The fact she didn’t understand much of it would come as some comfort later. Not much. But some.
And not to her, of course.
Her name was Nona. It meant ‘hope’.
And Nona did hope. She hoped the man would let her go. She hoped her daddy would come for her. She hoped something – anything – would happen to make this stop. Why was this happening to her? What had she done wrong?
The singing came closer, and Nona bit her lip. He got angry when she screamed. She didn’t want him to be angry again. The side of her face still ached from last time. She made a silent promise to herself not to scream again, no matter what.
The tarp was pulled away, and she saw his rubber boots and splash-proof overalls.
“Look at me, Nona,” he sang, incorporating it into the words of his song. His voice was muffled, as it always was.
Nona didn’t want to look. She wanted, more than anything, not to look, but she also didn’t want to make him angry again.
She looked.
And then, Nona broke her promise to herself, and screamed, and screamed, and screamed.
CHAPTER FOUR
The next twenty minutes or so dragged by. Essentially, it was one long, drawn-out interrogation process, as Dan tried to pick holes in Oledol’s story. Considering there was very little story to pick holes in, this quickly became repetitive.
“You must remember something.”
“Nope.”
“You must.”
“Well, I don’t, so...”
“You knew your name.”
“Yeah, but that’s all I know.”
That sort of thing.
Nedran stood at the side, his head tick-tocking between them. He stepped in a couple of times when Dan was flat-out accusing the woman of being a liar, and again when he threatened to shoot her in the face, but otherwise he tried not to get involved.
By the end of the twenty minutes, one thing was very clear: Oledol had lost her memory.
Or, she was pretending to have lost her memory.
It wasn’t actually all that clear, at all.
One thing was certain, though: Dan didn’t particularly care, either way.
“You know what? Whatever, you say, sweetheart,” he finally declared. “You want to go with the memory thing, you go with the memory thing. I got enough problems of my own.”
He gestured with a nod to his empty sleeve, then raised his eyes to Nedran. The older man hesitated, clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, then smiled unconvincingly.
“What?” Dan asked.
“It’s just… It’s a pity it’s the left,” said Ned, approaching a large metal chest that had been pushed up against the back wall. There were a few tins of cleaning fluid and dirty rags strewn on top. He moved them aside, then began stabbing the buttons of a small keypad with one finger.
“Why?” asked Dan, when it was clear Nedran wasn’t about to expand on that statement.
“Hmm?” said Ned, still tapping the keys.
“Why is it a pity it’s the left?”
“Oh! Yes. Sorry!” The keypad made an encouraging ping, and the lid lifted a few inches. A cloud of cooled air rolled out through the gap. “It’s just, I’ve got plenty of rights, but we’re running a little short on lefts.”
He lifted the lid all the way, then bent over and began to rummage inside the metal box. Behind him, Oledol raised herself up onto her tiptoes to see what was in there, then came to the conclusion that she probably didn’t want to know, and so dropped down again.
“Aha!” said Ned, then: “Oh.”
“What?” Dan asked, his brow furrowing. “What’s ‘Oh’?”
“I’ve found one,” said Nedran, turning. His smile came again, even less convincingly than before. “But you’re not going to like it.”
* * *
Dan sat on the edge of the bed, flexing the long, slender fingers of his new left hand. The red-painted nails shone against the hand’s cold, grayish-green skin.
“A woman’s arm,” he said, his voice flat and measured. “You gave me a woman’s arm.”
“Yes. Sorry. As I say, not a lot of choice available, I’m afraid,” said Nedran, placing a selection of tools back in their leather case.
“A woman’s arm!”
Oledol, who had watched the limb-attachment procedure in fascination, suddenly started to bounce up and down on the spot. “Oh! I know! You could wear a glove. No one would know.”
Nedran nodded. “Excellent suggestion.”
“I’ll know!” Dan protested. He clenched the fingers into a weedy-looking fist. “I mean… for fonk sake. A woman’s arm.”
“Is that normal?” Oledol asked. “I mean, can everyone do that?”
“Get stitched back together like a ragdoll?” said Dan. He grunted. “Nope. Far as I know, it’s just lucky old me.”
“Oh. Oh, OK.” She looked down at her own arm with a sense of disappointment.
“Something else you forgot, huh?” Dan said.
“What? Oh! Yes. I guess so.”
Ned replaced his case on a shelf. He hesitated, then his hand went to something else tucked onto the shelf beside the bag. He cleared his throat.
“Oh, and by the way, I got you something.”
It took Dan a few seconds to process this. He tore his eyes from his new hand, then looked across at the older man. “Huh?”
Ned was holding a featureless white mask, which he thrust into Dan’s hands. The mask was made of some sort of porcelain-like material, and its hollow eye sockets seemed to look back at Dan as he studied it. He traced the rough fingertips of his right hand across the smooth, unblemished porcelain.
“I thought it might be… useful,” said Ned. His rubber gloves snapped as he pulled them off. The sudden sound dragged Dan out of his trance.
“I don’t need a mask,” he grunted.
Nedran rested a hand on his friend’s shoulder, then glanced very deliberately over to Oledol. “I wasn’t thinking about you.”
Dan frowned. “You think she needs a mask? I mean, the pattern thing is weird, but she isn’t that bad.”
Ned tutted. “No. I meant she - not just her, but, you know, others, everyone - might find you less… challenging if you wore the mask.”
There was silence for a moment. It was eventually broken by the sound of porcelain shattering on the stone floor. Ned stepped back, disappointed, but not surprised.
“I like challenging,” Dan said, reaching for what was left of his shirt. It had been discarded on the bed in a crumpled ball, which had done it no favors at all. Although, to be fair, the creases were the least of its problems.
“Thanks for the arm,” he said. “Let me know when you find another one. I’ll come back and swap it.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that one,” Ned insisted. He tapped an old style RoboVac with a foot. It crept out from its spot between two mismatched cabinets, and set about cleaning up the broken shards of the mask.
“It’s a—” Dan began, but Ned waved him away.
“Stop being so sexist. It’s perfectly functional,” he said, then a thought struck him. “Oh! And I’ve added a metal support structure. Nothing extravagant, just some clamps and a Durium rod. I know you hate it when bits fall off. That should help.”
“Great,” said Dan, with zero enthusiasm. His female fingers fumbled with the final few shirt buttons. A new limb always took some getting used to. This one, he suspected, would take longer than most.
“Here,” said Ned, leaning in and finishing the final button. He stepped back, looked Dan up and down, and winced. “Good thing you’ve got a big coat.”
Dan stood up, and was immediately thrown off-balance by the additional weight of the metal in his new arm. He stumbled sideways, tripped over the RoboVac, then fell backwards against the bed, sending it crashing to the floor. The RoboVac let out a high-pitched cheep, then shot back into its hidey-hole between the cabinets.
“Nedran!” snapped the voice from somew
here through the wall. “I swear, don’t make me come down there!”
“Shh,” Ned urged, although who he was aiming it at wasn’t really clear. He unhooked Dan’s coat and holster from a hook on the wall and thrust them into his arms. “Here, you’d better go.”
Dan nodded. He began to sling his holster over his shoulder, but Ned’s hands were suddenly on his back, shoving him towards a corrugated metal door. It slid upwards at their approach, and a warm night breeze wafted in.
“Sort yourself when you’re out there,” he whispered, a pleading note in his voice. “If she finds you here, I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“OK, OK,” said Dan, draping the coat over his arm. He shot a sweeping glance into the darkness, then stepped outside. “Thanks. Again.”
“Wait,” said Ned, catching Dan by the arm. “What about her?”
Dan followed Nedran’s thumb. It was jabbing in the direction of Oledol. She stood in the center of the workshop, her hands crossed in front of herself, her weight dancing awkwardly from foot to foot, all too aware she was being watched.
“What about her?”
“What do you mean, ‘What about…’?” the old man whispered. “You can’t leave her here.”
“Then tell her to go,” said Dan. He finished attaching his holster, and slid the lighter of his two arms into his coat sleeve. “She’s not our problem.”
“I can’t just tell her to leave,” Nedran protested. “She has no memory.”
“So she says,” said Dan. He held the older man’s gaze for a while, then sighed. With a whistle, he beckoned the young woman towards the door. “Hey. Sweetheart. This way.”
Oledol hesitated, but then clenched her fists, straightened her arms by her side, and marched determinedly towards the door. “You really shouldn’t call me ‘sweetheart,’” she said, holding her head up high.
Dan sighed. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, dollface. Come on.”
She stepped outside. Nedran smiled warmly at her. “Lovely to meet you, Oledol. Good luck!” He leaned in and whispered, just loud enough for Dan to hear. “He’s a pussycat when you get to know him.”
He retreated a step and the shutter rolled closed between them. Oledol ducked so she could shout through the gap. “Thanks! Nice to meet you, too. You have a lovely garage. Thank you for all your—”
The door closed with a clang.
“—help.”
She straightened up, nodded once at the door, then turned to discover she was in a dimly-lit alleyway between two tall buildings.
And that she was also alone.
“Hey!” she called, her head snapping left and right. She could hear the sounds of traffic coming from the left somewhere, so she headed in that direction, scampering quickly through the half-darkness.
When she exited the alleyway, she saw Dan striding towards his car. It was slouching unevenly in a little car park, the smooth curves of a mag-lev parked beside it miraculously managing to make the Exodus look even worse than it actually was.
The car was purple. Very purple. So purple, in fact, that Oledol temporarily forgot she was supposed to be chasing Dan, and just stared at the car’s scuffed and dented paintwork for a while, instead.
Once she had fully come to terms with the car’s purpleness, she held up a hand and called to Dan’s broad back. “Wait, stop!”
Her feet scuffed across the sidewalk as she hurried after Dan. She was halfway across the car park when he reached the Exodus. Only then did he turn.
“What?” he asked.
Oledol stopped. “Uh,” she said. She said it in a way that implied there was more to come, but more didn’t.
“You ain’t giving me a whole lot to work with there,” said Dan. “What’s the problem?”
Oledol’s mouth flapped open and closed a few times. She gestured around her at the darkness. “I don’t know where I am.”
Dan opened the car door. “You’ll figure it out,” he said, sliding into the chair. The old leather creaked under his weight. He jabbed the starter button and the engine coughed asthmatically, making the Exodus shudder and shake. Something gave a bang. While it was not a sound usually associated with healthy combustion, the engine seemed to take some encouragement from it, and came dangerously close to turning over.
Oledol stood back, watching, her arms wrapped around herself. The air was warm, but she shivered as if wracked by cold.
The Exodus spluttered and died.
“You’re not really going to leave me here,” she said. Her voice seemed unnaturally loud in the sudden silence. “I mean… You’re not. Are you?”
“Watch me,” said Dan. He thumbed the start button again. Lights danced across the dash like some kind of slot machine on the brink of paying out. “Come on,” he grimaced, punching the button harder than he had intended. Part of the plastic dash trim buckled inwards, but the Exodus roared as the engine gasped into life. “Thank you.”
With a final nod at Oledol, Dan swept the Exodus towards the car park exit. All four headlights illuminated briefly, flickered intermittently, then all but one went dark. Fortunately, Dan’s night vision was better than average, and even if the Tribunal somehow spotted him, they wouldn’t risk stopping someone over a few busted lights.
The car’s rear tires spun as he cornered onto the street, then pulled away.
A few seconds later, Dan did something he knew he shouldn’t. He looked in his rear view mirror.
Oledol stood in the center of the cark park, getting smaller, her arms still wrapped around herself as she watched him go.
She’d had no chip. She hadn’t even known about the chips. He wasn’t buying her amnesia story, but… what if? What if she was telling the truth? How would she cope Down Here if she didn’t know who she was?
Not his problem.
But what if the Tribunal got hold of her?
“Not my problem,” he said, out loud this time.
Oldedol’s arms dropped to her sides. She began to look around, no doubt wondering where to go, or what to do next.
Dan tightened his grip on his partially buckled steering wheel. He gritted his teeth.
“Ah, shizz,” he spat.
He stopped the car. The airbag lay deflated on the passenger seat beside him, spread out like popped bubblegum. He pushed it onto the floor, then put a hand out through his side window and gestured for Oledol to come over.
“I just know I’m going to regret this,” said Dan.
And he was right.
CHAPTER FIVE
The drive back to Dan’s place only took a few minutes. Although Oledol tried to kick start a number of conversations, her attempts were all met by stony silence.
The Exodus seemed to sigh with relief when Dan shut off the engine. Oledol reached for the door handle, but Dan gestured for her to wait. The car gave a violent rattle, like the final throes of a dying animal, then fell still.
“Is it supposed to do that?” Oledol asked.
Dan looked impassively at her for quite some time, occasionally blinking. “What do you think?” he asked, eventually.
Oledol shrugged. Her eyes widened, then narrowed. “Yes. No. No?”
“No,” said Dan. “No, it isn’t supposed to do that.”
“Oh.” Oledol nodded. “Then… maybe you should fix it.”
Dan opened his door. “Thanks for the advice. I’ll keep it in mind.”
They stepped out into an empty side-street. There were a couple of other vehicles parked along the curb, both floating a foot or so above the ground. Oledol bent low and peered beneath them both, then looked at Dan’s wheels.
“Hey, how come…?” she began, but Dan was already striding towards a row of dilapidated buildings. One in particular looked more run down than the others. Dan headed straight for it, and Oledol hurried to keep up.
“Is this where you live?” she asked, looking up at the depressingly gray tower block looming ahead of them. It must have been a grand place at some point, but now the ornate cornicing wa
s crumbling and decayed, and the brickwork looked more ruined than rustic.
A number of twisted figures lurked on various ledges, their faces fixed in unmoving masks of horror. Oledol regarded them with an oddly-delighted expression on her face, then lifted her eyes past them to the narrow strip of sky she could see between the buildings.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing overhead, her previous question forgotten.
“The sky,” said Dan, flatly.
“Ha-ha. Right, no. I mean, why’s it glowing?”
Dan stopped, frowned, then looked her up and down. “The engines,” he said. Oledol looked blank. “Up There? The cities?”
Oledol smiled, but shook her head, as if she’d been told a joke she didn’t quite understand, but didn’t want to appear rude about.
“Huh,” said Dan, then he continued on towards the heavy wooden door of the building.
The heavy and slightly ajar wooden door of the building.
“Shizz,” he said, stopping again. The hand without the nail polish went inside his coat, while the other one warned Oledol to stay back.
“What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
Dan touched a woman’s finger to his lips, and backed the gesture up with an angry scowl. He pointed to a shadowy alcove to the left of the door, as Mindy slid silently from her holster.
“Go. There. Wait,” he told Oledol. “Stay outside. Don’t come in.”
Without waiting to see if she obeyed, he took cover around the door frame and eased the door the rest of the way open.
The hallway’s automatic lighting clunked on, detecting the door’s movement. The hall itself was empty, aside from the usual collection of trash bags festering over by the back door. A puddle of unidentifiable liquid had leaked out of one onto the scuffed and cracked tiled floor. Not for the first time, Dan was grateful his sense of smell wasn’t what it used to be.
The stairs groaned underfoot as he marched up them. He stuck close to the wall so as not to be visible to anyone peering down into the stairwell from above, but that was the only token nod he bothered to give to stealth.
Dial D for Deadman: A Space Team Universe Novel (Dan Deadman Space Detective Book 1) Page 3