Authors: Charmaine Ross
His hand rubbing my back was mesmerizing. His body heat merged with mine. Eventually, I was able to subdue the sobbing until I hiccupped. I became aware of his heart beating just next to my ear. The regular beats lulling me into calmness. Whether it was fake or that I was just so exhausted, I didn’t care. I accepted his soothing. Let myself be washed away with the first pair of hands that had shown me any kindness in a long, long time.
“It will be all right, I promise,” he whispered.
I wished I could agree, I really did. I wanted so badly to think he could chase the boogeyman away, but I knew better. At least he’d been able to give me a moment of peace.
Weariness tugged at my limbs. The towel was replaced with the robe. Julius quickly wrapped me in it, securing it with the tie around my waist. He sat me down on a little stool, rubbing my hair with a towel, then he brushed the knots out of it until the strands flowed like silk down my back. I sighed deeply. My hair was clean. My skin was clean. He’d allowed me to reclaim my body, such as it was.
“It’s okay, Katia. I’ll fix you. You are so much more than just what you see. You have to believe that,” Julius whispered, sounding as devastated as I was.
That’s what Heather used to say.
“How can you be so sure? You don’t even know me.”
“Everyone has value.”
I hiccupped a snort. If he only knew. There was no value inside of me. Hadn’t been for a long time. “Then you’ll never know me at all.”
Julius picked me up, and I let him. I didn’t give myself a second look in the mirror. I had seen enough.
“I’m going to put ointment on your feet. They’re cut up pretty bad. It won’t hurt, but I’ll have to touch you to put it on.”
I nodded. He was being so gentle with me. Careful and kind, and I almost couldn’t take it. He left the room and returned shortly with a small container. He set it on the bedside table, scooped out some of the ointment, and settled at the end of the bed.
His hands were firm and gentle. When was the last time someone had touched me with care? Certainly Heather, the only person I could call my friend, had. The only person I’d ever let close to me. And betrayal was how I’d thanked her.
Julius’s touch was professional, nothing sexual, but it was more than just that. I sensed caring and tenderness as he made sure he didn’t hurt me while he rubbed the score of cuts and bruises. Tears threatened to burst through a heated wall somewhere in the middle of my throat. I worked hard to keep them at bay. I focused over his shoulder to concentrate on something other than my lack of ability to control my emotions.
He didn’t try to talk to me. He must have sensed that I really wasn’t capable of it at the moment. His fingers were gentle, caring. He tried hard not to hurt me, and apart from a twinge, all I felt were those fingers working the ointment into my skin. Eventually, the tension in my body drained. The silence was comfortable. My eyelids became heavy and started to drift shut.
A silent box hovered over his shoulder, like the ones I’d smashed earlier and like the multitude of boxes I’d seen in the streets. I jerked away from his touch, reeling away from that machine.
“What is that thing?” I whispered. Its lens turned to me, shining and black.
“It’s a Personal Assistant. We simply call it a P.A.”
I stifled a shiver. “I don’t like it.”
Julius paused, a shadow of a smile on his mouth. “They’re harmless. Just a machine to help us with our daily chores. Nothing to be afraid of.”
“As in what a secretary does for a job?” I thought of the many secretaries and assistants that were now nondescript, hovering, scary boxes. I shivered. Something about the lens reminded me of an eye: black, hollow, soulless.
“Well, it was a job once, but these devices accomplish much more. Most people have the personal variety. They take in information just by being with you, they learn about your life, what you do and need and when you need things. They order your food, arrange your personal appointments, set the temperature of your house when you come home. Little things like that. They do them automatically. Then there are others that have been trained for specific technological jobs. I’ve set the one here just for you. It knows your basic physical functions, heart rate, blood pressure, and scans you all the time, making sure you’re aligned. It will calculate if you’re dehydrated and what you will need to eat to regain perfect health. When you get them, they are a shell, totally blank, and then they learn from the owner,” Julius said.
“They
learn
?”
“Each one comes with a memory card and a clean slate. It monitors the main person that uses it. It remembers and preempts what you need. You can train it for your personal needs. Each one is unique because of the way the owner trains it.”
“Can it read my mind?”
Julius smiled, and it reached all the way to his eyes. “They just do simple jobs better. Like running messages and retrieving information very quickly. Things that save us time. They’re harmless.”
“How long have they been around for?”
“They started to be developed during your time. You had electronic diaries you used, dates you added into your software programs that would blink open for meetings and such. That software was developed to start thinking about fifty years ago so it was less laborious plugging everything in. I guess things like using magnetic gravity have been put to everyday use for twenty years or so. These little things have been around for a long time. I take them for granted now.”
I thought of the software my father was involved with. That was cutting edge a century ago. The type of software that filtered to the masses years after the military had no more use for it. I wondered if he’d had something to do with technology such as this, but from what Julius said, it was harmless. If P.A. s helped lives, my father probably wouldn’t have bothered with them.
“Katia, I’m here to help you. You’ve had a major shock, but I promise I’ll be here for you. There’s nothing to be scared about.”
I didn’t answer. I knew he was trying to calm me, but it only served to make me more wary. I really was in a different world from what I’d left behind. I had nothing, knew no one, and was totally out of my depth. I swallowed the lump in my throat.
I had to pull myself together and not wallow in self-pity. I’d done it before. I simply had to do it again.
“I’m finished with the ointment. I want you to try to eat. I have some soup. Do you think you can manage something like that?”
My stomach roiled at the thought of food, but I knew I’d be in worse condition if I didn’t eat. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time I had. No wonder my body was so withered.
He pulled the covers around me and propped me up on the pillows. I was too stunned to protest, felt too awkward to know how to respond to such gentleness. He left the room and returned with a hot bowl. A delicious aroma filled the room, and my mouth watered. As though in agreement with the smell, my stomach growled and my cheeks immediately heated.
Julius settled on the side of the bed. It dipped slightly at my hip where he sat. “Nothing to be embarrassed about. Being hungry is a perfectly natural thing.”
I knew it was natural. It was my normal state of being. I lived hand to mouth, and God knew, they didn’t feed me often after I’d been caught. They’d left me starving most of the time. Had done it to control me.
I tried to sit up on the pillows, but my arms wouldn’t pull me up. My muscles trembled, protesting with the effort. “Just lie back. I’ll feed you.”
“I can do it.” I hated to be this feeble. I had to be strong to survive. My life depended on it, and I was shocked to my core to discover I really was at the mercy of another person.
“Katia, you are very weak. Your body has taken a huge beating. Let me feed you. Build your strength. There are protein enhancers in the food to help your body recover, but if you try to sit up and feed yourself, you’ll most probably spill everything over the bed. We can try if you want to, but I’d much rather the food get into your stomach than on the sheets.”
“Does anyone else know I’m here?”
He shook his head, “Just the people who saw you at the hospital. They won’t tell anyone you’re here.”
“Can you trust them?” From my experience, trust was blind.
“Yes. You’re safe here.”
Experience had taught me that being safe and trust were only a matter of opinion, but I sipped the soup from the spoon he held to my mouth and flavor erupted on my tongue. Flavors burst in my mouth, and I realized I was absolutely famished. He chuckled, a nice sound, before holding anther spoon to my lips.
“How was I asleep for so long?”
“You were in a state of suspended animation. Quite miraculously, really. Your heart rate was very low, one beat per minute, your respiration almost undetectable. There was a series of drugs in your system that kept your brain active. They managed to shut down your organs without deterioration.”
“How did you wake me up?”
“There’s a new drug I’m working on for people who are in a coma. It works to reset their system to a waking state. In effect, the body forgets it was in that deep sleep state so that the brain can work to wake.”
“Is that why
you
woke me up? Because you’re a coma doctor?”
There were fine lines around his eyes when he smiled, but they didn’t age him. They just made it look as though he smiled often, and I liked that. It made me relax a little more. “Yes. That’s my area of expertise.”
“I didn’t know that could be done. The world is so different now,” I said, my words a little slurred because I was becoming drowsy.
“It has changed, but I’ll help you find your place in it, Katia.”
“Why would you ... do that?”
Before I knew it, he was scraping the bottom of the bowl. My stomach was warm and satisfied. Heaviness tugged at my eyes, drawing the lids closed.
“Sleep, Katia. I’ll be here when you wake up, and I’ll answer more of your questions.”
The next few days were a blur of sleep, rest, and eating. Julius was nothing but kind and gentle with me. I looked for cracks, wondering why the hell he would do this for me. Why me? What had I done to warrant this attention, this thoughtfulness? He had provided a sanctuary for me, and for that, I would be forever grateful.
Alongside the medical attention, he would speak to me, make me calm. He never brought up anything about my scars or the pathetic heap he’d found in my bathroom. I’d learned not to show emotion, and I’d gone and shown him my greatest weakness of all.
All I could do was trust as it was now, keep my guard up, no matter how tempting it was to simply accept Julius for what he was—a kind and caring doctor. Maybe my past was just too tainted for me to ever fully relax, but that was a demon I was more than willing to embrace if it kept me alive. Whatever this situation was, I had no choice but to accept it for the moment. I would be selfish. I would use him and allow myself to heal.
• • •
Her poor hand was already a bloodied, battered stump. There was only one finger left on her right hand. It stood out at an obscene angle, all broken one by one before they’d started cutting them off. Heather was barely conscious. Her eyes so badly beaten that she was effectively blind from the swelling. Victor splayed his fingers through her hair pulling her head back from where it had fallen forward. Tears ran silently down her cheeks.
“Look at her, Katia. You’re doing this to her. Do you enjoy torturing your friend?”
“Just stop. Please.” My teeth had started to chatter as adrenaline spiked through my blood. My knees buckled, and I slid down the wall. The restraints at my wrists prevented me from slipping to the floor, so I hung there, feeling the bite of pain as blood slid from my hands. I didn’t care. It was nothing to what Heather had endured.
I closed my eyes, but a slap on my cheek had my mind reeling and my eyes snapping open. “You’ll watch what you’re doing. You’ll see everything that we do because this is your fault, Katia. All. Your. Fault. It’s so easy for this to finish. Do what you were built to do. Show me your power. Open the restraints. Help your friend.”
I shook my head, pain bubbled up from my chest into my throat. I didn’t want to cry in front of them, but I couldn’t stop the tears from flooding my eyes. “Stop this. Please stop this. My thought-energy. It isn’t strong enough to do anything.”
“Only you can stop this, Katia.”
Victor placed Heather’s poor broken hand onto the bench. Four bloodless fingers sat on top in a pool of blood. Heather stiffened, a pathetic high-pitched sound came from her throat. She tried to pull her arm back, but the guard pushed her wrist onto the bench with his massive hands. Victor positioned the knife over the last remaining finger.
“Last chance, Katia. Just stop me. That’s all you have to do.”
“Don’t you do it, Katia! Don’t you dare!” Heather cried.
“Heather. I can stop this. Please. I can stop this! Just let me do this for you!”
“But then it will never end. Don’t you see it will only get worse. He won’t just stop with me. You know that.” Victor backhanded Heather across her face. She slumped to the side, groggy. But her eyes never left mine, and I held on to that connection, every muscle in my body tensed so hard it began to cramp.
“Have it your way, then!” Victor said. The crack of bone severing was a gunshot in the room. And I knew just how insane Victor had become.
I sat up, sweating and gasping for air like I’d run a marathon. My limbs were tangled in the sheets, my skin hot and sticky. I waited for the usual nausea to pass, then concentrated on breathing. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, holding my head in my hands, trying to scrape away the nightmare from my mind. Finally, I lifted my head and blinked myself back to the moment, trying to ignore the heavy press of guilt that weighed me down.
There was a pile of clothes neatly folded at the end of the bed. I stood, surprised that my feet were so much better in only a handful of days. I slid my palm over the clothes. They were soft, warm, and felt comfortable. I picked up the top article. A long-sleeved pullover. It was clearly expensive and well made. The design was exquisite. I put it to my cheek and could feel my skin sighing. So soft. I could hardly wait to put it all on. I slipped out of the robe and quickly dressed in pants, socks, an undergarment, and the pullover. The pullover hung over my stomach and I had to pull the waist of the pants with a belt. But they were clean and nice. I actually felt human.