She quickly planned on reducing the six months to four by forgoing sleep and skipping meal times. She had to have it, she needed it. She would do whatever it took to get more of it.
A voice from the real world came from outside her helmet.
She peeked out from underneath it. The outside world was grey and dreary compared to True Life, but it was improving. Holes in the walls had been repaired. Broken glass had been replaced. Clean curtains hung over the windows, and fresh clean carpeting lined the floors. The scent of food being prepared hung in the air.
Before her stood a lizard lady in simple woolen robes, a basket of laundry to be folded held in her hands. “Mrs. Dyson,” the priestess said. “Food is on the table. Come downstairs and I’ll tidy up in here while you eat.”
Mary clenched her teeth. “You know I can’t waste time eating at the table, we’ve got guildies refusing to show up for fort defense, and I have to prepare for the tribunal. Did you clean the bathrooms yet, An’Sol? I’m not taking a shower unless they are clean.”
“Yes, I already did that this morning,” she sighed.
Mary looked around in confusion. “This morning? Didn’t you just get here?”
An’Sol pulled aside a curtain, revealing the amber glow of twilight. “I’ve been here all day, Mrs. Dyson. It’s night time already.”
Mary sat up and tilted her helmet up even further. “It is really? I could have sworn it wasn’t even midday yet.”
Suddenly a device began chirping at her.
“What is that?” she asked, looking around with wild eyes.
“It’s just your vone, Mrs. Dyson.” An’Sol walked over and removed the device from its charging station.
“My vone hasn’t worked in years,” Mary accused, as if she suspected some kind of trick.
“Don’t you remember? I got you a new one on Monday.
“Today is Monday.”
“No, today is Friday. You’ve had it for a week now.”
Mary looked around again and got confirmation from the holographic wall calendar. “Huh, I could have sworn it was Monday.”
The phone continued to ring while Mary chewed on a dirty fingernail worriedly.
“Shall I answer it?”
“Wha? Oh.. oh, yes. Um, I guess I’ll answer it.”
To An’Sol’s eternal surprise, Mary switched off the helmet. Gathering her filthy hair back into a makeshift pony-tail, Mary yanked her deteriorated body over to the phone and activated it. A window appeared in the air with what looked to her like a werewolf in it.
“Who is this?”
“Oh, hi,” she said pleasantly. “My name is Ilrica Faolan, and you don’t know me, but I’m a classmate of your kid.”
“Who is this, really?”
Ilrica chuckled. “No, it’s really me. Anyway, Gerald looks so pitiful sitting by himself in class all the time, I kinda feel sorry for him, so I was thinking of doing something to cheer him up.”
Mary snickered. “Did Gerald put you up to this?”
“No, in fact he doesn’t even know I’m calling. It’s just... you know, he’s the only human here. He’s hilariously out of his league. I thought if you could tell me what kind of things he likes we could help him have a good day.”
Mary snorted. “How much money did he pay you?” She looked around. “Is this a joke? Am I on one of those net shows?”
Ilrica’s ears dropped. “Um, no trick, just a friend wanting to know what kind of stuff he likes.”
Mary laughed. “Look, sweetie, you need to do your homework before you prank someone. Gerald doesn’t have any friends, okay? Anyone who spends time around him ends up in the hospital. When he was a kid all the others kids were terrified of him. The only one who didn’t run away was because she didn’t have bones to break.”
Mary turned to An’Sol. “Can you believe this person? Who is dumb enough to prank long-distance across the galaxy? This is one super expensive joke.” Then something occurred to Mary and she got angry. “This better not be a collect call!”
The Priestess was more believing. She walked over and bent into frame so that Ilrica could see her. “Look, I’ve known Gerald for years, okay? He’s a nice person, but you need to stay away from him, for your own safety. He’s a walking demolition site.”
Ilrica’s jaw hung open. She was at a complete loss for words. “Have I called the wrong number?”
Mary waved condescendingly. “Nope, this is the Dyson residence. Okay, well thanks for the laugh, sweetie, but I’m going to go eat dinner now.”
As she moved to end the call, Ilrica shook her head and blurted out one last thing. “Well, are there any human holidays coming up? What does he like for them?”
Mary shrugged. “He used to like chocolate eggs for Easter,” then switched off the phone.
Mary wiped a forming tear from her face, creating a small clean spot amid her crow’s feet. Laughing one last time, she looked down at the True Life helmet at her feet.
“You know what? I think I’ll eat dinner at the table tonight,” she said, perking up.
Priestess An’Sol clapped her hands together. “That is wonderful!”
Then the vone rang again.
* * *
It was late that evening when Gerald was sent out to the Elayleb District to pick up a donation of clothing that had been offered to the mission. The neon sign to this particular building flickered in various languages, the symbols and letters occasionally drawing out tiny swords and battling with one another, before arranging themselves back into order.
The hallway had a strange scent to it as Gerald looked for the right room number. A mish-mash of floral scents covering up an underlying musk, like the way potpourri tries to cover up the smell of a bathroom, but ends up just smelling like poopy flowers.
Gerald held up the hand written note next to the symbol on the door. Feeling that he had a match, he gave a quick knock.
Down the hallway a drunken couple wobbled to the door of their room. Kissing, laughing, hugging, and staggering. The man fumbled with the heart-shaped room key while the woman held up an empty bottle of wine triumphantly.
“What a minute...” Gerald said. “What kind of place is this?”
The door flew open and Gerald found himself looking into a lavishly furnished hotel room. The tables and mirrors were shaped like hearts, flower petals were strewn all over the floor. Hundreds of candles burned sweetly, bathing the room in a gentle passionate light. In the center was a bed shaped like a cloud. It slowly rotated around in a circle while Zurra in her adult form lounged seductively on top of it, wearing a silken, floor-length bathrobe.
“Ah... well, that answers my question.”
“Hello Geri,” she said in a sultry voice as she lifted herself off the bed and slinked over towards him.
A bead of sweat ran down the side of his face. “There seems to be some sort of mistake. I was sent here to pick up a donation of clothing.”
“Oh, there’s no mistake,” she purred as she ran her fingers over the edge of the robe. “You can have this.”
She reached down to the knot that held the silk belt in place. “Here, let me give it to you.”
Gerald spun around on one heel and made to leave.
She blinked. “H... H-hey, where you going?”
“Nothing good will happen if I stay here.”
Zurra opened her mouth in outrage. “C-come back here! You can’t leave!”
“Watch me.”
She stamped her foot like a child. “Don’t you know that a girl’s feelings are delicate? I’m practically throwing myself at you and you’re just walking away!”
“You’re not practically throwing yourself, you are throwing yourself,” Gerald called back as he quickened his pace.
Zurra tried to run after him, but she slipped on some of the flower pedals and tripped to the floor, knocking over a tray full of candles and spilling hot wax all over herself.
Propping herself up on one elbow, she lost sight of him as he tur
ned the corner. “You letch, get back here!”
“I’m a letch for leaving? What kind of sense does that make?”
“FINE! You forget I know where you live! I’ll be waiting for you when you get home! It’s better to light a candle than to cry over spilled milk!”
Zurra stood up and noticed the candle wax spilled all over her. Already it was hardening against her pink skin. Placing her thumb in her mouth, she inflated herself like a balloon, cracking the wax off. As she deflated she dusted off the last few particles, she noticed the couple in the hallway staring at her.
“What are you looking at?!” she screamed, electricity arcing off of her body, scorching the robe she was wearing and burning out the lights in the hallway.
The couple panicked and got inside their room as quickly as they could.
* * *
Out of necessity, Trazhi’s dorm room had been specially built out of heat-resistant materials. The wood paneling had been replaced with a drab quarry stone, the desk and bedframe carved from a single piece of it. Special ceramic-polymer cloth was used in the bed sheets, carpets, and curtains. Subsequently, her entire room was a kind of dull brown, except for the occasional black scorch mark where a stray burp or a careless touch had burnt the material. In fact, the only color in the room came from a small had-woven bassinette in the corner, lined with a soft hand-stitched down blanket. Both provided by Gerald.
Trahzi hated living at the academy. It felt like she lived in a world made out of tissue paper. A few pounds too much pressure and her door would snap off its hinges rather than open. A few degrees too many and her desk would burst into flames. The others were even more delicate. Use one word instead of another and they were offended, do one thing instead of another and they were afraid. It was all so confusing and contradictory. She couldn’t understand why if a person was fat, she had to pretend that they were not. If a person was stupid, she had to avoid pointing it out. If someone was useless, it was considered rude to mention it.
“It’s no wonder they are weaker than us,” she said aloud. “They spend their entire lives deluding themselves. Ignoring their own flaws. As if pretending they do not exist will make them go away.”
Then she remembered how frightened she had been in the reactor room, and it humbled her into silence. It was something she did not like to think about, yet the more she tried to ignore it, the more it haunted her. She was grateful that Gerald had never mentioned it to anyone else. She realized in that moment that if he had she would have felt very upset indeed.
Trahzi though for a moment. “Perhaps that is why the others get offended. They don’t like being reminded of their weakness any more than we do.”
There was a stirring from the bassinette and she walked over and knelt before it. The puppy inside was fidgeting again.
“What do you need?” she asked.
The puppy twisted its head around.
“What do you need?” she asked again, louder.
The puppy yelped and rolled over onto its back, her tiny paws kicking up in the air helplessly.
Trahzi glanced over at the hand-written note Gerald had affixed to the bassinette. It said: Check diaper, check tummy, check blanket, check nap, check snuggles.
Trahzi carefully pulled up the edge of the diaper to make sure it did not need to be changed. The puppy groaned in discomfort.
She picked up one of the bottles of netsav formula that had been prepared, and tapped the rune on the bottom, heating it to the proper temperature. Leaning over, she put the nipple up to the puppy’s mouth and it began suckling hungrily.
“We do not see the point in this.”
Chapter Thirteen
To have good intentions is irrelevant and misleading. All evil that has ever been done in the universe was done with good intentions. You must measure effect, impact, and consequence, not intentions.
- Holy Scrolls of Soeck, Thirteenth Binding Fifteenth Stanza
Gerald opened his eyes to find another dead animal lying next to him. He shot up and looked around, but the park was empty at this early hour, save for a few little robots trimming the hedges. Rubbing his eyes, he scooted a little farther away from it on the bench he was on.
“Waking up to a dead animal on a park bench... probably bad day,” he guessed.
This time it was a small mouse-like animal, with a long prehensile tail that ended in a furry claw. Gerald found a stick and poked it just to make sure it was dead.
Gerald threw his head back and sneezed. It had rained on him again during the night, and he was chilled to the bone, despite the fact that the weather control grids on Central were supposed to make that impossible.
“Gerald.”
His heart nearly leapt out of his chest. “Soeck’s teeth, Trahzi, why do you keep sneaking up on people like that?”
She walked up to him, the first rays of morning light reflecting off her polished red skin. “You were not at our designated meeting place. We have been searching for you for some time.”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” he said, stretching wearily.
Trahzi looked him over with her pupil-less black eyes. “Why did you sleep on a park bench?”
He yawned. “I’d really rather not talk about it.”
“Why?”
Gerald looked up to see if she was being serious. “Well, I guess it’s because people consider some things to be private, and discussing them with others makes them feel uncomfortable.”
Trahzi brightened. “Yes, we are beginning to understand this concept. For example, yesterday when you went up to eat lunch with Zurra, we found ourselves becoming upset unexpectedly. It made us... uncomfortable that you were with her.”
Gerald crinkled his nose. “Why would that make you feel uncomfortable?”
Trahzi shifted her weight from side to side and closed her eyes, a light blush on her cheeks. “We’d really rather not talk about it.”
“You learn fast, don’t you?”
She nodded.
Gerald stood up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. When he finished he glanced down at the dead mouse. “By any chance did you...”
“No, we did not leave it there.”
“Okay, just checking. I’m starting to wonder if this is like a bad omen or some kind of message or something.”
Trahzi began striding away for their morning walk, and he jogged up alongside her.
“Actually we find that having so much contact with the others is affecting us in subtle ways, or perhaps it is a result of separating this body from the rest. We cannot be sure, but regardless of the cause, we do not recall our emotions being so varied or so strong in the past.”
“Wow, really? Do you mean it?”
She tilted her head. “Mean... like a mathematical average? We fail to see how that relates to our feelings.”
“No, not that kind of mean. I mean, mean like signify. Ugh, this can be frustrating sometimes.”
“Do not blame us. Homonyms are part of your language, not ours.”
Gerald flicked the device on his ear. “Yeah, not one of our better inventions. The translator doesn’t handle them well.”
As they walked, students gathered around to watch, taking pictures and uploading it to the school network.
“Did you hear? Dyson is double-timing the Trahzi?” One girl asked her friend.
“How scandalous!” She responded.
“She should burn the pervert to a crisp.”
“Maybe she will.”
“I hope she does it while I’m recording it.”
Already three pages dedicated to hating on Gerald and a petition to get him expelled had been created on the school network and were being passed around. Dozens of copies hung in the air like pamphlets of light.
A small cleaning robot rounded the corner at breakneck speed. Trahzi jumped out of the way, but it collided with Gerald, flipping him end over end. He landed on his back, looking up at the three blue suns rising in the sky, while the students nearby laughed and uploaded the
footage to the net.
Gerald clucked his tongue. “Definitely a bad day.”
When Trahzi stood over him, Gerald caught himself staring at her toned legs. He shook it off and grasped his prayer beads tightly as he rose to his feet. “You know, it might help me more in your mission if I knew more about your people.”
“What do you wish to know?”
He smacked his lips. “Well, like do all Trahzi look like you?”
She shook her head. “Physically we are as varied as most species. We have males and females, although the distinction means little beyond reproduction. Provided there is sufficient food source for the mother to produce milk, a Trahzi infant will grow to maturity within a matter of days, and unlike your kind, they have no need to be taught.”
“Wow,” Gerald said.
Trahzi raised an eyebrow. “Does this interest you?”
“Well, yeah, I mean, think about it. That means that in a way, the Trahzi haven’t learned anything new in eons.”
“In a way, yes. That is most insightful.”
Gerald wobbled. “That makes me feel even more inadequate. I mean, who am I to teach anything to a quasi-immortal consciousness that has existed since the beginning of time?”
“Like we said, you were not our first choice.”
“Oh, gee, thanks,” he kidded in a dopey voice.
Trahzi stopped in her tracks and looked at him strangely.
“What?” he asked.
Slowly a little grin crossed her face, and then she laughed out loud.
Gerald was so surprised he laughed too. Watching her laugh was so odd. It was a sweet, innocent sound, in complete contrast to everything he thought he knew about her.
When the laughter finally died down, she looked at him curiously. “You made us laugh,” she said.
“I didn’t even think it was that funny.”
“We didn’t know we had the ability to laugh.”
* * *
Cha’Rolette ducked down into a fighting stance.
“Wait, I think he just made her laugh,” Thuquan reported
Kharmic Rebound Page 21
