I woke up with a start, momentarily oblivious that I'd dislocated my shoulder. I'd call the pain of trying to sit up blinding, but the fact of the matter is, I saw her perfectly:
A child, Stranded by the looks of it, no more than eight or nine, standing over me. If I was to give three words pertaining to her, I'd go with Denim, Curls, and Trouble. Later, after I got a good look at her, the Denim would turn out to be less blue, and the Curls even more red, but the Trouble? That specification couldn't be closer to the truth.
I'm not sure what another human being would've done in that situation, but my knee-jerk reaction to stop and stare didn't seemed unwarranted. People talk about cherubs guiding them towards bright lights when they die. For all I knew, I could've been dead, and if that bedraggled, bug-eyed little scamp was to be my tour guide to the afterlife, then shit-freezing my ass off didn't seem like it would be such a problem for very much longer.
I won't keep you in suspense, though; I wasn't dead. But I guess she thought I was or something, which still seems creepy but at least a little less immoral. During this day and age, need has never had a more serious connotation, and taking something useful off of a person who doesn't require it anymore (re: dead) isn't unheard of, certainly not when it comes to the Stranded. Vulture-Culture is probably something taught to them in diapers.
That being said, she did not need a pair of engineering goggles that were too big for her, especially not when I had an assortment of gadgets, rations, and first-aid supplies on my person that held far more use. The fact that they sit on my forehead might've suggested an easy accessibility, but in that, she was wrong; I've worn the things for close to ten years. That they're not attached to me by anything other than their leather band is miraculous. All it took was a slight tug on them for me to jolt awake, and then there we were.
Curls, Denim, Trouble. I think I scared her about as much as she surprised me, but her lack of concussion and my possession of one decided the difference in reaction time-during the two seconds in which I could only stare blankly, she finished the job of taking off my goggles and then spun on her heel. Shoulder pain was momentarily forgotten; the fear of losing one's most prized possession is a striking motivator, apparently. I managed to lean forward and grab the strap of her overalls. She spun around and punched me in the face.
Yes, her hand was tiny, so the force wasn't all there, but her aim was. And if a piece of dust can make someone's eyes water when the two make contact, than a well-placed fist most certainly will, child-sized or not. In the time it took me to rear back and blink the clouds away, she'd scampered from my grip and out the door.
The fact that she still had my goggles is obviously the reason I decided to go after her, but maybe my underdeveloped shoulder angel also mentioned something about her being a 'small, helpless child.' We can use that as the driving force behind why I followed her, you know, for posterity.
If I was the type of person to solicit for validation, this is where you'd pat my back.
Anyway, I caught up to her when we were both in the middle of the street, that image of Miles being snatched by a Reaver still fresh in my mind. Keeping my right arm as still as possible, I grabbed her wrist with my left, yanking her to a stop. She screamed, not out of fear so much as complete and utter rage. Once more spinning around, she started swinging her arms, growling and squealing all the while.
"Hey, knock it off!" I shouted. It wasn't my intention to add another raised voice to the attention-grabbing cacophony she was already putting out, but I was tired, and hurting, and wanting desperately to get her to calm down enough for us to talk. About what is anyone's guess; if you have any conversation starters for a mechanic and the surly middle-schooler who'd just burglarized his unconscious form, let me know.
In hindsight, yelling wasn't a great idea but, as you'll soon find out, volume didn't really turn out to be an issue anyway.
Thirty seconds went by with her pulling and kicking and flailing, but it wasn't until she managed to strike my injured arm that I yanked her closer to me, grip tightening around her wrist. She flinched, but didn't stop swinging.
"Are you fucking trying to get us killed?" I had half a mind to just grab my goggles and let her go, thinking that if she really wanted to brave the world by herself, who was I to stop her? Thanks, Mom and Dad, for setting such a great example.
But then I noticed something; her free hand wasn't in a fist at all, but moving into dozens of different shapes, rapid fire. Similarly, her arm wasn't moving towards me, but up and down, from her head to her chest to her face. What looked for a moment to my jostled brain like an attempt at intricately-formed shadow puppets suddenly made a whole lot more sense; she was trying to communicate.
She was deaf.
The minute she saw my face soften with realization, she stopped her desperate signs and yanked her wrist from my grasp. I let her. She didn't run, but wiped her nose with the back of her hand, brow furrowed, little frame shaking as she tried to stop a swell of angry tears.
"You're deaf," I said, out loud this time. Obviously, she couldn't hear, but seemed to relax marginally, knowing that I finally understood the situation. With blazing grey eyes and a wobbling bottom lip, she flipped me off.
I guess I deserved that much.
What might've happened if the Locust hadn't show up is a mystery to me, because at that moment, they did. Convenient? I think so. Those scaly bastards have a flare for the dramatic, no question; the way an E-Hole will suddenly crumble open at just the right time, them crawling out and uttering a few choice phrases like 'destroy' or some equally cliched line of shit. With their voices garbled and messy, one wonders if they have to practice their Tyran every night before bedtime.
The kid may not have been able to hear them, but she didn't need to-the ground shook as it began to cave in a little ways down the street, a tell-tale sign of incoming grubs. She took off, and for the second time that day, I followed her. By the time we got back inside the building on the corner (a pre-war deli, as it turns out) they were marching right where we had stood.
My heart pounding in my chest, I crouched behind the counter at the back of the store, the girl right beside me. With just a snub pistol, I thought assessing the situation would be smarter than diving right in, plus now I had the girl to think about. I glanced at her. She didn't look afraid, but I didn't know how she would react to the inevitable blood-spatter that would ensue post contact, either.
So we watched, me and her, through the glass display case under the counter that had miraculously survived years of quakes and explosions. As the Locust made their way up the street, I made mental notes, documenting as best I could through the dirty glass how many there were, what faction, etcetera. Most of what I saw were Theron guards, but I didn't know whether to feel grateful for their lack of guns or sick at the prospect of dying at the hands of their machetes, which were bigger than the kid.
After what felt like years, they were gone, disappearing down the road, no doubt inspecting the totaled Pack Horse. I hoped they wern't smart enough to notice Mile's cut seatbelt and realize that such a thing spelled out 'escapee.' Whatever the case, they hadn't seen us, and at that moment, that was good enough for me.
I allowed myself an exhale, closing my eyes and leaning my forehead against the frosty glass. When I opened them again, I saw the girl through a smear of blood I'd left behind. She was out in the road again, and I almost had a heart attack.
"Hey, wait!" I hissed, ignoring once more the fact that she was deaf. Groaning as I pushed myself to my feet, I ran after her, limping until we were both side by side. She looked up at me-scowled-but didn't stop walking, heading in the opposite direction of the Locust.
And for some reason, I kept following. It was either that or stay put in the deli, less than a block away from certain death. At least by keeping with the girl, I was putting some distance between me and the grubs. Anyway, I had to try my TacCom, even though the white noise that greeted me when I pressed on it was predictable; Nemacyst still littered the sky, inky clouds floating lower than usual. Like hell I could get a message off through that.
"Hey," I said again, waving my hand by her face and then stepping in front of her completely. She huffed and glared and stopped walking.
Finally getting a decent look at her, I realized that my original estimation of eight or nine years old was off. That, or she was really small for her age. Now that we were both standing, she barely reached my hip, and I could see bones poking from her fingers and wrists. The overalls she wore scooped well past her ankles, the cuffs of them catching underneath her sneakers, and a dirty green backpack clung to her shoulders.
"Okay kid," I said. The words were more for me as I gestured at the goggles still clamped in her hand. Otherwise, we were just playing charades. "This has been fun and all, but I'm going to need those back."
Clearly, she didn't want to give them up but relented after about twenty seconds, tossing them at me with more force than necessary. I caught them against my chest, remembered the apparent cut on my forehead, and then hooked them to my toolbelt.
"Do you have parents?" I said slowly, annunciating the words, seeing if she could read lips. That hard expression stayed on her face, and she started signing, real slow, mocking me.
"Ok, I can see how I deserved that oneā¦" I muttered. I rubbed my eyes and took another breath, trying to think of a way to communicate. It's not like I could just leave her out there. Plus, she was a local, which meant a certain knowledge of the area, at least to some extent. If I wanted to get back to Jacinto (which I really, really did) I'd need to know where that was in relation to where I currently was.
A rustling sound broke into my thoughts. I looked down, and the kid had slipped off her backpack. While I watched, she pulled out a small chalkboard that gave me traumatizing flashbacks of grade school, and a smaller drawstring bag that rattled with chalk. She handed them both to me like I was an idiot. I rolled my eyes and crouched down, placing the board on the sidewalk because by then, my right arm had gone more or less numb.
"Do you have parents?" My handwriting sucked, but it was ledgible. So I was confused when, after showing her the board, she just shrugged.
"You don't know?" I was trying to be patient, reminding myself that it wouldn't be ethical to ask a child if they were an idiot. But seriously?
She shook her head and grabbed the board from me, erasing my words with the cuff of her sleeve, scribbling and then turning the board back my way.
Have you ever been in a bad situation that gets systematically worse?
You know that 'sinking feeling' everyone talks about?
The kid had drawn a stick figure, and upon closer inspection, it looked a lot like her, dozens of squiggly lines signifying a mop of curls. It had on overalls, and a backpack, and above it she'd written "I-N-N-O-W-A-E" in big letters, the 'E' sitting backwards.
For a horrifying second, I thought maybe my concussion had turned into a full on stroke. I blinked, hard, but "INNOWAE" was still all she'd written. Trying not to think about how much time was going by-or how monumentally screwed I really was-I took the board back and, not even bothering to erase her sketch, wrote
"?"
Again, she gave me a look like I really shouldn't be out on my own, pointing at the stick figure, the "INNOWAE," and then herself.
So she was Innowae. I would've gotten that a lot sooner, if the Stranded wern't so opposed to traditional names. What's wrong with 'Sally' or 'Jane' is anyone's guess.
"And you can't read," I grumbled, recognizing that her blocky, backwards letters meant a minimal grasp on written language. Resigning myself to the fact that I wasn't getting home any time soon, I erased her drawing, and started on my own.
It was her, and a man on her left, and a woman on her right, a shaky doodle of my previous question about her parents. It sucked, coming from by nondominant hand, but if this was her usual means of communication, I was holding out hope that she was used to deciphering other people's crappy stick figures.
I turned it towards her and, much to my relief, her face relaxed in understanding. She took the chalk, erased the man, and scribbled violently over the woman's chest. So dad was a deadbeat, and mom was dead. Perfect.
Before I could think of what to ask next, she took the board and started drawing.
A cross within a circle. She pointed at my shoulder, my head. I needed first aid.
"Yeah, no shit." I took the board, drew a square, a triangle, added window and door.
Home.
She pointed up the road, at nothing in particular, meaning her digs were farther away than I was willing to venture. It's not like the Stranded were going to give me a working vehicle, anyway, and that's if they even had one at all. And that's if Innowae even lived with anyone, which I was beginning to think she didn't.
I drew me, next to the house. I need to get home.
She shrugged and drew a King Raven. So call your friends.
Pressing my fingers into my eyes, I debated the merits of sketching an elaborate scene explaining how the Nemacyst fritz our comms and make communication impossible. I got as far as drawing Hale's skyline and some clouds before I noticed something: The ink, like in real life, was unusually low. Whether that be from today's shitty temperature or a particularly lazy Seeder didn't matter, I realized.
If I could get above the Nemacyst, I might be able to get a message through to Jacinto.
It was worth a try, anyway, and it's not like I was teeming with any other bright ideas. Erasing the buildings, I drew one, a tall one with lots of windows. I showed the kid.
She furrowed her brow and shook her head, so I drew an up-pointing arrow next to the building and me beside it, as small as I could manage with a stump of chalk.
My question: Where is the tallest building in Hale?
When it dawned on her, she took her time drawing a reply, coming up with an admittedly detailed picture of a church with a belltower that overlooked the whole city.
Very vaguely, I remembered seeing that church when I was younger; a picture in a glossy magazine proclaiming the marriage of two celebrity nobodies. Because Hale is prone to quakes, there was some controversy about the height of the cathedral when it was first built, but I guess the architect knew what he was doing.
So I had a plan, or at least the fragile husk of a plan. All the aches and pains coursing through me suddenly seemed manageable, and I caught a second wind.
I drew her and me at the bottom of the church, and circled us. Can you take me there?
Her reply?
"$$$"
My mouth fell open before managing the words "Are you fucking serious?"
Don't make that face, it's not like she heard me.
The slight chance that she was joking died when I looked at her, and her face remained an impassive wall. Shit, Marcus and her would've got along swimmingly. I really shouldn't have been surprised, she was Stranded for god's sake. She didn't need parents to drill shrewdness into her. It was an inherent quality.
I could've opted to find the church myself, and would have, if plenty of time was something I possessed. But I didn't, and still didn't like the idea of leaving the kid by herself, either. She'd backed me into a corner and she knew it.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the lining to show her just how much money I didn't have. She wasted no time in pointing at my toolbelt.
She wanted my goggles.
In any other situation, I wouldn't have even let her make the suggestion. But at that point, I was drained enough to compromise. Taking the chalkboard one more time, I drew the deli, and her, and me. I drew the goggles on her forehead. She nodded, following along. Next, I drew the church, and me and her, but this time, the goggles were on my head. In short, I was letting her borrow the goggles, but only for the duration of our trip. That was all she was going to get.
Again, she pondered my offer, an unmistakable sharpness in her eyes. When she finally reached out her hand, I felt my shoulders slump with relief. I handed her the goggles, and then pushed myself to my feet. A minute later, she started walking.
"Fucking terrific," I said, all too aware that I was talking to myself.
