There All Along

by Dane, Lauren

  That small interaction with the others had made it impossible for him to remain sequestered, however. His room had no viddy monitor and he’d have tired of it quickly even if it had. He needed to be active. He needed to move. He’d spent too long inside. He sensed a lot of weaknesses in himself. He wanted to work his body and make it stronger.

  He wasn’t hungry, though he looked in the kitchen and knew he could help himself to whatever he wanted. He didn’t want to sit in the parlor, either—Venga had turned the viddy monitor to some program blaring discordant music and flashing so many pics it would surely give Jodah a headache. The old man sat too close to the monitor anyway, blocking the view. In the study, Jodah looked at the catalog of reading material on the communal handheld, searching for something he hadn’t read.

  As if he’d remember if he had.

  “That’s only for in here, you know.” Pera had been sitting in the shadowy corner, unnoticed.

  Jodah looked up at the sound of her voice. “What?”

  “The handheld,” she said. “That’s for in here. For anyone to use who wants it. You can’t take it upstairs or anything, because that wouldn’t be fair to the rest of us.”

  “I won’t.” He held it up, weighing it. “How old is this thing?”

  She had a gritty laugh, dusty as the sands outside. “Really old. Rehker told me Venga brought it with him when he came, and that was a long, long time ago.”

  “So it’s Venga’s handheld,” Jodah said. “Not just for anyone who wants it?”

  “No. He doesn’t use it anymore. It’s for the whole house.” She got up and came closer, standing shoulder to shoulder with him. She wore her hair short all over but for the front, where the white strands fell forward over her eyes. “But if you want to order anything, you put it on the house account and Teila deducts it from your personal account.”

  This gave him pause. “What if I simply want to use my own handheld?”

  “Do you have one?” Pera looked at him through the fringes of her hair.

  “I could buy one, couldn’t I?”

  “I don’t know,” she said with a small smile that revealed tiny, perfect teeth. “Depends on how much money you have, heywhat?”

  Along with the medical records, Teila had shown him the ones for his personal accounts. He had enough money for anything he could ever ask for or need. Certainly for a handheld newer than this one. He hefted it in his palm again, then put it down. The data stream brightened for a moment, and he winced.

  Pera moved closer. “You’re enhanced. In the brain.”

  Jodah nodded, fingers pressed to his temples. He blinked, hoping to force the constant stream of light to fade enough for him to be able to ignore it. “Yes.”

  “I was stationed with some enhanced officers. If you ask me, it causes more trouble than it’s worth. Filling people up with metal and wire. It makes you faster,” she said, stroking an unexpected finger down the front of his robes. “And stronger. Sure. But it also takes something away, doesn’t it? Something important.”

  “I can’t remember,” Jodah said hoarsely. “What it was like before I was this way.”

  “You can’t remember anything, can you?” Her expression was cooing, but her tone cold. A little mocking. Her fingers curled into the front of his robes.

  She was on her tiptoes before he knew it, her lips brushing his before he could think to move away. The kiss, so brief it was barely anything, somehow stung. Jodah shook his head as Pera pulled away, and she gave him another of those small grins. The pink tip of her tongue crept out to press the center of her upper lip.

  “It’s okay,” she told him. “It’s the way we all are around here. Crazy as drywhales.”

  Drywhales, those that had been stripped of all their oils and left behind to suffer the grind of sand in their sensitive joints. If it didn’t kill them, the agony sent them into a frenzy powerful enough to sink any size ship. It made the normally mild-tempered creatures fierce and violent and furious . . . and vindictive.

  “I’m no drywhale,” he said.

  Pera smirked, tilting her head so the brush of her hair drifted across her eyes. They gleamed through the white strands. “Of course you’re not.”

  When she leaned to kiss him again, Jodah turned his head so that it would land on his cheek rather than his mouth. Pera had a soldier’s reflexes. She stopped the kiss before it got that far.

  “No?”

  “No,” Jodah said. “I’m sorry.”

  Pera gave him a long look through the filter of her hair. “You’re not sorry. But that’s all right.”

  A discreet cough from behind them made Jodah turn, while Pera didn’t move at all. It was Rehker, smiling that odd, wide grin of his that didn’t reach his eyes. When he crossed the room to take a seat on the lounge, he passed Pera close enough to brush her sleeve with his fingertips. She closed her eyes at his touch.

  Jodah didn’t miss that.

  Nor the way her breath heaved, or how her nipples tightened, poking the thin material of her robes. Or how she stood so still when Rehker passed, as though she were trying her best not to leap after him. Jodah sensed the tremor of her muscles.

  “Don’t let me interrupt,” Rehker said smoothly.

  “There’s nothing to interrupt,” Pera answered in a low voice.

  “Then come sit by me. I’m sure Jodah won’t mind.” Rehker patted the spot on the lounger next to him, and when Pera took it, he leaned forward, hands on his knees. Not looking at her. Not touching her. His attention was focused on Jodah, yet the tension between Rehker and Pera was palpable.

  Rehker clutched his hands together and gave Jodah a sincere look. “We haven’t really had a chance to get to know each other. You and me. You’ve been here long enough, surely we should’ve had some time to spend with you by now. You kept yourself upstairs for so long, I thought you’d never come down.”

  “I’ve been unwell.”

  “So have we all, brother, so have we all.” Rehker rocked a little on the lounger, his fingers linked tight. Pera couldn’t take her eyes off him but he didn’t even glance at her. “But you’re no brother of mine, are you? I presume too much. You’re enhanced. You were an officer, huh?”

  “I . . . yes.” Jodah set the ancient handheld on the table.

  “But you don’t remember what rank.” Rehker laughed, not waiting for an answer. “It’s okay. Hardly any one of us does. We come here broken. Teila puts us back together, doesn’t she, Pera?”

  “Sometimes,” Pera said with a little startle when he spoke to her.

  Rehker looked at Jodah. “Sometimes. But you . . .”

  The other man got up and strode toward him to stand just a little too close. Jodah had known men who favored the company of men before. Not that he remembered, exactly, just that he knew without overthinking it that he could tell the difference between Rehker’s interest in him and Pera’s. Both felt predatory and both lacked any sense of sexuality.

  “You,” Rehker said when Jodah didn’t give him any ground, “are very high ranking. Aren’t you?”

  It felt right to answer yes, but Jodah didn’t. “How could you know that? Did you know me?”

  Rehker tilted his head. “No. We didn’t serve together. I think they’re very careful not to place any of us together, in case of problems. But I can tell by looking at you.”

  Jodah gave the man a hard, unyielding glare. “Tell me, Rehker. What do you see?”

  “Enhanced, definitely. You’ve lost weight, a lot of it, and your face is haggard, but you haven’t lost muscle. You’re still strong . . . even when you feel weak. Yes?”

  “Yes.” Jodah crossed his arms over his chest. “Anything else?”

  “Your eyes. The pupil of the left is a little larger than the other. It opens wider. Closes smaller. It’s recording everything you see, isn’t it?”

 
Jodah hadn’t thought about it, but now that Rehker had pointed it out, all he could notice was how much clearer the world seemed looking through his left eye. When he looked at the other man, the data stream brightened, white and glaring, but Jodah could do little more than blink at it as the string of words and images flashed past him.

  “And you’ve got a lot going on in that brain, I bet. Oh, you can calculate the trajectory of a hornet as quick as that, can’t you?” Rehker snapped his fingers. “You wouldn’t even have to think about it. All the work would be done for you. They give the officers the best advantages, don’t they? Of course they do. Not for the rest of us, of course, not the under soldiers. The SDF couldn’t possibly do that.”

  Jodah had a memory of pain, vivid and yet welcome. He wanted to hold on to it, but it slipped away before he could. Even so, the flavor of it remained. The smell of something burning. An ache deep in his bones. An extra weight inside him as he got used to his new skeleton.

  “Nothing comes without cost, Rehker. The SDF gave me what I needed in order to lead.”

  “And in the end, Jodah-kah, you ended up the same as all the rest of us. Didn’t you?”

  Kah. The honorific was an old one, appended to the end of his name in the Fenda style. The use of it had fallen out of favor years ago, then resurged in popularity in the viddies as a slang term, usually faintly insulting. Rehker had said it without a flinch, a simper, or a snide look, but somehow Jodah knew the man hadn’t intended it as respect.

  “Yes. I ended up just the like the rest of you. So there’s no need to call me kah.” Jodah looked at Pera, who hadn’t moved from her spot on the lounger. Her eyes wide, her grin wider, she couldn’t keep her adoring gaze from Rehker, who at last turned to face her.

  “Sweet Pera. The past is a shadow to you, isn’t it?”

  “Mostly,” she said.

  “And you’re glad of it?”

  “Mostly,” she said, this time with a pause before replying.

  Rehker frowned. “We don’t remember who we were or what happened to us, but we can look at each other and see the truth. I look at you, Jodah-kah, and I see a man who must’ve done great things. I’d have been proud to serve under you, I’m sure.”

  “Thank you,” Jodah said, not sure he could believe Rehker, no matter how sincere he sounded. There was something off-putting about the other man. Something sly. Or maybe it was simply the way he allowed Pera to dote on him, keeping her close to him and feeding her just enough attention to fan the flames of her desires, yet never, so far as Jodah could see, giving her what she wanted.

  “You’re welcome, Jodah-kah.”

  Irritated, Jodah frowned. “You don’t have to call me that.”

  “But it fits you so well,” Rehker replied with another of his wide grins that didn’t reach his eyes. “It suits him, doesn’t it, Pera?”

  “Oh, it does. Absolutely.”

  Jodah looked from one to the other, knowing the pair of them were somehow mocking but unable to figure out a way to say so without sounding too sensitive. He put a hand on his belly and gave each of them a formal half bow. “Thank you, Rehker-kah. Pera-kah. I’ll say the same for you.”

  This brought a sour giggle from Pera, but Rehker only looked at him with that same flat gaze. Jodah stared at the other man until he looked away. What they were up to, he couldn’t be sure and didn’t really care. Both of them were not well in their minds, which he could forgive. But disrespectful, that he had no time for.

  “Another time. I look forward to getting to know you better, Jodah-kah.” Rehker returned the formal gesture, though as with the use of “kah” it had a flavor of mockery. He turned to Pera. “Pera, a game of golightly?”

  Rehker’s dismissal of Jodah was so clear it almost made him laugh, but he took the chance for escape, instead.

  12

  The simple food had been expertly prepared. Several courses of grains and greens with sliced milka and milka pudding for afters. He dove into it like a starving man, savoring every flavor as though he’d never tasted it before. And maybe, he thought, watching the others at the table, he hadn’t. Or at least had not in so long that they might as well have been brand-new.

  The table conversation was lively and disjointed, but as with the other meals he’d shared at the table, nobody seemed to care if he joined in. Instead, he sat back and watched the others. Gathering information. Observing. Details formed patterns in his brain, making shining strands of color that became rapidly scrolling lines of analysis he could barely decipher.

  Venga, the old man. Not dressed appropriately, moving slowly, but faking much of his decrepitude. He also hoarded food beneath the heavy robes, a sure sign he’d been held for a long time in near starvation.

  Adarey and Stimlin, the women. Partners. Adarey spoke for Stimlin, but it was clear if you watched them how she relayed her needs and thoughts through subtle hand signals. Where would she have learned them? Data he hadn’t been aware he had filtered into the stream of details and patched them together, but he still didn’t know.

  The chatty and vibrant Rehker, who kept up a never-ending stream of jokes to hide the constant tremor in his voice that didn’t come from fear. The sullen Pera, who looked with hidden longing at Rehker, but only when she thought he couldn’t see. Pera was the only one with visible scars, burns across her face and on her arms, exposed by the sleeves of her robes when she reached to serve herself.

  They were all military except for Vikus, Billis and . . . Teila. The woman. And of course her son and the ancient Fendalese female who served as the boy’s amira. All were soldiers, none of them as high ranking as he, though there was no way for him to know that for sure. It was just a feeling.

  He’d started having a lot more feelings.

  None of them treated him like an outsider. If he stood off from them, they didn’t seem to notice, or at least not enough to care. Nor did any of them try to pull him into the discussion, for which he was grateful. His head had begun to ache from the noise of conversation. Too much stimulation. He couldn’t stop collecting and compiling details into his mental data stream, even though none of the information made sense or triggered any responses.

  “Enhanced,” he said aloud, suddenly, startling himself and causing everyone else at the table to fall silent and stare at him. “I’m enhanced.”

  “In my day, we called it built up,” Venga said after a moment. “Got a chip in my brain, supposed to help me take pictures with my eyes like a camera. Never worked right.”

  Rehker laughed and struck an exaggerated pose. “Take a picture of this.”

  Venga snorted. “Like I’d want that stuck in my brain, no thank ya.”

  Jodah pushed away from the table, his head spinning and his meal unfinished. The chair clattered to the floor behind him hard enough to break. Rehker’s laughter stopped.

  “It was an old chair,” Teila said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I think I should go upstairs,” he said.

  “Everyone cleans their own plate from the table,” Vikus said.

  Teila gave him a stern look. “Vikus.”

  “Well,” the younger man said, “we do.”

  This time, Pera spoke up, the first time she’d said a word the entire meal. “A Rav Gadol wouldn’t clear his own plate from the table.”

  Rav Gadol. The term lit up something in the part of his brain that was constantly calculating. A sudden flare of agony caused him to press his fingertips to his temples. A chittering sound blocked out everything else for a moment, but then passed along with most of the pain. He straightened and looked at all of them.

  “I was the Rav Gadol. But now . . . I’m just a man.” With that, and a significant look at the now-sulking Vikus, he picked up his plate and took it into the kitchen, where he put it in the sanitizer.

  When he turned, Teila was behind him, smiling. “Vikus doesn’
t mean to be disrespectful.”

  “Yes, he does. It’s fine.” He tested the title again. Rav Gadol. It tasted right, felt right. It fit. But it wasn’t his name any more than Jodah was. “How did she know?”

  “Pera?” Teila moved past him with her own plate. “She knows a lot of things. You’d have to ask her.”

  “She’s right. I was a Rav Gadol. I can feel it.”

  “Do you remember anything . . . else?” Teila put her plate in the sanitizer and turned to him. She tilted her head, looking curious.

  With only an arm’s length between them, it would’ve been so easy to reach for her. Grab. Pull her closer. Slant his mouth over hers and . . .

  No.

  He backed away. If this was not a dream, she was a real woman and not here to slake his desires. He’d done her a great disservice by forcing his attentions on her. If it had not been rape, it had certainly been something close to coercion, and his stomach felt sick at the memories of her beneath him.

  “About your name? What we should call you?” She moved a step closer.

  He moved a step away.

  A flash of what seemed like disappointment shone in her face. “We could call you Rav, if you’d like. I said I’d be happy to call you whatever you like. Nobody else here likes to use their military titles.”

  “I don’t mean for them to treat me like their Rav,” he said stiffly. “It’s just a name. And no, I don’t want to be called that.”

  She nodded after a second’s hesitation. “All right, then. If that’s what you’d like. So . . . shall we keep calling you Jodah? Until you remember your own?”

  “What if I never do?”

  She studied him for a moment, her wide, dark eyes kinder than he deserved. When she reached to put her hand on his shoulder, he suffered her touch though it sent flames rippling through every nerve and left him raw. She squeezed him gently and when he didn’t respond, at least not in a way she could’ve seen, she let him go.

  “You will,” she said. “I know you will.”