by Lydia Hope
The smile slipped Number 34’s wolfish face. “Yes, he’s weak enough to kill. You have no idea what a chance you screwed up. You shouldn't have interfered.”
Appalled, she turned to go pick up the blunt. “We aren’t having this conversation.”
“Play with fire,” he called to her back, “get burned.”
She straightened up, holding the cigarette butt between two fingers. “Speaking of fire. I’m curious, what did you use to light this up with?”
He said nothing as he stepped back, fading into the cell.
Gemma pitched the butt into her bucket. Thanks to Number 34, she now knew new facts about Rix. She knew Simon came from a capable nation. He wasn’t a mindless beast. He had probably been a soldier. For that, she was willing to forgive that when the Perali laughed, a strong smell of smoker’s breath reached her nose.
After her shift was over, Gemma walked home down a dark and deserted street - her usual promenade - and thought back on the events of the day, pondering where the weed had come from.
Her suspicions lay firmly with Arlo who often disappeared and hung around random people for no apparent reason. Besides, she’d seen him that one time in the courtyard, with the debt prisoners.
What a rogue.
A shout up ahead caught her attention. There were people on the street, unusual for this late in the day. A small crowd had gathered, and voices were raised.
Gemma crossed the road to the other side to put distance between herself and the mulling, agitated group. She noticed how a dozen or so men, looking scruffy even in the darkness, pushed against several guys wearing the overalls of dock workers.
Distracted, she ran into somebody.
“Hey, watch out!”
“Sorry.”
More people, angry and troubled, poured in from side streets joining the scruffy crowd that now outnumbered the dockhands.
Migrants. They were migrants from West Plains.
And almost blending with the crumbling walls of old buildings, shapes of Perali with backward-bent legs crept in.
Gemma quickened her steps hurrying on by, afraid to get caught in the small riot. And she hated crowds. Hated them.
Turning a corner, she was fearfully checking behind her and failed to notice a patch of ice on the sidewalk. Her crippled foot slipped from under her, pain shot like a hot electrical current through her ankle, and her bum hit the ground with enough force to rattle her pelvic bones.
“Shit,” she half-whispered, half-moaned.
Of all the places… Now…
Gritting her teeth and grimacing from pain, she pulled her splayed legs together and tried to stand. Her bad ankle swiftly responded with a vicious stab of pain. She sat back down, eyes misting with tears. Her behind felt sore, probably developing a massive bruise.
“Shit,” she said again, heartfelt.
The clash around the corner was getting louder. Gemma rolled over to get on all fours and crawled to the wall. Gripping the roughened bricks, she planted her good foot firmly on the ground and pulled herself up. Testing, she shifted weight to her injured foot to see if it could bear any weight. It resisted with a throb but didn’t buckle. Good, no bones were broken.
She had to get home somehow. If she missed the curfew, she’d get pulled into a circle surrounding a gassy, clanging contraption that slowly patrolled the streets and dragged its prey along until on-duty militants came and released them. After collecting a fine.
Hugging the walls, Gemma hobbled home.
When she finally opened the door, five pairs of eyes looked up at her from around the dinner table.
“Hello, everyone,” Gemma said cheerfully. “Sorry I'm late.”
“Why are you late today, of all days? You were supposed to help with the dinner.” Aunt Herise’s words lashed at her with stinging disapproval.
“I am sorry Aunt Herise. I had an accident on my way home.”
She hopped on one foot to the nearest chair and, blissfully, sat down.
“Good thing we didn’t wait on you.” That came from Leena. “The food’s all cold by now.”
Aunt Herise was looking at the foot Gemma was gingerly massaging. Her face scrunched even more in displeasure when she realized that Gemma wouldn't be helping to clean up the kitchen tonight.
“Figures. All the chores are mine on Christmas Eve.”
Gemma’s head came up. Tonight was Christmas Eve! Days had blended into one, and she completely lost track of time.
“I’m sorry, aunt. Merry Christmas, everyone.”
They didn’t say anything back.
Uncle Drexel roused himself from the table. “We’ll help wash dishes, Herise. The dinner was delicious.” Collecting his plate, he left for the kitchen. Everyone else followed his suit.
Gemma swiped some cold vegetables and a piece of bread to take to her room. She didn’t care how the food tasted. She was bone tired.
Propping her right ankle on a pillow, she munched on the bread and stared blindly out of the dark window. Another Christmas had come. Another Christmas she celebrated alone in her room. And in the new year, she had absolutely nothing to look forward to.
Zeke had fallen out of her life, and she could no longer comfort herself with imagining how the two of them would one day decorate a small evergreen with handmade ornaments and sip warm cider in front of a fire. Or maybe not the fire - such a cliché, and who needed it when you could get cozy and snug in each other’s arms?
Tears slowly started. Not for Zeke, she had let him go. But she missed holding hands, getting hugs from her loved ones, the feeling of wonderful comfort when you cross the threshold and see someone smiling, happy because you came home.
She remembered the last Christmas before Foy was killed. She and Zeke had just fallen in love, and they were sitting on a sofa in the home she shared with her parents. She had put on a pretty dress that left her slim neck and toned arms bare, and it drove Zeke wild. They had held hands, and he had been sneaking small kisses from her willing lips when mom and dad weren’t watching. The house was filled to the brim with the smells of fresh evergreens and baking pastries.
She remembered vividly how the door had burst open, and her brother stood there, dark-haired and handsome, dazzling in his space officer uniform. He hadn’t been expected home for the holidays. She never knew how he had managed to get away from the base. That was Foy, he could do anything. They had all rushed him and formed a tight knot of clinging love. Unbreakable.
Four months later, Foy had perished defending his home planet from alien invaders. A vast space was now his grave. When she raised her face toward the sky, Gemma sometimes thought that Foy was out there, drifting in the form of a million detached molecules, watching over her.
His death had been hard on Gemma, but harder on her parents. It was like a pall had fallen over her mother’s soul. Two years after his death, she had refused to flee The Islands from the chemical spill because she had been clinging to their old house, hoping for Foy to one day come home to her.
Angrily, Gemma blotted her wet face and blew her nose. She was going to make herself sick from nostalgia. It was Christmas, after all, time for cheer. Yes, she was alone. Yes, her life sucked. But she had survived where so many hadn’t, and she refused to waste the precious gift of a second chance.
Chapter 10
"Merry Christmas, girl!” Ruby greeted Gemma as she hobbled in, with only seconds to spare, to start her shift. “You look a fright. What happened?”
Gemma cringed. She knew she looked a fright. She’d made the mistake of looking at herself in the mirror before leaving for work. The face that had looked back was bloated from last night’s crying, with puffy red eyes underscored by deep purple semi-circles from her lack of sleep. Ho-ho-horrible.
Her foot had been troubling her all night, and when she managed to fall into a light slumber, she had been plagued by dreams of Zeke, Foy, and Simon, all smoking weed together in wheelchairs, and then a volcano erupted and Number 34 cackled about her playi
ng with fire, and she watched everybody go up in flames. She was running toward them and falling, unable to save them because she had no legs.
“I fell last night and sprained my foot. Where’s Arlo?”
“Today’s his day off.”
“Oh.” Only Arlo would manage to arrange to be off on Christmas Day. Which wouldn’t have mattered if Gemma were up to her full strength. “I’m fine. The foot’s just sore.”
“Uh-huh,” Ruby had already noticed that Gemma moved around as gracefully as a fat man on a pogo stick. But hey, hopping beat crawling.
“I’ll take care of the roll call,” Gemma volunteered. “If you go down and get breakfast, I’d appreciate it. I can manage on the flat surface. I think.”
Dubious, Ruby left her, muttering something about stubborn mules. Gemma watched her go, gathering strength.
The corridor stretched in front of her, seemingly for miles. Slow as a snail and with no ability to pivot or sprint, today she ran a real danger of being sprayed with the fluorescent yellow semen or liquid shit from Little Green Man’s cell. She thought hard about slacking off and not roll-calling today, period.
But she went anyway, drawn by the all-eclipsing need to reach cell 35 and see Simon. Just one look, and her inner peace would be restored. Just one little glance before the dreary grind of the day would sweep her into the never-ending rotation of menial tasks.
He’d become her drug.
Or she was losing her mind, which was more likely. If she weren't careful, she could end up like the Green Man in a special cell, throwing shit at passersby. Wouldn’t it be fun? To completely let herself go. There were a number of peeps she wouldn't mind hitting with shit.
“Good morning, gentlemen! Merry Christmas!” She yelled out to everybody, caring little if the aliens observed Christmas or if they even knew what it was. “Line up and let me see your faces.”
She walked very, very slowly, trying hard and failing to disguise her bad limp. She didn’t look at who was up and who was sleeping, disengaged, in pain, and making little effort in enforcing the order.
The Sakka was predictably up already polishing the legs of his cot. A deadbeat Perali in number 12 was snoring; this one was never ready on time. Birdies were clucking their usual weird stuff. Her gaze briefly touched and moved past the hostile eyes of the Tarai and the indifferent ones of the Tana-Tana.
And here he was, her Simon. She skimmed the bars of his door with her fingers.
“Morning, sunshine,” she whispered. “Merry Christmas to you.”
He was sitting on his cot as he always did, legs drawn up. But when she approached, he turned his head.
He turned his head.
Her breath hitched.
She could see his face looking at her from the dimness of his cell. His deadened eyes were opaque, with no pupils or irises. They never moved, and it wasn’t possible to tell if he was looking at her. If he was seeing her.
But he heard her. She knew he did. He was tracking her progress, and his cell felt alive, filled with awareness.
This is my Christmas gift, she thought.
Fresh tears sprang to her eyes, this time from joy. She didn’t dawdle by his cell but moved on, much calmer now and energized despite the acute ache in her foot.
After the inmates went to the courtyard for their outing, Gemma found herself going down in the elevator with Simon in his chair. Ruby had begged her not to go and rest her foot instead, but Gemma was adamant. She lived for their outings, and today she planned to explore the depths of his awareness. And he needed to eat his yogurt.
She wheeled him out and headed for the old church. It was easier to walk with his chair as a prop. Breaking with her tradition of parking him outside where he could see the sky overhead, she maneuvered the chair inside, out of the elements and where she could find a spot to sit down. The wooden pews and other removable items had long been gone leaving behind only the crumbling bare stone, and not for the first time Gemma wondered how long before the roof caved in. A couple of winters, max.
She retrieved the yogurt and perched on a rocky ridge, all that was left from the banister.
“Sorry, I’ll have to take it easy today.” She propped her foot on a stair and expelled a breath of relief.
Despite her earlier hopes, Simon exhibited no signs that he heard her, saw anything, or knew where they were. He sat still in his chair, feet neatly placed on the footrests, hands folded in his lap like Gemma had arranged them.
She fed him his meal talking to him and telling him about last night - not how she fell, but about the migrants and the unrest that plagued the City. She told him about Christmas.
“In The Islands where I grew up, we used to decorate magnolias because they were lush and evergreen, and budding with bright flowers in winter. So pretty. My brother Foy once brought home old wires from a spaceship - I don’t know what they were - and he and dad manufactured a string of lights that gave off little sparkles. Not safe at all, and of course it shorted the house, but it was so festive when it worked. I swear you’re hungry! A little more, we’re almost done.”
Simon complied with her feeding efforts, swallowing slow and sometimes with difficulty. He made no sound. His eyes never moved. And she could no longer detect any energy that would cue her to his wakefulness.
The meal completed, Gemma gently dabbed his lips with the sleeve of her overcoat.
“There you go. Good job.”
Clumsily, she rose and went to stash the empty jar between the bricks to take home after work. Picking her way through the rocky debris littering the floor, she stumbled and said a bad word from nearly landing on her face. Please, not again. She didn’t think her foot could take any more abuse.
She bent down to tighten the laces and make her boot serve as a brace.
“What’s wrong with your foot?”
Gemma froze. The voice was low and hoarse, the words measured and pronounced with a liquid, flowing inflection.
Slowly, she straightened from her bent position, the boot untied.
“Simon?” She sounded hoarse herself as she looked at him.
His face was tilted toward hers, and his blank glassy eyes stared back like two mirrors. She wished she could tell where the large pupil-less orbs were trained.
His fine eyebrows rose a fraction like he was prompting her to answer. Definitely an intentional move.
She swallowed noisily, the sound amplified in the sudden expectant silence. And then her foot gave a bad twitch, and Gemma sat down with little grace.
“I twisted it last night,” she answered.
He asked her a question, and she answered it.
They talked.
An out of body experience.
And then the realization smacked into her.
“Wait. You can hear? You understand me? You speak?”
Another twitch of those eyebrows. “Yes. To all.”
“But I… thought you couldn't.”
“Why?”
“Why?” She looked wildly around, grasping for words.
He cocked his head and raised his hands off his lap relocating them to the arms of his chair. All slow, deliberate movements as if his body didn’t fully cooperate.
“You humans always assume. Show me your foot.”
“Something tells me you aren’t fond of humans.”
“No. Who is?”
Gemma laughed. “Who is, indeed?”
“Your foot.” His f’s had a sibilant quality to them, and the consonants lacked hard stops. Gemma couldn't tell for sure if his accent was responsible for inaccurate articulation or his missing teeth.
“It’s a sprain. Nothing interesting.”
He moved his hand again and tapped his finger in slo-mo against his thigh.
Self-conscious, Gemma moved to sit down closer to him and gently laid her boot in his lap.
He didn’t bend his head down, but she thought he was looking. His large monochrome eyes were so weird.
“Can you see?” she couldn't
resist asking.
“I can see.” Then he paused and said flatly, “You assumed I couldn't.”
“Well, as a matter of fact, yes. Who knows why.”
She felt her cheeks heat and wondered if her color rose because she suddenly felt a bit silly at all the wrong assumptions she’d made, or because through the worn leather of her boot she could feel the thick, hard length of his femur under the nonexistent layer of muscle.
He moved his leg ever so slightly to accommodate her foot, and the action made Gemma lightheaded. For the first time since she’d met him, he felt truly alive to her and powerful in his vitality.
He made a sound in his throat that was definitely not human. His fingers went to slowly but steadily loosen more of the laces. He picked every crisscrossed length and tugged with great concentration, and she was fascinated by his fingers. She knew he had six on each hand, but only now did she notice that each finger had four joints, making them bend in four places. The discovery simultaneously repulsed and attracted her.
He pulled her boot off and pushed down the sock to reveal something that resembled an overinflated balloon with toes.
“It doesn’t look right,” he slowly enunciated.
“No, it doesn’t,” she murmured under her breath.
On the plus side, the swelling covered up her crooked, misshapen ankle bones that stuck out at a wrong angle.
“I have an old injury on this foot,” she told him. “I sprained it yesterday pretty bad, but the swelling will get better in a day or two.”
His alien fingers probed her ankle, skin to skin. Gemma could barely tolerate the conscious touch of his hand, so emotional was the experience to her.
“Simon, please… It’s nothing. Let me be… And I have to take you back…”
She felt rather than saw him looking her in the eye. His attention was the familiar energy he emitted, and it made her tingle inside.
The charged moment passed when he dropped his gaze to her foot and pulled her sock back in place, followed by her boot. Methodically, he went to tug at the laces to tighten them. She couldn't tear her gaze from the slow, painful, and unsure progress his fingers were making.