8: Observation
Alethia stood in the doorway of Miriam's quarters, silently watching the sleeping girl. Miriam should have been awake hours ago, but here she was, still stretched out on the thin mattress and fast asleep.
She pitied Miriam. The girl was about to find out the truth, and she definitely wasn't going to like what she'd find. When she'd got over the shock, she'd then have to cope with life in the real world. Hard work in spartan surroundings, always cold and always hungry, always wearing the same rags and being forced to share living space with the same handful of people whether you liked them or not. It was no picnic. And that was before she even started training.
Waking up was hard. Forcing yourself to stay awake, to go through the same old routine day after day, was even harder. A lot of people couldn't handle it. They put themselves back to sleep, permanently. Most of them were the newly freed, people who simply couldn't cope with the harsh reality that they suddenly found themselves in, but occasionally you got one or two old-timers who simply got tired of everything and decided to end it all.
Like the old captain. Forseti had spent all his life searching for the lost souls of the "real world" - the miserable, the despairing, the aimless, the rebellious, and the discontented. The Resistance targeted these minds because they were the easiest to free. Happy people didn't go looking for anything else because they were content with what they believed they had; unhappy people were more receptive to the idea that there might be something else beyond their own perceptions, because they wanted to believe it. They could be persuaded that yes, there was an alternative to their life, if they were prepared to go and find it.
Captain Forseti had freed Alethia, and countless others. He'd saved her when she was very young, and he'd raised her and the others as though they were his own children. Over the years she'd come to think of him as a father.
And then, one day, he grew tired. That was when they'd found him in his quarters, hanging from the ceiling.
Two years. She still cried sometimes.
Alethia felt a hand on her shoulder.
"It's late. You should get some sleep."
"I don't want to leave her alone. She'll be awake soon."
"You said that four hours ago. You could be saying it again in four hours' time."
"I know. But just in case, I'll stay here. She'll probably want someone to be with her."
"Okay. Don't stay up too late."
"I won't."
"No, I mean it. You've been working all day, Alethia, you need to rest. Look, I'll come by in an hour and check up. If she's not awake by then, too bad for her. She'll just have to wait until morning."
"All right, Hecate. Goodnight."
"Yeah, goodnight. Sleep tight, and watch out for the bed-bugs. They give you a pretty nasty rash if they bite. Trust me, I'm a doctor. We know these things."
"Goodnight, Hecate."
"'Night."
Alethia watched her go, and then turned her attention to the slumbering Miriam.
*
Horus sat in his quarters, staring angrily at the wall. He was angry about a lot of things, but the thing that angered him most was the Matrix.
The machines had forced humans to live like this, always hiding away underground and dodging robots, wearing rags and shivering with cold and having nothing to eat except flavourless goop.
They'd been enslaved once. Now they were free – if you called this free - but still they fought on for the freedom of mankind. There were billions of people still trapped in those pods. Most of them would never get out. Most of them probably wouldn't want to. But there were some minds who wanted to be freed… it was their job to find them and let them out.
It was a long and difficult task. You couldn't simply yank them out of the Matrix, it would kill them instantly. You had to bring them out gently, first waking up the minds and then fooling the machines into thinking the body had died so that they would release the person from the pod and throw them out. You had to catch them quickly, or they'd go to the recycling plant and –
He didn't want to think about it. What the machines did to the dead was obscene. It made him sick just thinking about it. The first time he'd been told about it, he had been sick. Aged fifteen, just freed and still shaking with terror. Even now he'd wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, remembering the horror of the truth.
Truth. Where was Alethia, anyway? She'd been down in the operating theatre all day, working away alongside Hecate to bring their new recruit to full health and fitness. She hadn't had breakfast, or lunch, and she hadn't turned up for the evening meal. Was she asleep now? It was late at night, if there still was such a thing as night. The sky was always dark.
Perhaps he ought to go and see if she needed anything. Food, company, some relief from the work. She was probably tired, she could do with a break, and he was good at fine-tuning muscles. He could probably finish everything off himself. Except that Hecate would probably lay him out if he dared venture down there.
Stupid. Why on earth would he go down just to stare? What was the point? All he'd wanted to do was help. He remembered the look on Miriam's face; he had worn exactly the same expression of fear once, when the shimmering silver had crept up his arm and swallowed him whole.
He wanted to go downstairs and reassure the girl that everything was going to be okay. Cushion the blow of learning the full and terrible truth. He wished someone had done that for him.
This wasn't his first ship. He'd originally served on the Prometheus, under Captain Hathor. A cold, harsh woman. Dead now, of course. The machines had destroyed the Prometheus six months ago. Fortunately for him, he'd been in Zion at the time, recovering from a severe bout of pneumonia in the city's hospital. So he'd been transferred to the Columbus. And he'd met Alethia.
Alethia was beautiful, and yet she always looked so solemn and sad. It was difficult to coax a smile out of her. But when she smiled, it was worth the effort. Her smiles lit up the whole world. If only he could make her happy… he liked the thought of one of those rare, bright smiles being saved just for him.
Horus stood up. He opened the door of his quarters, and peered around cautiously. No-one around to say, "Oh, finished sulking then?". Good. If there was one thing he hated, it was being accused of going off to sulk. He couldn't help it if he wanted to be alone when people picked on him.
He stepped out into the gloom of the corridor, and made his way towards the hospital wing, passing the doors to each crewmember's quarters. Captain Mac, Ebisu, Telex, Alethia - Hecate. He gave that door a good kick, and hoped the sound had woken her up.
And then there was a new one – Miriam's quarters. That door was open; its occupant was asleep inside, and outside, leaning against the doorframe with her eyes closed, was Alethia.
"Alethia?" said Horus. "You all right?"
Alethia stirred, and opened her eyes.
"Oh," she said, yawning. "Sorry. Must have drifted off."
"You finished working on her?"
"Yeah, all done."
"Looks like a pretty good job to me. Why don't you get some rest? You look like you need it."
"No, I want to stay with her until she wakes up."
"You're in for a long wait, then. She doesn't look like she wants to wake up any time soon. Go to bed, Leth. Get some sleep. You'll be good for nothing in the morning otherwise."
"I don't want to leave her alone."
"I'll stay with her if you want."
"Hecate wouldn't like that."
"Screw her. Someone needs to stay with Miriam, and it's not going to be you. Look at you, you're exhausted. You haven't eaten all day, you haven't stopped working - you're practically on your knees. Go and sleep. I'll keep an eye on her."
"Maybe I should get someone else…"
"Oh, don't tell me you're buying into Hecate's bullshit too. You don't seriously believe that I'd ever - "
"No, no, no! Of course I don't. Hecate's just being stupid and pig-headed. I know you just want to help. But I don't think it's a good idea. People will talk."
"Yeah, I know. Is anyone else awake?"
"Only the night-timers up on the bridge."
"I'll go get Monitor. She's free. No-one's uploading at this time of night."
"Okay."
"You'll go to sleep, right?"
"Right. You'll let me know if she wakes up, won't you?"
"No, I won't. She can damn well wait until the morning. If she's restless, Monitor can show her round the ship or something, shake the fidgets out of her, and she can have an early breakfast. You're not on call twenty-four seven."
"But…"
"No buts. You need your beauty sleep. It'd be a shame to have dark circles round those pretty brown eyes of yours."
"Shameless flatterer," said Alethia, but she smiled, and Horus felt his spirits lift. He'd made her smile…
"Okay, I'm going," she said. "Goodnight, Horus."
"Goodnight. Sleep well."
"You too. See you in the morning."
