(Five)
Gambit came awake all at once. It wasn't like rousing from a deep slumber, it was more like a kind of bizarre teleportation. The last thing he remembered was holding down Kimble's gaping wound and then a kind of startled wonder when he felt Kimble draw power from him. The sensation was like being sucked down into a great cold white whirlwind. He came to a stop in a strange black void, lit only from above. He felt the wonderful, comforting light touch him and thought, Sacre' merde! I'm dead again! Non!
It had happened before when Sabretooth slashed him open on that horrible day under Manhattan, the day he had committed his worst crime, the Morlock Massacre. He had survived his trek out of the tunnels that day and to the hospital, but when he had finally passed out as they were sewing him up, he'd had this dream of the light. Later he recognized the dream for what it had been. He had nearly died but had been turned away from the Light as Kimble had been.
He now looked up into the light and saw two figures silhouetted against the beam - Kimble and someone else. Remy heard the word, Remember, and then he was sucked down into the whirlwind again and away from the light. He barely had time to feel relief that he wasn't dying after all when he heard Kimble screaming and then Bam! here he was.
Gambit was now standing in the long hallway of an unfamiliar building. The walls and floors were made of carved sandstone bricks. Unlike the Clan Station, this place was well made and comfortable. The air here was fresh and clean, smelling of the outdoors. Paintings and tapestries covered the walls and tables stood nearby covered with cut flowers. There were glass-free windows spaced evenly about the walls allowing the fresh air and bright sunlight to enter.
Gambit whirled in surprise when a young girl suddenly ran right by him, laughing loudly. He recognized the laughter as Kimble's in spite of the gender change. She was tiny, only about fourteen or so in appearance. She was dressed in a sheer, silky dress that barely covered her. The dress was so light, she might as well have been naked. She was barefoot, her tiny feet making little slapping sounds against the stone as she ran. She was young, but already had the budding breasts of a woman. Her hair was long and black and streamed freely behind her as she ran. She was being chased by a young man and they ran out onto a stone balcony.
Gambit followed them, bewildered, and looked out at a bright blue sky. The fresh spring air and bright sunshine filled him with a kind of exhilaration and he couldn't help but laugh from the joy of it. It seemed like ages since he had been outside on a nice crisp day like this. Brightly colored banners streamed from long flagpoles that leaned out from the walls. He was in what looked to be a fairytale castle. Green fields stretched out for miles in all directions. He saw a row of snowpeaked mountains standing tall and purple on the horizon. Gambit didn't know where he was now, but he knew it couldn't be Cerise.
" 'Ey, Kimble!" he called out after the girl. "What's goin' on, chere?"
"Yer seein' my memory files."
Gambit turned towards the voice that had answered his question and saw the pilot Kimble sitting on the stone railing beside him. Gambit was confused. He hadn't been sitting there when he had come out. "Now dis jus' a little too freaky. What's goin' on? What is dis place? Are we dead?"
"No such luck, Cajun. That's only fer the lucky an' the good, I suppose. Nope, this is me playin' back the memory files an' this place is Siska. This is the castle where I wuz made. That guy there..." he gestured to the young man chasing the girl. "That's my father. That's Sheyman, he's the one that made me. An' the girl...well, that's me."
"I don' get it. How can I be seein' you 'ere an' you over dere?"
"Cuz yer power's gotcha all locked up inside a me. Guess ya got the Ristle, buddy. You musta touched me, right? After I went down?" Remy nodded. "When I takes a big hit offa Fallen, she goes with me to the Black Room. You ain't in the Black Room now cuz the files're playin'. Yer here with me while I gotta run through alla this shit. Yer here fer the ride, I guess. Don' see how yer gonna git outta this any more than I am. Ya gits to watch," he joked wryly. "I gots an idear that this is gonna suck really bad, Remy, an' I'm sorry fer that. Just member that nuthin' kin really hurtcha here." Kimble didn't know if that was true or not, but he didn't want Gambit to be afraid. " 'S more like a bad dream. Well, not all of it wuz bad..." Kimble's eyes tracked the young girl and his face was filled with an infinite sadness and longing.
The girl climbed up on the stone railing, spreading her slender arms out for balance.
The young man gave a cry of dismay. "Kimble, ya silly girl! Yer gonna break yer fuckin' neck!"
Sheyman had Kimble's lazy drawl and Remy was startled when he realized he could understand every spoken word. The language was surely Siskan, but he understood what they were saying as if he had known Siskan all his life. It was, really. Kimble's understanding was now his. He didn't know if he was going to freak out or what, this was all too bewildering.
Sheyman followed the girl nervously like a clucking Mother Hen. He was tall and slender and wore a shirt and pants made from soft leather. He was barefoot like the girl and comfortable. He had long brown hair that fell about his shoulders and glinted in the sun with red highlights. He was handsome and had Kimble's blue teasing eyes. He looked to be about thirty or so, too young to be the true father of this girl. He paced her along the railing as he laughed nervously, holding out his hands.
The girl looked down at him with mock disdain. "I ain't gonner fall! Not less ya scare me 'r sumpthin'." She leaned forward and did a front walkover as if the narrow rail was a balance beam.
Gambit looked over the side and gasped. The drop was a least two hundred feet.
"Git yer ass down now!" the man demanded in alarm, trying to sound stern, but he knew she wasn't going to listen. She never did. "Kimble!"
Young Kimble looked down at him again and smiled with benevolent arrogance. She had Kimble's familiar teasing grin even though the skin was different. "Sheyman, yer gonna give yerself a heart attack worryin' 'bouts me like ya do. You ain't gonna git rid 'a me that easy." She leaned towards him and spilled from the ledge into his waiting arms. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him passionately. "I loves ya too much."
"Then stop makin' me chase ya and pull ya offa ledges. If ya loves me so much ya wouldn't scare me half ta death alla the time!"
"Sorry, father. Jus' wants ta have some fun, is all."
Sheyman set her down gently. He turned aside to cough, covering his mouth. It was a wet, hacking cough, full of phlegm. Sheyman was sick and out of breath from the exercise. His skin was pale and he was more frail than Gambit had first realized. Sheyman looked back at her with tired eyes. "Save it fer later. Ya gots yer first session today."
Young Kimble turned away and looked pensively out at the mountain peaks in the distance.
Sheyman put his hands on her tiny shoulders. "What's on yer mind, baby doll? You nervous about today?"
"I ain't never been with anyone else 'sides you."
"Don' worry, yer gonna enjoy it. Trust me. Just 'member what I taughtcha an' be gentle. Always be gentle, yer a lot stronger than the clients."
"Father?"
"Yeah?"
"What am I?"
Sheyman laughed. "Yer Kimble."
She turned to look at him. "I knows that. I mean what am I? I ain't like you an I ain't like the other 'grams you brought me ta play with at Zartak's yesterday."
Sheyman was thoughtful. "Yer diff'rent cuz I raised ya diff'rent, is all."
"No. I spoke with Lashlay. He sez he don't see the pictures at night when he sleeps. He didn't even knows what I wuz talkin' about."
"That don't mean nuthin'. Not all the 'grams are a smart as you."
"He also said that he don't hear Zartak's heart beatin' when they makes love."
"Maybe Zartak doesn't have one," Sheyman joked, still being evasive.
"Father!" she said crossly. She wanted an answer.
"All right. You ain't like the other 'grams, okay? Yer special. You gots a shine on ya that they don't. You feel things that they cain't. Yer real." He touched her chest where her heart would have been if she had one. "Yer real in here where it counts. I loves ya fer who you are, fer what you are. Yer my Kimble an I don' ever want nobody else."
"I loves ya too, father." She kissed him again, slowly now. A lover's kiss. It sent an unconscious shiver of revulsion down Remy's back to see such a young girl kiss a grown man like that. Remy had to remind himself that with Kimble, appearances were often deceiving.
"Then don' be late, huh?" Sheyman admonished his tiny charge. "Go on now. Mind yer lessons."
Young Kimble laughed, a wonderful happy sound. She scrambled off, running by Gambit again. The thief reached out for her, but his hands slid through her as if he was a ghost. He looked beside him, but the pilot Kimble was gone as well. Remy cursed in frustration and ran after the girl.
The castle flew by him in a blur. Young Kimble was very fast and knew the building well. Of course she did, she had lived here all her life and knew nothing else. She turned down winding hallways and scampered down spiraling staircases. Unsure of where he was going, Gambit scrambled to keep up. He stumbled and fell after a particularly tight corner, but he never hit the ground. Instead he was towed along like some kind of floating barge, connected to this strange wisp of a girl by some kind of invisible tow line. The floor flew by him even though he was no longer moving his body and the sensation left him dizzy and confused, hurting his sense of reality and where he really was.
It didn't keep him from noticing that the world around him was changing, he passed by more windows and saw the light change as time flew by in a ripple. He didn't know how he knew this, but he sensed the passing of years. The young girl in front of him ran in slow motion now, her long black hair streaming behind her. The girl never changed, but the world around her did. The cut flowers and the paintings changed from old to new, to old again. There were some stutterings and blips in her movement, leading Remy to believe he was seeing gaps in the files, pieces were missing. As much as Kimble was remembering, it wasn't everything. He was still broken, incomplete. It made the journey a bit nauseating and it was all Gambit could not to throw up from all of this disorienting unreality buzzing by him.
Remy next gasped sharply in surprise as Young Kimble came to an abrupt stop. Gambit was still in motion from the tow line and held his hands up defensively against the collision, but he slid through her image as if she wasn't really there. He crashed painlessly into a stone wall and sat there in a bewildered heap, his heart racing and his head spinning as he muttered soft prayers for this to end. It didn't stop his well trained mind from assessing what was going on - Kimble had stopped to crouch down in front of a half open door, being as stealthy as possible, she wanted to listen.
Two men were arguing in the next room.
The first one spoke, an a older man by the sound of his voice. "Sheyman was a fool to make it. Don't ask me how he managed it, he's never had the equipment anywhere I could ever see! Still, it's stupid to make a Courtesan when you know you're going to die. They simply take too long to be properly trained. He has the thing working, trained or not! His medical expenses be damned, he would have been taken care of. Now we'll have to deal with his little mistake when he is gone. Did you hear the way it talks, Yosha? It speaks worse than he does now. Horrible. Just horrible!" the first man spoke. "It will have to be re-trained when he's gone of course."
"Yes, Maylor, but by whom?" Yosha inquired.
"Good question," Maylor replied with a sigh. "Not all of the handlers trust it. We'd hoped that by putting it in with the afflicted that it would get by in spite of its poor training. We had no choice but to do that since Sheyman never got the right permits he needed. Damn his father and his money! Still it managed to raise concerns. It changes its skin whenever it likes. We want it female, it changes into a male. We want it male, it changes into a female. It toys with us! A deliberate defiant act! What's worse, Crayer said that in its last session, it performed a double without authorization and that both its clients climaxed at the same time it did. He said it was the creepiest thing he'd ever seen. He worries that it's controlling them somehow. That will be the last time it's used that way for certain."
"Is it telepathic?"
"Possibly. What it probably is, is empathic. It feels the emotions and moods of the clients or some such nonsense. This isn't the first time one like this has been made. It's some kind of processing error. If it's caught as soon as they are made, ones like this are always destroyed. The problem is their empathy makes them difficult to control and they can sometimes go insane, often violently. They simply feel too much. This one is too old to be put down so quickly. It's almost eleven years old already. Too much time and money have been invested into it. Plus it's Sheyman's. He is the son of a Senator. His father is much too powerful and we don't need him coming down on us. We will simply watch this Courtesan as much as possible. If it's dangerous or gets too out of hand, then it will have to be destroyed."
Young Kimble gave a soft cry of dismay and tears spilled from her eyes. She couldn't contain her fear and took off running, dragging Gambit behind her on that invisible tow line again. He found his feet and discovered it was easier if he just ran along on his own. He was quick and nimble and kept her in his sight this time. He concentrated on her and shoved his confusion aside. If he did that, he could follow her without trouble.
She ran outside into a small courtyard garden and squeezed under a bush with brightly colored flowers. Gambit followed her, but paused outside of the bush, uncertain what to do next. He could hear her bawling under the bush, but knew there was no way he was going to fit under there, too. He had no way of comforting her. He sensed someone's presence behind him and turned to see the pilot Kimble again. Kimble silently leaned casually against a tree and waited for Remy to speak.
Gambit felt just like he was in A Christmas Carol. He was seeing Kimble's life played out before him like a movie. "Bonjour again, monsieur Scrooge. You gonna tell me what dis is, or what?"
"Don' know who Scrooge is, but that's me under the bush. Them guys up there talkin'? They wuz part of the Council. They wuz in charge of evrathin' what had ta do with the 'grams. Soon as Sheyman put me ta workin' they knew right off I wuz diff'rent. People're always scared of what they don' unnerstand. Siskans're no diff'rent. I scared 'em. I scare most people, I guess. 'Cept the clients. They all loved me just a little cuz of what I could do fer them."
"What did you do for dem?"
The pilot Kimble smiled up at him mischievously. "I took their pain."
"What does dat mean?"
"Cain't really explains it. I gots ta show ya," he answered, still grinning. He had an idea that although he was trapped here, he wasn't without some control. Perhaps he could use this to his advantage and get one of these humans to understand what he truly was. "You unnerstand this, Remy, you'll unnerstand me. The real me. It's just as well that yer the one what got stuck in here with me. Of alla yous guys, yer the one I'd pick as best ta unnerstand this. I seen it in yer shine, all that blue an' green. It's in yer sense of play and how ya never seem ta let nuthin' faze ya. Buckle up, Cajun. This's gonna be one wild ride."
"M' shine? What you talkin' about? Espe're, Kim!" Remy stammered, demanding patience and a few more facts. Before Remy could protest further, the pilot Kimble went right up to him and touched his forehead with his fingertips.
