by Astrid Amara
With his back turned, I finished my business faster than with an audience. But it was a miserable experience.
Once I finished, I moved to Mack. He held out his arm, and, reluctantly, I stepped into his embrace. Despite the pain of the wind, he stayed there, arm tightening around me. Alarm flooded me, but I tempered it.
“Mack?” I whispered.
“Yeah?”
“Did you get the powder out of the dispersal system?”
He frowned. “I did, as a matter of fact.”
I don’t think I’d ever felt such relief, such unadulterated anticipation in my life. I smiled, my first genuine smile in ages.
“Thank you. Thank you!”
He wasn’t smiling back though. He reached into one of the many pockets on his vest and pulled out a small plastic baggy with a good quarter cup of white powder nestled at the bottom of it.
I stared, my mouth watering in anticipation. Oh yes. Finally. Relief.
Mack unzipped the baggie and turned it inside out. The white powder flew off into the wind.
“No!” I bellowed, lunging toward him. To stop him, to hit him, I wasn’t sure. I wrenched the baggie out of his hand, but the powder had blown away. I ran my finger around the plastic, and sucked on my digit. A lingering sour taste remained, but none of the flood of joy. I fell to my knees, fingers running through the yellow sand in the hopes I could somehow strain out the rock and sand and find the Peak scattered among it.
When I realized there was no chance of that, I hurled myself at Mack, intent on killing him. I didn’t care about the repository anymore, or my failed mission. This bastard just ruined any chance I had at happiness, and I wanted to crush him.
I was unarmed, but I had an enhanced left hand. I withdrew the scalpel from the tip of my left middle finger and stabbed at Mack, aiming for his throat.
His large arm blocked my thrust and the blade sank into his forearm. He shoved me back, hard. “Stop!” he gasped. “I did it for your own good! You’re past the worst of the withdrawal side effects. Why make yourself go through all this agony a second time?”
I tried to get on top of him to stab him again, or strangle him. I was stronger, but I was also sick and fueled by pure rage, no thought. I ripped the mask off his face. He gripped me and rolled me over into the sand. I hit out at him blindly and made contact somewhere that got him to groan in pain and back off slightly. I grabbed a handful of sand and threw it into his eyes. He turned away, hands coming up.
I barreled into him again. I struck at his sides, his face, at any part I could reach. My own mask came off, but I didn’t care. I yelled now, shrieking curses, spittle flying from my mouth as I unleashed all of my fury.
But my body hurt too much to continue for long. Each strike sent a shock of pain down my arm from my broken thumb. Nausea welled and claimed all of my concentration. I considered simply vomiting all over the fucker, but I wasn’t even coordinated enough to pull that off. I fought him until I sobbed, and then I simply lay there, sand filling my ears, my nose, gritty particles burning under my eyelids. I shook and spit out sand, wanting very much to die.
A few more minutes passed. I heard Mack groan as he moved closer. He wrenched me up onto my knees, and not gently.
“Get inside,” he growled, all the compassion in his voice gone. I must have beaten it out of him. Finally, he was angry.
But I was too tired to feel any sense of triumph. I stumbled alongside him and breathed deeply the clean air of the tempcamp.
I glanced over at my companion. His face showed the brunt of my rage, and he looked pissed. He clutched at his bleeding arm. “Drink something. Eat. Then take a fucking nap,” he ordered. He stomped over to the medical kit.
I almost didn’t do any of those things to spite him. But my energy was gone, and my joints ached. As I retracted my scalpel, I noticed my hands shook badly. No wonder I couldn’t stab shit. I grabbed a water pouch and ration bar from the counter, then returned to my own cot, across the room from him.
I managed to keep the ration bar down this time and drifted back to sleep.
* * * *
When I woke again to piss, I felt more clear-headed, though weak and shaky. The storm had lessened, and it was daylight. Mack stared out the hazy plastic window of the tempcamp. He wouldn’t look at me.
“You strong enough to sit upright in the buggy?”
“Yes.” I wondered what my Security Director thought of my extended absence. Once I explained to him that I’d been suffering withdrawal, I assumed it would work out. That said, the idea of trouble with my handler made me feel sick to my stomach. And motivated to ignore this sickness and move out. “Let’s go.”
The storm had subsided, but visibility was still only about ten feet. Mack didn’t speak to me in the buggy. And, I hated to admit it, this was a little disappointing. I’d gotten used to his mindless chatter in a way I thought I never would. The monotonous landscape passed by even more slowly without at least a one-sided conversation to pass the time.
Mack’s face was bruised from our fight the day before. His nose was swollen; he had an angry mark on his right cheek, and his lip was cut and puffy from the punch I’d given him days before.
He glared at me. I felt a strange desire to apologize.
He shoved over a strawberry ration bar. “Eat.”
My stomach churned at the prospect, and I shook my head.
“You have to,” Mack said. “You’re not going to get rid of those shakes without some food inside you.”
I forced myself to chew and swallow small bites of the bar. I was ravenously hungry, but withdrawal churned my stomach, and it took all my effort to keep from throwing the bar right back up.
We only made it a few more miles before the storm picked up again and blocked all our abilities to navigate. Even Mack found the pace annoying now, I could tell. He kept shaking his head.
“You have a deadline?” I asked, breaking the icy silence.
“None of your business,” he snapped. So I guess the truce between us was over.
I shrugged. “No, it isn’t. You’re fucked in any case. If you think Trust isn’t scouring the biodomes to find your compatriots, you’re mistaken.”
“Of course they’re looking,” Mack said, sounding unsurprised. “But we’ve been fighting them a long time. We know what we’re doing.”
“Why fight Trust?” I asked. “Why not the corporations that took over the small farms?”
Mack looked at me then, eyebrow raised. “Seriously? Do you not know what Trust does?”
“They’re an insurance company.”
“Yeah. And they insure those corporations. Which means they support the efforts to crush any resistance to those companies that hire Trust. The corporations are the clients, but Trust Insurance is the one with the supersoldiers and the power to keep the war raging.” He stopped the buggy, glancing around. “Shit. We have to camp again.”
We didn’t speak as we set up the tempcamp. But as we waited for it to inflate, Mack asked, “Weren’t you aware of who you fought against? Who your targets were?”
I thought back on my targets. A sharp electric shock of pain filled my head, and I whimpered slightly.
Mack watched me, saying nothing. He started bringing in the supplies, ignoring me.
“I can help,” I offered.
Mack shrugged. “Suit yourself, killer.”
My hands trembled as I picked the lightest of the supply cartons, but I tried to participate.
Something about Mack’s sullen quiet left me queasy. He’s never this quiet. “Mack?”
“What.”
“Sorry I hit you,” I said, not looking at him. I lifted another supply box and grunted as I hefted it against my chest.
Mack shook his head. “Hit me? You also stabbed me, you asshole. You’ve been an unpleasant and violent fucker since we met again.”
“I know.” I shrugged. “I was angry.”
“If I didn’t have such fond memories of you, I’d have skew
ered you last night while you were puking your guts and crying.”
“I wasn’t crying,” I complained.
He took the box I carried from me. “Give me that. You look like you’re going to pitch forward.” I noticed his expression softened, however, and relief filled me. He’s forgiven me, I thought, although I had no idea why I thought that, or even really cared.
Mack led the way inside and dropped the box onto one of the inflatable counters. “You know, there are rudimentary ingredients in this box. I could cook us something. But only if you think you can keep your food down. Not worth the effort otherwise.”
I took stock of my body. “I can keep it down.”
“Good.” He stretched, then made a face. “God, I stink.” He shuffled over to the container with spare clothes. He hunted through the standard provisions of hydromesh fabric shirts and trousers, stretchy enough to fit any body.
He caught me staring as he undressed. Through the misery of my illness, I felt the stirring of interest in my groin. I was surprised—on Peak, sexual pleasure was nothing compared to the euphoria of the high. I realized this was the first time I’d been so low on Peak that I could feel arousal.
“See something you like?” he asked, the corner of his mouth curling up.
I sniffed and turned away. I grabbed my blankets and tossed them on the nearest cot. “How far are we from our destination?” I asked.
“Less than an hour, if the weather cooperates.” Mack finished dressing and looked even more attractive. The one-size-fits-all fabric had a tendency to highlight all the good and bad parts of a person’s body. In Mack’s case, it was all good. His thighs looked enormous in the clingy fabric. His chest was wide, and the tight black made his arms look long. He glanced back at me, blue eyes bright, and I swallowed.
“Until then…want a burger?”
I started salivating. “Yeah.”
He turned his attention to the plastic box full of cooking utensils.
I watched him as he whistled, chatted to himself, and prepared dinner. I found myself greatly relieved that he was talking to me again and back to his chipper self. I wasn’t sure why his emotional state mattered, other than it made it easier to spend time with him.
And there was something so familiar about his movements—the way he moved through every space as if he commanded it, as if it were home. He blended in everywhere. He seemed as equally relaxed here as he had been comfortable in the buggy.
“Aren’t the rest of your team worried about you by now?” I asked.
Mack stopped whistling. “Nah.” He opened a bottle of something, sniffed it, winced, and put it back. “We’re a pretty independent team.”
“What are you supposed to do with the repository?”
“I can’t give away that kind of information for free,” he said. He turned and winked at me. “Maybe for a blowjob though.”
I flipped him the finger, although the idea didn’t sound nearly as bad as it could have been from someone else. Or from a week before.
Now that I had started thinking about sex, I found it hard to concentrate on anything else. My body still ached, but as the headache and confusion faded, more and more of my consciousness focused on physical needs—food, sex, water, sex.
“Did we…” I wasn’t sure how to phrase my question. I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer.
He was familiar. So I had known him before. Before what? I asked myself. I had huge gaps in my memory. And while the pain in my head wasn’t as sharp as it had been before, it still hurt—physically hurt my head—to think back, think on my past.
I wondered what I looked like. I realized I hadn’t looked at myself in… I couldn’t even remember when I’d last looked in a mirror.
I glanced down at the armor on my body. I didn’t bathe often, and I knew that once I stripped off the smell-absorbing layers of clothing, I would likely reek. The tempcamp had a shower stall, but it needed a water source, and with only a week’s worth of water left, it wasn’t worth wasting for a clean, fresh scent.
My hands trembled. My left wrist ached where bone met metal. My right thumb hurt incessantly. Even the simple effort of arranging the supply boxes left me sweating again, exhausted from this simple effort.
Clearly I was still recuperating.
“You look deep in thought,” Mack commented from across the tent.
“Where’s the gun?” I asked.
“I got rid of it.”
“Bullshit,” I said. I had a sense that Mack wasn’t the kind of person who’d throw away the only weapon we had. But there weren’t an overwhelming number of locations for him to hide it, so I could find it, once he slept.
He went back to his meal preparations.
“You say you saw me fall,” I said, surprising myself with the statement.
Mack’s back stiffened. He didn’t turn around. “Yes.” His voice cracked a bit on that.
“What happened after?”
“You…you were dead. By the time our sergeant got backup to you, you were cold. Your back was broken, and your chest was full of shrapnel shards.” He spoke slowly, carefully, as if the words themselves had barbs.
“So how can I be here?” I asked.
“I don’t know, cowboy. I really don’t.”
I had a recollection of plummeting. But that could have been from a recent mission.
But even my missions were vague and undefined in my mind. My head started hurting again, so I gave up on trying to figure out the past. Instead I walked over to our dwindling supply of water pouches, grabbed one for myself, and handed one to Mack.
“Thanks.” He flashed me a smile, which looked terrible given his bruised face. I had a flutter of shame through me—I did that—and then it was gone again. But how strange to feel anything beyond rage and drugged bliss.
My head pounded, so I went back to my cot and lay down. I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew Mack was gently shaking my shoulder and telling me dinner was ready.
I felt famished. We sat on the plastic inflated bench that ran along the counter, near the clear panel on the wall between the cots, where we could see hazy images of the storm outside.
“It’s pretty rudimentary,” Mack explained, looking almost embarrassed as he handed over a degradable plate. “I didn’t have a lot to work with, but it’ll beat the pants off another fucking ration bar.”
The smell of the cooked soy burger, the greasy oil soaking into the soft rehydrated patty, the seasoning, it all made my mouth fill with saliva. I took a bite, then groaned aloud.
Mack laughed at that. “Okay then?”
“Damn it,” I said, chewing with relish. “I think this is the best-tasting meal I’ve ever had.”
“Now I know for a fact it isn’t,” Mack corrected. Still, he looked pleased. His cheeks had flushed a little red, and his eyes sparkled. “But the compliment is appreciated all the same.”
I ate quickly, unable to stop myself. Within only a few bites, the meal was gone, and an aching sadness took its place. I wanted so much more than that simple burger. I wanted a dozen more.
“I didn’t realize how hungry I was,” I commented.
“Well, you haven’t been eating for over half a week and tossing up everything you swallowed. You’re probably dehydrated as well.” He pushed over another water pouch. “Drink this.”
“That’s yours.”
“I can get another.”
“We’re low.”
He smirked. “Not low enough that we can’t quench our thirst. Besides, I’m fine. I can do with less. I haven’t been up chucking for four days.”
I drank down the water, thinking about that burger. I even eyed the remains of Mack’s own meal, hoping he wouldn’t finish it.
But he did. I couldn’t blame him—he’d been on ration bars for the better part of a week as well and seemed equally hungry for hot, greasy food.
“What did you eat before?” Mack asked me. “Is there a mess hall where you work, or do you simply get nutr
ients injected into you or something?”
I snorted. “I’m not a machine.” At Mack’s raised eyebrow, I added, “I’ve got machine parts, but I’m a human.”
“So what did you eat?”
I thought hard. “I don’t… I don’t remember.” I rubbed at my temples.
Mack sighed. “Don’t worry about it. It’ll come back.”
“What if it doesn’t?” I asked him, suddenly worried. “What if all I can remember now is all I have? What if Peak erased everything?”
“If what erased everything?”
“Peak. It’s…it’s our reward.”
Mack scowled. “You mean drug.”
I shrugged. “You say tomato.”
Mack smiled at that. “Ha! I taught you that saying. That was a long time ago. My mother used to know this song about tomatoes and potatoes. She sang it to me when I had a hard time sleeping.”
My brain felt tired thinking about words. Tomato, potato. Mother. Mack.
He watched me as I scowled. He leaned back, an unreadable expression on his face. “In pain?”
“Head hurts still.”
He stood and cleared the plates from the table, dumping them in the incinerator. I swiveled to sit on the bench and watch him. I realized I liked watching him move. It was something to think about that didn’t exacerbate my head.
He approached me warily, and I couldn’t blame him. The marks of my hits on his face had gone yellow.
“I have a great way to help your headache, if you’ll let me.” He looked a little nervous.
I stared at him, wondering what he had in mind. The last time he’d helped my headache, it had made a huge difference.
And by now, he could have overpowered me, taken the buggy, and left me in the dunes. He hadn’t. So I decided to trust him. A little.
I nodded. He moved toward me slowly, hands out, as if approaching an angry animal. I tensed as he approached. He stood over me for a moment, and my hands formed fists.
Then he dropped to his knees between my legs, and my breath left me in a gasp of surprise. I watched, unbelieving, as he reached forward ever so slowly and worked the strap of my polymesh trousers.
It was always a struggle, and he flushed with embarrassment as he fought the pants. “Goddamn armor!” he cursed, and despite myself I laughed. I reached down and helped him get the pants open, lifting my ass off the bench long enough to pull the polymesh down to my knees.