The Saffron Malformation (90 page)

             
Morning stalked the horizon, loosing a deep red and orange glow on the sky.  If you looked strait up you could still see the moons and stars.  Quey sat at the table looking through the window past the kitchen at the endless expanse of waste, listening to Arnie snore softly.  Last night everyone got a pass but today was going to be crucial.  Blue Moon wasn’t going to wait long to come for them and if they meant to survive they’d have to have a plan today.

             
Rachel was up early.  Whoever was in her belly was starting to move around, either that or she was brewing up a nasty bit of gas.  She lay in bed for a few minutes before giving up the dream of falling back asleep and climbed out from under the covers.  Day, she could see, was breaking and she felt a deep need to break her fast, as they used to say.  She thought of sausage and pancakes and then there was a ravenous need in her belly.

             
Before going to the kitchen she checked her messages.  Her brother had contacted her.  She hurried from the room in her sweat paints and a tee shirt with her sheet in her hand.

             
“I got a message from Eric,” she said.

             
Quey looked up at her absently for a moment.  He was still dressed in the clothes he’d worn yesterday.

             
“My brother,” she clarified.

             
He nodded, “And?”

             
“He looked over the information in the files I sent him and he saw the news and Richter Crow’s press conference.  To summarize his response, whatever we need.”

             
Quey laughed.  “He happen to have an army lying around?”

             
“He’s got men.  Not enough to fight off Blue Moon directly, but if we can think of something else, maybe a way to get to the networks.”

             
“Now we really are terrorists,” Quey muttered.

             
“Ryla finished the tape?” she asked, ignoring his comment.

             
Quey nodded.  The mention of her name pushed something sharp through his chest.  He wished things were different, but he didn’t know how.

             
“And?”

             
Quey shrugged, “Claims she didn’t say anything.”

             
“What does that mean?  Its unlikely that with all… that… I can’t believe she didn’t say anything.”

             
“I assume she means nothing important but we didn’t exactly get into specifics.”

             
“The details are important.  Anything,” was as far as she got.

             
“You wanna know?” Quey snapped.  “You ask her.  Hell watch the fucking thing yourself.”

             
Rachel’s eyes widened.  Quey looked away and ran a hand down his face.  “What happened?” she asked him and crossed to the table.

             
“What happened is we need a way out of this mess and soon.”

             
Rachel sat and shook her head, “That’s not it.”

             
“That’s what matters,” he grumbled.  “Question is what can we do with your brother’s help?”

             
Natalie stepped in from the hallway, dressed in her pajama’s and stretched.  “He have a place for us to hide?” she asked as she started across the room, looking briefly at Arnie sleeping on the sofa.  “Shouldn’t have let him sleep on his back,” she said in passing.

             
“Like I said,” Rachel began, “He doesn’t have the manpower to hold fort here.”

             
“Does he have a place we can hide?” Natalie asked again.

             
Rachel nodded.  “He has a number of places around the world but when Blue Moon gets here and realizes no one is around they’re going to start looking elsewhere.”

             
“Run and hide’ll work for a bit, but that’s no kind of solution,” Quey interjected.

             
“But it’ll buy us time to think of one,” Rachel offered.

             
Silence settled over the table.  It’d been a heavy time recently with one thing coming after another and none of them good.  Each of them would have benefited from a shower and a good night of sleep, maybe a comb through their hair and something to laugh at for a change.

             
“I don’t like it,” Quey said.  “It’s a weak plan but set it up.  Have your brother give us a place to go.  If we don’t come up with anything better by the end of the day that’s what we’ll have to do.”

             
“Live to fight another day,” Natalie said.

             
Quey sighed and nodded.

             
Amber was in Leone’s room.  She’d slipped in late the previous night.  They were dressed in their PJ’s, his arms around her.  She laid there for a long time, watching him sleep.  Last night he’d cried softly against her, pressing his face into her chest and gripping her in both arms.  There was no hug tight enough to bring him comfort, it seemed.  Finally he fell asleep in her arms as her fingers ran through his hair.  She didn’t remember doing it, but eventually she followed.

             
It was morning now, the sun was beginning to ease in through the window, and Leone was lying still on his pillow, curled on his side and pressed against her.  She was on her back.  If her mother came looking for her she’d go ballistic, not in front of everyone but behind closed doors.  It was strange, the way her mother reacted to things like this, as if getting pregnant accidently was a trait passed down through genetics.  It wouldn’t matter to her that if Amber had gotten pregnant last night her baby would probably spark a religion, immaculate conception was a popular theme.

             
Leone stirred against her then squinted through the haze of sleep to look at her.  He smiled and she smiled back.  Then she saw his face change as he remembered the reality he was coming back to.  He trembled, his lip quivering.  She gripped his hand and he sunk against her shoulder.

             
“She was so strong,” he said some time later.

             
Amber lay on her back looking up at the ceiling.

             
“I remember this one time, we were in some shitty little town along the road—Redsen, I think…” he trailed off for a moment as memory enveloped him.  When it was through his words came back to him.  “We stopped off for a bite in this bar and grill.  Apparently a gang was passing through the town as well because there must have been more than a dozen of these guys, all in leather jackets covered in patches, all with a motorcycle parked out front.  One of these guys came over to my sister and started talking to her.  I knew he was trouble from the start and so did she I think, though you’d never know by the way she acted.  She was friendly, joking with him and asking him which way they were heading.  Then he sat down at the table, just plopped in beside her.  He told her she was pretty, prettiest girl in the bar and she thanked him.  Then she claimed the drink he had must have been stiff if he thought that.  The guy threw his arm over her shoulder.  Rested his hand on her breast.  I was terrified, but she didn’t flinch.  Even when he gave it a squeeze.  He told her she should come with him.  He knew a place they could go.  She declined, pleasant as a summer breeze.  He grabbed her by the back of the neck and told her she didn’t hear him properly.”  Leone snapped his fingers.  “That’s how long it took for her to change.  I didn’t even see where the knife came from, didn’t even know she had a knife but there it was at the guy’s throat.  She whispered to him.  I could see his expression change.  He looked guilty.  After that she put the knife away and he left us alone.”

             
“I remember,” something caught in his throat.  “That was when I knew, there was nothing the world could throw at her she couldn’t handle.  Nothing that could,” but he couldn’t say the rest, because Sticklan Stone had proved it wrong.

             
Amber held him.  Then kissed him.  Then wrapped her legs around him, nodded, and allowed him inside.

             
It was the first time for both of them and it didn’t take long.

             
Arnie eventually joined Rachel, Quey and Natalie at the table.  His head was ringing and he apologized for anything he might have done, what that was, however, he couldn’t remember.

             
There was no time to deal with his drunkenness so they moved along with discussing what to do next.  Rachel got a location on east continent and directions.  They’d head south through the waste until they came to a town called Breakers Bay.  It was on the coast and there was a boat that would take them to the rail transport on Topaz island.  Topaz was a luxury vacation resort with rail systems running to every corner of the planet.  It was also much easier to get through unnoticed than Saffron City.

             
“It’s the best plan we’ve got,” Quey said, sitting back with a sigh.

             
Through the silence of the room they heard the elevator doors open.  Ryla came through the hall like a leaf being carried by the wind.  She walked over to the table and stood before them.  “You scanned me,” she said plainly.

             
Natalie glanced around the table then answered, “Yes.  We needed to know… we needed to see what was inside you so we could get the shrapnel out.”

             
Ryla stood tall, her fingers fidgeting in front of her.  “And you saw… what I am,” she replied.

             
“What you are?” Natalie asked.

             
Rachel sat forward.  “Near as I can tell you have some extra parts.  Are you mad about this?” she asked, uncertain.

             
Ryla shook her head.  “They say when you’re trying to understand someone else, when you’re trying to understand something you don’t, the best place to start is on what they call ‘common ground.’

             
There was a nod of agreement.  “These extra parts,” Natalie began.  “I’m just curious how they managed to get there.”

             
Ryla sighed, shrugged and dropped her hands.  “I don’t know.  I can’t do it.”

             
“Do you know how old you are?” Quey asked without looking at her.

             
She swallowed hard.

             
“Natalie said you’re probably older than we think,” Rachel clarified.

             
She looked at Quey who did not return her gaze.  “I’m seventy six.”

             
The table took a moment to ponder this.

             
“Why didn’t you say this before?  Why did you let me believe…” he trailed off.

             
Ryla was nodding.  “All I told you was that I’m not a robot.  And that’s true.”

             
“No,” he snapped.  “You told me you were a girl, that you were just strange.”

             
She nodded.  “I suppose I did.  And I suppose you think that’s wrong.  That I’m not a person who’s just a little different.”

             
“You’re playing around with words.  What did you think would happen if you told me?”

             
“I don’t know,” she replied softly.

             
“If you hadn’t gotten hurt would you have ever told?” he stopped but everyone could hear the ‘me’ that was meant to be at the end of his question.

             
“I don’t know,” she admitted.

             
“Then why are we talking about this now.”

             
“Because of the way things are.  You deserve to know what you have with you.”  She looked at Quey, “And you deserve to know.  The hardware in my body…”

             
“There’s a lot of it,” Natalie said.  “From what I saw.”

             
“Yes,” Ryla went on, “Well it makes things not work right.  It makes it so I don’t understand.  I’ve spent all day trying to learn and I can’t.  I’ll never understand why if you’re sad you’ll get angry, and hurt everything around you or why when you’re angry you’ll sometimes have sex.  I don’t know why people laugh at some things and not others.”

             
“That’s not really the way it works, sometimes its sort of complicated,” Rachel began but Ryla spoke over her.

             
“And I’ll never feel the way I’m supposed to.”  Quey sat still, breathing slowly.  The words clawed at him and the silence around the table deepened.  “Not the way a human would.  I’ll never be anything but awkward.  I’ll never fit in and I’ll never understand.  And maybe that’s why I didn’t want to tell you, any of you, because then I’d have to admit it.  I’m not human.”  Those three words seemed to torment her as they came out and when she loosed them a pair of tears fell from her eyes and caressed her slender cheeks.