Amy rested her arms on the table, and her head on her arms. Her hair still smelled like Elliott Bay. She'd have wanted to wash it, if she could be persuaded to care. She couldn't believe there was actually a time when she resisted wearing clothes chosen from the trash. It seemed so trivial, now. Her mother was dead. Her dad was in a jail cell somewhere. And no matter how far away from this place Amy got, she would still be stuck with Portia.
"I feel like I'm trading one cage for another."
"You could always try to make it on your own, Amy." On the wall, the scroll showed her images of vN sitting behind an electrified fence at a temporary prison. They wore green jumpsuits and they looked patient, even content. Like they expected to happily reunite with their humans once this whole thing blew over. "I'm sure you'd do just fine, at least for a little while."
A knock sounded on the door. It slid aside, and Javier poked his head through. He was wearing a thin cotton bathrobe and a pair of slippers. "Hey."
"Hey yourself."
He pushed the door the rest of the way, and entered. "Nice room."
Amy looked at the scroll. "Rory, could Javier and I talk in private? We have a lot to go over."
"Of course! I'm way behind on my menu planning; please just ping if you need anything."
Javier frowned at the ceiling, then sat down across from her at the table. He reached across it and plucked something free from her hair: a piece of seaweed. He twisted it between thumb and forefinger until she took hold of it.
"Are you trying to tell me something?"
"The soaking tub is very nice. It has a wide variety of shampoos on tap."
The volume of her sudden, surprised laughter made the room seem smaller and more intimate. She grabbed for Javier's hand, gripping hard. She squeezed, and he squeezed. She looked up and he was looking at her, too, and it was like kissing – or perhaps the moment just before kissing, or maybe a long time after.
"Let me find that zipper."
Amy blinked. She withdrew her hand and folded her arms. She felt a line form between her brows.
Javier threw his hands in the air. "Fine! Do it by yourself. I just thought it might be tricky to get out of."
I'm sure that's what he tells all the girls.
"Oh." Amy tapped a button on her wrist. Instantly, the suit went slack on her skin. It fell down one shoulder and she hastened to pull it back up. "See? It's smart fabric, that's all. No snaps, no zippers."
She made to tighten the suit back up again, but Javier reached for her shoulder. Gently, he pulled the fabric aside. "Jesus."
"What?" She tried to look. "What is it?"
"The compression on that suit was probably the only thing keeping you together," he said. "I can see where your skin stretched out, when your aunts tried to tear you apart. Right here." He ran one delicate finger over her skin. "Christ. I'm sorry."
"For what? You're the one who got dragged in there because of me. I'm the one who should be apologizing."
Javier pulled away. He studied her very closely for a moment, then said: "I think you don't know how bad I've had it, before. Believe it or not, doing interviews with corporate deskjockeys isn't that hard. It's a hell of a lot easier than breaking out of some rathole of a real prison."
"But Junior–"
"Junior will be fine. My boys are strong. I think they've proved that."
"Portia–"
"I'm not on this road with Portia." His head tilted. "When I look at you, I see only you. I don't see her. I know she's in there, but I know she's separate. Like a toxin." Javier pulled the drape of her suit back into place, covering her bare skin. "You drank up all the poison so your mom wouldn't have to. And you've been carrying that poison inside you ever since. But that doesn't make you poisonous yourself."
You know, when he says it like that, I almost believe him.
Amy shut her eyes. "I have to go."
In the bath, she looked at more maps of Mecha. There was a tourism board video, and a succession of photos and films scraped from common feeds, and they all looped over the dark granite tub as Amy scrubbed. She had not had a chance to clean herself up in a long time, and the accumulated grime seemed to have developed a special affection for her skin. No matter how hard she scraped, even when she used her fingernails, it didn't quite come off. And even then, it hid under her nails: the dust of the ruined city and the oil from the bay in greasy grey half-moons that she had to pick out as thoroughly as possible.
When your mother was a little girl, we waited for storms. We ran outside, naked, and danced in the rain.
And then Portia showed it to her: a little girl's body made ghostly by lightning, laughing open-mouthed, her tongue out to catch raindrops.
This is my favourite image of your mother. My baby, wild and free. She should have always stayed that way.