by Lydia Hope
“Hello?” she said loudly enough to wake the alien up in case he was sleeping. He might have been. She couldn’t tell.
She left the broom propped against the wall and came closer, holding her hands in front of her where he could see them, showing she meant no harm like they had trained her during the crash course for new prison hires. The taser weighed substantially at her waist within easy reach providing a small sense of security.
What was sitting on the cot with his back to the wall resembled a heap of bones thrown together willy-nilly, and with a skull on top. Matted white hair that grew in thick profusion on that skull was grimy and dull.
The alien hadn’t moved a bone nor showed any reaction to Gemma’s arrival. With palms still out, she gingerly stepped around the cot to get into his line of sight.
He had a peculiar face, of what she could see from behind the wooly mess of his hair. But then most aliens did to a human eye untrained, like Gemma’s, in the great diversity of the Universe. Oval in shape, with a strange-looking aquiline nose, it was sickly pale. A slash of a mouth was equally white, with wrinkled lips and sunken cheeks indicative of missing teeth. Above the sharp angles of his cheekbones unpadded by any flesh, his eyes were closed. Skin and bones would be a generous description of his condition. The creature presented a distressing picture.
Gemma dropped her hands and leaned down to bring her face level with his.
“Hello, Simon.”
He showed no sign that he heard her nor knew she was standing two feet away. With a start, Gemma realized that his eyes were actually open. Almond-shaped and slightly hooded, they were abnormally large by human standards. Unnaturally so. And, like his everything, they were white, with a milky opaque film covering their entire surface.
Gemma could not suppress a sharp intake of breath. The alien was blind. She took a stumbling step back unsettled by his sightless eyes, by his silence, by the utter stillness of his angular body arranged in a loose sitting pose with knees drawn up. And by the acrid smell of stale sweat and a sickly unwashed body.
She looked around his cell, taking note of dense cobwebs in all corners and visible grime covering the floor. An untouched plate of prison gruel sat on the chair by his cot, the food crusted over and shriveled, days old. The rusty steel toilet behind a low partition in the corner sported a layer of dust. By the looks of it, the creature remained unmoved from the same position for days, if not weeks. Gemma couldn't understand how he still lived.
It didn’t matter. She was here to take care of the cell for him, whether he cared or not.
“I am Gemma, by the way. I’m a new custody helper. I’ll be helping you take care of your cell. No worries. We’ll get it all done in no time.”
She dutifully applied herself to mopping the floor and wiping the dust from the chair and the toilet rim. She swept the cobwebs from the corners and emptied the expired gruel into the toilet hole, pouring some water on it from the bucket to make it go down.
“You don’t like the food? I know, it isn’t always the best, but food gives you energy. It makes you alert. It keeps your heart beating.”
Gemma kept talking, but she had no idea if he understood her language. She had discovered, to her surprise, that many aliens didn’t speak it, with some possessing vocal cords unsuited to making the right sounds. Maybe he was one of those. Or maybe - the horrible thought lodged itself in her head - he was deaf. Blind and deaf. Such a fate would be worse than death. But if he was, indeed, both, then the air of utter hopelessness around him and his willful retreat from the world could be understood and forgiven.
She glanced at him with sadness.
With nothing else left to tidy up, Gemma picked up the broom and the rag. Despite her best efforts, the cell still smelled, and he was the source of the smell. The bony points of his body poked against the soiled material of his shirt. His loose pants with elastic waist, standard prison issue, were twisted around his legs, and he wore no shoes or socks. Cold as the inside of the prison was this time of year, his outfit offered little in terms of conserving body heat.
Thinking how cold he must be, Gemma pulled at the blanket he was sitting on to get it out. To her surprise, he scooted over obediently, rearranging himself into a similar sitting position. His vacant eyes never changed their pointless contemplation of nothingness.
Gently, Gemma wrapped the blanket around his shoulders.
“Goodbye, Simon. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She left his cell and re-engaged the lock.
Ruby trudged by on her way to the elevator, and Gemma decided to go down with her to change the water in her bucket.
“Do you need help with the walls?” Gemma asked as they walked side by side.
“I don’t have much left. I could’ve finished by now if not for silly Xosa. I swear, those things have the smarts of a gerbil. They hoard stuff, hide food under the mattress and then find it and eat it. Well, guess what? Now your food ain't the same it was a week ago. Then they get sick and barf all over the cell.” Ruby shook her head in utter disgust. “Next time it happens, I ain’t cleaning his mess.”
Gemma had to smile at Ruby’s obvious indignation. “Is Xosa that boy at the end of the corridor?”
“He’s full grown. You couldn't tell though, and not only because they look like scrawny teenagers. They act like ones. Hard to believe that Xosa can operate intergalactic spaceships. I wouldn’t trust one with a bicycle.”
They got into the elevator together and pushed their respective bucket contraptions to the opposite corners. Ruby shut the mesh wire door and pulled the lever down. Deep inside the basement, the motor cranked to life, and the cabin jerked, started moving in shuddering spurts. Gemma placed her hand against the wall to keep her balance, the action subconscious now after so many months surviving the jarring descents and ascents.
“I cleaned Simon’s cell,” Gemma confided in the semi-darkness. “It was so dirty.”
Ruby chuckled. “I bet. He’s an odd one, and believe me, that’s saying a lot, what with all kinds of weird folk in here.”
“He didn’t eat his food.”
“He rarely does. We bring him his meal every so often, but he hardly ever touches it. ”
“Every so often?” Gemma couldn't suppress her shock.
Ruby shrugged. “Why give it to him if he wouldn't eat it? A waste of good food, if you ask me.”
“But he’ll starve!”
Ruby didn’t share her indignation or her concern. “This Simon needs to figure out what he wants to do,” she said flatly. “He can eat his food like everybody else, or he can die. Ain’t gonna make much difference in our lives.”
Chapter 2
The stars came out en masse and twinkled down on Gemma after the heavy prison door opened and spit her out, tired and hungry, at the end of her day. She took a few steps down the sidewalk and stopped, breathing in the cold winter air and letting her eyes adjust to the lack of light. It was cave-dark on the street, the new moon giving out no light to guide her home, but the myriads of brilliant stars against the backdrop of the black sky looked as magnificent as ever.
Throwing her head back, Gemma gazed up fascinated by the timeless beauty of the cold white lights above. Somewhere there, in the vastness of the Universe, the warm Meeus orbited its personal sun, a planetary system of two. It and its little sun-star were invisible from Earth, but Gemma calculated the direction in which the planet would be located based on the constellations she could distinguish in the sky. She knew how to point in the approximate direction of Meeus since she was taught basic astronomy in third grade. The star clusters looked a bit turned back then, looking up from The Islands where she grew up.
She sighed, taking in another dose of the burning cold air, and shivered. Dropping her head to look where her feet were stepping, she started walking home. No point in ruminating over her sweet and sunny birthplace. That life was gone with the wind, or rather, awash in red oil and a host of other chemical compounds. The man-made disaster had wip
ed out all life in the area. The ashes of her ancestral home had become wind-borne toxic dust. The Islands were now a dead zone, dangerously contaminated, incompatible with life.
She’d heard rumors that some aliens tried to set up a temporary base there to mine for minerals, but the enterprise didn’t last. They died.
The way things were going in the City, it looked like they were all heading by way of The Islands, only slower. Involuntarily, Gemma glanced up to the sky again, seeking the elusive Meeus where people of means, or at least those skilled in something useful, now dwelled. Where Zeke had gone to, promising to send for her.
A loud siren rent the air, followed by a clang and sounds of metal grating against metal. Gemma barely noticed, so used she was to the music of the docks where workers like Uncle Drexel operated in shifts. Bright dock lights shone in the distance, but they were too far away from where Gemma was walking to be of any help.
The prison was separated from the busy dock area by a junkyard where hundreds of old spaceships, discarded sweepers, and other broken vehicles, stripped of every little part that could be reused, were piled up and left to rust in peace. The place held a haunting beauty when viewed during the day, but at night its ghostly jagged shapes rose like something out of a nightmare.
Gemma walked fast and looked straight ahead until she left the junkyard behind and reached the barracks, home to the army of City’s militants that kept troublemakers in check and maintained a semblance of order in the City. Sparse lamps threw around pale weak light that made this area downright cheery compared to the phobia-inducing junkyard.
Not for the first time, Gemma looked at the barracks with suppressed longing, regretting that her foot can never get good enough for her to enlist. Militant service included food rations, and a clothing allowance, and a place to sleep - so many worries taken care of in one sweep. Stability. Security.
With her right ankle aching like it usually did at the end of the day, Gemma walked on, past the barracks, past some long-abandoned dilapidated buildings, past a former shopping plaza that was slowly becoming one with nature, and through a winding narrow street framed on both side with compact houses surrounded by tall wood fences. Reaching her destination, she mounted the five steps to the door and knocked loudly with a special knock.
After a short pause, she heard a heavy bolt carefully slide, and the door opened a crack to allow a small gray eye to peep at her. Upon establishing her identity, the door opened wide enough to allow her to pass and closed again.
She was as close to being home as she could get.
“Hi, Desh. How was your day?”
Her little cousin wrinkled his nose. “Okay, I guess. It was cold.”
“Of course it was, goose. It’s winter. How was your day, Ravi?”
“We were at school till noon, and then we did chores at home. Every day is the same, Gemma. Why do you always ask?” Ravi intoned from his place at the table where he was meticulously engineering something from random pieces of metal and wires.
“Something always happens. At least, it can happen, and if I don’t ask, how would I know?” she said lightly as she took off her hat and gloves. “Right, Desh?”
“Yep.” Desh smiled at her with his shy smile that revealed badly crooked teeth.
At nine years old, identical twins Ravi and Desh couldn’t be more different in character. A naturally curious, active Desh possessed a sunny, friendly personality and tended toward risk-taking.
Ravi, on the other hand, had been born an old man. He was the wiser of the two but bitter and sarcastic, always worrying about every little thing and deeply unsatisfied with his lot in life. Privately, Gemma had deemed Ravi to have taken straight after his mother, Gemma’s Aunt Herise.
“Do we have running water?” Gemma asked as she headed to her room.
“Nope.”
Inconvenient but not the end of the world. The City’s residents had long learned to be prepared for such mundane hardships.
After putting away her outdoor clothes, Gemma went to the kitchen to lay down dinner groundwork for Aunt Herise. A pot full of water was sitting on the stove, wisely filled yesterday when the water had been available, and Gemma put it to heat over the old gas burner. She got out potatoes and turnips, an onion and a carrot, scraped them with a knife and left them in a bowl for Herise to do whatever. Her aunt was very particular about rationing food, a kitchen control freak, and Gemma’s responsibilities around the house never included the actual cooking. Besides, Herise was a gifted cook, able to whip up a delicious meal out of the most basic of scraps.
Gemma cleaned up after peeling the vegetables and set the table, shooing Ravi away to his annoyance.
“It’s not dinner time yet! Mother isn’t even home.”
“Ravi, you know the rules,” Gemma assumed a stern approach. The altercation with Ravi didn’t happen daily, but just about. “The table has to be set for dinner before your mother comes home.”
“It’s a stupid rule.”
“We all follow it because this is how Aunt Herise wants it.”
Ravi stubbornly stomped his foot, his clear gray eyes shooting daggers at Gemma. Ironically, all the McKinley kids had the same eyes, including her, so looking at enraged Ravi was like looking in the mirror at her much younger self.
“I wish you went to your stupid Islands.”
He angrily snatched his stuff from the table and stomped to the lower bunk bed in the loft he shared with Desh. Settling into the bed, he turned his back to the room.
Gemma sighed and said nothing. She could’ve pointed out to Ravi that she was not a freeloader but a paying guest, a tenant in the room that his parents rented out anyway. Granted, they could charge someone else a higher premium, but the security of having Gemma, a relative, live in the house alongside their young kids was worth losing some in rent money. Moreover, she contributed food to the table under Herise’s direction and did all the heavy chores around the house.
Ravi wouldn't care. His outburst could have been chalked up on his nine-year-old maturity level, but Gemma knew the situation was more complicated than a spur-of-the-moment tantrum. Perceptive Ravi, like his older sister Leena, had picked up on the subtle but ever-present undercurrent of resentment the older McKinleys harbored toward Gemma. She was tolerated because of the convenience her presence brought Herise and Drexel, not because either of them particularly cared what happened to her.
Desh ran to the door when the special knock sounded, and performed the same crack-and-peak routine he’d done with Gemma. He must’ve heard Herise’s steps while Gemma’s mind was wondering, preoccupied with her poor relation status at the McKinley’s home.
Herise came in, bundled up against the cold.
“Hello, boys. Gemma,” she acknowledged her with a nod. Without further niceties, she disappeared into her bedroom only to reappear again, wrapped in an apron. As she began to prepare dinner, Gemma settled with Desh to go over his homework while observing her aunt from the back.
Herise wasn’t an altogether unpleasant woman, but terse, and extremely practical. She’d been quite attractive once, albeit with sharp foxy features that with the passage of years had become pinched from constant worry and hard life of a mother who struggled to keep her kids fed and clothed.
Dinner was bubbling on the stove, spreading around a delicious smell. Hungry Desh kept looking in the direction of the kitchen, and Gemma had a difficult time turning his attention around and back to his study book. Even Ravi came out of his sulk and observed the preparations with morose interest.
Gemma’s own stomach was growling non-stop, the prison gruel she’d eaten at noon long digested. That was a great perk of working in the prison, according to Aunt Herise. The free lunch provided to the helpers. No matter that the fare was disgusting and the portions tiny. It was food, and it was free. Gemma should count her blessings.
Leena came home after her sewing classes, chattering about a rumor of a big order the municipality was allegedly getting ready to place
with the factory to produce new mattress covers for the barracks. Leena always brought news like this from the vocational training she attended after school. Today it was the mattress covers. Yesterday it had been tarp for some new imported machinery at the docks. Last week she had been excited about a rumored mass production of militants’ underwear. Hope sprang eternal for those looking to obtain employment at the factory. When she turned fifteen in a few months, the family planned for Leena to stop with the school and go work as a seamstress - if they hired her. Leena needed the factory to start hiring.
Uncle Drexel was the last to arrive, bone-tired as usual, and finally, the family sat down at the table.
The conversation ebbed and flowed as they ate, mundane stuff.
“A response team went out today,” Aunt Herise shared, meaning the militant response team. Working in the barracks’ kitchens, she saw a lot of activity. “Some disturbance near the Market Corner. Someone tried to steal something and a fight broke out. In the light of day! Whatever is happening, it’s getting worse.”
Uncle Drexel nodded emphatically in agreement. “It’s the migrants. Western Plains should never have agreed to the shared governance with the Perali. A stupid move, if you ask me. Ever since the aliens assumed control, the Plains have been in a state of constant conflict. It’s a war zone out there. They’re driving people out.”
“That’s not good.” Herise shook her head.
“No, it isn't. The migrants are arriving in droves,” Drexel warned in a sepulchral tone.
Aunt Herise looked alarmed. “Why would they be coming here? The City’s got no jobs to offer.”
“Where else would they go? Nothing else’s left on this continent.”
“Spongers!” Ravi spat out.
Uncle Drexel chuckled.
Gemma dropped her gaze down to her plate, painfully aware of her own migrant status.
“This was delicious. Thank you, dear.” Drexel wiped the remaining sauce off his plate with a piece of bread, his big callused hands with grease around the nail beds handling the crust with deftness. Aunt Herise pursed her lips in lieu of a smile at her husband’s gratitude.