by Nirina Stone
When I don’t answer his question, Strohm slams the table in front of him and continues to glare at me. “I think you should move back to Apex,” he says. “I’ll talk to the general about it.”
What? “Move back to Apex?” I say. Why in the world would he want me back there? “Why? Whatever for?”
“To be by my side,” he says. “That’s what for. Not to be traipsing around Haven, talking to Northies, forgetting who you are, where you’re from—”
Having no clue how to respond to his diatribe, I stare back at him, my mouth slightly open. “I’ll talk to the general,” he repeats. Then he’s gone.
I stare at my reflection in the mirror, my mouth still wide open. What in Odin is going on here? And since when has Strohm been this protective? He’s never spoken like that in the time I’ve known him. And I definitely have no desire to go back to Apex, so why does he insist? I can’t imagine living in Prospo City again—though they’ve changed it all and it’s now called Liberty. It feels like a step backwards. It’s too modern—too built up. I’d miss my little mountain and all the trees.
And as for Strohm—I still don’t know what to think about all that, but the way he addressed me—so serious and possessive, I’m not sure I like the sound of that. He can talk to Mother all he likes. Neither one can convince me to move back there. What would I do out there? Ugh. Strohm’s eyes still haunt me. I wonder what’s going on out there.
“Don’t—static—trust—static—her—static.”
The words are a part of my life like the recurring dreams and Rojhay’s silence. I still try to respond to Father’s voice. The more often it happens, the more convinced I am that it has something to do with whatever that depressing illness was that hit me, weeks before.
So I decide to tell the doctor about the static and the voice as well, if it means I’ll finally know what’s going on with me. I sit in his office, waiting for him to come out and tell me what’s wrong with me, why I’m having the dreams. What I can do to get better and get past it.
Maybe I’ll need another little nanite booster, and that’s all it will take. Maybe it will be more than that, but whatever it takes, I’m ready. I’m tired of the dreams—what’s the point, watching the girl I don’t know die over and over and over again. What’s the point of trying to chase her, trying to stop her. Nothing I do in the dreams changes anything.
The doctor comes into the room and smiles at me as he takes a seat across from me.
“How are you doing on land?” I ask. I know he would have preferred to stay on the Iliad, but now that the community is set up in Haven, we need a dedicated doctor closer to everyone.
“I’m liking it more every day,” he says. “The air is different here. I can breathe easy.”
I agree with him. The air is lighter in Haven. Something in it tastes sweeter than the air in Apex.
“So,” he continues. “You’re perfectly healthy.”
Well that’s a relief. Then I wonder how that can be possible.
“What about the strange dreams?” I ask. “Why do I keep having them?”
“There could be any number of reasons why,” he says. “But that’s not really my specialty. I can only tell you that there’s nothing wrong with you, physically. Everything is as it should be, really. Are you feeling any nausea?”
“Not since I was on the Iliad. Or well, on any boat,” I say, remembering the fishing trawler. Why should I have any nausea?
“Any tenderness? Or unusual cravings or any—” he doesn’t finish, when he sees the look on my face.
“Wait—do you not know?” he asks.
I shake my head, no.
“Romy,” he says, “you are with child.”
7
Surprise
The doctor tells me I’m two months pregnant and the words slam me in the chest, in my gut. He shows no surprise that I didn’t know. He tells me many women only have mild symptoms, so mild they wouldn’t know what happened to them.
That is, until I tell him why it’s not a possibility. That I’m a virgin.
He sits back and listens to me for a few seconds. Then he bursts out laughing. “If you tell me it’s immaculate conception, well I’ll have to hang up my stethoscope.” He wipes a tear from his cheek, but stops when he notices I’m not laughing.
“I—I don’t understand,” I say. I’ve never heard the term ‘immaculate conception’, but don’t bother asking him to define it. I’m far too preoccupied with the news. I may be a virgin, but I know enough about the human body to know what would make a woman pregnant. I know I haven’t done anything to be in such a state.
In Apex, we were taught for decades that we weren’t able to conceive naturally. We were told, through Prospo misinformation, that the only way to continue to have children is through Ivy Heff.
We’ve since learnt it was yet another lie to keep Prospo in control of the overall population. We’re able to conceive naturally. Our water and air was being medicated with chemical inhibitors to prevent any natural pregnancies. Knowing all that does me no good right now.
Because I know I haven’t physically done anything, whether naturally or through Ivy Heff, to be in my current pregnant state. What in Odin is going on here?
“Could you be mistaken?” I blurt out. After all, he had no idea what happened to me those months ago, that had me unable to so much as get out of bed for over three days. It’s possible he’s wrong here.
“The tests we ran on your blood are foolproof, Mason,” he says. Of course they are, but what other explanation could there be?
Then I remember my glass cell. I remember being gassed, being out for possibly hours at a time.
While they could have—they could have done anything to me. Oh Odin. I fight a spate of nausea, tell the doctor I have to go, and rush out of his office as fast as I can. I need to talk to Mother on the Mirrorcomm. This isn’t something I can handle on my own.
I run back to our home, and there she is, in the living room—not at all where I expected her to be. I run in, breathless, and she stands, panic in her eyes matching mine.
“Romy,” she says, “what’s wrong? What’s going on?”
“I’m—I’m pregnant,” I blurt out, before Commander Blair turns the corner from our kitchen and stops in his tracks. Of course he’s here.
“You’re what?” he asks at the same time Mother rushes to me. She holds me gently, with her left hand on my shoulder and her right hand holding my shaking hands steady. She directs me to the couch. When I sit, she taps me on the leg, and asks me to start from the beginning, but I have no clue where to start.
The dreams seem like as good a place as any, so I tell her everything up until the point I see the doctor. Everything but Father’s voice—for some reason, I still want to keep that to myself, and I doubt it has anything to do with this new state of events.
Blair doesn’t move the entire time I tell Mother. He might as well hear it all too, I guess. He is her right hand man, after all. If those Northies did this to me, it’s intel he needs to be privy to.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” she says. “Why didn’t you tell me about these dreams?”
I think of the first times I had the dreams, of wanting to save the girl. I was driven to do whatever I could, though I didn’t know her or what was going on. Just operating under one thought—I didn’t want the dreams to go away.
“I don’t know, Mother,” I say. “I thought they were dreams, not anything serious, not anything real. I didn’t want to worry you.” It’s not entirely a lie, but it’s not the whole truth either.
Blair shifts his feet and makes his way to the couch to sit across from me and Mother. “Are you sure they’re dreams?” he asks. “Just dreams?”
“I’m not sure of anything. They happen every night I go to sleep.”
Mother and Blair eye one another and don’t say a word. “Do you think—” I say. “Do you think they did something to me? They impregnated me while I was unconscious?” I swallow
again, trying not to throw up in front of them.
Blair doesn’t say a word, but keeps his eyes on Mother.
“Is that what you think, Romy?” she asks.
“It’s the only explanation I have,” I say.
“Indeed. It is possible—” she says, but doesn’t finish. Her eyes are still on Blair. He opens his mouth to say something, but she interrupts him. “Could you leave us please, Commander?”
Blair’s eyebrows shoot up as he watches her face. Then he nods, stands, and heads out the door. I wonder what all that’s about, but right now, my only concern is this, this—pregnancy. What am I going to do? I’ve never been around babies. I wouldn’t even know where to begin to take care of one on my own, and how? How am I pregnant?
I’m want to panic and cry in a corner right now, but I’m numb and my head hurts. When I look up, Mother’s eyes are on me.
“Are you alright?” she asks.
I nod, but I know I’m not. I watch her eyes, trying not to think about how I got into this state. “Talk about it,” she says. “Talk about it, don’t keep it in you.”
“I wonder how—” I say, cutting myself off when I realize I’d rather not imagine what happened to me, least of all talk about it.
I fight the words but they come out of me anyway, and I feel my face and neck turn cold. “How do I get rid of it?” I say. It’s my only option. Yet, the moment the words leave my mouth, they feel wrong. Why? Why would they feel wrong? I fight the prickle of tears that threaten to fall down my cheeks.
Mother’s face turns soft as she reads the emotion in my eyes. “Are you certain that’s what you want to do, Romy?” I have a feeling she knows my answer, even before I shake my head, no.
“But Mother,” I say. “What else can I do?” Really, I can’t possibly stay pregnant. Or keep a baby. I don’t even know the first thing there is to know about being pregnant or having kids or keeping kids or anything to do with them.
I brought down the world where I knew this was a normal part of our lives. It was over! There was simply no chance of any of that happening to me, ever, and yet—here I am. Pregnant.
Something in me turns to stone, knowing that if I think it through too much, I’ll end up incapacitated. I have to think strong. I have to—I don’t know what I have to do.
She nods and keeps her eyes on me. “The first thing we must do is call Strohm,” she says.
What? Why would I want to talk to Strohm about this? A Leader in Apex needs not care about pregnant Sorens in the north.
We don’t really have a relationship anymore, if we ever did. Despite the new tone he has taken with me, being all protective, possessive, he still is so far removed from all this, to me.
I shake my head no and tell her I need to go. I need to get away from her, from everyone. I need to be alone.
I head to my room and crawl under my bedsheets. Emptying my mind of any thoughts, I shut my eyes. Still, a minute later, I’m shaking with my face buried into the sheets. Curled into a tight ball, I cry so hard and my chest heaves uncontrollably, I think my heart will stop. My entire body aches and I end up with a pounding headache.
Tomorrow, I think, I’ll decide what to do. For now, a good cry makes me feel marginally better. Best to feel sorry for myself in solitary like this. I shut my eyes tighter and finally fall asleep.
When I open them again, I’m in the glass cell of course. The Northie watches me and speaks into her Glasscomm. I yell at her and ram into the glass wall, twice, three times, despite feeling tired not a minute ago. The wall doesn’t even vibrate with my effort. So I turn around and climb back into the cot and ignore her. These people did something to me, and now I’m pregnant.
I can’t handle being around them any more than I could handle being around Mother. So I close my eyes again, willing myself to fall back asleep. I’m done trying to save a girl that can’t be saved.
I’m done trying to help a people that violated me.
The first thing I notice before my eyes open again is that I’m having a difficult time breathing. Am I being suffocated? I was still crying in my dream—did I manage to drown in my own tears and snot?
I cough and my eyes spark open, but all I see is black. I flick a hand towards my face, but there’s nothing there—so whatever they’re suffocating me with is not physical. I wave my hand again and start coughing harder. My lungs are burning. Every breath I force in scrapes my throat like hot metal.
Still coughing, I jump to my feet. It’s dark, but I know that I’m not breathing regular air, and I feel my bed underneath me—I’m in my room again. It’s not the dream. Shadows in the dark room play across my eyes as I feel my way towards the bedroom door.
“Mother!” I want to yell, but it comes out a tiny parched croak with nowhere to go. What’s going on? “Mother?” I repeat, before a coughing spasm racks through me and brings me to my knees. I dry retch on the ground before I notice the air is more clear down here. So I plop on my belly and snake my way out the bedroom door. Luckily it wasn’t closed—only slightly ajar. I continue to cough as I pull myself across the floor and slowly down the stairs. It’s a lot brighter out here than in my room.
That’s when I notice red and orange flames licking up the wall to my right, between me and the door to the entryway. What the hell? What caught on fire in here? It’s nowhere near the kitchen.
I turn to my left, but angrier waves of flames reach to the ceiling and whip at my face, the heat blistering my skin. I turn right, and jump over something burning—a table or small chair, I’m not sure. I fall and roll just as something heavy crackles and falls from the ceiling, causing sparks to fly where I’d fallen.
I scramble to my feet, knowing I’m running out of time. Coughing and choking on smoke, I turn to make my way towards the back door and push the glass out of my way to run into the backyard. The house’s roof is ablaze, amber flames flicking and roaring into the air like a rapid dance. I watch the flames and want to fall to my knees. My eyes brim over with tears, though the coughing is not getting worse. Was Mother in there?
A firefighting drone raises up into the sky ahead and drops gallons of water on the roof followed by another, and another. Until all that’s left is a scorched wet structure, steaming from all corners as if from a hot bath.
Was Mother in there? I couldn’t see a thing, so I have no idea. She normally doesn’t stay in the house when I’m not around to talk to, anyway. Chances are good she wasn’t anywhere nearby.
I drop to my bottom on the cold grass and watch the fumes vaporize in the air. What in the hell happened here?
Another drone flies up over the house and hovers to me. It’s soundless as it stops two feet ahead, close enough to touch.
“Romy Mason,” a voice says as a light blue beam from the drone scans me from head to toe. “Romy Mason, you are suffering from smoke inhalation.”
Thanks, I think. It’s handy to know.
“Stay put as Firemen are dispatched,” it says. It continues to scan me but stays silent.
“Where’s my mother?” I ask the drone. “Where’s General Mason?”
A small red light on the drone’s side beeps to confirm it registered my question. “General Mason is at Headquarters,” it finally says. “She is alive and well.”
Good. It’s what I thought, but it doesn’t explain why the house was on fire.
I struggle to my feet, despite the drone’s instructions. I’m no longer coughing. I should make it to HQ well enough on my own. Who knows how long the Firemen will be? I stand and look past the house. The flames are all gone, replaced by dark grey clouds and wet, hot steam. I will be able to walk beside the house and past the front, no problems.
But the moment I stand, I’m coughing again. The cough doesn’t let up—I bend over painfully and vomit into the grass. Now my eyes and nose are leaking too. The pain doesn’t go away—I’ve vomited all the contents of my stomach and my throat and mouth burn with acid.
I can’t decide what’s worse—the pain
or the leaking. I turn again and fall on my bottom, determined not to move until the Firemen come for me.
At HQ, Mother runs through the door to my side, as I gulp down fresh water from a decanter. They warned me not to have too much but my throat and my nose still burn, I can’t help myself.
“Are you alright?” she asks in a panic. She runs up and puts her hand to my forehead, the way she used to when I was a child.
“I’m fine, Mother,” I croak. “Just tired. Shock. What happened?”
“We were under attack,” she says. “Northies. They infiltrated and started fires in fifty homes, including ours. They grabbed Rojhay. Ten of our people are dead.”
I close my eyes and fight off tears. I don’t ask about the dead people—I will know who they are soon enough. “Did you catch them?” I say.
“Oh yes,” she replies. “We did.” Her eyes gleam in the light and I wonder what that means. Nothing good, I expect.
“How many did you catch?” I ask.
“Three of them. They’re being questioned now. And then—”
“And then what?”
“And then they will be executed, of course,” she replies.
Of course.
I sit across from Knox as she stares at me, her jaw dropped. Her eyes switch from my belly and back to my eyes again as I tell her about my pregnancy.
We’re back in our quarters on the Iliad while bots and Sorens clean up the mess on Haven.
Another ship, the Elysium, is docked alongside us while we determine what exactly happened on Haven.
“What did they do to you, those dirty Northies?” she gasps.
I fight my nausea, not sure if it’s the pregnancy or the fact that I’m back on the ship. I say, “It’s a wild guess, but they must have performed Ivy Heff on me while I was unconscious.” The words definitely come from me but I feel detached from myself as I speak them. It’s better this way. I can’t feel anything about—all this.