Off Center (The Lament)

by Power, P. S.

  Except, naturally, she had. She'd thought about it every time she met with the Doc, practically. It was just her assessment of what it meant that was wrong.

  Pran smiled, making sure she looked at Will, who still seemed pretty ill, all things considered. At least as bad as he had been the other day when she'd first found him. He might be faking, but if so, he was an actor that had abilities she needed to learn. He was covered in sweat, with new beads occasionally popping up on his forehead. That had to be hard to fake. She knew it was, since no one had ever taught her the trick in school. It would have come up.

  She tried for a considering tone.

  "Zeke here and I are going to set up a laundry station outside. We'll have to hang the clothing up in here, in the room for it, but..." She didn't want to be lazy, but she shook her head, and thought about it for a few seconds. It made as much sense to do that as anything, even if it meant more walking by the end of the day. "We need to collect things from everyone. As long as it isn't raining. Even light snow wouldn't be that bad."

  Pran was almost certain that the Doctor was some kind of spy now, but he still acted like everyone else, seeming pleased and running to get a basket of soiled clothing fast enough that she was still speaking as he left. She covered her worry by smiling at the techno-whatever he was next to her.

  "You can't spend too much time here, or with the Doctor. It will seem strange. You can do clothing deliveries for him, and help bring the meals. Be careful there. I think he's on our side, the Doctor, but feel him out. He's smart enough that he could be faking it, to try and draw out a potential enemy. They don't let stupid people go into medicine." It had to be true, didn't it?

  Waiting for a moment, the thirty-odd year old man grunted lightly and shook his head.

  "There are signals. I'll drop a few things about the web and see if that get's a response. For now... Well, Will here doesn't seem to be up to traveling, does he? Can you get him out, do you think? We'll need a wagon or something. I don't even know if he can ride a horse." The way he was looking at the man was telling, since he seemed to be thinking about killing him, so that he couldn't speak.

  A horrible thought occurred to her then. What if Doc Millis had done the same? Making the man sick, so that he couldn't be found out? She had no proof of that, and no matter what, she liked the older man and didn't want to think ill of him. Everyone did things that were wrong, every now and again. They lied, or backed the wrong side in a fight. That wasn't the same as being a killer. Even then, sometimes you had to do that, in order to survive. She understood things like that.

  Plus, even if he was one of the techno-people, maybe the Doctor just didn't like those that abused children? Or it could have just been food poisoning, or the result of the man's wounds. The town's people had beaten him pretty hard, and most of them probably wouldn't have thought twice about someone having a bit of extra technological stuff hidden away. If they knew at all.

  Pran shook her head.

  "Not right now. I'll try to arrange something. Talk to the Doc and see if he knows anything, the signals and all that. I don't, so it never occurred to me to try. If so, you might want to let him know that we're trying to get Will out. Whatever you do, don't try and take The Lament's wagon. The Guardians will be on us before..." She looked up and noticed that the old man was back, holding a large wicker basket. It wasn't stuffed full, thankfully, but it did have a tag on it, with his name. That was a good idea, she realized, especially if they were going to end up with everyone's things, like she feared. It would be near twenty people, if they got everyone's laundry.

  Pran moved toward the man who had a schooled and blank look on his face, clearly having just heard them speaking. Before she could even think of a plausible denial, Zeke smiled and looked away.

  "We were... Talking about leaving together. She's a bit too young for me, but it's tempting. What do you think? I remember things like that from the web, as a child. People on the net doing things like that, in stories." The last line was a bit strained, but the Doctor nodded.

  "Ah, yes. That and television. I can't recommend leaving with Bard Pran however. If you did that, too many would search her out." He smiled, and walked slowly to the door of the room, pushing it shut. "Now, what's really going on here? I'm almost certain that she isn't one of us. If anything, she's a spy for the locals. She's never responded to any of the hints that myself or the others dropped at least."

  Then, as if it weren't sinister at all, he started to dig through the wooden cupboard behind him, along the far wall, and started to make up a syringe or something clear. It was a large looking needle too, being made of silver metal and glass. He tapped the side of it and pushed all the air out, then a bit of the liquid.

  "Hold her please, if you will?" He smiled and closed with her as Zeke grabbed her arms from behind. She was tempted to struggle, since it would probably kill her, but that isn't what someone on their side would do, was it? She looked at him curiously and fixed the old man's slightly watery looking eyes directly. It got him to stop. That or her lack of panic did.

  "Think, Doctor Millis. A single girl with no training, sent off into the woods alone, and not only facing, but defeating fifteen armed adults with metal carriages? Does that seem right to you? Reasonable? What do you think that means? You know that I'm really a Bard too, and that no Guardian would be able to play like I can, or sing as well. Not at my age." She waited as if he was supposed to figure it out on his own, but the man just smiled at her and stabbed the needle into her right shoulder, after pulling her tunic neck to the side.

  "That has occurred to me. The problem is that you aren't one of us. I'm fairly comfortable with that. So if you really did all that, you simply cannot be what you seem, can you? A true Apprentice Guardian might pull off part of that, fighting those techs out in the woods alone. But they wouldn't be half as good as you with artistry, as you mentioned." He turned to the man holding her still, and addressed him as if she weren't there. It was a bit rude, really. "She really is quite amazing. If we'd simply picked her up to take her to be the new apprentice of the Bard High Councilor, I would have bought it. Even as a ship's hand, I might have understood the idea. She's a very hard worker and never complains. What I can't buy is that one girl has done all of this. I'm going to find out why that is Pran. In fact, very soon, you're going to tell me all about it."

  Behind her Zeke loosened his grip a bit, and held her to him, as the room tilted.

  "What did you give her? Some kind of knock-out shot?" His words seemed really far away, and echoed a little bit, but she could still make them out, even as the room tilted again.

  "Not precisely. It's a compound that I've been formulating for some centuries. In the simulation, of course, but it works decently. It will help her to relax and feel free to speak, even under duress. We might want to help her sit on the other cot however. Be a good girl and go sit down, Pran. We're all friends here."

  The men both helped her do it, and didn't speak until after she was sitting with her back against the wall, surrounded by pillows. Doctor Millis put them in place. It was done almost lovingly, and he patted her left arm gently when he was done. She couldn't fall over, she didn't think. Not that she wanted to. She actually felt pretty good and didn't want to move more than she had to, in case that might cause her to lose it.

  "I could get to like drugs." She said it out loud, but the Doctor gave her a stern look and seemed to disapprove, even though he was the one that had given them to her.

  "Be careful there Pran. Chemicals have their uses, but shouldn't be a crutch through life, just an aid when you need them. Now, I never asked directly, but is Pran your real name? It's pretty, but a bit unusual."

  She let herself smile back at him, knowing that it was just a grin, since she didn't move enough for anything else.

  "That's my name. Just Pran. No family, no friends. Except for you, and the people here. Bard Sollen." Her words were a tiny bit giddy sounding, and loopy, but just flowed out, even after she
remembered that she didn't want to tell them everything. She tried to think of a clever lie, to fool the men, but nothing came at all. Whatever they'd given her was working really well, wasn't it?

  Doctor Millis nodded, encouraging her, or so it seemed. Zeke just seemed to be hanging back, letting the other man do the talking. He seemed worried. There was no reason for that though, was there?

  "Everything is fine." She spoke the words out loud again. That was going to be a problem, if she wasn't careful. If she couldn't control what she said, she was probably going to end up getting "sick" and dying there, wasn't she? Even a bit out of it she got that the Doctor could make that happen without hardly trying.

  She tried to focus and go into a trance, Like Mara and Clark had taught her. It might have even worked if she'd had more than a week's worth of practice. That was suddenly very clear to her as the old man spoke again, sounding very sweet and kind still.

  Just like always.

  "Are you really an orphan too, Pran?"

  "Yep. Pran of the Grange. Fucking hellhole." She muttered that, but the two men looked at each other and Zeke swallowed hard.

  Millis actually looked upset for a moment.

  "The Grange? I've heard of that. It isn't a very nice place, is it? Most of the Doctors refuse to work there at all, fearing what they'll find. Was it as bad as all that? I've never been there." The words came out sounding conversational, and Pran didn't really get it. After all, why would the men care about that? The question sent her back to the place in her head, which wasn't fun, and years of practice pushed her back away from it. She still spoke, but her words were hedged, and a bit sour sounding.

  "It's worse than that. Everyone there has been raped, some hundreds of times. You fight for food, for your bed, or you end up being used and starved. The Keepers, they don't care. Evil, evil people. The government lets it happen. Don't know why." She half glared at the Doctor, expecting him to pull away or call her a liar. They'd always been told that if they said anything like she just had, no one would believe them, being just orphans. The trash that had been thrown away by the world.

  The man surprised her, turning to Zeke and explaining.

  "The Grange is where the children of the insane are sent. The idea is that they can be watched for signs of mental illness and weeded out at a young age. Almost no one leaves the place. How did that happen for you, Pran?" He seemed curious, and that was nice of him, considering that he hadn't said she was a liar. She hadn't known about the first part. The crazy parents and all that, but it made so much sense, once the words were spoken.

  "I don't know. We were given tests, when we were eight, the ones that would take them, and spent a long time talking to a woman that came to see if we were smart or dumb. One day the Keepers came and pulled me out of the dining room. I thought I was to be beaten or thrown in the pit, for stabbing Wald, but they sent me away in a wagon with a man. He didn't even rape me, just dropped me off at the art school." Her words were sing-song by the end and sounded really young, even to her slightly impaired ears. That thought got her to smile again. "Then I fought, in a different way, to make sure I could stay. School was... Perfect. Wonderful. I always had food and no one took it. The boys were nice and didn't put anything in my butt and the girls didn't stick my head in the toilet, until I nearly died. Even the teachers liked me, since I worked hard. Until the end, when they sent me away." That was a bad thing. She hated them for it, even if it had been her fault.

  They were bad.

  They needed to die for that, she decided. To be punished so harshly they'd never hurt her again.

  The men didn't speak at all for a long time. Finally Doc Millis seemed to recover, and said something very strange.

  "That was a very bad time for you Pran, but the weight of it is less now. In fact, it's going away, all together. There's no need for you to feel pain, and when you think of those times, it won't hurt now. Do you understand that? The memories are still all there, but you won't feel pain from them, ever again."

  Zeke cleared his throat and let his eyebrows come up a bit, but didn't say anything. The Doctor shrugged at him and let his old and wrinkled face look curious.

  "It could work. I figure there's no harm in trying."

  The other man looked away. "Unless she's a spy? Ask her that."

  "Course I'm not a spy. I'm sixteen. Bard. Sing, dance, act, carve things. Love carving. Painting not too bad. No spying at school, except in the showers." She laughed, because that was a joke. There was no spying there either, as far as she knew.

  Those words, for some reason, seemed to make the men relax. They were awfully pleased to find out about her not being a spy. Like she could have been? How would that work?

  "How would that work?" It came out, since she'd thought it. Doctor Millis patted her hand.

  "What do you meant, dear?"

  "We don't have spies. Not as a profession. Spy on who? Too young to be one, but you think I might be? How would it work? Conversion?" She didn't know what that was, but the Doc rocked back, his eyes going wide suddenly.

  Zeke cleared his throat again.

  "I may have mentioned that. She said that some of us helped to get her place back? Something about being kicked out of her Bard College?"

  She nodded.

  "Art school. They helped me." Then, for some reason, she stopped speaking, as the men looked baffled. She was about to explain what she meant, when the old man tilted his head.

  "Who helped you?"

  Pran didn't think she could even come up with a lie, but she realized that she had been lying, hadn't she? After all, she was a spy. Untrained, but being sent to the High Council for it. After a fashion. She'd said she wasn't one though, since that wasn't real. Even if it really was. That was the key then, she could only tell the truth. It was her truth that had to be spoken, what she believed to be, not fact or reality, that she had to discuss.

  "I don't know. The Guardian High Councilor, Bard Gina. Maybe others. I'm supposed to help the Guardians, but..." She leaned in and whispered dramatically, knowing it was the truth. After a fashion. "But... I'm supposed to help you too. Get Will Butcher away. If you haven't poisoned him to death yet. Go and be a Bard."

  If it didn't make sense, she couldn't tell, though the men both asked for her to clarify what she said at the same time. Zeke wanted to know who exactly from their side was supporting her, and Doctor Millis wanted to know how she'd figured out that Will had been poisoned.

  "Food poisoning. But no one has it. You said. You're smart, so that's what it is. Cell was filthy, but no food. No rats. Zeke thought about killing him. Cover this up. Take him away to keep him from dying." That was her plan after all.

  The new man just stood there, seeming confused.

  "Wait, whose side is she on? She seems to be saying that she's on everyone's side."

  Doctor Millis understood though, but asked her anyway. It was clear in his face and the soft way he spoke.

  "Who are you with, Pran?"

  "You." It was the literal truth after all. Zeke sighed and nodded his head, seeming to accept that.

  The Doctor didn't. He was really smart.

  "Yes, but who do you back? The people here, or those on our side."

  "Yes." She nodded happily, glad that he understood enough to ask. It was her truth after all. She said it without blinking. "I back the winner."

  The man in all black pulled at the silly looking ribbon at his neck, which was a deep blue today and smoothed the side of his slightly thinning white hair.

  "That... makes a great deal of sense. Thank you Pran. Can we trust you to work with us? Since we will, without a doubt, be victorious? I can promise you good things if you help us. No conversion, a chance to do whatever you want with your life. You'll get to see wonders like you haven't ever even imagined, if you do. That isn't a joke either. Our computer systems can display worlds to you that don't even exist. It's where Zeke here and I have lived for hundreds of years, waiting for the world to be right again. I
t's healthy now, and we're coming back. If you work with us, we can share that world, like a family."

  That was a powerful draw for most orphans, and Pran got that, seeing through it and still agreeing with the man. Doing otherwise would be stupid. That meant she could really and fully get behind these people, didn't it? If it was that or die, she'd pick the winning side every time. Or near enough to every time that no one would notice.

  Not until it was too late for them.

  "I'm with you. I'll work out a way to get Will out, Zeke too. You should stay, with me. Get you into the High Council." It was a plan, if one that she didn't know could be brought about easily. Oddly, it would be a lot harder, she thought, to get a wagon for the sick and injured man than to get the old Doctor into the chamber of power. He was a medical man, after all. Everyone trusted them.

  He took a deep breath, but nodded.

  "Excellent. Remember what I said about those old memories Pran. They don't hurt now. It's like a weight has been lifted from your shoulders, and you don't even think about them. Do you understand? You can do that for me, can't you? Forget those things?"

  "Oh, yes." She thought so at least. It was how she got through the day, most of the time. "I can do that."

  "Very good. Now, I'm going to give you another shot, and then you and Ezekiel here can go and get that laundry done. Thank you for that, by the way. It's one of my least favorite chores. Washing by hand... I swear, if we put aside our military buildup and just made washing machines, the people here would rise up and demand we take power." The Doctor didn't seem to be kidding either.

  The other man looked at Will Butcher and waved at him, a motion that was almost a flick of the wrist.

  "That would work, if we weren't running conversions. No one wants to lose their entire being so that some six hundred year old computer program can steal their body. That's not mentioning the fact that any of the volunteers that come out still have to live pretty much like these people do. We trashed the planet once and know that it can happen again."