Requiem (18 page)

She wasn't sure
why but she wondered if there was enough space inside for her to
stand. She stepped in and closed the door. The light from the room
came in a pale yellow through the fibrous paper door. The black
shapes of the door patterns pinned themselves to her body, running
their silhouettes over her like a tattoo stencil. It smelt of
disinfectant and old paper bound books. She thought of Abigail then
leaned against the back wall and slid down until she was on the
floor.

The thick
carpeted floor pushed up against her feet. She curled her toes into
the fibres. She thought of her mother then pushed the thoughts
away, kicked them out under the door. She focused on the trip
aboard the Yurrick cruiser. Something bubbled up in the back of her
mind. She opened the panel on her arm and projected a screen onto
the paper door and checked her exonet connection. She stared at the
search bar for a moment then typed the question, 'what is a
flapjack?' into the search engine. The search engine corrected the
word to 'flarpjuk'. Seline hesitated before opening the first page
that came up. From nowhere, a man's booming, articulate voice
narrated a visceral scene of flesh and fluids.

'A flarpjuk is
the primary Ordonian reproductive organ,' said the voice.

Seline saw a
shadow move into her room. In her fumbling attempts to find the
mute button the voice grew louder.

'As one of the
most sensitive mechanisms for sexual interaction in the known
galaxy...'

She continued
to fumble. The shadow approached the closet. The voice grew louder.
Displayed on the screen was a huddled mass of Ordonian bodies,
three from what she could make out. They were squirting a thick,
black, caviar fluid onto each other and vacuuming it up again with
a series of hose like protrusions that flung over the screen every
which way. The only thing that drowned out the incessant wailing
noises that the creatures were making was the stern voice of the
narrator.

'BENEATH THE
INITIAL FLAP OF SKIN IS A TIGHTLY BUNDLED COLLECTION OF NERVES AND
SENSORY-'

Seline slammed
her hand against her arm. The audio stopped and the inexplicably
grotesque images disappeared. The closeted partition slid open.
Mercer stood, looking down at her.

'I've seen that
one. It's a classic.'

She was looking
up at him unable to even cover her cheeks to hide which, if she
would've guessed, had become the shade of raw meat. 'It's not what
it looks like.'

'What you do in
the privacy of your closet is your business. I won't judge. I might
laugh and tell everyone else about it but I won't judge.'

'I... uh, it
was a link my friend sent me.'

Mercer looked
around the inside of the closet. 'So did someone lock you in here
or...?'

'I was just
seeing how big it was.'

'So have you
arrived at a conclusion or do you want to do some more
research?'

'I think I'm
done.'

'Good.' He
stood back and casually looked around the room while she stepped
out of the closet and closed the door. Her left hand was now at her
cheek, drawing away some of the heat.

'So what're you
doing here?' she asked. 'Are you supposed to be my guardian?'

Seline tried to
follow Mercer's eyes as he continued to look over the room. 'Well
technically Sear is,' he said. 'He was the one who decided to bring
you along so you're his responsibility. I'm just filling in.'

'For someone
who's supposed to be looking after me I haven't seen very much of
him. Where is he?'

'He'll be off
taking a short tour of the city. It's been a long time since he's
been back. I don't think he'll be too long though.' He turned and
walked from the room. 'You want a drink?'

Seline followed
him into the kitchen. Mercer pulled a glass from the cupboard and
turned halfway towards her. 'The question wasn't rhetorical,' he
said.

She'd forgotten
the glass of water she'd left on the bedside table. 'I'll just have
water, thanks.'

'Water it is.'
He poured out two glasses from the dispenser on the wall and added
ice and handed one of the glasses to Seline.

She examined
the glass and the noticeably brown tinge to the water. She raised
the glass to her nose and breathed in.

'Is this
whiskey?' she asked.

'No. It's just
whiskey flavoured water.'

'Right. Just
whiskey flavoured water that happens to have alcohol in it.'

'Exactly.'

'Why do the
Yurrick have human alcohol in their temporary accommodations?'

'When it comes
to making drugs, humans know what they're doing. It's as if your
entire civilization has pursued at all costs, to the complete
denigration of every other aspect of your own existence, the
perfection of mind altering substances. Bravo, I say. A worthy
sacrifice.'

She took a sip
from the glass. The cubes of ice bumped into her lip and sunk back
down into the shroud of whiskey. She leaned back on the counter and
stared out the window, listening to the ice, cracking in her
glass.

'So what do you
think of all this?' asked Mercer.

'Of what?'

'Of Saranture.
Of the city.'

'It looks nice,
I guess, especially in the rain.' She took another sip from her
glass.

'It must be
hard being dragged halfway across the galaxy like this. How does it
feel to be a wanted terrorist anyway?'

'I don't think
I'd make a good martyr to be honest. I'm not used to all the
attention.'

'Really? You
wouldn't want people a thousand years from now praying to the
'Queen God, Seline'? Disturbing your sleep, asking for all kinds of
shit like video games and cars.' He looked out the window next to
Seline. 'Anyway, we'd be doing a pretty bad job if that's how you
ended up.'

'If I die and
become a God, I'll be heaping a lifetime of vengeance on you, just
so you know.'

He shrugged.
'I'd probably deserve it to be honest.'

Seline placed
herself on the back of the sofa and began fingering the stitching
running up from the cushions. 'Is this where you grew up?' she
asked.

'Not in this
city, no.' He pointed to mountains in the distance, standing like a
serrated edge on the horizon. 'I grew up in a small town on the
other side of those ranges. Tyr, it was called.'

'Was?'

'It was built
right on the face of the cliffs on an active fault line. Even with
all the earthquake strengthening that went on, it was just asking
for trouble. I'm surprised it wasn't destroyed a lot earlier
really.'

She stopped
picking at the couch. 'When did it happen?'

'Yesterday
would've been the four year anniversary.'

'You don't
sound too upset about it.'

'I'm a bit more
transparent than most Yurrick but I'd be surprised if you knew how
to read one of us that well.' He looked across at her. 'Hell, most
Yurrick can't even read other Yurrick very well.'

'So you
are
upset about it?'

'Sometimes. But
four years is a long time. There were only three deaths. The
warning systems did their job for the most part.'

'It must be
hard.'

'You move
on.'

'I mean not
being able to express yourselves.'

'It's not
simply that we don't know how but more that we aren't so closely
tied to our emotions as humans are; that we don't experience the
same emotional extremes as you do. But you do have a point. Most
Yurrick are incredibly private when it comes to emotions. We
generally reserve them for close friends and family. We aren't all
as severe as Sear though. Put him through an MRI and you still
wouldn't have a clue what he's thinking. He spent a decade on
Earth, a
decade
, and somehow he comes back harder than when
he left.'

'Why would
being around humans change him?'

'Because that's
pretty much your species' defining characteristic and adapting to
the culture and world around us is pretty much the Yurrick's
defining characteristic. You guys generally have a blatant
inability to resist the emotional tar pit that you surround
yourselves in. Even when you think you're in control of yourselves,
trying to be calm or indifferent, you manage to telegraph your
thoughts to the world. No offence.'

He could see
Seline in the reflection of the window, staring into the bottom of
her empty glass.

'Well. You're
not as bad as most of the humans I've met,' he said. 'But then
again, you've found a sort of loophole by burying your memories so
deep that even you can't find them so they can't affect you.'

She looked at
him then back into her glass. 'Mm,' she half grunted.

'Anyway, Sear
looks more human than us but he's still Yurrick on the inside... or
maybe he's just hiding something.'

'So, how well
do you know him anyway? You two seem kinda close. Relatively
speaking anyway.'

'Like I said,
we came from the same town. We grew up together. Same
neighbourhood, same school. We joined the First Contact Teams
together as soon as we were able. We finally got split up when we
were assigned our locations for long term cultural participation.
He was assigned to Earth. I was assigned to, or rather dumped, on
Telon. After a year I came back but Sear didn't come back at all.
When I finally managed to get in contact with him, already a few
months after he hadn't come back, I couldn't really put it
together. We'd talked only once during that initial year and he was
more or less the same but when I got hold of him this time, I could
tell something had changed in him. But he still seemed to know what
he was doing. He still does but the reasons have changed.'

'Changed for
the better or changed for the worse?' Seline asked.

'Well, he's a
bit more expressive than he used to be.'

Seline
laughed.

'We still kept
in contact when he stayed on Earth. I actually went and visited him
once.'

'Yeah?'

'That was the
last time I actually saw him. Until we touched down on Earth and
picked you both up. No offence, but I can't see the attraction of
that place.'

'Yeah...'

'Oh, don't be
like that. I said 'no offence' didn't I?'

'I'm not really
offended. I agree with you. It's just that I don't remember much
about it. When I went back there, apart from some vaguely familiar
feelings it felt like something entirely new.'

'You lived
there for twelve years, right?'

'Yeah.'

'You must've
gone on one hell of a bender to whitewash all that. I won't be
forgetting Sinn any time soon. You could see the ring of bodies
circling the entire city when we landed. The fires. The slums.'

'I think a lot
of that stuff is relatively new. That's what Sear told me
anyway.'

'Maybe the
worst of it is new but that's not really saying much is it?' Mercer
walked over to the dispenser in the kitchen. 'Want another
drink?'

'No thanks. I
think I just want to sleep.' She wanted to yawn to prove her point
but nothing came.

'Fair enough.
Just ask if you need anything. I won't be going anywhere for a
while.'

Seline was
leaning against the bathroom counter, holding her face as close to
the mirror as she could, her fingers awkwardly pressing and poking
at the fresh pimple on the side of her nose.

'Do you have
any idea who I am?' The voice was loud, clear, unmistakeable. She
froze in place, absently watching a dribble of pus on the bathroom
mirror.

'I know exactly
who you are. That's why you're in handcuffs.' The second voice had
to be a Yurrick's. Seline realised the voices were coming from
outside the apartment.

'So are you
gonna tell me where you're taking me?' continued the first voice.
'I'm really hoping that you're the type who at least has the
respect to wine and dine me before jumping into the rough
stuff.'

'What the hell
are you talking about?'

'You're not the
romantic type I take it?'

'I'm the 'beat
you until you learn to keep your mouth shut' type.'

'You're cute
when you're angry. But seriously, if all you're interested in is my
body then tell me now. I don't want to get too attached to someone
who only wants sex.'

'One more
word-'

'Oh yeah,
speaking of words – my safe word is 'achtung'.'

The door slid
open. Belameir's handcuffs were removed and with a shove from the
guard, he came stumbling through the door. Seline was standing in
the doorway between the kitchen and the hall. The guard stared at
Seline for a moment, which she guessed was in anger, before walking
off with the door closing behind him.

'Call me!'
yelled Belameir behind him.

Belameir looked
around the room, not in the least surprised to see Seline standing
in the kitchen doorway. He was wearing the same suit jacket that
she'd left him in. The jacket had long since lost its buttons and
exposed a pale yellow (formerly white) dress shirt with a thin
black tie hanging loosely around his neck which he always made sure
to fold the collar down neatly over top of.

That familiar,
crooked smile rested on his lips as he looked across at Seline. He
stood with his hands on his hips and gave Seline a mocking grimace
and slow shake of the head. His hair was somehow scruffier than
usual. Dark, thick, and black; clumps of it stuck out from his
head, pointing in whatever direction last night's sleep had settled
on.

'Well? Care to
explain yourself, little lady?'

The only anchor
in her life. The only stable fixture upon a constantly shifting
background. She ignored the question. 'Were you hitting on that
guard?' she asked.

'Yeah. It
wasn't really working though.'

'No shit. Your
pick-up lines are awful.'