Rovada moved slightly closer, just within Margot’s reach. She lifted her other hand and slowly moved to touch the brown bone on his wing.
It’s like skin.
And she was here, one arm wrapped around a brown boy and one hand on a brown-clad being from outer space. For a moment, she felt connected to both.
Chapter 7
“NOT MUCH UNLIKE YOUR skin,” Rovada said.
Margot peered up at him with scorn.
“Sorry,” Rovada replied, “it’s so hard.”
She moved her hand to his tail appendage and noticed the softness of the pad upon which he sat. Her hand rose up the appendage and she suddenly pulled it away. Rovada was startled at the movement.
“Bathroom? Genitals?” She turned back to look at Sergio. “Sorry, I was just curious.”
Sergio laughed. “That’s one of the first things I asked too. ‘Where’s your pee-pee?’” He laughed again.
“And I said I have none, not of the procreation kind,” Rovada replied. “We had them, though that was a few billion years back, long ago. Fell out of use. Disappeared. Some things just naturally disappear across the years in evolution.”
“Jesus! Why would God ever make something like you?” she winced.
“I’ll leave if you keep talking to him like that!” Sergio wriggled and complained.
“Sorry, sorry, Sergio, but you’ve had time to get used to him. You’ve had time to get used to all of this!” She looked around the room; the orange lights above her bed were the only lights illuminating the entire room. She turned to Sergio. “How the hell, I mean heck, do we get out of here?”
“You have to get up first,” replied Rovada.
“You mean I have to walk to leave this place?”
“You could get around otherwise, without walking, but it is likely you’ll prefer walking.”
“Then I’ll get up,” she stammered. “Sergio, help me up!”
Margot grabbed Sergio’s shoulder as his small body strained to accept the weight of the hand that was bearing down on him.
“That hurts! You weigh a ton!” he complained.
Margot stopped in her movement to pause for a second. She looked down at her shrunken chest, the muscles flaccid. She used to take pride in the firmness of her breasts, even though they were only a size B cup.
It’s because they’re so small that they’re so firm. But hell, who cares about them, anyway, now that Geoff is gone? It’ll be a long time. What the hell am I thinking about? It’ll be never! Margot, this may indeed be real. It seems real enough. I’ve slept. I’ve wakened. I’ve seen my tongue and hands. This boy, I can see the wax in his ear. I can see the fine dark hairs on his neck. I can bite my lip. I can touch and smell that horrible beast. It all might be real. Regardless, I will push through it. I will push through it.
My muscles burn. The sun is terribly hot. I’m ill-prepared. No water today. I stopped by the roadside. Sunday. Just a short hike. Had my boots and pants in the trunk of the car. The hill didn’t look that high. These damn hills, seems like ten minutes and soon it’s a half hour. And I forgot my hat. Jesus. What a stupid thing! Like when I forgot my tampons at the game! Where to go in the fourth inning when I felt that gush of blood?
“Period!” Margot exclaimed.
“Period?” Sergio asked, looking somewhat startled by her remark.
Margot glanced quickly at Rovada and quickly shook her head. “Period,” she replied, “I won’t answer you, period! Are you implying, young man, that I weigh too much?” She raised her eyebrows at him.
“No, um, no,” Sergio responded meekly.
“Well help me, then.” She winked at Sergio who crouched down and put his hands on his knees, his arms struggling to bear the weight upon his back.
“I’m up!” she cried, arms shaking and legs now locked. Her body rested partially on Sergio’s back, and she pushed herself slowly upwards to straighten her back.
“Sergio, hold on!” She could feel the boy’s own trembling. As her coccyx straightened, she felt herself pulling backwards, losing her balance. Rovada quickly moved to her side. She looked around her back, realizing that she and Rovada were now barely touching, heads within inches of each other. She felt her stomach sink. “God, Jesus. What would make a thing like you? How do you see? Those bumps?”
“Yes.”
She hissed. “You stink badly! Like a fart!”
“Sorry, Margot, fart has no equivalent for us. But I know by your word that it means a smell not pleasant to you.”
“Enough!” she said. “I’m up now, and more stable. Move away.”
Sergio had risen during the exchange, and Margot was now standing up. Her hands gripped hard on his small shoulders. She turned around to look at him as Rovada moved slowly back
“What are you looking at?”
Sergio’s face blushed. “I’m sorry. I haven’t seen a girl’s boobs up close like this for a long time.”
“What do you mean? When did you ever see a woman’s breast up close, outside of your own mother?”
“I saw some pictures on the internet and well, um, that shirt’s not very thick or anything. It’s not my fault.”
Margot peered down at the orange top the machine had produced. She noticed a dark brown outline showing from each nipple. “Rovada!” she screamed. “I asked you before! Can you do something about this?”
“I can,” Rovada replied as he slowly moved away from her to the machine that lay above her bed.
“Not now!” she demanded. “I want you here! In case I fall back!”
“You change your mind quickly,” he replied.
“Better then that you shouldn’t read it!” she retorted. Rovada moved closer to Margot.
“Okay, Sergio, listen to me. I’m a very strong person.”
“I know,” he said, looking at his pained shoulder.
“I shouldn’t have too hard of a time, especially because I want out of this place badly. It smells like the stink pots in Yellowstone in here, and the farther I am away from him, the better my whole life will be.”
“It doesn’t smell that bad," Sergio replied.
“Listen, you step back slowly, a foot at a time, and I’ll try to match your steps, then we’ll leave this place, step by step.”
Sergio looked up at her, slowly stepped back, and Margot stepped in stride. He noticed her chest swell as she tried to regulate her breathing with her steps.
“Good?” he asked.
She smiled at him. “Great, Serge, great!” Rovada followed behind silently.
Sergio walked with her in a circle around the room for a few minutes, and Margot gradually regained her balance and walking coordination. “Okay,” Margot said. “I’m ready, we’re ready. Sergio, move to my side! Now, where’s the door?” She looked sternly at Rovada.
“Over here!” Sergio said as he helped her towards a wall.
“I don’t see a door,” she queried. Suddenly, a portion of the wall dissipated, creating an opening wide enough for them to walk through. “What the hell?” she asked, turning to Rovada.
“It’s the Wall. Because it’s thought-sensitive, it knows when we want to leave.” Margot, though, was already starting to amble steadily down the hall, still holding onto Sergio.
She stopped in her tracks, remembering her clothes. “Rovada!” she demanded. “Are you going to get me something a little thicker to put on?” She looked down and noticed the dark triangle between her legs.
My God, my legs! Jesus, look at my legs!
Fine, dark hair stubble covered virtually every inch of her legs, except for her ankles and knees. “What did you do to me?” she screamed. “Wait!” She turned around to Rovada. “I’m not walking around like this! Make me something other than these shorts. I want . . . I want it at least to my ankles.”
While Margot stared dumbfounded at her legs, a pair of orange tinted pants and a small opaque blouse extruded from the floor. “Here you go, Margot,” Rovada responded.
Margot
looked up, her eyes wide in disbelief.
“How, um, I mean, how do you get these so fast? Did you know, did you read my mind again?”
“No, Margot, I did not. It’s kind of like your 3-D printing and I could explain given time, but it seemed like you were going somewhere.”
“Look, how the hell did my legs get so black and hairy over the last couple of days? They weren’t like this when I first woke up.”
“The effects of the spray we applied. It contained hormones to keep your skin in good condition. Made your hair grow faster. And since you have awakened, the machine stopped doing the shaving that you would normally do for yourself. You may have your own habits there, and the Wall will not take care of grooming if you are capable. The Wall is not a replacement for your life’s activities.”
Margot quickly grabbed the new clothes and slipped them on over her thin top and shorts, stroking her hair along the way.
“My hair never was like this before, and you guys better fix it.”
"But Margot," Rovada began, "you must also remember that you are five years older than you last recall. Some things have changed about your body. You were twenty-five when you hit your head. You are over thirty now, and you may have more body hair on your legs.”
She wasn’t ready for this. Aging through the prime of her life. “Christ,” she whispered, shaking her head as she looked down at her body. “I’m thirty? I’m thirty?”
Sergio interjected, “You don’t look that old to me, Margot.”
Margot ignored his comment. “Sergio,” she said, bending over to whisper to him, “is there a mirror here – a full-length mirror? I can’t see how much weight I’ve gained. My God, I haven’t seen my face in five years. I wonder how bad I look.”
“Yep, there are mirrors. You just think of a mirror, and you can have one. See?” Sergio cast his eyes towards the floor, and instantly a portion of the Wall rose to became a slick, mirrored surface that offered a perfect reflection of himself.
“How the hell did you do that? My God. Look, you’ll have to tell me how this works! Get out of my way, I want to see.” Margot brushed him aside.
The mirror melted as Sergio stepped back.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Vada, can she do it, too?”
“Do what?” she continued.
“Well," Rovada explained, "the Wall has to be tuned-in to your thoughts. It’s a little hard to explain, but the Wall needs to be turned on to the commands your mind creates. The Wall reads your mind’s energy and interprets your thoughts. It’s just that it has not been adapted for your specific use yet – at least not for you to command the Wall.”
Margot shook her head in disbelief. “But here, Margot,” Sergio said, “it was my fault. I was thinking for it to go away so you could make your own, but I forgot.”
Instantly a mirror appeared again. Margot noticed her reflection in the corner of her eye. She slowly turned toward the mirror and peered wide-eyed. “What has happened to me?” she uttered in dismay.
Margot. Dark circles under your eyes. Where’s my makeup? Your hair is cut too short. Is your nose bridge this small? Are my eyebrows that thick? Were those wrinkles there before?
She surveyed her small forehead, the size of it reduced somewhat by a small widow’s peak, just slightly off-center. She hated that widow’s peak. It was always hard to keep it going in the same direction as her other hair. Seemed she was always having to put extra spray there, just to hold the hair. She moved closely to the reflection and stared directly in her eyes, opening them widely.
A little bit of yellow, still there, surrounding the brown. I always wanted hazel eyes, something other than brown. Brown is common and boring. Just a little more yellow and they could have been green. I love green eyes.
Margot looked at the rise of her cheekbones.
Too rounded now, I’ll have to use my makeup to . . ..
“Makeup?” she asked, turning to Rovada.
“The Wall can provide whatever you need.”
She turned back to the mirror before he finished speaking.
My lips, a little cracked and whiter. Sleeping with your mouth open again. You sleep with your mouth open, Margot, and the corners of your lips bleed sometimes. Dumb. Stupid small bridge of a nose. Allergies. Terrible combo. Can’t breathe at night.
“Would you quit it?” she frowned, knowing that Rovada was watching her. He stood silently in reply.
“Finished yet?” Sergio teased. “I’ve got lots to show you, including the others.”
“Others what?”
“A few other ones they keep here. Um, what are they, Vada?”
“You’re thinking about the Oileets.”
“But they’re in cages,” he said.
“Not cages, Sergio, but in specially-constructed environments. You know they do not move around as we do.”
“Yeah, that’s it. They can’t live in here like us, even with modifiers.”
“Modifiers?” Margot said, moving more closely to the mirror, holding her lips open with her fingers to survey her teeth and gums.
“Yeah, modifiers, the things we have in our throats to change the air and things.”
Margot clutched her throat. “Don’t worry,” Rovada said. “It’s a small device, really just an extension of the Wall, that modifies the air you breathe.”
“Small? Like how small?” Margot could feel a lump in her throat as she spoke.
“The size of a few thousand of your body cells. Very small. Imperceptible.”
“What does this do?” she asked, surprised that something foreign was placed into her body.
“Regulates the air, produces some hormones for you. Consider it an environmental adapter. You see, our air is thicker than your planet’s.”
“Jesus, I’ll say!”
“And it contains lower levels of oxygen. Your modifier compensates for all of this.”
“It is so damned thick in here! God, I just really realized how thick!”
“Well, it’s probably your reaction to the sulfur that also makes it seem that way.”
Margot was disgusted. “Enough!” she ordered, unwilling as yet to hear the science of her new life.
Margot continued surveying her body, hovering closely to the mirror. She slid her hands uniformly down her throat and across her chest. Her hands then slipped toward her waist.
“What have I been eating?” she asked, noticing that her side torso and hips seemed thinner than she remembered.
“You won’t like the answer,” Rovada replied.
“Save it, then.” Margot slid her hands down her thighs and calves, still trembling a bit to hold the new weight. “How the hell am I going to shave?”
“No problem,” Rovada said, “however you prefer to do it.”
“However I prefer?” She frowned at him.
“Our Wall can replicate razor blades if you wish. Razor blades, a curious item for species with hair. You would think that, except for medical reasons, hair would be allowed to grow.”
Margot peered into her blouse and noticed a tuft of hair under each armpit. “Do you have deodorant?”
“Yes, if you desire.”
Sergio laughed. “Why would you need a deodorant when it stinks so bad around here? Nobody would notice it anyway.”
“Oh, I’ll need deodorant,” she said, “and a few other things,” she muttered under her breath.
Margot stepped back and looked quietly at her legs. Gone were the distinct divisions between the muscles of her thighs. "What did you say about me getting exercise?”
“Well, remember it has been about six months of living time, here anyway, and roughly the equivalent of another month’s while traveling, accounting for effects of time and hibernation in space travel.” Margot peered at him quizzically. “So we have not had the opportunity to improve your skeletal and muscular system to where it was before your accident.”
“I should say not, bug. Turn it off!" she demanded, peering at Sergio.<
br />
“What? The mirror? Okay!”
Margot was sick. Sick of seeing herself again. Sick of seeing a body that had once been in such good shape.
Gray hair?
“Turn it back on again,” she demanded.
Sergio obliged. Margot fingered through her short hair, searching for a hint of gray.
“Turn it off,” she said, satisfied that at least she still had no gray.
“Let me show you the One,” Sergio pleaded.
Chapter 8
“THIS WALKWAY WILL TAKE you to the One.” Sergio led Margot through a maze of dimly lit passageways, brown-colored, each corridor’s walls rounded like smoothed inner walls of an adobe house. Margot couldn’t help but find some comfort in the structures, moving from room to room, through the corridors, as yet not seeing a single other Das.
The ceilings were low, maybe seven feet or so. She reached out to touch one of the walls while passing and noticed it retract backward, matching the pattern of her hand exactly. While moving through the next portal, she lifted her elbow, attempting to touch the wall, and the same thing happened.
“Serge,” she said, “what’s with the walls?”
“Oh, the Wall. Well, the Wall moves back, as you can see,” he responded.
“The walls, the Wall, is a machine, a system,” Rovada interjected, following quietly behind the two. “Interconnected parts responding to your movement and thought. The Wall prevents you from injuring yourself, at least when it’s connected to you.”
Margot looked back disapprovingly, “Don’t you ever talk with a mouth?” she asked, now noticing that the sound he made seemed contrived.
“I have no mouth,” Rovada replied, “not like yours, anyway. We have feeding tubes to eat.”
“I don’t want to hear it, bug,” she demanded. Then she turned to Sergio. “What happens if I want to lean against the Wall?”
“The Wall would make it easy for you to do that,” Sergio replied.
“And how would it know?”
“As with the mirror,” Rovada said, “the Wall can adapt to your needs, mentally.”
“But I thought you said my mind patterns were not yet a part?”
The Space Between Her Thoughts (The Space in Time Book 1) Page 9
