by K. A. Trent
“By foot? Like, without the elevator?”
“Yes Ma’am,” I nodded.
“Okay, no, there’s no way.” She shook her head. “There is no pathway between those sections. Well, I mean, technically on the schematics yeah, but you’d have to be able to climb walls, jump ten to twenty feet across several gaps, you’d have to… No, there are places where you would die from the fall. It’s not-- No-- You...”
I cast my eyes downward again as she trailed off. Though I knew the truth, it would be wrong to argue with her.
“How long does it take to cross that section?” she asked finally. “How do you do it without dying? I really want to know.”
“It takes…ten minutes, I think?” I pondered for a moment. “We just-- I-- I don’t know, we just know where everything is.”
“Ten minutes,” she glared at me. “That’s a five mile stretch. You can’t run five miles in ten minutes.”
I wanted to tell her that by using pipes and ledges to add momentum, anything was possible, but she had to be right. Not because she was right, but because those were her rules. I refused to correct her.
“Why didn’t you want to tell me about this?” She demanded. “What’s so bad about being able to run?”
“Because you-- you’re a woman,” I said finally. “I can’t be better at something than you. I don’t want to be.”
“Okay. You know what,” she said, shaking her head. “Between you and me, that’s pretty damn impressive. You’re a male, and yeah, you might be a little pain, but I couldn’t do that. I can’t believe I’m asking this, but could you show me how to do it? I mean, later-- we have things to do right now-- but I just-- if you’re in that good of shape, I think I could learn something from you.”
I was completely flustered-- what was she saying? She wanted to learn something from me? Surely she could learn it herself, but-- I slowly nodded, and I swore I could see the beginnings of a smile on her face.
“Now, I need to fill you in on what’s happening tomorrow. There’s an event downtown at the Elv, it’s… actually for you. We’re going to dress you up, make you look pretty, and show you off. What we’re trying to show people is that you’re actually a woman and not just… some male trying to get out of the Factorum. You need to be agreeable, you need to be vulnerable, and most importantly, you need to follow our customs-- which shouldn’t be a problem because of all of the books you’ve read. Like, seriously, I’ve tracked your reading progress, you’ve read sixty books over the last few days. Can you tell me anything you’ve learned?”
“Smile when you enter a room, curtsy for women who hold a higher station than you--”
“Who holds a higher station than you?”
“Everyone, Ma’am.”
“Good,” she nodded. “What else?”
“When you stand in one place, keep your hands folded in front of you. Keep eye contact when someone is talking to you.” Her expression changed to one that I could have easily mistaken for concern if I hadn’t known better.
“That second part is going to be hard for you. I know you’ve been taught to look down when we approach you, but you’re going to need to unlearn that. Stand up.” She clapped her hands and rose from the chair. I quickly stood to meet her, though my eyes only made it up to her chest. “Okay, look at me, right in my eyes. Come on.”
I couldn’t do it. I tried, but I just couldn’t make myself look into her eyes. It was forbidden, it was taboo, it was… It was wrong.
“Do you want to get hit again?” she demanded. “Do as I say.”
Slowly but surely I managed to raise my head, my gaze moving up her chin and finally staring into her deep brown eyes. I felt my body begin to tremble as she returned the look, her face betraying no emotion. I wanted to look away. I wanted to scream, I wanted to run. This was wrong. My eyes fluttered along with my stomach as I tried to focus on anything but her eyes.
“Up here,” she said. “Don’t look away. When you’re talking to people tomorrow, you need to be assertive. Not aggressive, just assertive. Confident. Know why you’re there, know that you belong there. From now on, when we talk to other people, you’re going to look at them. Which reminds me-- we’re going across campus today. We’ll have to take the tram because the higher-ups don’t want you walking out in the open yet. After today, that’s going to change. You’ll be... more presentable. Do you have any questions?”
“What’s going to happen to me today?”
“Today, we’re going to fix those scars on your body-- you’re covered in them. We’re going to take care of your nails, maybe sculpt your face a little bit. Most importantly, we have to take care of your hair. It’s long enough now but it’s a mess; it has to be styled. Oh yes, and Callie wants to pick out a dress for you.”
I looked down at myself a little puzzled. I thought I was already wearing a dress.
“Not like that,” She shook her head. “You need a formal gown. You have to make an impression tomorrow, and that means you can’t walk in looking like a homeless person. Now come on, let’s get you into the shower. We have places to be and we don’t want you stinking them up. Before we do that, we’re going to head down to the gym and get some more exercise in. I know you’re good, but you’re not down there anymore, and you need to keep yourself in shape. For what, I don’t know but…”
This time she insisted that we run to the “gym,” as she called it. She didn’t force me to keep pace with her, but rather jogged behind me and caught up only to open doors that I didn’t have access to. We finally bolted into a stairwell, pounding down the metal steps and deeper into the building.
“Left up here,” Kerra called out from behind me. “You’re still getting lost.”
It was true, I didn’t exactly know the area that well; even the Factorum in places had been a maze of uncertainty with darkened corridors, unused sections, broken equipment abandoned and forgotten.
“In case you were wondering,” Kerra caught up and began to jog beside me for a second. “This is the main government campus for Luna colony. You’re staying in the ‘Quad.’ It was partially abandoned about ten years ago, but the upper floors are still in use. The glass skywalk connects us to the Archman Center, and that branches out into a bunch of other buildings. Some of the buildings are locked, and some you can walk right into. My wristband uses my biometrics to access the locks, among other things. Okay, up here take another left and then go through the door on your right.”
I followed her instructions, but the door was a little closer than she’d led me to believe. I slammed into it, pushing it open and practically rolling into what looked like a locker room. Hardcrete benches lined the walls, upon which were stacked light blue and pink lockers. I came to a stop in the center of the room. It was wide, the floor was covered in that fabric-- Carpet, I think it was called. In the center, a piece of art I didn’t understand and hadn’t seen before.
“We came in the back way this time,” Kerra stopped beside me, bending over and grabbing her knees as she caught her breath. “Great locker room, it reminds me of the one at Aeristas back in the day. Okay, follow me; we’re going to do some weight training.”
“Weight… training?” I was so confused.
“Go, go go.” She pushed me along, toward a narrow hallway and out into the gymnasium. It seemed empty without the obstacle course, a half mile of blank space. “Let’s pick a theme. What’s your favorite color?”
“Um,” I froze on the spot; a question I couldn’t answer. Did I have a favorite color? Did anyone have a favorite color? Why would they? It was just… color, right? “I don’t, really-- I--”
“Are you serious?” Her irritation was returning. A minute ago I’d felt a little more at ease with her, and now I was quickly remembering that she was the type of person that would beat me for breathing wrong. Whether I was inside the Factorum or not, nothing had changed; I was still at the mercy of others and it seemed nothing was going to change that. “What color makes you happy?”
/> I couldn’t think of a color making me happy-- why would it? Callie made me happy. The food Kerra had given me earlier, that had made me happy-- but a color?
“I--” I tried to speak, but I was drawing a complete blank. Kerra tapped a few buttons on her tablet and I watched the walls change before my eyes. The lower half became a sort of light blue, and the rest, a color I hadn’t seen before. “What is that?”
“What’s what?” She didn’t look up, but tapped a few more keys on her tablet, and in front of us, a set of barbells appeared.
“The-- the walls, up higher. What color?”
“Uh, magenta.” She sounded severely disinterested. “Have you never seen it before?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No Ma’am,” I corrected myself, snapping back to reality once again.
“Pick up a set of weights. Here,” She pointed to a set of black barbells that had the number ‘10’ embedded on the side. I reached down with both hands and worked to remove them; they were a little heavy for my taste, I struggled a bit, but once they were freed from the rack I was able to hoist them with relative ease. “We’re going to go through a series of exercises right now. I want you to take that weight, put your elbow at your side, hold the weight out in front of you and then curl it up, toward your chest.”
I tried to do exactly what she said, but the moment I started, she was in front of me, placing one hand on my elbow and the other on the weight.
“Like this,” she told me. “Keep your elbow level-- just lift the weight. Do one arm, then the next.”
I did as she said, and I must have been doing it right because she didn’t stop me. She simply watched for about a minute and then picked up her own set of weights. She began to do her own exercise, similar to mine, but she was so much better at it.
“I’m going to do thirty three counts, so-- ugh. Okay, I count like this, 1, 2, 3, 1 then 1 ,2 3, 2. See what I’m saying? We do that thirty times, then we’ll move on to something else.”
I listened to her count, my forearm moving each time she called off a number. It was easy at first, but the weight gradually became heavier. I gritted my teeth, pulling as hard as I could, struggling to get the weight to meet my chest.
“Keep up the pace!” Kerra’s voice practically echoed through the space. “Stop making faces, just do what you’re told!”
I couldn’t do it. We were less than halfway through the count when my arm dropped. I exhaled and began to cough. Before I could even rethink my decision or my apparent muscle failure, Kerra was in front of me, taking the weights from my hands and slamming them onto the floor. They made a dull ‘thud’ that barely resonated throughout the gymnasium.
“What are you doing?” She glared down at me as I bent over, trying to retrieve the weights, hoping that if I could just get back on track she would be in a more forgiving mood. Instead she placed her palm against my shoulder and pushed, hard. I sprawled across the floor, hand slammed down against one of the ten pound weights, pain radiating across my knuckles. “You got a little tired-- it didn’t mean you couldn’t keep going. Yeah, sure, it gets heavy, your muscles strain, it starts to hurt. Does that mean you can’t finish? We just got here, you need to woman up.”
I kept my mouth shut; I allowed the awkward silence to dominate our interaction as she paced around me, picking the weights up and holding them out to me. I looked up at her, my fear was probably more than evident as I took them from her hands.
“Every time you do that- every time you give me less than your best, you’re going to do laps. Take those weights and run the perimeter of the gym until I tell you to stop.”
I did as she said and started the run, holding one weight in each hand. Running was my thing really, but this was different. After a few minutes I started to slow; my arms were light lead and I could feel myself becoming increasingly light headed.
“Don’t stop!” Kerra shouted out a warning. “No one cares about you, male. No one cares how tired you are, no one cares how much you’re hurting. I don’t care if you drop dead in here. Keep running!”
I kept up the pace, but as I continued I could hear my footsteps pounding against the floor, I could feel my muscles beginning to ache. Every sensation around me was tripled. The sweat on my forehead, the soreness of my legs, the feel of the weight chafing against my thigh. Every time I slowed, she was beside me, shouting. I wanted it to stop. I needed it to stop. I liked running; it was my favorite thing to do-- but this was something else, a completely different level. I could feel every muscle in my body beginning to ache, my feet felt every single impact. Finally I stopped-- I couldn’t take it anymore. I felt the world beginning to spin around me as the weights fell from my hands and clattered against the floor. I coughed and sputtered, my lungs heaving. I expected to feel Kerra hit me at any time; I’d stopped, she had to be angry, but the impact never came. I could see her boots gracing the floor in front of me. They stopped mere inches from my head.
“You have ten minutes,” She told me. “Then we’re going to try the curls again. This time you’re not going to stop until we finish the set, and then we’ll move on. Don’t forget you have a big day tomorrow.”
Chapter 8
“Stand beside me,” Kerra hissed as I stood behind her next to the tram platform. I reluctantly moved up and stood shoulder to shoulder with her, or at least as well as I could. “Act like you’re someone, would you?”
“Yes Ma’am,” I replied quietly.
This was a little different-- for the last few days I’d been with Kerra alone in that room, or in the hallway, or on the obstacle course but now we were out and about around other people. There were dozens of women on the platform, all very nicely dressed, all seemingly lost in their own worlds. A few looked over at us, and it occurred to me that I must have looked extremely out of place with my shaggy hair, my gray dress, and my scarred face. I reached toward my face and quickly brushed a few strands of hair toward my cheek, hoping to hide some of the scarred flesh. Kerra glanced at me from the corner of her eye but said nothing.
“Excuse me.” An unfamiliar voice, speaking in my direction, I turned to see a dark-skinned woman with jet black hair standing a few feet from me. I froze. Was she speaking to me? Kerra poked me in the ribs. “Are you the girl from the Factorum?”
I nodded and then flinched as Kerra jabbed me once again.
“Yes Ma’am,” I said with a smile, probably too obviously forced. I was terrified.
“We’ve heard so much about you!” Her voice was excited and encouraging. “I’m going to be at the Elv tomorrow, and I can’t wait to see how it goes. You’re absolutely beautiful-- I want you to remember that, okay?”
“Yes Ma’am,” I blushed and tried to smile again.
“You take good care of this one,” she said to Kerra.
“Oh, I will,” Kerra replied as the tram pulled up and came to a silent halt in front of us. A set of sliding doors moved aside, revealing a sleek, clean interior lined with blue seats on either side of the car. It was full of people-- all women. It was still odd to see only women, after a life of seeing only men. I hesitated, but Kerra pressed her hand into the small of my back and guided me along. The inside of the car was full. All of the seats were taken, so I resigned myself to standing, I preferred it anyway, but a woman noticed me, smiled and stood up, offering her seat. I hesitated once again but Kerra nudged me toward the seat and whispered, “Say thank you,” into my ear.
“Thank you Ma’am,” I said softly and timidly as the woman returned the smile.
“Knock em’ dead tomorrow, okay?” she said to me. I nodded, my cheeks flushed. I felt like everyone in the crowded tram was staring at me, and a few of them were.
“Sit down,” Kerra ordered. “Don’t make a scene.”
The tram raced along down the track. I’d been on one before, that one in much worse shape in the upper levels of the Factorum. This one felt different; I couldn’t feel the track beneath, there were no bumps or grinds
as it carried us along from station to station. I recalled reading something about levitation technology; was this it? Along the ceiling I could see dozens of screens advertising products, some of which I remembered assembling myself. They were far more colorful on those screens than I remembered. I could see one in particular with which I was intimately familiar; a bag of some kind-- its sign referred to it as a ‘cosmetics case’. I remembered making them, my fingers worked to the bone hour after hour. I had no complaints, but after working in dark, dismal conditions to create those cases it surprised me to see them advertised in such a bright and cheery manner.
Rather abruptly, the tram stopped and its doors slid open. A few people stepped off, but they were replaced by others. Beyond the windows I could see concrete walls lined with lights rushing by as the women around me conversed about things I didn’t understand. All I knew was that just looking at them triggered many of the same feelings that I experienced when I looked at Kerra. I still didn’t understand it, but the deep sadness that welled up inside was enough to make me look away. Overhead, an electronic voice announced, ‘Next Stop: Sirrah Station.’
“Put these on.” Kerra held a pair of glasses in front of my face. The lenses were dark, like the welding glasses males wore down in the Factorum, but these looked much lighter. I looked at her questioningly; were we going to weld something? “You’ve never been outside in the light-- put them on to protect your eyes. Remember how I asked them to tint the windows in the doctor’s office?”
I slid them onto my face and watched as the interior of the tram switched from a vibrant color scheme to one that was nearly monochrome. A few moments later, the tram emerged into the light, the scene beyond the windows changing entirely. I inhaled sharply as I witnessed for the first time in my life, the open sky and the magnificent cityscape beneath. I couldn’t help it; I gawked at the beauty and tried to take in everything that I was seeing. Information overload. Massive buildings jutted from the ground, reaching toward the sky, interconnected roads, tracks, small buildings, large buildings-- it was a sight to behold, and I found myself craning my neck and trying to see around other passengers as they disembarked, causing my view of the outside world to be presented to me only in brief gasps. Then it was gone as the train disappeared beneath the ground into another tunnel, and the view transformed into more concrete walls, more pale lights. Kerra slid the glasses off my face and put them back into her bag. I remained silent for the rest of the ride.
