Murmansk-13

“Now, I assure you and your sleeping counterpart, that you are perfectly safe hear in District Four. These are, after all, reformed men. However, for some of our denizens it has been a long while since they had female company and I fear some may be,” Gennady paused, trying out different English phrases in his head. “A little over friendly.

“Subsequently I bequeath you my cell. I’m afraid it is a little sparsely appointed, but it is at least spacious and you should be able to rest comfortably there.”

“Cell?” Tala asked.

“Forgive my parlance, force of habit,” Gennady replied, narrow lips curling. “Cabin.”

“And where are you going to sleep?” Tala asked, arms crossing.

Gennady gave a dour laugh. “Fear not, I shall sleep in my office.”

Tala returned the smile hoping her damaged face made it suitably unsettling.

☣☭☠

The girl lay on the canvas, blood dribbling from her ear. Tala hadn’t even bothered to remember her name, names gave people stories and Tala didn’t need a story. Marcario was bounding toward her, a giant smile splayed across his pudgy face. Nobody was running toward the girl on the canvas, not until the convulsions started, but Tala barely saw that.

The girl was on the canvas for over a minute, Tala’s conditioning had been good, but her breaths still came in short ragged gasps. She kept having to push people out of the way, a tombola of faces, but her feet remained anchored to where she’d delivered the knockout blow. Eventually Tala was forced to step forward, away from her oblivious celebrants, as the referee lifted the girls eyelids. One eyeball was black with blood, both were rolled back.

The warehouse was humid, she could feel the cloying air around her. So warm. The girl was still breathing. She was still breathing as another convulsion wracked her suddenly small form.

Tala gasped, the room was lightless. Outside the generator had been shutdown plunging District Four into a dark and merciful silence. Beyond the blacked out frosted glass, Tala could see figures moving around in the office space, the light from their head torches illuminated where the poster paint was thinned or chipped. Pinpricks of light lanced over the room and Katja. Tala assumed they maintained a rigorous day night cycle in the district as they did onboard merchant space vessels. She supposed it also saved on fuelling the generator and allowing it to poison them.

Tala hadn’t remembered falling asleep, hadn’t even remembered lying down. A day night cycle only mattered when the circadian rhythm wasn’t completely shattered. She tried to sit up, but exhausted muscles screamed in protest. In the dark she listened to her heart settle and the consistent, soft breaths of Katja who lay somewhere to her left. Beneath her skin, the polyethylene roll mat was greased with sweat. At some point Tala had removed her EVA suit.

She wondered how long she’d slept, tried to recall the space she now inhabited. Tala could only remember a tiredness so deep it penetrated every memory. As the guards returned to their posts outside, she felt her eyelids grow heavy.

☣☭☠

“They’re no use to us if we can’t contact the ship, just more people to support.”

Tala’s eyelids were half open and she drifted deliriously between sentience and sleep.

“Then we make our move, we head to the emergency airlock with the girls. They’re bound to come.”

The voices hissed around her. Mumbled and hushed words, veiled by their thick accents.

“It’s too risky, we can’t all make it. That girl for one, she’s a vegetable.”

“We can’t wait, this is our last opportunity. I know better than the rest of you, the supplies are running out. In less than a year there will be nothing left.”

Tala could feel her hot eyes rolling around in her head, her body was so tired. She’d never felt so leaden.

“You’re becoming like the rest of them. You don’t want to leave, maybe you’re growing to like your power.”

“Chush’ sobach’ya! Pizhda! I have a wife and a girl, god she’ll be an adult now. You fucked this by letting the Captain get killed.”