Off Center (The Lament)

by Power, P. S.

  That got a laugh at least, from the bed, where Will managed to open his eyes.

  "This world has its charms. We can do better now. Last time people that came well before us got greedy and lazy. We're the survivors. We can do this."

  Pran nodded, since it felt funny and made the inside of her head tickle a bit.

  She didn't say anything though, as Doctor Millis was busy making up another needle thing filled with a slightly pale yellow liquid from his cupboard. Then he left her in her cocoon of pillows and gave her a shot in the shoulder again. She was going to be sore there, she bet.

  After a few minutes her head cleared, and then she felt very sick, like she was going to throw up all over the sick room. It was the place for it, but she held her stomach's contents in, feeling horrible. The first thing she noticed though, was that Doctor Millis came and stood by her, putting his warm hand against her head.

  "How do you feel dear?" He said this just as the door opened, showing Mara and Clark, with a slightly worried looking Judge Claire standing behind them.

  Mara moved into the space, looking at her, suspiciously.

  "What's wrong, Pran?" She sounded worried too.

  That got Pran to fake a chuckle at least. She felt bad, but didn't think the Doctor had killed her. It was just that the cure for that talking medicinal was a lot worse than the thing itself.

  "Ah, nothing really. I feel a bit sick is all and Doc Millis is over reacting, worried that I may be coming down with whatever Will here has. It isn't that. Zeke and I are going to come around in a bit and start getting laundry. Sorry about the delay." She managed to stand, even as the Doctor pretended to fuss over her.

  "Really, there's no reason that this man can't do the chores alone."

  "Except that he doesn't know where anything is? That, plus the fact that I promised. I've been pushing a bit hard for a while and it's catching up with me a bit, that's all." It might even be true, she realized. She'd been up for nearly two days, then slept for six hours, if that. Then she started working again.

  Yeah, she might want to take it a tiny bit easier than that, in the future.

  Of course, being that she could lie again, which she was proving by doing it handily, she decided to change her mind now, and not help the evil tech people at all. She really needed to get the others alone for a chat, somehow. First though, there really was laundry to do, so she staggered a bit, heading to the door, and clutched the frame, then she turned to Clark and winked. She didn't say anything, but he didn't let his face move. Claire caught it too, she thought, as she reeled down the hallway, going to get the wash supplies.

  "Come along Zeke, I need you to prop me up and do all the heavy lifting." The man jogged after her and then stayed by her shoulder as they moved through the hallway to the wash room.

  Buckets of warm water had to be carried out, as well as the hanging racks. It took ten trips to have a basic station set up, and then ten more to get the first baskets of clothing. She started right in, being careful to wring things out as well as possible when things were cleaned. It took forever, or at least until dark. Poor Zeke seemed ready to pull his hair out after carrying most of the clothing back in alone. She was doing most of the actual work otherwise, so didn't feel too lazy.

  Still sick though. It was enough that she finally had to move off to the edge of the woods and let it come out. It was the remains of her breakfast, and lunch had been skipped entirely for her, but amazingly, after the retching and doubling over passed, she felt a lot better.

  She washed her face with a handful of slushy snow from the ground and got back to work. The hardened man next to her nodded when she came back to finish the job.

  "Tough, aren't you? You haven't even whined or whinged about being ambushed back there. It had to be done, but it isn't the way anyone wants to treat their friends." The words were low and his face a bit softer than it had been during her interrogation. Almost friendly.

  A friendly would-be conqueror, who was likely in a stolen body. It reminded her of the cells in Will's basement. There was no one else around, so pitching her voice low, she simply asked about that, making a guess, but not knowing enough to get it right.

  "Are the cells in Will's basement for conversions? So he could grab people from the village and put... I don't know what to call people like you."

  Zeke pulled a double handful of under things from the now cool water in front of him and started to strangle it, trying to get the water out. They didn't have a roller that would go outside.

  "Downloads. We used to be people, like you, a long time ago. We were all dying, so to keep us from losing the world's knowledge base, we put copies of ourselves in a computer. Actually millions of them. Not everyone, only those that had something unique about them. In my case an uncommon level of military knowledge. My guess is that Millis was some kind of researcher. That kind of thing. Now we can just take people and put one of us in them, and spread that way."

  "So you Downloads can be anyone." It wasn't a question at all. She already knew the answer. Surprisingly the man shook his head.

  "No, of course not. Men need to be in a male body, same for women, or the hormones won't match with expectations. The type of body has to be within a certain parameter as well. Otherwise people tend to lose their shit, fast. I mean, go insane. So there is a lot of matching involved to get it right. We can't just process people. Then the procedure itself takes a few days. So whoever it is needs a reason to not be around for a while. After that, well, in general we can't fake being someone that we've never even met, so the new person has to leave the area they were taken from originally. It's a lot slower than it should be."

  She kept working, filing everything away. Nothing seemed all that helpful so far, but at least the story from both the Doctor and this man seemed to be consistent. If it was a lie, then it was the one that they'd both practiced. Like a play.

  Pran finally nodded and put the last of the soiled clothing they were going to get to that day into the water.

  "I'll get a wagon or cart. We need to get Will out of here before he seems well enough for his trial. He can't last, standing in front of a Judge."

  The man smiled and took out another handful of sodden clothing.

  "Why not? You speak about these Judges as if they're almost magic."

  She blinked at him, and almost didn't say anything, but decided that would seem too surly. So she took a breath and relaxed, then turned to look at him with a sweet expression on her face.

  "They very nearly are. Don't underestimate the people here, Zeke. We don't have what you did, before. Machines that do everything for us. It means that, in a lot of ways, we had to become stronger in order to get by. If you forget that, you won't just lose, but get a lot of people killed."

  She didn't know that for certain, but it sounded decent, didn't it?

  After that she kept working. They were going to lose the light, otherwise.

  Chapter nine

  It occurred to Pran, as Paul showed her where all the different tools were stored, each having their own box or rack, that she wasn't doing very well. Not when it came to relaxing. Then, while she still felt a bit sick, she really was doing better. If nothing else the tiny woodworking shop was warmer than the world outside. Things had cleared a lot, but not gotten warmer. The freezing rain hadn't come in, and it was only a little breezy out, which meant the ship swayed, and if you listened hard you could hear the ropes creak a bit, but it wasn't scary at all.

  "Now, I won't belabor the point, being as it's you and not one of the other fools on the crew, but keep things clean all the time. Dust travels, so keep everything well wiped down, if you don't want Mina riding your behind for the next three weeks. I was told that I should ask you about working up some footlockers for gear? A meter long, half that high and wide. They should be sturdy, and we have some solid hinges for them. Other than that, Captain said you can do what you want. That good? You can do that in the time you have left here?"

  "Oh, sure. I'l
l do those first. Where are the hinges?" She was shown and the man didn't hover over her for too long, as she pulled out some of the ship's store of wood and started to measure things off for cutting. That part took a while, but the saws were good, and sharp already, and the wood dry enough. By the time she was ready for bed, still not having eaten, she had all three of the basic boxes laid out, and drilled holes for the pegs to hold them together. She was sleepy, but kept her eyes open until the tenth bell, deciding to call it a day early.

  It felt like she was forgetting something, so she went over the whole shop first, sweeping and wiping it down, and then triple checked all of the tools, to make certain they'd gotten back into the right places. They all had, but still, something niggled at the back of her mind.

  Not able to place the idea at all she started to leave, only to notice that she really didn't want to. It was like something wanted her to stay and keep working, until she had the glue out, heated and painted on the pegs, which she gently hammered in with a wooden mallet. Then she used some rope to tie the boxes together, leaving the tops off.

  That was it, she understood. The tops. She needed to put some carvings on them. Mina had mentioned that, hadn't she? Oh, not on the boxes specifically, but wood carving. She just drew the pattern out and then went to bed, because exhausting herself wasn't going to really help. Working until she became a burden wouldn't make anyone love her after all.

  It was as she lay in the dark, listening to Apprentice Roy breathing gently that she realized she was probably insane. It was what Doctor Millis had said that confirmed the idea. The kids at the Grange were there because their parents had been too crazy to be useful. Too far gone to raise their own brats. It meant that the children of the Grange were soiled, innately, didn't it? That people like her were just... Wrong. Bad, and probably evil.

  Look at the things she'd done, after all. She'd stabbed people as well as shot them, almost every time she had a gun of any sort on her. She didn't even hesitate most of the time. Just pulling the trigger when she got scared or annoyed. Then she lied all the time and did it really well. Oh, it was training and practice that made her good at it, but she was.

  Her obsession with work wasn't normal either. She almost couldn't stop doing it, because she was afraid that if she did, the world would collapse in on her. True, everyone on the ship did their share, but the others did things that weren't work too, didn't they? They had hobbies and took breaks to chat, or drink coffee. Sometimes other things, which was why Bill kept getting into trouble.

  Not her though. It was always just moving from one bit of work to the next.

  She knew why that was, but it was...

  Not sane. Not really.

  She was thinking that when she woke up, a gentle hand on her shoulder. She didn't flail at the person, which was good, since it was just Roy. He was standing with his shirt off, staring at her.

  "Pran, are you okay? You were crying." He sounded worried.

  She sat up, but found her eyes weren't wet at all. Then, given the dream she'd been having, it probably wasn't what the boy had thought. She wasn't crying, but grunting, rhythmically. In a pained fashion.

  Now that she was awake though, the memory didn't hurt. Blinking she took a huge breath and then stood.

  "Bad dream, that's all. Nothing to worry about now. It's time to get up?" She pulled her own shirt off, to change, not thinking about it. Roy stared a bit, since she didn't have anything on underneath it. She normally did, and hadn't really been thinking about that. Worse, her nipples hardened, thanks to the chill. At least Roy was doing the same. He did look away though, smiling.

  "That, is hardly fair. Now I'm going to be distracted all day, thinking about you, instead of my job. If we all catch fire and die, I want you to remember that it's your fault." He turned his back a bit, and changed from his sleeping clothes to his work pants, with his back turned so she couldn't see if he was really "happy" or not. Pran was good with that, at the moment.

  Roy was cute, in a goofy way, and she wasn't going to say no to a bit of company, if she ever had the time and energy, since she was already on birth control, since all the students at the art school had to be, but coming off of that particular dream, it might be best for them to wait a bit.

  "I wouldn't bother." She said it lightly, but Roy spun and made a face at her, the front of his pants indeed sticking out a bit more than normal.

  "Oh?" He sounded hurt for some reason, which she got after half a second.

  She kept dressing, and spoke as her black tunic went over her head.

  "Yeah, I'll be here later. I think that today it's mainly practice, some carving and possibly a trip into town. That won't have me gone all night, I don't think. If you want to do something later?"

  Roy nodded.

  "Sure. Just to be clear you mean something naked and cuddly, right? Not chores or standing guard in the dark?"

  "Yep. That's the one I meant. Not that I'm any good at it, but you know, I'm here and willing. That's half the equation, isn't it?"

  There was a distracted nod, but he didn't tell her he wasn't interested now that she'd mentioned that part of things. The truth was, she'd had a lot of boys inside her, over the years, and done things with girls too. Almost never on purpose, but she knew what went where. But that didn't lead to any particular skill at it. It also, as she kept telling herself, didn't count. Everyone knew that.

  Everyone in the whole world.

  Her roommate smiled and looked at her in a way that seemed a lot more practical than she'd have thought he'd be about the whole thing. More adult.

  "Great. Let's do that? I haven't been even, you know, with my hand? Because you've been right here the whole time. I know, not the best way to sweet talk a girl, but it will really help. Yeah." He left then, not waiting for her at all. It meant he got to the shower first, but when he came out, smiling, he was blue and his teeth were chattering. There was no steam in the shower area either.

  She hurried too, since it was the rule on ship, and scrubbed hard, trying to get clean. Then she got an early bowl of oatmeal, with some dried peaches mixed in for flavor and got to her carving. It would take a while, but she was just doing some basic designs. Complex pictures would be more interesting, but she wanted the bulk of her time to be for her own work. By lunch time she was sanding the boxes and lids, and made sure to sweep and wipe the whole place down before getting anything to eat. After that...

  Well, she had too much to do, didn't she?

  She needed to talk to Clark or Mara, to pass what she'd learned from the others. She also needed to get to town to see if she could buy or bargain for a wagon and a horse or two. With what, she didn't know, but she needed to find something. Stealing would be a bad plan, since people complained when things went missing, and Judge Claire would find it too easily. So the best way to hide that was to...

  She rolled her eyes and finished eating her potatoes with gravy, and the thick slice of bread that went with it. There were canned carrots too, on the side.

  When she finished, she got food for Doctor Millis and the sick man, who was sitting up when she got to the room they were keeping him in. Then she closed the door, pretending to help feed him. The Doctor looked a bit skeptical for some reason, as if it had occurred to him too that she might not really be with them still.

  Some people just couldn't trust, could they? She smiled at the man and winked, to hide her own expression, which was slightly bemused, she thought.

  "Beef broth for you, Will. You seem a bit better today. We'll need to get you out of here soon. Do you think you can travel?"

  "If I have to, I will. I... Why are you helping me?" He sounded like himself, and if he had an accent, it was a lot closer to what she was used to than not, because she couldn't hear it.

  "I help you now, you help me later. You know how that works. Besides, I don't think that the people of Pumpkin Hollow will really let you go, even after Judge Claire tells them that you really didn't touch Hadis like was claimed. Next tim
e don't threaten a woman with as much power as Mildred Milner like that. Did you really think she was just going to let you keep having sex with her slow daughter like you were? It's nearly as bad as if you had been raping Hadis." It was an odd thing to say maybe, but she kind of meant that.

  For one part of it, she knew that it was wrong and a horrible thing to do to another person. Just like hitting them would be, or calling them vile names. The other part made it feel empty to her. Devoid of meaning. Still, she felt bad for everyone involved, which would have been on the third hand, if she'd been counting that way, and it were a comedy routine.

  Doctor Millis nodded.

  "I have to agree. I nearly let you die over that bit of things. The woman is clearly mentally handicapped, and don't tell me you didn't notice it. It was wrong, and in any civilized situation, you'd have to answer for it. Worse, you endangered our operation here. These people have been kept enslaved, in a very real way, in order to repair the damage of a world they don't even know about. They need us to release them from that burden, to help them rebuild the world, now that it's safe enough. And you go and nearly bring it down on us all, so that you can have sex with a woman?"

  Will went red faced, and it was in anger, not embarrassment.

  "I'd been there for ten years, cutting meat, with a cleaver. Do you know what it's like, being the new man in a tiny place like that? These people wouldn't accept me at all. Lyse was the only one that would give me the time of day, and yes, after a while I let my emotions cloud my judgment. She's smarter than you think. She has her own business, and she wasn't having sex with me because I tricked her. She knew exactly what we were doing." He sounded a bit bitter about it.

  Probably due to the fact that he'd had to live that particular lie for nearly a decade. Pran shrugged.

  "Fine. What I need from you is a wagon, and a horse or two. I didn't see anything like that at your place the other day, but I didn't look. Barring that, do you have enough coin hidden somewhere to buy some?" It made sense to her, now that she'd thought about it. Why shouldn't he help pay for it?