Jack.

Jack springs up as soon as Jill is finished, pushing her over to the seat he occupied and shuffling his feet. “Okay…um, um here I go!”

I grin and let Jill clamber up onto my lap; she seems intent on using me as a pillow so I make no attempt to ask her to move. Her head briefly blocks my field of view and Jack’s face is obscured—I move my head to the side and he reappears from behind Jill’s grayish plating. “Sounds good, Jack. Whenever you’re ready.”

“O-okay.” Jack scratches his head and breathes deep. He stares at his feet, blinks at me and Jill, goes back to analyzing his feet. It’s normal for him—Jack tends to think over what he says before he says it, which makes his words that much more endearing to me. Jill speaks her mind and dredges up ideas like a volcano coughs up obsidian; Jack’s thoughts take time to reach the surface, like turquoise or amethyst, but shine in another, wonderful way. Smiling to myself, I continue the metaphor: I would be bronze—different ideas and concepts combined and heat-treated. Not exactly the best thing out there but still useful at times.

“Oh! Then I see Queen Mab hath been with you!” Jack’s shout startles me out of my revere. The little poleepkwa has punched at the air with his fists and voice, eyes wide and flicking back and forth. I can tell that he’s going to be outspoken for this one…maybe I should have closed the door. No, no—it’s best if people hear this. It’s going to be interesting. “She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes in a shape no bigger than an agate-stone on the fore-finger of an alderman, drawn with a team of little atomies over men’s noses as they lie asleep!”

He cocks his head, points to nothing in particular and squints. “Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners’ legs, the cover of the wings of grasshoppers, the traces of the smallest spider’s web, the collars of the moonshine’s watery beams, her whip of cricket’s bone; the lash of film. Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat, not half so big as a round little worm pricked from the lazy finger of a maid.” He makes a small circle with his finger and thumb and peers through it, smiling at me and Jill and illustrating the insane tininess of the thing. His sister squirms and laughs a bit; I smile and nod in encouragement.

“Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut, made by the joiner squirrel or an old grub, time out o’ mind the fairies’ coachmakers. And in this state she gallops—” He jumps, actually jumps up, and lands back down on his feet only to start up again and run in place. “—night by night, through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love; O’er courtiers’ knees, that dream on curtsies straight, O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees, O’er ladies ‘ lips, who straight on kisses dream,”

With each repetition of the word “o’er” his antennae flick; the words and their meaning seem to be vibrating through every scrap of his plating, energizing my usually-quiet child and goading him to speak louder and with a note of jollity in his voice that even I have rarely heard. This was why I wanted them to read Shakespeare, I muse: the fact that words hundreds of years old could excite children today. Maybe, one day, something that we write will do the same—maybe hundreds of years from now people will be reading works of literature by those of us born here on earth and marveling at them the way we are now. Maybe—enough with the maybe. Jack is speaking…I have to listen.

“Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are. Sometime she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose, and then dreams he of smelling out a suit. And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig’s tail, tickling a parson’s nose as a’ lies asleep, then dreams he of another benefice: sometime she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck, and then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon drums in his ear!”

He’s so excited now that he’s stumbling over the words, spitting out the syllables like they’re hot food that, no matter how tasty it is, has burned his tongue. Jill picks up on his energy—how they can do that, I have no clue. Is it a remnant of our species’ hive mind or simple understanding?—and jumps out of my lap, grabbing his hands and hugging him.

“At which he starts and wakes, and being thus frighted swears a prayer or two and sleeps again—merf. Merf…eef.” Jack giggles and returns the hug, cutting off mid-sentence and bursting into laughter. It’s apparent that he’s not going to continue, but it’s fine; he’s happy, Jill’s happy, so it’s—

“You say something! You gotta say something!” I barely manage to hear Jack’s words before he and Jill catapult into my lap.

It’s wonderful.

Jill.

“To be, or not to be--that is the question: whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them.”

How strange it is, hearing a voice so young utter words so old. Shakespeare is much, much older than Jill…almost fifty times her age, when you think about it. Yet here she is, eyes closed, antennae swishing to the rhythm of the soliloquy, flicking at the end of each line as she unconsciously clenches her hands tightly on the book; the words are slipping, it seems, and she must grab them else they fly away.

“To die, to sleep—no more—and by a sleep to say we end the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep—to sleep—perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause.”

They aren’t escaping, though—they’re fluttering about like tamed birds, the tentative quality of her voice only adding to the hesitant nature of the words. Hamlet isn’t sure of himself when he’s saying this in the play…quite the opposite. He’s anxious, confused and afraid of how his life may continue—or end. Can’t she see that she’s mastered it? She’s remembering it perfectly, every last word. I am so proud…at her age, what was I doing? Compulsively measuring cracks in a wall. Not memorizing famous speeches, not reading up a storm, studying science, excelling in art. My children are, though, and it is amazing. Where will they be when they are my age? What will they be able to do?

“There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong…the proud man's contumely, the pangs of despised love, the law's delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin?” Jill pauses to giggle—she always laughs when she says “bodkin”—then presses on, her voice grave and sad. It’s not an act; she knows exactly what she’s talking about and how it relates to life today. The emotion is real. I feel guilty…why did I suggest that they memorize separate speeches from Shakespeare? I should have seen this coming…but no, even then it wouldn’t amount to much. Life is full of reminders of how bad things can be—after all, D10 is still here, people are still dying…perhaps it’s best that this reminder is less direct and beautiful in its own right.

Jack is sitting next to me, nodding off against my side and clutching the copy of “Romeo and Juliet” close. For a second I wonder if it’s smart to let him sleep and read his snippet of Shakespeare later, maybe tomorrow when he’s more rested; I shake my head at the thought immediately after. No, he’d be upset that he didn’t recite his soliloquy right after Jill, no matter how tired he was. As if in affirmation, Jack stirs and blinks over at his sister, smiling a bit and looking down at his book. His mandibles move silently as he reiterates the words. My antennae flick and I focus on Jill again.

“Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns, puzzles the will…” Jill pauses and stares at me, eyes wide and a blank expression flickering across her features to be quickly covered by fear and embarrassment. She’s forgotten the words.

I give her a few moments to try to find her place before prompting her with the next few words. “And makes us rather bear…?”

A small spark seems to light up her eyes and she continues the sentence, stumbling over the words and going back to her original rhythm.

“Bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprise of great pitch and moment with this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action—Soft you now, the fair Ophelia!—Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered!”

Rescue, part 1.

I spent the rest of the day hiding from the runners, ducking into dumpsters and hiding under cars whenever I heard footsteps come near. That sort of routine had been beaten into my brain already from my time in the egg trade; it was only a matter of slipping back into that old frame of mind. Judith found me much later, sitting on top of a demolished cardboard box in a dumpster.

“What the fuck happened to you?” She wrenched the top of the dumpster off, ripping it open as if it was a piece of tin foil. Her black face peered down at me and her eyes were narrowed.

I swallowed and hoarsely spoke—my throat was dry from lack of water. I’d used the single bottle of water I’d brought to rinse out the burns on my hip, which was pointless now that I was hiding in a garbage pail. “Not planning…hello Judith.”

“Can you walk?”

No. I chewed back the retort and tried to get up. “Umm…I don’t know.” Judith made a small noise of discontent and grabbed me, lifting me up out of the dumpster as if I weighed nothing. As I had predicted, my hip screeched with pain and I winced, balancing on the uninjured leg. “Thank you…”

My rescuer towered over me, at least a foot taller, if not two or more. Judith’s voice was underlain with a growl, though her face betrayed no expression. It was as if someone was standing behind her, speaking with that rough voice while she stood there, seemingly unperturbed. “Who did this to you?” Her antennae swished a bit and she glanced at my blackened plating.

“Just some runners. I pissed them off…it was my fault.” It was my fault—if I had taken the time to at least cover up the Blue Fly logo, I wouldn’t have been burned. Of course, they would have cornered me for the absence of a tag as well…damn. I guess I shouldn’t have ventured out on this wild goose chase at all.

Causally, Judith lifted up a lapel of the overcoat she wore to reveal the shiny metal of a shotgun barrel. Immediately I hissed and looked around to see if anyone was watching. “Put that away! Put it away, before anyone sees! They’ll kill you!” She couldn’t be serious…she wasn’t actually intending to take revenge. No—this was a backup weapon, in case something bad happened. It had to be, because nobody in their right mind would go up against a runner or a dealer.

Judith snickered and smoothed the fabric of her jacket out. “I’ve been in worse places.”

“Maybe…but they’ll still kill you. They’ll rape you, take the gun, and blow your brains out.” Trying to ignore the stabs of pain from my roasted, heat-warped plating, I hobbled off further into the alley. “We’ve got to hide—”

I was stopped by Judith’s tight grip on my shoulder and pulled back like a mouse being tugged out of a hole by its tail. “What fucking side are you on?” She sounded disgusted with me, and her mandibles splayed out ever-so-slightly with each word.

“The side that doesn’t get me raped.” I wrenched my shoulder free from her grasp.

Calmly, Judith took out the shotgun and tapped it against my chest, knocking at my sub-arms with the barrel. “It looks like that would be my side.” She snarled. “Now get it through your fucking shell plates—it’s either you or them.”

Memory briefly overlapped with reality; as if in double exposure, I saw Sirius standing there, a crowbar in his hand and safety pins in his mandibles. The pain in my hip and leg was from a pipe, and the distant honking of cars was the ringing of telephones. You ain’t got friends here, Rigel. You just got people who haven’t conned you yet. You get over before they get over, or you won’t last a night. Hear me?

“Do you want to run away like a scared little prawn, or do you want to fight for your freedom?” The brief image melted away and it was Judith again, the shotgun now cocked and ready.

I sidestepped it. “I want to stay alive.”

“You're afraid. You're weak. You won't take revenge for yourself! Your kids are fucked if this is how you defend them.”

Easy for her to say. She had training, experience with ‘warriors.’ The egg trade had no rules, no matches, no wins. Just losses, and the occasional chance at delaying your loss and pain. “You don’t get revenge here. You just dig yourself a deeper grave.” I felt my mandibles splay out. “And leave Jill and Jack out of this.”

Judith’s voice was cold and furious. “You never give in. You never submit. You fight! That is how you live, Olo.” When I said nothing she lowered the gun and flicked the safety on. “You know, maybe your kids are better off with you dead. Perhaps I should take over as their parent. Because you are obviously too weak...to protect anyone.”

Judith, taking care of Jill and Jack. Just a month or so ago I would have denied that and protected them all the more, but now…she was right. I was weak and unable to protect them, whereas she…she wasn’t a call-prawn. She was better than me. It made sense.

“Yeah. What are you going to do about it? I’m going to take custody of your kids and you’re going to stand there looking sad…”

My eyes widened, but everything just seemed dimmer. “It would be better.”

Judith looked confused for a millisecond, but quickly masked the expression with a bitter tone and a flicking of her antennae. “Oh, that's great then. I'm going to be able to start them on their military careers early then. Private third class Jack and Jill. Two good little soldiers, but remember that if they make any mistakes…” She pantomimed smacking something, backhanding the air and grinning. “…they get hit like the rest of the recruits.”

Jack—Jill—hit? They shouldn’t be abused; if this was where this was going…I didn’t know what to think. I responded with the first thing that came to mind. “Don’t fucking say that.”

She ignored me and instead snickered, something like glee in her voice. “Jack and Jill went up a hill I told them not to go up. Jack gets smacked down and Jill gets put in her place.” Laughing, she turned and began walking away. “I like it.”

No—I numbly snatched up a half-empty bottle of booze and broke it against the wall near me. The wet glass slid in my grasp, but I didn’t tighten my grip as I held it out as a makeshift shank. “Shut the fuck up. You can beat the living shit out of me—rape me if you even want to—but you never talk about Jack and Jill like that.” It was true; I couldn’t care less at this point what happened to me, but if it determined my children’s well-being then maybe I should start caring. I would never let them be hurt.

The other poleepkwa nodded slightly and the cold tone leached from her words. “Good. Now, are you fighting the dealers or not?”

Fighting the dealers? Impossible. You couldn’t kill Blue Fly, or a runner, without signing your own death warrant. They were stronger, more equipped, and more versed in street-smarts then I. Vaguely I noticed that I was making tiny, choked noises and shuddering.

A hint of encouragement reverberated in Judith’s voice. “You've already got a weapon. You've got inspiration. And I know how to signal the dealers. Heard a call prawn do it when I was searching for you. She gives a low whistle, the signal.” She twitched her mandibles and made a loud whistling noise. “Now they’re coming Olo. Your friends. Time to figure out if you're worth the life you've been given.” She stepped back into the shadows and vanished from view.

The runner ducked into our alley before I could say anything. She scanned the dark alley and raised an eyebrow when she saw me. “’Sup, squiddie? Finally decided to make things golden?”

There were only a handful of options right now. I could cry out for Judith to help me, but she would most likely stay hidden and that would only alert any other runners to my presence. I could try to overpower her, and get shot—the small lump of a salt-and-pepper gun could be seen at her waist. Unlikely that she had any big bullets in such a tiny gun, but even a small bullet could cause big trouble if you got hit in the wrong place.

Which left only one option, if you could call it that.

“Y-Yes. I have…” I limped towards the runner, dropping the bottle and hunching over. I tried to make myself look even smaller and weaker as I crept closer to her. “I-I’m small, but I’m experienced. I’ll sell for a lot. Just—”

“Shut it, grillo.” The runner held up a hand in a combined fuck-off/shut up gesture. “You’re gonna come with me, get Oro’s tag, and then we’ll bring you to the breaker. ¿Entienda?”

I was within range. I reached out and grabbed her, yanking her to the side and hissing as my hip screamed. She reached for the gun—it fired, but I felt no pain. Her neck was closer, so I grabbed hold of it and pushed my hand forward, dashing her head against the wall where the stain of beer from that bottle still dripped down. Breaking the skull wasn’t like breaking the glass, though…it took a few blows for her to stop moving. I stepped back and turned away, bile rising in my raw throat. What had I done?

“Great, Olo. Half the fucking neighborhood could hear that smack.” Judith mumbled from my side. I whirled; she was standing next to me with an irritated expression. “Let’s hope they didn’t…”

“What the hell?” The other runner was here now, along with several others.
Still reeling from the crack of bone on concrete, I snatched up the pepper pistol and pointed it at the small group. I had no clue how to use it, but maybe the bluff would do the trick. “Clear out—clear the fuck out, now!” The New York slang came naturally and I whispered to Judith: “The neighborhood won’t care. if we can get over on these guys, we’ll…we’ll be clear.”

“Alright.” Judith drew her shotgun and blinked. “I’d listen to the prawn if I were you.” She cocked the gun and pointed it at the nearest man’s head.

“You can’t fucking get us all, grillo.” They drew their own weapons, and for some reason I was reminded of Act 1, Scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet. ‘You bite your thumb at me, sir?’ ‘Draw, if you be men!’

Judith snarled at that. “Slavers! Fucking die!” She fired, clipping the first man’s shoulder and moving on to the next one. Somebody flicked their safety off; she threw the gun at them. It knocked them down and he lay still on the pavement. While one of the still-standing runners took off running, his partner aimed and fired at Judith.

“No—” She didn’t need my warning. Judith leapt up into the air and avoided the rounds, landing catlike in front of the lone man. She crunched down on his head, mandibles scratching at the flash and cleaving bone; blood sprayed lightly on the wall and the stench of death spread out like a fog. As a last gesture, Judith simply grabbed the man’s wrists…and ripped his arms out of their sockets. Simple as that—he could have been a paper doll. The corpse fell to the ground and made an awful thudding noise. No, that wasn’t paper. That was flesh, torn, bloody, dead flesh.

Judith wiped blood from her face and smirked at me. “That’s how you kill humans, Olo.”

Burned.

Seeing my foster parents was unnecessary; as soon as I got into the city there were signs of the dealers’ presence. Spray-painted tags that had sloppy poleepkwan writing concealed within their designs, numbers written in the insides of public telephones and bathroom stalls. “For an out-of this world experience, call XXX-XXXX;” “got shrimp? Call this number.”

It was dark when I arrived in Flagstaff, and early in the morning. The night life was out and about, stalking fresh meat for the market and piling their “wares” up and down streets and in the few buildings I managed to sneak a peek into. Like the docks in New York, I wasn’t noticed—I stuck to the alleys and other undesirable locations, and the few people that saw me could care less. What’s the point of reporting a prawn here? Better to jump him if he looks like he’s got something worth stealing and leave his twitching corpse for the fuzz to find.

Something worth stealing…like a backpack. I realized my fatal flaw as soon as the calling started.

“’Ay. Grillo.” Strangely, this voice was feminine; the smug, boisterous tone of a runner was unmistakable. “’Sup?”

Tentatively I turned and stared at a wall just past the woman’s ear, not directly looking at her but analyzing what she looked like. You never look a runner in the eyes, or a dealer. It’s disrespectful, and more than enough reason for them to kill you. I didn’t want to get killed or seriously miamed, so instead I averted my gaze and croakily spoke. “What?”

“You’re pretty far from your stable, ain’t ya?” She pointed to my lower torso. “I see that tag you carryin’. It ain’t ours.”

“Urm…yes. Yes, it’s not yours, but I’m just passing through—” Fuck! If they thought I was trying to sell to anyone here, I was dead. I still had Blue Fly’s logo embossed on my hip, which when coupled with the fact I was sneaking around made me look guilty.

“Bullshit. You’re turning tricks, ain’t ya?” A deeper voice cut in from my left. It must have been another runner, or maybe even a bodyguard—this guy was tough. Silent alarm bells went off in my head as the man walked in closer. “Ain’t ya, camarón?” He pinned me against the wall with a forearm. “I asked you a fucking question.”

I whimpered and felt the dull crinkle of bills through the cloth of my bag against the wall of the alley. “I…don’t want any trouble…” This was too much like all the times I’d angered Blue Fly, all the times I’d done or said something wrong by mistake and paid dearly from it. “Please j-just let me go…please please please…” I could almost hear the phones again and feel that pipe bashing against my skin. Vishnu, this was it…world-wide, this was it. New York, D10, Arizona…it’s like this everywhere. Where could I go where I wouldn’t be raped or mugged by someone?

“Nah. I don’t think I will. Hey chica, get the light. Let’s put some shrimp on the Barbie.” He held out a hand; the woman put something into it and stepped back, grinning. I met her eyes this time—she glared back and I looked down. The man smirked and shifted his grip on me; he held a lighter. With sickeningly deft moves, he smashed it against the wall and let the clearish liquid drip on the section of plating that the logo was painted on. It was as if he’d practiced it; I tried to squirm free as the other runner lit a match and held it to my soaked hip. The lighter fluid ignited immediately, and it felt like someone had decided to rip my plating off.

I failed. I’ve done nothing except get myself hurt and make it worse for any poleepkwa in the area. I’m so sorry everyone...please forgive me, or at least overlook this transgression. I haven’t gotten anything done…

On The Road Again...

“Promise you won’t be gone for a long time?”

We were curled up on one of the couches in the rec room, oblivious (for now) to the tiny tears our exoskeletons made in the fabric. You could tell which chairs and sofas were preferred by the poleepkwa who worked at the base—after a while they looked moth-eaten and gnawed by the small puncture wounds unknowingly produced by spines.

Jack, Jill and I were all huddled together in a collection of shell plates, warmth, and comfort. Jack blinked up at me with wide eyes as Jill tugged at my vestigial arms playfully. His voice was wavering. “Promise you’ll be back soon?”

A small brown knapsack—borrowed from ARFA’s locker room—lay at my feet; my tattered overcoat (found in a trashcan in d10) was on my back. It was the little things that broke apart the happiness of the moment, the tiny indications that no matter how wonderful this frame of time was, it would have to end soon. Sighing, I wrapped my arms around them both and smiled wanly as they snuggled in close and warbled quietly. They were always so happy if someone hugged them, even if they were worried before...it’s as if that simple embrace has the power to erase the worst of fears and anxieties. Vishnu, they were my little angels, love and intelligence in poleepkwan form. The sentimentality is well-deserved for them—I don’t lie when I say that, or think it. It’s true, every single word.

Quietly I spoke, eyes darting around to check if anyone was listening in. Nobody should know ahead of time what I had planning, except my children. I didn’t want to cause unnecessary worry or goad someone into coming along by accident. Quickly in, quickly out, and it would be over; ideally that was the way this was going to work out. “I promise. I’ll be back Monday, maybe even sooner. I won’t be gone long.” My grin grew in earnest. “Hey, we’ll even watch a movie when I’m back here. How does that sound?”

They were enchanted by the idea, and began babbling excitedly. My practiced antennae managed to pick up their individual statements even when they spoke at the same time.

“Ooh—ooh—can it be the Jungle Book?”

“Can Judith watch too?”

“And Jake?”

“Jake’s got a lot of bruises, have you noticed, Jack?”

“Yeah. I think Judith’s—“

“I’ve got to go…” Carefully I moved them to the side, off of my lap, and sadly hugged them one last time. “I’ve got a train to catch.” I broke off the sentence there…they didn’t need to know that I’d quite literally be doing that. Better for them to think I paid for my ticket, or was given a ride.

Jill and Jack watched me leave the room, clutching onto each other with the space I had occupied still between them. I was strangely heartbreaking to watch—as if they would stay that way for the rest of the weekend, waiting for me to return and slide back into place so everything would be normal and happy. Secretly a part of me hoped that that was true, and they would wait. They’d wait, and know without a doubt that I’d come back.
_______________________________________________________

“Six-fifty. Damn, you’re far from home.”

I grimaced and jotted something down on a notepad: ‘you could say that, but I’d rather you didn’t. I won’t bother you. I just want the food.’ I didn’t expect anyone to understand me here, so I’d had the foresight to bring along plenty of pens and a pad of paper for communicating. Pulling the crumpled wad of bills from my backpack, I held up seven of them and passed them over to the tanned, weary man. Luckily he didn’t object to their ratty condition. Vishnu was on my side in that respect—I’d had no time or means to tidy them up. His wrinkled face split oven in a gap-toothed smile; money was money, and I’d given him more then he’d asked for. Good—that meant I might actually get the beef jerky I’d been eying.

The old man grinned and pocketed my money, then passed over the bag of jerky, winking at me with a slightly filmy eye. “Who’s going to listen to an old guy like me? Go on, mister alien. I won’t tell a soul. There’s no-one here who’d believe me anyway.” He croakily laughed and swept an arm out to encompass the dry landscape. “’Cept maybe those folks in that building east of here. I reckon you’ve heard of them.”

Was he talking about ARFA? Hopefully not. The base was supposed to be secret. I shrugged and bolted, stuffing the remaining money and jerky into my backpack. Now I had food, and therefore one less worry.

I caught the train later as it sped by. It’s a simple method, albeit dangerous. You jump up, grab onto anything you can get at and climb onto the top of a boxcar, keeping your grip against the howl of air moving past you as the train speeds ahead. It’s terrifying, it really is, and I hope I don’t have to do this very often. I read about it from books written during the Great Depression, though it’s a lot easier said—or read—then done. Vishnu granted me another boon today: there was an opening in one of the boxcars that enabled me to drop in. Right now I’m huddled amidst boxes of I don’t know what, typing away at this little phone and watching the service indicator in case it runs out. There are two bars left out of five, so I better hurry this up.

I’m fine; I’m about to cross the state border and go into Arizona. My destination is Scottsdale, though I’ll end up in Flagstaff beforehand. There’s been…well, I’ve gotten word from my parent, about my parent. The people that owned me finally decided to contact me via email (I guess they read the blog) and say they’re willing to point me to the guy they bought me from. This is, quite possibly, some of the stupidest things I’ve done, I know it, but if this turns out good…I could at least learn about my real parent, if not see them.

One bar left. I’ve got to go. Good night, everybody, and see you Monday.

They seem to think that I've been saving people in District 10 all this time, that I've done good and liberated the oppressed. Apparently someone told Jack and Jill this, and it grew in their minds as ideas can only do with children. It's an amazing thing...leave them with a simple explanation and they craft a mythology in your absence, substituting the real flesh that isn't there at the moment with words and ink and dreams and hopes and aspirations. Wonderful, simply incredible; it's horrific, because their Olo isn't the Olo that I am. I haven't done the things they think I've done because I can't. I couldn't have done it--I have none of Sherry's drive or Seth's strength or Jake's tenacity or Christian's intelligence...for the past week or so I've been the trashcan prawn, the call-prawn who sold their own flesh for empty promises. Not a "hero."

I...I want to hold them close and just tell them flat out, whisper it to them: Vishnu has made you too good for me, or I have made myself too low for you. Either way, it isn't as nice as you think it is. I'm not the hero you seem to think I am, and as much as I try I will never be. Don't you realise that? Don't you see that, you wonderful, amazing, enthusiastic fools? I love you two with all my heart, and yet that heart is breaking because I will never be good enough. You need--you deserve--someone with a heart of gold; mine is pewter and fired ceramic.

I don't speak the words; they claw up my throat but are beaten back until they retreat and tear at my stomach and lungs. I simply move on and walk through the base. It helps, somehow, to be in motion...like the air moving around me will carry away some of these thoughts. Sharklike--stop swimming and you die, you asphyxiate. Somewhere in the back of my head I visualise pipes and tarp, hear the faint echo of a telephone. Do I really deserve this life, or that one? Who made that decision?

No. That question no longer matters...whoever or whatever decided, decided. What I'd like to know is how they made that choice, and why. Vishnu has His reasons, and I've been content thus far to rest easy with that knowledge. But now, I'm not. Out of all those killed in the egg trade and d10--this entire crisis and war--I wasn't. Maybe I should have been, if that meant keeping the greater, kinder, more deserving ones alive. So many have died...the innocent, the oppressed. They died, but I haven't; a call=prawn hasn't died. It's almost laughable...such a rarity. But why? Why have I lived when the better ones haven't? Why?

Solicitation.

“Hey, prawn.”

That used to be an insult or a warning—when I heard that I would tense, look around and brace myself for danger, altercation. Now it isn’t; it’s a call, a request that’s closer to a demand but still tentative, still polite in the uncertainty of the outcome of this situation.

I could do two things in response to this; acquiesce and submit, or deny and flee. What I have to offer is too valuable, too sought after and rare in its deplorable quality, to risk being damaged…they wouldn’t shoot at me. There’s always the chance, though. They might, if they think that they’re getting blown off or stiffed. Destroy the thing that refuses to obey…that’s the reasoning behind D10 it seems. Grunts appear to think like that when they bring the cattle prods to touch our plating, when they stomp down with heavy boots and squash our flesh into the dust…

Out of fear alone—or is it more? Is this just the life drive, pressuring me to remain alive and aware, or am I seeking death, and becoming unaware? Does it even matter at this point?—I halt, turn around and plaster a masklike grin onto my face. This is my protection…I have no weapons or strength, but only deceit to defend myself with. You know nothing of what I’m thinking, human. You have no idea what I could be planning. I know what you want, but do you know what I want? No. You don’t, and you never will. I’ll sooner die then let you penetrate my brain along with the rest of me. “Yes?”

And then we’re grinding away at it, flesh roughly scraping against flesh for no reason other then the rand note. The rand note…it’s nothing but a slip of paper. Its worth is assumed…you can’t eat money, or drink it when you’re thirsty or use it as a coat when it gets cold. It’s a promise, a chance at getting the things you need; a chance, nothing more.

Is this why the other person enjoys it? Do they think that they’ve won something—they’re getting instant gratification while I must wait to receive mine? I have nothing to show for this, while they’ll walk away flushed, a smirk on their face, delighted and tingling. I have a scrap of printed paper for my troubles.

What the john thinks is immaterial. We’re both filling out our end of the deal, and we could care less what the other thinks. For something supposedly so intimate, sex is cold and detached. I’ll be gone soon enough—he won’t have to look at me again or worry about feeding, clothing, caring about me. If he wants, I’m just a walk down the street, a phone call away. Available, but not always there. All play, no work.

Maybe that’s what they want: detachment. They want it, but without the intimacy, or the work of caring about the thing you’re screwing. I’m not a living, thinking, feeling being to this man—the only part he’s interested in is the bit there between my legs. The rest of me could be rotting, ravaged, wet with decay and he wouldn’t care. He’d still keep grinding away, sending wave after wave of pain spasming up my spine, lengthening the splits in my plating with unconscious rocking motions. I could die and he wouldn’t care.

They want to get something for nothing. That will never happen, though—there’s no such thing as a free lunch, or free love. You have to work, or give something up, if you expect to receive something else in return. It’s a fallacy to even trust that you’ll get anything at all; things don’t turn out the way you want them to.

When the john is gone, I find a pen and scrawl his name on the rand note. He’d like to pay me off and let the world forget what’s happened here. I won’t…I will remember this. For as long as I have this blood money in my possession, I will look at it and remember where it came from and how it came to be mine. The rest of the world may forget—he may forget—but I will not. I cannot.

Erie Canal.

I've got a mule, her name is Sal,
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.
She's a good old worker and a good old pal.
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.

We've hauled some barges in our day
filled with lumber, coal and hay
And we know every inch of the way from
Albany to Buffalo.

Low bridge, everybody down
Low bridge, for we're coming to a town
And you'll always know your neighbor, you'll always know your pal
If you've ever navigated on the Erie Canal.

We better get along on our way ol'gal,
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.

'Cause you bet your life I'd never part with Sal,
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.
Git up there mule, here comes a lock,
We'll make Rome about 6 o'clock
One more trip and back we'll go, right back home to Buffalo.

I wish I could fully describe the feeling that throbs in the back of my head--pry open my torso, peel back the cracked plating and show you my heart. It's right there, that pewter little bit above the coiled loops of intestine and below the scorched dip of windpipe. Can't you see it--oh, it's gone? Forgive me; sometimes it does that. It disconnects from the center and travels to places elsewhere, crawling away from threats like some obscene jellyfish, some primordial thing crying lamely out for an escape from vague, dully sensed threats. You can try to grasp it and shove it back under the rock from whence it came, screw it back into place like a broken lightbulb, but it still wanders. A crusted, crumbling thing, not close to diamond or gold but more like metal, like copper conducting sparks of something great but never knowing it, never actually being it.

I must have left it behind at one of the trash piles. If that's the case then I don't need to worry; it'll turn up eventually and I'll get it back someday. Nobody's going to steal it...what good is a heart in D10? If there is an afterlife, if there is a hell, then this is the closest allegory to it that will ever slash at the face of this planet. Things happen every day that you could...couldn't even imagine. Values and morals take a backseat to the id, the ever-demanding id, and the life and death drives are shredded and clumsily melded together.

Better yet, it's with Jack and Jill, in America...I hope they're okay. I hope they understand why I can't talk to them, and that they know that I'm not abandoning them...I'd never abandon them. Every night, I can only imagine what they are doing, what they're learning and what they think about it. Jill, my little scientist: what have you analyzed? Have you figured out any answers to your questions, or have they only multiplied and formed into a theory, a hypothesis? Jack, my artist and poet: are you in touch with the tune of things, as you say? What have you made--has it made you?
My kids are growing up, day by day, and I'm not there...