Born (17 page)

My arm is taken and we are led into a
huge room.

The lady bends on a knee to the little
blonde hiding in my armpit, "What's your name sweetie."

The blonde shakes her head and nuzzles
into me further.

I look at the woman and frown, "She
has never seen a space suit."

The lady looks up at me confused,
"What?"

I point to her white suite, "She
hasn’t ever seen one of these. She probably doesn’t think you're human."

The lady laughs, "You know in ten
years of doing this job I never thought about that." She looks back down
at the little girl, "Am I scaring you?"

The blonde holds me tighter.

"You are." I say.
She stands and points to the huge white tubes, "Well we have something for
you two to do and then you can be cleared to be around people without the
decontamination suits."

I hold the shaking child to me and walk
to the tube.

I try to step away from her, silent tears
are pouring from her bright blue eyes. I look at her, "Want to get
something to eat?"

She nods.

I point to the tube, "When we are
done in there and they are sure we aren’t sick they will feed us." I say
it loud enough that the lady in the space suit, who is now talking to the other
woman, looks at me and nods, "Yup we will get you some food."

I pry her tiny, balled up hands from my
clothes and smile softly. I step into the tube. It powers on and blue lights
flash on me. A flat surface comes down on a robotic arm and a face comes on the
screen in front of me, "Please place your hands on the pad."

I smile at the little girl and put my
hand on the pad. A sharp poke digs into one of my fingers. A red light moves
from my fingertips to my wrist and then back again.

The platform drops away and my hands
drops down. The floor starts moving like at the airport, before.

Suddenly fast moving air blows across me
and I move deeper into the tunnel. I get to the other side and it all stops. I
step off and another space suit woman comes to me, "I just need to take
you to the sanitation area."
I point to the little girl, "I have to wait for her.

"Sorry that's not allowed."

I growl, "I'm waiting." She
sighs.

I shout through, "See, it doesn’t
hurt. It was kind of fun. Just step in. It's going to be okay. I'm right here
waiting for you."

Her breath is still slight heaves. She
doesn’t make a sound. She puts a shaking hand out and steps onto the platform.
She cries harder as the robotic arm comes down.

"Put your hand on. I promise it was
like a fast little pinch and nothing more. Then you'll come to me."

Her blue eyes are filled with terror. She
shakes her head.

I nod, "Do it. They won't let you
come to me if you don't do it."

Her left hand hugs herself and her right hand
rests on the pad. I see her flinch when the small prick comes. She ducks when
the sharp wind hits her and she looks like she might have a heart attack when
the floor moves. She has never seen anything. She was in the womb when the
world went crazy. Technology is not something us borderlander's see. Ever. In
the borderlands nature has taken things back. This feels like a small corner
humans still control.

Before the floor stops moving, she leaps
off and is under my armpit again.

The lady laughs, "Okay you're both
cleared."

She brings us to a small white room.
There is a white table in the middle of the room with nothing else but a door
on the far side.

"Please put everything on the table.
It will be sanitized and given back to you if it can be."

She stands and waits. I realize she is
going to watch us strip naked.

I want to have a fit. I want to smash her
in the space suit face and run from the room but I look at the little blonde
and take a deep breath. I pull my shirt off. I pull off my sports bra and stand
with my breasts out, exposed. It is the first time I have ever been naked in
front of anyone except my granny and my mother.

I remember swimming in my underwear and
bra with the naked people at the camp and smirk. The little blonde would love
it there. The majestic swimming hole would make her happy. I decide she is
coming with me when I run. My brain tries to think its usual 'look out for
number one' excuses, but I can't. I think she's alone in the world.

"The jewelry too."

I look down at the silver bracelet and
necklace my mom wore when she died. I remember my father removing it from her
and putting it on me. I feel sick taking it off. When it touches the cold table
I feel like I will never see it again.

I nod at her and she starts taking her
clothes off. We are naked and filthy and both doing our best to cover
ourselves. Finally the lady walks to the door and slides a card on her wrist
through a slot in the door handle. I need one of those cards. The door opens.

"Now we need to clean you." She
points into the stainless steel bathroom. The walls are metal, the floors are
metal. There are several showerheads along the back wall and a drain in the
floor. The little girl grabs my hand seeing it. She doesn’t want to cuddle
naked, thank god, but she wants to hold my hand. The water starts by itself,
making her jump a little. I smile. I've seen a shower before.

I put a hand out and feel excited. The
water is very warm. I step into it and sigh. The warmth of it is something I
haven’t had in a long time. Not without heating it on a fire.

She watches me and feels the water
running from my hand to hers. She puts a hand out and smiles at me. It's the
first time I've seen her smile. Her teeth are gleaming white. It doesn’t suit
the rest of her face. She steps into the water and lets it rain down on her.

"It feels great doesn’t it?"

I glance back at the lady watching us. It
makes me uncomfortable she is there.

"I remember my first shower
too."

Her voice is hollow. She hasn’t been here
since the beginning. She works here because she was captured. Her dark eyes
give me a knowing look when she smiles under the space suit.

"The soap is a special kind. It will
wash anything off of you that you don’t want there. Do your hair too."

I cringe. I can't help but wonder if she
was one of the ladies who got to stay behind in the truck for a bit when it
arrived at the farm.

I pick up the bar of wrapped soap. I peel
back the plastic. The girl watches me and does the same. I smell the soap and
almost moan. It smells like lavender and tea tree. Of course it does. Natural
cleaners for the body. Tea Tree became a hot commodity when everything stopped
being produced.

I lather and scrub. At one point I sit on
the floor and scrub my toes out. I don’t even care how bizarre I look. I scrub
the wound on my leg trying not to cry out in pain.

Other women start to filter in. They cry
with joy as the warm water washes them.

Space suit points to a hallway,
"This way." I walk with the girl holding my hand. I look back at the
shower and miss it already.

My nerves are shot. I need to find Anna.
I need to protect the girl beside me. I need to find out how to get us all out
without casualties. I might need one more shower before we escape.

I'm dripping wet as I pad along the cold
cement floor. I shiver. She takes us to a stack of towels in plastic. She
passes them to us. I tear the plastic and pull a white terry towel robe from
it. I pull it on and instantly feel better. White terry towel slippers fall
onto the cement floor. I turn them over with my toes and look at the girl. She
has the robe and slippers on, but on her they are swimming.

She grins and hugs herself.

"Can she speak?"

I shake my head, "I don’t
know."

"She isn’t yours?"

I shake my head again, "No." I
grin at the girl, "We found each other in the dark."

Space suit walks through a weird shower.
Her space suit is rinsed completely. She steps out and points, "Okay this
way please." Space suit looks annoyed suddenly. We follow her through a
huge white door and we are in the white rooms and hallways again. The cement
and stainless steel is gone. We walk in our plush clothes to a waiting room,
"The doctor will be with you in a moment."

I go and sit on the white plastic chair
that looks formed. Everything sparkles. It feels sterile.

The girl sits in the chair next to me and
space suit leaves us there.

There are no magazines like a real
doctors office or windows.

"I'm scared."

I look at the little girl who apparently
can talk, "Me too."

Two more ladies come and are seated next
to us. I'd bet they're in their late twenties or early thirties if I had to
guess.

A chubby one smiles at me and speaks with
a bubbly voice, "Has anything happened since you got here?"

I shake my head.

She frowns, "God. I hope this
doesn’t take all day. I'm exhausted. I heard we get our own beds and rooms and
food at every meal."

The skinny mean looking lady next to her
grimaces, "Did you see what they were doing to the women at the back of
the truck? We aren’t here for a vacation. We're here to be raped and
reproduce."

I scowl. "Don’t." My eyes dart
to the little girl.

The mean looking lady rolls her eyes and
crosses her arms.

The little girl smiles at me. I smile
back.

A man comes holding something in his
hands. He looks like a doctor. He is older and has glasses on.

He glances up at us and smiles,
"You." He points at me.

I look around at the others. They all
look frightened. The girl grips me.

"She wants to come with me." I
say.

He looks at the little girl, "It's
your choice. She should be with the other healthy children."

I hug her to me as I stand, "She
comes with me."

He shrugs and turns and walks down the
white hallway.

He walks to a room with a bed, just like
my doctor back home had. There is another chair and a curtain and a small desk.
Everything is white. I feel like I can't actually see the depth of things
because of all of the white.

He points a hand toward the bed,
"Have a seat. Are you sure you want her to see this?"

I look up and frown, "See
what?"

"I have to give you an internal to
make sure you're healthy."

"Wasn’t that what the tube was
for?"

He puts the thing in his hands on the
desk and pushes his glasses up. He closes the door, "No."

I see the curtain, "Can you pull
that around us so she can see my face." I don’t want her traumatized. It's
bad enough one of us is about to be traumatized. I know what an internal is. I
read about it.

I sit her on the chair across the room. I
hold both of her shoulders, "It's going to be okay. Okay?"

She nods. She looks scared but I can see
her being brave.

I walk to the bed and climb on. I lay
back. He pulls the curtain around us so only my face is showing. I turn my head
to her and smile. I'm dying inside but I can't show her.

I look back as he places my slippers into
a pair of metal grips. He slides something and I feel the bottom part of the
bed is gone. My butt feels like it's sitting on the edge. He puts gloves on and
smiles at me, "Relax okay?"

I swallow hard and nod.

He pulls my knees apart. I feel a tear
slip from my eye. I can't look at her. I look up at the white ceiling. I don’t
feel anything. I close my eyes and I'm high in a tree. The wind is pushing and
pulling me, swaying the tree and me. I feel the breeze on my face. I hear the
birds and the sound the branches make when the wind plays with them.

Something stabs me sharp.

I try not to cry out but it hurts badly.

I look up at his face.

He looks hardened and distant from me,
"Sorry. I didn’t realize you were virginal. Most girls your age, well you
know."

I don’t know. Most girls what? My stomach
hurts like a monthly cramp for a second. He steps back and removes bloody
gloves and I see a glint of metal. "All done."

He slips some thick cotton white
underwear into my hand, "You will need these. Go back to the waiting
room."

I look at the padding in the center of
them. They are like the rags I've made myself. I feel sick. He leaves the
curtained area and then the room.

The girl looks worried. I shake my head,
"It's okay." She isn’t fooled. The tears streaming down my face tell
her otherwise.

I pull the underwear on over my slippers
and lift my butt to get them underneath of me. They feel thick and heavy
between my thighs. My chest is rising and falling rapidly. I don’t want to
scare the little girl but I am a little girl too. In my heart I'm still the
nine-year-old running through the woods. The nine-year-old who was lost and
confused. I don't feel as though I've aged. I've grown cold and bitter but
aged, no.