Chapter 3
THREE
CARLA
I couldn't do it.
I stared down at the floor between my hands, my knees pressing down into it.
It felt like there was someone sitting on my back, pushing me down.
Exhaustion welled up in me, and tears bit the corners of my eyes.
I had barely moved my body in so much time, and as that voice in my head had repeated over and over, my muscles had atrophied.
Walking was hard. So I had taken a break, sinking down to the floor.
I hadn't made it very far. Glancing back over my shoulder, the door behind me was still in sight.
The thought of getting up again hurt almost as much as my legs.
Yet, at the same time, the only weight on me was my own.
Without the other women around, there was nothing but the pressure of my own weakness.
I was no longer being buffeted by their sadness and rage, by the hopelessness that had grown day after day.
Right now, the only thing I had to feel was a sense of my own sorrow as I looked down at the thin bones of my arms.
I was weak, but I could get stronger.
All I had to do was get up and keep going.
I let out a sigh as I folded down, pressing my forehead against the floor. I could just stay here for a little bit.
A little bit turned into a little bit longer, one moment stretching out into the next, until I felt something new.
It reminded me of moments in the past, halcyon moments like that time I took a long walk through a park, saw the brilliant glimmer of roses, and stopped to smell them, the rich scent holding me in the present.
It was a feeling of unbridled joy, a reminder of moments I never seemed able to hold on to.
"Human," a deep voice said, with a lightness in the tone as if the speaker were on the verge of laughter.
"My assigned task is to be your companion and provide care and support for your physical and mental well-being.
I will begin my task by speaking out loud to you in a friendly and psychologically stimulating manner. "
I lifted my head up off the ground, expecting to see an angel who radiated such beautiful feelings and tones.
Instead, I saw exposed bone, metallic and strange, a small glimpse visible through the deep cut through muscle and strange white fibers that made up the injured leg.
My gaze traveled up, over the thick, undamaged, muscular thighs, the clear-cut ridges of abdominals, up to the broad smile set into silver white skin that had the hint of green on it, like moss growing over white marble.
His face would have been handsome if it weren't for one simple, unavoidable fact.
"I can see your brain, Frankenstein," I said. "You look like you just ran away from an operating table."
He reached up and touched the edges of where his skin had been peeled back and pinned to his scalp.
A large, half-circle section of his skull was missing, exposing the section of brain in question, with purple veins running through folded mounds of light green tissue.
The skin that would have covered it was folded back across the rest of his head.
His eyes widened as his fingers brushed the edges around the open wound.
"The other humans are the ones removing control chips," he said, as if the thought had just occurred to him and was more important than the fact that half his brain was exposed to the open air.
As he spoke, he moved his hands until he found the large flap of skin and folded it back over on top of the exposed flesh of his brain.
"What is a control chip?" I asked, the strangeness of the situation causing me to sit all the way back up.
I rested my hands on my knees as I looked up at him.
I vaguely recalled Sara's description of our captors, and he would fit right into it.
I felt like I should pity him or feel angry at him, but I didn't feel much of anything other than the small flicker of my own curiosity, lifting me up out of the sifting sand of my own internal abyss.
My neck ached as I craned my head back to look at him.
He sat down on the floor in front of me, crossing his legs.
"It is a neural implant used to directly control the actions of Calicium units like myself," he said. "It operates as an interface for Plexus Command."
He was being forthcoming and speaking in a friendly tone, so there was no reason not to keep asking questions.
"What does it make you do?" I asked. "And what is Plexus Command?"
"I'm only a standard unit," he said. "I've never had access to detailed knowledge about Plexus Commands, but from my understanding, they are nodes for controlling groups of units, like mine on this starship.
As for what I was made to do, my past orders ranged from resource harvesting to military engagements. I was made to work and fight."
This conversation was more interesting than any moment of my life here in this place.
Not only because he seemed genuinely happy to just sit there and talk to me, but because he was answering my questions with mentions of things like starships and commands and resource harvesting.
The fact that we were on a starship didn't surprise me, but only because that was one of the dark scenarios I had already thought about.
Without information, my mind had come up with all sorts of terrible possibilities for what our captivity could mean, and given Sara's description of the aliens that she saw when they came in after gassing us, a starship made a lot of sense.
"Oh," I said. "But the thing that controlled you is gone now?"
"I believe the humans with the designations Sara and Lyssa removed my control chip," he said.
"Sara is a neurosurgeon," I said. "If anyone was going to do that, it would have been her, but I don't know why she would leave your brain exposed like that. It doesn't seem very professional."
"I left before she could continue to operate on me," he said.
"She expressed deception, and I didn't wish to stay.
My skull will repair on its own, much faster if I go into an emergency repair shutdown or use a reconstruction chamber, though I don't wish to use a chamber as it will reinstall a new control chip.
I would prefer to do my repair shutdown in a location where I will not be retrieved by Lyssa or Sara or found by another unit on this ship, as they will be ordered to put me in a reconstruction chamber. "
"I can watch over you if you want," I offered. "Once you find somewhere you feel is safe, and you won't be discovered."
I didn't know how well I could do that job, as I couldn't stop one of his kind physically, but the urge to offer was still there, especially if it meant being somewhere where other people weren't going to stumble over me or invade my space.
I didn't want to be around other people right now, around their stress and anxieties.
Being around this happy guy while he shut down and healed himself in a hidden location sounded like a perfect way to avoid having to deal with other people.
"It is my task to see to your needs," he said. "You appear to be in a suboptimal physical condition, and my task details indicate that you require psychological support. I would like to relocate you to an environment better suited for your needs."
"Why not do both?" I said. "Find an environment suited for my needs and where people aren't going to find us easily."
"What are your needs?" he asked. "My task does not include details on what they are, just that I must provide for them."
For a moment, the question flummoxed me. I hadn't thought about what I needed. After the initial shock of waking up to find myself imprisoned in a featureless gym room with a bunch of other women, I hadn't thought about much of anything.
What did I need?
I could ask him to get me back to Earth, but even as I thought about it, the weight in my chest made it more difficult to breathe.
What would I do when I got back there? Would it really be any different than here?
All I had to go back to was the ever-present stress of how I was going to pay the next bill, how I was going to hold down a job when I could barely get up off the floor.
I looked down at the floor in question, realizing it was getting closer again, sucking me back down as I shifted my weight and let it embrace me.
"Human?" the alien asked. "This is not an ideal spot to rest."
"My name is Carla," I said as I let out a heavy sigh, turning my head to look up at him.
"Carla, why are you lying on the floor?" he asked.
"I don't know," I said.
He didn't say anything, just sat next to me.
I closed my eyes. Why was I doing this? The crushing weight of that thought added to the others, a swirling darkness that threatened to suck me deeper, but the light in the hallway was bright on the backs of my eyelids.
I waited for the inevitable, for him to say something else, for him to get up and walk away, to leave me there or to become angry with me, indignant that I would give up without being able to say why I was doing it.
I waited for him to try to argue me out of it, to try to force me to my feet, to do something, anything.
I didn't know how much time had passed.
I opened my eyes, and he was still there, just sitting there, looking at me.
"I didn't use to be like this," I said.
"Neither did I," he said, his voice soft and soothing.
There was a large space for words to fill, but he didn't fill it. He didn't elaborate or continue about his own personal experience. He just left the space empty, and it tugged the words out of me, one at a time, until I was filling the silence with my voice.
"I used to be tired a lot," I said. "But I still managed to get to work. I felt like a zombie, like someone just going through the motions, but at least I could get up out of bed. Now I don't even have a bed, and I still can't get up."
"Would you like a bed?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
He was quiet for a moment.
"I have put in a system request for you to have a bed in a location that is out of the way and unlikely to be intruded upon," he said. "The request was accepted, and I have been given a location. Would you like me to carry you to that location?"
I lifted my head off the floor.
"You have a deep cut on your leg, and you're missing a piece of your skull," I said. "How are you even able to offer to carry me?"
"Your weight will have no impact on my ability to move," he replied. "If it helps, I would enjoy carrying you, as it would help me complete my assigned task and prove myself worthy of being considered crew."
That's right, he said something about an assigned task when he came up to me.
"What happens if you don't become crew?" I asked. "Aren't you already crew? Isn't this your group's ship?"
"Plexus Command no longer controls the ship," he said.
"I was under the impression that if that happened, the ship would kill all units like me on board.
The fact that I am still alive indicates that the impression was incorrect.
I feel strongly incentivized to demonstrate to the ship that I am worthwhile to continue to keep alive. "
I should get up. I should walk on my own rather than having this injured alien force himself to endure carrying me when I had two perfectly good legs, and he was injured.
The thought of being in a bed, someplace where maybe I could turn down the lights and just be left alone, should be enough to get me moving.
Yet even as the thoughts sifted through my mind, my body didn't react.
I just continued to lie there. At some point, the other women were going to find me there, and then there would be the comments and the questions and the prodding, all of which would make me feel worse and worse because I agreed with them. I shouldn't be like this.
I shouldn't be like this, but I didn't know how to stop.
"Please carry me there," I whispered.
"I would love to!" he said, his voice radiating happiness as he leaned forward and scooped me up in his arms. He rose to his feet without any issue, and I lay there as he began to walk, pressed up against his warm chest as my head leaned back and I watched the ceiling pass by overhead. It felt like I was floating.
"Thank you for letting me take care of you, Carla," he said.
"I should be thanking you," I replied, feeling the soft sway of my hand in the open air where I dangled it down. "I don't know why I'm like this."
"I shouldn't be alive at all," he said. "I am a creature made up of the torn-up lives of others.
My entire existence has been one horror after another, but for the very first time, I am free to choose what I do, and I have chosen to take care of you.
Being able to take care of another being instead of killing them is a gift I never thought I would receive.
Though I acknowledge that it is important to you, it doesn't matter to me why you're like this.
Without someone to care for, I wouldn't have an option to prove to myself that I am different from the monster I was forced to be.
I am simply grateful that you exist at all. "
Frankenstein didn't care about me at all.
His taking care of me wasn't about me, wasn't actions begrudgingly taken out of a sense of obligation, or pity. He wasn't doing this because he felt like he had to.
He was happy that I was like this because it gave him an opportunity to prove himself.
His taking care of me was entirely, utterly selfish.
How wonderful.
That selfishness took all the pressure off of me.
I didn’t have to worry about him or his emotional needs.
I didn’t have to care about him or worry about disappointing him when I didn’t have anything to give back.
I could just take whatever he offered and not spend even a fraction of a second considering him in the slightest.
For the first time in a long, long time, something happened.
I smiled.