That evening we sit on a double-shaper in the RR, his arm slung loosely round my shoulders. ‘Online computer games teach us how to use our initiative in battle. They also sharpen our senses and train us to react quickly and accurately. Vital skills for a warrior.’
I haven’t got the right mindset for these war games. Osiris has. He’s totally smart, totally savvy and I love the way he talks, just like Hugh Grant – upper class, precise. I raise my mooneyes up to his. He suggests that tomorrow I come to see him practise his fencing skills. I can’t wait.
The next morning in the histo-lab I apply gold varnish to my fifteen nails and spray my face gold.
‘How fantastic is that?’ I give Ody a twirl.
He beams and tells Brahmin, ‘Isis is an artist in her own right.’
Brahmin raises a weary eyebrow. He mutters something about women and war paint. I don’t care. My body art is not designed to impress him.
Odysseus has found a chest full of clothes and material and calls me over to pick out a robe to go with my make-up. We discover a swathe of embossed gold silk, which he drapes over one of my shoulders and attempts to hold in place with a huge gold brooch he finds in a box full of ancient jewellery. The silky material keeps slipping and his hand shakes as he fumbles to fasten it. His trembling fingers rest a moment too long on the skin of my shoulder. He always tells me I’m the daughter he never had, but maybe I was right after all when I believed he’d sacked Heracles because he fancied me himself. That would be like incest, wouldn’t it? You never know what’s going on in the minds of old men. Or in their pants.
‘There. Let’s look at you.’ He stands back and gazes at my transformation, his hand still shaky.
The two old men circle me, adjusting a fold here, adding another pin there. God, is this what it’s come to? Being dressed by two olds? As long as they don’t undress me – that would be gross.
Osiris does not disappoint with his reaction. ‘You look lovely,’ he says, and holds me at arm’s length to study me. ‘A true daughter of Durga, my golden princess.’
The way he talks is a bit old-fashioned. He sounds as if he’s been to one of those posh private schools I’ve seen in filmo-series but, like me, he hasn’t been to school. The compounds don’t do schools. I like the way he speaks, especially the way he says “my golden princess.” Makes me feel special.
He invites me to sit on a gold-framed chair that, in my eyes at least, resembles a throne. I spread out my golden robe, ready to watch him practise fencing. How fab is this? To sit here, decked out like a princess, looking at the sleek body of this young humanoid stretched out revealing the shape of the muscles in his legs, one bent forward, one back at a right angle. His left arm is bent at the elbow and points at the roof. His right holds the foil and lunges forward to attack his enemy, another young warrior. A few thrusts and the tip of the foil lands on the other’s chest.
‘A hit, a veritable hit,’ Osiris cries. ‘Seems you’re dead, man. Be a good sport and lie down.’ Off he strides, well chuffed.
His opponent laughs, turns to me and introduces himself. ‘I’m Indra the Destroyer,’ he says, ‘and I’m about to get my revenge on Dionysus. Watch this.’
I glare at him, my eyeballs two white pebbles.
Osiris takes up his stance again. The two warriors parry and feint for a while – I think those are the right terms. Indra takes the attacking position. Osiris, in defence, shunts backwards. Indra’s foil catches the light and ‘Gotcha!’ Indra shouts, and looks at me for approval. He’s too cocky for my liking. I look down at my nails as if this play-fight means nothing to me.
Osiris plays dead for a moment, springs up and assumes the fencing posture again, rear leg bent to balance himself, left arm bent upwards at right angles, his sword arm and right leg focused on Indra, determined to make the next hit, which he manages with no problem at all. All these hits count towards their personal targets. Both warriors are very competitive and, as far as I can make out, well matched. Osiris has three eyes, Indra four, two on each of his heads. I tense every muscle in my body, willing Osiris to win.
A tinge of fear. Is Durga training these young men for a real battle, to use real weapons, to kill and be killed? If there is a war, will Osiris leave here, never to return? I tell myself I’m being melodramatic, but the fear is real enough. I shiver and decide it’s time to go back to the histo-lab before I make a fool of myself and start blubbing.
Chapter Ten
A prayer for Osiris
(according to Isis)
Durga sends an inter-com message saying Odysseus and Brahmin should work together, not bicker about who is in charge. They should use their talents and sharpen their intellects to work as a team and plan for the future success of the museum. Neither of them is pleased by this compromise. Brahmin grumbles about sharing his power with this “new broom” and Ody complains that Ra has gone back on his word. Neither is able to change the situation and they still engage in heated disputes as to how the artefacts should be displayed or what cataloguing system to use. Odysseus cheers up a bit when another message from Durga arrives, telling them that some new additions will soon arrive to increase the stock of the museum.
‘No details at the moment,’ says her inter-com-mail, ‘but some long-lost assets are in the process of being retrieved and they will embellish our museum in ways beyond your imagination.’
Odysseus is thrilled by the thought of getting his hands on more useless old objects and hums as he works. Excruciatingly gross. Both men speculate as to what these assets could be and where they are coming from. They manage to disagree about that too. They go on and on, arguing, day after day. Honestly. As if anyone cares. It’s so boring I want to scream. I let them get on with it and escape whenever I can to see Osiris.
We have begun to tell each other our life stories, Osiris and I. Not much to tell in my case. I know I wasn’t born in Compound 55 but I’ve spent most of my life there. Boring. Much better here in C98.
‘I lived in another compound first,’ I tell Osiris. ‘Can’t remember which one. They transferred me to C55 when my mother died. Don’t remember much about her either. I guess I tried to forget her.’
Osiris sits next to me on a double shaper, his arm slung loosely along the back, almost touching my shoulder. ‘You must remember your mother.’
I screw up my face in an effort to recall what she looked like. ‘Not really. Sometimes in a dream I see her. And smell her. I know it sounds funny but she always smelt – warm.’ I shake my head. ‘It’s all a long time ago. I try not to think about that time.’
His hand brushes my shoulder. ‘Must have been terrible to lose your mother. Painful.’
I don’t move an inch, waiting for his hand to touch my shoulder again.
He thinks for a moment and then says, ‘They might have injected you with a serum to make you forget.’
That has never occurred to me. ‘Who are “they”?’
‘The ones who put us in the compounds.’
I frown. I don’t want to show my ignorance so I don’t ask him what he means.
The story Osiris tells me about himself is rather different. His mother came to C98 when she was pregnant and he was born here.
‘Our mothers must have been some of the last females to give birth,’ Isis says.
‘You’re right. As far as I know, no more children have been born since that time. Certainly not in this sectoid.’
‘Nor in ours, C55. There was only ever me and Mercury. A pity there were no more babies. When I see kids on the auto-put, I always think they look so cute. They have their own little personalities and the little ones are so cuddly. I saw this family on the auto-put once, sick of the plague. Terrible it was. I’m not sure if it was real or a drama series. There was a tiny baby who wouldn’t stop crying. I wanted to hold him, comfort him. He died the day he was born. I couldn’t believe it. I wept buckets. If he’d been mine I’d have made sure he didn’t die.’
‘Perhaps you couldn’t have
prevented it.’
‘I’d have tried harder than she did. His mother didn’t seem to care. She kept flinching every time he cried, put him down on the ground instead of rocking him.’
‘You’d be a good mother. I can see that.’ Osiris looks away, embarrassed.
What am I doing sharing my crazy dreams about having a baby with this handsome young warrior? It’ll put him off me for sure. I must pull myself together. I decide to change the subject. ‘Will I meet your mother?’
‘Not very likely, I’m afraid. She was sent to another compound when I started my training. To be a warrior you have to be absolutely dedicated. A mother is considered a distraction.’
‘What a dreadful thing to do. To separate you.’ I think about what he’s said. ‘Are you dedicated? To being a warrior?’
‘Absolutely.’
He’s totally dedicated to being a warrior and, in the future, war might turn out to be more than a game. ‘If I had a son I’d hate to be parted from him. I bet your mother thinks about you every single day.’
‘I think about her too and wonder if I will ever see her again.’
‘Can’t you ask someone about her? Durga, perhaps? ‘
‘I have asked Durga, but she’s quite a – well she’s the kind of leader who rarely gives you a straight answer. She likes us to work things out for ourselves.’
I think of how Durga refuses to tell the two olds which of them is to be the curator. Maybe she thinks she can get the best out of both of them while they’re in competition with each other. It’s her battle strategy – like in the compu war games.
‘I think about the past a lot,’ Osiris says. ‘Don’t you ever wonder what life was like in the time before, when there were towns and cities, and how exactly we came to be living like this?’
‘Not really. No.’
He’s quite a deep person is Osiris, thinks about all kinds of things. Not like me. I’ve always taken things as they come. I live from day to day, not giving much thought to anything; but being with him is making me see things in a different light. For years Ody has tried to teach me the importance of the past but I’ve never seen what it has to do with my life. With Osiris it’s different. I’m beginning to be interested in how we came to be shut up in these compounds. He asks all kinds of questions about the future too. For starters – is the wilderness still contaminated and when will we be able to explore the outside world?
‘I was out there for hours the day Ra came to C55,’ I tell him, ‘but it didn’t seem to affect me at all.’
His eyes light up. ‘You’ve actually been outside? I’d love to do that. To have the chance to explore. Tell me, what’s it like? Still a desert or were plants beginning to push their way through? Anything green at all, any signs of re-generation?’
I screw up my face in an effort to remember. He’s so keen to know that I wish I’d taken more notice when I was out there. I’ve tried to forget that time. I rake through my mind but can’t come up with much. ‘It, well, it seemed to go on forever – the great expanse of land, I mean, and it was cold, real cold. The wind whipped round me, almost knocked me over. That’s what I remember the most. The wind. Green stuff? There were a few shrubs, yes, and there was a tree, but I don’t remember any leaves on it. I was lucky. Quite quickly l found a little cave place and squatted down in it, out of that biting wind, kept my head down and hugged my knees. I just sat there and waited to see what would happen, if anyone would come and rescue me – Ody or Heracles. I was there for ages. All I knew was that I didn’t want to walk about in that freezing wind. Before that I’d always thought of our compound as a sort of a prison, but when I was whisked back, I was glad to find myself inside again, I can tell you. At least it was warm.’
‘You poor darling.’ Osiris grasps my shoulder and doesn’t take his hand away again. ‘You must have been terrified.’ He frowns, thinking about it.
‘Ody says each compound is like an oasis in the desert.’
That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose. Here we have plenty of food and water. It’s a safe haven, like an oasis.’
I know he’s trying to cheer me up but I sense he’s a bit disappointed that I don’t remember many details about the wilderness. He continues talking about it. ‘They’ve started doing experiments to check if it’s safe for us to go outside again. When it is, we could make a new world – new buildings, new towns, new everything….’ There is a light in his eye that tells me he won’t be content until he has been out there exploring, but I hope it won’t be too soon. It’s lovely sitting here close to him. He’s my safe haven, my oasis.
‘Do you think we’re barren because of everything that happened to the Earth or do you think we’ve been given another – what did you call it – serum?’
I look up at him to show him I believe him to be much more knowledgeable than me.
He considers this. ‘They could have sterilised us I suppose, determined not to allow more mutant humanoids to be born, but I don’t think so – otherwise there wouldn’t have been any more children at all. They’d be no second or third generation mutants. We wouldn’t be here. No, it’s the contamination from The Great Plague that did it.’
‘So there really was a plague?’
Osiris grins at me. ‘Yes, Isis, there really was a plague. Not everything on the auto-put is a soap opera. You could find out about these things for yourself.’
‘Oh, I know I don’t study enough. Too busy helping Ody.’
‘The plague is what turned us into mutants, or at least the children who were born to the contaminated people, our ancestors. That’s when they decided to build the compounds, to keep us separate from them.’
Again that “they” and “them.” When I was in C55, I remember thinking it was like a prison and that we were slaves, but it’s the first time I’ve considered that some creatures different from us could have shut us up in these compounds. If I’d thought about it at all, I would have believed it was Ra or the sectoid leaders, in our case Kali, who locked us in. The idea of outsiders controlling us is frightening. Who are they? Aliens like in horror filmograms? I shiver.
Osiris puts his other arm round me and gives me a hug. He’s eye candy for sure, but kind and thoughtful too.
A few nights later, when Osiris follows me to my dormo-cube hoping to share my bunku, I do not resist. How can I? He’s everything I could wish for in a male mutant humanoid. He’s so savvy, so smart and he’s made me think about life in a way I’ve never done before. Oh come off it, Isis, I tell myself. Stop this bullshit. It’s not his mind you’ve fallen for but his muscular body, his golden curls and those three deep blue eyes. He’s sooo hot. And hot means sexy as I am about to find out….
I have never been so happy. Osiris and I have become a couple. We’ve exchanged our single dormo-cubes for a double with a large bunku and I’ve taken to decorating the cube with pictures and ornaments that I nick from the chests and cupboards in the histo-lab.
There are so many artefacts here – far more than in C55 – and Ody is in his element sorting through them and cataloguing them. He gets quite excited about what he calls the genuine items he finds. The promised extra pieces Durga promised have not yet turned up but there are enough here already for all three of us to sort through.
I label each one, give it a number and list it on the compu. A glorified dogsbody, that’s me. The point is, it is not difficult for me to pinch a few bits before I list them – not Ody’s specials – but things that appeal to me, shiny objects that glitter in the light and look good in our cube.
Today I find a length of glossy cloth to drape over the bunku. Everything I choose is colour-coded: gold and red my favourite combination. Our cube looks like a mini Aladin’s cave, full of shimmering goodies. I hide my treasures under my robe to transport them and so far nothing has been missed. Osiris calls me a little homemaker and smiles indulgently at my efforts. It’s great to wake up every day to find him at my side. I help him into his warrior gear and watch him prepare
for the daily parade, content to be a warrior’s love-mate rather than a warrior myself. I no longer feel like a slave or a prisoner. Nor do I have any desire to leave this compound. My life is perfect as it is.
But change is on its way. Rumours abound. An atmosphere of excitement and fear is in the air. The warriors are called for extra duties. Hours are spent on machines in the gym to make sure their bodies are in tip-top condition. Osiris spends more time training than he does with me. I am no longer permitted to watch him. He starts early in the morning and exercises all day and all evening. No caffeine breaks. Nutri-rations and water are provided in the gym.
He comes back late at night, tired but full of enthusiasm, his conversation peppered with words and phrases such as chin up bar, leg press, power cage, iron rings, bench work, sit ups, barbells, dumb bells, slant bar, cable machines and weight stack. He tries to explain what each machine does. The leg press, for example, has a vertical sled. You lie down and have to push the weight away using your legs. It increases the size and strength of your quadriceps, hamstrings, gluteous maximus (whatever that may be) and calves.
Sounds like torture to me. Horrendous. There are exercises for everything: machines to increase bone density, would you believe, others to strengthen muscles, tendons and ligaments.
The warriors trot around doing circuit training to help their metabolism and cardiac function. Makes me feel exhausted to think about it, but my lover’s passion for fitness and soldiering never falters.
He sleeps well at night but doesn’t always make love to me. Saves his energy for these daytime activities. But he’s still here. That’s one good thing, but I’m terrified that soon he’ll be on his way to fight a real life battle.
I spend more time in the histo-lab on the compu logging the artefacts but my heart’s not in it.
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