Reclaimed

by Madeleine Roux

  Paxton stared at him for a moment. “Han? Come with me. I want to show you something.”

  “I’m really not in trouble?”

  “Trouble?! Ha. Jesus, no.” Paxton veered back around toward the gallery, walking slowly, letting Han make up his mind and catch up. “It’s the opposite of trouble. It’s a reward.”

  Han’s eyes lit up. “Can the dog come? I think I’m getting attached.”

  “She should stay here, I think. You can toggle it in the app.”

  A reward. What would it be? Just getting asked to stay on at the Dome was reward enough, and Han didn’t know how he had earned it. The days ran together, a blur, something Paxton warned him about before and after each LENG session. That Han couldn’t remember what exactly went on during the treatment hours was normal, too, Paxton assured him. They were still measuring how long a full recovery would take; Han, Zurri and Senna were, after all, the LENG therapy pioneers. He just remembered Paxton keeping him long after a therapy session, asking if Han was interested in a mentorship program.

  Paxton had just finished typing something on his VIT when Han caught up to him. Servitor Sixteen clanked past them, going back toward the direction of the benches.

  “Make sure you get it to my office,” Paxton told the Servitor in passing. “How did you feel after Senna mentioned your family? Disoriented?”

  “No, not disoriented, just confused.” Han fell into step with Paxton, trying to mimic his cool, casual swagger. They walked beneath the wide-open archway leading into the gallery. The table and chairs for lunch were being printed as they entered. “Is she right? Do I have a family?”

  Paxton’s head bobbled back and forth, weighing the question. “You did, Han. You wanted me to erase those memories. Your mother died tragically, and you couldn’t escape her memory. Her voice is used almost universally for in-home assistants. She’s the voice of the elevators on the station, of the default text-to-speech program for VITs. Our company—my company—hired her for all of it. How could you leave your own house, when she was everywhere? Waiting to ambush you. It was paralyzing.”

  “I can’t remember her at all.” Han frowned. “It’s like I was raised by ghosts. I remember the Servitor nannies and tutors, but nothing else.”

  “That’s because in truth there wasn’t much else,” explained Paxton, leading Han around the in-progress table and toward the doors set into the alcove beneath the upper walkway and Paxton’s office. “We’re so alike, it’s tragic. You’re half–bubble boy, I was all bubble boy. My brother was born with a whole litany of problems. Back then they didn’t know as much about extraterrestrial pregnancy protocols. Alec didn’t live to see ten, so when I came along, they were cautious. Extra cautious.”

  “I’m sorry about your brother,” Han replied.

  “My parents panicked if I developed as much as a sniffle,” he chuckled, the doors opening at his approach. “They kept me in isolation, and let me assure you that a bunker in the French countryside is not a thrilling place for a young man to grow up. It was my entire world until I was eighteen; there, I had nothing to do with my time but study, and work. And dream. My father liked to joke that my dreams grew so big because my world was so small.”

  Han felt like those words could’ve been his. “Wow, yeah, I know what you mean.”

  “Now it’s easier for me to just be here, not alone but somewhat apart. The marvels of the station and the colonies appealed to me, but not everything that came with it. The people, mostly. That doesn’t mean isolation isn’t sometimes lonely.”

  Han hadn’t laid eyes on that part of the facility before. A transparent enclosure housed an industrial kitchen, a labyrinth of vents, stainless steel countertops, islands and convection ovens. Maximized for space, eight partial Servitors worked on magnetic rails built into the floor and ceiling, pinging back and forth across the kitchen as they managed about a dozen different steaming pots. They flew past one another with absolute precision, pincerlike arms raising and lowering to avoid collisions.

  “Where the sausage gets made,” Paxton joked. “Literally. Now you’ll see it figuratively.” He took a sharp right, leading Han toward an unmarked silver door just to the right of where the kitchen enclosure began. “I’m going to show you how LENG really works.”

  “No way,” Han breathed. “That’s . . . But nobody . . .”

  “I know,” Paxton chuckled, and manually input a password and log-in into his VIT to open the silver door. Han shivered, overwhelmed with a sudden tremor of déjà vu. “About your family—”

  “Yeah,” Han sighed. “It’s heavy. I don’t know what to think. There’s really nobody left?”

  “You have a family here if you want it. You’re a smart kid and you can handle yourself, but I don’t want to see you end up like me—”

  And there Han made a huffing pah of incredulity. Who didn’t want to be like Paxton Dunn?

  “Well, not exactly like me. I could’ve built this facility on the station, but I’m selfish, and I like my little kingdom here. It’s been more interesting with all of you here.” Paxton motioned for Han to follow him down a tight, narrow corridor. It only led in one direction, no doors or windows except for a faintly visible open archway at the very, very end. “Trying, too, but interesting.”

  “You have Anju, Brea, and Dr. Colbie,” Han pointed out. “And that dog! You’re not a bubble boy anymore.”

  “Right.” Paxton nodded, tight on Han’s heels. “But an infusion of fresh blood now and then is always welcome.”

  * * *

  —

  Returning to her rooms just long enough to grab her canvas and paints, Senna wandered the facility, desperate for a place to hide. A place to think.

  This morning I woke up in a strange man’s bed.

  She could still smell the sheets and vague hints of his cologne clinging to her clothing. Whenever she caught a whiff of it, another knot tied itself into her guts. She couldn’t even retrace the steps of the night before, and whenever she tried, her head gave a warning pulse, warding her off. That way lies pain, it seemed to say.

  That’s okay, she thought. Let the pain come.

  That was what she had been running from, of course, pain. Why else would she be there? Something terrible had happened, and now she was clinging to the last concrete memories that remained. Even those were beginning to go soft, a life of vapor, constantly in danger of blowing away. That couldn’t just be a side effect. If it was, wouldn’t they have sedated her until this all passed? Did they want her to panic like that? Something was wrong. Something is all wrong.

  Han and Zurri seemed just fine, so why did every step through the facility make her feel like the next could be into liquid, a plunge off the edge and then to drown? Paxton had gotten his hooks nice and deep into Han, but maybe she could persuade Zurri to leave with her. With her fame and money and power, she had to be able to just call it all off; angering her would be a PR disaster.

  PR. Senna wanted to shrivel up at the thought of that ad. That wasn’t her, it didn’t even sound like her, that peppy, upbeat energy and cheesy grin. How could she have said those things and felt that way and not remembered it? It was utterly unethical to consider leveraging a tragedy she didn’t even know about to sell this place to other people. But that was what Paxton wanted from her.

  And I woke up in his bed.

  She was going to be sick. Her wandering took her to the walkway above the gallery. Paxton’s office doors had gone black. No sign of him or Han, or the other staff. There, on the left side of the walkway with a view down to the clinical lab door, she could wait for Zurri to come out. She would try to make her case, and see if she could convince the model to help her leave. If her schedule was clear and there were no more treatments, surely she could convalesce back on the station? Marin would probably let her move back in.

  Senna crumpled onto a bench beside a rectangular plin
th, a halved metal orb floating there. This place was so strange, part beauty, part confusion. How would she ever explain it to Marin? Marin . . . She closed her eyes and willed the memories to return. Marin. How was she connected to Marin? Not a blood relation, surely, but then why had she spent so much time in that woman’s apartment? Islands. Every remaining memory was an island, a fogged sea of hesitation swirling between landmasses, confusing and confounding her. How she had met Marin, what the nature of their relationship was, had drowned in that awful sea, but Marin . . . Marin she remembered. And her husband, Jonathan.

  Islands. Two islands nestled against each other in the dark blank of her mind.

  At least she concretely remembered their faces. They would take her in; they had to. Unless that had gone sour, too. Every memory uncertain, she moaned, slamming her head against the all-black canvas in her hands, every memory booby-trapped. She hit her head harder with the canvas, as if by some miracle it would fix the jumble her mind had become.

  “Who is it?” she heard a man say from around the statue pedestal. She froze, but it wasn’t Paxton. “I know you’re there.”

  Senna cried out, a surge of pressure in her head almost knocking her off the bench. The edge of the canvas dug into her forehead as she went half-blind and the ache crested and then gradually subsided. When she opened her eyes, a dark-haired man with a kind, handsome face was crouching at her side. He had the most beautiful golden eyes, and even while she shivered behind the canvas, she didn’t want to look away from them.

  “Hello, Senna,” he said gently. “I’m Efren. It’s nice to meet you again.”

  “Please don’t tell Paxton I’m here!” she cried, squeezing her eyes shut.

  “Why would I do that?” he asked laughingly.

  “Because you work here, right? Or maybe . . . I’m sorry, my thoughts are so tangled up.”

  Efren shook his head, an inky black swoop of hair falling loose from behind his left ear. “I won’t tell a soul where you are, Senna. I promise.”

  “Thank you. You . . . you said we’ve met,” she murmured, her voice heavy with lethargic difficulty. It was odd; she could vividly picture the other staff, but not him. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember you. But I don’t remember a lot of things.”

  “I can see that. Please, stop apologizing, you’ve given no offense, not any of the times we’ve met.” Efren stood, and looking at him, Senna felt the pain in her mind drift away. Just his presence landed like a balm. “Do you know how many days you’ve been here?”

  Senna shook her head automatically, aware that even trying to recall that would just bring on another flash of discomfort and frustration. “No, I don’t. But you’ve seen me before.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said, a bit sad. “Many times. You’ve been here three days. That’s Dome days, not the Ganymede sort. And thank Christ for that.”

  She managed a weak laugh. “Three days. Three days, and I can only remember this morning, and bits and pieces. Zurri and Han, the staff, Paxton . . .” She shuddered, then lowered the canvas, recalling that she had brought her paints along. Her eyes roamed to the clinical lab door, but Zurri hadn’t yet emerged. She didn’t want to risk going into the labs to find her. If Dr. Colbie was in there, then she might alert Paxton to Senna’s whereabouts. “I’m waiting for someone, can I paint you in the meantime?”

  “This is a new suit,” he teased.

  “Not on you.” Senna blushed, showing him the canvas. “Would that be okay?”

  “I’ve never been painted before,” Efren replied, striking a straight-postured, rigid pose next to the statue base with the halved orb on it. “Will it hurt?”

  “Only if I stick these up your nose.” Opening the painting kit, she reached in and grabbed two brushes, jabbing them toward him playfully.

  “I’m amazed you can make jokes at all,” he replied. “You seemed distressed just now. Are you all right?”

  “Not at all.” Senna rested the canvas on her thighs and opened a tube of paint. Just the scent, just the feel of the brushes made her feel more herself. If she could still paint, if this skill remained, then maybe she hadn’t forgotten every piece of herself. Maybe by painting she could connect those isolated islands, build bridges between them. “I want to leave, but I don’t think I can do it alone.” She winced. “Crap, I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Why not?” he asked.

  She dipped her brush into a bit of ochre and began to daub, needing to gaze at him for reference less than she expected. He exists somewhere in my mind. We’ve met before. “Because you’re with the staff. You must want me to stay. You’ll tell Paxton what I said.”

  “Rather.” Efren cleared his throat. “I’d like to leave, too.”

  Senna’s brush stopped mid-stroke. “You would? But . . .”

  “Keep painting and I’ll explain,” Efren told her calmly, and as before, it made the knots in her stomach go away. She remembered Anju, Brea, Dr. Colbie. If she couldn’t remember him, then perhaps she didn’t want to. Or, she thought with a grimace, someone else didn’t want her to. You’re so lucky, the unwanted voice reminded her. Chosen.

  No, she countered. Cursed.

  “What do you know about black holes?” Efren asked.

  Senna moved her brush carefully in a small circle, noticing the black paint beneath roiling as if it had come to life, reverting from dried to wet. Her eyelids drooped, suddenly heavy. Black holes. It hadn’t occurred to her until that moment that she had been the one to paint that canvas all black, and now she couldn’t help but wonder what it was hiding, what she had painted over, what image a past Senna had wanted to obliterate that was hidden beneath.

  28

  No amount of therapy or mind alteration would keep Zurri from being nosy. She was born nosy, she would remain nosy. In the early days of her career, she got sly at checking through the other models’ bags, checking for pills, cash or just juicy gossip. She learned that stealing a dollar or two never got her caught, and sometimes it was enough for one more rice ball before the money ran out and rent came due. Tokyo had almost wrung her dry so many times that she kept all her clothes neatly packed in the suitcase in the apartment she shared with six other girls.

  Zurri never asked her dad or sister for cash. Point of pride. The second she did, they would pressure her to give up her career, take the L and join them on Tokyo Bliss. Dr. Iyanda, as he insisted on being called lest one be firmly reminded that he “had not put himself through ten years of school and earned three degrees to be called mister,” would even pay for her passenger fee and find her a job to smooth over immigration. Wouldn’t she like to work in a nice clinic as a receptionist?

  Her sister, Eni (also technically holding a doctoral degree but more lenient about the usage), worked as an attorney and lived in the university district. She had been the one to teach Zurri how to frighten any man into silence with just the slightest squint of the eye and imperious tilt of the head. She also liked to send Zurri taunting pictures of her spacious flat, and all the ramen, mapo tofu and pizza she could afford now that she was angling to make partner at her firm.

  When Zurri got her revenge by sending pictures of her first six-figure contract, it didn’t go over so well. Now they talked only on holidays, and Zurri had stopped inviting the family to her birthday parties. They never showed up anyway.

  Senna’s birthday, as it turned out, was December 9, 2248. She hadn’t read Senna as a Sagittarius, but then, she had only known her two days. Three days? Zurri sighed. The console screen open behind Dr. Colbie’s shoulder was just visible from where Zurri stood, while the tall, untalkative doctor examined the back of her neck. With Dr. Colbie in heels, they were about the same height.

  Wanting to snoop, Zurri turned just a fraction to the right, hoping to catch more of Senna’s patient records displayed on the screen. Something there might explain the hair loss, at least.

  “Is this
position uncomfortable?” Dr. Colbie asked.

  Like most doctors Zurri had met, Dr. Colbie chose not to wear perfume. That said, the woman had an almost unearthly, inhuman lack of smell. Not even a whiff of soap or hair product. Nothing on her breath, either, not toothpaste or coffee or evidence of lunch.

  “Um, well, my neck hurts,” Zurri replied coolly. “That is why I’m here.”

  “Yes, and as I stated before, you have a known history of alcohol and drug abuse, Zurri. It doesn’t make me happy to say it, but this could all just be from a drunken accident. Try not to fidget,” Dr. Colbie instructed. She carefully pressed two fingers along the ridge of Zurri’s upper spine. “There is some moderate bruising present. Any tingling in your fingers? Numbness?”

  “Not that I’ve noticed.” Her fingers were cool and dry as they ghosted along Zurri’s neck. The angle was no good. She couldn’t read much more of Senna’s file, just the header text, but the actual records and notes were too tiny to read from that vantage.

  The headers, however, caught her eye. Family History, Allergies, Prescriptions and most tantalizing of all: LENG Session Notes.

  “I can prescribe you a topical numbing gel,” Dr. Colbie said, taking a step back.

  “Hm. Any CBD?”

  “Nice try,” she sighed. “Stay put, I’ll get the gel from storage.”

  Zurri painted on a placid smile, arms crossed while she waited for Dr. Colbie to disappear. The storage area was directly behind Dr. Colbie’s desk, guarded by two serious-looking doors with magnetic locks. Luckily, when she went through, it was large enough to hold a maze of shelves, and the instant Dr. Colbie vanished around a corner, Zurri hopped over to take a look at Senna’s records. It was even more tempting to try to find her own, but she was shit with consoles, and she doubted Colbie would be gone long.

  Prescriptions actually were of interest. Zurri recognized Zolapro right away, a heavy-duty antianxiety medication she herself had tried a few months ago. It was fresh out of trials, marketed toward modern women with modern anxieties, but Zurri hated the way it made her hold water weight. It also, she saw, enlarging the text around it, in rare cases caused hair loss.