Page 5 of Homebound
She left his cell and re-engaged the lock.
Ruby trudged by on her way to the elevator, and Gemma decided to go down with her to change the water in her bucket.
“Do you need help with the walls?” Gemma asked as they walked side by side.
“I don’t have much left. I could’ve finished by now if not for silly Xosa. I swear, those things have the smarts of a gerbil. They hoard stuff, hide food under the mattress and then find it and eat it. Well, guess what? Now your food ain't the same it was a week ago. Then they get sick and barf all over the cell.” Ruby shook her head in utter disgust. “Next time it happens, I ain’t cleaning his mess.”
Gemma had to smile at Ruby’s obvious indignation. “Is Xosa that boy at the end of the corridor?”
“He’s full grown. You couldn't tell though, and not only because they look like scrawny teenagers. They act like ones. Hard to believe that Xosa can operate intergalactic spaceships. I wouldn’t trust one with a bicycle.”
They got into the elevator together and pushed their respective bucket contraptions to the opposite corners. Ruby shut the mesh wire door and pulled the lever down. Deep inside the basement, the motor cranked to life and the cabin jerked, started moving in shuddering spurts. Gemma placed her hand against the wall to keep her balance, the action subconscious now after so many months of surviving the jarring descents and ascents.
“I cleaned Simon’s cell,” Gemma confided in the semi-darkness. “It was so dirty.”
Ruby chuckled. “I bet. He’s an odd one, and believe me, that’s saying a lot, what with all kinds of weird folk in here.”
“He didn’t eat his food.”
“He rarely does. We bring him his meal every so often, but he hardly ever touches it. ”
“Every so often?” Gemma couldn't suppress her shock.
Ruby shrugged. “Why give it to him if he wouldn't eat it? A waste of good food, if you ask me.”
“But he’ll starve!”
Ruby didn’t share her indignation or her concern. “This Simon needs to figure out what he wants to do,” she said flatly. “He can eat his food like everybody else, or he can die. Ain’t gonna make much difference in our lives.”
Chapter 2
The stars came out en masse and twinkled down on Gemma after the heavy prison door opened and spit her out, tired and hungry, at the end of her day. She took a few steps down the sidewalk and stopped, breathing in the cold winter air and letting her eyes adjust to the lack of light. It was cave-dark on the street, the new moon giving out no light to guide her home, but the myriads of brilliant stars against the backdrop of the black sky looked as magnificent as ever.
Throwing her head back, Gemma gazed up fascinated by the timeless beauty of the cold white lights above. Somewhere there, in the vastness of the Universe, the warm Meeus orbited its personal sun, a planetary system of two. It and its little sun-star were invisible from Earth, but Gemma calculated the direction in which the planet would be located based on the constellations she could distinguish in the sky. She knew how to point in the approximate direction of Meeus since she was taught basic astronomy in third grade. Of course, the star clusters looked a bit turned back then, looking up from The Islands where she grew up.
She sighed, taking in another dose of the burning cold air, and shivered. Dropping her head to look where her feet were stepping, she started walking home. No point in ruminating over her sweet and sunny birthplace. That life was gone with the wind, or rather, awash in red oil and a host of other chemical compounds. The man-made disaster had wiped out all life in the area. The ashes of her ancestral home had become wind-borne toxic dust. The Islands were now a dead zone, dangerously contaminated, incompatible with life.
She’d heard rumors that some aliens tried to set up a temporary base there to mine for minerals, but the enterprise didn’t last. They died.
The way things were going in the City, it looked like they were all heading by way of The Islands, only slower. Involuntarily, Gemma glanced up to the sky again, seeking the elusive Meeus where people of means, or at least those skilled in something useful, now dwelled. Where Zeke had gone to, promising to send for her.
A loud siren rent the air, followed by a clang and sounds of metal grating against metal. Gemma barely noticed, so used she was to the music of the docks where workers like Uncle Drexel operated in shifts. Bright dock lights shone in the distance, but they were too far away from where Gemma was walking to be of any help.
The prison was separated from the busy dock area by a junkyard where hundreds of old spaceships, discarded sweepers, and other broken vehicles, stripped of every little part that could be reused, were piled up and left to rust in peace. The place held a haunting beauty when viewed during the day, but at night its ghostly jagged shapes rose like something out of a nightmare.
Gemma walked fast and looked straight ahead until she left the junkyard behind and reached the barracks, home to the army of City’s militants that kept troublemakers in check and maintained a semblance of order in the City. Sparse lamps threw around pale weak light that made this area downright cheery compared to the phobia-inducing junkyard.
Not for the first time, Gemma looked at the barracks with suppressed longing, regretting that her foot can never get good enough for her to enlist. Militant service included food rations, and a clothing allowance, and a place to sleep - so many worries taken care of in one sweep. Stability. Security.
With her right ankle aching like it usually did at the end of the day, Gemma walked on, past the barracks, past some long-abandoned dilapidated buildings, past a former shopping plaza that was slowly becoming one with nature, and through a winding narrow street framed on both side with compact houses surrounded by tall wood fences. Reaching her destination, she mounted the five steps to the door and knocked loudly in a special way.
After a short pause, she heard a heavy bolt carefully slide and the door opened a crack to allow a small gray eye to peep at her. Upon establishing her identity, the door was opened wide enough to allow her to pass and closed again.
She was as close to being home as she could get.
“Hi, Desh. How was your day?”
Her little cousin wrinkled his nose. “Okay, I guess. It was cold.”
