Jane 23 thought about that. That seemed a little more good. She walked to the new screen.
Owl continued through the machine – the ship – switching screens on and off. All the rooms were tucked in real tight, like a bunch of storage closets or something. There were so many things in there, all kinds of machines and stuff without names, but thrown around like scrap in a bin. Jane 23 had so many questions. Her stomach hurt from all the questions.
‘Go in that room there,’ Owl said. ‘To your left. Do you know what “left” is?’
‘Yes,’ said Jane 23. Of course she knew what ‘left’ was. She was ten.
‘Do you see that box on the floor? The blue one with the white stripes? Go ahead and open that up.’
Jane 23 did as told, and looked inside the box. Now this stuff she knew. Well, not exactly, but the stuff in the box looked a lot like some of the stuff they used in the med ward.
‘Right, let’s see.’ Owl sounded like the way Jane 23 felt when she couldn’t find the right tool, or if a piece of scrap was acting like junk even though she knew it was good. ‘I wish the sinks were working. We’ll just have to make do. Do you see those little silver tubes? Those are . . . it’s a goo that will kill the bad stuff in your hands.’
Jane 23 nodded. ‘Disinfectant.’
The face on the screen looked surprised. ‘Disinfectant, right. Have you used it before?’
‘No,’ Jane 23 said. ‘But the Mothers do.’
‘Do you think you can use it on yourself?’
Jane 23 thought about this. ‘Yes.’
‘Maybe use a few tubes. You can put some on, and use that gauze there to wipe the disinfectant and the dirt back out. Then put more disinfectant on, and then bandages. Does that . . .’ Owl looked like she was kind of confused, too. ‘Will that work? I’m so sorry, honey, I don’t have hands. I’m just working from memory here.’
‘That sounds okay,’ Jane 23 said. She sat down on the floor and cleaned herself up. The disinfectant hurt and it smelled funny, but the feeling reminded her of getting fixed in the med ward, and that made her feel a little better. She spread the goo on thick, then wiped it away, taking away dust and blood with it. She touched her tongue to the corner of the messy gauze. Blood. Chemicals. Sharp and angry and bad.
Once the blood was gone and the cuts were clean, she put more disinfectant on, and started covering her hands with bandages. ‘Why are you in here?’ she asked Owl.
‘That’s a complicated question. The short answer is I was installed in this ship so that I could help the people who flew it. This – this area was a bad place for them to go, but they thought they knew what they were doing, and—’ She paused. She sounded sad. ‘Anyway, they were arrested – taken away – and the ship and I were thrown out. The people here don’t want things from elsewhere, you see.’ She sighed. ‘This must be so confusing for you. I’ll do my best to make sense of everything.’ The face in the wall gasped. ‘I haven’t asked your name! I’m sorry. It’s been so long since I had someone to talk to. I’m so scattered. Do you have a name?’
‘Jane 23.’
‘Jane 23,’ Owl said. She nodded, real slow. ‘Well, since you’re the only Jane I see here, is it okay if I leave the numbers off?’
Jane 23 looked up from her bandages. ‘Just . . . Jane?’
‘Just Jane.’
Jane couldn’t say why, but that felt kind of good.
SIDRA