by Jo Anderton
Movoc's crisp sunlight was diluted faint and green by the material. Mizra and Uzdal stood before the second technician, naked to the waist, their uniform tops lying like second, darker skins at their feet. Neither met my eyes as Devich led me past them. In the green shadows it was difficult to make out expressions, to see anything other than the silver that shone and spun at their wrists, necks, waists and ankles. The technician was leaning close to Mizra, a long, thin instrument of the same shining silver in his hand. It had a hooked end and this was inserted between the symbols on the suit at Mizra's neck.
I shuddered as the instrument slipped inside, as the assistant turned it, as Mizra jerked his head to the side and clenched his hands. Was Devich going to do that to me?
"Watch where you're going," Devich snapped.
I had walked into a chair, placed away from Mizra and Uzdal and angled to face the wall. Scant privacy that would provide.
I gripped the back of the chair as Devich walked around me, my hands shaking against the poly-coated wood. A final glance at Uzdal, a hope for some kind of support, and while his face was darkened by shadow, a beam of light glancing off the steel tubes shone directly on a long scar down his right side. It ran, thin, precise, from his underarm all the way down to his stomach. It was broken only by the band of suit, and disappeared into his pants.
Did Mizra have the same scar on his other side?
Had they been broken together?
"Are you finished staring?" Devich waited for me, his arms crossed.
I blushed and approached the wall. Close to my back, the cement radiated cold though my clothes and uniform. If I was forced to strip like Mizra and Uzdal had, I would freeze. Would Devich show me pity if I started to turn blue?
"Take quite an interest in your fellow collectors, don't you?" Devich muttered. He didn't sit, but remained standing in front of his chair, arms crossed, lips thin. Sharp shadows gave his face planes of anger and an appropriate green hue.
I held back a retort, a spider-bite. "Is it really a concern of yours?"
"They're my team," I answered instead. I fought against anger, against the need to scream in his face, tell him everything that had happened and how desperately I had needed him when he wasn't there. But that wasn't his fault. I could have searched, couldn't I? Found a building I hardly remembered, or a home I had no address to. "Of course I take an interest in them. But I have-" I drew the words out, dropped my voice, hoped he understood and didn't think my association with collectors was making me dull and unhinged "-other interests."
Devich had been sorting through his slides again. He paused, summoned them back into his palm. "Do you?"
"Oh yes, interests outside of collecting. Consuming ones."
Devich looked up. His thin lips struggled against a rising smile. "Consuming? Have trouble controlling these interests?"
"Oh yes. But they give me exactly what I want."
"Well, aren't you lucky?"
"I've come to think so." The tension shifted, and I found it easier to breathe. Taking my clothes off was growing rapidly less frightening. "If only I could show you," I whispered the final words, hoping they wouldn't carry further than Devich, past his body to Mizra and Uzdal or over the screen to Kichlan.
Devich cleared his throat loudly. Finally, he sat, looking uncomfortable, his hands in his lap. "So." He cleared his throat again. "Shall we proceed?"
I grinned. "Oh, absolutely." I pulled my blouse over my head as Devich dragged a stiff leather case out from beneath his chair.
He left me in my camisole and the small drawers I had worn beneath my uniform. Both were simple things, secondhand clothes Valya had soaked in lime powder and left in the sun for days before allowing me to wear.
If Devich noticed anything different in the underwear, he didn't remark. But then, apart from the softness that came from factory-spun cotton and inner linings of silk, they weren't all that different from my usual, ever-practical fare.
"Now." Devich stood. "Let me see."
Goosebumps rose along my arm as he lifted it. It wasn't the cold anymore. He turned my hand gently; light from the suit surged and shone in patterns over his face. But he wasn't watching the suit. Instead, his eyes held mine. They swam with strange letters, symbols I could not read and had not seen before.
"What happened?" he whispered. He was so close to me, touching me, and it was difficult to remember that there were other people in this room. That we were not alone.
I breathed in his smell. Tension in my shoulders, tension I hadn't known existed, eased out.
"I was thrown out," I mouthed the words, voice as silent as I could make it. "The landlord sent two men to take me away."
Devich's hand tightened on mine. For a moment we were joined, hand to hand, eye to eye. Closer than sex, it felt, simple and truthful. I squeezed him back. Gently, he placed my hand against my hip and moved to pick up my left. He hadn't checked my suit once.
"You got away?" He pretended to bend over my wrist. Even nodded before releasing my hand and leaning into my neck.
I could feel the heat from his breath, the warmth of his body as it arched over mine. Made it very hard to concentrate. Very hard to keep up the pretence of a reluctant debris collector and her technician.
"Yes. I got away." I didn't extrapolate. I didn't even like to think about that evening in any detail. But he deserved a better explanation than that. "I didn't know where you live. I still don't. I wanted to go to you, but I didn't know where. So I came here instead, found a new place to stay, new clothes."
Not entirely honest, not exactly accurate. But close enough.
Devich touched my waist. He ran fingers around the edge of my suit. They set me shivering. "I'm sorry," he murmured in my ear.
Over his shoulder I could see Mizra and Uzdal's backs. Their technician was fiddling with Uzdal's waist. I took the moment to lean against Devich. He slipped his hands beneath my camisole, stroked upward over smooth skin and scar alike, to cup my breasts gently. His palms were warm, and left a cool breeze when he released me and returned to the suit.
"I should have told you where I live. I should have given you an option. Somewhere safe to run to. I guess-" he touched my chin with one finger and turned my face to his "-I never imagined you would need one."
He kissed me. Something hurried, something desperate, the press of his lips so hard my teeth nearly cut my own mouth. Then he stepped away and drew a sharp instrument from his bag. "I wouldn't concern yourself," he said, suddenly very loud. The bubble we had created around us, the small, warm world popped with the sound. "It doesn't hurt."
A quick glance up told me the technician was watching us. How much had he seen?
"If you say so," I answered. "I hope not."
"Trust us, Miss Vladha. We know what we're doing." Devich crouched at my feet. "Give me your wrists again." I held out a hand. He gripped it softly, and inserted the thin edge of the instrument between my skin and suit.
There wasn't much space to insert it in. He pushed gently, and I winced as it cut into my skin.
"Careful!" I hissed. Blood trickled down from beneath the silver band. He pulled a kerchief from his pale coat and dabbed it away.
"Wonderful," he said.
"Wonderful? That hurt." I frowned down at him.
He balanced himself, one hand high on my bare thigh. My frown vanished.
"Apologies. But it is wonderful. No distinction between suit and skin, even after time, even after use. This is very, very good. And look." He lifted my hand up; I peered at the suit.
Something was moving in the cut he had made. Tiny wiggling things like insect legs, but a pale, silvery blue. They struggled, kicking out into the air he had opened me to, dancing a bizarre and violent dance.
I felt faint, but Devich's grip on hand and thigh kept me upright. "What is that?" I choked out.
"The suit." How could he possibly sound so calm? "It's the best bond I've seen. Look, it doesn't want to be separated from you. It won't allow it."
The legs were sewing me up. Using threads of that same, pale metal, like thinner versions of themselves. Their stitches were tight, and together formed a tiny plate, an extension of the band itself, tugging skin together, covering the cut. Stopping the bleeding.
I didn't know what to feel. Sick, for the thing inside me, the thing Devich had put there. Or a desperate sense of how unfair this was. If I had fallen with the suit on, if Tsana had cut me up with the suit on, would it have sewn me together? Would it have allowed me to be maimed?
"I told you, didn't I?" Devich let go of my hand and started on the other. He didn't prod this time, didn't cut. Merely pulled at the skin and looked for a gap. I already knew there wouldn't be one. "You will be stronger, you will be better." He leaned forward, so close to my pelvis his lips were nearly touching my drawers where they stretched over bone. "Than any other collector."
Did that include my team? I was hardly better than any of them. But he didn't know, how could he understand? Gaps between suit and skin didn't mean anything, not in the tiring, dirty everyday.
"Devich?" A new voice in our close dialogue. The other technician.
Devich, not the least bit fazed, simply leaned away from me and looked over his shoulder. "Yes?" He still held the sharp, hooked instrument in one hand and was touching the skin below my waist with the other.
I realised I had lost track of his hands. With his lips so close.
"I've finished with these two."
"Any progress?" Devich asked.
Mizra and Uzdal were dim shapes pulling on clothes, keeping their faces averted. I caught a glimpse of Mizra's side, and sure enough saw the mirror of his brother's scar.
"The same." The technician was staring at me. I wanted to cross my arms, but couldn't decide if he was looking at the nipples standing hard beneath white material, the scars running pink and stitched, or the suit spinning at my neck. Neither could I be sure which would be more disconcerting.
"At least they haven't regressed again." Devich turned to me and bent to lift my right foot. I gripped the wall with my free hand to keep my balance.
"True."
"Who will you do now?" Devich's breath tickled.
"The big guy. Team leader last. Sound good to you?"
"Whatever you like."
The technician walked around the screen and suddenly my foot was back on the floor, Devich had his hands on my hips and was pressing his mouth against me. He was warm through the fabric, his lips slightly open, promising pressure and moisture.
I let out a gasp. He stole a hand around, wiggled fingers beneath cloth and slipped inside me with a groan.
I fought the need to arch, to lean against the cold wall.
Instead, I gripped his head, held him there as his mouth moved, as he sucked the white cloth clear and his fingers, his fingers roamed.
"I've missed you," he murmured, voice muffled. "I need you."
I said nothing. Dimly, as though a wall of concrete, stone and steel stood between me and the rest of the room, I could hear Kichlan.
"You can't take him in without me." His voice was raised. Every one of these inspections was a strain on him.
I rocked against Devich's hands, wrapped my fingers through strands of hair and bit the bottom of my lip to stop myself crying out. While Kichlan fought for a brother who couldn't thank him. I churned inside, aching with pleasure, drowning in self-disgust. I was the reason they were here, I was putting this strain on Kichlan, on Lad.
"Don't you people keep notes?" Kichlan continued. "I'm his guardian, and you're not doing anything to him without me there."
I clenched around Devich's fingers, quivered beneath his mouth. And Kichlan said, "Finally. Thank you for seeing reason-" As I heard footsteps coming closer, closer, I eased Devich from me, out of me, and panting, whispered, "Why did you do that?"
His eyes were so green in the light from the screen, sharp like a blade of grass. "I told you. I missed you." Then he handed me my uniform pants and wiped his mouth and fingers with the kerchief he had used to soak up my blood.
I was tugging myself into the uniform as Kichlan and Lad appeared around the screen. Lad grinned at me, waved. Kichlan blushed a red that darkened in the green light, and looked away.
Devich, pretending to put away his tools, rifled through the bag he had brought. The sound of steel against glass was jarring, slicing into a dull tension making its way up my neck to nest in my head.
"That's good," he was saying. "But not as good as it could be." He clipped the bag closed and stood. In my uniform pants and camisole, I felt shaky and altogether too exposed. "Here." He had found a scrap of paper and a pencil in that bag, and started scribbling. "Cleanliness, Vladha. Cleanliness is the key." I wished he would keep his voice down. For show or not, I didn't need the rest of my team hearing about my apparent lack of sanitation. "Follow these instructions, particularly the next time something falls on you." He smirked as he handed me the paper, particularly pleased with himself.
An address was scrawled in graphite on the rough weave, and some vague directions. I glanced up, realising Devich was telling me where to find him.
"Follow them carefully." He winked at me, and deliberately ran the back of his hand over his mouth.
"Of course," I answered, and bent to retrieve my clothes. I jammed the paper into the deepest pocket I could find, so it pressed against my uniform, my second skin. It would remain hidden, close to me, even at home. "Good." Devich sat, drew out his slides, selected one, and began directing its pions to take notes. "You can go now."
With my clothes piled hastily over my uniform, I snuck past Kichlan and Lad. Lad was hypnotised by a mirror the other technician was using to flash reflected light in his eyes, and Kichlan watched his brother's expression intently.
Once out from behind the screen the air seemed to grow lighter, grow cooler and fresher. Natasha, with a smirk and a wrinkle of her nose, pressed a warm bun into my hands. The smells of melted cheese and cooked mushrooms wafted up, and sent my stomach growling.
I flopped into the couch and ate through my food, refusing to meet the eyes of the others.
Finally, Kichlan and his brother re-emerged. I was feeling sleepy by then, my stomach and hips warm, slightly fuzzy.
"That's all of you, then?" Devich stood before the screen as the second technician dismantled it. He scanned the slides, fingers sketching rows and columns in the air.
"Yes," Kichlan snapped off the word, his arms crossed, his face dark. "You know it is."
"Mmm."
Devich tucked the slides away again. His fellow technician finished cramming the screen into its bag and looked hot in the face, flustered compared to Devich's distant cool.
"Thank you for your participation," Devich rattled off what sounded like a liturgy, one he must have said uncountable times and the collectors had surely heard nearly as often. "For your service to the veche, and Varsnia itself."
A moment of silence. Were we expected to say anything in return?
Devich and the second technician collected their bags, balancing the large one that contained the screen between them. No one offered help.
In silence, the technicians left the sublevel. The paper Devich had given me felt heavy in a pocket close to my chest. My drawers were wet, starting to cool. My head ached.
"Well, that was a waste of a day." Kichlan took his coat from its hook, tossed one to Lad and handed me my own. "We need to make up for it tomorrow. Breakbell, earlier if we can." He shook his head. "Still have a quota to fill. Inspections are never taken into account."
One by one we filed out. Mizra and Uzdal, so close together, heads down in some silent and shared concern. Sofia, drawn and tired. Natasha, whistling a soft tune. Lad took the stairs quickly, still full of energy after a day spent sitting inside. Kichlan kept close.
I didn't know what to feel. Devich brought opportunities back into my life. He brought his invitations to high-ranking parties, his friends in old families. But he also brought in
stability to that comfortable corner where Kichlan, Lad and I had existed so peacefully. He brought stress for Kichlan, pressure and fear, and he had brought them because of me, because he had been worried about me. I couldn't tell Kichlan it was my fault, that I had effectively put Lad in such danger.
I would never tell him, but I would try to make up for it regardless. I had to find Jernea, and I hoped the old man still held all the answers. So I could help Lad, and maybe myself.
14.
I heard it before my suit woke me. And there was a moment of ringing and darkness, between the sound that shattered the night and the light that broke it open, when I knew, I just knew, that this would not be anything like the previous debris emergencies. That this was something worse.
The sound was like Grandeur collapsing. Metal and concrete and life crumbling in one great roar. The floor shook and a fine crack traced its way into the window beside the bed. As I levered myself upright my suit lit up brilliantly, catching gleams in the splintered glass like a spider's web.
"Other!"
Someone was screaming below me. Valya? I scrambled into shoes and dragged on pants and a woollen shirt as I leapt down the tightly wound, unsteady stairs. The front door had been shaken from its lock and I pushed it open, plunging into the food-fragrant hallway.
Valya was in her bedroom. Her screams led me to her, and in the radiance from my suit she was pale, mouth wide and eyes darkly terrified. She snapped into silence as soon as my light touched her.
"Are you hurt?" I shouted over the ringing in my ears and the oppressive echoes of her screams.
"Did you feel it?" she breathed out a whisper, forcing me closer, forcing me to lower my ear to her mouth. "Did you feel it hurt?"
"Where?" I tried not to shout. "Where are you hurt?"
But she shook her head. "Not me." She stared into the suit's brightness, unblinking. "This is what they are doing, do you see now? Splitting us open. He can't stop them, not any more." Her shaking hand reached for my wrist. "Can't you feel his pain? He needs you, girl. So we have to protect you. He needs you."