Indentures (H 1.3)

Location: Downtown Archipelago - Car Lyle
Time: late night



Helix,

During the trip with the Sippians to their hangout at Car Lyle, Karo reminded you several times that he could have put a collar and chain on you the way Regal did with Nuport. The ride on the speedboat from The Belly to Car Lyle was loud and choppy. The Sippians pilot a variety of watercraft, mostly what they can plunder and keep running. There are speedboats like the one Bristol and Lucky Strike have. Jet skis are the ride for the brothers Benson and Hedges. And there are a few big houseboats that trawl behind the attack craft where Lucky Strike has some heavy ordinance.

Car Lyle used to be a beautiful and expensive place to live in what was once called Mill District. When the world drowned, the lower five stories were stripped bare and five floors above that became sodden with rot and mold. The Sippians dock at water level, of course, but then Bristol and Karo quickly lead you up the zig-zagging stairs to the Top Three, which are the top three floors of the place. They're spacious and filled with knick-knacks scavenged from all the floors below. The place is lit by barrel fires and the ceilings are blackened from constant smoke. The Sippians use dogs to guard their dren as well as transients who live before the Top Three and keep eyes peeled for trouble and take scraps for their efforts.

Some zokhole is blaring some industrial music over crackly speakers as the Sipps mill about looking for places to sleep and bed partners. There aren't many windows on the level Karo and Bristol bring you to, so it's chilly except near the fires. And smoky near the fires. Choose your poison, Bristol says. Bristol also tells you in very clear terms that nobody can take your body without your word so. That if anyone touches you wrong, tell her and she'll cut them deep. She says the words like it's a covenant - less for your safety and more for her own sense of what's right and good in her world.

A haze of mingled weariness and grief obscures my mind almost as much as the smoke inside Car Lyle obscures my vision. The Sippians may be used to it, but it makes my eyes sting within moments of arriving and I find myself repeating once more the mantra that has echoed in my head with the Whispers since we left the Belly: I don’t want to be here.

I don’t want to be here with the smoke and the dogs and the waters separating me from home. I don’t want to be here with Karo’s taunts and Bristol’s promises and Kiwi’s ghost. I don’t want to be here.

I’m nodding mutely at Bristol’s reassurances - ones I actually believe - and slowly rubbing my arms like I’m making sure they’re still indeed attached to my body when Lucky appears to offer me a choice. It takes me a moment, though, to parse the options. At first, all it sounds like is: do you want to be here, where you don’t want to be, or there, where you don’t want to be?

Then it reforms in my mind into a different shape: here, where you don’t want to be and not the penthouse, or there, where you don’t want to be and a penthouse?

And then again, a dizzying dance of ants reformulating themselves to say: here, with Karo all night, or there, away from him?

Part of me is tempted to stay below and see if Karo tries something stupid enough to see himself at the sticky end of Bristol’s blade, but it’s not a tempting enough prize. Though my mind is made up, I turn to Bristol. "What’s in the penthouse?"

My eyelids flutter as the Whispers whistle and croon about Bristol's crush on Lucky, their stirring an anvil on my mind. I need to go home or they're not going to stop. My hand moves to press against the pain, but I stop when I see the dried blood still staining my skin. I wonder if I will still wear it, even when it's been washed away.

Bristol lumps me in with the "other" slaves so easily that for the first time, I find myself worrying about how this ends. What if they don't let me go when my time is up? How would I stop them from just...keeping me? What could I really do?

"I'm just here to help out for a little while," I tell her, but my words are thin even to my own ears.

I head for the ladder, my limbs leaden, climbing up to what I assume will be my third shift of the night. Or maybe the shift that never ends.

Despite your weariness, there's a kind of comfort in climbing up the thick ropes and cables - it reminds you of younger days when this was your job. Sure, the climb is steady, but the feeling of pulling hand over hand and climbing is welcome enough. But in this liminal space between floors, there's nothing to quieten the Whispers. "Mikkie knows us. We like Mikkie better - he's stronger. He talks back," they tell you.

I stop climbing as the Whispers crystalize into sentences instead of a garbled cacophony. I close my eyes and press my forehead against the back of my knuckles where my hand grips the rope. I don't want to think about Mikkie right now. The Belly. The place Kiwi died.

"Then talk to him," I hiss back, a fraction of me frightened that they will do exactly that. He already knows more about me than I'm comfortable with. "I'm not here for you."

"What if none of this is real and you're still a little one climbing?" A Whisper asks. "This was all one long dream. You never grew up, you're just asleep."

"You're never getting out of here," another Whisper insists. "This is your new home."

You have to climb two stories, which takes almost all your reserves. Your arms are screaming louder than the Whispers are taunting when you finally clamber up on the penthouse floor. This floor is... better than the lower two by far. It's warm and you don't feel a draft. Only a faint smell of smoke. It's quiet up here. Even the Whispers die down as you look around the room and hallways. Lucky Strike is waiting for you.

Here on the penthouse floor, my skin doesn’t prickle with cold and my eyes burn only from weariness and unshed tears. It’s quiet. And when the Whispers halt their barrage of my senses, they leave this hollow void in their place, unnerving and relieving in one, a pummeling taking a hiatus, not surrender.

I hesitate a beat before my legs propel me after Lucky Strike at his invitation, following at a distance that feels safe and almost certainly isn’t. I am a hesitant mouse in a house of cats, and I linger again with indecision in the hall after Lucky disappears into his room. Is this why he brought me here? Was Karo’s hand only a convenient cross on which to nail my freedom?

I bite the inside of my cheek, then bend down to my boot, quickly loosening the laces enough that I can free the scalpel I carry tucked inside. It’s not usually meant for anyone else, but I’ve never been invited? asked? ordered? into a gang leader’s bedroom before either. I tuck the scalpel into the back of the black harness I wear over my dress, then I step through the door.

In better days, this is what this condo entrance looked like:


The hanging light fixtures have been replaced with candles, the kitchen appliances appear to be hooked up to a portable generator, and while the place is much cleaner than below, it's still seen wear over the years - especially the carpet. You find Lucky Strike has stripped off his vest and coat and laid them over a chair. He moves to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water in a big jug and pours it over his hands, grabbing some soap to wash his hands. Bristol said there are cousins here, but you don't see or hear them. It's quiet here and for some reason, The Whispers are, too.

What do you do?

When I was an Ivy, I used to peer into the windows of the highest floors, dreaming of what it would be like to live there. Once I slipped inside a home that had left their balcony door unlocked, and for a few minutes, I was someone. But I wasn't invited there. This might be one of the nicer places I have ever been on invitation.

It isn't glistening and glamorous, but it's easily thrice the size of my own unit and the tile backsplash in the kitchen is mostly intact. I approach carefully, my footsteps too loud without anything to mask them. The silence gnaws at my stomach and I worry that the Whispers went away like I wished, that they're gossipping with Mikkie right now.

I stay on the opposite side of the kitchen island from Lucky, lingering near the wall. I swallow, the sound seeming so loud I think he'll hear it. "I know you didn't kill your mother," I say finally, taking the risk that it might make him angry for the potential reward that it might make him trust me.

I follow Lucky's glance to the sink, wondering if I'm going to find a knife, a bloody nail, a gun waiting as a subtle threat. But it's only a sink, and my hands are still crusted with Kiwi's blood. I move carefully, keeping my back turned away from Lucky so he won't see my own blade tucked away there.

"Neither," I say as I move slowly closer. "Why would Mikkie know about it? Did he do it?" That would explain why Lucky hasn't taken revenge yet. Most people wouldn't even try. I reach for the water, half-expecting him to grab my wrist and stop me, then wash away the blood, the soap foaming pink before it disappears. The corners of my lips twitch downward at the idea of Kiwi disappearing just as swiftly. I rub at some of the blood spatters on my arm and where I feel it tightening the skin on my face, but the tile isn't bright enough to use as a mirror. I imagine once maybe it was.

"Take the gun. Take it, he's a fool! Kill him Kill him Kill him!" a Whisper urges with bloodlust dripping from her tone.

"It's a trick, a trap," another Whisper cautions.

Yet another Whisper murmurs, "It's a dare. Take the dare, Ivygirl. Prove you're tougher than you look."

"Kill him Kill him Kill him" the first Whisper sings in your head.

What do you do?

The momentary stillness after Lucky leaves me looking at his gun is shattered by the storm of Whispers. I'd started to dream they couldn't seek me behind these doors.

I press the back of my fist against my head, closing my eyes tight. "I'm not going to kill him," I whisper back. "They'd throw me down the elevator shaft, or toss me to the Sippians." My attempt to silence the Whispers is no more use than trying to stop a wave. I catch a handful of water while the whole world drowns beyond me. Is it a trick? Is it a dare? Should I answer?

I look to the hall where Lucky disappeared then quickly move over to the weapon, looking at it more closely. I've never fired a gun before, but if Karo can figure it out, I could too.

But I don't think this is a trick or a dare. It's a test.

Hoping I don't regret it later, I pull the scalpel out from my harness and lay it on the counter beside his gun. A silent testimony to what I saw, what I know, what I could have done.

I return to the sink and quickly return to washing as if I never left, bending to scrub again at the blood on my face more thoroughly. I'm sure my legs are stained with it, but I'm not Lucky. I'm not stripping off clothes here and tossing them about like I have nothing to lose. Without even a semblance of defense left on me, I'm exposed enough as it is.

I take a moment and turn my arm, trying to get a look at my elbow where I fell after Lucky threw me to the floor earlier. I haven't dared look yet, though the stinging made me want to. I know the Sippians...no, anyone in this world...would only mock me for even worrying over so insignificant a scrape, but I'm used to working around the fighting pits, not being in them.

Your elbow is covered by an explosion of a large violet and plum bruise with a deep cut in the middle. It makes your whole arm throb looking at it.

My eyebrows pull together, forming a concerned little triangle between them, as I study my elbow. Maybe it's good that I'm here now. I'm not sure I could lift another tray tonight, or even tomorrow.

I flinch at Lucky's reappearance, letting my arm go and quickly drying my hands. I turn to look at the dress, then feel his eyes on me the way you sense a draft on your skin. Suddenly I'm very aware of half his clothes already laying in a pile and regret putting my only weapon beside his gun.

I pick up the pile of yellow fabric. The sunshine feels wrong against my skin. "Where can I change?"

He may be the leader of the Sippians, but Lucky is beginning to strike me as more of a clean freak than I imagined. With the paltry privacy he permits, I quickly unbuckle the black harness over my dress, taking a moment to wash off the blood from it, then unzip my dress under my arm and slip the straps from my shoulders. It clings to my legs where the blood saturated most completely and Kiwi's face flashes across my eyes - ashy skin, blank stare, head in my lap. If I weren't standing mostly naked in the kitchen of a gang leader who isn't hesitant to grab my hair, throw me to the floor, and name me one of his, I might dwell on the image longer.

But I've never been anything but a realist. I make quick work of cleaning some of the blood from my legs and stomach before I slip the yellow dress on. Suddenly I am the flag of the ship, there to flap in the wind, to be loudly visible from afar. It makes me wish I could slip into something black and sleek, something to make me a spider too swift for the human eye to track and too toxic to be touched.

I put my harness back on over the top of the dress, some semblance of arachnidian spirit to hold me together, and slip off my boots, knowing I walked in the pool of blood around Kiwi on my way to slap Lucky earlier. I'm sure the blood has worn away by now, but still, I hold onto them, unsure of what I should do with them.

I'm still for a moment as I consider grabbing my scalpel back, but I'm too convinced that Lucky has been sneaking glances at me to do it, so I say, "Okay. I'm...ready." Ready for what, I'm not sure.

This star-bathed room is a single drop of the purest water I can imagine suspended in time. Looking inside is looking into a dream. I’m glad now that I took my boots off.

I also understand now why it’s so quiet up here. Children are sleeping. Not that I ever had so peaceful a place to rest when I was young.

"I won’t disturb her," I whisper and I step into the room. I turn to Lucky and I almost thank him, but how could I? I’m a prisoner here, at best. Then I almost say goodnight, but there has been nothing good about tonight, apart, perhaps, from the fact that I am still alive.

Instead, I say only what I know to be true. "See you in the morning."

Speaking the words turns them into snapping dogs that whirl back and bite my heart, reminding me that none of this will go away in the morning. Nothing ever does. My gaze drops to the starlit carpet as I turn away.

I stop in the center of the space, clutching my boots to my chest and processing what happened to get me here. I stare out the window at the stars, a view I can't afford, drawn toward the edge of my prison as a moth to fire.

I press a hand to the cold glass. The glittering waters below and the unfamiliar buildings nearby strike a hollow note in my heart. This may be the farthest from home I’ve felt since my parents died. If I were still downstairs with Bristol, Karo and the others, I know I wouldn’t be this clean or comfortable, but the dangerous surroundings would have forced me to stay in the moment. Here? There’s too much space to think and I can’t stop the tsunami of emotion from washing over me. The stars outside blur as a thick wash of tears fills my eyes. I sniff and wipe them away as quickly as they fall, but more come to replace them.

I haven't prayed to anything or anyone since my parents died. I was four and my memories of them now are nothing more than a handful of hazy moments, a few sensations, the scent of water lilies and wet leather. After they died, I begged any god or power who would listen to let me see them, speak with them, hear their voices one more time. No one answered, and I know now that's because there was no one there to listen. But in this moment, there's something desperate inside of me, some silly fragment of that child. I stare at the stars and whisper, "Are you out there, Kiwi? Is there something better than this out there?"

You feel a chill wind blow across the back of your neck. You realize the windows here are closed...

Salem starts to stir in her too-big bed. She's waking up.

What do you do?

Kiwi's whisper makes my whole being go tense. Even my tears hold their breath and my chin stops quivering. There is a moment of relief at hearing his voice again, but then he tells me I brought him back from a beautiful Beyond.

I exhale a breath like I have been punched in the stomach. I am a Siren's call, seducing death's sailors back from their celestial seas. Salem stirs and I press my lips together holding in my despair. "I'm sorry," I whisper, quick and soft, hoping she doesn't wake further. "Go back. Go back. Be happy."

Oceans take me, now I've woken up the child. I hope Lucky doesn't count that as messing with her or a busted up elbow may be the least of my worries. I close my eyes, pulling tears back inside before I turn, moving over to the edge of the bed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you," I whisper. "My name is Helix. Your, ah, cousin, Lucky Strike, he said I could sleep here tonight. Is that okay with you?"

"I won't," I assure her and I slip into the bed, laying as close to the edge as I would if I were here with Lucky himself. I should probably just let her go to sleep again, but I can't help myself from asking, "Does this happen a lot? You having..." Bristol's words from earlier echo in my mind - other slaves, "...guests stay over?"

I can guess easily enough what Lucky have guests now means, even if Salem can’t. I don’t back away when she reaches for my hair, but I don’t scoot closer either. I’m honestly not sure how to handle it.

"What are you doing?" I ask softly.

A part of me feels guilty for making Salem back off like she does, but so much of me is so full of feeling from everything that's unfolded tonight that I scarcely have room for another.

"Well, I'm sure she wants you to sleep in your own room now because you're such a big girl, right?"

I thought I didn’t have space for another emotion, but somehow Salem squeezes one more between the fear and grief crowding my soul. I’m quiet for a stretch, letting the stirred sands settle, then I scoot closer to her - an invitation - and reach over to touch her shoulder. I could tell her that there’s a better place, if a person can find it, if I don’t yank them back from the brink of heaven, but even after talking to Kiwi, I’m not entirely sure I believe it. I’ve spent too long believing there’s nothing out there for us after this for one nightmare to convince me otherwise.

Instead, I whisper only what I know is true. "Mine too."

Salem slips back into sleep's embrace as easily as a stone slipping beneath the surface of the water. I remain bandied by the waves on the surface, tempted to reach out to Kiwi again. But if he's started making his way back to wherever he had been going, I don't want to risk ruining his travels again.

The shadows of the windowpane creep across the ceiling and Salem's body warms mine as I listen to her slow breathing. I find myself idly playing with one of her curls while her limp fist grips a few strands of my hair. Just before I finally succumb to sleep, I wonder if Lucky put me in here just to endear me to his family, and how he might use it against me later.

End Scene