Fat Girl in a Strange Land (8 page)

Tried. Her hammering heart had other ideas.

“No,” she said, her voice too quiet to echo off the chasm’s far wall. “I can do this.” As if to add its own form of encouragement, the comm in Wen’s backpack pinged.

“One more hour. Now or never.”

Wen played out a meter of filament, grabbed it tightly with both hands, and slid off the edge.

The first hour of Wen’s flight from the ship had been the worst; pain jolted her legs, her knees, her hips, her spine, everything. Her body bounced in unpleasant ways, and even though she’d worn comfortable shoes on the graduation trip, her feet protested every step. And the damn backpack straps kept digging into her shoulders, its weight like a small child on her back.

But every time she wanted to stop, she just slowed to a walk and checked the comm. Every time she checked the comm, sunrise was a little bit closer… and so was the substation.

“I… can do… this,” Wen panted as she jogged. “I… can… do… this!”

And every time she felt she was about to pass out from exhaustion, she put one foot in front of the other, repeating the four-word mantra in her head when she could no longer spare the breath to speak.

I can do this.

I can do this.

I can do this.

Wen hung over the edge, suspended, heart hammering in her chest. She had never thought she could be so scared, but then, she’d never dangled by a nearly-invisible thread over what looked like a bottomless chasm. The microfilament was taut in her hands, and she gripped it tightly, not wanting to move.

The comm pinged again. Had five minutes really passed while she was hanging here?

“Damn it!” she said, ignoring the shaking of her voice. “I can do this!”

Wen slowly moved one hand from the microfilament line to the spool at her waist and gently turned the controller until, centimeter by centimeter, she started to descend.

“Well,” she said, surprised she could hear herself over the pounding of her heart, “this isn’t so bad.” She turned the controller again and started dropping a little faster. She had to find a cave — a deep one, deep enough that she could hide in the thermal cocoon that was part of the pack’s emergency gear — and she had to find one soon.

But she wasn’t going to do it this way.

Wen unhooked the flashlight from her pack and set it to the widest possible beam, and then activated the spool again. As she moved, she swept the light back and forth across the dark rocks until she found a promising shadow.

Wen pocketed the flashlight and, holding the line with both hands, swung her weight gently until her feet were against the uneven wall of the chasm. “I ran more than thirty kilometers to get here,” she whispered to herself. “I can damn well walk to that cave!”

It took a few minutes to figure out exactly how long the line had to be to walk horizontally to the cave, but Wen still had twenty minutes to spare when she finally reached it. She wondered how deep she was, and if she’d be protected enough — the reel at her waist didn’t have a readout of how far she’d gone — but she didn’t have time to look deeper. No, this was it. This cave or nothing.

Wen managed to swing into the cave opening and sprawl flat on the rocky floor, keeping herself from being pulled back out again. Slowly, one hand clutching a small stalagmite, Wen played the flashlight’s beam over the cave’s walls, floor, and ceiling. Stalactites, more stalagmites, a damp and acrid odor that was probably Sidqiel’s water supply — poisonous to humans, naturally — and, to Wen’s immense relief, nothing waiting to eat her. And the cave was at least ten meters deep.

The comm pinged again. Fifteen minutes. “This is it,” Wen said. She took the utility knife from her pocket and cut through the makeshift harness. Then she carefully removed the belt while holding onto the end of the microfilament, tied the two ends together, and buckled the belt to the stalagmite.

Wen shrugged off the backpack and, by the white glow of the flashlight, unpacked the thermal cocoon. According to the tag, it was rated to keep the average human alive in temperatures ranging from minus-twenty-five to plus-one-twenty-five. Wen tried to remember just how hot it got on the surface of Sidqiel during the day.

The silvery material of the cocoon crinkled as Wen climbed into it. She tried to pull the backpack in after her, just in case, but it wouldn’t fit. “Damn.”

After a moment’s thought, Wen packed as many supplies in there with herself as she could, and drank the last of her water. Then she recorded a message on the comm and set it to broadcast mode.

Finally, Wen swallowed two sleeping tablets from the backpack’s medical kit, sealed herself inside the cocoon, and waited for dawn to come. The pills took effect quickly. Wen’s last thought before her eyes closed was that, if the cocoon didn’t save her life, at least she’d die in her sleep.

Wen maneuvered the hoverchair across the stage, accepting her diploma from the headmaster. She shook his hand and gave him a tight smile, but she didn’t really feel like smiling. She didn’t even wait for the end of the ceremony; her parents helped her get into their car, and only half an hour later she was back in the hospital, hooked up to the machines that were slowly but surely repairing her body.

Wen’s mother kissed her forehead, her hand smoothing over what wispy hair remained on Wen’s head. “I’m so proud of you, love,” she said. Her round, dark eyes filled with tears. “So proud.”

“Thanks, mom.”

The doctor came in then, and Wen’s parents excused themselves. “How are you feeling?”

“Alive,” she said.

“Better than dead.”

Wen didn’t dignify that with a reply. Doctor Morn had been saying that ever since Wen had met him. In truth, she was lucky to get as far as him; the rescue ship had had quite a bit of difficulty getting to Wen’s cave, and she’d been expos-ed to heat and radiation that, despite the thermal cocoon, had nearly killed her.

Doctor Morn lifted Wen’s gown to check the radiation burns on her stomach and chest. She closed her eyes; she didn’t need to see the way her flesh hung oddly on her frame. The sickness that came with radiation poisoning had forced the doctor to remove large chunks of diseased skin. A graft was healing on her forehead and reconstructive surgery had fixed her nose, but they weren’t ready to do the rest of her body yet.

“You’re doing well, Wen,” the doctor said. “We should be able to cover the scars with more grafts, and I’m hopeful that, with enough drug therapy, you won’t need any more organ replacements.” She already had a new liver and pancreas, cloned from her mother’s because there weren’t enough healthy cells to get them from her own. “Do you have any questions?”

Wen shook her head. The doctor replaced the gown and covered Wen with a light blanket. After he was gone, her parents sat with her for a few minutes.

Sergeant Salzman waited until they were gone to come see her. He was young — only twenty-five — which had surprised Wen when she’d met him in person. He pulled a chair to her bedside and took her small hand in his large, dark ones, staring at her with intense, deep-set brown eyes. “You did it.”

She turned to him. “I did it.”

He always said that to her, and she always said that to him. When they’d first met, Wen had been fiercely shy, especially under his attentive stare — “I was there when they brought you aboard,” he’d said; “I helped save you.” — but now they’d become friends and Salzman spent at least half his off-shifts with Wen, playing games or just talking.

And on those moments when the guilt came, when Wen broke down in sobs and asked him why she’d been the only one to survive, Salzman — his first name was Shael — held her hand and passed her tissue after tissue.

Today, though, was a good day. Today, Wen smiled at Shael. Today, Shael smiled back.

Today, Wen was alive.

Josh Roseman
(not the trombonist; the other one) lives in Georgia (the state, not the country). His writing has appeared in
Asimov’s
,
Fusion Fragment
, and
Big Pulp
, and in audio form on the
Drabblecast
and
Dunesteef
, where he won the 2009 Broken Mirror Story Contest. He is a reviewer for
Escape Pod
and a performer whose voice has been heard on the Hugo-winning
StarShipSofa
, the Parsec-winning
Pseudopod
, and the Parsec-nominated
Dunesteef
. Follow him on Twitter
@listener42
, at
facebook.com/AuthorJosh
, or on his website,
roseplusman.com
.

The Right Stuffed

by Brian Jungwiwattanaporn

Anna was screaming as she fell. She closed her eyes, wondering if the impact would hurt. Smashing into the ground should be instant death, but Anna had doubts. She envisioned her last millisecond stretching for an eternity, pain searching for new parts of her body to exploit and tease. Feeling her clothes pressed against the front of her body, she could hear the crack of her jacket as her body dived down. Again she hoped, like the times before, that her life would mercifully choose not to replay itself. Scenes before her eyes of being bullied, eating, dieting, baking, failed romance, and resignation. The girls at the playground would push her down while singing “Humpty Dumpty,” wondering if she would break. Once they pushed her off the slide to see if she would bounce. Break or bounce flashed through Anna’s head as she sped downwards.

Then she remembered to listen.

“Anna, you’re not falling,” said the voice in her head.

Anna tried to form a reply as panic chased the words out of her head.

“Calm down. Remember your training.”

Squeezing her eyes shut, she managed a thought, “Yes,” and then a reply; “I’m here Vish, I’m here.”

The ground stopped. She floated. Tucking her knees in, she leaned back until she could stand upright, walking on air. Catching her breath, she started to smooth out her clothes, focusing on her movements. Falling and vertigo were the first experiences of insertion into the Void; she went through her little ritual to achieve equilibrium.

“Glad you’re still with us. You don’t have to breathe you know.” said the voice in her head. “But you did well, you didn’t even flail on the drop this time.”

“I remember. Thanks, Vish. Not sure if I’ll ever get used to this,” Anna said. Lifting her pistol out of its holster, she looked at the beige totality surrounding her, a landscape lanced with silver ribbons wrapped in shifting mists. “Ready.”

“Just another day in the Military Intelligence Brigade.”

Anna watched the other women in the room, shifting their bodies, trying to find comfort between the narrow armrests of their chairs. She arrived early and managed to claim the waiting room’s sole couch, resting her handbag on the cushion next to her, solidifying her claim to the space. They mostly sat in silence, mixing their stares at the ground with quick glances around the room. One by one they were called. Anna sat patiently wondering about her application, second-guessing her answers, thinking of ways to explain herself if she made it past the exam and into the interview. Her confidence had withered as she saw the fast pace and pressed suits of government employees enter the building. The soft sound of her flats no match for the quick clicks of heels marching across marble floors. The classified was for a government job, basic secretarial duties and data entry; it was good money and Anna needed something more stable than teaching sculpture right now.

“Is there no one sitting here?” Anna blinked away her thoughts to see a hand move her bag away before a woman sat down next to her. “Hi, I’m Michelle.”

Anna scanned the room, her eyes noticing the other women pulled from their boredom to watch this little interaction. Taking the offered hand, “Anna.”

“You know I hope there’s more than one opening available. I don’t know about you, but that was the longest application I’ve seen for any job,” Michelle said.

Anna looked at the women next to her, similar size, but fashionable, bright clothes and jewelry, confident. “It took me awhile too. I guess it’s for security.”

“Oh, no doubt about it. The essays and signing up for a psychological review threw me off. At this point though, I’ll sign anything.”

Anna smiled, her lips pressed together, hoping if she didn’t answer she could go back to sitting in silence. The door opened, and her name was called. Standing up, she looked over her shoulder to see Michelle smiling at her. “Well, good luck,” said Anna.

“Hello, I’m Vishnu,” said the man, close cropped black hair and a lab coat standing before them in a small room. “Congratulations, you are both being conditionally accepted.”

Anna was exhausted. It had been a full day of tests, writing, interviews, and intensely personal questioning. There had been a surprise physical exam as well. After ten minutes, observers marked their clipboards and sent her to the next stage of the testing process. She barely noticed that Michelle was sitting next to her. Her face looked drained as well, though Anna suspected she had touched up her makeup.

“You will both undergo an extensive training program. If you sign these confidentiality waivers, we can get to business.” Vishnu pulled two sheets of paper from a folder and slid them across the table.

“All of this for a job as secretary?” said Anna, pinching her pen as she drew her name.

“Hush sweetie, we made it,” said Michelle, the harsh scribble of her signature louder than her whisper.

“Thank you, ladies.” Vishnu walked to a far door and knocked. “Now let me introduce you to Lieutenant Colonel Taylor.”

A fit man in his forties walked into the room. Vishnu stood erect with a crisp salute. Anna watched as Taylor’s eyes locked contact, frowning all the while. “At ease.” said Taylor, though the muscles on his face refused to relax. “These are your candidates?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want to be clear to everyone in this room. If I had my way, there are plenty of others I would and could recruit. Sergeant Saha seems intent on taking a fine military unit and turning it into a circus. We have seen fit to give him a chance. I certainly hope both of you pass your training and prove me wrong. Until then Sergeant, best of luck with your civilians.” Turning his back, Taylor walked out the door.