Minerva didn't know what a 'cheeseburger' was, but the hint of food had started her stomach howling painfully. The intensity of it drove even the heavy weight of exhaustion back a little.
All was detached and dreamlike as she followed Kalina over the gangway and into a corridor. Min's concentration wouldn't latch onto anything around her for more than a moment. The walls and floor were of concrete, and she had the impression of various colors and signs now and again. Faces passed them, voices and sounds everywhere. It blurred together into a muddy mess in which no distinct word or expression would surface.
It was warmer here, of that much she was certain. The ice that had encased all her organs and squeezed her heart was thawing into a deliriously welcome but painful slow burn as nerves woke up.
Then she was sitting down at Kalina's direction. This simple act brought the thundering exhaustion to the fore. In only moments her head started to nod forward, black draping like a blanket.
The smell of food. Her stomach roared again and drove the darkness back. She was already lifting her head, gritty eyes opening, when Kalina gently touched her shoulder to rouse her. A tray slid onto the table in front of her.
It was flimsy blue molded plastic. Thick slabs of toasted, grainy bread stacked one side of it, smeared with a dark green paste. In the center, a healthy portion of a sort of casserole. It was the color of dingy socks, with chunks of yellow noodles and pockets of ground meat. On the side opposite the bread, a heap of little fried nuggets made a low mountain.
Barely had the tray halted than she had a slab of bread in one hand, several of the nuggets gripped in her other. With no thought for manners or decorum, she started cramming food into her mouth. In seconds, most of the fried nuggets and slabs of toast were gone. She gripped a large spoon only because Kalina passed it to her. She started in on the casserole, shoveling it in her mouth without pause.
Less than two minutes passed before she was scraping the last of the casserole gravy from the tray. The nuggets were now only a dusting of crumbs- same the toast. As she lifted the final bite to her lips, the tray slid out from in front of her and a new one slid into its place. Without a beat missed, she continued to eat.
It was not until halfway through this tray, the howling monster in her gut starting to calm down, that she started tasting anything. The flavor of the bread was strong and gritty. The green paste tasted of salt and vegetable. The casserole was bland in comparison. The fried nuggets had a good, rich taste to them, and crunched when she finally remembered to chew.
Kalina, who had remained silent, returned again as Minerva closed in on the finish of the second tray. With perfect timing, she slid yet a third tray into the place of the second as Min finished its last bite. This time, she also set down a thick mug of something that was a creamy gold color, and frothy. Putting her spoon down, Minerva reached for the mug, took a healthy swig, and then lowered it again. It was good, and seemed to set off a low and pleasant warmth in her stomach. As she set it down she looked at Kalina, who had finally sat down opposite her. Still hunched possessively over her tray she said, "Thanks."
Kalina smiled and gave a nod. She had her own tray now as well, but hers did not bear the same food that Minerva was eating. She had a single bowl, piled with what looked like squares of a dark blue gelatin, a heavy cream poured over them. She was also eating with far more decorum, a sight that suddenly made Min aware of how her own frenzied gluttony must have looked.
Sating the howling beast in her gut, however, had brought the other beast back with claws and teeth. Her exhaustion came in a heavy, sweeping blanket, and she still had a bite or two left of her third tray when she started nodding off again.
Some of the fog cleared a bit later and she realized she was walking, going somewhere. Kalina's hand was on her arm, guiding her. There was a door, and then her back came up against a thin, hard little cushion. She seemed to fall right through it, plunging into a sleep so deep life itself seemed to stop.
There was a soft weight on her chest. She had no idea how much time had passed as she slowly became aware of it, along with the rest of her body. It was warm, this weight, and it seemed to be softly and rhythmically vibrating. Awareness brought with it curiosity, and she cracked her eyes open to regard it.
For a moment, there was a blaze of warm light that washed out her vision. She closed her eyes against it, then tried again. This time, color and shape came into focus.
A large pair of half-lidded eyes the bright color of copper regarded her from only a few inches away. She stared back at them before recognition floated out of the black that was most of her memory.
It was a cat. Pale gray in color, he was large and burly, his weight not insignificant. It had curled up quite content on her chest, his paws tucked under so that he looked as if he had no paws at all. Seeing her eyes open and regarding him, the soft purrs that were vibrating her lungs gained immediately in strength and volume. He seemed pleased at her seeming admiration.
"Who are you then?" she asked. Her voice felt dry and gritty, and she licked her lips. Though still a bit tired and weighted down, she felt quite good. She tried to remember how she had gotten to this place, but she had only vague images once they'd arrived until this moment. Images of concrete halls, of voices and signs, and of a tray of food sliding under her nose.
At the thought of the food her stomach woke up and started telling her it wouldn't mind having some more- no, not in the slightest. Shifting a bit, she got into a sit. The cat, dislodged by this motion, leapt onto the floor and stretched out on his side, still purring.
She looked around. The room she was in was incredibly small. It looked little more than a broom cupboard that had been set up as living quarters. She was sitting on a metal cot topped with a foam mattress that was only an inch or two thick. It stood against one wall, and by sitting on the edge of it and reaching out a hand, she could touch the other wall with her fingertips.
There was a door to her right. In front of her was a beaten dresser, wood and covered over with stickers that had peeled or been half torn off. Some were of cartoonish characters, others words she couldn't read spelled out in bold, primary colors. The top drawer was standing open a bit and seemed set lopsided in its track. Just to the right of this dresser there was a doorframe without a door. Past it she could see an even smaller space, and a toilet.
To her left, a grimy window was set into the wall. Most of the light filtering through this window was a dismal swampy gray, but one of the panes had long broken out and from it a shaft of brilliant sunlight streamed through, casting a puddle on the ground. The cat was now sprawled in this puddle, eyes half shut yet still rumbling like an idle engine.
The door to what she assumed was the outside stood closed, and the missing pane was far too small for the cat to have gotten through, so she figured he must have been in the room already when she'd been brought here. Then she noticed part of the wall was a slightly different color in a two foot square right near the floor. She started at it for a moment, when it suddenly lifted and another cat strode in through the flap.
This one was smaller, patched with black and rust and white. It greeted the cat on the floor, barely gave Minerva a look, then stretched out in the little edge of the puddle of sunlight the bigger fellow had not already claimed.
She rubbed a hand over her face. Two pressing issues demanded her attention, and her rumbling stomach was not the most insistent. Rising, she went into the little bathroom and took care of one of them. A tiny sink that hadn't been visible through the door from the cot was on the wall. As she went to wash her hands, she noticed a slab of well polished metal had been set over it as a mirror.
She had caught a momentary, distorted reflection in Kalina's helmet back when they had first met, but there had been no time to take it in or note its features. Now, leaning on the sink, Minerva looked into her own reflection for the first time.
A familiar stranger looked back at her. She could not say what she had expected to see when she first looked in, but once she'd caught sight of herself she also couldn't say that she had expected to see anything different.
She had blonde hair. It was straight, and fell to her shoulders, every strand the same length. It was the most perfunctory haircut she could picture having.
Her skin was Nordic pale, her eyes the blue of denim. Those were the exact words that came into her mind when she looked into them- they look like denim.
At the same time, she could not have explained what denim was to someone who asked.
Her face- and for that matter, the rest of her- was far too thin for her frame. She looked like someone who, at a healthy weight, would be rather robust; someone normally round and rubenesque in proportion, but who had been ill or starving for a long time. Her cheeks and eyes had a caved in look. She looked…deflated.
Her facial features were strong-a square jaw, a stern chin, a straight nose. This thin she looked older, scowling and severe, like an irritated bird of prey. Filled out properly, she suspected she wouldn't be bad looking.
She was still looking at herself when motion caught her eye. Her Ghost appeared in the mirror as it hovered into the room, drawing to a halt over her shoulder.
"Not what you expected?" He asked as she kept looking at herself.
"I didn't expect anything," she replied, then looked at his reflection. "Where were you?"
"I was in the dresser drawer," he said. "The cat kept trying to catch me."
"I feel like I slept for years."
"It wasn't years," he said. "It was two days."
She blinked at him. "I was asleep for two days?"
"Yes. Well, thirty six hours. You needed it. And you probably need more food."
She nodded slowly, then turned and stood in the bathroom door. Someone had taken her boots off of her before she'd gone to sleep, though she was still wearing the make-shift canvas and leather clothes. Spotting the boots just under the cot, she went and sat down and then drew them out to put them on. She stopped, surprised.
These were not the same clunky, shapeless rubber boots. These ones were new, finely made, with thick, flexible soles and steel enclosing the toe. Drawing one on and lacing it up, she found they were just her size.
Thinking that other clothes might have been left for her too, she got up and dug through the dresser, but the warped and sticking drawers were empty.
Both the cats had now disappeared. Their puddle of light had travelled to the base of the wall as the rising sun shifted. Min looked at her Ghost.
"Do you know where to get food?"
"I can get us back to where you ate last night," he said, and she followed his bobbing form out through the door and into a corridor.
It was concrete, as she remembered. The hall was large enough to drive a jeep down, and was lined with similar doors, some plastered with stickers, nametags, or signs. Looking at them, Min quickly looked back at her own and saw a peeled spot where a long sticker or tag had been removed. A piece of paper was in its place. In large, round writing the name 'Mini' was scrawled on the paper, and it was held to the door with grinning cartoon cat stickers.
The grin on the stickers made her smile in response, thin and brief as it was. She'd have no trouble finding her door again so long as she got back to this hall. Following the Ghost, she headed along it.
There were other people there, a dozen easily. Some were coming in and out of rooms, some just traversing the corridor. Some were dressed in what looked like armor or riot gear, carrying weapons. Others seemed to have jumpsuits that smacked of maintenance or mechanical work. Some of the clothing was in a mish-mash of clothes that didn't always go together or seem to make sense. One man, thin and with a prominent Adam's apple, was wearing a black and white checked shirt with a bright green vest over it.
She saw human faces, as well as faces that were like Kalina's- with pale blue or purple or gray skin and hair, and luminescent, brightly colored eyes. She was nearing the end of the corridor when she saw a man that looked synthetic, like an android. He moved as fluidly as a human being but seemed made of metal, silicone, and other materials she could not name. His eyes were red little lights set deep in their sockets, and similar lights shone near the corners of his jaw. He was armed and armored as well, and paused to speak to the skinny man in the green vest. Ghosts moved this way and that, or hovered over shoulders here and there.
None seemed to pay her much if any mind. There were a few casual glances her way but everyone seemed too wrapped up in their own business to care about another face in the hall. What puzzled her most were all the cats.
In the same hall she saw five or six more. Some strolled without concern, or sat grooming themselves. One or two ducked in or out of similar flaps as she had seen in her own room. As she kept following her Ghost, she kept catching sight of more.
Her Ghost led her to a set of stairs- she remembered the stairs. Bright banners were hung from the high walls in the stairwell, holding symbols or words she did not recognize. A pair of pale green men with blue hair were coming up the other way, their bright yellow eyes animated. One held a heavy stack of books in his arms, the other had what looked like a series of papers and notes. Neither glanced at her as she pressed to the wall to let them pass without knocking into them.
The stairs let out into an even wider corridor. This one had worn and beaten rugs of varying designs softening the concrete underfoot. Great pillars flanked broad and bright window so the right, where various arches and doors opened to the left. More cats- two or three- clustered together in the puddles of light cast by each window. Drawn by the sunlight herself, and curious as to what lurked outside this place, Min headed toward the windows. She halted before she reached them as someone nearby said her name.
"Mini! Welcome back to life!"
Kalina was striding toward her. She was dressed much the same as before, with a hooded cloak draped over her back. Her dark blue hair was messily fly-away as if she'd done no more than ruffle it after waking. She was grinning.
Happy to see a familiar face and conscious that their Ghosts had resumed translating for them, Min nodded to her. "Thanks. I didn't mean to sleep so long-"
"Newborns do, do you remember me telling you that? Some aren't up and about this soon. I'm not surprised if you don't remember. Most of what happened after we got here is probably a big blur- you were all but dead on your feet. I bet you're hungry aren't you? Come on. After you eat we can take you down and get you tagged and official."
"Tagged?" Min asked as she followed Kalina toward one of the distant doors. Kalina lifted a thin finger and tapped at what looked like a decorative bit of jewelry clinging to the crest of her ear.
"It's a data tag," she said. "It stores your Ghost in digital form and allows them to still communicate. It also acts as a short range locational tracker in case you're out of commission and your Ghost isn't responding. Binky?"
Her Ghost, who had been following along at her shoulder, dissolved into a stream of light. Kalina tapped the cuff on her ear meaningfully.
"Now she's in here," she said. "We can still talk but in the field it keeps her from being out and at risk unless she needs to be. You'll get an engram too."
A moment later, Binky rematerialized from nothingness and returned to floating behind her shoulder.
They had reached the door and stepped in. It was on Min's lips to ask what an 'engram' was when the smell of food hit her.
The room was long and meandering, spotted with mismatched furniture. Cloth hangings of various designs hung over the walls, the floors spotted here and there with small rugs. Tables and chairs of various sizes and varieties scattered without seeming rhyme or order everywhere. A low and tattered overstuffed couch took up part of one wall with a narrow chipped table that was pitted, burned, and stained.
In one corner there was a short counter ended with a pile of plastic trays, utensils, and napkins. Another metal person- this one looked far more clearly artificial and far less sophisticated than the one she'd seen outside her room- stood waiting at this counter. Behind it, a pair of swinging doors with round greasy windows were set. There were distant clatters coming from behind them, and threads of steam and the smell of food was leaking through the gap between them.
Kalina walked over and plucked the top tray off the pile and handed it to Minerva with a grin before picking up one for herself. "Shall we?"
