by Selena Kitt
Aside from the eggs, Loki had nothing to say to her and K said nothing to him either. She understood why the man hated her though it still seemed that he was carrying the emotion to the extreme. Still, one couldn’t expect an Erian to be rational. (She still didn’t think of herself as such although she had accepted that she had at least some Erian DNA.)
Regarding Loki, K decided it was better to maintain silence than get into a “pissing match” as Boone called it. She often wondered, though, if the flamboyant Erian really did know something about her biology that might impact her in the future. If so, he would probably rather die than tell her and since K would rather die than ask, they didn’t talk at all.
After breakfast she and Boone would spend some time in his quarters because by then, K generally needed to be touched again. Her need to be contaminated—to feel his skin against hers—continued to irritate her but there was nothing she could do about it. Since she refused to tell him when the touch-cravings were coming on, Boone made a point of spending at least fifteen minutes every hour or so holding her or making some kind of skin-to-skin contact. At K’s insistence they tried simply holding hands or having his hand on her arm but it wasn’t enough. Eventually they worked out that if Boone took off his shirt and she took off hers and sat in his lap with her back to his chest, they made enough contact to back off her cravings.
During what Boone called their “time-outs” K felt small and helpless. She who had once been so strong and self-sufficient was now flawed and weak. She needed Boone’s touch like a drug and if she didn’t get it she went into withdrawal. It made her despise herself—especially when she found she was looking forward to sitting in his lap rather than dreading it.
Boone was the enemy—the man who had ruined her life and condemned her to death—if she could ever find her suit and purge herself. But somehow K forgot that when she was leaning back against him and listening to him murmur something inconsequential and charming in her ear in that deep, drawling voice of his. Her new feelings made her angry at herself and then she felt guilty for being angry and having any emotions at all. It seemed to be an unbreakable cycle and Boone had started it but somehow she couldn’t hate him like she should.
Possibly the source of her traitorous emotions was the fact that Boone was the only reason she found the position she was in even remotely bearable. Despite the fact that the time-outs interrupted his schedule on an almost hourly basis, he was never impatient or angry with her. Though she sometimes sensed his frustration when she was being stubborn, he never raised his voice or lost his temper. Not that she would have cared if he had, K told herself. Emotions meant nothing to her. Just because she was having more and more of them didn’t mean she had to give in to what she was feeling. Still, she couldn’t help the relief that washed over her when Boone cradled her in his arms and drove away the pain of the touch-cravings or the sadness she felt when she thought of her lost way of life.
She could never go back to Athena now, never fulfill the plans that the High Sentinel had made for her. Her squad was gone and so was her reason for living. So why was her determination to purge herself wavering? K told herself it wasn’t true—that the minute she found where Boone had hidden her suit she would kill first him and then herself. But as the days passed it became harder and harder to picture actually doing it. She never had enough time away from Boone to search for the skinsuit anyway. They were, as he had warned, “joined at the hip,” and constantly around each other.
She spent the time-outs in Boone’s lap either reading while Boone looked over his notes, talking with him, or giving him what he called “book reports” of the various Old Earth titles she was working her way through. Despite never having read for enjoyment before, K was a fast reader and she had the added incentive of getting several hours of exercise for every book she finished. Consequently, she tended to look for the shorter ones so that she could be sure of getting a work out between breakfast and lunch and again between lunch and supper.
Boone hadn’t been able to fix the grav controls in the gym but K didn’t mind. She worked with lighter weights to compensate for the extra g-forces and felt that she was getting the best work out of her life. Boone had watched her anxiously for a while and then finally accepted that she was all right. The wound on her inner thigh was healing nicely and according to him, the stitches would soon melt away on their own, becoming part of the flesh they had helped knit together. K looked forward to that day. In her mind, the stitches were an obvious outward reminder of her contamination. If they hadn’t been there she might have been able to pretend, at least to herself, that everything was normal. But the straight black ladder marching up the inside of her thigh said it wasn’t so. Said that nothing in her life was normal and it never would be again.
Between reading, trying new foods, and working out with Boone, K found that her days were fuller than she could have ever supposed. At night she and Boone lay in the darkness and talked. He told her tales of his life on Colossus and asked questions about her childhood and her everyday life on Athena. K was reluctant to share, however. Boone was still the enemy and giving him information, no matter how inconsequential, went against all her training.
The stories he told her only made her realize how completely different their two peoples were. He had been born to parents, not pulled from an artificial womb. He had lived with a small family unit that showed emotion and shared affection freely, not raised by soulless mechanoids in a barracks with others he could not touch. The differences in their past made K understand that her way of life was just as strange to him as his was strange to her. But she sometimes wondered how anyone could have a more outlandish existence than the one she was currently experiencing.
There was no suit to jab her awake in the morning or drug her to sleep at night, no squad to lead, no superiors to report to, and no prisoners to collect and take to the mines. There was nothing day in and day out, but Boone, the warm prison of his arms, and his soft, drawling voice in her ear. Sometimes it seemed like a dream but other times K had to face the fact that this was her new reality—and she wasn’t finding it nearly as horrible or horrifying as she ought to.
It was on the third or fourth day when she woke up that K smelled something strange. She briefly remembered smelling it the night before as she was drifting to sleep in Boone’s arms but it was especially strong when she opened her eyes.
“What is that?” She shrugged off Boone’s heavy bicep and sat up, turning her head from side to side and searching for the source of the scent. She felt restless and still tired—she hadn’t slept well the night before. Her scalp had been itching for some reason and she hadn’t been able to get comfortable. “What is it?” she said again.
“What’s what, darlin’?” Boone asked groggily. He wasn’t much of a “morning person” as he called it and K had to admit that it was nice most mornings to lie beside him and take her time stretching and yawning before getting off of the sleeping platform. She had never experienced a leisurely waking up period before since her suit had always jabbed her awake. Now she found she rather liked the drowsy drift from sleep to wakefulness. But today the strange scent wouldn’t let her sleep in.
“That smell.” K looked around, still sniffing. “Musky... slightly sour. Very unpleasant.”
“Oh yeah?” Boone said neutrally, sitting up in bed. He was suddenly looking much more awake.
“Yes, and I really don’t—Purity, it’s coming from me.” K lifted her arm, took another whiff and frowned. “I stink.”
“Well...” Boone looked like he wanted to laugh but didn’t quite dare. “I wouldn’t say you stink exactly but you are a little ripe. That’s kind of what happens over time if you don’t take a shower, darlin’.”
“This is because I refused to endure a shower? Is it some kind of punishment?” K demanded.
Boone held up both his hands in a “don’t shoot” gesture. “Not one I’m inflicting on you.”
“My scalp is itchy too.”
&
nbsp; “Well, you probably need to wash your hair.” Boone frowned. “That’s gonna be a job and a half since it’s so long. How do you usually manage it?”
K frowned. “I don’t—my suit does.”
A look of understanding broke over his face. “Your suit cleaned you? All this time, since you were nine cycles old?”
“Of course. I didn’t even think of it before, it’s been so long. But now that you’ve taken it away, I suppose I’ll have to endure a shower.” She took a deep breath, trying to brace herself. “All right. Let’s get it over with.”
Boone shook his head. “Don’t know what kind of showers you guys have on Athena but I don’t think you’re going to find it’s all that bad. Hang on, though, while I get some things together.”
He left his quarters and when he returned he was holding four small, round spheres cupped carefully in his big palm.
“What are those?” K eyed them mistrustfully.
“Hair care stuff—got it from Mom. Loki actually has a better selection but I wasn’t about to ask him. Here.” He handed her the spheres. “Mom says use the two blue ones on your hair first—they’re shampoo. Then use the purple ones to make it soft and shiny.”
K frowned at the small round balls in her hands. “Are they some kind of nano-bots? How can they accomplish all that?”
Boone laughed as though a shower was no big deal. “No, darlin’—it’s the liquid inside that does the work. Just pop them over your head and then lather, rinse, repeat.”
“What?” K frowned at him—he wasn’t making any sense. Also, fear she didn’t want to feel was beginning to crawl down her throat. It’s all right, she tried to tell herself. Surely it can’t be as bad as you remember. At least you don’t have non-con bracelets on this time. Besides, Boone endures it every day and he’s no worse for the wear. Well, that was true at least. She swallowed hard. “Let’s go.”
“You know where the fresher is.” But Boone came with her anyway. They crowded into the small room together and he nodded at the dreaded stall. “Just step in there and the water will come down.”
“Yes, of course,” K heard herself say. She shrugged out of his shirt—a thin synthi-cotton one that had skinny shoulder straps and left most of her back bare for maximum skin contact while they slept—and stood naked, trying to calm herself. She didn’t care if Boone saw her—he saw her all the time and anyway, there was nothing to see. Her body was still warrior fit, if slightly more sensitive in some areas than it had been before. K didn’t know the reason for the increased sensitivity but that wasn’t what was worrying her at the moment.
Boone nodded at the soap spheres he’d handed her. “Go ahead, darlin’.”
“Yes, I will. I’m going in right now.” Yet she remained frozen in place, memories washing over her.
Shower day. The mechanoids come early. Round black metal spheres floating in midair, red lights blinking, shock arms extended to herd you, to force you where they want you to go.
The huge gray room. The stinging icy spray comes down from the ceiling. The water is laced with disinfectants and anti-bac agents that burn your eyes and throat. The other children in your birthgroup are crying, begging. Trying to huddle together but the non-con bracelets put a stop to that, don’t they? No touching allowed—ever. Shrieks and screams and cries, the burning pain of the steel-bristled scrubbers rubbing your skin raw. Arcing shocks run through the group like chain lightning, conducted by the freezing water as the non-cons send out painful proximity warnings...
Purity, but the memory was still so real. K could even hear the flat metallic voices of the mechanoids blaring above the frightened wailing, echoing over and over in her head. “Remain motionless during the shower cycle. Do not attempt to make contact with those to either side of you. Remain motionless during the...”
“No!” It wasn’t until she saw the strange look on Boone’s face that K realized she’d spoken aloud.
“Something wrong, darlin’?” he asked carefully.
“Nothing. Just... thinking.” Squaring her shoulders, K took a step toward the shower stall. It really wasn’t so bad—nothing like the huge gray room of her memories. She tried to brace herself for the icy blast, tried to remember that she was no longer a frightened child but a fourth level Paladin. I fear nothing, I feel nothing. I fear nothing, I feel nothing. I fear nothing, I—
“Stop.” Boone took her arm the second before she stepped into the shower. “K...” He turned her to face him. “K, what is it, darlin’?”
“What is what?” she somehow managed to answer though her throat was so tight she could hardly breathe.
“That look on your face. It’s like you’re about to step in front of a death squad.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. My emotions do not control me, even if I can’t help having them. Now if you don’t mind, I need to do this.”
“Like hell you do,” Boone said roughly. “I don’t know why but this scares you to death. What are you afraid of?”
K’s lips worked for a moment before she could get the words to come out. “Nothing. I fear nothing, I feel nothing.”
Boone shook his head. “That’s not true and you know it. Come on.” He started to pull her out of the fresher but K resisted.
“Let me go—I have to do this. I’ve been a coward long enough.” Boone started to protest again but she shook her head. “Boone, I am going to do this. No matter how... distasteful I find it. If this is the only way to clean myself without my suit, then I must do it.”
“All right then.” He nodded decisively. “I’m going with you.”
“There’s barely room in the stall for one and you’re so big,” K protested. But inside she could feel something that had tightened until it nearly choked her beginning to loosen. If Boone was with her, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Neither of them wore non-cons. They couldn’t be shocked just for touching so maybe...
“I know it’ll be a tight squeeze but that’s too damn bad. Anything that scares you this much, you shouldn’t have to face alone.”
“I’m not scared,” K protested but her voice wavered unconvincingly.
“Sure you are, darlin’.” He was already stripping. “Here, I’ll leave my shorts on like I do when we sleep—that work for you?”
“If you like.” K tried to shrug noncommittally though her heart was pounding.
“I like,” Boone said grimly. “And I’m going first to show you there’s nothing to be afraid of. Unbraid your hair and follow me when you feel ready.”
He stepped into the tiny stall, wearing only the thin, brief black shorts he always wore beneath his flight pants. Immediately the ceiling above the stall began to stream water. K watched him uncertainly, her fingers busy with her long braid. He didn’t seem to be in pain and, as yet, no hard scrubbing arms had emerged from the walls of the stall to scour him raw with steel bristles. But maybe they were waiting until she entered to activate.
“Come on in, the water’s fine.” Boone’s dark eyelashes were matted with water, his light-on-white eyes the same color as the ocean she’d seen in the vid of Earth-that-was so many cycles ago.
“I’m coming.” Bracing herself for an icy blast, K stepped into the stall and found... “The water’s warm!” She looked up at Boone in disbelief. “It’s not cold and it doesn’t sting.”
He gave her a disbelieving look. “Of course not. Why the hell would I want to take a freezing cold shower?”
“The scrubbers...” She looked around uncertainly. “Where are they?”
“Here and here.” Boone lifted his hands.
“What? Boone, be serious.” K frowned and examined the walls, looking for the slits where the long, thin metal arms would emerge.
“I am serious, darlin’. If you’re looking for some kind of luxury attachment that gives you a massage while you shower, then I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed. This is a strictly no-frills operation we’re running here.”
K could scarcely believe it. �
��You mean... you’re supposed to scrub yourself?”
“That’s how it’s usually done. Here.” Boone handed her a large, puffy synthi-sponge that was already beginning to produce a sweet smelling foam. “You want me to do your hair while you do the, uh... the rest?”
Too overcome with relief to speak any more, K simply nodded.
“Okay.” He pried the soap spheres from her fingers. K had been clutching them so tightly they had begun to leak their contents onto her palm but there seemed to be enough left to do what was necessary. Muttering something about the fact that she had enough hair to clog a black hole, Boone squeezed the viscous liquid over her head and began to wash.
Despite his grumbling, his touch was gentle and thorough. Soon K found she was relaxing more and more as he massaged the hair soap into her scalp. She rubbed her body with the synthi-sponge, almost in a daze. Part of her still expected to feel the sharp agony of an electrical proximity warning or hear the frightened wailing of children in pain but the longer nothing happened, the less that part of her seemed to matter.