The Lion and the Mouse

by Emmy Chandler

  The door slides open again, and I look up, expecting to see the sergeant, or maybe his colleague who went to look for some clothes. But I don't recognize the blue-eyed man who steps into the breakroom. The door slides closed behind him, and I'm instantly on edge. There's something about the way he's looking at me. Something in the intensity of his focus, as if the rest of the room doesn't even exist.

  "I've asked for some privacy."

  “I know," he says. "But I feel like I owe you—”

  "Oh my god." His build. His size and posture. I know this man. I memorized his form, because that’s all I could see of him when he was— "You!” I stand and back away from him, pressing my back against a row of cabinets to put as much distance between us as I can. “You did this…Miller!” That's what's printed on his name badge, anyway.

  “Yes, and I'm sorry. But I would really appreciate the chance to explain, before you have me arrested."

  "Why the hell would I give you that? You fucking kidnapped me. You dropped me into the path of an ezaki. The damn thing could have trampled me!"

  "I took every possible precaution. I never wanted to hurt you I—”

  "Precaution? What fucking precautions did you take?”

  “Reverse thrusters on the bottom of the cage. Gel soles on your feet. And I had someone on the ground to watch you. To make sure you were not hurt. To…take care of you, during the duration of your stay.”

  “You mean Lohr?”

  “No." An odd expression flickers behind his eyes. It's something like exasperation. “He was my backup plan, but I didn't expect him to find you so quickly. I dropped you near him because I knew he wouldn't hurt you, and I knew that if she needed help with you, he would help."

  “She? You better not mean Evah.”

  The man huffs, as if I'm the one saying ridiculous things. “No, I mean Rehna.”

  I frown, confused, until finally the name sinks in. She’s one of the Fetoji Lohr trades with. “You know Rehna?”

  “Yes, and she would like to say something to you. If you'll hear her out."

  “I— Okay.” I'm not sure how else to answer that. I don't know what Rehna could possibly have to do with this.

  “Thank you. Thank you very much.” His relief feels strongly at odds with the composure of a kidnapper. A man who has since apologized for what he’s done to me. “But, um… She can't speak to you in here, obviously. We'll have to go outside.”

  “Okay.” I retrieve my mug from the table and drain it, unwilling to give up caffeine, even to have my curiosity sated.

  Miller gestures for me to proceed him to the door. "Just follow my lead." When he steps close to the door, it slides open, and the guard on duty turns toward us. "Ms. Montgomery would like to get some air, so I'm going to take her outside for a few minutes.”

  "Captain, I'm not supposed to—”

  “I asked Captain Miller to escort me outside, and that's exactly what's going to happen,” I inform him. “If clothes come for me before I get back, just leave them on the table. Thank you, sergeant.”

  “Yes ma'am," the sergeant says. He still looks concerned about the idea of me leaving the guard station, but he keeps his mouth shut as Captain Miller leads me around the corner and down the hall, to a door marked "exit." He presses his palm against a panel on the wall next to the door, and the door slides open.

  For a moment, I wonder if I’m making a mistake. If I’m basically allowing him to kidnap me again. But what would be the point of that, now that everyone knows where I am? That I’ve been here all along?

  So I follow him outside, and I find myself facing a broad stretch of the now–familiar spica forest, its leafless, spiny trees casting skeletal shadows on the ground. But there's no one else on here. "Where is she—?”

  An unfamiliar Fetoji figure steps out of the woods before I can even finish my question. She looks around to make sure we're alone, then she heads straight for us. Rehna is shorter than Evah, and she has a slimmer build, and while that means she towers over me, it also means she's almost exactly Captain Miller’s size.

  “Hello, Ms. Montgomery."

  “You can call me Chesca. Or Syrie.” After a few weeks here, introducing myself as Chesca feels strange. But that’s still my name.

  “Syrie, then. Thank you.” Rehna sucks in a deep breath. “I just wanted a chance to apologize to you. I know that the way we went about this was pretty…bold and I'm sorry that you got caught in the middle of it. But I want to assure you that we meant you no harm. I stayed as close to you as I could, until I was sure that you and Lohr weren't going to kill each other. And when I saw that you were…getting along, we decided that you deserved a little privacy. That wasn't how we pictured this going, but perhaps it was a blessing in disguise."

  "I don't understand. How did you picture this going? What was the point of all this?" How long did she watch me?

  In reply, Rehna lifts her leather top to reveal a small but pronounced rounding of her stomach.

  "Is that—? Are you—?” My gaze flicks back and forth between Captain Miller and Rehna, and finally I fit the pieces of the puzzle together. "You're having a baby? With him?” I’m not sure how that’s possible, considering the way a Fetoji woman ovulates, but this does not seem like the time to ask such a personal question.

  She nods. "As you can see, we're running out of time.”

  “For—? For what?"

  Captain Miller sighs, and the sound is heavy with frustration. “I can't let my baby be born here.”

  “This is no place for a child,” Rehna says, echoing something that Lohr said to me weeks ago.

  "I can certainly sympathize. This place shouldn't even exist. But what does any of that have to do with me? I mean, if you could sneak me onto the planet, why couldn't you sneak her off and just leave? Go somewhere together and raise your child in peace?"

  "It's much easier to sneak someone into this place than to sneak someone out,” he explains. “And even if I could have gotten Rehna out, that wouldn't fix the problem.”

  "I'm not the only one who deserves to be rid of this place,” she says.

  “So I thought that…” Captain Miller shrugs.

  “You thought that if my parents understood what it was like to have a child ripped from them and sent here—trapped here—they'd understand what they've been doing to generations of other people."

  “That was one of our hopes," Rehna admits. “The other was that if we could reach you, before you started working for your parents… That if you understood what this place was really like on the ground, for the residents, that you could exert some influence from the inside.” She turns to Miller. “How did you put it?"

  “That maybe you could affect change from within.” He’s talking to me, and the hope and determination in his eyes floors me.

  “I— But why me? My brother's been working here for years."

  "Because we thought you knew the truth. Or at least that you could be made to remember it,” Rehna says.

  “I was here that day, all those years ago,” Miller explains. “I was there when they found you, as part of the extraction team. It was my second week on the job, and my task was to grab you and get you out of harm’s way, which means that I was holding you when they opened fire. You trembled in my arms and started screaming. Do you remember any of that?”

  I've spent most of my life trying not to remember any of that, but now I close my eyes and I try. Because the truth matters.

  “I remember someone grabbing me. Someone picking me up and turning me so that I couldn't see what was happening, but I could still hear it. Gunfire, and screaming. But I can't remember his face. I just remember the black uniform and the strong arms."

  “I pulled Lohr into the corner with us and tried to shield him, too,” Miller says. “He was just a kid, like you. He was trying to do the right thing. Trying to help you. And his family paid for that.

  “I thought that would change him. I thought that what they—what we—did to his family would
turn him into the monster they already assumed him to be. But Rehna has known him all his life. After his parents died, her family took him and his brother in. She grew up like a sister to him, and she swore that we could count on him, if it came down to it. That he would never hurt you, whether or not he discovered who you are. And I figured that if he hadn't changed after the trauma, you might not have either. That if you saw what life is like down here—if you met some of the people—you would remember what really happened that day, and you would be in a position to bring about change.”

  "You did all of this to try to help your baby?"

  "There is nothing we wouldn't do for this child.” He places one hand lovingly on Rehna’s belly. “We hope that your parents feel the same way about you."

  "Do they even know? Did anyone even noticed I was missing?”

  Miller exhales. “Not that I can tell. No one except for your personal guard. And now that your parents know they lost you, I suspect you're going to be dealing with an entirely new team."

  “Well, I guess it's my fault no one noticed. I've gotten really good at sneaking off. Still, it seems a bit absurd that I could be here for weeks without anyone having any idea.” Didn’t my parents worry when I didn’t message them? “Why didn’t you—? I mean, why didn't you just write an exposé, with pictures or something? Get the media involved? You could've had a lot of eyes on this problem.”

  “People gloss right over that stuff," Miller insists. “They’re bombarded with humanity’s problems twenty-four/seven. Most people aren't going to give a shit about what they see as someone else's issues. Things that don't directly affect them. We thought our best bet would be to make it directly affect someone who could do something about it. That someone is you.”

  “Well, I hate to disappoint you—I mean I really hate to disappoint you—but even if I still wanted to go to work for my parents, and I don't, I don't see what I can do to fix things. It's not like I've inherited a controlling interest or anything. Not yet anyway. I'm in marketing. It's my job to bring in tourists, and you want me to do exactly the opposite of that. They're not going to let me do that. I—”

  “Syrie!”

  I spin toward the sound of Lohr’s voice, and my heart leaps into my throat when I find him running across an open, mossy field toward us, waving his spear in the air. Trying to get someone's attention. But he hasn't seen us yet. He's focused on the front of the guard station.

  “Syrie! Send her out, you bastards! I want to talk to her!"

  "Oh shit. He's going to get himself hurt." I start to take off after him, to intercede before the guards come pouring out of the guard station, but Miller grabs my arm to stop me.

  "Let go!" I shout at him as the front door of the station opens. “They're going to hurt him!"

  “Wait,” he snaps at me. Then he turns to Rehna. “Go!” He whispers fiercely, pointing toward the woods. “Get out of here before they see you. I'll find you when I can."

  Rehna drops a hasty kiss on his cheek, then she turns and runs for the woods. He holds me back until she’s out of sight, and while we're waiting for her to reach safety, half a dozen guards rush from the station, aiming weapons at Lohr.

  They shout orders at him, speaking over one another in English. Contradicting each other, so that even if he could tell what they were saying, he couldn't possibly follow all of the orders at once. Even from here, I can see confusion and frustration on his face. What I don't see is fear.

  That's a problem.

  “Syrie!” he shouts at the building, still waving his spear, staring over their heads.

  Then one of the guards fires a massive rifle, and I scream, expecting him to fall to the ground, dead from a gunshot wound.

  Instead, a net bursts from the end of the rifle and hits him with an explosive force, throwing him to the ground, where it pins him in place, spear and all. I exhale, relieved, until I noticed that he is thrashing on the ground. Convulsing.

  “What's happening?" I demand. “What's happening to him?"

  “It's electrified," Miller says. “It’s supposed to be part of the nonlethal arsenal, but—”

  “It sure as hell will be lethal if they don't turn it off!” I take off around the corner of the building, my gel soles slapping at the hard-packed ground. “Hey!” I shout. "Turn it off! Let him go!”

  Two of the guards run to intercept me, physically holding me back from Lohr. I fight them, trying to push past them as I watch him convulse on the ground behind them. “Let me go!” I shout. "That's an order!"

  “I'm sorry Ms. Montgomery," one of the guards says. It's the bald sergeant I met earlier. “We don't work for you, and we have our orders."

  “I will have your job!" I shout at him. “I will have all of your fucking jobs!" But still they hold me back.

  “Stop!" the bald guard shouts at me. “Ms. Montgomery, you can't touch him. The amount of electricity going through that net will kill a human."

  “It will kill him too!" I look over his shoulder and make eye contact with Miller. “Make them stop!" I shout. “Or I will—” I don't have to finish the threat. He knows exactly what I can tell them all. And he seems to know that I will do it.”

  “Turn it off!" he shouts. “Turn the damn thing off before you kill him. That's an order!"

  His order, they obey. The net stops buzzing. Lohr stops convulsing.

  “Get the fuck off me!” I shove the two guards back, and they let me go, now that the net has been turned off. I race toward Lohr and drop onto my knees next to him, tugging at the net to pull it off of him. It's surprisingly heavy.

  “Ma'am, he still armed." Another guard approaches from the side, gesturing at Lohr’s spear, which is still covered by the net. “We can't let you—”

  “Fine, take it.” I pull the net back to expose the weapon. “But make sure he gets it back. He needs it for hunting, and for protection, and— Just make sure he gets a back, damn it.”

  “Yes ma'am.” The guard takes the spear and backs away from us. He appears as scared of me as he is of Lohr. As well he should be.

  “Hey.” I pull the net from Lohr’s face and I brush his golden mane back from his forehead. “Hey, are you okay?”

  He blinks up at me sluggishly, and when he tries to lift one arm to touch me, it trembles. The bastards have nearly killed him.

  "Just lie still," I tell him, tugging more of the net from him.

  He gives me a slow, labored smile. "You did it." His words are slurred. Sluggish.

  "I did what?" There are tears in my eyes, but I'm smiling.

  "You returned the favor."

  I laugh, and the tears fall to splat on his chest. "Yeah, I guess I did. A net for a net.” Though that wasn't how I had intended to repay him. "What are you doing here?”

  "I didn't get to say goodbye."

  I laugh again, and more tears fall. "Liar,” I accuse him, as I reach down to tug the net from his left leg. "You had a chance; you just chose not to."

  His unsteady smile widens as he stares at me. “You're right. Mahr says I'm a stubborn ass. I guess he's right too.”

  “I guess he is."

  “I know you have to go," Lohr whispers as Miller waves the rest of the guards back. “I understand that now. But I couldn't let you leave without telling you the truth.”

  “What truth? What a stubborn ass you are? Because I already knew that.”

  “The truth about you. About that day, all those years ago. The truth is that I don't regret it. I miss my parents every day, and I am angry about how they were taken from me. But that isn't your fault. And I don't regret bringing you home with me. Not that time, and not this time. I love you, Syrie. I think I've loved you since the moment I saw you standing in that field, dark hair flying out behind you, one hand pressed to a bloody wound on your forehead. You looked like a princess fallen from the sky that day, bruised, but not broken. And when I saw you in my net, all those years later, I should have known it was you, because you looked like a fallen goddess. Caught, bu
t still kicking. Timid, but fierce.” He reaches up for me again, and this time he manages to run his fingers through a strand of my hair. "My little mouse with a spine of steel."

  More tears blur my vision, and when I blink, they roll in scalding trails down my cheeks. I lean down, and I kiss him, right in front of everyone.

  Gasps echo around me from the guards still watching, on alert in case the monster rears up to hurt me.

  “What the hell is she doing?"

  "No one's going to believe—”

  “He's not human. How does that even work?”

  I ignore them all, but I can't ignore the sudden intrusion of a familiar engine. I look up to see one of the landing shuttles from my parents’ cruiser, headed right for us.

  Shit.

  I turn back to Lohr. “Can you walk?" Then I lean down to whisper, “Rehna is in the woods watching. She can help you if you can get there on your own. And I suspect your brother is still nearby.”

  “He is," Lohr whispers as he pushes himself upright. “He wanted to come with me, but I insisted he wait out of sight."

  “Good. Let me help you up.” I stand and pull him to his feet, surprised all over again by how heavy he is. When I'm sure he won't fall over, I wrap him in a hug and squeeze him as hard as I can. “Thank you for everything," I tell him. “Now go.” I release him and gesture to the guard still holding his spear. “Give me that."

  “Ma'am, I can’t—”

  I turned and grab it from him, then I hand it to Lohr. “Thank Mahr for me,” I say, then I gesture toward the woods, wordlessly ordering him to get out of here, before it's too late. Before my parents land.

  “Are we just going to let him go?” one of the guards demands. “He ran at us brandishing a weapon!”

  “Yes," Miller says, already turning toward the shuttle as it prepares to land. “We're just going to let him go."

  I don't thank him. I don't owe him anything. But that doesn’t mean I’m not thankful.