Zero Repeat Forever

by G. S. Prendergast

  He nods slowly.

  “I need antibiotics. Can you look for some? After you do the arm?”

  He wriggles his fingers in front of his mouth. Explain.

  “Antibiotics. Medicine.” I blearily recite the words Mandy made us all memorize. “Erythromycin, penicillin, amoxicillin . . . cipro . . . floox . . . flox . . . flux . . . little pills in a little jar.”

  He leaps up and disappears into the bathroom, returning seconds later with handfuls of pill bottles, which he pours onto the bed. He holds each one under the flashlight and shows me. I try to remember the names I learned from Mandy and the ones I’ve heard at home. Mom’s pills. Jack’s pills. The mountain of daily pills Jack’s dad would bring with him when he visited. Then I have to blink away that memory, because it’s too distracting from my own life-or-death situation. I focus on the tiny typing on the labels instead.

  “Antidepressants, I think,” I say, studying one. “Antianxiety, anti–blood pressure, anti-cholesterol. Wow. This guy had it all.” I push the pills aside. “None of these are any good. Sorry.” The Nahx shoves them onto the floor and they rattle away. He taps his eye mask.

  Look. Me. Look.

  Then he points to the pills.

  “You can look after the screaming, yes.” I take another gulp of bourbon, trying not to cough. Mostly failing though. I clutch my ruined ribs and moan.

  On top of the fever, the bourbon is working its magic. I expect I’ll still feel every bit of the pain, but maybe I won’t care as much. I tuck the bottle into the crook of my good arm and recap it.

  “I think I’m ready now.”

  EIGHTH

  I wish there were some way I could turn off my hearing. Her screams will be . . . Hearing her scream in the stadium nearly finished me. I could barely think. I can still barely think, though seeing her again has sharpened my mind a little bit. I remember, at least, that I’m a rebel and a deserter; that’s helpful. And I remember pretty much everything about her. I’m not very clear on what has been going on since the last time I saw her though, or how I found her again. Maybe that will come back when I calm down a bit.

  Then there’s the human who chased us. Give her back, he shouted. Does she belong to him? For a moment when I picked her up, I thought she belonged to me, but that doesn’t seem right anymore, not like I belonged to Sixth, anyway. But that other human could be looking for her. And I don’t know whether she was running away from him. Maybe he treated her as Sixth treated me.

  She said his name. Topher. Or Tucker. I’m not sure what I heard. I have no way to ask her.

  I need to think, to focus. There is too much sludge churning through me. It’s making me confused.

  “Are we doing this?” she asks. I kneel down by the bed again.

  I’ve set a bone before, one of my own, I think. That seems like something from behind the door in my mind. I understand the principle of it though. I feel the break a bit first. It’s only displaced one of the bones. I check the other one; it seems to be sound. That’s good. But I’ll have to be careful. I doubt her bones are as strong as mine.

  I found a wooden spoon in the kitchen. I give it to her and she clenches it in her mouth, but then pulls it out again. “Wait.”

  She uncaps the bottle and takes several large gulps, gasping. Then she returns the spoon to her mouth and nods. I have to turn my eyes away from the fear in her face.

  Little human, I don’t want to hurt you.

  I should have taken her when . . . the first time, from the river or the second time I saw her, in that village. I could have taken her up into the mountains with me. None of this would have happened.

  I grip her arm. She clenches her teeth and growls. And I do it. I fix it. I pull her arm apart and put it back together over the sound of her screaming.

  When it’s done, she closes her eyes and shivers and lets me wipe the tears from her cheeks.

  Slow sweet muddy death. I need to sit down.

  RAVEN

  Time seems to pass, or I dream of time passing, at least. The problem is the same time repeats. Over and over the Nahx in the stadium flies down toward me. Sometimes I wake screaming, pain shooting through my rib cage, only to sink back into feverish sleep. Sometimes the dream progresses beyond what actually happened. He kills me in some. In others I become a Nahx like him and turn on Topher as he tries to rescue me, crushing him with my armored fists. In one dream Topher kills the Nahx, then takes me in his arms, pulling me down onto the ground, kissing the blood from my mouth. In another Topher is the Nahx, and it is Tucker who rescues and embraces me. Eventually, my dreams degrade into the fat, ill-fitting, and misshapen dreams of fever, with no more fighting or kissing.

  Sometimes my Nahx is there when I open my eyes and sometimes not. Once I wake to find him spooning something hot and salty into my mouth. I swallow, painfully, and feel the warmth sinking down into me. But the next time I wake, I’m vomiting it all up again. My Nahx appears with a cloth and wipes my face and neck.

  “What are you?” I ask, more than once, it seems. He makes signs, but I don’t understand them. Sometimes he just shrugs. If he ever gives me a coherent answer, I’m not conscious enough to process it. In the delirium I give him my own designations: monster, demon, killer, alien, machine.

  And I blearily remind myself of my own designation: Rage, the fighter, the soldier who won’t surrender. Not to this Nahx, not to anyone. And not to death.

  I dream of fire. My skin is on fire. I feel the heat rising off me in waves. He lays wet cloths on my head and chest. The pain in my leg takes over my thoughts for a while, until I can’t fit a single idea in with it. I lie in ignorant silence, not hearing, not seeing, floating on a bed of knives and hot coals and fire.

  How many days this goes on, I don’t know. I see sunlight and darkness in approximately equal measures. And I see the Nahx, at my side sometimes and sometimes in the shadows in the corner of the room. If I cry out in pain, it’s not long before he appears, and once as he looks at me and checks my wound, I see him shake his head. Does he think I’m going to die? I wonder. Is he preparing himself? And why does he care?

  Once I wake in the night, at least I feel that I’m awake, and see Tucker standing by the window, looking out at the dark sky. I will him to turn, to look at me, but he continues to stare out silently. This is what the dead become, I think, grim sentinels who see and hear nothing, who watch the stars. Maybe if I die, I’ll see Tucker again.

  Another night, after a few days of floating in this fevered world, I lose myself. It takes only a moment. One minute I’m aware, a brief twinkling of lucidity, that my fever has reached some place beyond life and recovery. It’s a kind of psychic dressing room where I strip off everything that makes me myself so I can enter into a world where only naked spirits can go. I let go of anger. Anger at my parents, anger at Tuck and Emily, anger at myself. Anger at the Nahx. I let go of them too, my parents, Tuck, Emily, all of them. Even Topher, though he is hard to release. His fingers lock on to mine, but in the end the gravity of what awaits is too strong. He slips away. I let go of rage, and then everything slips away. I slip away from everything. I have no shape, no size, no memory, no name. All I have is what is immediate, what I feel and see. I feel hot. I see fire. I see a shadow move in the fire.

  Then nothing.

  EIGHTH

  She wakes up screaming. My first instinct is to hold my hands over my ears.

  The pills aren’t working. She’s going to die. All I can do now is watch.

  Not quite right. I could leave her. Go back to my people. No one would know.

  I should leave her.

  I should.

  Leave.

  Her.

  But I can’t. I kneel at her bedside, finding her scorching hand. She clutches at me, but weakly. As her scream subsides, her trembling spreads up my fingers and arm, into my mind.

  Beautiful human. Don’t leave me.

  I choke. My throat spasms around the tube. The thick fluid pulses through me. Suddenl
y, I’m angry, so angry at the heat in her, the fire that is killing her. I could crush it, break it down, kill it, kill . . .

  Human. Brave girl, get better. Please. You must. Obey me.

  Think. Try to think.

  If she dies, I’ll jump from the terrace. We’re forty floors up. The fall would kill me, wouldn’t it? I couldn’t just walk away from her if she doesn’t get up. I can’t go back to the mission. I close my eyes and think of that other Eighth burning on the road and wish I could trade places with him. Or that I had stayed with him. I don’t want to be alone. And no one would miss me.

  Missing. Important.

  Sixth? What do I do? Tell me what to do. I have to do something.

  Ah, my mind is dripping, slipping away. She is as transparent as a cloud. Her hair lies in wet tendrils around her head. Her face is still black-and-blue and swollen. She smells of death, tears, waste, soap, and pine needles. She’s more beautiful than a spiderweb or a dandelion. Or a snowflake.

  A snowflake.

  The terrace.

  Snow.

  The terrace door has been open for hours, to let the cold night air in. I carry her outside. A thick layer of snow spreads around us.

  There’s a little twist in my thoughts. I could leap over the railing with her in my arms. But she would never choose that. She chose life before. She has chosen life over and over. She wants to live.

  I was supposed to put a dart in her.

  You don’t have to do this, she said to me.

  Yes, I remember.

  You can just walk away.

  But I can’t, pretty Dandelion. I can’t walk away from you.

  Please don’t kill me, she said. I shook my head. I told her no. I made a kind of promise.

  I could never kill her. I could never dart her. Anything but that.

  She sags in my arms. Over the wind blowing around my ear sensors, I can no longer hear her heartbeat.

  Please don’t kill me, human girl.

  As I lay her down, her arms flop up by her head. I move them, making wings for her in the thick snow.

  Angel.

  The word creeps out from behind the door, mocks me with possibility, then slams the door behind itself.

  Sixth was an empty green angel in the grass, with blood-black wings. This one is a shimmering ice angel, with snowflakes in her hair.

  I never even learned her name.

  RAVEN

  When the dream starts, it is cold and dark. But as light seeps in, I see I am floating in the lake, with snowflakes drifting down around me. I turn my head to the dock and see Tucker standing there. Or Topher. I can’t tell them apart anymore. I try to move, to swim to shore, but the water is frigid. I’m numb, paralyzed. And scared. So terrified. Because there is something under the water coming for me. I can see the ripples getting closer, closer.

  On the dock, Tucker yells, but his voice is wrong. He’s too sad, too dark, too tense. That’s how I know it’s Topher yelling. He jumps into the water and swims toward me, as the unknown ripple approaches from the other direction. I float, naked, unable to move or scream. Something emerges from the ripples in the water. A Nahx, the Nahx. He reaches me as Topher flails in the cold. The Nahx gathers me and holds me. He says things to me.

  I will take you anywhere.

  I’m not sure how he has a voice. He has no lips. I want to go to the shore, to the dock, to Topher. But Topher is drowning. I try to tell the Nahx. I try to entreat him to save Topher, but my own lips are numb and swollen. My hands can’t move to make the signs.

  Please, please.

  Topher sinks in the dark water, leaving bubbles on the surface.

  I relax my body as the Nahx releases me and sink down, searching for Topher in the murk. The cold permeates my skull and my brain.

  Tucker, I will never get you back. You’re gone. Like the world, the one I never really appreciated. It was imperfect but all we had.

  Topher, loving me would only ever hurt you. All we can be is partners in grief and revenge.

  Mom? Can you ever forgive me?

  Jack? Can I start calling you Dad?

  An armored hand closes around my wrist and pulls me to the surface. “Who are you?” I say. He slips his arms around me again, grasps me tightly, and together we sink to the bottom of the dark lake.

  I wake up, lake water choking me, drowning me, though when I cough, it is cold air that comes out. I open my eyes. I’m lying outside, half naked in the cold, in a puddle of water, melted snow, and tears. It is daylight, the sun beats down on me, and I feel almost normal. Numb and cold, really cold, but normal.

  Through the glare I see the Nahx kneeling a few feet away, his head resting in his hands on the floor in front of him.

  “H-hey.”

  His head shoots up.

  “I’m kind of cold.”

  He lunges forward and scoops me up.

  The sickroom stinks of vomit and other worse things. He steps right through it and along the hallway, setting me down on the wide leather bench in the living room.

  Wait, he signs. Like I could go anywhere in my condition. I can barely focus my eyes.

  He returns with piles of clean towels and blankets. Wrapping me in a blanket, he dries my head, hands, and feet, holding my fingers and toes for a few extra seconds. His hands are unnaturally warm.

  There is still pain in my side, but no longer the acute ache throughout my whole body. My leg feels slightly numb but not too sore. My broken arm is splinted and bandaged, but feels almost normal. But I am parched and dizzy, and also something . . .

  “I need to pee,” I croak out. “I need . . .”

  He tilts his head to the side.

  “Please,” I say, “I need to pee. Pee?” Helpless, I move one hand over the thick blanket and grab my crotch. The Nahx nods and, sliding his hand behind my back, helps me stand, the blanket wrapped around me.

  I sway for a moment and he moves to lift me, but I wave him off. “Help me walk,” I say. He walks me, limping excruciatingly slowly down the narrow hallway, and opens the door to a small room. There is a flash of light, and a second later a candle in an ornate candleholder illuminates a toilet and a sink. There is a bucket of water on the floor next to the toilet.

  Shrugging off the blanket, I look down at my body and realize I am wearing nothing but the bloody rags of my undershirt and some soaked men’s boxers. Suddenly, I’m horribly embarrassed. The Nahx simply points to the toilet and the bucket, and then he stands there, looking at me.

  “Can I have some privacy?” I ask.

  He turns around.

  “I mean actual privacy?”

  He glances back at me, then walks off, disappearing down the hall. After I use the toilet and rinse it out, I sit on the closed lid and use the rest of the water in the bucket to wash my body as well as I can with one hand.

  I emerge, hopping on my good leg, wearing nothing but the blanket wrapped around me. I left my reeking underclothes in the sink. The Nahx stands in the middle of the living room, watching me carefully. The effort of hopping soon catches up to me and I stumble. He grabs me and eases me into a chair. I look up at him.

  “Are there any clean clothes?” I ask. He disappears into a room, returning with a pair of men’s pajamas. He turns politely, while I struggle to put them on. My muscles are variously stiff and floppy as noodles, my whole body lopsided.

  “How long have I been here?” I ask while I dress. He reaches back without turning around, holding all five fingers out. Then he closes his fist and opens it again, this time with three fingers.

  “Eight days?” I can’t quite believe that. It seems impossible. But what would be his motive for lying?

  “You can’t speak?” I ask. I can’t remember if we discussed this before. Probably should have, but I was busy dying. “Like, with a voice?”

  He shakes his head.

  “You can turn around.” He turns and helps me sit on the low sofa, kneeling on one knee in front of me.

  “Can’t you take
your armor off? We’re not in a battle now.”

  He shakes his head and, laying both hands on his chest, closes his fists tightly.

  Crush.

  “Oh. Our atmosphere is wrong or something?”

  He nods. And then we have an awkward silence as he stares at me and I stare at his weird segmented boots.

  “Do you have a name?” I ask when it finally becomes too awkward, even for me.

  He looks at me for a moment, and I see daylight shining in from the window and reflecting in the black lenses of his mask. I wonder if there are eyes behind the mask or if the mask is all he is. Have we talked about this, too?

  He points to the second finger on his left hand.

  “Finger?” I say. “Your name is Finger?”

  He flicks his head back a couple of times, and there is a little grumble in his breathing. Is he laughing?

  He reaches over to the bookshelf and taps his finger theatrically on the books. One, two, three . . . all the way up to ten. Then he taps again on the eighth book.

  “Eight?”

  He shakes his head, tapping the book.

  “Eighth?”

  He nods.

  “Your name is Eighth? That’s a weird name. Eighth what?”

  He points to the sky and draws a circle with his finger.

  “Sun? Moon! Eighth Moon?” I’m playing charades with an alien who has knocked me unconscious and seen me pee my pants at least twice. I’m not very good at it, clearly. He’s unsatisfied with “Eighth Moon.” He draws a circle in the sky, then moves his hand and draws a half circle, then moves his hand again and draws a thin crescent.

  “Moon cycle? Like month?” He nods enthusiastically. “Like the eighth month. August?”

  He gazes at me for a moment, not moving, then nods.

  “August,” I say, trying it out. Though I have a feeling it’s not quite what he was trying to tell me, it does seem to suit him somehow. He’s very imposing. And imperial. Like the emperor that watched Rome burn. But that was another guy, I think. I almost laugh at the thought of social studies classes. Ancient history? We are the ancient history now. We are the dead civilization. This thing saw to that.