Rebellion in the Shadows

I headed to the medical area. There wasn’t a good reason why I wanted to check on Kirtis, maybe it was only because it felt like the right thing to do. The FFSA had their own well-trained medical team that could fix most physical issues in an instant. When I arrived, the Corpsman at the front desk offered me a seat.

“Are you here for an exam?” she asked in a polite voice. Her crisp white uniform blended almost perfectly with the color of the walls. There were several rooms behind her with clear windows that allowed floods of natural light into the room. It might have been a pleasant room to be in under different circumstances.

“No, I’m actually here to see Kirtis Xanbuhly. Is he still here?”

“AHH! Shit!” Kirtis’s scream came from the other room. They had set his nose. I cringed.

“Are you related?” she asked. I shook my head. She scanned me up and down. “Girlfriend?”

“No.”

“So, you are the one that broke his nose?”

“Yes, but it was an accident,” Her nice face turned sour.

“Kirtis will be out shortly,” she said curtly and swiveled her chair away from me.

I walked the room as I waited for him to come out. It was quiet enough that I could hear two other Corpsman talking in another room.

“... and this whole thing is outrageous. I knew that people would end up hurt... ridiculous in our society, she’s violent and…”

The remaining conversation was lost to me when Kirtis emerged. He had a clean bandage on his nose and two bruises under his eyes that did nothing to stop the look of rage pouring out of them. “What are you doing here? I have to get two hours of bone therapy because of you.”

He walked to the desk where his face scan was required for discharging. The first scan failed much to the annoyance of the Corpsman.

“Please look at the red light and hold still,” the Corpsman said trying the scan again.

“I feel terrible,” I said. The scan failed a second time. When it did, the Corpsman smacked the side of the scanner with her palm in frustration.

“Oh please, you just want to make sure I learned my lesson,” Kirtis said.

“Reconist! Please face here!” The Corpsman’s face reddened, but she wasn’t nearly as irritated as I was that they were trying to scan a broken face.

“Corpsman, you might as well scan his ass for all the good it will do! That scan won’t work; his face is broken. Just look at it.” I pointed to the horrible bandage and his bruised eyes. The two other Corpsman poked their heads out from the back room to see who was yelling. When they noticed it was me, they just looked at each other as if to say, “Yep, it’s her.” However, Kirtis’s purple nose wrinkled in a painful smile.

“Can I just use my thumb print instead?” He asked. That worked the first time, and we both walked out the front door.

“Just leave me alone Talaya. Whatever motherly instinct is telling you to take care of me, just ignore it.” His finger felt at the bandage, wincing with the light touch. I wasn’t sure how long it would take to heal but it already looked less swollen. The Corpsmen really did know what they were doing.

“Kirtis I’m sorry I broke your nose, really. I lost my temper.”

“Yeah, you look pretty sorry to me,” he said.

“I am! I didn’t mean to… it just happened.” He was walking fast through the halls, trying to put space between us.

“Maybe next time, just maybe, you could try ignoring your inner asshole before I’m bleeding?”

I stopped following him, shocked at his blunt words.

“Well… at least my asshole on the inside!” It had sounded much more insulting in my head but only made him burst out laughing. He touched at his bandage again and sucked air in through his teeth.

“Just go, if there’s any consolation, I will get my payback next time,” he said, as we arrived at his room.

I was left standing outside his door. He hadn’t looked at me or said goodbye. The idea of him getting his payback made me nervously bite my nails.

My schedule flashed at me again: lunch time. It snapped me from all the visions in my head of Kirtis breaking my neck.

As soon as I stepped through the oversized cafeteria doors, the sweet smell of smoke and meat told me what was for lunch: zweihorn and apples over wild rice, one of my favorite meals. I stood in line by myself but turned when I heard Notawa behind me. That peppy voice grated against my ears.

“What’s for lunch?” she asked as she stood next to me in line.

“Zweihorn.” I said ignoring her and inspecting the long line.

“Did you know apples came from Earth and used to be only the size of your fist?” I nodded but said nothing

“Scientists genetically altered them to increase their size,” she told me, pointing to an apple the size of my head. I continued to ignore her. She wasn’t telling me anything an eight-year-old kid wouldn’t know. She was trying to make small talk. The line moved a half an inch forward.

“Talaya, as your mentor we have much to cover to prepare you for your Privy Mate advancement exam. Can we study in your room?” she asked after a long silence. Around us, everyone else was happily engaged in conversations with friends.

“Yes of course, but after I eat. I haven’t all day.” To emphasize my point, my stomach let out a loud growl.

“We can study while eating in your room. Grab me a plate too. I’m going to download some study material from the Central Library.”

“Wait, no! I was going to get in some flight time after lunch.” She ignored my objection.

“No carbs or starches. I’ll meet you in your room.” She was almost skipping on her way back out of the cafeteria.

“Tough mentor,” a young guy behind me said, and the group he was in laughed quietly. I nodded to be polite and faced forward.

“Your Talaya right?” His friends were laser-focused on us.

“Yeah why?” I didn’t turn around to face them. Something about his tone told me he wasn’t really being friendly.

“Just not real impressed is all.” The laughs were low and surrounded me.

“I thought she would be bigger. You know she took the top Recon spot?” said the girl on his side.

“Ridiculous,” said the other girl.

“She’s the one that broke Kirtis’s nose? What a joke, he must be losing his touch,” the guy said.

I’d heard enough. There stares and words had made me long for my old unit far away in the mountains. They were as different from the Space Academy as fire was to water. For one thing, there was only one Privy Mate in the small group, my best friend, Whyla and while she was a stickler for regulation, I’d mostly been able to do what I wanted. Here, I was studied like I was under a microscope and every look my direction felt full of hate. My future status as Master Guardian didn’t help things, either. Word spread quickly in the Flying Force and it was obvious my promotion had burned through the ranks like wildfire in a field of dried grass. Instead of waiting in line, I grabbed a few rolls of bread and walked out, the zweihorn and apples left far behind.

Notawa was already outside my room. She sat on the cold tile with a stack of books next to my door.

“Where’s lunch?” she asked. I just shook my head.

“They were out. Have a roll.” A quick four-digit code unlocked my door and we walked inside.

“I’m not allowed to have that type of carb. It’s against my kilocalorie diet,” she said. I hadn’t noticed that she was a bit overweight until then.

“One roll can’t hurt,” I said, tossing her the bread.

“You got a west-facing window? That will be lovely in the evenings,” she said as she looked around the bare room.

“It will make it hot. You want a plate for that?” I asked as I walked to the tiny kitchen. I didn’t wait for her response before retrieving two plates from the cupboard. Before now, I had been in the room only once for a tour several weeks ago. It had been brief, and the room had been empty. While I was in class and training this morning, someone, had filled it with my personal items. The kitchen was stocked with Flying Force dishes, but in the cupboards were my favorite snacks.

“I’m good thanks.” She ate her roll while mine was thrown onto a plate with some dehydrated apple chips.

Notawa walked over to the window to stand in the afternoon light that poured through the opaque glass.

“I should get some curtains,” I said.

“Nonsense, it must be nice to have natural light. Great for productivity,” she said. I sat with my plate at the desk. It was the same type of metal desk that was in Master Guardians office. I touched my cheek remembering our little chat. The skin was tender, I should probably take an anti-bruiser or risk awkward questions tomorrow.

“Productivity? What will I be producing in my room other than snores?”

“Your Privy Mate test will be here much sooner than you think. Your room is the perfect place to study,” she said.

A noise interrupted my forthcoming snarky remark.

“Make yourself ‘productive.’ I’m going to see if they brought all my stuff.” She sat in the large swivel chair at my desk while I took the roll with me into the bedroom.

I didn’t care much about my stuff. The only thing that I was worried about was the large aquarium along the wall. A tiny head peaked out and the ripples the creature created splashed water onto the floor. He was a scherlot.

“Hey you little weirdo, you hungry?” I asked him.

It made a high-pitched squeak, begging for my attention.

“Of course you are. Fatty. Here you go. Don’t expect more. I gotta eat too, ya know?” My fingers touched the wet, feather-covered head while his tiny claws held the roll to his whiskered face. Little teeth munched at the bread. Hungry squeaks shifted to humming, soft and sweet at the pleasure of my gentle touch. It resonated through my body and calmed me beyond my own capabilities.

“Talaya, I thought we could start with trajectory training? I was told you were already behind in that class.” Notawa walked in. The scherlot shied away at the noise, retreating underwater.

“It’s OK buddy, it’s just my annoying mentor,” I said in a high-pitched, sing-song voice. He poked his head out more, curious this time. His brown feathers were puffed up all over his body. No matter how angry or scared he became, his large curious eyes always made him look friendly.

“Oh! How wonderful, a scherlot! I love these things.” She was using the same sort of baby-talk I was and reached out to him. His long whiskers twitched as his tiny nose sniffed the air. Notawa’s eyes closed as his consciousness overwhelmed her. The scherlot can create a telepathic connection but can only convey non-complex feelings. Things like when it is hungry, anger, or fear.

“Talaya, he’s so hungry.”

“He always thinks that. Here, give him a roll. I have a bare nutrient bar in the cupboard,” I said. She started breaking off pieces of it and feeding them to him.

“We really should be studying…” she said, more to herself than to me, “What’s his name?”

“I never named him; I’m just rehabbing him while he recovers from an injury. He was attacked by a purthis.”

“Is that true little guy? How terrible.” She kept using that sweet voice.

“He was half dead in the lake by our house. My dad is a huge sucker for animals and he stitched him up, but wanted to keep him in clean water while his wound healed.”

“Poor guy. Your mom doesn’t mind? My mom would have killed my dad for bringing something home like that.”

“Actually, my mom is dead,” I waited for the inevitable apology, the awkward air and the sympathetic eyes that always followed that announcement.

“Oh of course, sorry. I knew that,” she said looking at me from the side.

“How did you know that?” I asked.

“She was in the Flying Force, Select Privy Mate Lalotay Hatawti. Kind of a legend actually. Sorry, it was in your file.” She was still focused on the scherlot, petting his wet head and feeding him the bread.

“It’s fine. That was twenty years ago, I barely remember her,” I shrugged. That was a lie. I could picture her face in my mind as perfectly as if she were standing right in front of me. The air felt stiff with silence, so I left to get more snacks from my cupboards.

“He needs a name.”

“You name him then,” I said as I came back into the room, arms full of food.

She had grabbed a bag of wheat fluff from my arms and opened it. Instead of going back into the front room, she sat on my bed. The air bed was like sleeping on a cloud. Thousands of tiny tubes piped temperate air upwards, under a special sheet that trapped it and made it feel like a person was flying. She laid back with her arms spread out on my bed, appreciating the feeling of weightlessness for a moment her eyes closed. Then, as if electrified she jumped up and clapped her hands together.

“We have so much to learn! Let’s get started!” I groaned and opened another bag of wheat fluff for myself as she looked through what she’d brought along.

In spite of her demeanor, Notawa was brilliant. She was able to recall endless facts at the drop of a hat and already knew the entire contents of the material she had.

We skipped going to the cafeteria at dinner in favor of a few protein bars and some more wheat fluff. We were on a roll and Notawa didn’t want to interrupt that. A small part of me didn’t want to face the line in the cafeteria again, either. Let them laugh and spread rumors about me for a while and maybe it would run its course.

Notawa left at lights out but I stayed up for a while. The first few seconds of silence after she left were too much. I laid in bed, eyes wide open. Not at all tired in spite of the exercise and chaos. At home, I had always slept with a noise machine, but it wasn’t in the room. It was more than that though, and I realized after another few minutes that I was lonely. After all, it was my first night in a new environment. Notawa’s presence in my room wasn’t as annoying as I had thought. I played a game on my calcumat for a while before falling back onto my pillow. Sleep was becoming necessary if I was going to function at all the next day. The book next to my bed was a thick record of flight codes, if anything could put me to sleep, that would be it.