"Markus?" The girl lifts the videotape up over her head, as if presenting an offering to an imaginary god. "Markus Fixit."
And she might as well be doing just that.
Markus sighs, traces his fingers along the crinkly black strip of tape spilling out of the case. Stretched and stressed to its limits, Toy Story finally gave out when Woody and Buzz were sneaking into Pizza Planet. The children nearly believed in "normal" again. They watched a movie--a funny one--and it made them think that everything was going to be okay.
He knows the truth. He knows he can only entertain them for so long before they remember. Soon the Mountain would again echo with cries for parents lost to the Big Death, and they would come to him for comfort because he was the oldest, the smartest. Markus will know what to do.
Markus Alexander? No, he was Markus Fixit.
The girl's eyes plead to him, beg him to repair the movie. So much hope and fear reflected in her stare. Markus can't say no.
"I'll see what I can do." His voice is young but trembling deeper. Everyone's afraid of what might happen when he starts to talk like a grown-up, but nobody says anything about it. Nobody wants to imagine Thunder Mountain without Markus. That wouldn't be fair.
He cradles the tape in his hands, studying the small reminder of childhood before it all changed. The tape has snapped in two places, and doubt nips at the back of him mind. He might not be able to repair the damage. "You've watched this movie dozens of times already, Katie. You know the ending."
"But it's not the same!" A seven year old's logic is unbreakable.
"Okay, then." The strands of tape hang from Markus' fingers like a small animal's innards. "But can you tell me? Tell me how it ends?"
Katie takes in a huge gulpful of air. "Buzz sees this claw machine, but he thinks it's a real rocket that he can ride. So he climbs in and gets stuck when all the alien squeaky toys start crawling all over him. Then he gets stolen by the neighbor kid. Oh, wait. Woody goes into the claw machine too. He wants to get Buzz out of the machine so they can get home. And...and the neighbor kid gets both of them! Yeah, that's what happened. And then they're in the neighbor kid's house. And then--"
"Okay," Markus interrupts her. It's obvious that she'll will be able to recall the entire movie backwards and forwards. "That's very good, Katie. Now, can you do me a huge favor?"
Katie nods slowly. She's not sure what Markus will ask her but she'll do it anyway because Markus is the leader, and they've been playing Follow the Leader ever since all the moms and dads died.
"Could you tell everybody in the TV room...everybody who was watching the movie...could you tell them what you told me? All the way to the end?"
Katie's face scrunches up thoughtfully. "Tell them how it ends?"
"Exactly. Tell them how it ends."
"But, what about the tape?"
"Fixing the movie will take a long, long time," Markus said. "I think it would be better if you just tell them the ending so they'll know. Okay?"
The silent pause starts to make Markus uncomfortable, but Katie finally answers with an enthusiastic "Okay!" and hurries back to the others.
Thoughts begin to roil in Markus' head, and he knows he must search out wiser counsel.
"I lied to her, Meaghan." Markus has spread the remains of the videotape on the table, and he looks up from his makeshift autopsy. He always feels more comfortable when he locks eyes with her as they talk, even if there is no need. The speakers assure that he'd hear her anywhere in the containment room.
But still, he likes to watch her move, the way she paces from one side of her cell to the other. She's graceful, even when trapped behind glass.
"And I feel really bad about it." Markus presses the torn piece of tape down on the tabletop and lets go. It promptly creases up again. "I've never had to lie like that to anybody before."
"That's not entirely true." Meaghan's voice crackles and buzzes tinnily through the speakers. Markus thinks he might have to fix those too, sooner or later. Markus Fixit. "You're keeping me hidden away pretty well," she smirks, approaching the clear wall that separates her from the boy, her link to the outside. She yearns to call Markus "her boy," but she carries the Death and ought not to aspire to such things.
"That's...it's not the same!" Markus doesn't notice how similar his tone is to Katie's earlier. "Hiding something isn't the same as lying. I said something out loud that I knew in my heart wasn't true. It feels...different."
"Worse?" Meaghan suggested.
"Kind of..." Markus abandons his project, stands, and presses his head against the glass. It's cool and hard against his forehead. He came seeking advice; he aches for comfort as well. "I just don't know what to do."
"You're promising a lot of things to the children. Happiness is a good thing, Markus. But you can't just allow them to abandon reality. This..." she steps back, arms spread out wide. Her fingertips brush the edges of her shoebox of a room. "This is reality."
"I understand that, but no one else can know about you. They'll want you dead. Or...or worse."
"So you're giving them the bread and circuses until when?"
"Until we grow up, get stronger. After we grow up, we can take the country back and..."
"Fix it, Markus Alexander?"
Markus isn't sure of the tone in Meaghan's voice; the meaning of it eludes him. He fears she's trying to mask her doubt of his abilities, his plans, his hopes. He's scared because he needs her. Every other child in the Mountain needs him, and all he needs is Meaghan.
"I can't fix everything." It's a confession he's dreaded facing for nearly a year, and he just uttered it to the one person in the Mountain who couldn't allow the secret to spread.
"Tell them that, Markus. Tell them before they believe you can work miracles and call you their savior."
He's drawn back towards the mess of tape and plastic strewn across the table, knowing he can't revive it. No child in the Mountain will see Toy Story ever again. That fact alone saddens him. Yet another remnant of life "before" lost forever.
Lost but perhaps not forgotten. The story lives on in Katie's head and in the heads of the rest of the children who will listen to her recount it. Perhaps she'll embellish it with her own ideas. Add in characters, remove others, but a tale of true friendship will always lay at the center of it. Years from now, Katie might not even recall that her story was once a movie. Good or bad, she will adopt the tale and make it her own, make it better.
And it steadily dawns on him that this is what needs to be done with the world. Fixing things will only grant them a few more months of working existence. It's a Band-Aid on a festering wound: strong enough to keep it from leaking but doing nothing to help it heal. The world needs new ways to run it, new ideas, new blood.
A New World.
"I need to apologize to her. To Katie." He gathers up the videotape in his arm, much too occupied to even attempt a good-bye.
Meaghan watches from her glass prison and even waves as he locks the door behind. She's smiling at the sudden spark of fire within him and is invigorated by it. She feels alive when he's nearby, and only when he's nearby.
She trusts that strong and capable hands will shape the future someday...
...because once Markus Alexander sets his mind to something, it gets done.