“Fiere!” I call. I’m practically tripping over my feet I’m so eager to greet her.
She starts to turn, and I see the familiar profile, the sharp nose and strong chin, the scar slicing through her eyebrow. She looks thinner than I remember, and holds her right arm awkwardly. I throw my arms around her and hug her tightly. “I thought you were dead.”
I expect her to come back with a scathing comment—scathing is Fiere’s specialty—but she wiggles away from me and takes a step back. Okay, I should have known better. She’s not the huggy type. I’m lucky she didn’t drop me to the deck.
“Sorry,” I start.
She stares at me with unblinking eyes, so dark the pupils blend with the irises. A frown wrinkles her brow. “Do I know you?”
Chapter Ten
Her voice is hesitant, not Fiere-ish at all.
Is she having me on? “I didn’t think four months in prison changed me that much,” I joke. “A little thinner, but there’s a lot of that going around.”
She doesn’t respond in kind. “Leave me alone,” she says irritably. That sounds more like the Fiere I know. She gives me her back and returns to studying the river.
“Fiere, what—?”
Wyck’s hand lands on my shoulder. I give him a puzzled look and he draws me toward the other end of the deck. “I should have told you,” he says in a low voice.
“Told me what?” But I already know.
“The IPF captured Fiere the day they took you. When I joined up with the Defiance, they had just received intelligence about her location. Idris immediately launched a rescue mission—he’s loyal, I’ll say that for him, and hell-bent on ‘no man left behind.' We got her out the day before she was set to be shipped to work in a plastics refinery, if our source was accurate. She’d had a hard time of it, Ev—she was skinny as a laser beam and her arm had been broken in several places and never set right. On top of that—”
“She was memory-wiped.” I steal a glance at the slim figure standing at the rail.
Wyck nods sadly. “Yeah. She’s not Fiere anymore.”
I round on him. “Don’t say that,” I tell him fiercely. “She is. The old Fiere is in there somewhere. Wiping severs the connections between the stored memory and the recall mechanism—it doesn’t fry the actual memory. Those connections can be restored. What have you been doing for her?”
He shuffles his feet. “All she wants is to be left alone.”
I give him a disgusted look. “Really? She says she wants to be left alone so you all leave her alone, make no attempt to help her?”
“We’re not doctors, Ev.”
I pfft air through closed lips to let him know what I think of that lame excuse. “Memory isn’t really my field, but there was a researcher at the Kube—”
“Dr. Frangelica.”
“Right. She ran that SMO—specific memory obliteration—experiment and a few of the kids volunteered for it. They used to talk about how you need to help a memory-wiped person rebuild associations, expose them to familiar surroundings, have conversations with them about shared experiences . . . stuff like that. Exercise helps, too, she said, I guess because it increases the blood flow to the brain or something. I’m not sure of the science behind any of it. I am sure that letting Fiere mope around by herself has got to be doing more harm than good.” I glance over my shoulder at the woman by the rail paying no attention to us.
“What are you suggesting?”
I try to organize my thoughts. “Well, at the very least, we need to be talking to her, each of us, about things we did together. Idris has known her longer and has more memories in common, so he should spend time with her. She and Alexander were close—almost like father and daughter. Seeing him again might reconnect some of the links for her. Could he come? Do you know where he is?” I realize I miss Alexander, too; I have a feeling everything would be better if he were here.
“I know where he was. Idris won’t be happy with that idea.”
“Screw Idris.”
Wyck looks around to make sure no one overheard me. “You know Alexander and Idris were butting heads at the end. Idris is the commander here. We can’t fetch Alexander, not even for Fiere, without his permission. Besides, Alexander might not be where he was, or he might not be . . . in condition to travel.”
I know he was going to say “might not be alive.” Alexander was gravely ill even before the IPF attack. “Let’s ask Idris.”
We find Idris in the armory, going over a map with four Defiers—a woman and three men—I haven’t seen before. He looks up when we enter, black brows snapping together. “I’m busy.”
“It’s important.” I stand my ground.
“Ten minutes.”
I’m too keyed up to settle to a task, so we loiter in the corridor outside the armory until Idris appears more like twenty minutes later. He walks past us, saying, “What is it?”
We head for the middle deck where Idris raids the kitchen for a vegeprote bar and bites into it with strong teeth.
“Fiere,” I say.
“Ah.” Idris leans back against the counter. What seems to be genuine sadness pulls at his features. “I’d be happy to kill all the Prags for that alone, for what they did to Fiere.”
“The thing is,” I plunge in, “I think we can undo it, some of it, at least.”
He cocks a skeptical brow. “You managed to acquire an advanced degree in neurology and memory while you were in prison. My, you were busy.”
I’m impatient with his snideness. “Stop it. I’m serious.” I lay out my plan, leaving Alexander until the end.
It’s Wyck who broaches Alexander. “We think—”
I’m grateful for the “we.”
“—that having Alexander around would help Fiere recover her memory. I can find him, bring him back here.”
Idris straightens.“Absolutely not.”
Wyck plows on as if Idris hasn’t spoken. “He knows Fiere better than any of us—you know that. And he is a doctor. If anyone can help Fiere, it’s Alexander. He’s no threat to you. Even if he wanted to take over—which he wouldn’t—he isn’t strong enough. Last time I saw him . . . anyway, you’re in command here. Alexander wouldn’t dispute that.”
I know it’s the wrong thing to say even before Idris slams a hand on the counter. “Of course he’s no threat to me! But this is my cell and I’ll do what’s necessary to keep it secure. Bringing in outsiders who don’t—”
I interrupt before he can issue a categorical refusal which he wouldn’t be able to go back on without losing face. “It’s part of your ethic to not leave anyone behind, right? Well, part of Fiere’s been left behind. It’s not your fault, but there it is. You can help her find her way back to who she was by letting Wyck fetch Alexander.”
I can see I’ve caught him up short by the look he gives me. He looks down at me, not really seeing me, I suspect, for a long moment before heading to the door. He turns, one hand stroking his chin. “All right,” he says abruptly. “You can bring Alexander if you can find him and he wants to come. Make sure he understands the ground rules: my word is law, and if he comes, he doesn’t leave. I’m not going to have someone who can pinpoint our location selling that information to the Prags—”
“Alexander wouldn’t—”
“—or giving it up during interrogation. Fiere’s the only person I know who outlasted her interrogators.” He gives me a pointed look. “That’s my offer—take it or leave it.”
“I’ll start this afternoon,” Wyck says. “I’ll be gone a couple days.”
Idris nods and turns to go. I get the oddest feeling that he’s actually pleased to have a reason to see Alexander again. I dismiss it. If Idris is happy with the idea of Alexander being here, it can only be because he wants the opportunity to show off his power.
Without Wyck around, I’m truly on my own. I’m friendless on a ship full of people who don’t precisely distrust me, but who aren’t sure about me, either. There’s Fiere, I tell myself. When Wyck
is gone, I climb to the upper deck to find her, but she’s not there. I search the Chattahoochee Belle and finally come across her in the hold, peering into a series of tanks. I register filters and pipes and conclude this is a water cleansing system that takes in river water and purifies it for drinking. The water in the first fifty gallon tank is a murky blue and the water in the final tanks is clear, so I guess it works. The room smells of damp wood and iodine's boiled metal tang. Normally, I’d be interested in evaluating the process they’re using to extract the contaminating chemicals, but now I’m focused on Fiere.
She’s watching bubbles rise in one tank and doesn’t acknowledge my presence. She’s cradling her fight elbow in her left hand. Each vertebra makes a clear bump through the jumpsuit she’s wearing and I get a lump in my throat. Those knobs poking through her clothes make her seem so vulnerable.
“Hey, Fiere. Let’s go for a walk,” I suggest.
“Leave me alone.” Her voice is monotone, uninterested.
“Nope. Not going to happen. A walk will do you good.”
She faces me, frowning. “Gad, you’re irritating.”
“See, my technique works—you’re beginning to remember me already. Come on. Who knows what poisons we’re absorbing sitting down here?”
She gets up which I count as a victory. “What did you say your name is?”
“Everly.”
“Were we friends?” She sounds doubtful.
“Yes,” I say firmly. “We are friends.”
We walk along a bluff that overlooks the river. A gusty wind blows away the earlier humidity and riffles our short hair. I don't think our prison cuts are going to start a new trend. Heavy-bellied clouds pile on the horizon and I think we might be in for a storm. We walk briskly for a quarter hour and I’m pleased to see a bit of color return to Fiere’s face.
“Do you remember anything?” I finally ask.
“That’s a stupid question. Clearly, I remember how to walk, talk, dress, feed myself, breathe.” She quickens her pace so she’s half a step ahead of me and I can’t read her face.
I squelch my reaction to her tone. It must be almost unbearably frustrating to lose your memories, to not remember great chunks of yourself, to know there’s more of you, tantalizingly close, but just out of reach. “Okay, then, what’s the last thing you remember? Before coming to the Belle, of course.”
She’s silent so long I think she’s not going to answer. Then, she says, “I remember being pregnant. Of looking down at my belly, obscenely swollen, and wanting to rip the fetus out of there, to reclaim myself. That can’t be right.” Her voice pleads with me to tell her she’s remembering incorrectly.
This first memory and the rawness in her voice make me realize I might have taken on more than I’m qualified for. I don’t want to screw her up forever by saying the wrong thing, but I don’t want to deny her memories, either, even the ugly ones, because they’re part of who she is. After a beamer quick evaluation of the options, I decide on total honesty and lack of judgment.
“That would have been at the RESCO.” I keep my voice matter-of-fact. “The Reproduction Support Community run by the government. They implanted a zygote in you against your will, turned you into a surrogate. It’s like rape, in a way, so of course you wanted the ba—fetus out. In fact, you bore two children before Alexander and Bulrush helped you escape. Do you remember Alexander?”
She squints, and then shakes her head. “The name rings a bell, but I can’t place it.”
“Don’t worry about it. It will come.”
“You can’t know that.” Her tone is flat and she continues along the bluff.
“I remember when I met you.” I go through the story of her and a small cadre of Bulrush members rescuing me, Halla and Wyck from bounty hunters. “I was intimidated by you. You were so fierce, so sure of yourself. You didn’t think much of me at first,” I say ruefully. “You took one look at my hair—it was much longer then—and the fact that I hadn’t tried to disguise that I was a breeder age female, and told me off. You thought I was stupid.”
“Still do,” she says, but there’s a hint of a smile. She bends and scoops up a stone, and then straightens and flings it out over the river. With her injured arm hanging limp, her movement is jerky, off-balance. We watch the pebble drop but can’t see where it impacts the water. She picks up another rock, and then another, using all the force of her depleted muscles to hurl them as far as she can. After a moment, I join her. It feels good, the force rippling through my back and shoulder muscles, my fingers opening to release the stone as my arm starts the downward arc. It makes my ribs hurt, but it still feels good.
Finally, Fiere says, “Let’s go back.”
I can see she’s tired, but she’s not admitting it. That’s proof to me that she’s still Fiere, still determined not to admit to any weakness. Maybe I’m grasping at straws, but I’m heartened and there’s a spring in my step as we traverse the rocky path back to the ship, fend off the sentries with the password, and trudge up the gangplank.
Chapter Ten
The next morning finds me alone on deck with Idris again. None of the others are early risers, or if they are, they’ve got duties to attend to in other parts of the ship. It rained hard overnight and the deck is slick. Water drops bead on the metal railing and the air smells clean. Idris slants me a look when I appear and eases over to make room for me at the rail. There’s an extra fishing rod lying at his feet and he nods at it. “Help yourself.”
I inspect the glittering silver and red lure and figure out the casting mechanism. Sort of. I’ve seen people fishing before, old men on bridges in Jacksonville, dangling their lines in the water as the Kube train went by, but I’ve never held a rod. Watching Idris cast twice, I think I’ve got the hang of it. I angle the tip of the rod back and then jerk it forward. The line unspools and the lure drops at my feet. Idris laughs. I look up, startled. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Idris laugh. He throws his head back so his tanned throat is exposed. He looks younger.
“Here, let me show you,” he says.
He demonstrates, and then stands behind me and maneuvers my arm and shoulder. His touch is impersonal, reminding me of when he taught me to use a variety of weapons during the Bulrush days. I’m constantly amazed by how long ago that feels; it was only half a year ago. I try casting again and almost lose the rod overboard. Idris springs forward and grabs it.
“You’re no better at this than you were with a beamer,” he says. He sounds amused, though, and I wonder why he’s in such a good mood.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to net the fish?” I grumble.
“Fishing is not about catching fish,” he says, moving a safe distance away from me and casting his line so it arcs perfectly, the lure dropping a long way out.
“What?”
“We’ve got a series of nets strung across the river we use when we need to replenish our protein supply. This”—he nods toward the rod—“is fishing.”
I don’t pretend to understand the distinction he’s making. “Where did you learn to fish?”
“My father taught me. As a young man, he lived in the north, near what used to be the US-Canadian border, and when we were on the run, that’s where we went. We lived off the land. Well, we had a cabin, but we got our own food. No dome. He taught me to fish, and hunt, and find wild rice and other edible plants, when the locusts didn’t get them first. Even when we had plenty of food, we’d sit for hours on a lake bank, side by side, not saying much usually, fishing. He told me once that there used to be water birds called loons that lived on the lakes and had a haunting call. He used to imitate it, but I can’t do it. Maybe because I’ve never heard the real thing.”
He lapses into silence and I study his profile from the corner of my eye. He’s got a straight nose that hooks a bit at the tip, thin lips, and a chin that is rounded without being in any way effeminate. His black hair is loose today, blurring his jaw line. I wait a beat, waiting for him to say more, and then ask, “What about
your mom?”
“I never knew my mom. She died when I was born.”
There’s nothing to say to that except, “I’m sorry.”
He shrugs. “You can’t miss what you’ve never had, right?”
He is so wrong. I miss my parents every day, even though I’ve never met either of them. I’m certainly not sharing that with Idris, though. “How did you end up here?”
His lips thin and for a moment I think he’s not going to answer. “When I was eight or nine, my father decided it was time for us to move east, for him to take an active role in undermining the Prags. We were on our own, but we still heard stuff. There were a fair number of people living like we were, and outlaws or travelers headed north—they mostly didn’t understand about the cold—so we heard about what was going on in the southern and eastern cantons, although it was old news by the time we got it. He felt guilty about not using his skills to benefit more people so we made our way south, mostly by boat down the Mississippi. Most of the mines had been cleared by then, although once we were only a couple hours behind a ferry that hit one. There were still bodies floating on the water by the time we got there. Body parts. There was one head that—. Enough that if you lined them end to end, you could walk across them from one side of the river to the other without getting your feet wet.”
He was only a little boy; he must have heard someone use that phrase. I can’t imagine how gory the scene must have been, how traumatizing for an eight-year old.
“He thought about us going west, becoming pioneers, because those communities need doctors, too, but then in Memphis he ran into someone he used to know, back in his med school days, and she had a grown daughter who was pregnant without a procreation license. She was trying to get to an outpost so she could keep the baby. My father came up with a plan to help them, and the next thing you know, Bulrush is up and running.”
Incineration (The Incubation Trilogy Book 2) Page 7
