by F P Adriani
I yanked at the tethers, but the chair was too strong, or I was too weak, or maybe both.
“Forget it, bitch. You won’t break free.”
He stood right over me now, and then he hit me in the face—BOOMPUSH his fist sounded like in my ear. I could tell by the force behind the blow that he wasn’t a Sander, but my Sander’s body wasn’t exactly made of steel, and I hadn’t exactly been feeling my best today.
My cheek hurt, my jaw began to throb. And I’d have a nice bruise there, if I survived long enough to develop one.
He had drugged me; I had pissed, inside my moon-suit. I felt the damp sticky urine covering my right leg. My eyes looked down at myself. The locator button beneath my suit—had it fallen off? Why wasn’t there a cavalry here to save me? What had gone wrong? Who was he?
“What is this?” I mumbled through the persistent pain pulse coming from inside my face.
“This is payback,” he said, and then he moved off to the side to grab a folding chair.
While he moved, I quickly eyed my surroundings further, eyed my chair, the table at the far end, and then his face when he pulled his chair quite close to the front of mine and sat back. There was something familiar about him, about his slim body in his jeans and his thick blond hair…but I’d probably just caught a glimpse of him in the café dining area before he’d knocked me out.
Where was Tan…? Oh Tan—why do I always find myself in these situations…. I would have cried right then had my captor’s aggressive brown eyes not been staring right in my face.
“You—you sent me letters,” I said to him, my voice weak.
“I sure did. Got someone else to do it.” He must have seen the confused look on the good part of my face, the part he hadn’t hit. “Oh—you thought I was there? Naaa. I won’t go to that shithole. Plus, it’s much easier to get away with murder on the Moon, as you know.”
“No,” I said, a sinking feeling in my gut. I’d finally gotten confirmation of what the hell had been going on; unfortunately, it wasn’t exactly what I’d call “good news.”
Now I spoke faster: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“My brother Martin is what I’m talking about. He was killed. Here on the Moon. Oh it wasn’t listed like that—it was listed as ‘accidental ejection from an illegal shuttle flight’. But I know better.
“One minute he’s on the Moon talking to me over the airwaves; then he’s missing. It took me a few years to find out what really happened—he was actually shot. See, I did a little sleuthing myself. I like that kind of thing. You and I have that in common too.” He grinned at me, and there was something about his teeth—small and very straight. Like beady eyes, he had beady teeth. And they were the creepiest teeth I’d ever seen, even worse than Ronin’s….
I thought of something now. And then I said, “What do you mean ‘too’?”
“Oh, we’ll get to that. But first—I’m so excited that you’re here that I want to share my plan with you. I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s ingenious.
“It took me some time to set up, and there were a bunch of possibilities. My brother’s enemies. I sent out personalized feelers to all of you. And I enjoyed every minute of it, waiting like a spider in a web for when a bug pulls one of the strings—and by then it’s too late. That’s you and it’s too late.”
From the beginning I’d wondered if some random nut had just gone down a list and sent the letters to a bunch of people. I hadn’t known then that I was right about everything, except the random part. And, at this point, I wasn’t sure if random would have been worse….
“I’ve been waiting around different places,” he continued, “but you’re the only one who showed up at any of them. Congratulations on your cleverness.”
I swallowed. I didn’t know how to respond; I wanted to say something to keep him talking so I could keep thinking. But the fog in my brain from the chemicals he’d used on me wasn’t helping me think….
How did I get here? Where was my jacket…? Now I remembered—fuck. I’d left it in the café’s bathroom, along with my gun inside one of the pockets….
The guy continued talking, through a bizarrely amused-looking face now, his mouth wide and his teeth proud. “I saw you from a Diamond newsfeed on Keron. Little Andrea. But she was calling herself Pia—and aren’t you a big deal now! But I know the truth: I knew who you were right away. How could I forget?”
How could he, indeed, but how had I forgotten him? Had I known him, or had he just known me unbeknownst to me? I felt like I had known him…wait…the Andrea name. I must have met him through Martin, but then I didn’t remember his having a brother….
“Our history together doesn’t really matter though: you killed my brother and you deserve this,” he said fast, the amusement gone, his words like icicles stabbing me. Then he pulled a fat-bladed knife from behind him to emphasize the stab of his words.
Now I said fast, “Your brother was a child killer!” And then I realized that my statement had been the exact wrong thing to say.
His other hand came toward my face again, and this time his not-a-Sander status didn’t matter: he punched me so hard that I saw black, and then I saw nothing.
…Someone had put my brain through a concrete mixer…. I woke up again, my head churning and pounding.
This time I was lying on the floor near the chair, my wrists and ankles still tethered, but I must have been out long enough for him to feel secure enough to move me.
My jaw ached; how terrible my face must have looked….
He stood over at that table, popping some red pills into his mouth. And then he came closer again, staring down at me. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
I didn’t remember him…but should I have remembered him? There was still something, something about his face….
“I feel insulted,” he said. “I remember you. Really well. That night, the three of us, in that room at May’s. Yeah. That was hot. I think you do remember. You’re just playing hard to get.”
A storm had started inside me, a storm of memory, and then a storm of hate against myself. The storm raged and raged and raged onward, because now…I suddenly did remember. That orange room, the low light, the heat, our bodies. I had picked up the one, Martin, or he had picked up me. And then the one had turned into two. His friend wanted to join us, he had said, his friend, Jerry, and I couldn’t refuse an invitation to two men….
It seemed my UPG training had been even better than I thought: ever since I’d killed Martin, I’d successfully blocked all the goddamn details of that night, and I was suddenly so very very very sorry I’d blocked it. Not for the night’s sake, but for my life’s sake.
But now it came back to me. My stupid stupid stupid fucking goddamn mistake with a one-night stand with two men. Two brothers. And this nut above me was one of them.
“I see it coming back to you,” he said now, grinning, a slight touch of red on his teeth from his pills. “But I guess the fuck wasn’t good enough. It didn’t mean anything that you could cut my brother down. I think you liked me better than him—tell the truth.”
I said nothing to his bizarre competitive statement: how the hell could someone best respond to that?
But I also said nothing because I hadn’t liked either of them better than the other, and I still couldn’t remember enough of the sex-specifics from that night. I had been so wasted….
“Women always liked me better—younger and cuter, don’t you think?”
No. He was younger, but he wasn’t cuter. They had both been nothing spectacular, with somewhat vacant faces. But I’d stupidly thought that embarrassment over the mini-orgy might have been responsible for their emotional absence that night….
Though I didn’t really agree with the one above me now, I nodded in agreement with him anyway. At this point I’d do anything to keep him talking because that would be one more moment I’d have left to exist.
“We grew up together,” he said now, his eyes looking wilde
r, maybe courtesy of the pills. “Martin taught me everything I know. Different dads though. A drunk of a mother, but she was a nice mother still. I used to bring her chocolate for Valentine’s Day. We celebrate that on Keron too. It’s very nice. You should come there sometime…ooops. You should have. Now it’s too late for you, just like it’s too late for my brother.”
I watched the hate flare into his eyes, eyes he must have worn during the whole time he’d carried out his plan.
“I don’t…understand,” I said now, through my painful jaw. “How did you find me here?”
“Last night at May’s—I was there at a back table. I had on a hood. I didn’t expect you to walk in, but I was hoping it was you who did it. It had to be someone he knew but wouldn’t suspect. You were just a nobody, just some chick he fucked. But that’s when I figured you might be a somebody. He was too cautious about who he went with.”
“Then why’d he spend the night with me…I only just met him.”
“That’s not what he said.”
“But it’s true. Anyone could have gotten to him. What makes you think it was me?”
He laughed then. “Are you kidding?”
I could feel blood creeping into my face. I shouldn’t have tried lying like this. I was in too weak a state to pull it off. Too much had happened….
“You clearly know the business we’re in, and I know you aren’t who you say you are.” He straightened up more and smiled down at me. “As much as I love this foreplay-talking with you, it’s time to actually get on with your demise. But first I’m going to fuck you, for my sake and his.”
I swallowed hard and blinked, but he suddenly moved away from me and toward that table.
As he moved, my mind worked fast, and I realized he’d made several mistakes.
While I was first unconscious, he’d left me clothed, and even if he could cut this tough suit off, he couldn’t cut it off without cutting me, and I could tell he wasn’t the type of guy who’d rape a corpse. He was the type who wanted to make you feel every second of the extreme pain he was causing you. So he’d have to take off my suit the normal way to rape me.
The radio was another mistake. His walking away gave me time to examine the chair beside me more. I realized now that though it had been bolted to the floor, the chair wasn’t metallic. It looked like a composite, and composites were more likely brittle.
The final mistake was taking me off the chair and the tethering: when I now used all of the strength I had in my stomach and inch-worm-like moved closer to the chair, the tethers slid farther down the chair arms to where they became much narrower legs. But, more importantly, the tethers effectively slackened and lengthened, giving me more mobility….
He stood by the radio, and music finally blasted into the room.
“Kill—kill—kill,” the singer screamed.
Sweat coursed down my neck and fell to the floor. But as he came closer, I made a show of moving nearer to the chair as if I were frightened. Well, really, I was frightened.
But I wasn’t dead yet, and when you weren’t dead, there was always hope.
I curled my body closer to the chair, and my arms and legs closer too, but to my left side more.
He flashed the knife’s blade over me, an ominous silver arc through the air. And when he spoke now, his voice was a deep shout: “I’m going to fuck you and then I’m going to carve you. But the fuck comes first because I know how much you’ll enjoy it.”
He laid down the knife out of my reach; then he bent over me and began undoing my suit’s snaps.
And a moment later when he was sufficiently distracted by his task, I rammed my fists right into his face, ignoring the lances of pain as the cuff edges dug into my bare skin.
The area under his right eye split, and I tasted his blood. I rammed my fists lower now, to right above his heart. He fell back to the floor, struck dumb by my blows.
But his dumb state didn’t last long enough.
“Never mind,” he rasped at me in a hate-filled voice. “You’re fucking dead now.”
He tried to get up and reach for his knife, but he was still winded by the chest-punch so was too slow. With a sharp thrust upward, I used my legs at him now, aiming for his nuts. Only I missed!
My boots hit his hip, but I was less successful at causing him so much pain; he didn’t fall back this time. But he did move sideways out of the reach of my legs.
Shit shit shit!
Frantically my arms yanked at the tethers again, over and over in rapid bursts of motion—I heard a sharp crack as the chair leg broke—
—And then I heard another much louder crack—the door. It was torn off its frame, and the next thing I knew someone else was in the room.
Jericho jumped up and spun around; then there were three sharp loud cracks, Jericho fell, and it was over.
Blood poured from his head, pooling not far from the chair beside me.
“Shut that off!” I heard someone yell over the music that was still playing, though a quieter song had started. But I recognized the yelling person’s voice: James’s voice.
As more people began rushing in and coming closer, I experienced a slight twinge of an I’m-a-failure feeling. Would I have gotten out of this an instant later, or would I have been dead right now? It seemed that, lately, I’d been unable to save myself from rotten situations after having spent most of my life doing just that. Now I kept literally finding myself with my hands tied….
Suddenly I spotted Tan’s hair—his frantic head motions as his eyes searched for me. He finally found me while looking through the bars of the chair.
And I realized then that I’d slept with three of the men in the room. One was now extinct, the second was a scumbag, and the third was my perfect man, the one I adored, the one who’d come into my life and canceled out all the others.
His perfect face now moved over mine; his hand lay against my cheek ever so gently. “Pia,” he said, a tear dropping down onto me.
I wished I had the energy to touch his sad tear. But I found I couldn’t move….
“I thought I lost you this time for good. But your face…the side of your face is swollen. And you’re bleeding bad.” He looked down at my bloody arms and suit, where it had been opened. His eyes shifted up to me as he grabbed my wrists. “Did he…”
“No…your usual punctuality saved me. Though I just got the chair arm loose.” I began lifting my hands in that direction; then when I realized doing that hurt too much, I quickly dropped them back down. “I punched him, he was winded….” My voice morphed into a heavy breathing. I suddenly didn’t want to relive any of it. And talking sent waves of hot pain into my jaw.
Tan’s fingers repeatedly pressed on my wrists, to help stop the bleeding. “We would have been here even sooner,” he began now, but James’s voice behind him interrupted our conversation.
James was pointing at the body, and now he said to someone else: “Take out the trash.” He looked over at me. “Get some medical help in here—fast! Then dissect the room….”
He kept giving orders, but his voice started seeming too low to me. And then I noticed a flash of space-black straight hair in the distance behind James, then Tan’s dark hair came closer above me, and then keeping my eyes open became much too difficult….
*
…I next woke in a bed. My wrists still felt restrained and still hurt, especially my right one. Through a still-pounding jaw, I moaned or mumbled, or both.
But when I opened my eyes, I saw Tan’s face, his beautiful face, his sad brown eyes…or maybe they were half-happy? Yes, they were happy.
His soft hand was on mine below my wrist bandage, and now he squeezed my hand. “We have the same blood-type. You lost too much blood; I gave you some of mine.”
“Oh Tan,” I said, and I closed my eyes as he pressed the side of his face to mine.
I could feel him crying against me. “Don’t ever do this again. Don’t ever almost die.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said. And
now I felt him laugh a little. “How long have I been sleeping?”
“Over a day,” he said. He fell silent for a moment, and then he pulled back and out-of-the-blue asked, “Who was that woman?”
My questioning eyes moved to his. And he said, “Tall, black hair, very long fingers. She shot the nut like she did it every day for breakfast.”
“That’s Molotov,” I said. So she had actually been in the room….
“She was here at the hospital yesterday. She left you this.” He handed me an envelope, and for an alarmed instant I remembered those other envelopes; then I wondered if I’d developed a paranoid fear of envelopes the way I had of whether planets would hold together….
I opened the envelope and inside I found Molotov’s handwritten message on a small piece of paper:
I’ve paid my personal debt to you: one life for one life. Don’t be a stranger for years again.
I put the message back into the envelope and laid it on the table beside the bed. My eyes traveled up to Tan. “How were they here? What happened?”
His eyes briefly closed and his head shook just as briefly. He seemed to not want to remember. But I needed to know….
“The fucking locator wouldn’t work,” he finally said. “It was working all the time—then just when I need it, the goddamn signal goes out!”
“The storm…” I began.
His dark head nodded fast now. “Yeah. Everything was pretty much down for a while, but battery power should have taken over. Only it didn’t in some places. What a fiasco. People went a little crazy in the restaurant, but the emergency lights finally came on and I ran into the bathroom and found just your jacket; then I ran around the main street looking for you—and found nothing. Then I contacted RG. I expected him to be on Earth, but my communication was rerouted, and of course he was here. He wound up getting on a flight right after you told him about that death.” Tan’s steady eyes were on me. “With the pandemonium inside and outside on the street, I don’t know how the hell he got you away from the café.”
