“The way it is stinks, Thal,” I said.
“Yeah, I guess it does,” he replied.
Dear Andi,
You probably only just received yesterday’s email, but I miss you so much already! I think the best we can hope for is a two-day turnaround on email, but I guess it’ll be more like four on the weekend. The weekend here, I mean. The days of the week don’t mesh up very well.
Now for today’s craziness: they’ve never heard of gymnastics here, can you believe it? I don’t know how I’m going to stay in shape if I’m stuck here. I can only do so much Pilates and plyometrics. They don’t have any equipment and I can’t even run outside here, cuz the air sucks. I can’t believe I’m missing air. So pathetic. Dad had better come to his senses and bring me home, or my gymnastics career is over!
I know, I know. I just got here, focus on something positive.
So, that guy John was here today. You know, Russ’s cousin? He was on my flight here too, but I actually talked to him at this flea market thing they had today, and I don’t think I made a complete jerk of myself either! Yay me! There aren’t that many guys here - it’s mostly women - and I’m either related to them or they married in from other places. I guess that’s how it works here, which is bizarro. You remember Teague? Well, her husband is from Glass City, and I guess they’re all super metro-sexual there. I totally thought he was a woman yesterday. So embarrassing.
Anyway, John is from across the mountains, like a different country I think, so maybe they’re a little more normal there. I haven’t seen any women from there yet, but I’ll keep you posted. Maybe they’re more normal too, instead of all huge and hairy. Maybe I can defect. Ha!
They have market here a couple times a week and I’m keeping my eyes open for a good, used spaceship. The only problem is I have no money. Like, literally zero. I don’t even know what their money looks like. People seem to trade stuff a lot and maybe use their phones to pay. What do you think, should I ask my mother for an allowance?
Anyway, back to the twin terrors, I was unpacking and found my capsaicin self-heat gel that I use after workouts sometimes. Thal helped me sneak into their room today at lunch and put it in their sports bras. Ha! We’re going to take video tomorrow morning and put it up on the Kindred’s electronic message board. Should be epic! Hopefully I can send it to you, too.
TTFN, Sunny
Chapter 21: The Earth-Girl Is With Us
Thal followed Lyta and Otrere from their room, videoing them surreptitiously on their way to breakfast the next morning. At first when I caught up to them, nothing had happened and I thought it was all a big letdown, that neither of them had taken the top sports bra in their drawer. But then, as we walked into the great hall, they both started scratching a little, and then sort of shimmying around in circles, all confused before they ran out of there tearing at their clothes. We followed, videoing all the way back to their room, which they found locked courtesy of my hastily reinstalled padlock kit.
They yanked at the lock and cursed as Thal and I broke up laughing.
“What? That rub is supposed to relax your muscles. It’s just hot peppers. Don’t you feel relaxed?” I asked, leaning against a wall for support.
“Haha! Maybe that will teach you to stop picking on Sunny,” Thal crowed, giving me the high five I’d taught him.
"Okay, okay, we give! Now unlock the door,” Lyta cried.
I finally gave in and let them in when they promised to be nice, not that I really believed them.
“Did you get it?” I asked, peering over Thal’s shoulder at the video on his link.
“Yeah, this is great,” he laughed. “People are going to love this video. I’ll edit it at breakfast and put it up.
My link buzzed for about the fifth time on my belt where I had so far been ignoring it.
“Say, you’d better get that,” he said. “It could be your mother.”
“Mmm.” I made a face and picked up my link to find an email from Dad. “Yes!” Finally! Everything was falling into place. Dad would have me home before…. “Noooo!” I wailed as I skimmed his message.
“What? What is it?”
“I can’t go home,” I mumbled.
“What, ever?” he gasped.
“No, now,” I replied, barely noticing the strange look he gave me as he turned and walked away. I put my head in my hands and read the message again.
Sunny,
We miss you too, munchkin. I’m sorry meeting your mother wasn’t everything you’d hoped for, but you cannot just give up and come home. I want you to work on being more positive about your mother. You need to give her and the other people there a chance. They may seem weird to you at first, but that doesn’t mean they’re wrong, just different.
Sweetheart, you may not be able to continue practicing gymnastics like you’re used to. It’s a very specific sport and most places wouldn’t have the type of equipment needed. You need to accept that. It’s not worth risking your neck doing something stupid to practice. And stay with your patrol group! Those bird things are dangerous.
Remember, you’re there to learn about your heritage and your mother’s culture. Try to keep an open mind. This will be an amazing experience for you if you let it. Make an effort to understand and participate, and I’m sure most people will make an effort with you. You have to meet them, and your mother, halfway. I know you can do it.
You have an amazing opportunity here, kiddo. Give it a chance and have some fun! You might surprise yourself.
Love,
Dad
I couldn’t believe it. He didn’t get it, like at all! I’d been counting on Dad to understand and bring me home, but worse, he was on her side! I took deep breaths and tried not to cry… or scream. I saw another message waiting, this one from Andi, and I slapped at the button to bring it up.
Hey Sunny!
Wow! It sounds crazy there. Mean girls suck! I don’t blame you one bit for wanting to come home. I wish you could. As for getting those girls back, I don’t know what you have available there. Can you get to them while they’re sleeping? Cuz there’s always putting their hands in warm water, or putting whipped cream or something in their hands – if you have any – and tickling their faces. What about booby trapping their room? Think: Parent Trap. Other than that, the best I can come up with is to shrug it off and pretend it doesn’t matter – they don’t matter. If you’re not fun for them, they’ll stop… eventually.
I hope your bird bite is doing better, and you have to find a way to keep practicing gymnastics. You’re amazing at it. Be creative and don’t give up!
Gotta go, play tryouts start today. We’re doing The Wizard of Oz and I’m going for the Wicked Witch. Dorothy’s such a goody-goody. I convinced Tristain to try out, can you believe it? Keep your fingers crossed!
Your BFF,
Andi
I wiped moisture from my eyes and found myself smiling as I pictured Andi with green skin and a giant nose and Tristain, her on-again, off-again boyfriend, as her flying monkey. Andi could always cheer me up.
Thal sat back down with his breakfast and started eating, not looking at me. I got my own food and when we were through eating in silence, he looked up at me.
“You know, this is our home, and most of us happen to like it here. I get that this is really different from Earth, that it wasn’t your choice to come here, and you’re sad that you had to give up your life there for a few years. But this is your home now too, and you can either be happy or miserable. It’s your choice.” He got up, cleared his dishes, and turned to leave.
“Thal, I-” I started.
“No,” he said. “Just think about it.”
***
The next few days were pretty uneventful. I went down to the train station as often as possible to practice gymnastics as best I could, using the edge of the station platform next to the tracks as my balance beam, and learning to get quickly out of the way when I felt the wind from the near-silent trains. I was able to score an old
mattress in case of falls, and to land “beam” and floor dismounts. I used the ladders in the tower additions to work on upper body strength, and did handstand pushups, and even some flares on the floor (usually only men did those) but I couldn’t find anything to substitute for uneven bars. And trying to vault over the armchair in the apartment proved disastrous. I got new aches and pains from the stone floors, new blisters, calluses, and bruises – lots of bruises.
I apologized to Thal and made an effort not to complain about being stuck here, but this wasn’t my home and I couldn’t think of it that way. On the plus side, I didn’t see much of Lyta or Otrere for a few days. That is until my mother recruited them, Thal, and me to go with her to the “big” town of Inmar one morning to sell extra supplies from the Earth shipment. Our job was to unload the supplies from the plane into the dusty warehouse while my mother haggled with the chew-spitting owner.
As usual, I had put sun block on that morning, but hadn’t realized the twins had somehow switched it with plain lotion. After an hour in the suns, they pointed out what a nice shade of petal pink I was turning. I was well on my way toward a scorching, double-sunburn. Thal, with his darker skin tone and lifelong exposure to the suns, escaped relatively unscathed.
“Yes!” the twins crowed, linking arms and doing a crazy jig. “Haha! We win, we win!”
And my mother dragged us all back onto the plane to chew us out.
“I brought you four along today to see for myself how you interact, and I see the reports I’ve been hearing are true. I’m very disappointed in all of you. You will stop this joke war now, before anyone gets seriously hurt,” she’d ordered. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Aunt Vaeda,” the twins and Thal had replied, looking cowed. She looked at me.
“What? It’s not my fault. They started it for no reason the minute I arrived.” I glared at the twins who had the grace to look ashamed, if only because my mother was there.
She looked pointedly at my tight-feeling, pink skin. “And how’s that working out for you?”
I scowled in response.
“If this continues in any way, I don’t care who does it, I will punish all four of you myself. Understood?”
“Yes, Aunt Vaeda,” they chorused.
“Yes,” I grumbled.
“Good,” she snapped. “Now get this stuff unloaded so we can get out of here,” she said over her shoulder as she stalked out the door.
Thal found me an old, dried out bottle of sun block from under a seat, but all I got out of it were hard, chalky bits. My mother ordered me inside to buy some from the supplies counter. What she didn’t say was how long the wait was likely to be.
The supply hut next to the warehouse looked like it might have been a food stand at some point, its large, open-air window festively draped with old fishing nets and Christmas lights to draw attention from the dirt road outside.
I got quite a few curious looks when I walked in and stood at the counter. It took me several minutes to figure out that I needed a number, and how to get one on my link before sitting down in the dusty shadows. Apparently, haratchi had destroyed the supply hut several years back and the owner had decided it wasn’t necessary to replace the furniture. Thankfully, I was only waiting out of the suns for either some sun block or my mother and cousins to finish up out back.
There was only one worker, and I’d seen him fill all of one order in the twenty minutes I’d been there. The clerk and lucky customer exchanged something on their links, perhaps a list of supplies and payment, and the clerk disappeared into the maze of supply shelves behind the counter. A while later he returned to signal the customer that his order was done, and I saw the customer pull a hover cart overflowing with supplies from the back of the building down the dirt track outside.
Amazingly, no one lost their temper at the long wait. I got the feeling that people only came here when they had to, and got everything they could afford and could cart home at once. Having nothing to do but wait, I found myself listening through the open window to a man and a woman arguing quietly outside.
“We shouldn’t have to waste a whole day coming here to pick up your meds. Just look at your face, Drazen! You never should have let this go so long. What were you thinking?” the woman chastised.
“I told you, I couldn’t afford it. I had to pay rent or get kicked out into the desert. Which would you have chosen?” the man replied, sounding young and defensive.
“It’s dangerous. If you’d let it go much longer, you’d have gone rogue. And if that happens, you’ll lose everything: your job, your sanity. Is that what you want?” I didn’t hear a response. Go rogue? Lose his sanity? I looked around, but no one else seemed to be hearing this. The old woman next to me had leaned her head back against the wall and appeared to be sleeping.
“How have you been living anyway?” the woman asked.
“The Facility has always been overrun with rats in the tunnels, you know,” he grunted. Ew, rats?
“That’s disgusting,” the woman echoed my thoughts. “Besides, you have a job, Drazen; you should be able to afford the basics and your medicine.”
Wait, was she saying rats were medicine? What? That’s what you get, Sunny, when you listen in on other people’s conversations. They must have meant something else.
“Get real,” he replied. “On what they pay me? We’re in a depression, or haven’t you heard? They keep cutting my hours and I’m supposed to be grateful to still have a job.”
“Well then, you need to get another job!” The only reply I heard was a snort of disdain. “And until then,” the woman continued, “there are government programs….”
“They’ve all been cut,” he interrupted angrily. “I’m not the only one in this situation, believe me. The National Council thought they were saving money. We’ll see if they like what they get as a result. They’ll have rogues knocking down their precious domed cities by the end of the month.” I couldn’t help but look up as a dirty, angry young man stomped in, effectively cutting off the argument.
My eyes automatically flew to his face, remembering the woman’s comment about it. He was probably only a few years older than me, but he looked much older, like life had not been kind. He had one eye that was the washed out blue of the high-summer Colorado sky, while its mate was dull and muted on the other side of his face. Together they flicked around the room like a pair of horseflies, settling on me and skittering away when our eyes met.
“Why are you even here?” I heard this Drazen say to his companion, a non-descript thirty-something woman who’d followed him. They both sat down by the wall on the other side of the room. His eyes lit on me again and flicked away. “I haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t need a babysitter.”
“You do while you’re in Katje territory,” she replied.
They sat in silence for a while. His blue eye seemed to spark in the dim light and highlight the peeling patch of scar tissue under it, completely overshadowing his other facial features. Part of me wondered what had happened to him. The other part was wary. Something about this guy made me really uncomfortable.
As the minutes passed, he kept glancing my way and fidgeting, getting more and more agitated.
“Don’t be stupid,” the woman hissed at him suddenly, glancing at me and back to glare at him even though he hadn’t said anything. His growing agitation was beginning to draw attention, and not only mine. Other people seemed to take notice of them and were now looking warily back and forth across the room between the man, woman, and me. The old woman next to me opened her eyes, not napping after all, and leaned close.
“That Anakharu over there seems to have taken a shine to you,” she said. I glanced over at the strange young man she was talking about before shaking my head at her. He wasn’t even pretending not to stare at me now. Ru-ude.
“Anakharu?” I asked. That was the word I’d heard on my first patrol. So, this was one of the Afflicted. The old woman’s eyes took in my hair and she sighed as if in res
ignation.
“You must be the new Katje girl,” she observed but didn’t wait for me to confirm. “Anakharu: bloodsucker,” she translated. I looked over again, reflexively, and spotted sharp, yellowed teeth peeking out over his lower lip. Fangs. The man had fangs.
“But I thought the Afflicted weren’t dangerous,” I said.
“They are to Brown-Hairs,” she replied, looking at my hair again. “Why do you think they’re not allowed in Glass City? Well, where’s your weapon, girl?” the old woman asked, looking down at my belt. I shook my head, fear setting in. I hadn’t brought my scy on the supplies run today. What did she mean, bloodsucker? Like a vampire?
She huffed in annoyance. “You’d best run then. Now.” She stood and drew a short knife from her belt, as did another observant old woman. The door was between me and the vampire, so I dove through the service counter window, my legs getting caught in the wide fishnet lights. I freed myself as I ran, hopping and stumbling to pull one leg up and through, and then the other before slinging the lights to the side onto the cracked soil.
I looked back to see the vampire shove the old women aside as if they, with their years of fighting experience, were nothing, and barrel out after me. I didn’t know if that was a mark of the vampire’s super-human strength or the women’s super-old age, but fear made me run faster, ignoring my panting and concentrating on getting back to the safety of the cargo plane. I sprinted down the dusty road and through the dry weeds leading around the back of the large makeshift warehouse. He was fast, gaining on me, spitting and snarling.
“Ahhhhhh!” I screamed in the high-pitched voice that I was trying not to use here. “Vampire!” I rounded the corner and saw the chain-link fence blocking my way. My mother and cousins were in the jet or the warehouse on the other side of that fence. I had to get out!
There wasn’t time to go around to the warehouse gate; the vampire was close on my heels. I leapt at the fence and threw myself up the chain-link, barely avoiding his reaching grasp. Thank goodness it wasn’t razor-wired at the top as they sometimes were back home. As I reached the top and easily swung my body over, my cousins came out of the plane, scys drawn, having heard my screams.
The Faarian Chronicles: Exile Page 18