2013 Silver Merit Award Hiding in the Cold

[Nijil tr'Korjata 0]

Hiding in the Cold

 

Sadness surrounded Annisha like a dusty blanket, offering little comfort. Rest was restless. The sounds outside her cabin were unfamiliar. On a ship this size even creepy. Either the cargo ship was old or has seen many light years. Occasionally she heard footsteps pass by the door. Once she heard a voice, but not that of her parents. No one came in to check on her. No one tucked her into bed. And even more frightening - no escape.

 

A hiss in the distance. “Get up!” Shouted a man, the guard from the night before. Annisha stirred, but only a little. A bright light, precise and many lumens, shined upon her face. “Get. Up!” She lifted her head and rubbed her eyes. Now she shielded her eyes from the brightness.

 

“What’s happening?” the Rihan girl asked.

 

“Get up,” he repeated. A clank sounded from the table close to the door. “Eat. All of it.” The guard stood unmoving as Annisha got up to the table. She hobbled a bit, distracted by the light still fiercely pointed at her face. She sat and picked up the utensil, surveying the plate - breakfast. Some runny, yellow, and mostly tasteless blob. The Rihan girl ate eagerly. So too with the drink, oddly very sweet and kind of chalky. The man with the light remained silent as she finished her morning meal.

 

“This thing,” poking at the blob on her plate, "is yucky, and this...oh, I don’t feel so go...” Suddenly with no notice Annisha falls headfirst into that tasteless confection. The drink spills into the table. The liquid inside almost runs off onto the floor.

 

The guard flicks off the light and activates a communicator. “She’s out. The room is secure.” He got behind Annisha and lifted her up by her shoulders. For a moment she’s just sat straight up, out cold. To him she was nothing more than living latinum. He, with no gentleness, picked her up under each arm and tossed her onto the bed. Now she lay stomach first, face to one side. The door hissed open behind him.

 

“Don’t damage the merchandise,” Lovan barked as he passed into the room. His wife and another followed. The other had an all-black case under one arm. “How long will this take Jon’Tal?”

 

“Just like the others Lovan,” the man answered. “If she bleeds or for some reason wakes up this would naturally take longer.” He open the case and removed a cutting instrument. “One wrong move and I sever her spinal cord, paralyzing her from the neck down.”

 

“You better be careful then. Her treatment would be your cut,” Maivei added.

 

“Not to worry dear, you know I’ve done dozens of these procedures. Has our buyer had to dispose of any of his labor due to a device failure?” Jon’Tal asked, knowing the answer. As they spoke he made a vertical incision at the base of her neck. Copper blood trickled down the side of Annisha’s neck.

 

“No, and your little guarantee is why we pay you so well,” Lovan chimed in. He knew where this would lead. Maivei and Jon’Tal seemed at odds at all times.

 

“Good. I’m glad we can always agree on this point.” Jon’Tal reached into his case and pulled out a round, mostly flat piece of smooth metal. It was no more than one centimeter in diameter. He twirled it around in his finger before placing it inside Annisha’s incision. Blood still dripped out as he aligned the metal inside the wound. “There, now to activate and close the cut.” He replaced the knife in his hand with a thin rod, the split tip arching with a blue electric field. “Hold her down,” Jon’Tal commanded.

 

Lovan and Maivei held Annisha down as he brought the tip of the rod inside the incision. At first nothing happened, then, catching the two by surprise, the girl started to convulse violently. She made no verbal sound, but her muscles twitched as if activated all at once. Unseen by her captors, tears of intense pain ran down her cheeks. Jon’Tal got a regenerator from his kit. “Hold her still so I can seal this.” The two looked at each other and redoubled their effort. As they held her tightly against the bed he closed her wound.

 

***

 

Some hours passed, enough for Annisha to believe it to be the next morning. Slowly she awoke, finding herself back in her bed under loose covers. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, but unlike the morning, she felt different. "Mm mm...Uh," she muttered. Alerted to her rousing, Jon’Tal enters.

 

“I see you are finally awake Annisha.” He got out his kit. “My name is Jon’Tal, the ship’s doctor.” The girl started to sit up in her bed. His eyes met hers for a brief moment. “You fell ill after your last meal, an allergic reaction coupled with low blood sugar.”

 

“Really?” she asked, now alert and sitting up. The doctor got out his scanner. He waved it about her as she’d seen dozens of times by dozens of doctors. In truth, her health was a secondary concern. The implant appeared completely functional, its tendrils in all of the right places.

 

“Yes, really. The wooziness you feel is from the medicine and should fade within a few hours.” He closed up the scanner and placed it back in the case.

 

“Were my parents here while I was sick?”

 

Nodding, “Oh yes, they came as soon as the guard called them. They held you as I diagnosed your condition.” His lips curved up into an odd smile. “Now, get some rest and I will your mother and father will recover nicely.” The door hissed open and the doctor disappeared through it.

 

Annisha stayed in her bed for a while. The room remained in a darkened state. A glance to the window showed they were still traveling at warp. Stars streaked by just as silently as before. Her stomach growled over the rumble of the ship’s engines. No food or drink appeared to be on the table, but she could not really see. Pulling off the covers, she hopped over to see if her eyes had deceived. They had not. She put her hands on her hips in disgust.

 

What she did find is the metal utensil from breakfast. It looked like a spoon with three teeth in the middle. Wonder if it would fit between the doors? Her stay is this room tested her restlessness like no other experience before. I need to get out of this place, find my mom and dad.

 

The Rihan girl pounded the spoon into every crevice. Twisted it into every slot. Nothing. The panel, whose password combination she could not guess, did not buckle under the stress of an eight year Old’s thrashing. She walked back a pace and considered for a moment. She walked to the middle of the door where the two panels shut together. “Go in there,” she ordered the spoon. Two millimeters of space between the panels allowed the spoon to fit. No matter where along the door’s length she attempted, they would not move apart. In a final act of defiance she shoved the spoon in and gave it her best effort to release the doors. “Come on! Grrr!” she growled.

 

Without warning and to her astonishment the door opened. The shock was such she fell flat on her back. Her tool fell out of her hand. Out in the hall stood a towering figure, but this time not the guard. “Father! I tri..,” she spoke, then stopped.

 

“Annisha!” Lovan shouted in pure anger. “I told you to remain in this room and this how you treat your father, with disobedience? Your parents must not have raised you with manners. Now get up!”

 

“But I just wanted to see you,” Annisha said, bowing her head, not able to look her father in the eye. She picked herself up.

 

“But nothing. It’s time for a lesson in discipline little girl.” He slipped a hand in his pocket. Annisha could not imagine what would happen next.

 

The signal from the transmitter worked at light speed to tell the device in her neck to begin. The first 100 milliseconds she did felt nothing. The sensation started out as an itch, growing from the middle of her spine. The pain grew as it stretched out, hitting any nerve ending it could find. Lungs, heart, fingers and toes.

 

“A..!”

 

The intensity danced up and down throughout her tiny frame.

 

“Aa..!”

 

The voltages ramped up into the thousands, but not high enough to kill.

 

“Aaah..!”

 

Her body began to spasm back in reaction to the thousands points of pain.

 

“AaahaaA..!”

 

She could do nothing to stop from dropping hard onto the floor below. Her eyes, now wide open, rolled to the back of her head.

 

“AaahaaAaaaHHAA..!”

 

Now she was less than a few centimeters from impact. Her arms and legs contorted out of her control, pain arcing to every appendage.

 

BAM!

 

She hit the back of her head first, but it compared little to the electrical menace now pulsing from neuron to neuron. The tear ducts, also in extreme pain, forced out all of the moisture they could. The effort was futile. They offered no resistance.

 

“AaahaaAaaaHHAA! NOOoo!”

 

She made a gurgling sound as if choking on something. Her tongue blazed in its own Great Fire, consuming any further words. Her arms and legs continued flinching wildly. The acid in her stomach began to well up and travel up her esophagus. Any and all of her stomach left her body.

 

“Don’t disappoint me again,” Lovan stated without so much as concern for the pain he caused. He spun on his heel and left her room. No explanation other than her defiance to the extreme measure he took. The pain crept back to the implanted demonic device nearly as quickly as it spirited out. Her body remained in shock. The sensory centers of her brain still overloaded.

 

Annisha started to go limp as the electrification of her body ceased. The force of her emesis threw a meter away, but left her outfit clean. Goosebumps formed all over her as the world around grew an icy coldness. Tears flowed down her rosy cheeks, both from emotion and pain. Her hazel eyes remained open wide, wishing they could hide a new evil.