15

A Chapter by kitty

“Hello,” asked a voice. “Who are you?”

He was very young-- not too much older than her-- but very nervous-- disproportionately nervous-- dehumanizingly nervous.

“My name is Myra.

“I won’t hurt you,” she added.

He nodded.

“Not many people come here,” he said, by way of explanation.

“Oh. Well, I did. I like it here.”

He said nothing, staring apprehensively.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” she repeated. “I won’t hurt you.”

He fidgeted, and shook his head as if clearing it.

“No, of course not,” he finally agreed, and smiled, which made him look like an injured chipmunk. “I’m sorry. Not many people come here.

“I’m studying,” he added.

“Are you?”

“Yes,” he told her, somewhat defensively.

“Are you going to be a surface biologist?” she asked, remembering the term from Emmet’s definition.

“I suppose so. Yes. I’m not sure what to call it, actually. There aren’t very many of us.”

“How many of you are there?”

“Four.”

He had his brows wrinkled in a worried, wistful way-- it made him look tired and very young. He appeared to be looking at something just behind her.

“Only four?” she asked sympathetically. “For so many rooms? That must be hard...”

“It's mostly automated...” he muttered, looking uncomfortable-- or overly modest, perhaps?

Whatever it was, it was clogging his larynx. He was stunned. New people didn't talk. They mocked, or they cried, but they didn't follow these trifling social exercises-- he had forgotten how--

“You need to leave,” he said candidly. She hurried--

“How did you find this place?”

He looked down, distracted now, melting into a kind of reverie.

“I lived nearby-- in the closest suburn, just before it begins to get greasy. Then I went crazy and came here.” He ended unresolved, so Myra gave him some time to pry his shaking fingers from his pockets, examine them, and return them. It was strange how he's gone from skittering to leisurely, like a cornered prey going into shock. “I remember the moment I realized I didn't belong. There had been hints of it already. I should have known. But it's in adolescence you begin to wonder these things, you think and refuse to think and find it like pebbles on the ground. So that's why they despise my beloved things and I can't understand theirs. You learn-- so that's why I feel nothing while they're laughing and chanting. That's why I smoke when no one smokes...” As if reminded by his own words, he took a cigarette out of his pocket, clicked the button and blew a smoke ring, watching it, fascinated, “even though I know it will kill me, everyone knows it'll kill me. I'm different, unique, a freak.”

“An alien,” she interrupted. He ignored her.

“I had always been lonely,” he continued to monologue, slowly, “but I got so much lonelier. I was lonely even with my closest friends, and then I had no closest friends. I would look out the window and watch them swarm like ants-- or when that became too much, I would turn on the tv, lean back and close my eyes and listen to people talk, the meter and the pitches, the way they shape the line, different every time. Or watch them move-- watch them walk, every bone articulating mechanically, and it all moves so fluidly, unconsciously. And the hands, too, their metacarpals with only a small layer of muscle, dancing deftly, a surgeon, a pianist...” he put the cigarette back in his pocket, his own fingers shaking again, and looked around restlessly, “There's no such thing as magic, but there's magic made when people move, and I was nothing like them. I was like the moon watching as civilizations rise and fall. And the little things I would do to pretend for my parents, my schoolmates... and when I told them I was leaving and coming here-- and you could see in their eyes, what a waste, what a waste, and he could have been a doctor... hoping I would change my mind and come back, saying, “we respect your opinions,” and thinking, “but...

“I broke everyone's hearts.”

“You could message them,” Myra interrupted again through her slight but growing boredom. He startled as if he'd forgotten she was there.

“I don't want to talk about it,” he mumbled abruptly, and scuttled away with his head down.

“Alright.... goodbye... I hope I see you again.” She did hope she'd see him again.

“Where do the staff live?” she asked Emmet-- but no, Emmet wasn't there, he was back at the entrance.

Emmet sat on a log and looked through his messages.

Don't start work again yet, said Neric. Lay low.

Dear Albeck, let me help you protect your identity! said spam.

Oh Albeck-- I had your baby! said more spam.

Emmet, said his father. Don't pursue that code.

Talk to Neric about it, Emmet typed back.

“Please don't sit on that log, please,” a subdued, wiry voice skittered. Emmet looked up at a kind of overgrown teenager, with an dreamy panic to his unfocused eyes. “You could disrupt the decomposition. We like to decompose naturally.” Emmet nodded and stood up. “There are certain bacteria needed to complete the process, certain conditions, don't sit on the log, don't touch the animals, don't feed the animals--” Becoming aware Emmet's gaze was not particularly welcoming, he made a few flurried hand gestures and left.

Emmet sat on the log and deleted his messages.

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