A Cage of Butterflies
By Anne Whynn
~*~
Chapter One:
Welcome to District 10
~*~
Africa
Distended bellies.
Wide eyes full of suffering.
Flyblown mouths.
Limbs like leather covered sticks.
The young doctor had never felt more appreciative or more ashamed of her health when she lifted a child so light, she could have held him in one hand. Setting him in a sling, she sighed softly as she scratched down his weight. A full kilo lighter than the week before. She didn't know where he was losing the weight, but he was losing it.
He wasn't responding to the treatment.
Leaning over him, she brushed her fingers over his cheek, cupping his face in her hand, "Hey, little man. C'mon. You got work with me on this, yeah?"
The boy stared at her blankly, mouth agape, mind lost to starvation and sickness. He didn't even comprehend the fact that he was dying beyond his own suffering. Chelsea's throat tightened as the scooped him up in her arms, crying inside at his weightlessness. Returning him to the carer's arms, she watched the woman carry him away, his blank eyes looking at her from over the woman's shoulder.
A hand clapped on her back and Chelsea's own tired eyes glanced at the dark-skinned doctor as he walked past, "You do your best, Chels. Don't beat yourself up about it."
She just shook her head, exhaling sharply, "Yeah. Just… yeah." Realistically she knew she couldn't do any more than she was already doing, but that didn't alleviate the guilt. The overwhelming, oppressive guilt every time a child stopped breathing, every time they plunged another cross into the ground in the little plot behind the dilapidated clinic.
The man that wrapped an arm around her shoulders and hugged her roughly was a black, England-born doctor who had returned to his grandfather's homeland to help his people. He had a kind face that was weathered by a decade of watching those very events pass by his eyes over and over.
She wondered if she had that many lines in her face after only three years.
"Go take a walk," said Morris quietly.
"No, I really should-"
"Go," he pushed her to the door. "Take a walk, clear your head. The clinic coped fine before you got here, and we'll be fine for a fifteen minute walk."
Grimacing, Chelsea pulled off her surgical gloves, tucking them into her belt. The first two months of her tour in Africa she had hated the thought of reusing surgical gloves, but they were simply a commodity that could not be afforded.
Amazing what you took for granted in the big smoke. Taking a water bottle from one of the children that helped around the clinic, she rubbed his head and waved the bottle at Morris, stepping out into the hot African sun. Instantly she felt the direct light on her exposed skin, grimacing faintly and thanking her heritage that ensured she didn't burn easily. As it was, she was a deep shade of bronze from all of her exposure, the kind that women big bucks for, and still couldn't achieve.
Grunting, she uncapped the bottle and upended it, sipping lightly from the contents, so as to better save the amount in the plastic container. She had gotten used to warm water quickly, because she'd still get clean water. Water free of disease and faeces and filth. She could tolerate the warmth.
A flash of reflected light caught her attention and she turned her head, lowering the bottle as she did. Shielding her eyes, she squinted against the evening sun, before dropping her sunglasses over her face.
A jeep. A nice jeep. Too nice to be one of theirs.
Turning, she called back into the clinic, "Morris. We expecting any deliveries? Personnel?"
Morris looked up from the elderly woman he was bandaging, her skin torn from heat exposure and simply moving, "Uh… no? Why?"
"Hm. Someone's here. Don't worry, I'll check it."
As she walked away, Morris called out, "Not expecting but it's welcome! Kidnap them if you can!"
Chuckling, Chelsea capped her water and tucked it into the pocket of her kahki shorts. Children, healthy children drawn back from the brink of death, danced around her legs, tapping sticks on the ground and shouting in their unique language that was a bastardization of English, French and strange sounds. Patting the air as she approached the jeep, she told them to wait there, crossing the rest of the distance to where it had come to a stop.
The doors opened and two men stepped out, looking nice and hot in their suits.
"Good evening!" called the one from the passenger side, tugging at his collar. He gave the barest of hesitations when he saw her up close, and she commended that. Barely. His blonde hair was slicked to his head and he had some sort of a sophisticated African accent that came from education in the southern cities. European influence without going to Europe. "We're looking for…" He moved his arm down and she saw he was holding a folder. A page lifted, then he looked up again, "Doctor Chelsea Grant?"
"You're lookin' at her." Call her paranoid, but Chelsea disliked suits. Especially suits in the desert. They didn't belong. The clothes or the wearers. Out in the heat, only sensibility endured.
Sensibility and starvation.
"Nice to meet you, Doctor Grant." The man extended his hand and she shook it. The limp, smooth hand of a pencil pusher as opposed to her firm, callused grip. "My name is Yves Sykes. I'm from the MNU."
Instantly Chelsea's brows winged to her forehead and she shifted her weight to her back foot, arms folding over her chest, "MNU? Multi-National United?" At his nod, she grimaced and looked behind him, a fake smile coming across her face. "Long way from your offices, Mr Sykes." She returned her gaze to him, safely behind her sunglasses. "What does the MNU want with me?"
Sikes cleared his throat, pushing back his sweaty blonde hair, "Twenty six months ago you submitted an application to the MNU to be stationed inside District 9 in Johannesburg, with a specific request to be allowed to treat the non-human residents."
Chelsea felt her muscles coiling in her back slowly and she commended herself on not curling her lip in distaste. Chelsea might have been in the sticks, but she still heard the news, especially the African news. She knew well the situation involving District 9 that had exposed their monstrous experiments on the 'Prawns'.
"I do seem to recall applying, yeah." She also recalled having the proverbial door slammed in her face so hard she felt it in her teeth. The MNU hadn't just rejected her proposal, they had outed her as a Prawn sympathiser to various doctoring circles.
Chelsea hadn't really cared, since she didn't want to work in a hospital, but her family had.
Her father had taken MNU to court for their breach of confidentiality and defamation. And won. MNU had always been very nice to her after that. But she had always been under the impression that they wanted her to disappear into the wastelands of Africa and never come back.
Which was the main source of her incredulity and hostility. Why had they sought her out?
When Sykes answered her prompt, his words made her whole world come to a grinding halt.
"We were wondering if the offer still stood."
~*~
"Can you believe them?!"
Morris chewed on his food as Chelsea raged across the small building they used as a rec centre, looking both amused and a little intimidated by the force of Chelsea's fury. But no one new Chelsea long without realizing the depths of the woman's emotional volatility.
"You know what this is, don't you? This is MNU's attempt to appear non-human friendly after that fucking fiasco that exposed their… sick, twisted chamber of horrors." She kicked an empty water bottle across the tent, sending it skittering out into the night. "Assholes! And to think. They're a profit company asking for volunteers. The nerve."
"You want to be paid? Is that what this is about?" He looked amused.
"Wh… no! Of course not!" Chelsea whirled on Morris, scowling furiously. "That's not it at all. I'm just… outraged!"
"Why?" Morris chewed on his food slowly, watching the younger woman. "You wanted to treat the non-humans of District 9 over two years ago, before you and I ever met. You hate the way they're treated. You were willing to go into an area populated by gangs and lowlifes to help them. What's changed?"
"Well… nothing! But-"
"Who cares what the MNU's reasoning is? It's getting you into there, isn't it?"
Chelsea's rage frizzled out in the face of calm rationale, as it always did. Turning away, she put one hand on her hip and buried the other in her hair, which hung loose now the African air had cooled. "I know. I know. It just… irks me that this is all because of a desperate stunt on behalf of MNU's public image."
"Who cares? You shouldn't. Forget MNU and do your job. They're a means to an end, that's all."
Chelsea made a sound of disgust, "I can't leave here." She gestured out the tent entrance, at the light of the fires of the village nearby. "I can't just up and leave."
"You've been here six months. By rights you should rotate out anyway." Morris held up a folder, "Besides. I already have your replacement right here." He set it down on his desk and ate another mouthful of stew.
"Replacement?"
He chewed, swallowed and held up a hand, "Easy, tiger. It's not like that and you know it. You're a brilliant doctor, and a talented surgeon, but your passion lies in making a difference. To be honest, it doesn't matter how many starving children you save, so many more are going to die." Morris reached out and put his hand over hers when she leant on the table, about to snap at him. "You've got more power than you think, Chelsea, and the fire to back it up. The Prawns are violent, dangerous, feared and hated. But you want to go in there on your little white horse and save them. Not many people can do that. Not many people want to."
He sat back slowly, staring at her hard, "Anyone can treat starving children. Anyone can sit here and watch them die. Anyone can do the job you're doing here. But it takes a special kind of person to do what you really want to do. You didn't learn their language for fun, after all."
Chelsea grimaced, and then sighed, nodding. "Yeah…" She didn't agree with him on the part of making changes, but she agreed that going to District 9 had been her dream job. The danger hadn't fazed her. The threat of death and even being devoured by the starving Prawns hadn't scared her. She wanted to help them.
She wanted to save them.
Granted it was a little patronizing to think she had to 'save them', but what else could she describe it?
"Don't feel bad about the children. Don't feel bad that you can't tend everyone. Someone will come and do your job here, but who's gonna fill your shoes in District 10?"
Chelsea turned and looked away from Morris, unable to meet his gaze. The man was freakishly perceptive for a doctoring nomad in a tiny mud hut clinic in the middle of the African desert.
"Go, Chelsea."
And so she went.
~*~
District 10
Five days later
"Is this the final doctor?"
"Would say so."
"Seen her file?"
"We can see each other's files?"
"Not really."
"… Have you seen her file?"
"Yep."
"Sneaky bastard."
"Was my job."
The two men stood on a slight rise within the walls of District 10. Well within its walls, so the superior power the Prawns had in their legs couldn't propel them clear over the perimeter fence. Behind them, workers milled about, erecting tents and unloading equipment from the jeeps.
Despite the fact that their accommodations had been set up a few days prior to their arrival, much of the doctors' equipment and personal belongings, as well as the medical supplies, had arrived with them on that day. Most of their entourage had rolled through the gates in the wee hours of the morning, when the Prawns were sluggish from sleep, and had gotten set up before many of them knew what was happening. But now it was late afternoon and there was a sizeable crowd of Prawns of all sizes – and presumably ages – watching the chaos behind the line of white MNU vehicles and armed men.
Somehow, goodwill endeavours seemed muted when they were accompanied by weaponry.
They had a total of twelve doctors and surgeons, accompanied by a team of nine nurses and medical technicians. Their equipment was basic, but they had tried to prepare for almost any eventuality. Any major requirements, they had been promised, were but a SatPhone call away and a three hour drive.
But none of the doctors put much stock in MNU's promises.
The final jeep, flanked by two white MNU trucks, rolled through the gate, which slammed shut behind them. One of the watching men slapped the other on the chest and they jogged down the hill to meet it.
"So, since you've read her file, what can you tell me about her?"
"She's… had an interesting past."
"Compared to you?"
"Huh?"
"Compared to you, has she had an interesting past?"
"Yeah. I guess. For a civilian."
"Well damn. Aren't I just boring?"
Both men were white, but one was a pale redhead and rather gangly in the limb, already burning from exposure to the sun. He stood almost a full head taller than his companion, who had a military buzz cut, a few days of stubble and was built like a linebacker. Whilst the taller man wore shorts, sneakers and a shirt, his friend wore combat fatigues of a pale camouflage pattern. His shoulder was emblazoned with the American flag and his companion's accent was faintly Scottish, but had been exposed to America long enough for it to be phased out almost entirely.
The jeep slid to a stop, kicking up dust, in a gap between two jeeps, passenger door turned towards the protection of the encampment. After a moment, the door opened and two tan hiking boots hit the ground as the occupant jumped out. Slender fingers grasped the door, slamming it closed, and the other hand slung a backpack over one shoulder.
"… Damn."
She was tall, but not scarily so, with a naturally sun-kissed body that would come from a long time of exposure to the sun, the kind of exposure that would not do her well with ten more years of it. From what they could she, she was a woman that ate well and worked hard, accentuated by the fact that she had the toned form of a woman that did daily labour.
Her long honey-gold hair – paled from sun exposure as her skin was darkened – was pulled back in a messy ponytail, but wispy locks were left to curl around her face and blow in the slight breeze that kicked up every now and again. Around her throat hung a slender silver chain, the end vanishing under her white singlet top, framed by the open, pale pink shirt she wore over it. Her eyes were hidden by reflective sunglasses, not that she gave them much of a chance to see her face, anyway. The moment she was out of the jeep, she stepped to the front, looking at the Prawns from across the hood. She seemed mesmerized by them, her head moving minutely as she examined each one individually.
"Chelsea Grant?"
She stiffened, and then turned towards the two men as they approached her. It was only then that they saw the scars. From a distance they didn't stand out as much against her tawny skin, hair-thin from years of healing, but they were there and they were numerous. Mostly they seemed restricted to her left side, irregular lines on the outer side of her calf and thigh, a long one running up her left forearm, curling over the back of it. A faint scar emerged from under the sunglasses on her face, crossing her forehead and bisected by another, making a lopsided crucifix.
The stocky man, the one who had read her file, barely hesitated, reaching out to shake her hand.
"Graham Rhodes."
She hesitated, and then reached out to shake his hand. Her grip was firm, her palm callused. The inside of her wrist bore the marks of someone who had been quite serious about bleeding out and not waking up. To her credit, she didn't appear ashamed of any of the marks on her body. "Nice to meet you." Her accent was distinctly Australian. "Are you… a soldier?"
"Corporal in the US Army, ma'am," he saluted her lazily. "Field Medic."
Her brows winged up over her sunglasses and she gave him a wry smile and a slight laugh, "How did they rope you in here?"
"Was approached by the MNU a couple of weeks back. Apparently me and a couple of others are America's participation in this 'goodwill' thing." Chelsea's face closed down and he flung up his hands, "Whoa. I'm all for this, trust me. After hearing what had happened to these guys, I wanted to help. Eager for it. My scepticism is on behalf of MNU."
She smiled again, "I can understand that,"
He gestured at the man behind him. "This is Callum MacIntyre."
"Nice to meet ye." Callum's accent thickened with his obvious physical attraction to the woman, shaking her hand happily. "Nothing special about me. Just a surgeon who applied to MNU. What about you?"
"Applied to MNU, too. Two years ago. Took their sweet time in accepting." Chelsea pushed up her sunglasses, resting them on her head. The motion not only revealed that the scar on her forehead didn't touch her eye, but curved away and mangled her eyebrow instead, but also that she had heterochromia, with her left eye being dark green, the right a stormy blue-grey.
"Eh, no shit!" laughed Callum once he had realized he was staring at her. "What have you been doing between now and then?"
"Doctors Without Borders," she said. "Started in Africa, haven't stopped."
"For two years?!"
"Three," Chelsea grinned at their reactions. When nothing further was said, she turned her head and stared at the Prawns once more. She'd only ever seen them on television, the few times she had access to one. Seeing them up close was… actually intimidating. Even from a distance she could comprehend the height difference between humans and Prawns, and from what she knew the difference in physical strength wasn't anything to laugh at, either.
They moved with an inhuman jerkiness that was distinctly insect-like. Or even bird-like. Though they seemed to be predominantly bipedal, they would utilize their hands for certain manoeuvring.
One of the smaller Prawns moved cautiously closer and her eyes dropped to him. His antennae waved curiously, eyes widening when he saw her staring at him. His arms curled into his chest in a very insect like manner, head cocking to the side.
Then an MNU soldier appeared, chasing him away into the line of Prawns, which shifted with agitation.
Chelsea stiffened, starting forward, but something grabbed her arm, stopping her. Turning, she expected it to be Graham or Callum, but it was a wiry woman in her late forties, early fifties. She had on a pair of large glasses attached to a beaded chain around her throat and kindly, grandmother-like green eyes. The eyes that always smiled, no matter what.
Even now, with disappointment and sadness glittering in them, there was still a smile there, somewhere. She looked past Chelsea, watching the soldier return to the others, before looking at Chelsea.
"Don't worry about it, dear. They're always like this, and they'll be gone by tomorrow, anyway."
"Gone?" she echoed quietly.
"We're armed," offered Graham. "And some will be sticking around, but the majority of them will head back to Johannesburg. There's also an encampment beyond the walls, but again, most of them will be gone."
"You were not informed of this?" The woman's voice was very English. Highbrow without being patronizing.
"MNU isn't known for its conscientiousness," muttered Chelsea in a flat tone, glancing at the Prawns. She heard they ate humans if they got hungry enough. Hopefully that wouldn't be the case…
Even though they were considered sentient beings, starvation and anger could drive anything to pure savagery. She wouldn't blame them one bit.
She didn't believe the MNU hype about them being some sort of spawn of the devil incarnation of evil, but aggressive and powerful creatures, no matter what kind, demanded the caution due to their capabilities. It wasn't cowardice to be afraid of something that could hurt you.
It was survival.
Much like watching a pride of lions saunter past an encampment with only sticks and mud separating them from you. You know if they wanted in, they were getting in. If they wanted you, they were getting you.
Their majesty was only increased by their danger.
Respect and fear was a healthy thing for those that wanted to stay alive in Africa.
The woman made a sound of discontent, "I'm sorry. It is dangerous here. If you don't-"
Chelsea cut her off with a shake of her head, "I applied when they were in District 9, which is a sight more dangerous than here. And I've dealt with lions and hyenas and fences made of sticks. I'll be alright." She shrugged faintly, "I'd rather not shoot at them, though. Something tells me they've had enough of that…"
"Indeed. I'm Meghan Hall."
The name struck a chord in Chelsea and her eyes widened with respect as she shook the older woman's hand. Meghan Hall was a very loud activist for the rights of the Prawns, making a reputation for herself, often getting into legal trouble with MNU when it came to her… enthusiasm.
Chelsea was less surprised that MNU had asked her to be on board if Meghan was also on the team.
"You're participating in this?"
Meghan made a sound of irritation, "They really told you nothing, didn't they. I've been pushing for this for seven years. It just took the exposure of their monstrous experiments for them to consider it."
"Tell me about it."
Meghan turned and looked at Graham and Callum, who were silently watching the exchange, "Make yourselves useful and unload Doctor Grant's things."
"Chelsea, please," her voice was strained. Ms. Grant made her feel like a third grade English teacher and Doctor Grant made her feel like she should be a fifty something balding conservative with a pot belly. No offence to all the Doctor Grants out there, of course.
"Make yourselves useful and unload Chelsea's things. Go!"
Graham snapped a salute as Callum hopped to the task with all the eagerness of a scolded schoolboy. As they unloaded her bags full of her meagre possessions, Chelsea shouldered her pack a little better and Meghan patted her arm.
"Come on. I'll introduce you to everyone else. Let's hope that things pan out as smoothly as I intend them."
Chelsea laughed bitterly, "Something tells me that's the last thing we should expect."
"Yes. Well. Welcome to District 10."
~*~
Thank you for taking the time to read chapter one of A Cage of Butterflies. It has been edited and snipped and should read better now.
This fiction is meant to be a slow-paced fiction about building relations between the Outlanders and humans, with Chelsea being the central character. It will be smattered with moments of action and angst. Well. Lots of angst.
Chapters are works in progress and prone to editing, cropping and revising at any time. I shall try to keep them at a minimum.
If you liked the fiction, please review. They keep me going when the nights are long and inspiration is stubborn.
Thank you all
Anne
