Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing. This series and all characters original to it are licensed by Sunrise and Bandai Entertainment. I claim no ownership, nor do I profit in any way from this fan work.
Zero
Vega_Lume
Summary:
A brief look into the life of a very special child.
Written for Halloween 2019
Notes:
I was going for subtle horror and suspense. I don't think I managed it.
Also this was finished very quickly and has not been properly proof read (yet). I do apologize for any major mistakes that might have slipped through.
/ notebook writings /
(See the end of the work for more notes.)
Work Text:
Title: Zero
By Vega-Lume
September 19
"The picture came!" Dorothy tapped on the glass and woke up the young red haired girl sleeping in the sealed room. She held up glossy print for the child to see. "It's autographed and everything!" Dorothy mouthed at her as she couldn't be heard from the other side of the glass without using the intercom.
Mariemaia smiled a really big smile as she read the writing through the glass. TO MARIEMAIA—THE NEXT SONG IS FOR YOU.
She couldn't believe it!
Everybody laughed the way she yelled and ran in circles around the room until she fell on the floor and scraped her knee. Gee, the janitor turned on the intercom, "Kid, you're acting crazier than usual. What are you so excited about a dumb picture for?"
Didn't they know Katy Perry was the greatest singer of all time? The child thought angrily as she taped the picture to the wall over her bed.
On the rest of her wall she had maps of the whole world, and the solar system. There were road maps, city maps, transit maps, and mall maps. Nearly a hundred different maps for practically everything a map could be made for. She found Tokyo on her map of Japan and traced her finger along until she found Osaka and smiled before her eyes sought out a map of the constellations, there she found Lyra, and just above it Draco.
But there was nothing else on her wall like Katy Perry.
Her new favorite, the best. The only other thing she had that felt as special was the cassette tape from the time President Obama had called her on the telephone when she was six. He said, "Hi, is Mariemaia there? This is the President of the United States." And he had sounded just like he did on TV.
Her heart had flipped, because it was so weird to hear the President say your name. She hadn't been able to think of anything to say back. He had asked her how she was feeling, and all she had said, "I'm fine." That had made him laugh as if she had made a joke.
Then his voice got very serious, and he said everyone was praying and thinking about her, and then he hung up.
When she listened to that tape now, she wished she had thought of something else to say. She used to imagine that he might call again, but it only happened once.
After Dorothy gave her the picture of Katy, Mariemaia watched as the nurse patched up her skinned knee. "Could someone to fix my tablet so I can have YouTube and stuff again so I can stream Katy's concert?" she asked as the nurse stuck a Band-Aid on the small wound.
All the tablet could play were videos that Ms. Une put on it.
Dorothy said as she collected up her things, "There aren't any concerts anymore." Mariemaia got angry, she hated when people lie. "There's always concerts and shows." She said. "Some people had a meeting and decided not to have things like that anymore, because too many people all together isn't safe, but maybe it will start up again," Dorothy told her. "I'm just sure not when that might happen. Nobody except you is thinking about concerts or music right now anyway."
Mariemaia suddenly felt sad, Dorothy's comment was ruining the autograph, because it seemed like Katy Perry must have been lying, too.
"Never mind, kiddo. Katy is still writing her music, it'll problem show up on iTunes later, and Ms. Une will put it on your tablet for you." The child felt better then. Ms. Une, her tutor had left her a notebook that she was meant write down her thoughts and everything that happened to her.
"I don't have any thoughts," she had said but Ms. Une said that was ridiculous.
Mariemaia glanced at her new picture then pulled the book closer and grabbed a pen.
/I'm ten today./ She wrote. /If I was in a regular school, I would be in fifth grade like my brother was. I asked Ms. Une what grade I'm in, and she said I don't have a grade. I read like I'm in seventh grade and I do math like I'm in fourth grade. She says I don't exactly fit anywhere, but I'm very smart./
She tapped the pen to her lip before putting it to the lined paper again.
/Ms. Une comes every day, except on weekends. She is my best friend, but I have to call her Ms. Une instead of using her first name, which is Anne, because she is so proper. She is very neat and wears skirts and dresses, and keeps her hair braided tight behind her ears. Everything about her is very clean except her shoes, which are dirty. Her shoes are supposed to be white, but whenever I see her standing outside of the glass, when she hasn't put on her plastic suit yet, her shoes look brown and muddy./
September 20
"You know how they give sick children their last wish when they're dying? Well, when Dr. Merquise told me to think of the one thing I wanted for my birthday, I said I wanted an autograph from Katy Perry, so does that mean I'm dying and they're giving me my wish?" she asked Mr. Une the next day after showing her the picture.
The tall woman smiled and put her hand on top of the soft red hair. Her hand felt very heavy inside the big glove of the suit. "Listen here, little lady," she said, which is what she called her when she is worried; knowing it always helped her feel better. "You're a lot of things, but you aren't dying. When everyone can be as healthy as you, it'll be a happy day."
/The people here always seem to be waiting, and I don't know what for. I thought maybe they were waiting for me to die. But I believe Ms. Une. If she doesn't want to tell me something, she just says, "Leave it alone, Mariemaia," which is her way of letting me know she would rather not say anything at all than ever tell a lie./
October 5
/The lights in my room started going on and off again today, and it got so hot that my hair was stuck down like right after a shower and I had to wear just my cami and undies until I went to bed. Ms. Une couldn't do her lessons the way she wanted because of the lights not working right. She said it was the emergency generator. I asked her what the emergency was, and she said something that sounded funny: "Same old same old." That was all she said. I asked her if the emergency generator was the reason Dr. Merquise took my tablet, and she said yes. She said everyone is conserving energy, and I have to do my part, too. But I miss my videos. There is nothing at all to do when I can't watch my videos. I hate it when I'm bored. Sometimes I'll even watch videos I've seen a hundred times, really a hundred times. I miss my videos. When I'm watching them, it's like I'm inside the movie, too. I hope Dr. Merquise will bring my tablet back soon./
October 22
Mariemaia sat patiently, keeping quite still as Dorothy slipped the needled into the vein in the child's arm.
"When me and Daddy used to watch movies on TV he would say the same words as the people in the movie," Mariemaia babbled wanting to swing her feet. "Sometimes he would say the words before they did."
Dorothy gasped and then all of a sudden she was crying very hard. She dropped the needle on the floor and she was holding her wrist like she it hurt very much. "Goddammit, goddammit, goddammit," the nurse chanted over and over.
"What happened," the child asked only to be pushed away when she reached out, the force so great it nearly knocked her over and the woman looked at her with angry blue eyes.
Dorothy went to the door and punched the number code quickly before pulling the handle, but the door wouldn't open. Something in her arm popped loudly from her yanking at the door so hard. She tried the code again. She was still crying.
Mariemaia didn't know what happened but she mashed her finger on the buzzer hard, but everybody ignored her. It reminded her of when I first came here.
She had spent hours pushing the buzzer and crying, but nobody ever came.
/I made Dorothy cry today…/
October 23
"Do you know what happened to Dorothy?" She asked Ms. Une when she came the next day.
"No, I don't dear," she replied. "I live on the outside, but I promise to find out." Then she had her recite the Preamble to the Constitution, which Mariemaia already knew by heart. And for a little while she forgot about Dorothy.
After her lessons, Ms. Une left and called her on the phone an hour later, like she promised. She always kept her promises.
The telephone was set so people could call in, but no outgoing calls could be made. It rarely rings now.
"Dorothy poked herself," Ms. Une told her. "The needle stuck through her hot suit. She told Dr. Merquise there was sudden movement."
The child wondered who made the sudden movement, Dorothy or her. "Is she okay?" she asked and thought maybe Ms. Une was mad at her, because she had told her many times that I should be careful. Maybe she wasn't being careful enough when Dorothy was here.
"We'll see, Mariemaia," Ms. Une said. From her voice, it sounded like the answer was no.
"Will she get sick?" she asked. "Probably, yes, they think so," Ms. Une replied. Mariemaia didn't want her to answer any more questions. Though she liked it when people told her the truth, it always made her feel bad, too. "I'm sorry," she tried but it was hard because she wanted to cry.
"It's not your fault, Mariemaia," Ms. Une said gently.
he couldn't help it. She started sobbing like she used to when I was little.
"Dorothy knew something like this could happen," she Ms. Une reminded her. "We all do."
/What Ms. Une told me today didn't make anything better, because I remembered how Dorothy's face looked so scared inside her mask, and how she pushed me away. Dorothy has been here since almost the beginning, even before Ms. Une came, and she used to smile at me even when nobody else did. When she showed me my picture from Katy Perry, she looked almost as happy as me. I had never seen her whole face smiling like that. She looked so pretty and glad. I was crying so much I couldn't even write down my thoughts like Ms. Une said to. Not until today./
November 4
/A long time ago, when I first came here and had a TV in my room it played programs from outside, I saw the first-grade picture I had taken at school on TV. I always hated that picture because I was missing my front two teeth and my brother teased my 'cause I talked funny and I always remember that when I see that picture. I turned on the TV and saw that picture on the news! The man on TV said the names of everyone in our family, and even spelled them out on the screen. Then, he called me Patient Zero.
He said I was the first person who got sick.
But that wasn't really what happened. Daddy was sick before me. I've told them that already. He got it away on his job in Alaska. Daddy traveled a lot because he drilled for oil, but he came home early that time. We weren't expecting him until Christmas, but he came when it was only September, close to my birthday. He said he'd been sent home because some people on his oil crew got sick. One of them had even died. But the doctor in Alaska had looked at Daddy and said he was fine, and then his boss sent him home. Daddy was really mad about that. He hated to lose money.
Time away from a job was always losing money, he said. He was in a bad mood when he wasn't working. And the worse thing was, Daddy wasn't fine. After two days, his eyes got red and he started sniffling then the fever came. Then I got sick too, and then my Momma and my brother. When the man on TV showed my picture and called me Patient Zero and said I was the first one to get sick, that was when I first learned how people tell lies, because that wasn't true. Somebody on Daddy's oil rig caught it first, and then he gave it to Daddy. And Daddy gave it to me, my Momma and my brother. But one thing he said was right. I was the only one who got well. My Aunt Sally came here to live at the lab with me at first, but she wasn't here long, because her eyes had already turned red by then. She came to help take care of me and my brother before Momma died, but probably she shouldn't have done that. She lived all the way in California, and I bet she wouldn't have gotten sick if she hadn't come to Miami to be with us.
But even Momma's doctor didn't know what was wrong then, so nobody could warn her about what would happen if she got close to us. Sometimes I dream I'm calling Aunt Sally on my phone; telling her please, please not to come. Aunt Sally and my Momma were twins. They looked exactly alike. After Aunt Sally died, I was the only one left in my whole family. I got very upset when I saw that news report. I didn't like hearing someone talk about my family like that, people who didn't even know us. And I felt like maybe the man on TV was right, and maybe it was all my fault.
I screamed and cried the whole day. After that, Dr. Merquise had my TV taken away so I couldn't see the news anymore or any programs from outside. And they gave me my tablet, just cartoons and kid movies on video.
The only good thing was, that was when the President called me. I think he was sorry when he heard what happened to my family. When I ask Dr. Merquise if they're still talking about me on the news, he just shrugs his shoulders. Sometimes Dr. Merquise won't say yes or no if you ask him a question. It doesn't matter, though. I think the TV people probably stopped showing my picture a long time ago. I was just a little kid when my family got sick. I've been here four whole years! Oh, I almost forgot. Dorothy isn't back yet./
November 7
/I have been staring at my Katy Perry picture all day, and I think the handwriting on the photograph looks like Dr. Merquise's. But I'm afraid to ask anyone about that. Oh, yeah—and yesterday the power was off in my room for a whole day! Same old same old. That's what Ms. Une would say/.
November 12
"I want to be a doctor when I grow up," Mariemaia said to Ms. Une.
"That's a wonderful idea," she had replied with a big smile. "I believe people will always need doctors, and you will be in a good position to help people."
"Is that's because I've been here so long?"
"Yes dearest. You have already learned a lot from watching Dr. Merquise and the nurses. Now the first thing you should know about is diseases," She said. "In the old days, a long time ago, diseases like typhoid used to kill a lot of people because of unsanitary conditions and dirty drinking water, but people got smarter and doctors found drugs to cure it, so diseases didn't kill as many people after that. Doctors are always trying to stay a step ahead of disease," Ms. Une said. "But sometimes they can't." She continued. "Sometimes a new disease comes. Or, maybe it's not a new disease, but an old disease that has been hidden for a long time until something brings it out in the open. That's how nature balances the planet, because as soon as doctors find cures for one thing, there is always something new."
Dr. Merquise said Mariemaia's disease was new. There was a long name for it that the child couldn't remember how to spell, but most of the time people here called it Virus-M.
In a way it was named after her. That's what Dr. Merquise said. Mariemaia didn't like that.
/Ms. Une said after Daddy came home, the virus got in my body and attacked me just like everyone else, so I got the fever and was really, really sick for a lot of days. Then, I thought I was completely better. I stopped feeling bad at all. But the virus was already in my brother and my Momma and dad, and even our doctor from before, and Ms. Une says it was very aggressive, which means doctors didn't know how to kill it. Everybody wears yellow plastic suits and airtight masks when they're in my room because the virus is still in the air, and it's in my blood, and it's on my plates and cups whenever I finish eating.
They call the suits hot suits because the virus is hot in my room. Not hot like fire, but dangerous.
Ms. Une says Virus-M is extra special in my body because even though I'm not sick anymore, except for when I feel like I have a temperature and I have to lie down sometimes, the virus won't go away. I can make other people sick even when I feel fine, so she said that makes me a carrier. Ms. Une said Dr. Merquise doesn't know anybody else who's gotten well except for me. Oh, except maybe there are some little girls in China. Dorothy told me once there were some little girls in China the same age as me who didn't get sick either. But when I asked Dr. Merquise, he said he didn't know if it was true. And Ms. Une told me it might have been true once, but those girls might not be alive anymore. I asked her if they died of Virus-M, and she said no, no, no. Three times. She told me to forget all about any little girls in China.
I'm the only one like me she knows about for sure, she says. The only one left. That's why I'm here, she says. But I already knew that part. When I was little, Dr. Merquise told me about antibodies and stuff in my blood, and he said the reason him and Relena and Dorothy and all the other doctors take so much blood from me all the time, until they make purple bruises on my arms and I feel dizzy, is so they can try to help other people get well, too.
I have had almost ten surgeries since I have been here. I think they have even taken out parts of me, but I'm not really sure. I look the same on the outside, but I feel different on the inside. I had surgery on my belly a year ago, and sometimes when I'm climbing the play-rope hanging from the ceiling in my room, I feel like it hasn't healed right, like I'm still cut open. Ms. Une says that's only in my mind. But it really hurts! I don't hate anything like I hate operations. I wonder if that's what happened to the other little girls, if they kept getting cut up and cut up until they died.
Anyway, it's been a year since I had any operations. I keep telling Dr. Merquise they can have as much blood as they want, but I don't want any more operations, please.
Dr. Merquise said there's nobody in the world better than me to make people well, if only they can figure out how. Ms. Une says the same thing. That makes me feel a little better about Virus-M. I was happy Ms. Une told me all about disease, because I don't want her to treat me like a baby the way everybody else does. That's what I always tell her. I like to know things. I didn't even cry when she told me Dorothy died. Maybe I got all my crying over with in the beginning, because I figured out a long time ago nobody gets better once they get sick. Nobody except for me./
November 14
"Ms. Une, how many people have Virus-M?" "Oh, Mariemaia, I don't know," she said. Mariemaia didn't think she was in the mood to talk about disease.
"Just guess," she asked. Ms. Une thought for a long time. Then she opened her notebook and began drawing lines and boxes for her to see. Her picture looked like the tiny brown lines all over an oak-tree leaf. Mariemaia had an oak tree in her backyard, and her daddy said it was more than a hundred years old. He said trees sometimes live longer than people do. And he was right, because Mariemaia was sure that tree was still standing in their yard even though her whole family was gone.
This is how it goes, Mariemaia," Ms. Une said, showing with her pencil-tip how one line branched down to the next. "People are giving it to each other. They don't usually know they're sick for two weeks, and by then they've passed it to a lot of other people. By now, it's already been here for four years, so the same thing that happened to your family is happening to a lot of families."
"How many families?" she asked again and tried to think of the biggest number she could. "A million?" Ms. Une shrugged just like Dr. Merquise would. Maybe that meant yes.
She couldn't imagine a million families, so she asked "Did happened to your husband and kids, too?"
"No sweetie, I was never married." Mariemaia guessed that true, because Ms. Une never lied to her and she didn't look that old.
Ms. Une smiled at her, even though her eyes weren't happy. "My parents were in Miami, and they got it right away," Ms. Une said. "Then my sister and nieces came to visit them, and they got it, too. I was away working when it happened, and that's why I'm still here." Ms. Une had never told her that before.
Her family lived in Miami too. Her daddy had said their house was too small and she had had to share a room with her brother, but her momma liked where they lived because the house was six blocks from the ocean. Momma said the ocean can heal anything. But that couldn't be true, could it?
Momma wouldn't like it where she was now; there is no ocean and no windows neither.
Mariemaia wondered if Ms. Une's parents knew someone who worked on an oil rig, too, but probably not. They had probably gotten sick from her daddy too. "Ms. Une," she said, "Maybe you should move inside like Dr. Merquise and everybody else has."
"Oh, Mariemaia," Ms. Une replied, like she was trying to sound cheerful. "Little Lady, if I were that scared of anything, why would I be in here teaching you? I asked to be your teacher."
Mariemaia hadn't known that either. "I thought your boss was making you do it"
"I don't have a boss. No one sent me here, I wanted to come."
"Just to meet me?" she asked her. "Yes, because I saw your face on television, and you looked to me like a one-of-a-kind little lady," she said. "I was a nurse before and used to work with Dr. Merquise in his office in Atlanta." She said. "We worked at the CDC, which is a place that studies diseases. Since he knew me he let me come here to teach you. A girl like you needs an education. She needs to know how to face life outside," she said.
Ms. Une was funny like that. Sometimes she would just stop the regular lesson about presidents or the Ten Commandments and teach her something like how to sew and how to tell plants you eat from plants you don't. Mariemaia remember when Ms. Une once brought a basket with real fruits and vegetables in it and they were fresh. Ms. Une had said she has a garden where she lived on the outside, close to here. It was one of the reasons she wouldn't move inside is because she loved her garden so much, and she didn't want to give it up.
The stuff she brought was very interesting to look at, it had been a long time since Mariemaia had seen and eaten fruit that hadn't come out of a can. There had been apples and raspberries and sweet potatoes. Then she brought out a book with other things and showed her local, naturally growing things like berries and mushrooms, pointing out the differences so Mariemaia could tell which ones were safe to eat and what ones were poison. She promised to bring other fruits and vegetables to see so she would know what's good for her and what isn't.
There was a lot to learn about life outside.
/Well, I don't want Ms. Une to feel like I am a waste of her time, but I know for a fact I don't have to face life outside. Dr. Merquise told me I might be a teenager before I can leave, or even older. He said I might even be all grown up.
But that's okay, I guess. I try not to think about what it would be like to leave. My room, which they moved me to when I had been here six months, is really, really big. They built it especially for me. It's four times as big as the hotel room my Momma and dad got for us when we went to Disneyland when I was five. I remember that room because my brother Alex kept asking Daddy, "Doesn't this cost too much?"
Every time Daddy bought us a T-shirt or anything, Alex brought up how much it cost. I told Alex to stop it because I was afraid Daddy would get mad and stop buying us stuff. Then, when we were in line for the Pirates ride, all by ourselves, Alex told me, "Dad got fired from his job, stupid."
I waited for Daddy and Momma to tell me he got fired, but they didn't. After Alex said that, I didn't ask them to buy me anything else, and I was scared to stay in that huge, pretty hotel room because I thought we wouldn't have enough money to pay. But we did. And then Daddy got a job on the oil rig, and we thought everything would be better.
My room here is as big as half the whole floor I bet. When I run from one side of my room to the other, from the glass in front to the wall in back, I'm out of breath. I like to do that. Sometimes I run until my ribs start squeezing and my stomach hurts like it's cut open and I have to sit down and rest. There's a basketball net in here, too, and the ball doesn't ever touch the ceiling except if I throw it too high on purpose. I also have books, and I draw pictures of me and my family and Ms. Une and Dr. Merquise.
Because I can't watch my videos, now I spend a lot of time writing in this notebook. A whole hour went by already. When I am writing down my thoughts, I forget about everything else. I have decided for sure to be a doctor someday. I'm going to help make people better./
November 29
/Thanksgiving was great! Ms. Une cooked real bread and brought me food she'd heated up. I could tell everything except the bread was from a can, like always, but it tasted so much better than my regular food. I haven't had bread in a long time. Because of her mask, Ms. Une ate her dinner before she came, but she sat and watched me eat.
Relena came in, too, and she surprised me when she gave me a little hug. She never did that before.
Dr. Merquise came in for a little while at the end, and he hugged me too, but he said he couldn't stay because he was busy. Dr. Merquise doesn't come visit me much anymore. I could see he looked tired. I told him he should take a nap and he just smiled.
I liked having everybody come to my room. Before, in when I first got there, no one came in my room, not even Ms. Une. She used to sit in a chair outside the glass and use the intercom for my lessons. It's better when they come in. I remember how Thanksgiving used to be, with my family around the table in the dining room, and I told Ms. Une about that. Yes, she said, even though she didn't celebrate Thanksgiving in Germany like Americans do, she remembered sitting at the table with her parents and her sister for Christmas dinner. She said she came to see me today, and Relena and Dr. Merquise came too, because we are each other's family now, so we are not alone. I hadn't thought of it like that before./
December 1
/No one will tell me, not even Ms. Une., but I think maybe Dr. Merquise is sick. I haven't seen him in five whole days. It's so quiet here. I wish it was Thanksgiving again.../
January 23
Mariemaia hadn't realized before, but you had to be in the right mood to write your thoughts down.
In December a doctor with a French name came. He wasn't like Dr. Merquise at all and she could hardly believe he was a real doctor, because he always had on dirty clothes whenever she saw him take off his hot suit outside of the glass. He was never nice to her, and he wouldn't answer at all when she asked him questions.
He also would never look in her eyes when he was around her. One time he slapped her so hard her cheek and ear turned bright red and hurt for days after. He never apologized for it. When she had first come that had done test after test, taken blood and other things. But after a while the doctors stopped the tests and mostly they went away. The new doctor started everything again and hooked her up to IV bags and took so much blood from her that she couldn't stand up without help. I was scared he would operate on her like they had when she was little. Ms. Une didn't come in for over a week, and when she finally came back Mariemaia told her about the doctor taking so much blood.
Ms. Une was furious. "He wouldn't let me in, and then he tried to bar me from coming back." He wouldn't let her! Mariemaia thought in shock. She said he tried to bar her from coming. Bar is the word she used, which sounded like a prison.
The new doctor and Ms. Une do not get along, even though they both spoke French. Mariemaia saw them outside of the glass one day, yelling back and forth and moving their hands. The doctor's face was splotchy read and she couldn't hear what they were saying. She was so afraid he would send Ms. Une away for good. But today she came in the room and told her that he was leaving.
"I'm so happy; I was scared he would take Dr. Merquise's place forever."
"No," she told her, "there isn't anyone taking Dr. Merquise's place. He only came here to study you in person because he was one of the doctors that Dr. Merquise had been sending your blood and tests to ever since you first got here. But he was very sick when he got here, and he's getting worse every day, so he's leaving." She looked away for a second. "Seeing you was his last wish." Ms. Une said.
"That doesn't sound like it could be true because he didn't act like he wanted to be with me."
"You weren't a person to him, dearest." She looked sad. "You were just something to study."
Mariemaia frowned, "Will he go back to France to his family?"
"No, he probably didn't have a family, and even if he did, it's too hard to go to France. The ocean is in the way," she said. She seemed tired from all that talking. "I have decided to move inside, like Relena, to make sure they were taking care of you properly. The whole place has been falling apart."
Her gaze goes to the window and they can see water dripping down the wall outside of the glass, a lot of it, making puddles all over the floor. They could see that the water was dirty with different colors floating on top, the way a Mariemaia's driveway used to look after her dad sprayed it with a hose. He had said the oil from the car made the water look that way, but she didn't know why it looked that way now.
"It smells as bad as it looks," Ms. Une said. "It's ridiculous. If they're going to keep you here, they'd damn well better take care of you." She must have been really mad, because she never swears.
"I remember once, Gee came and pressed on my intercom really late at night, when I was asleep and nobody else was around. He was talking really loud like people do in videos when they're drunk. He was glaring at me through the glass, banging on it. I had never seen him look so mean. I thought he would try to come into my room but then I remembered he couldn't because he didn't have a hot suit. But I'll never forget how he said; 'They should put you to sleep like a dog at the pound.'"
She tried not to think about that night too much, the memory her nightmares. "It happened when I was pretty little, like eight. Sometimes I thought maybe I just dreamed it, because the next time Gee came he acted just like normal. He even smiled at me a little bit. Before he stopped coming here, Gee was nice to me every day after that."
Ms. Une did not sound surprised. "Yes, Mariemaia," she told me, "For a long time, there have been people outside who didn't think we should be taking care of you." She never knew that before.
/I remember a long time ago, when I was really little and I had pneumonia, Momma was scared to leave me alone at the hospital. "They won't know how to take care of Mariemaia there," she said daddy, even though she didn't know I heard her. I had to stay by myself all night, and because of what Momma said, I couldn't go to sleep. I was afraid everyone at the hospital would forget I was there. Or maybe something bad would happen to me. It seems like the lights go off every other day now. And I know people must really miss Lou, because the dirty green water is all over the floor outside my glass and there's no one to clean it up./
February 14
"6-4-6-7-2-9-4-3. 6-4-6-7-2-9-4-3…"
Mariemaia was so pleased that she remembered the numbers already. She had been saying them over and over, both out loud and in her head so she wouldn't forget.
She had also written then down a few times to make sure but now she could remember them without even looking.
The day before no one came by to see her, not even Ms. Une. There were no doctors poking at her and no food either. But this morning Ms. Une came with a huge bowl of oatmeal, saying she was very sorry.
"I had to look a long time to find that food," she had said sounding very tired. It was cold and didn't have any sugar but Mariemaia didn't complain as she ate, Ms. Une smiling at her fondly through the window in the front of her mask.
She didn't stay long, because she doesn't teach her lessons anymore. After the French doctor left, they had talked about the Emancipation Proclamation and Martin Luther King, but Ms. Une didn't bring that up today. She just kept sighing.
"Didn't get enough rest last night," She said. "I'm so sorry I couldn't feed you yesterday." She looked angry for a moment, "Don't count on Relena bringing you anymore food because I don't know where is."
It was hard for Mariemaia to hear her talk through her hot suit, the mask was crooked, so the microphone wasn't in front of her mouth where it should be.
She saw her notebook then and asked if she could look at it.
"Sure." She replied and passed it over.
Ms. Une looked at the pages from the beginning. Commenting here and there as she read, especially liking the part where Mariemaia had written that she felt like she was her best friend.
Her face-mask was fogging up, so she couldn't see her eyes and couldn't tell if she was smiling or crying.
When she put the notebook down, she told her to pay close attention to her and repeat the numbers she told said as she wrote them in the book.
6-4-6-7-2-9-4-3
"What are they?" Mariemaia asked, looking at the string of numbers written in purple glitter pen.
"It's the security code for your door. You need to know it because the buzzer wasn't working anymore and you might need to leave the room if I can't get to you and nobody else comes to bring you food." She tapped the page again. "You can use the same code on the elevator as well. The kitchen was on the third floor, to the left. There won't be anybody in there so make sure you look on all the shelves. Climb up on the counter if you need too and look on the very top the top. If you don't find any then you need to take the stairs down to the first floor and find the red EXIT sign to go outside." She fixed the child with her brown eyes. "You must go outside, because if I'm gone, no one will come back to feed you."
The child was scared then, but the Ms. Une she put her hand on top of Mariemaia's head again just like usual. "I'm sure there is plenty of food outside."
"But am I allowed?" She asked her. "What if people get sick?"
"You worry so much, little lady," she said. "Only you matter now, my little one-of-a-kind."
She was sure Ms. Une didn't really want her to go outside. She thought about that over and over. Ms. Une must have been very tired to tell her to do something like that. Maybe she had the fever. Her brother had said silly things when he had a fever, her dad too. Daddy kept calling her Robert; she didn't even know who Robert was.
Daddy had had a brother who died when he was little, maybe his name was Robert. Mariemaia couldn't remember if her parents ever mentioned her having an Uncle Robert.
She wished she could find Ms. Une and give her something to drink.
Mariemaia could remember being very thirsty when she had had the fever. But she didn't know where Ms. Une was, and if she wasn't sick, she would be if Mariemaia went to her and Ms. Une wasn't wearing her hot suit. Mariemaia thought that maybe she could wear a suit and go looking, but she didn't know where don't know where Dr. Merquise kept the hot suits.
/What if the oatmeal was all that was left in the kitchen, and now I ate it all. I hope not! But I'm thinking maybe it is because I know Ms. Une would have brought me more food if she could have found it. She's always asking me if I have enough to eat. I'm already hungry again./
"6-4-6-7-2-9-4-3," she mumbled to herself. "6-4-6-7-2-9-4-3…"
February 15
/I'm writing in the dark. The lights are off. I tried to open my lock but the numbers don't work because of the lights being off. I don't know where Ms. Une is. I'm trying not to cry. What if the lights never come back on?/
February 16
There was so much Mariemaia wanted to write in her book but I her head ached from hunger.
When the lights came back on she had swallowed her fear went out into the hall like Ms. Une had told her to, using the numbers she had be taught.
She found the elevator easily enough but got lost looking for the kitchen, not remembering exactly where it was and had to turn back and go down a different corridor before finding it. She had planned on going as quickly as she could, just grabbing some Oreos or maybe a jar of peanut butter, but when she found it she stood in the doorway gaping in shock.
It was stripped clean.
Cockroaches, empty cans, and wrappers were scattered over the floor, but the cupboards and fridges were completely empty.
Tears filled her eyes as she dropped to her knees to see the far back of even the lowest cupboards, but there was nothing left to eat.
There was a large, thick window webbed with wire that looked out into a parking lot.
It was empty with the exception of one car with two flats tires. The black asphalt glistened and sparkled with thousands of tiny bits of broken glass. The sun was so bright it hurt her eyes, but that didn't stop her from stepping up to the window and placing her hands on the warm glass.
She was alone. She knew that now.
Something very wrong must have happened. Dr. Marquise and Ms. Une must have died too, they would never leave her alone and hungry unless someone forced them to go away.
Stepping away from the glass she wandered the filthy, wet hallway back to the room that had been her home for so many years and packed a small bag with a long-sleeved shirt, a pair of jeans, her favorite doll, the photo of Katy (more to remember Dr. Marquise as she was sure he signed it, not Katy) and her poster of the constellations.
Then she pulled out her notebook and wrote in it one last time.
/Ms. Une, this is for you if you're still alive—or whoever comes looking for me. I know somebody will find this notebook if I leave it on my bed. I'm very sorry I had to leave in such a hurry./
She didn't want to go outside but her hunger was nearly unbearable. Maybe, maybe she could go and find something and bring it back. Maybe she could find Ms. Une's garden and get some carrots and apples.
That would last her until the doctors came back.
She wasn't allowed outside, she knew that. People could get sick; they could die if she breathed on them.
She spoke aloud just to hear someone's voice. "I'll just tell them how hungry I am. If I promise to come back here, maybe they'll give me food."
That decided Mariemaia picked up the notebook scribbling out one final sentence.
/Whoever is reading this, please don't worry. I'll tell anybody I see not to get too close to me. I know Dr. Merquise was very worried I might make somebody sick…/
End
Notes:
Retelling of 'Patient Zero' by Tananarive Due
Also if you ever wonder if I'm still active just look me up on ao3. I'll post there long before I post here.