I Know Where You're From
03 May 2016Terra Sheer
Time bleeds away in scattered moments, one blink to the next. The thrumming of a circulator fan beside my head becomes a counterpoint to my own heartbeat -- one constant thing in a world that won't hold still. It's hard to get a sense of presence from things around me, like I'm stuck in some terrible dream. Everything keeps shifting, moment to moment. There's always someone watching me, but the face changes, one blink to the next.Lizard again. *Blink.* Now Meatbrick. *Blink.* Now Scar.
I wonder.... How long I was there in that dying ship? How close to frozen had I gotten? I've heard that people from the Old Clans had a knack for surviving just about anything. That you could space them and they'd last for hours. I don't know if it's true, and even if it is, I don't know if it applies to me. Maybe I've got Old blood. Maybe I'm just lucky.
And maybe lucky is the wrong word to use when I'm staring down that glaring hole in Scar's face. He sure doesn't look like someone who holds my future in high regard.
"Why do you care?" I ask him. It feels like I'm talking through a mouthful of marbles. I'm numb just about everywhere, and numbness is a bad thing. Numbness makes me bold.
"Don't care, really," he says. "'Cept for, your ship will make good scrap, and you'll fetch a pretty penny on the flesh peddler's market."
"Is that why you're keeping me alive?"
"You're keeping yourself alive, sweetheart. I'm just refraining from killing you."
Gotta laugh at that. My uncle used to say things like that. He was a real jerk, too.
"What's so damn funny?"
My uncle didn't like to be laughed at, either.
"You. I know your type."
"Do you, now?"
"Yeah. I bet you were an even bigger prick when you still had both eyes."
He smiles at that. Nods as he looks down at the knife he holds in his lap. He turns it over, slowly, so that the light glints down its blade.
"Oh, come on, buttercup," I say. "Don't get all passive-aggressive threat-y with me. We both know you're not going to cut me and ruin your payday."
"So long as I do it where no one can see--"
"Don't be an ass. They check." I stare his empty socket down. "I know."
He gets up. Drifts toward me, spinning the knife on the tip of his finger. We stare each other down, and for a second, when he comes nose-to-nose with me, I wonder if maybe he's going to cut me after all. But I don't blink. I don't flinch. And after a good minute he looks away, grins gap-toothed and shakes his head.
"I don't envy the sucker who ends up with you," he says.
His accent clicks.
"I know where you're from," I say.
"Oh?"
"I know why you're out here."
Something dark comes over his expression. I think I've hit a nerve.
"Spit it out, then," he says.
"You're from Chnumar. You do a pretty good job of hiding it. It just pokes through in little places ... like the way you say 'you'."
"What of it?"
"Nothing, really. Just ... it's kinda fascinating that you're so ashamed of the place that you try to pretend it isn't part of you. Honestly, I guess, I would, too, if I were you. That place is a dump--"
He slashes open the front of the sleep sack, grabs me by the hair and hauls me out. He slams me face first into the wall. Suddenly, I'm not numb anymore.
"You still got family there?" I've got to strain against him to get the air to talk. "Or did you pawn your poor mama to the slavers to get a leg up? How about brothers and sisters? I bet you've got a lot of those. I hear they pop 'em out by the dozens down there, so they can sell off the ones who live--"
He grinds the point of his knife into the bulkhead, an inch from my nose. "You shut up," he growls.
"Or you're gonna do what?"
He slams me into the wall again. My heartbeat has long since left the lazy rhythm of the circulator fan behind, and is pounding in my ears so loud now that it's pretty much the only thing I can hear aside from Scar's breath hissing through his teeth. Adrenalin has put the feeling back into my limbs. I finally feel alive again--
He slams me once more for good measure.
"Ow! God ... careful! You're gonna bruise me!"
"It'll heal."
Meatbrick and Lizard come tumbling through the hatch to see what all the commotion is about. Scar hauls me off the wall and throws me at them. Meatbrick is the one who catches me ... almost gingerly. Like he's afraid I might break. They both look terrified. It's clear they know how bad an idea it is to piss off Scar.
Scar wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "Put her in the can with Tiny," he says.
"With Tiny? Tiny? Oh, come on, bad dog! What's the matter? Can't measure up to folks your own size, so you gotta pick on half-dead girls and some poor sap named 'Tiny' to feel like a man--"
Meatbrick wraps a hand around my face to shut me up. His hand is shaking.
"What about making sure she lives?" he asks. His voice quavers like a little kid's.
"She'll live," Scar says. "And if she doesn't ... we've still got her ship."
Meatbrick shrugs at that. Not exactly an entrepreneurial type. Lizard looks like he might want to argue if he weren't scared out of his wits. And together, wordlessly, they haul me out.
Behind us, I hear Scar break something and scream.
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