The Woman They Kept (17 page)

Gideon concentrated on the
flickering flames before him. He had been trying not to think of
the man. “A woman I talked to directed me to him, said he
might be able to help me. She described him as a 'fine print' sort
of guy, but I didn't really know what she meant at the time. He
knew a lot, that should have tipped me off not to trust him, but I
didn't have anything else to go on. He was the only person helping
me out.”

Leanin picked a piece of meat
out of her teeth. “They all want the same thing, though.
It's just money to them, he'll realize that it's not economical to
chase us. I doubt we'll hear from him again.”

“
That's just it. I don't
know that this
is
about money. Why go to such great lengths to play with me for
Rolanda? He's spanned a few different bubbles, why bother for one
woman when he could just get another?”

They sat in silence for a while,
and then Rolanda looked up from the palm of her hand. “Maybe
he's a spider, letting you walk along his web.” She bared her
teeth and nipped toward Gideon. “He'll get you in the end.”

“
What's that in your
hand?” Leanin asked.

Rolanda smiled at her. “I
am having a conversation with a new friend.”

“
Who is your new friend?”
Gideon asked. Rolanda opened her palm, on it sat a fat and shining
cockroach with two antennae that twitched this way and that. Gideon
recoiled in disgust and walked away from the fire.

“
What does your friend
have to say?” Leanin asked, her eyes on Gideon as he stomped
away.

The cockroach crawled up
Rolanda's arm and to her neck, twitching at her skin with its
antennae. She giggled as it tickled her. “Oh, lots.
Cockroaches always do, but none of it is terribly interesting.”

“
Nothing interesting?”
Leanin asked.

“
No. He has all the
little dreams that normal cockroaches do, little cockroach dreams of
finding a missus cockroach and digging a neat little hole for them
to live in. He wants baby cockroaches to teach his little cockroach
ways to. It's sad, in a way.”

“
Sad that the cockroach is
normal or sad that you no longer are?” Leanin asked. She had
been so concerned about whether she was mad at Gideon that she
hadn't really had time to think about Rolanda. It wasn't going to
be easy bringing her back from wherever she was inside. Her face
softened and she reached out an arm to touch her. “Let's be
serious here, Rolanda, you're not okay, are you?”

Rolanda closed her fist quickly,
little cockroach guts squirting out between her fingers. “You
look through your window and I'll look through mine. I see just
fine.”

Leanin nodded and decided to let
Rolanda alone for a while. She stood and walked over to Gideon, he
was staring out to the horizon. The path twisted and snaked away
from them. The ocean framed them on one side, looking obsidian in
the night. “She wasn't like this before, was she?”

Gideon spat into the dust.
“Something's changed in her. She says things she doesn't
mean, she doesn't really get what's going on.” He sighed.
“I'm trying to understand, I really am. She's free now, why
wouldn't she go back to being herself?”

Leanin's hands twitched. She
wanted to place them upon his shoulders, hold them to the back of
his neck, intertwine her fingers in his. There was too much
similarity between Jenny and Rolanda, it made her want to get on the
motorcycle and drive away. But she had done that once before, and
she wouldn't again. “She'll get better. Give her time.”

Gideon turned and put his hand
on her arm. “I have to wonder what will happen if she
doesn't. What role should I play in her life? I can't be husband
to half a person.” He moved closer, both of his hands were
now touching her. “I don't think that would be good for
either of us.”

They looked each other in the
eye, Leanin found herself trembling, her breath coming deeply.
“These aren't things that you can question right now. You
have to give her time.” She placed her hands, palms open, on
his chest. “Give everything time.”

Some distance away, on the other
side of the fire, Rolanda watched the two touch each other. Her
eyes were still, the fire dancing in them, her face blank.

Leanin pushed off Gideon's arms.
“Just wait and see what will happen. There's no point in
speculation.”

That night they all shared a
single tent, sleeping side by side. Rolanda was in the middle,
kicking and muttering in her sleep. Both Leanin and Gideon stayed
awake on either side of her, hushing and comforting her when her
cries became too fitful. They wouldn't look at each other.

...

Dagmar was two days north of
Algernia. Their journey brought them over mountains that cut into
the sky, the peaks powder-topped with a yellow snow that shone in a
dull way during the day. They rode slowly, the snow leaving the
ground greasy and slippery under their tires as they made their way
through the mountain passes.

Dagmar itself was on the sunny
side of one of those mountains. The ocean glared a mean green in
the distance and the city had been gouged out of the side of a
mountain, the top of the bubble itself having a little glimmer of
snow. They parked their bikes on the outskirts, Dagmar didn't have
cubbies for parking so they just locked them on the street. The
houses they passed were small but placed on large plots of land.
Most of them had goats and chickens wandering around their yards,
braying and clucking at the strangers as they passed. A few people
sat on their porches and waved to them as they walked into town.

The center of the city was a
little more concentrated, each building small, none having more than
a second floor. The Abrahamic 'A' was seen mounted above more than
a few doors they passed.

“
What's the plan?”
Leanin asked. They leaned against a wooden fence while Rolanda
clucked at a chicken in a yard.

“
Long term or short term?”

“
Short terms always end up
at long term anyway, let's hear them both.” Leanin squinted
her eyes and looked down the road. Dagmar was too much like home
for her; the simple, folksy comfort that the people showed hiding an
intolerance for anyone different than them. Cities like Dagmar were
the reason that her father drove Jenny to suicide, everyone knew
everybody's secrets, and having a whore daughter wasn't something
the man had been okay with. She could picture him now, her father,
on the faces of the men walking past them on the street while Gideon
thought of his plan. He had been a tall man, his shoulders set
straight, the type of man who thought he knew everything despite
never asking questions.

“
Short term I think we
should spend a night here, get our bearings and figure out a more
solid long term plan. I was hoping we'd be able to make it back
home eventually. It would be nice to not have to look over our
shoulders anymore.”

“
Our?” Leanin
asked, a wry half smile on her lips. Rolanda had wandered a little
ways away, following where the chicken went, still clucking at it.

Gideon ran a hand over his hair.
“I had hoped we could all go back there. Do you have any
reason not to?”

“
I don't like the question
framed like that. Say rather, do I have any reason
to
go?” Leanin glanced at Rolanda and then to Gideon.

He opened his mouth and then
stopped, unsure of what he really wanted to say.

“
They know us here. We're
desired,” Rolanda said, thrusting herself between the two.
She held a piece of paper torn from a wall.

“
What do you mean? I've
never even been here,” Gideon said.

The piece of paper showed three
photographs, one of each of them, with their names and some general
information about them. Both Rolanda's and Gideon's were old school
photographs from back in Cormac; Leanin's was some sort of prison
photo. Across the top of the page, in large red lettering was the
word, 'Wanted.'

Gideon paled and held on to the
fence as his knees shook. “Charges include prostitution,
sexual assault and battery, and human trafficking,” he read.

“
This is put out by the
Dagmar peace officers,” Leanin said, pointing to a small
shield at the bottom of the page. “Akem's reach must be a lot
farther than we thought. We may never stop looking over our
shoulders.” Her face was strained as she looked at the paper.
Suddenly it felt like everyone who passed was looking at them,
studying their faces. “I don't think that we should stay
here.”

“
I don't think that you
should have ever come,” a voice boomed out. A tall man in a
crisp brown uniform stood a few feet behind them, silver star pinned
to his breast. In his hand he held out an electric truncheon. From
behind the buildings around them several men dressed in similar
uniforms came out, each holding their own weapons. “Now, that
poster you're holding we received just this morning down the
pipeline, and low and behold, I hear we have three new arrivals come
under our dome. This doesn't have to come to any violence, but we
do need you three to come with us and get this all sorted out.”

Leanin exploded toward the
nearest officer, lashing out fiercely with her fist. A loud crackle
resounded in the air as the officer thrust his electric truncheon
into her and she collapsed in a heap. Gideon strained forward.

“
Hold, son,” said
the tall officer, “she's not harmed, just unconscious. Come
peacefully with us, we don't want to do any real damage.”

The words were ineffective
compared to seeing Leanin's body splayed out, her limbs every which
way. Gideon threw himself at them, immediately feeling the blinding
and paralyzing pain of the truncheon.

“
They always make it
hard,” the tall officer said. “Dungrove, you carry this
one; Shiloh, grab the other. I'll get the girl.”

Rolanda giggled and hid her face
in her hands. “They're like puppets, you're pulling their
strings. Do you have strings? Everyone seems to. It's a big web
of them.”

He cocked an eye at her.
“You're not all there, are you?” He shocked her with
his truncheon and slung her limp body over his shoulder. “Easier
this way,” he muttered to himself.

...

Gideon woke on a threadbare cot
in a damp and cold cell. The beds folded down from the concrete
walls, Rolanda and Leanin were still lying on theirs, tucked in
neatly. His head throbbed and his eyes hurt in the pulsing yellow
light. Outside the cell a desk sat empty, a few sheaves of paper
scattered across it. He stood and checked on Rolanda and Leanin,
they were both breathing but out cold.

“
Hello?” he called
out through the bars. “Is anyone out there?” His voice
echoed jarringly on the bare concrete walls. A door on the far side
of the office opened and the slow, plodding sound of boot heels
echoed down to him.

The main officer from before
stepped in front of the cell, sucking his teeth. He was a
middle-aged man, his eyelids hooded and heavy. His face sagged, a
sandpaper stubble clung to his cheeks. Though he was tall he was
thin, and his shoulders hung inward. “What's with all the
noise?”

“
You can't keep us here,
locked away like this. There's no way those charges are true, you
have to believe us.”

He sucked his teeth again,
making a wet raspberry sound. “You're Gideon? My name's
Ishmael. There's quite the litany of charges against you.”
He strung out his sentences, articulating slowly each syllable.
“Word down the pipeline is that you're selling these girls out
to lonely men. I have to say, that doesn't sit well with me. I
feel a man ought to respect women, we wouldn't be here without
them.”

Rolanda and Leanin were
beginning to stir behind Gideon. “You have to listen to me,”
he said, “I'm trying to
protect
these women, not sell them. That woman there, she's my fiance. She
got taken from me a while ago, moved from bubble to bubble and
forced to...forced to...,” Gideon choked up, his throat
closing as he tried to push the words out. He simply couldn't say
them.

“
Forced to whore herself
out,” Leanin said, joining him at the edge of the cell.

Ishmael ran an eye over her
short cut hair and leather riding jacket. “And how exactly do
you fit into this picture?”

Leanin met his stare with a
fierce defiance. “I had a sister go through this when I was
younger. I have a bit of a soft spot for Gideon's quest. Believe
me, no one hates the pigs that do this more than I do.”

Ishmael picked a piece of food
out from one of his front teeth, looking over Gideon and Leanin.
“That's quite the tale. There is one thing that doesn't quite
gel. You see, these posters came all the way from the top here in
Dagmar. Messenger came from Algernia, from their parliament, to our
council. It was all done through legitimate channels. It ain't
easy communicating between bubbles, nor cheap, so why would they go
through all that trouble if you was actually trying to do right by
these ladies?”