Exchange
Isolated on a distant planet, she is incarcerated for a crime she doesn't recall. She has no name, no idea where she came from, or why she is injected with drugs daily to hold these vital facts from her grasp. Despite small rebellions, she wastes away, worn and losing hope of ever being whole again.
Then he arrives. Claiming to hold the answers burned daily from her brain, he offers her a way out. But at what cost?
Then he arrives. Claiming to hold the answers burned daily from her brain, he offers her a way out. But at what cost?
Chapter One
Darkness enveloped me completely. I breathed stuffy blackness in labored pants, struggling to tolerate the closeness. Cottony, the warmth threatened to suffocate me in a billowing blanket of malevolence.
I hated when I woke early.
The sensors glued to my forehead and scalp screamed to be scratched, but the arm bands made that impossible. I mentally clawed for something to fixate on, anything other than the inching six walls trapping me.
Why they called the box a dream suite I don’t know. I never dreamed, and it only barely contained me. Six by three by two feet, built to contain one average sized human, it was one of thirty stacked drawers in one wall of the ward. I suppose I should have been thankful I was a below-average-sized humanoid. Sometimes I managed to ignore the walls because I wasn’t constantly in contact with them, only the padded pseudo-bed beneath my back. However, no matter how I strained, I couldn’t truly believe they didn’t exist.
With a soft hiss, jets of cold air bombarded my naked feet signaling the waking time. The weight on my chest dissipated slightly in the cooler air, but in its place nagged the raw instinct to tuck my freezing feet closer to my body. I couldn’t bend my legs far enough. The knowledge degenerated into panic. Hysteria edged in just as a hum and jolt warned me to check that my eyes stayed closed.
Another whirling hum, jolt, and sucking whoosh later, piercing blue light assaulted my face as my chamber slid out of the wall into the ward. Arm restraints retracted into the sides.
“Down, female, 7682R.”
The droid’s grating mechanical voice invaded the borders of my mind, setting my teeth hard against each other. A final blast of icy air from the suite’s jets, meant to encourage me to move faster, did the exact opposite.
The rebel in me wanted to defy the automaton until a humanoid showed her face. However, the penalty wasn’t worth the temporary high of asserting my own will. My skin crawled at the memory of the waspmice. Dark pock-like scars still marred my legs from last time. I clamored out of the DS and padded barefoot across the slick floor to the cleansing stations on the far side of the room.
The android, a bulky P-73, stalked behind, whining through its exhaust hose. It probably worried I would throw another fit or fall into hysterics. I was allowed to remember a few bits from day to day, like incidents of rebellion and the resulting punishments. With drugs and therapy, they attempted to erase the rest.
My skin crawled. I concentrated on unlatching the sealed door on the cleanser and climbing inside the chamber. A deep breath to brace myself and I pulled the panel closed. Alternating jets of tepid and steaming water blasted me from all angles. I ripped the rubber suction cells off my skin and threw them in the refuse slot. My temples throbbed where the probes had recently entered my skull. A light touch of my fingertips brought away blood. I wondered, how many times had I stood here. I didn’t know. It was disconcerting, to never remember one day to the next.
A pathetic sputter of water-flecked air constituted the cleanser’s attempt at drying my abused skin before a panel popped open with a belch of perfumed air. I coughed as I reached for the two-piece jumpsuit contained within. My arms executed the complicated movements of dressing myself without much direction from my thoughts. I knew I had been here long enough for this routine to become rote, unless, of course, I had worn clothing just like this before I came here. Or maybe I had always been here?
Darkness enveloped me completely. I breathed stuffy blackness in labored pants, struggling to tolerate the closeness. Cottony, the warmth threatened to suffocate me in a billowing blanket of malevolence.
I hated when I woke early.
The sensors glued to my forehead and scalp screamed to be scratched, but the arm bands made that impossible. I mentally clawed for something to fixate on, anything other than the inching six walls trapping me.
Why they called the box a dream suite I don’t know. I never dreamed, and it only barely contained me. Six by three by two feet, built to contain one average sized human, it was one of thirty stacked drawers in one wall of the ward. I suppose I should have been thankful I was a below-average-sized humanoid. Sometimes I managed to ignore the walls because I wasn’t constantly in contact with them, only the padded pseudo-bed beneath my back. However, no matter how I strained, I couldn’t truly believe they didn’t exist.
With a soft hiss, jets of cold air bombarded my naked feet signaling the waking time. The weight on my chest dissipated slightly in the cooler air, but in its place nagged the raw instinct to tuck my freezing feet closer to my body. I couldn’t bend my legs far enough. The knowledge degenerated into panic. Hysteria edged in just as a hum and jolt warned me to check that my eyes stayed closed.
Another whirling hum, jolt, and sucking whoosh later, piercing blue light assaulted my face as my chamber slid out of the wall into the ward. Arm restraints retracted into the sides.
“Down, female, 7682R.”
The droid’s grating mechanical voice invaded the borders of my mind, setting my teeth hard against each other. A final blast of icy air from the suite’s jets, meant to encourage me to move faster, did the exact opposite.
The rebel in me wanted to defy the automaton until a humanoid showed her face. However, the penalty wasn’t worth the temporary high of asserting my own will. My skin crawled at the memory of the waspmice. Dark pock-like scars still marred my legs from last time. I clamored out of the DS and padded barefoot across the slick floor to the cleansing stations on the far side of the room.
The android, a bulky P-73, stalked behind, whining through its exhaust hose. It probably worried I would throw another fit or fall into hysterics. I was allowed to remember a few bits from day to day, like incidents of rebellion and the resulting punishments. With drugs and therapy, they attempted to erase the rest.
My skin crawled. I concentrated on unlatching the sealed door on the cleanser and climbing inside the chamber. A deep breath to brace myself and I pulled the panel closed. Alternating jets of tepid and steaming water blasted me from all angles. I ripped the rubber suction cells off my skin and threw them in the refuse slot. My temples throbbed where the probes had recently entered my skull. A light touch of my fingertips brought away blood. I wondered, how many times had I stood here. I didn’t know. It was disconcerting, to never remember one day to the next.
A pathetic sputter of water-flecked air constituted the cleanser’s attempt at drying my abused skin before a panel popped open with a belch of perfumed air. I coughed as I reached for the two-piece jumpsuit contained within. My arms executed the complicated movements of dressing myself without much direction from my thoughts. I knew I had been here long enough for this routine to become rote, unless, of course, I had worn clothing just like this before I came here. Or maybe I had always been here?