“How many times today, Von?” the guard asked in a friendly tone.
She grunted and wiped the sweat from her sticky brow, strands of hair were coming loose from her ugly, white hairnet. “Today’s evens, so four times.” She rolled her eyes.
“Well, hopefully the odds day will be one, eh?” the guard returned with a casual smile.
“As long as we don’t go back to factors of eleven…” She grimaced, her eyes rocking back to an unpleasant memory.
“Could still be one then,” he said, hopefully.
“True, true,” she muttered as she hitched her skirt and climbed up a ladder to reach the puffy, white clouds at the top of the tapestry.
The guards saluted and moved along.
We strode down the hall, following these strange, somewhat friendly guards, wondering what we had stepped into. I’d not had much experience with the mentally ill. In Pau, if you had a psychological ‘issue,’ you were sent ‘away.’ Wherever, ‘away’ was. But anyone who had her tapestries vacuumed four times a day was clearly on the other side of the fence from normal.
On the corner wall, a single, white stag stood in a field of snow, so lifelike I could see the textured, velvety brown covering on his antlers and feel the cold from the ice-covered pines flanking him. He stood there, proud, defiant, his white-star chest pushed out. His eyes followed me as I turned the corner.
Several metal doors lined this part of the hall, each with small windows punched in them, blinking white light. We were guided to the third door. A guard scanned his wrist under the scanner over the door handle, and it clicked open. He stepped back and allowed us to go in first.
*****
I blinked a few times. It was so shiny white and bright that it took me a second to find the dark shape in the corner, sitting perfectly upright perched on a stool. His back straight, his head slightly cocked to one side. He lifted his finger lightly, bringing it down in an elegant arc to tap the keyboard. Joseph took a sharp breath in. We both knew the back of that head, its neatly trimmed hair and slender neck, but we both guarded ourselves against disappointment.
He spun around to face us slowly, his face calm. Only the slightest raise of his eyebrows registered our presence. Straightening his neat, navy shirt, he stood up.
“Desh…” Joseph started to say, but Deshi shook his head minutely, like a quick, barely there breeze, and Joseph shut his mouth.
The guards stepped back as Deshi waved them off. “You can leave us.” They hesitated. “Seriously, where are we going to go?” One of them nodded, and they left the room. The door hushed closed.
Joseph took giants steps towards his friend and slammed into him with an embrace. My face cracked into a wary smile.
“Desh… It’s so good to see you,” Joseph gushed.
Deshi stiffened within the embrace, like he’d been snap frozen. He stepped back and cast his critical eye over Joseph. “You look awful,” he said, and then put his hands on Joseph’s shoulders briefly. “I knew it had to be you. As soon as they said an annoying, scrawny girl and her large companion had surrendered near the entrance to Este’s compound, I just knew. But, you shouldn’t have come. Not for me.” He checked himself and removed his hands from Joseph’s shoulders quickly.
His face was stern. He looked healthier, more like Deshi than I’d remembered. But the healing cut in his dark bottom lip spoke to me when his words wouldn’t. The half-circles under his eyes as thick and dark as boot polish told me even more.
His eyes darted to the corners of the room quickly, subtly, and then he pulled me down to sit on a stool opposite him. He grabbed a band and placed it around my arm, holding a needle up. I stared blankly as he pushed it gently into my arm. “It’s just a blood sample for Este’s collection,” he said. Then he leaned in as he removed the band, whispering, “Hessa…?” Like it was his last breath.
A tear stung the corner of my eye. “Did you hear about the babies?” I said loudly. “They’re getting sick. It’s interesting. It’s only the kids born after July of last year.”
His eyes were stressed; he knew when Orry was born. “Luckily, we worked out what was wrong and found a cure.” I left out the part where Apella and Addy were dead. It was too much.
Deshi visibly relaxed like the band that held all his wooden limbs together had snapped inside him, and he flopped forward. He ushered me out of the chair and pointed Joseph to the seat. He took another sample.
Joseph leaned forward, whispering to the side of Deshi’s face, “Why are you here?”
Deshi’s face twisted into an awkward smile. “I’m not able to divulge Superior secrets.” He pretended to scratch his nose, muttering behind his hand. “Seriously guys, it’s safer for you if you don’t know.”
Deshi strode to the door and swung it open. “You can take them back now,” he said. His voice was masked in elegance, but I could hear the pain behind it.
Joseph was rigid. His expression confused. He gripped the stool beneath him, and I was scared he wasn’t going to let it go or that he was going to throw it at the guards.
“I d-don’t understand,” he said, quietly.
Deshi stood tall, plank-like against the open door, his arm crossed over his chest. “I’m a very important part of the Science and Research division. Essentially, I’m Este’s right hand man, and I’m working on a very special project for Superior Grant. I don’t have time for these kind of errands,” he snapped at the guards. “Tell Este that, next time, she should get one of her lackeys to do this kind of work for her. Collecting blood is beneath me.”
I could tell it was an act, but Joseph was letting it get to him. He huffed and stood up suddenly, the stool clanging to the shiny tiles. My eyes connected with Deshi’s and it was all there, reflected back at me. They said, Save me. My insides turned and twisted as I started to wonder what they were doing to him, and what they were forcing him to work on. His mind was an extraordinary commodity. It could have been anything.
He strode back to his desk, his legs a little wobbly. Without turning around, he shouted back at the guards. “The information they hold is extremely important. Don’t harm them and tell Este I’ll be there for the meeting.”
The guards nodded and closed the door as they left.
I didn’t know what it meant or whether it changed our plans.
“It changes nothing,” I said, watching Joseph pace the room fervently, wearing a hole in the carpet. “We’ll offer the solution, but only if they drop Deshi and us outside the walls, then we’ll tell them.”
“But what if he doesn’t want to come with us?” He was bewildered.
“He does, I promise.” I reached a hand to his shoulder, trying to slow his pacing.
He stopped dead, gesturing wildly around the room. “This place is just so strange. It’s not what I expected at all. Is it possible Deshi has a better life here?”
“Just stop, Joseph, think. Would Deshi just desert Hessa like that?”
Joseph shook his head. “No, no, he wouldn’t.”
I pulled him towards the bed and made him sit.
We went over what we would say. How we would say it. Time ticked over. We were brought lunch. The scene projected in our window darkened, and I knew they would be coming for us soon.
The latch sounded, and two different guards stepped forward. They were less friendly than the other two but not violent. We were guided through more corridors, away from Deshi’s office. Animal heads decorated the walls and I ducked under them, holding my breath. It smelled like dust bunnies and death in this hall, and I didn’t pause or drag my feet. Their marble eyes followed me blankly as I scuttled quickly towards the large double doors and into the reception hall as the guards called it.