws sliding down his spine—my spine. Pulling uselessly at the restraints. Everything they did to him, I shared. I relived it every fucking night.

I still did.

I came up from sleep like from under water, gasping.

I sat bolt upright, shivering in the darkness as the tendrils of the dream slipped away.

More nightmares.

I couldn’t remember the specifics of the dream, but I didn’t have to. Fucking Faceless. Fucking Kai-Ren. My skin crawling as he touched me.

It took a little while for the unease to fade, and then I couldn’t sleep anyway. I lay back down and pulled the sheet up again, and watched the blades of the ceiling fan cutting through the night. In the darkness they were hazy, and I didn’t know if I could actually see them at all, or if I only imagined I could. If I squinted, they seemed to stop altogether.

Beside me, Cam dreamed on.

I was still trying to be a better person. For Cam, for us. Still trying, and still falling short by miles. It wasn’t supposed to be so hard, was it? The happy ever after bullshit.