Metamorphosis by mosylu

[Reviews - 0]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer

- Text Size +

The advancers had gotten used to rising before dawn. The sun was barely nosing over the edge of the horizon when John finished his shower. Rubbing his hair dry, he looked up and down the long shower building for his daughter. Instead, he saw only her shoes, sitting outside the stall she’d picked. He frowned. "True!"

"Almost done!"

"Angel, over a thousand people still have to use these showers, and they’re not gonna thank you for using up all their hot water."

"Not do-one!" True caroled.

Muffled laughter drifted from other stalls, and he groaned. Oh, he was gonna get ragged on today. "Five minutes," he shouted through the door. "I told you five minutes!"

"I haven’t washed my hair yet!"

"The hell with your hair! Get out of the damn shower! People are waiting!" Not exactly a lie; Ketchum and his older girl had drifted into the building while he was yelling, and stood staring wide-eyed at him.

"I’m not done!"

He nodded at the pair and resumed yelling. "You have thirty seconds to get done! Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight--"

She started singing, very loudly and very off-key. He kept counting, hit zero, and waited for the water to turn off. It didn’t.

John shook his head. She’d asked for it. He went outside and found the pipes that fed into the water heater. He traced the one that led back to his daughter’s shower, found a valve, and gave it a good sharp twist.

A blood-curdling scream cut the morning air.

Unperturbed, he strolled back into the building. "I told you thirty seconds, True-girl," he pointed out.

"It’s freezing!" she wailed. From the other stalls, he could hear downright hilarity now.

"Guess you’d better finish up then, huh?" He looked around. The Ketchums were all but edging away. He nodded. "Morning."

"Morning," the father said, too polite not to.

"You look about ready to report me," John observed.

Ketchum looked apprehensive. "Well--don’t you think you’re being a little hard on her?"

"Everyone says that," he complained, "but nobody ever says how hard she is on me." He looked at Ketchum’s girl. "Molly, right? How old are you?"

"Twelve," Molly said softly.

"Twelve," John echoed. He looked back up at her dad. "Mine’s almost thirteen. Your turn’s coming." He gestured down the building. "Pick a stall, any stall. They’ve all got hot water; I just messed with hers."

The curtain on the stall swished open. True, her hair dripping down the back of her shirt, stormed past them. John paused just long enough to re-open the hot-water valve before strolling after her. Her rebellious mutters drifted back to him, and he rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m goin’ to Daddy Hell."

To Rob’s astonishment, Danziger seemed to be on perfectly good terms with his daughter at breakfast. He had expected icy fury, maybe more shouting. He himself had never bellowed at Molly or Angie like that, and couldn’t imagine doing so anytime in the future.

But True bubbled over with chatter, and the advancer Rob sat next to seemed sublimely unconcerned. "That’s just Danziger," Bess Martin told him. "He fights with all his favorite girls. You should see him get into it with Devon. It’s pretty funny."

Darla said delicately, "Are they really--ah--"

Bess glanced at Molly and Angie, all ears, and apparently opted for the less explicit answer. "Together? Mmmhm. Took ‘em a year to figure it out, but they’re in it now." She crossed her arms over her belly. "Listen, there’s a pool going on them if you want in."

Rob blinked. "A pool? You mean betting?"

"I’m down for Danziger popping the question sometime this winter."

"Ludicrous," her husband proclaimed, waving a dripping slice of fruit. "Insanity. Spring at least."

Bess rolled her eyes but otherwise ignored it. "Standard bet’s a full day’s work. You in?"

"No," Darla said. She cut her eyes at Rob--do you hear that?

Embarrassed for her rudeness, he smiled at them. "Not right now."

They weren’t stupid. Bess smiled back and said, "Well, I’m running the book," but they made excuses and left within moments.

Darla said, "Finally! Can you believe that? How is it their business?"

He thought about pointing out that she’d started it, asking about Devon’s private life. He decided against it. "It’s not as if they have holo sets," he told her. "They’ve got to do something, I suppose."

She probably would have argued the point with him, but just then, Angie reached for a piece of Pacifica apple and Darla’s attention was diverted.

It seemed friendly to him. Close--all these advancers were very close. Nothing like the anonymity of their block on the stations, where they’d lived next door to one couple for five years without knowing their names. He thought of old books he’d read that talked about small-town life on Earth, where everyone knew everyone else, and their business as well. New Pacifica, in-town population one thousand, two hundred and sixty-seven. Out-town population, zippo. Nada.

This place, so very, very small, and yet so unthinkably huge at the same time. Paradoxical; dizzy-making. He looked at Molly and saw her staring out the window at the impossibly blue sky.

She caught him looking and smiled, the expression briefly lighting up her face. Rob couldn't help but smile back. His self-contained little girl, curled up like a shrimp in a shell. She’d never looked like this on the stations.

By the time they started the tours, True could already tell she wasn’t going to like any of the kids that had come in the colony ship. So far, they’d whined about the food, complained about their beds, and made fun of the dorms. If her dad hadn’t been right there, True would have kicked every last one of them in the shins.

"We call this Downtown," her dad told the group as they stood on the porch. "Half of it’s offices and storage. Other half--here where we’ve been eating--we call this the gathering space."

"Gathering space," one boy sneered. "What is this, the twentieth century? Are we all hippies now?"

It was, almost word-for-word, what her dad had said when Devon had coined the term for the big multi-purpose room. But it stung, coming from somebody who hadn’t so much as picked up a hammer to help build it. True glared.

Her dad gritted his teeth, but managed to make his voice mild, as if he hadn't heard. "You kids'll meet there tomorrow for school, and whenever Devon calls a meeting, we'll meet in there. Which we will. The woman's crazy for meetings."

"What else is there to do here?" the same boy muttered.

The boy’s mother said, "Ryan." Her tone was warning, but it was a lot milder and a lot less effective than anything her dad would have said if she’d been that rude to someone’s face.

There were more snotty comments, not all of them from Ryan, when they walked out of the center of town to see the garage, the weaving shed, the smokehouse, and the farm. True’s ire weakened a little when she got to show off the poultry she’d been raising, Earth chickens and the larger G889 equivalent. True had named them tommy-birds because her dad had said they reminded him of a boss he’d once had, fat and placid and dumb enough to wander off a cliff without noticing.

Some people cooed, though they stayed well back from the beaks, which could punch through tin if the tommy-birds ever did get annoyed. Then a lady stepped in a goat plop and about had a fit.

"Christ, it's just sh--poop," her dad said, obviously fighting for patience. True slid her gaze toward him, wondering if he was annoyed enough that he’d pretend not to notice if she did kick some of the kids in the shins. He gave her a warning look. She sighed and behaved herself.

"It's probably teeming with bacteria," the lady said.

"Yeah, well, get used to it. This ain't the stations."

The lady left to change shoes, and probably to burn the poopy ones. True wondered what would happen the first time she got assigned to spread fertilizer on the vegetable patch, and grinned wickedly.

They set off for the coast. True caught up with her dad, and he tucked her under his arm. "Hang in there," he muttered. "Almost done."

"They're complaining about everything," she groused.

"Their problem. Where else are they gonna go?"

"Biodome in winter," she suggested.

"Tents in a rainstorm."

"The desert, anytime." True could feel the tension ease out of his arm where it rested on her shoulders, and she grinned up at him. "Do you think any of them will go back? To the stations, I mean."

He shrugged. "They signed on for lifetime occupancy, angel."

"Yeah, but they thought it was gonna be exactly like back there."

"It's not what we were expecting either," he reminded her. "Are you gonna go back?"

"Hell no," she said forcefully. "Even if Mr. Braxton wants us to," she added, just in case he was thinking about it. "We're never leaving, ever, right?"

He gave her a noogie, and she squealed. "You got it, angel. The Danzigers are rooted. Couldn't blast us out with dynamite."

Reassured, she glanced over her shoulder to check on their group. "Da-ad," she sighed. "We're losing them."

He stopped and turned, waiting for the group of straggling colonists to catch up.

"Can't we--stop and rest a moment?" one mother wheezed.

"We'll get to Singh Point in under five minutes," True's dad said. "You can rest there."

"Mr. Danziger, Angie's getting pretty worn out," said a dad, hefting the little girl he carried. She was one of the few Syndrome kids who'd come along on the tour, pale as paper and thin as a stick. She rested her head on her dad's shoulder.

True's dad sighed. "Couple minutes," he said. "Not too long."

Everyone who hadn't flopped to the ground did so, catching their breath. Man, True thought, watching them pant and wipe away sweat. They'd'a totally died if they'd had to trek across the continent. She wondered how Devon's tour group was doing.

"I told you it would be too strenuous," Angie’s mom fussed. "I told you. Most of your friends stayed behind. Rob, I'll take her back to the hospital."

"No-o-o!" Angie wailed. "Mom, let me see the for-real ocean, please?"

"I've got her, Darla," the dad said. "She's okay."

"I don't like it. Maybe we should all go back." She turned to her other daughter, sitting quietly in the grass and staring out at the bulge of the point. "Molly, you feel tired, don't you? You do. How about we go back? You can see all this some other time."

"This is the last part, Darla," her husband said. "C'mon, baby, we'll just finish up."

"But Molly--"

"I'm not tired, Mom," Molly said. "I want to see the ocean too."

True turned to look at her thoughtfully.

"Rest's over," True's dad said. "Let's go."

Amid groans and complaints, everyone got to their feet, brushing grass off their butts. Someone found a bug on their leg and screamed. True rolled her eyes.

Even though they tried to slow down to the group's pace, True and her dad still reached the point before anybody else. "Are we going down to the beach?" she asked hopefully.

He nudged his sunshades higher up on his nose. "That was the plan, but I don't think anyone will want to."

"Too bad for them," she said. "They could've seen some dead fish."

He laughed out loud. "Yeah, they would've loved that."

The first few colonists caught up with them at that point. "Finally, we can--" The man stopped mid-moan and stared, mesmerized by his first glimpse of the sea.

The others straggled up, panting, complaining, and falling silent as they saw the sea. True didn’t blame them. She’d stood here--right here--for close to an hour the very first time she’d seen it.

The sea stretched out, filling the horizon in every direction with deep, wrinkled grey-blue. At the base of the cliff, far, far below, the waves smashed themselves on the rocks, sending up explosions of spray and foam. It boiled like a live thing, wilder and more powerful than anything humankind could control.

True, looking at their awed faces, decided that they might not be so bad.

Then Ryan said, "Big deal. It's a bunch of water." He yawned hugely and stretched out on the grass. "Wake me up when something interesting happens."

That was it. True stepped on him.

He yelped, jackknifing to a sitting position. "What was that for?"

She turned big, innocent eyes on him. "Sorry. Didn't see you."

"Bullshit," he said rudely.

"Is that what you're full of?"

His hands balled into fists. "You little brat, how'd you like to get a--"

She stood her ground. "Just you try it--"

Parental scolds came simultaneously.

"Ryan!"

"True!"

"We didn't do anything," they said in perfect concert, then broke off, glaring at each other.

True's dad said, "Fine, keep it that way." He started pointing out the boats and the cutting tables on the beach far below. Some of the colonists liked the idea of sailing, but nobody looked happy to hear about fish duty.

Molly and Angie's mom asked where the elevator was, and looked like she might have a heart attack on the spot when True's dad showed her the stairs. She looked even less happy when Angie said in an obviously encouraging tone, "Mommy, it's just like the machine you had to get rid of. Your butt is going to look great."

After ten or fifteen minutes, everyone wanted to go back, and they headed off down the point with a lot more energy than they'd climbed up with. True shook her head. Boy, this looked great. Devon would say to give them a chance, but True wasn't sure she wanted to waste the time.

She turned around and found one person still on the point. Actually, on the very edge, sitting with her legs dangling into empty space, looking out at the sea like it was the answer to every question she'd ever asked.

"You know," True said, standing at her back, "you could fall off, sitting on the edge like that. It's a really long way down."

Molly twisted around to look up at her. "Have you ever fallen off?"

True blinked. Even Uly didn't know how often she sat on the edge just like that, against her dad's express, fish-and-filter-duty-for-a-month orders. "I'm still here, aren't I?" she said, wondering if it had been a lucky guess.

"Oh my God! Molly!" Her mom rushed up and grabbed her arm. "Get away from there, do you have any idea how dangerous, oh my God--" She turned on True. "And you, little girl, does your father know you're encouraging other children to put themselves in danger?"

True blinked, taken completely aback. "What?"

"She didn't encourage me to do anything, Mom," Molly said, getting carefully to her feet. "I'm fine."

"Don't get away from me, Molly. I mean it. This place is dangerous."

True watched them go, wondering if getting to know Molly would be worth being around her mom.

Alonzo finished his tour and saw his group of colonists off with a glad heart. Seemed like they’d spent more time dumping on what the advancers had built here than they’d spent looking at it. So there were open fields of indigenous plants instead of greenhouses, he thought grouchily. So the bathrooms were outside. So all the blankets and curtains had been woven by hand instead of coming packaged in plastic. So what? Wasn’t it better than seeing their kids die? Geez.

He flipped up a section of the bar and went behind it, rooting in the shelves for a clean mug. Most of them were still in the kitchens, getting washed. He should go in there and help, he thought without enthusiasm. The colonists should go in there and help, except they’d probably break every other mug.

His quest successful, he filled his mug with some of the tart, just-going-alcoholic cider they’d made in the summer. Propping his elbows on the bar, he wondered if they’d ever gather in a group again in one of the booths, the big empty room echoing with their laughter.

He sighed and took another drink.

The base of his neck prickled, and he looked up to see someone standing on the other side of the bar, staring at him. After a moment, he identified her. It was the lady doctor Vasquez.

"Uh--" he said. "Can I help you? Are you lost?"

"What’s your name?" she asked, hugging her elbows. She looked sort of like his Tía Stella, but thinner, like she’d tried to whittle down her natural roundness and had only half-succeeded. And his auntie never would have worn her hair all twisted back and pinned down like that, or gone out in public without a speck of jewelry on her person.

"Alonzo Solace," he said, wondering if she was coming on to him. "You’re--uh--Dr. Rita, aren’t you?"

"Yes," she said, but didn’t elaborate. She just kept staring with familiar brown eyes.

"Well . . . pleased to meet you. Uh. Did you need something?"

She came out of her apparent trance with a little jolt. "No," she said. "No, nothing." She turned and left, and it was only when the door shut behind her that Alonzo realized he'd spoken Spanish for the first time since he’d left home. Not only that, she'd answered in the same language--the language that had been outlawed on the stations, along with everything else that wasn’t English, for the past fifty years.

He vaulted over the bar and rushed to the door, wrenching it open to stare out into the square. But she’d already disappeared.

You must login (register) to review.