“Yeh?” he said, not looking right at her. “Well I hate knocking you down and just running off. So if you need anything, I mean anything at all...”
“Uh...no,” she said. “But thanks. Really. And I've got to get to class.” And she left him watching her leave.
“He was almost nice,” she thought as she climbed the stairs. “Could Drake really be right about them? One thing's certain. I'll find out in four days.”
It was a long afternoon, staring at one sublim board after another. The dismissal bell made her feel giddy with relief and she was the first one out the door into the hallway. She had her tutor skinny slung over her shoulder. There was no one on the down staircase to the doors on the far side of the building from the school busses. She trotted right down in the echoes from her boots.
“Tess!” hollered Mindy from halfway up behind her.
“Shit!” thought Tess.
“Te-ess?” hollered Mindy again, and she caught up right at the doors. “Didn't you hear me?” she said, stepping in front of her.
“Well I heard someone, but I've a lot on my mind. So is there a reason for this? I am in a hurry.”
“Yeh, but not here. There's a mob on its way...”
“And you don't want to be seen talking to me, eh?”
“That's not a nice thing to say to someone who's trying to apologize...”
“And you want to get me in front of your friends for a good laugh.”
“Here comes half the school,” said Mindy, pushing open a door. “Let's at least step outside so we can hear one another.”
She turned right about with her hands on her hips as the door closed behind them. “Look Tess. This isn't a joke. I feel terrible about the way Amy and I treated you today. You didn’t deserve any of it.”
“No I didn't. So why'd you do it in the first place? What do you and Amy get out of treating people like dirt?”
Mindy shrugged. “As I said, I'm sorry. I really do feel rotten about it. It's just that Amy… Well she's like that and she expects…”
“And you waste your time on her?”
“Well she's head cheerleader,” she said, looking at her toes. “It's hard not to. Anyway, I was hoping you'd let me make it up to you a little bit. I know you’re having a kind of bad time right now with your family just being relocated and all…”
“You know about that?”
“Word gets around,” she said with a shrug. “Always does. Anyway I thought maybe you'd like to come to the kickball game tonight and afterward we could go to the dance together. It’ll be fun.”
“Thanks,” said Tess with a shake of her head. “But I don’t think so.” And with that, she slung her bag on her other shoulder and made for the walkway on the far side of the road.
“Just think it about it Tess!” called out Mindy from behind. “We'll have fun if you come!”
“Righty-o!” muttered Tess. “At my expense. So they can make me their patsy in front of the ball players Shanta said were looking at me. I'm not friends with a single one of them. No way. Even if she was sincere. Can't. Can I?”
The air was bad. It was giving her fits of coughing. As soon as she was out of sight of the school, she stopped to use her inhaler.
“Tess?” said the ball in her bag.
It took a moment for her to realize that was indeed her skinny. She reached in for it at once.
“Tess,” said the nurse in the ball as it came out flashing. “We had to give Maud a sedative and she's sleeping now. We shall be leaving with her for your flat shortly, but we've been unable to find her key. Can you make it home quickly?”
“That's where I'm going now,” she said.
And with that, the ball winked out.
* * *
Amy and Josh (the wielder of lewd sign language in Tess's history class) stepped out the doors to find Mindy pacing about, waiting for them.
“How'd it go?” said Josh. “Is my virgin of the hour going to show?”
“Your virgin of the hour?” said Amy, thumping him in the ribs with her fist.
“Whose idea was this? I want her in her place, not scared off by you.” She stepped up to
Mindy and poked her. “Well?”
“She said she didn't think so,” said Mindy, staring away at the students leaving the school grounds. “But she didn't say no, either...”
“Of course not,” said Josh. “She's had her shots and she knew I'd be there to help her make her big adjustment.”
“You're probably right,” said Amy. “An adjustment with you wouldn't be big at all.”
* * *
Tess clumped pell-mell down the buckled slabs of sidewalk with a fire in her chest, refusing to slow to a walk to catch her wind. Her new combat boots were turning her legs to jelly. A bicycle rattled by in the road. She ran past a barking dog, jerking against his tether. Sparrows stopped cheeping and flew from a place in the hedge which still had leaves. She kicked her ankle and stumbled onto some paving brick. “Poor Maud!” she whimpered as she rose, brushing off the wee stones sticking to the palms of her hands. On she ran.
At last she was nearly home. She stumbled to a halt to prop her hands on her knees for just enough hot heaves to go on. There was an ambulance waiting at her barrack. “Key!” she gasped as she jogged by the ambulance, waving it in the air. She tramped up the steps to the kitchen door.
A pair of medics squatted and stepped out of the back of the ambulance and slid Maud out into the sunlight on a stretcher. Tess held the door as a nurse followed the stretcher inside.
“I took her vitals while we were waiting for you,” said the nurse. “She's merely been given a strong sedative and will be asleep for several hours. I see no need for me to stay. This under her mattress is an air wedge. If she has trouble breathing or would be more comfortable propped up, just use the foot pump. See the hose?”
“Why did she get a sedative?” said Tess. “Is her husband all right?”
“Her husband died, I believe from an anaphylaxis of some sort, though I'm not certain, on the way to Emergency, this morning,” said the nurse. “She went into hysterics.
If she needs anything, you have your skinny.” And with that, she and the medics gathered their things and left.
Tess gave a rattling sniffle as she knelt beside Maud and took up her hand. As she was gently smoothing her hair, she heard a flapping of wings and looked up to see Bart land on the back of the chair by the bed and give himself a thorough shake.
Chapter 7
Nia's enormous walk-in wardrobe was an alcove taking up most of the north wall of her spacious bedroom. The bedroom's entire west wall was a floor to ceiling mirror. She turned this way and that in front of it, studying her reflection with a critical eye. “Sam's right,” she said as she walked up to her image. “I really do look like a fashion model out of a magazine. Who'd ever 'ave imagined? If only Drake could see me.” She gave a completely unexpected sob and her look of wonder was crushed by a look of despair.
She wheeled away at once to keep her make-up from being spoilt by tears. “I thought Jill would've been here by now,” she said with a sniffle, peering out between the drapes. “I wonder if something's happened. I sure hope she hasn't been called to service some awful creep!” At the sight of a flash from the skinny on the mantle, she clapped her hand over her mouth. “It heard me!” she thought. And there was indeed a dour faced watcher staring right out at her. “Well what do you expect?” she said, going right up to the ball. “You people kidnap innocent young women and bring them here to be sex slaves to a bunch of awful... Well you can’t expect us to be happy about it and you can't force us to like it, even if you can force us to cooperate…” Door chimes stopped her short. She hurried away from the dreadful ball to answer, quickly stepping outside at the sight of Jill and closing the door behind her.
“Hey girl,” said Jill. “You look upset. You haven't been called, have y'?”
“No, thank the Fates,” said Nia, taking Jill's arm and setting out for the r
oad under the rows of twittering purple martins, gathering for the evening. “I know it's rude of me, but if y' don't mind, let's not go back in. I got upset, thinking about Drake and went to raving. And there was the stinking skinny, taking it all in.”
“So what did y' do?”
“Told it just what I thought.”
“Seriously?” said Jill with wide eyes. “Do you think that was wise?”
“Well I did. And it was probably really stupid, but it was spilling out of me before
I thought better of it. Besides, everything I said was the truth. They kidnapped us! And they can't expect us to be all happy about it. I mean, do they really think that giving us these la-de-da clothes and flats can make up for taking us from our families and loved ones and forcing us to become whores?”
“I can't imagine they care at all how we feel,” said Jill. “But you know jolly well they expect us to cooperate and play the game with a smile.”
“I'm sure they do. I'm just not certain I can manage. You know?”
Jill stopped short. “I do know,” she said, looking her in the eye. “But Nia, you have to or they'll kill you just like they killed Lizbeth this morning,” she said with a sudden snap of her fingers. “Listen lassie. When they call you to… When they call you to service someone, don't be yourself. Become someone else and keep your real self hidden away safely inside until it's over. If you can manage that, you won't like it, but you can indeed manage.”
“How can you know such a thing?”
Jill looked away. “I know because that's how I've had to survive the vile beasts I couldn't get away from back home. I'd be red-eyed gyte and crazy mad otherwise. I'm sure of it.”
“But what about your family? Didn't anyone know what you were going through?”
“I've been on my own since I was little. Children and Family came in the middle of the night just after my sixth birthday. They beat my mom to death right in front of me.
One of the coppers tried to have his way with her and she kneed him in the groin. My dad tried to help her, but they broke his skull. I doubt if he lived.”
“I'm so sorry Jill.”
“Good job someone is. It certainly wasn't your fault and there's no way you could have known. But that's how it was for so very long. Anyway I never let it touch me, as I said. I made certain they were having their way with somebody else. It does help. Just enough to get by. Make sure you have it in mind beforehand to give y' a running start.”
Nia took a tense deep breath. “I'll give it a try...” she said with a nod.
“Y' know,” said Jill, looking about at the rows of blooming locust trees on each side of the roadway, “it might be a nice evening for a walk if I'd just shut up.”
“The locust blossoms certainly smell heavenly,” said Nia, pausing to admire the calls of a wood thrush coming from a hidden high fidelity speaker. “But I'm not sure what I think about a sunset made up of rows upon rows of beacons.”
“It doesn't look like you'll have to think about it long. Isn't Blake's supposed to be right beyond Gwael Road?”
It was. Blake's Mussel and Steer was also considered the best tavern in Atlantis for steak and seafood, and Nia and Jill were soon facing one another across a table spread with linen, glistening china and silver candle sticks, enjoying a wonderful meal of halibut, scallops and giant crab so much that their awful situation seemed very far away.
Here came their waiter with a tray at his shoulder, scurrying deftly between the tables as Nia and Jill looked up in curious anticipation.
Jill gave a wide-eyed gasp as the tray bearing a glowing skinny swooped down to a perfect landing amongst the platters.
Nia abruptly parked her knife and fork. “Sam!” she said, wiping her mouth.
“Nia,” said Sam with a look which could have been regret. “You've been called to serve the potentate this evening at eight sharp. I shall meet you at your flat in twenty minutes to help you prepare.” The ball winked out at once.
Nia clapped her hand over her mouth to keep from vomiting.
Jill scooted her chair 'round the table and squeezed her other hand. “You can do this lassie,” she said firmly. “Just be someone else and not even the potentate can touch the real you.”
Nia nodded and stood right up. “I'd better go.”
“I'm coming,” said Jill, rising from her chair.
“No. I'm fine. You finish your supper and I'll see you tomorrow.”
“You sure?”
Nia gave a nod and rushed out. She was at her door looking for her key as Sam stepped out of a pearly-white electric limousine at the end of the walkway.
“Here,” said Sam, gently taking the key from Nia's trembling hand and opening the door. “It goes in the other way.”
“Thanks,” said Nia.
“You're much too upset,” said Sam, giving her a stiff squeeze across the shoulders as they stepped inside. “Being called by the potentate is quite an honor, particularly for your first assignment. Most of the girls here have not once been in the top of Orbis Terrae.”
Nia gave a feeble nod.
“Let's have a look at you,” said Sam steering her to the mirror. “Why you've already done wonderfully with your make-up and hair. You'll only need a tidy up here and there.” She set her at the dressing table and went to searching through the wardrobe.
Soon Nia was mincing down the walkway in her tall stiletto heels and little black dress to the limousine, which obliged by automatically opening first one, then the other door. When they had gotten in and the doors closed behind them, she nearly asked why they were sitting in the back seat, when Sam said to the car: “Orbis Terrae, drive in entrance, please,” and it pulled away from the curb in silence, but for a crunch of gravel under the tires.
Sam gave Nia's cold hand a squeeze. “Just remember all you've learnt in your orientation, Nia,” she said as she looked out the window. “Be polite and compliant and it'll all be over before you know it.”
“I'll try,” squeaked Nia, clearing her throat.
Sam gave her hand a concluding squeeze, and they rode the rest of the way in a tense silence of leather seats and tire noise on the pavement. Presently the car gave a fluid lurch and pulled into a bay in the basement of Orbis Terrae. Sam saw her all the way to the potentate's polished oak doors, where she pushed the bell, gave Nia’s hand a final squeeze and vanished.
Nia took a deep breath and tried on a smile, her orientation and Jill's urging her to be someone else racing through her mind. “Oh!” she said, seeing that the butler already had the door open. She gave an immediate gasp at his glowing eyes behind his fencing mask for a face. “Are you an android?” She certainly had never seen one before.
“I am indeed,” he said as he gave a deep nod and motioned for her to follow.
The potentate's residence was opulent quite beyond what she had expected, opening into a hushed vista of rich tapestries and paintings, priceless sculptures and works of art tastefully distributed throughout its luxuriously furnished breadth to a horizon of curving glass overlooking the trees and rooftops of Atlantis. “Spoils,” she thought, but she was far too tense and overwhelmed by how unreal everything was to pay attention to it, as she followed the butler to a pair of dark wooden doors with bright brass doorknobs. He gave a knock and stepped aside with a bow as a striking dark haired young man opened the door.
“Why he's 'way too young,” thought Nia, taken aback at the sight of the carefully groomed rake's wide-eyed amusement. “And you think I'm funny?” she said without thinking.
“The look on your face certainly was,” he said, still looking her over. “You were expecting some bald old man with jowls. Now admit it.”
“Not at all. I was expecting grey hair and a long nose to go with his hairy ears and pot belly,” she said, startled at what she was hearing herself say.
“Cheeky girl,” he chuckled. “I like that. Better chance you're a good time. And I'm sure the potentate will think so, too. Do come in, Miss Greenwood. And I'
m Alexander Coel, a distant cousin of the potentate. Call me Alex. Everyone does. So. Follow me, please. The potentate is anxious to meet you.”
“I'll bet,” she muttered under her breath.
Alex laughed out. “You're good!” he said, looking her way. “You will be a good time.”
“I'm lost!” thought Nia. “And I can't believe what I'm letting come out of my mouth.” Sam would undoubtedly wag her finger. She chewed on her lip as she followed, trying to picture herself slipping into her subconscious so that an artificial someone could take over her body, but it was no use. She was far too frantic to concentrate.
“Master bedroom,” said Alex, throwing wide a door to a grand room surrounding a huge round bed, spread with quilted red satin and a tumble of colorful pillows, opening on the far side to a swimming pool and the vaulting wall of curved glass beyond. The entire ceiling was a mirror and a fireplace occupied an entire wall. He gave a wave. “The bath is through the obvious door.”
The image of dashing out and running away with everything she had flashed through Nia's mind, but it was followed at once by the sight of Lizabeth collapsing to the floor only hours before. “So,” she said, mindful of her balance. “Where is this potentate?”
“You're an absolute scream, sweetheart,” said Alex, as a shapely dark haired beauty came silently into the room.
Nia paid no attention to Alex, for the woman radiated such power and predatory malevolence that Nia felt sudden gooseflesh down her spine and arms.
“Right here,” said the woman. “And you're Nia?”
“I am,” she squeaked.
Alex smirked and shook his head.
The potentate walked right up to Nia, raising her chin and looking her over as she came. “I understand that you are untouched,” she said.
Nia nodded.
“Interesting,” she said, stroking Nia's hair, sending icy tendrils of terror down her spine. “Did you lack opportunity or desire?”
“Neither, actually. I was about to be married and I was waiting for my husband,” she said as she thought: “When Drake runs his fingers through my hair, I feel tingling pleasure. Mom makes me feel warm and safe. But this woman makes my skin crawl and I feel nauseated.”
Wham! Page 7