by Lydia Hope
Making an excuse to disappear was easy today, with everyone feeling sympathetic to Gemma’s poor health. No one asked her any questions.
She assumed a waiting position near the showers. The short nap that Ruby had awoken her from helped, and she was feeling somewhat more like herself. Out of a small window, she watched the aliens line up and heard the door being opened for them to walk back upstairs. She heard conversations, Ruby telling someone to hurry up, and recognized the gurgling cooing of the Birdies.
Tiptoeing, she slid along the wall and emerged in front of Arlo like a wraith.
He yelped.
“Gemma!” There was a fake greeting if ever she heard one.
“Arlo!” she responded in kind. “Fancy bumping into you.”
“Yes, what a nice surprise. But look at the time! Gotta go.” He tried to follow the inmates.
“A word with you, please.”
She was cutting off his escape route, and unless he physically moved her out of the way, he was stuck. And Arlo wasn’t one for fistfights.
Realizing he was trapped, he crossed his arms. “You look like shit, by the way.”
“Smooth talker, you. I feel like shit, so I’ll be brief. I want to come back to the third floor.”
“Okay. I can’t help you with that. Can I pass now?”
“You had me moved out. You can move me back in.”
Arlo spread his arms out. “Are you insane? Do I look like our esteemed Operations Overseer, moving people around? Go corner him near his fucking office and see if maybe your chapped lips and sunken eyes will scare him into submission.”
“Save the sarcasm. You’re the one I blame.”
He didn’t exactly deny it. “How about being grateful? The chicks’ ward is sweet. We all should be that lucky. In any case, what’s done is done.”
“Arlo,” his name was like a crack of the whip. “You don’t understand…”
He didn’t let her finish, “I do! I understand. I just don’t give a fuck.”
“Try harder.”
“No, Gemma, I won’t. I don’t have to.”
“Let’s see if I can help you change your mind.” She placed one hand against the wall to give herself a prop. Standing upright was getting increasingly difficult. “I want to go back to the alien floor.”
“So you said. And I can’t figure out why. Are you missing your Obu boyfriend? Hey, come with us to the courtyard and he’ll be right there for you. I won’t call in help, I promise.”
Gemma stayed silent, drilling holes in him with her eyes.
“No? Not him? And here I thought… “ He cut himself short and his gaze grew speculative and lewd. “Well, well. It’s that sickly lizard Simon, isn't it? Saintly Gemma has a kink for comatose men. ‘Scuse me, comatose aliens. What do you do with him? Or should I ask, how do you do him?”
“You’re disgusting.”
“Compared to who? I don’t get off on vegetative prisoners.”
“Simon isn’t vegetative, and you know it.”
Arlo laughed. “This is rich. She’s reassigned to the most coveted cell block in the prison and pitches a fit because she has serious hots for a scraggly cripple who resembles a garden rake on his good hair day. I could write a book about this. If I could write, that is.”
Their discussion wasn’t going in the direction Gemma had envisioned for it to go. She should’ve listened to Ruby’s advice and taken her time preparing for the confrontation with Arlo. But here she was, getting weaker by the second, flying by the seat of her pants. She had to make him scared enough to act.
“Arlo,” she said pleasantly. “If you don’t make things happen, I’ll take matters into my own hands.”
His face split into a derisive sneer. “Since when have you become a hassler? Gimme a break.”
“Ah, but you forget about my biggest asset. My tits.”
His gaze slid to her breasts. “What about them?”
“You’ve noticed them.”
He put up a defensive hand. “I’m not the only one. Hard not to when them koomba-loombas turn corners ahead of the rest of you.”
“Good. OO likes them too. You think me and my tits can persuade him to get me assigned to a cellblock of my choice?”
Arlo’s face betrayed no emotion but Gemma noticed his pupils shrink. If it wasn’t from fear, it must be from super close attention he was now paying to her words.
“I call your bluff,” he said with his usual sneer. “You’re not the one to sleep with top brass to get what you want.”
She smiled. “Thank you for your kind words. But it all depends on what I want and how badly I want it. I swear, Arlo, if you don’t have me reassigned back, I will go to OO and I will suck his dick dry to have my way. And in the process, I’ll talk about you, about Bug, and about the dope that turns up like magic in the cells of your inmates.”
“What does Bug have to do with anything?” Alarm rang in his voice. So he was afraid of Bug. She’d hit the payload.
“I’ll throw his name out there for an added weight.”
“By all means, whore yourself out to OO if your heart so desires, but you have no proof about me. You. Can’t. Prove. Fuck.”
She couldn't, of course. But it was imperative he wondered.
“Call my bluff if you dare, Arlo,” she said calmly. “Go ahead, wait and see how it works out.”
Stalemate.
Yet something in her face must’ve triggered doubts in Arlo’s mind. Maybe it was the feverish flush that lent her dry skin a truly ghastly aspect in the dim light of the landing or her sunken eyes that blazed with maniacal zeal, but she could pinpoint the exact moment when he backed down.
“Hypothetically speaking, if I were inclined to help you out of the goodness of my heart, seeing as you’re my teammate and we should look out for each other… I may not be able to get you what you want. It’s not that easy, Gemma.”
She’d come that far and she was not giving an inch of the hard-won ground.
“I can be reasonable. I’m giving you a week, till next Saturday.”
“A week? Hey, that’s not enough time! And I’m making no promises.”
“I believe in you, Arlo.” She turned and started climbing stairs with a sheer effort of her will. “Saturday.”
He yelled something at her back but she didn’t hear it for the buzzing in her ears. Her head was spinning sickeningly and she groped the walls for support, glad to be out of his sight.
Now that her mission of catching Arlo had been accomplished, the inner compulsion that had propelled her forward ceased its operation, and her body was throwing up a white flag.
Heeding her weakness and seeing no reason to abuse her body further, Gemma checked out her stun gun and crawled home.
She slept in fits and starts for two days straight, venturing out to the kitchen only to eat cold leftovers or have a drink of water.
The McKinleys, Aunt Herise in particular, didn’t try to hide their displeasure at having Gemma sick in their house. What good was she to them, a dead weight helping with none of the household chores? Furthermore, her sickness was probably contagious and none of them wanted to contract the virus, least of all Uncle Drexel in his weakened condition.
Perversely, Gemma wished Arlo caught the crud from her. It seemed like a petty but fitting payback for having to chase him around the prison.
The next time she woke up, her fever had broken. She felt weak as a newborn kitten but her head was clear and she was finally hungry. Gemma took stock of her condition and decided it was time to go back to work. Not missing out on more pay far outweighed her desire to stay in bed and recuperate.
She overestimated her ability to walk fast and cleared the prison entrance at the exact moment the siren sounded, out of breath, shedding her coat as the went. Throwing her outer garments into her cubby, she rushed to the check-in counter where the line had already dissipated. She was the last one.
“McKinley?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The guard frowned.
She seemed to do it a lot in Gemma’s presence.
“They yanked you again. Go figure. Third floor.”
Gemma nearly expired on the spot.
The lady took a stun gun from the rack and handed it to her. Gemma accepted it automatically afraid her heart would jump right out of her chest. The familiar sights and sounds of the prison took a back seat to the rushing of blood in her ears and the erratic thumping in her chest.
She mounted the first flight of stairs and had to stop, afraid she might faint, her legs weak and trembling. An irrational fear gripped her that she was too weak to make it to the third floor.
Pacing her ascent, she moved up slowly when in reality she wanted to take the stairs two at a time. Reaching the door, she slapped her palm on the scanner and watched it blink, and heard the latch release. Shoulders straight, she walked in.
Immediately, she spotted Ruby who turned to see who came in. Arlo was nowhere in the vicinity.
“Gemma!” Ruby breathed.
Gemma wanted to say something warm in return but her throat closed up on her. She nodded in response and silently started moving along the corridor.
Inmates recognized her and several issued greetings of various degrees of pleasantness.
Heart beating faster, her composure wavering, Gemma was nearing cell 35. She passed the Tarai, the Birdies, then the empty cell where Arc used to stay, and finally, him…
Simon was sitting on his cot in a loose assembly of long limbs, his preferred position, and his brilliant black eyes were trained outward on the opening of his door. He knew she was here; had heard her approach. The intensity of his gaze took the last vestiges of composure away from her. She grabbed the warped iron bars to stay upright and rested her forehead against them.
“Simon…” was all she could whisper. Her eyes stung.
He moved so fast she could barely track it. One second he was sitting down, and in the blink of an eye, he was towering over her on the other side of the bars, mere inches between them. He wrapped his hands around the same bars, a fraction above her hands, watching her.
She raised her head and looked back. He seemed taller, bigger than she remembered. His hair was messy, the braid in a need of a re-do. His eyes, completely black and completely foreign, betrayed nothing. Everything about him was just like she’d dreamed about only better, riper.
“I’m back,” she said.
He didn’t reply except raising his fine eyebrows slightly. His gaze shifted away from her and Gemma looked behind to see Ruby standing not too far, staring at them with a dumbfounded expression.
“You’re holding up the roll call, honey.”
Ruby’s prosaic comment grounded Gemma. The world snapped into place. She let go of the metal bars separating her from Simon and gave him a coy look.
“I think I am. Thank you, Ruby. Better get back to business or else someone might get ideas about preferential treatment.”
Simon’s eyebrows remained arched up high. He might have sneered but she wasn’t sure because he pivoted and faded back into the dim obscurity of his cell, folding onto himself and turning his head sideways to Gemma.
His dismissal hurt not a bit. For the first time since laying eyes on him, she felt that the pull that had long been tagging at her went both ways.
She moved on to complete the roll call.
Ruby was waiting for her when Gemma returned from the other end of the corridor.
“I’ve seen the real Simon today.”
Gemma smiled. “You see him every day, Ruby.”
“No, I don’t. Not like this.”
Gemma's smile slipped. “And how is ‘this’?”
Ruby gurgled a laugh. “Well, he has airs about him when he chooses to display any.”
“Yes, isn’t he precious?”
Ruby choked. “That’s not how I’d describe him. More like an ass.”
“Ruby!”
“Badass.” Ruby grew serious. “Are you sure being one-on-one with him is safe, Gemma?”
“You sound like Arc, all doom and gloom. Simon is an intelligent creature, not some war cyborg with wire brain and trigger finger. He has self-awareness and self-control. He’s also unwell and weak.”
Ruby tilted her head. “I’ve noticed his bars are bent. Is it a sign of his self-control? Or his weakness?”
Gemma ducked her head and left Ruby to form her hypotheses.
Arlo hadn’t shown up and would likely stay a no-show, which left Gemma in a bind with supervising the yard time exit and return. Putting their heads together, Gemma a Ruby decided that the Obu should be the first inmate to go out and the first one to come back to his cell, with Ruby in the lead. The guards would help as usual, and that would leave Gemma more or less safe at the tail end of the line.
The exit was executed flawlessly, and she was free for the whole hour of Simon time.
She located the wheelchair that someone had unceremoniously pushed far away from cell number 35, and brought it close. She placed her hand on the scanner to unlock Simon’s cell. The latch released, but she hesitated. Ruby’s warnings and Arc’s prophecies came back to unnerve her.
Simon was watching her intently.
Still, she wouldn’t come in.
“What’s it going to be?” That accent, that raspy, fluid tenor of his. “Come in or lock up the door.”
She pulled at the door and entered.
He slowly rose from his cot. “Are we going?”
“I didn’t bring yogurt today, I’m sorry. I had no way of knowing they’d put me back in with you.” She felt crappy for eating his yogurt this morning. “But we can go out anyway if you’d like.”
He kept watching her intently and his sunglasses-opaque gaze was making her uncomfortable. She knew her cheeks were reddening in the most obvious way, considering her post-illness waxy complexion.
“Why did you get moved out?”
“I can’t see your pupils. It’s weird, Simon.”
They spoke simultaneously and then fell silent.
“Why did they move you?” he repeated, unperturbed.
“Long story. Come on, here’s your chair. Can you get in on your own?” She busily pushed the chair in, gesturing for him to sit.
He hadn’t moved. “Gemma. I asked you a question.”
She stopped fidgeting and faced him, looking square into those black orbs. “It doesn’t matter.”
He acknowledged her answer with a slight twitch to his right brow. “What matters is how you came back. Did you trade in a favor?”
He was beginning to scare her with a rising wave of dark, angry energy.
“I have no favors to trade, Simon,” she shook her head slightly. “I bluffed my way back. I scared someone by pretending to possess information about them I don’t have. But hey, it worked. Let’s go outside or we’ll run out of time.”
His energy subsided as he lowered himself into the chair. Gemma pushed him into the elevator and yanked the sticky mesh door closed, encapsulating them in the tight rumbling cabin.
“I have pupils,” he said out of the blue. “I have three in each eye.”
“Nuh-uh! You’re making it up. I can’t see any.”
“They’re black. You can’t see them now.”
“When can I see them?”
“When I get angry.”
Gemma laughed.
They cleared the exit checkpoint and went out. Now that the exhilaration of the morning was beginning to fade, Gemma’s body reminded her that only yesterday she had been prostrate in bed with a fever. She was far from her full strength, and pushing Simon up the street took all she had.
She got them as far as the church's crumbling wall and stopped.
“Here we go. I know you like it here better than inside the ruin. Again, I’m sorry about the yogurt.”
He surprised her by rising from the wheelchair and taking a few steps. He stopped gripping the edge of the wall for support.
“Don’t bring me any more of your milk brew. Don’t risk it.”
/>
“But Simon, that’s the only thing you can eat!”
“I’ve started eating the disgusting prison mush.”
Gemma gaped at him. “How? The last time you tried, we had to mop it from the floor.”
His upper lip did that ugly sneering thing again, reminding Gemma that different species didn’t show mirth in the same way.
“I am better now. I can keep that slush down.”
“But is it enough?”
“It’s enough. I don’t need a lot of food. It hurts digesting it but nothing I can’t handle.” He pegged her with his eyes. “It gives me energy. We can’t afford to have me weak, too.”
Weak, too. She wanted to make a face at him but today, of all days, he wasn’t far off base. Tired, she sat down on the cold ground.
He gave her a skipping glance. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I love the way you pose your questions. So suave. I’ve been sick. I’m better now, just some aftereffects. Mind if I rest?”
“Take the chair. You are probably cold, too. You’re always cold.” Was it her imagination or did she hear a derogatory note in this statement?
Deciding that the chair beat the icy ground any day, she took him up on his offer curling in the wide sagging seat and tucking her feet under her.
“Let me know if you get tired and want to sit down. Aren’t you cold? Your clothes are even thinner than mine.”
“This isn’t cold for Rix.”
Alrighty then.
“What did you mean about your pupils and getting angry?”
He hesitated before answering as if weighing the wisdom of talking to her about something so personal.
“My eyes change depth when all four hearts are beating.”
Four hearts.
It slammed into Gemma. Dr. Delano. The drawing in his office. She had to tell Simon.
For the moment, she kept it cool. “Why do you have four hearts?”
“Why do you have one?” he countered. “You humans have one pupil per eye, one heart, only five fingers, blunt teeth, have to eat your weight in food every day. Your species’ survival puzzles me. You should have died out a long time ago.”
Gemma laughed. “We’re well adapted to this planet, believe me. So your four hearts beat at the same time?”
Again, that hesitation on his part. “No. Only one beats when I’m at rest. Two are for everyday things, the most common. Three is when you recuperate after injury or play sports, or are… over-excited. All four are for battle mode. Survival. Extreme agitation.”
