Requiem (47 page)

'And that
concludes our first lesson,' said the Cockroach. He picked up her
shirt and pants from the floor and walked towards the door. It
unlocked from the other side. The big man pulled it open for him
and they both left. The echo of the closing latch told her she was
alone again. At least as alone as this place would allow her to
be.

She looked out
at the three girls in the dusty street below. She had her arms
resting on the window sill and her head resting on top of them. The
orange light from the setting sun was burning her skin. If the
girls stood still long enough the light would scorch their shadows
into the pavement like black, slender aliens pinned to the surface
of the Earth. She could hear music from the neighbours again. You
could hear it from a block away. Always the same three songs. Only
one had words. Something to do with a Mr. Bojangles.

Two stories
below she saw Mother walk out and over the road to where the girls
were standing. They were all looking up at Mother. She couldn't
hear what Mother was saying but she could see how scared the girls
were. All three of them, shivering in their skin.

She'd asked
mother not to growl them, not to tell them off. Mother was smart
but she was never good with others.

The three
girls just stood there when Mother walked away. They all looked up
at the second story window. They were angry or scared. It didn't
matter. None of them came back again. None of them ever spoke to
her again.

Mother came
back inside, her feet were light on the floorboard, even lighter on
the living room carpet. Seline turned to look at her. She didn't
want to smile but she couldn't help it. Mother knelt down next to
her, one hand on her shoulder. She could hear Mother speak but
couldn't understand the words. The sun coming through the windows
was shining brighter and brighter.

She was on the
floor again, half leaning against the chair. Pins and needles were
stabbing down her left side. She could see herself in the mirror.
Her head was shaved. Small, wireless nodes were attached to her
head. Fresh pinpricks covered her legs and stomach. She sat up.
Everything was moving back and forward as if her eyes were detached
from her skull. She could taste something bitter in her mouth. She
ran her fingers over her lips. They were dry and crusted with pink
flakes. A small pool of pink liquid was on the floor where she'd
been lying. She could see in the mirror where the liquid had
dribbled down her chin. The braces on the chair had been unlocked
again and she'd slipped from the chair while she was sleeping. The
door was slightly open.

She pulled at
the plastic disks attached to her head but it hurt and tore at her
skin so she left them. She ran her hand over her legs. Smooth. Not
a trace of stubble. She felt under her arms. Nothing. She thought
for a moment then put her hand down the front of her underwear.
Nothing. Her fingernails and toenails had been cut back. They'd
even washed her down. Anything that might indicate the passing of
time had been scrubbed clean, shaved, waxed.

Her eyes fell
upon the open door again. It moved forward and back, swaying
towards her and then away, begging her to pass through it. She
managed to stand up straight. Her head felt like it was floating
somewhere near the ceiling. She wanted to kneel back down but it
looked too far.

She took a
tentative first step. The coldness from the floor sunk right
through the skin and into her bones. It surged through her body and
wrapped itself around her lungs. She closed her eyes but the
darkness was frightening. When she opened them she found herself
leaning against the base of the door. Her arms and legs ached as if
she'd been resting there for hours.

She reached up
for the handrail and lifted herself to her feet. She tightened her
fingers as best she could and without thinking began to pull. The
cold quickly turned into warmth. It was burning her fingers,
welding her hands to the rail. She continued to pull and the door
continued to move. She pried her hands loose and began to squeeze
through the gap but something was blocking her way. There was a
sudden pain drilling its way into her stomach like everything
inside her was being blended together. She dropped to the floor.
The door was pushed opened and a large arm wrapped around her and
dragged her back to the chair. Her eyes were closed. The fear of
the darkness was nothing compared to the fear of what they might do
to her. She could hear words but couldn't make sense of them. The
aching around her wrists and ankles told her the braces were back
on.

The scissors
snipped in the air. The shearing sound of the blades rang in her
ears. She screamed but the noise only grew louder. One of the
blades touched her chest and ran over her skin, between her
breasts.
Shink
. The blades cut her bra loose. The straps
were then cut and the bra was thrown on the floor behind her.

There was hot
breath on her ear. This time she could hear the words.

'You didn't
learn your lesson did you?'

She could hear
her own teeth grinding against one another.

'You acted and
so we
re
acted. We'd like to see you exhibit a little more
self-control in the future.' He ran his hand over her breasts. 'You
need to understand that you're not leaving here until we have that
information.'

She was miles
away when the words came from her mouth. Detached and sinking she
watched herself speak, like the witness to a thought crime.

'Why? Why do
you want it so badly?'

'I'm sure you
can figure that out for yourself.'

'Money? It
can't be something that...'

'Simple?'

'I was going to
say trivial.'

'An individual
credit may be, as you say, trivial but a billion credits can move
mountains and a trillion can move planets. Give me someone who
believes otherwise and I will give you the price of their
morality.'

Her eyes were
open. 'You're a fucking poet.'

'Your sarcasm
is a thin veil for your pain. Nonetheless, it is a veil that must
be stripped.' He looked up and down her body. 'When we're done with
you, you will understand that defiance in the face of humanity's
true ideal is pointless.'

'We don't all
share your ideals. I sure as fuck don't.'

'What do your
ideals matter? You disowned humanity when you sided with the
Yurrick. Within these four walls, Seline...' He crossed his hands
at his front. 'Within these four walls you are nothing.'

He looked into
her eyes without speaking. The dark centres of his eyes moved from
side to side, shivering anticipation. In the corners of his mouth
the skin would spasm as if he were trying not to smile. She could
imagine his skin splitting down the middle and the millions of
cockroaches that filled his body pouring out and crawling over her,
the sound of their scuttling and their stench would pass through
every sense until she became one of them.

'The sooner you
give us the information, the sooner the pain will end but until
that moment you will know nothing but this room and the empty
warmth of your own sarcasm. Now, you aren't responding to the drugs
as well as we'd like so we'll have to increase the dosage. Or maybe
a little more... physical stimulation can coax some of the memories
out. What do you think, Seline?'

'I assume that
by 'little' you're referring to your penis?'

He pulled his
hand up to her mouth and traced a finger over her lips. 'Be as
stubborn as you like. We'll see who wears down who the
fastest.'

She spat at him
but missed. He jammed his fingers down her throat and smiled
through gritted teeth.

'I will split
you in half. I will run you into the ground until you beg for
death. And then, Seline... and then the real pain begins.'

He pulled his
fingers from her mouth. It was the taste of sweat and cologne that
made her gag.

He wiped his
fingers off on her face, picked her bra up off the floor and stood
back from her. The big man stepped forward. If the other was a
cockroach then he would definitely be a toad. A wide, square shaped
jaw with thin lips that stretched from one side of it to the other.
His small, dark eyes and piggish nose were almost comical. They
would've been if the massive, gorilla sized arms he carried didn't
scare her so much.

He stood
directly in front of her, silent and pensive as if he wasn't sure
what he was supposed to do. His frog lips curled into a smile. The
skin on his forehead and chin looked like it was stretched to
breaking. Still smiling, the Frog left the room. The Cockroach
remained in the corner, silently touching himself. The Frog
returned with a blunt chisel in one hand and a small hammer in the
other. He knelt down in front of Seline without speaking and placed
the chisel just below her right knee cap. She could see the
Cockroach standing in the corner, smiling to himself, his hand
massaging the front of his pants. The last thing she remembered was
the feeling of her leg shattering into tiny splinters and the taste
of blood, cockroaches, and cologne in her mouth.

The whole
school was singing but she wasn't. She hated the songs they always
chose. 'Hokey and plastic,' she remembered Mother saying. She sat
on the carpet in the assembly hall, mouthing the words and hoping
one of the teachers wouldn't come close enough to hear her lack of
enthusiasm. 'School is number one?' Really? Number one? She always
considered it more of a number seven, six at the most. Right behind
what she thought a kiss from a boy might feel like and that one
time she found a waffle just behind the fence on the old tennis
court. Half eaten or not, it was the most delicious thing she'd
ever eaten. She was forced to join in on the end of the last verse
when the teacher walked right past her.

'I think
school is really cool

It's a lot of
fun

'Cause every
day we learn and we play

School is
number one!'

It sounded
like a prison anthem. Some of the kids had decided they'd take
creative license with the last line. 'School is really dumb!' they
all shouted. It was stupid really. The teachers knew who'd said it.
The same kids sang it like that every time and they got detention
every time. Seline knew better. She sang it like that in her head
where the teacher's couldn't hear.

The ship
hovered over the surface for a moment as if reluctant to descend
any further toward the rotten planet beneath. Eventually they
landed inside the hollowed out basin on Sceril's surface on a
landing pad near the eastern rim.

The Warlord
disembarked with Daniels, leaving the others aboard the ship. His
eyes were slow to adjust to the basin's fettered light. But as he
walked from the landing pad down to the streets, he realised that
perhaps it is best to only see this place in darkness. The squalor
and heat was almost suffocating, as if he had stumbled into a hive
of roaches, shuffling around, crawling over one another. He'd seen
it all before, as had Daniels. Perhaps the human imperative to self
destruction had a much broader scope. Perhaps it applied to all
species, to all forms of conscious beings. Sometimes it took its
time and sometimes it wasted none but the results would always be
the same.

The Warlord
walked with Daniels through the market, attracting the stares and
incomprehensible whispers of the bustling crowd. They'd seen enough
of humans, with their snarling, upturned expressions, their smooth,
delicate skin. They land on
our
planet and walk through
our
streets with their heads held so high. Their stench
wafts through the market streets, burning the eyes and sticking to
the back of the throat. These humans think they're better than us,
think we're one and the same with the dirt they tread on. They
wouldn't be so high if we cut them down to size. Right. But if we
cut them at their knees it still wouldn't be enough. They'd still
crawl around like they owned the place, like they owned the whole
damn planet. Maybe if we cut them in half? Even then they'd still
try to crawl over us with their thin, lanky arms. They'd find a way
to look down on us. That's why their eyes are placed at the top of
that funny little horn that pokes out the middle of their face, so
they can look down it like a scope, so it can tell them who they're
better than. It's like a magnifier. It makes them think they're
bigger than they really are. No. We gotta cut them off at the neck.
We'll stitch their mouths and their eyes shut and use their heads
as stools for our feet. We'll push them so far into the ground,
they'll never even think of crawling back out! Shhh, be quiet, here
they come.

'I'm looking
for Gliphen. Where is he?' asked the Warlord.

The two
Ordonians looked at him for a moment, considering his words,
weighing them with as much care is they could, as they were told to
do until one of them turned and pointed, not towards the large
temple but to a smaller staging area flanking the side. The Warlord
walked towards the stage. The two Ordonians muttered and growled
behind him as he pushed through the burgeoning crowd. Their
excitement grew louder and more ferocious the closer he got to the
stage.

The Warlord
stopped about five metres from the stage. An enormous, hulking
figure was standing at the edge of it, addressing the crowd. It
stood at least two feet clear above any other Ordonian with an
unnatural thickness and density to its body. Imposing calcite
plates rose from its shoulders like rusted pauldrons. Another plate
crested its skull. Its four, beaded eyes shifted across the words
on a paper scroll that it held before itself and through mandibles,
countless and slathering it read slowly and deliberately as if each
word were sacred, as sacred as the act it was about to perform.