by Anna Ferrara
She shook her head. “Not now but it did when the injuries were fresh. The burns were the worst.”
“Can I see those too?”
“Up here.” She unbuttoned her shirt all the way up to her neck and showed me the raised clump of pinkish flesh clinging on to the inner side of her right breast. It was different from the brown patches on her stomach and not just in colour. It was much thicker and stringier, like a blob of pink goo had grown over her original skin.
I bent down for a closer look and felt myself shudder against my will. There was just something about the whole abnormality of Gemma’s flesh that made me awfully uneasy. Nervous too.
“Paul,” Gemma suddenly said.
I swivelled around at once and shined the torch in the direction of Gemma’s gaze.
I saw Paul standing about ten feet away from us. She had something yellow in her hand and looked downright furious. The shoot-a-doctor-in-the-head extent of furious. “Chalk,” she said, as if with restraint. “Mark an ‘X’ if you get into trouble so Dustin and I will know not to wait around for you.”
She tossed the yellow chalk at us like it were an egg she wanted to pelt us with and it landed right at my feet.
“Just so you know, the scaffolding around here is not stable so feel free to step around recklessly if you’re feeling suicidal. That’s all I came to say.” She turned and went round the corner without another word.
Just like that, she was gone. Again.
“Why is she always so angry all the time?” Gemma asked.
I stared at the yellow chalk on the floor then at the breasts Gemma continued to leave exposed and realised I might just have figured out why.
There were no stragglers in the basement nor anywhere else within the construction site. We covered all twenty-five unfinished floors in exactly three hours and went back down to the basement to sit and wait behind the wall with a line of chalk down its middle. Gemma fell asleep on my shoulder shortly after but I couldn’t rest, despite being as tired as she. My mind spun with questions and theories while my body created a mess of cigarette butts on the concrete floor around me.
In the two hours or so that followed, I tried hard to think back on everything that occurred after I woke up from the coma caused by the falling incident. I found myself making a few startling conclusions. One: Every single person I had spent a great deal of time around since—Dr Clark, Paul and Arden Villeneuve—lied in some way or another. Two: Their versions of the truth often contradicted each other’s so Three: None of anyone’s proclamations of the truth could be taken at face value. Four: Fortune cookies couldn’t be relied upon either—I had eaten nothing but Chinese food in the hours leading up to Dr Clark’s murder and it hadn’t done shit for my health or sanity—so Five: Since nobody and nothing could be trusted to give me the truth wholesale, I was on my own in figuring everything out.
I flicked the only lighter I possessed on and off till it ran out of fuel and decided all I really needed to do was choose who I wanted to believe. Paul, Cola, flying objects and vanishing injuries represented one version of reality while Dr Clark, Arden Villeneuve, the dismembered security guard and Gemma represented another. Did I want to be Lane, the lucky and free curiosity or Blaine, the schizophrenic, depressive, self-mutilating patient of the Wonderdrug Psychiatric Centre? I had chosen to be Lane once before and it led to death and injuries mere days after. If I chose to be Blaine this time—chose to accept that Paul simply made up a ton of bizarre theories and was very dangerous—would that eventually lead to a better, safer life overall?
And on the topic of Paul... I didn’t get why she was behaving like a jilted lover now when she herself turned me down—twice—when I did—before I got to see her for the sort of person she really was—want a romance with her. What the hell was up with that?
Three hours after our supposed meeting time, Paul and Dustin appeared with their backpacks and hands full of all sorts of store-bought survival items and grins on their faces. Paul’s grin was huge and genuine-looking. Dustin’s not so much. He grinned the way one would only grin in the presence of a boss or a customer—too consistently happy to be humanly possible. I suspected the four hefty cartons of mineral water bottles in his arms might have had something to do with it. Paul dropped her grin the moment she caught sight of Gemma on my shoulder and afterwards refused to look in the direction of my face ever again.
“Did you find anything?” she asked, as if I were her employee and it were my obligation to answer whatever she asked, whenever she asked. Dustin dumped both the four cartons and his swollen backpack onto the floor and came over to join Gemma and I in the exact same position we were sitting in—butt on the ground, knees up, back and head against the wall.
Only when he was close did I notice the sweat trickling down the sides of his face, his pale lips and the difficulty he was having with catching his breath. He looked as if he had been put through a strenuous activity his metrosexual body had been in no way prepared for. “No, nobody’s here,” I said to Paul. “Why are you so late?”
Gemma lifted her head from my numb shoulder and rubbed sleep out of her eyes. “You’re back,” she said.
Paul didn’t look at her, nor did she answer my question. She began removing cans of hotdogs, sardines and tuna from her backpack and stacked them against the wall opposite us. “Come on, unpack the stuff,” she said to Dustin. “What are you waiting for?”
He groaned but got up and did as she said anyway, for reasons I didn’t understand. Four bundled sleeping bags came out of the backpack he had thrown onto the floor. He threw them at Gemma and I and barked at us to lay them out in a manner that was not entirely polite.
Gemma did as he said. I, on the other hand, ignored him and went right next to Paul and looked her right in the eyes. “Hey, you got a minute?”
She turned her back to me and walked away with a camping lamp, a can of hotdogs and a packet of hotdog buns in her hands. “Dustin, get the picnic mat,” she said. She set her items down on the empty space behind the sleeping bags Gemma was diligently unwrapping then switched the camping lamp on. Warm orange light flooded the area around us and highlighted the unhealthy levels of dust hovering in the air.
With the light, I could see Dustin’s eyes better and it became obvious they were dead and tired. He laid out the picnic mat in front of Paul with grunts that made lying out a picnic mat seem like the most strenuous activity in the world, but his face remained stoic, the way hardened individuals kept theirs when faced with adversity.
Dinner was canned hotdogs stuffed in supermarket-bought buns. They tasted like plaster and had the texture of jelly clumps surrounded by dry, rough cloth—a far cry from the freshly-grilled gourmet sausages the Wonderdrug Psychiatric Centre sometimes served with cheese, sour cream and fried chopped garlic along with chips or fries.
I tried to suggest we go out for breakfast the next morning—since dinner felt so profoundly unsatisfying after the long, desperate wait for it—and maybe look into getting a hotel room to bathe in but Paul cut me off immediately.
“We no longer have those options,” she told me with hard, cold eyes. “Thanks to your movie star lover’s exposé of our former living habits.”
She looked away, her body language hostile, and said nothing more after that so I didn’t either.
I ate the plaster dogs anyway, with hands that were muddy with sewage and sweat and a face that was as joyless as it was blank.
Nobody spoke nor did anyone pass anybody else any food. There was no happy laughter, no sharing of relief, nothing. All four of us simply shoved pale buns through our mouths like it were a repetitive task we had no choice but to do—and I guess it probably was.
By the time my share of dinner had been consumed and a sharp, persistent pain replaced the gnawing, gaping ache that had been in my stomach all day, I found myself questioning the true value of freedom.
What was the point of freedom if all it did was make your life way harder
than it had to be?
I couldn’t come up with any good answer to that.
Chapter 26
Date Unknown
I slept like a log, despite the conditions, and woke up right in time for breakfast—a single box of muesli bars on our picnic mat, right in the middle of Dustin and Paul who were already eating theirs in silence.
I never liked muesli bars. I always thought they tasted like perfumed cardboard and would have chosen to go without had I not had the long trek back to Wonderdrug—or even the nearest police station, if I could find one—ahead of me. But since I did, I took two muesli bars for myself. One to eat and one for the road, in case the road turned out to be one helluva long road.
Paul watched me like a hawk as I took the two bars from the four in the box. Neither she nor Dustin said a word to me, nor did they look particularly happy, so I mumbled something about getting fresh air and headed on up to the second floor where there would be wind, sun, a view and reprieve from awkward energy.
Gemma, who had woken up last, came after me with one of the two remaining bars of muesli. I didn’t want her to join me—I didn’t want to have to answer her weird questions about the most banal matters of life or feel like I was having breakfast with my dead mother—but said okay because I could tell, from the desperation in her smile, she didn’t want to be left alone with the sullen-faced two either.
We climbed up a table-sized stack of loose bricks right next to the edge of the second floor and angled ourselves towards the view of ant-sized cars whizzing between skyscrapers in the distance.
“I think Paul and Dustin had sex last night,” Gemma said as she ripped open her packet of muesli.
I nearly choked on the muesli I had only just shoved into my mouth and had to wipe away the bits that came flying out when I coughed. “Why do you say that?”
“They were naked and Dustin was doing that rocking thing men do when they have sex in the movies. He was making those sorts of sounds too.”
Right next to us while we slept? And I never woke up? I found myself giggling in amusement as an image of them both in the situation Gemma described came to mind.
“Have you ever… tried sex yourself?”
I stopped giggling to stare at Gemma with my mouth open. “Are you kidding? In this city, everyone past puberty would have had sex at least twice before the age of sixteen.”
Gemma dropped the muesli bar from her mouth and her expression fell. “Oh.”
My heart dropped along with her face. “Sorry. I didn’t—”
“No, it’s okay, you just don’t know very well what it was like for me just like how I don’t know very well what it was like for you, and probably everybody else. It’s normal.”
“Right.”
She shrugged and gazed out at the horizon as she resumed eating her bar of muesli. “I’m still glad I got the chance to see them do it though,” she said in between bites, while grinning shyly. “And all this and the sewers, it’s... great. I can’t believe I’m actually here.” She beamed and looked as happy as a child on vacation, without a care in the world.
No facade, no lies, no hard feelings, no grudges, no worries, no regrets, that was how Gemma took on the world, I realised. Watching her made me wonder if not knowing might be the true secret to perpetual happiness. After all, if you didn’t know how cruel the world really was, you would feel safe and at peace and happy-ish the whole time, wouldn’t you? Maybe ignorance was all each and every one of us really needed?
“Hey Gemma, the last muesli in the box is for you.”
Paul’s voice. I turned and saw her standing behind us.
She had her eyes on Gemma and she was smiling. In a friendly way.
Gemma smiled back in that sweet way she always smiled and looked a little bashful. “No, I’m fine, thank you.”
“I want you to have it,” Paul said.
“No, it’s okay, I’m not—”
“Just go. Take it. Eat it if you want, hold it if you don’t, I need to talk to Lane.” Paul didn’t sound unkind but she did sound firm.
Gemma looked at me then at Paul and hopped off the stack of bricks like a very obedient child.
Once Gemma had gone down the stairs, Paul turned to me. Her eyes met mine and I think I saw her cheeks go red. “May I sit?”
I shrugged then nodded and quickly finished up the last of my muesli while she took Gemma’s place on the bricks, just in case I would need to run or fight at short notice. I also made sure my other bar of muesli was snugly tucked into the pocket of my jeans and not in any danger of falling out during dramatic movements.
“Do you like her?” Paul asked once she had gotten comfortable.
“Gemma?” I turned to face Paul and saw that her cheeks were now redder than ever. “Only about as much as I would like an elderly relative. She looks exactly like my dead mom. That makes liking her sort of... weird, don’t you think?”
Paul laughed and licked her lips and seemed to be trying to say something but didn’t.
“She does remind me of the old you though,” I added when the pause between us got too long for comfort. “The you I played Snakes and Ladders with?” The you who didn’t go around killing people.
Paul laughed again. Nervously. “Gemma and I are total opposites. And neither are you related to her, in case you’re wondering.”
I frowned a little and eyed her with suspicion. “How would you know?”
“CRO tested your DNA against hers when you first got in because they thought you might have come from the same lineage too. Gemma’s grandmother had superhuman regenerative abilities, you see. She was Latina with olive skin, dark hair and dark eyes, just like you, so naturally they thought there might be something there, but, there wasn’t. The DNA test was 100% negative. No relation whatsoever. Not even remotely.”
I frowned more. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“I’m saying you and Gemma may have been switched at birth. If Gemma looks like your mom, it could be because she is your mom’s kid and you could very well be that Latina’s grand-daughter. That would explain everything, wouldn’t it?”
It would, but... only if CRO and the DNA test actually did exist. “How do you switch babies without anyone knowing though? Two babies without the same hair or eye colour on top of that.”
“I don’t know. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there who do, right?”
Right, but.. only if CRO and the DNA test actually did exist. Unfortunately, there was no way I was going to be able to know for sure. I decided to remove the frown from my face and change the topic before Paul got enraged again or something. “Is that all you wanted to talk to me about?” I asked.
Paul kept her eyes on the view, took in a deep breath and said, “No.” She turned her face to mine and I saw sadness in her eyes, clear as day. “What I wanted to say... is... I love you, Lane. I don’t want you to go.”
What? My heart skipped a beat and I found myself nervous and struggling to breathe normally. I frowned again. “Why? I’m not the type of person you’re looking for, plus, you slept with Dustin. Just last night!”
“I did. And yes you’re really not the type I want to love but... I’ve since learned it’s not up to me.” She swallowed hard and stared right at me, her eyes large and sad, her pupils completely dilated. She looked... scared; desperate for my approval; as if she really was in love with me.
“Hey, can we go?”
Paul and I pulled our bodies away from each other and swivelled around at once.
It was Dustin, standing by the stairs behind us, with his eyes right on us. He looked irritable and bored—the way some of my former lovers sometimes looked when I talked to them about my struggles regarding work and money. “It’s late.”
“Give me a minute,” Paul said. The vulnerability she had on her face just seconds ago vanished and all that was in its place was a confident lack of emotion.
“I can go on my o
wn, you know. Just give me the money and the key to the gate, or give me the money and let me out.”
“No. Just wait downstairs. I’ll come when I’m done.”
“No. We have to go now.” Dustin crossed his arms and refused to budge. “We won’t have time to get all the shit you want before the sky turns dark otherwise. I say we’re going now.” He kept his eyes on her and never once looked away.
“Fucking bad timing always,” I heard Paul mumble under her breath. She sighed and turned to me, her eyes wild and shiny but otherwise expressionless. “Can we continue this tonight? Please? Can you promise to stay in the basement and not go anywhere?”
I nodded because I knew that was the best and easiest way to answer, even though I wasn’t sure if that was what I was going to do. I didn’t know what to make of what Paul said. My heart had begun pounding furiously but I couldn’t tell if it was because I was happy about what she said or just afraid she was lying in order to keep me with her.
“We don’t have all day,” Dustin shouted irritably from behind.
“I mean everything I said,” Paul said to me. Firmly. She held her eyes on mine for a good few seconds before taking a long deep breath and jumping off the stack of bricks.
She never looked back after that.
It was me who watched her go.
With electrified nerves and a heart that felt as if it were going to beat through the bones that kept it in.
“Lane, wake up,” I heard Gemma say hours later. “Soldiers are here.”
Soldiers? I opened my eyes and saw the silhouette of a woman peering down at me, shaking me.
The silhouette became Gemma when my eyes adjusted to the blinding light behind her. Gemma with her eyes wide and afraid.