by Lydia Hope
From her precarious position under the Obu, she managed a glance at his cell. No farther than ten feet, the gleaming onyx plate might as well have been ten light years away.
“Try to push against him. Get moving.”
Easy for Simon to say. Nevertheless, she flexed her leg and managed to brace against the hairy mass, giving a mighty shove, sliding on the floor for about half-foot, a mere fraction of the distance she had to cover.
“I can’t! He’s too strong!” she panted from the exertion.
“You have to try harder. Please, Gemma. Do it for me. Just this one time. That’s all I’m asking. Save my world, open this goddamn door!”
Tears of desperation overflowed her eyes and spilled down her temples. She couldn’t escape the Obu, wasn’t strong enough to put up meaningful resistance. But she wasn’t going down yet. Not yet.
Breathing fast, Gemma let her body go lax. It was hard when every instinct she possessed screamed at her to keep fighting.
The Obu, surprised at her sudden lack of movement, raised his head to look at her. For an interminable moment, Gemma stared right into her attacker’s gentle doe eyes framed by long thick lashes.
“Please, stop,” she heard herself whisper. “Please. Let me go.”
In response, the Obu threw his head back and trumpeted, his neck cording from the effort he put forth. He ground his pelvis against Gemma’s so hard she cried out thinking her hip bones are about to break from the pressure.
No, there was no reasoning with him.
She gathered all the strength she had in her body and heaved, grunting from the effort. Caught by surprise, the Obu toppled to the side.
She rolled away from him, and, praying for flexibility, kicked up into an upright position landing on the balls of her feet. Her right ankle responded with a vicious stab of pain radiating up her entire leg, but it held. It held!
She threw her body into the air and flew spinning like a football, homing in on Simon’s barred door.
She met his eyes for a suspended half-second, black and murderous. Veins were bulging around his neck and the blue tats she knew by heart were vibrating wildly above the collar of his shirt.
Gemma’s open palm connected with the onyx scanner.
Just as fast, the Obu grabbed her from behind wringing a pitiful wail from her throat. She hadn’t kept her palm on the scanner long enough for it to get a reading!
“Simon!” she screamed in defeat as the beast mowed her down. The side of her face hit the floor when she landed and her vision blurred. Her escape had enraged the Obu who wouldn’t be denied his mating rights. Now his grip hurt for real, and she was done.
And then, through the noise of the cellblock and the din in her own rattled brain, she heard it - the familiar clang of a releasing lock.
The shouting of the inmates abruptly ceased.
Before another thought could solidify in Gemma’s disconcerted brain, the Obu was shoved away from her and she was lying on the cold hard floor alone.
Taking deep, measured breaths, she allowed herself a few seconds of respite before rising to her knees and finally standing up.
The Obu roared behind her making her head whip around. The deafening sound ricocheted off the walls. It wasn’t a short snorting roar he’d given Gemma. This one shook the cellblock, and she knew a battle cry when she heard one.
Simon made no sound.
There was no way to discern which one was winning. The Obu was wrapped tight around Simon, and they were rolling up and down the corridor with terrifying speed leaving a two-toned blood trail in their wake: the brownish splotches from the Obu, the blue-tinted smears from Simon.
Simon’s white body appeared dainty next to the Obu’s hulk. Yet every time the beast flipped Simon underneath him, her alien managed to reverse their roles and come out on top.
Gradually, the Obu’s deafening roars subsided and their whirlwind spinning around the corridor slowed down. The Obu struggled to maintain focus.
Catching him at the right moment, Simon bared his dark teeth and latched onto the thick brown neck issuing a short echoing roar of his own, hoarse and vibrating. Gemma took an involuntary step back. Inmates shrunk back into their cells.
The Obu stopped struggling.
Simon sprung onto his feet and stepped away. Breathing heavily, he leaned against the wall, his eyes trained on the Obu as the beast dragged himself on the floor. He crawled toward Gemma, his big doe eyes fixed on her. Issuing a weak moan, he stretched his huge hand in her direction grasping air as if it was her physical form. Bloody foam bubbled out of his mouth and nose. And finally, the light went out of his eyes as he died.
Gemma clapped her hands over her mouth. The scene was all kinds of terrible.
But a movement caught her attention distracting her from the Obu’s motionless form - Arlo, slapping his hand flat against the panic button.
Simon let go of the wall.
“Now you decide to call for help,” he growled. “I’m going to rip your guts out.”
Palming his belly with one hand as if to protect his innards, Arlo unclipped his taser.
“Get back to your cell.”
Simon’s gently arched eyebrows rose. “Make me.”
He widened his stance. A nasty gash on his shoulder was bleeding, soaking his shirt with a bluish-red wet stain. Gemma could see how winded he was.
Slowly, Arlo took a step toward Simon, his eyes flickering to Gemma with uncertainty.
“You stay where you are, bitch, or I’ll fry you first.”
Gemma saw his thumb move the tiny lever on his weapon to the max as he came close enough to reach Simon with his taser.
“Get in,” Arlo snapped jutting his chin toward the open cell. A mean, ugly expression made his face a mask of twisted hatred. Armed, he felt like he had an upper hand.
Simon said and did nothing.
Arlo’s hand shot out and stabbed Simon in the midriff with the taser like it was a knife. He pressed the lever releasing the full bloom of the charge into the thin, pale body.
Gemma lunged at Arlo striking him in the shoulder. “No!”
Arlo’s hand moved in an arch and caught her with the zap. She dropped like a fly. The pain was excruciating. Her body cramped all over, unable to move for several seconds that seemed eternally long.
When the shock wore off, she saw Arlo’s stunned face and slack mouth as he zapped Simon over and over again, with the alien doing nothing except slowly raising his hands, grasping Arlo’s head between his six-fingered hands, and giving it one sharp yank. Arlo’s neck broke with a dry sound of a snapping twig.
Letting the human’s body drop, Simon stepped over it and approached Gemma. He gently lifted her from the floor and cradled her against his chest.
“I have to go,” he said softly against her temple.
“Go where?” she whispered back, garbled in the aftershocks of being tased. She could hear the decisive stomp of boots from the stairs. Guards were on their way and coming up fast.
“Escape. They won’t let me live. Can you stand?” Simon asked her.
She nodded and he carefully lowered her to the floor allowing her to find balance before letting go. Scooping up the tattered remains of her shirt, Simon draped them over her shoulders covering her breasts.
“Thank you,” she said, polite, the sense of reality temporarily a foreign concept.
“I can’t take you with me now.” He was implying that she’d be a dead weight to him now when every second counted. She would be, no argument there. “But I’ll come for you soon.”
She nodded in a daze.
“We can’t go on as we have at the prison. It’s a dead end,” he continued as if trying to convince her that their parting was a good thing.
It wasn’t.
“You’re right,” she said automatically. A small black hole opened up in Gemma’s heart and began growing. She was losing him.
“You’re crying,” he said with surprise.
“I’m not.”
“I can see your eyes leaking.”
“It’s not tears.”
“Can human eyes leak something other than tears?”
“No, of course not. Don’t be silly.”
“Then what is it, Gemma?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing.”
A muffled beep of the scanner sounded from the stairwell, the door being unlocked by reinforcements from the other side. Gemma stifled a sob.
Simon took two steps towards the door and turned to look at her. His eyes were cold black, betraying nothing.
“Stay strong for me, Gemma.”
“I’m trying, Simon,” she managed through the throat so tight it threatened to choke her.
“I won’t leave Earth without you.”
The door burst open. The guards flowed in like hot lava, tasers at the ready. Several stung Simon at full blast. He shrugged off electricity as he twisted and turned amid the uniformed mass, striking the guards’ faces with his bare hands, busting skulls like water balloons, clawing out eyes. He fought his way to the door with a single-minded focus. He hopped over some of the felled bodies, stomped on others, pushed guards out of the way by ripping out their guts.
Another second - and heaps of gray prostrate forms were all that was left in the suddenly quiet corridor. The smell of blood and death hung heavy in the silence. Pulled by the spring, the heavy door slowly shut.
Chapter 23
"I got fired.”
Aunt Herise whirled around. Her eyebrows came down low making her pinched face look like a disgruntled prune.
“Why?”
In a nutshell? “An inmate escaped on my watch.”
Gemma wearily lowered herself in a chair by the door keeping her coat tightly buttoned to avoid giving the family an eyeful. She was bone tired and hungry, and her bruised body hurt.
Herise threw the stirring spoon on the counter with a clutter. “Stupid, careless girl! How could you have lost your job now? Do you not know the situation we are in?”
“I didn’t do it to spite you, Aunt Herise.”
Taken aback by Gemma’s sarcasm, Aunt Herise didn’t reply right away, and Gemma was able to untie her boots in silence.
“How do you expect to pay rent?” Herise went straight for the bottom line.
Gemma wanted to tell her to go to hell, she really did. Would it kill the woman to ask if Gemma was alright? If she was upset about being fired? Scared of the future? How about offering her some reassurance? Ruby, a mere co-worker, had treated her with more kindness than this so-called relative.
She took a deep breath, tampering an impulse to lash out. “I will look for another job. Starting tomorrow.”
“See that you do,” Herise grated. “Adding another dependent is not possible under the circumstances, you understand.”
“I do.”
“Your room must bring us a profit. I don’t know what foolishness got you fired but we can no longer care for you.”
Gemma laughed and it wasn’t a nice laugh.
“Care?” She stood up, turning her back on the loft where Ravi and Desh were holed up watching the spectacle. “You never cared, Aunt Herise. But my room is paid for the full month and you can expect me to stay here at least that long.”
Gemma snatched a slice of bread from the counter and marched to her room. “Excuse me, I’ve had a long day.”
Alone, she undid the buttons of her coat and let it hung open revealing purple bruises liberally decorating her breasts, a consequence of the Obu’s amorous handling.
Damn her aunt. Gemma would give her right arm to have someone in her life to offer her comfort, a shoulder to cry on at a time like this. Anybody.
Fighting tears, she removed her ruined clothes and, wrapped in a towel, made a foray to the bathroom for a quick clean-up. The tepid water was brownish but she was past caring. Working quickly, she scrubbed head to toe imagining how all traces of the assault were being rinsed off her body and flushed down the drain.
Back in her room, huddled under a blanket, Gemma munched on the bread and contemplated her future. She needed a plan, a list of places where she could look for work. But concentration eluded her.
Instead, her mind turned back to a scene in OO’s office, after Simon’s escape. She had come downstairs on her own shocking everyone by the fact that she had survived the massacre. She scarcely remembered the interrogation that followed. There had been pointed questions and she had to recount the sequence of events several times.
OO had looked pensive. By that time she had been given a new overcoat to cover her nakedness and she’d been holding the lapels of it together in a white-knuckled hold.
“The Obu attacked you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you let the alien from cell 35 out. Deliberately.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, why would you do that?”
“He… he said he’d help me. He was the only one to offer.”
“And you believed him? Knowing he was disabled?”
“I had little choice.”
OO had grunted. “We know now that he isn’t disabled.”
“He used to be.”
“He’s been playing you all along. He used you to escape.”
OO had drilled her with his glassed eyes, so sure he’d figured it all out. Gemma had sat there nearly falling apart from the stress of almost dying, of watching others die. Of losing Simon.
“He did save me. Like he said he would.”
OO’s face had hardened. She had braced against being sacked without mercy. Surely he’d do it now.
He hadn’t.
Instead, he had sent an assistant to fetch her a warm drink and when they had remained alone, helpfully adjusted the overcoat over her breasts. He had soothed her worries and offered his special support in return for a small token of appreciation, which involved Gemma being naked and available.
She had told him no.
Then he had fired her.
Sitting cross-legged in bed, Gemma finished the last piece of bread and pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. She eyed the calendar, the only wall art in her spartan room. Today’s date jumped out at her, bold and yet uncrossed.
She should cross it out as had become her nightly routine but Gemma couldn’t bring herself to do it. A small childish part of her wanted to pretend that if she didn’t put a fat diagonal line across the number, then this day wouldn’t technically be over. It would go on and on, forever, the last day in which she saw Simon, talked to him. She could pretend she’d last seen him only today and this made-up realism could help her function. She couldn’t stop time but there were ways around it.
Resolutely, she rose from the bed and grabbed a pencil. Make-believe was a slippery slope to madness. Would Foy have hidden from the bitter truth? He absolutely would have not. Gemma reached up with the pencil and crossed that sucker off. And afterward, she put her face in her hands giving in to the hot, bitter tears that poured from her eyes.
Simon was gone and she’d never see him again.
The next day Gemma awoke early and wasted no time dressing and going out to look for work. She headed straight for the docks counting on the biggest employer in town to have something available.
A long line of hopefuls was already stretched out from the front gate. The docks did daily picks for odd jobs, she learned as she waited. People hired for the day got paid by the hour, so she’d receive her earnings without delay. On the downside, she ran a risk of never getting picked.
Gemma decided to give it a chance.
She was patient. She stuck it out despite the cold and empty belly and her aching foot. But after several hours her hope dimmed.
Many able-bodied men got called in to do heavy lifting and repairs after the Perali attack. Gemma’s small form was blatantly passed over by a wizened old man in a mushroom hat who was doing the selections.
Gemma quit the line and walked over to the militant barracks.
“The recruitment day is t
he first Thursday of each month,” she was told. “You’ve got to have good eyesight and be able to pass the physical test.”
Gemma thanked the lady for the information thinking that there was no way in hell she’d be able to pass the physical test. Not with that foot of hers.
Taking a mental note of the date nevertheless, she left the barracks and made stops at the school, and the sewing factory, and the comm center, and the magistrate offices, and a dozen other places of business. And everywhere she went she had to compete with hordes of other contenders for any job available, willing to work for a pittance, any day or time. And everywhere she was met with indifference and told to come back later, and at best her name was added to a waiting list of applicants.
By the end of the day when darkness had fallen and no glimmer of a prospect materialized on the horizon, Gemma began to grasp the full scope of her problem. There were no jobs to be had in the City.
It had been snowing all day and the streets were covered in sleet. By the time Gemma trudged back to the McKinleys’ home, her damp coat ceased to keep the cold at bay and she could no longer feel her toes inside her damp boots. Hunger gnawed at her insides.
The windows were ablaze with lights - a surprise, for Aunt Herise disapproved of using too much light because, naturally, electricity wasn’t free. Gemma picked up her pace, her attention sharpening.
A sleek little transporter was parked near the house, its side bearing a medical cross. It looked as conspicuous in their neighborhood as a whore in church. Did Uncle Drexel take a turn for the worse? Gemma took the steps two at a time and used her key to unlock the door.
It took Gemma a few blinks to adjust her eyes to the bright light of blazing lamps and her heart plummeted.
“Good evening, Gemma,” Dr. Delano greeted her politely.
He and two men in medical scrubs were sitting at the table with the family. The atmosphere in the room was expectant and tense. Aunt Herise was smiling but her eyes were darting back and forth with nervousness.
“Dr. Delano,” Gemma acknowledged him. “Is this a house call for Uncle Drexel?” She looked in her uncle’s direction silently inviting him to explain.
