Disclaimer: Refer to 1: Prologue.
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Basketball
She tip-toed along the silver sand beach, feeling its softness surround her toes, the warm, pleasant breeze caressing her face and sending her long blonde hair aflutter. She felt light, and it was a great feeling, and she felt like she could stay there forever, like a coconut tree, savouring the breeze and taking in the smells of the sparkling sea till its time came to pass.
She dipped her feet into the water, feeling the cold, and she loved it; and with her hands in a cup, she dipped them in and splashed the water at the man dressed in the flowery linen shirt, and he did the same. They played like that for awhile, running in circles and splashing and tasting the salty bitterness of the water that met their lips, and when they finally tired they retreated back onto the sand to sit. There was no other soul in sight, save the gulls, and no man-made structure they could see, save the sand-castle they had built earlier. The beach was a peaceful place.
"It's beautiful, Isaac," she said, looking over the horizon.
"Not as beautiful as you," Isaac whispered. When he said it, it felt like a blessing, and the fire inside her burned with glee. He touched her chin; she touched his wavy brown hair, and looked into his bright blue-green eyes, and then their lips and tongues met in passion. Then she felt him move behind her, hugging her under her breasts, digging his chin into her shoulder. She felt his warmth embrace her, and lied lazily in his support. Together they watched the orange of the sun sink herself into the ocean, and the horizon changing to a dreamy hue of pink and red.
"I would marry you here," he said. She nodded curtly – the only sign of acknowledgement she could muster in her pensive, surreal state. For awhile more they stared as the gulls fly back to their nests with a noisy eagerness.
A fighter jet flew overhead, invading their peace with the loud, ominous drone of its engine, and at this Isaac frowned.
"I have something to tell you," he cooed into her ear. The girl shifted closer to him, beckoning him to say it. Isaac gulped. "I'm enlisting… into the flyers."
Her eyes widened. What? She thought. What do you mean, Isaac? Is this a joke? How could you! It had to be a joke. She wanted it to be a joke. She needed it to be! But she knew it wasn't as he said his next words.
"I'm sorry. It's a guy thing."
And she felt the rain come down on her, sinking her world beneath its relentless, choking patter.
Eighteen metres underground, Izabel woke, summoned from her dream by the animated ringing of her ancient alarm clock. She motioned a hand along what she thought to be the surface of her table, and found the pair of steel bells atop the device, and laid a hand on them to drown the noise until she found the key at the back, and turned it. The noise stopped completely. She stood up from her swivel chair, wiping drops of sticky liquid off her eyes, and then she grabbed a towel from her cabinet, and entered the lavatory.
She wanted to see her charge, even though it was a Sunday.
Finishing her bath she dressed, and then made her way out the bunker into Lodonia's lifeless courtyard, where there was no freshness, where the air was always stale, always cold, always having a faint tinge of death in its heavy presence. It made many dizzy, and almost no one opted for a morning jog outside the laboratory gym; but still Izabel braved it, making her way through the courtyard pass sad little shrubs of yellow grass and other forms of underdeveloped growth. There were no insects, no birds in flight.
A ten minute walk later, she arrived at Auel's dormitory, and the guard (the sex-deprived guard, as she knew him to be) directed her toward the court behind the building. "It's their wank day," he said, "and they use it to ball." She tried hard to ignore what he implied, and thanked him cordially.
At the back of the old buildings was a pair of basketball courts, upon which many heads with unusual coloured hair stood, sat, or limped lethargically, observing those whom were moving. Some had turquoise, some magenta, and some even khaki coloured hair. So odd, so unnatural they were that Izabel thought of the irony that they should be considered Naturals, like herself. Running about on the basketball court was Auel, who she had wanted to see. She stood at the iron grilled fence, following him as he ran around the court, with her arms folded. The only other person with a natural shade of hair present was the African guardsman, who sat against the fencing on a stool with a pistol in hand and a pack of cigarettes in the other.
"You must be Izabel," an unfamiliar voice said. Izabel was taken by surprise, and jumped. The owner of the voice was an older boy, or man, as his pronounced features seemed to suggest, half a head taller than her. "I'm sorry," he said, "I was just bored. It's pretty difficult reading here with all the noise." She noticed a paperback on the floor, lying open like a triangular block over the lips of its pages. "You've been watching Bluey since you stood there, and from his description of his nanny, I guessed it was you." He smirked, running a hand through his turf of olive-green hair.
Izabel watched as Auel stole the orange ball from a boy with white hair and ran toward the other side of the court. Two others stood in his path, but he dodged them skillfully, and after two great leaps, he jumped into the air and dropped the ball into the hoop and net. His teammates exchanged slaps on the back; Izabel cheered for him silently in her heart, though she frowned. Auel had jumped a height close to his own by his own strength; no regular boy his age could match a feat like that. But then again, Izabel didn't know how old he was.
"He's changed a lot because of you," the man said again. He spoke with a dignified tone and articulation, and had an odd accent she had never heard before. Izabel asked him who he was, and he said his name was Orga Sabnak, though it wasn't the name he was born with. "I would shake your hand if the holes in the fence were larger, but they aren't, so I'm afraid you'll have to pardon me for that."
She nodded. "You're different from them," she said, matter-of-factly.
"Yeah," he said, laughing. "I was a free man once, but I was sentenced to death two years back for a crime I can't remember I committed. Was given a choice to have my spine snapped on a noose or a short visit to semi-hell. So yeah, I took the latter, and here's where I am now.
"It's the same for Orange over here," he pointed at a boy with shocking orange hair sitting beside him, a handheld console in his hands. His eyes were fixed on the flashing screen, his fingers tapping on the plastic buttons in frenzy. "They named him Clotho, but he doesn't want to be called that. Sounds like crotch, he says, but I can't find the connection for the life of me!" He shook his head in mock upset. "Must be one of those things I'll never understand."
"They don't let you remember your past?"
Orga rolled his eyes. "Of course not," he said, as if the answer was obvious. "Did Mao Tze Dong give educated people a right civic freedom? No, because freedom, education and other idealisms were liabilities to him. And liabilities must be gotten rid of for efficiency and convenience, just like my past, just like my name." His face turned rock hard. "Genocidal machines can't afford to have liabilities."
Izabel said nothing. Her eyes returned to the basketball court, where another team had risen to challenge Auel's. She followed the emerald of his eyes, the way they stared at those who faced him. They were the same eyes; the same determined, challenging gaze which won her heart before. "But he is not him," she muttered to herself. "Not him."
"So as I said before, he's changed a lot. Ever since he met you, I suppose," Orga said, watching him play as well. "He swears less often, and looks less feral. Could it be… say… kindness?" His tone was mocking; Izabel chose to ignore him, but he went on. "It's really kind of admirable, you know? Showing kindness to a lab rat? You deserve an award for it. I'm not saying I'm not happy for him, but I was just curious. Why?"
"I'm pretty sure that's none of your business, Mr Sabnak," Izabel sneered.
Orga laughed. "My apologies yet again. I think my mother used to tell me my words went awry all the time, but I assure you, it wasn't on purpose."
Izabel watched Auel maneuver around his opponents again, grinning and yelling as the ball was passed between his companions. He grabbed the ball, and with more jumps and tosses and leaps, the ball was netted. Only this time, someone had been used as a launch pad for his jump, and that person faced Auel as he got to his feet, unhappy. He approached Auel and pushed him on the chest, and Auel pushed him back.
An argument ensued. An excited crowd gathered around them as they quarreled and shouted, and Izabel worried, though Orga said that incidents like this were common. After a while they gave up talking, and they pushed and pulled at each others shirts, until Auel tripped the other boy and drove him onto the floor with a thud.
"Whoo," Orga whistled. "That was nice."
Auel stepped out of the crowd and began walking toward the exit. Izabel noticed that the fallen boy was standing up again, and in his hand, a grimy shard of glass was held. A murderous look was in his eyes, and he growled silently under his breath, and then he charged at Auel, taking steps in strides.
Why are they saying nothing? Why aren't they trying to warn him? Izabel thought, looking at the indifferent crowd. She panicked, and her heartbeat quickened, faster and faster, and then she screamed, "Auel! Behind you!"
Auel did not appear to have noticed her, but seemed prepared for the attack. He spun around and caught the shard in his hand. They wrestled fiercely again, pushing back the dirt under their feet, but the guardsman blew his whistle, and a gunshot resounded in the air. It was as if with the fading of the thunderclap, their furies went with it; and they backed down and walked away with their faces glowing crimson.
Izabel ran to meet him. "Are you okay?" She looked at the hand which caught the shard: it was stained in a web of red, dripping slowly. Auel shielded his hand away from her eyes, and looked away.
"Listen, I'll go to the infirmary and get you some bandages and meds', you just—"
"Shut up!" he yelled, to her surprise. "Don't talk to me!" And he ran from her, toward the dormitory. The crowd who had seen them laughed.
Orga came up behind her, laughing heartily as well, saying, "Bravo! Bravo! You're a first, Izabel! A definite first!"
Izabel was mute, looking dumbly at the ground.
"I can't believe you did that! Good thing you're not one of us, we'd have killed you by now." He paused. "Oh well, he's going to be feeling upset for awhile."
"Why?" Izabel muttered.
"Eh?"
"Why?" Izabel repeated, louder this time. "What's wrong with him?"
Orga laughed again. "Because you made him look like he cheated! You tipped him off, made him look like a puss in front of everyone. Of course he'd be angry!"
"But that boy was trying to kill him!"
"Do you really think people who get physically abused every other day of their lives will give it up to a simple glass shard? Come on, Izabel, you work here! You should know better than that." He shook his head again, in the same mocking manner he did before. "But I understand what how you feel. Don't worry about it. It won't last longer than a week. Just a guy thing."
"A guy thing," she said under her breath. "Right." And she made her way back toward the bunker, leaving the smiling Orga behind.
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A bright electronic chime woke Hendrik from his slumber. He blinked and opened his eyes, only to see the blackness of his unlit room, absolute save for a small green werelight which shone over the back door, indicating the emergency exit. There were no windows. "Hold on a sec'!" he called out to his visitor as he pressed a button on the headboard, and instantly light banished the darkness, making visible the clutter which was Hendrik's room. He got off his bed, found a pair of trousers and put them on. He answered the door and discovered it was Izabel, armed with a large bag and a faint smile.
"Were you sleeping? I'm sorry," she said, noticing his black hair in a mess. He shook his head, and welcomed her in.
"I brought lunch. Just some stuff from yesterday and the day before, but I figured it'd be better than what you eat everyday." She pointed at the empty wrappers of cereal bars and coffee cans which decorated his table.
Hendrik thanked her. They made small talk as they removed the containers from the bag and set them down on the floor, revealing a feast of salads, baked eggplant pie and potato and tapioca flakes to compliment their meals. Hendrik picked up a box of noodle casserole and grimaced. He poked at it with his spork as Izabel chewed on her vegetable pizza leftover from the night before.
"It's all rabbit food," Hendrik muttered, staring idly at his meal. "Ah, sorry. I didn't mean to complain." Meat in their rations was as scarce as gold in a river, most of it being given to the soldiers and pilots. One would be lucky to find a can of luncheon meat or corned beef included in the package they got. Even receiving a can of sausages would have been akin to winning the lottery. "It's just that… just a little tired."
Izabel giggled. "We just started eating and already we've apologized to each other two times," she said, staring blankly into the unkempt interior. It resembled her own room's. "It was never like this with Isaac. He'd always laugh and spit while we ate, and we'd always quarrel and fight over things," she paused, and resumed nibbling the soft wet pastry. "Now it's the same with him."
Hendrik understood who 'him' was immediately, and said, "If that kid's causing you any trouble, I can have him detained and disciplined—"
"No, no. It's not that," she said, interrupting him. "It feels like… like we're awfully detached. I don't get him, and he doesn't get me."
Hendrik blinked. "I see."
They continued to eat for some time, opening more containers with salted potato and tapioca flakes. Then Izabel asked, "Hendrik, what is 'a guy thing'?"
Hendrik looked at her, confused. "Huh?"
"When I tried to stop Isaac from joining the force, he stopped me, telling me it was 'a guy thing'. I tried to warn Auel about an attacker just now at the dorms, and now he hates me for it. And that too was 'a guy thing'." She stopped, and she sighed. "You're a guy too, right? What is 'a guy thing'?"
Hendrik sat silently for a while, mindlessly poking at his meal again,
Musing like a mantis. Then he said, "Have you read 'The Deed' by Jossef van Gurg?"
Izabel gave a nod. "Of course. Isaac wrote that book. I helped him edit it." She remembered her time with him in the apartment they shared, sitting and scanning through a mess of paper sprawled over the floor. "It never did sell."
"Do you remember the first lines of the prologue?"
"I must have read it a thousand times: And by sword he swore his life to service, lest by might his crown be broken, or by darkness his soul forsaken. It's the vow of the Silent King, who sacrificed his tongue and eyes to protect his people, although I never did understand how a blind-mute would be able to rule. But yeah, that was it."
"That's the guy thing," Hendrik said, nonchalantly.
Hendrik continued with his food, assuming Izabel understood his meaning. When they had finished, the host picked up the containers and brought them to his cluttered sink in the lavatory, where he washed them diligently with soap. When he returned he carried a round pot of steaming black liquid.
"I'm afraid I didn't catch you earlier," Izabel said. "Could you, erm, elaborate on that?"
Hendrik sat the washed containers down on the floor and retrieved a pair of mugs from his desk. "It's easy to distinguish, but hard to define, Izabel. It's not something you encounter everyday." He put on his spectacles, and his gazed shifted to the wooden book case, looking at the spines of books he had brought for his home. "It's what the Fellowship of the Ring had when they walked toward the gates of Mordor in 'The Lord of the Rings'; it's what Darth Vader had when he betrayed Sidious in 'Star Wars'. It's courage, and it is foolishness; it's sacrifice, and it is throwing away. It's what we give and die in return. It's when others and honour are above one's own life. It's just… well, a guy thing." He scratched his head sheepishly. "Coffee?"
Izabel was silent as Hendrik the served the beverage in the two white mugs, and she sipped it, letting the boiling sweet drink burn the edge of her tongue. She was confused. It had no logic, no reason. But she knew that not everything could be put in words or explained, more so the things of gods, even more so the things of humans. In her heart she promised herself to accept it, no matter what it was, no matter how absurd. She had been selfish once, refusing to see him when he departed. She would not make the same mistake again.
"I'm going to apologise to him," she said, full of determination, and Hendrik nodded, saying, "See'ya later."
She got up and made her way toward the door, but before she could leave, an urge came into her, and she said, "If only they were more like you." Then she left.
And alone once again in the four walls of his quiet, white room, Hendrik's face went rock hard. "Maybe because I'll never be as much a man as he was," he whispered to himself. He finished his coffee, and booted up his computer to work.
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She thought it was best to bring him a gift, and so before she visited him again, she went to her room and picked up a hardbound book from a pile on the floor. Now in the dormitory again, she walked passed the familiar floors and rooms, until she reached Auel's. She knocked.
"C- coming!" she heard Auel from the inside. She heard him scuffling around the room, tossing around what sounded like paper. Then the din stopped, and the footsteps got more elaborate as he approached. He opened the door looking like he had just ran a marathon, face full of perspiration and anxious.
"Mother, I– I'm sorry. I dunno' why I shouted at you back there. I felt so angry, I dunno' why, but I felt that way and I screamed. It wasn't on purpose, I swear! I promise I'll— "
"Auel, Auel! It's okay," she said, amid his panicked chain of words. She was stunned by his actions, expecting him to be angry. "I'm not here to send you to the slammer."
"I'm ready for… you're not?"
"No. It's okay, really," she said, still standing at the doorway. "Can I come in?"
Auel jumped. "S– sure!" He scurried around like a rat, lifting stacks of paper and pencils from his bunk and throwing them into the corner where his pile of clothes sat. Then he poured water from his jug and offered it to her in his cup. Izabel thanked him, and kindly rejected the yellowish water. When he had tossed everything obstruction away he sat on the floor cross-legged, offering the comfort of the mattress to Izabel.
"I've been reading like you told me to," he said, pointing to the stack of books still neatly piled at the corner of his little tea-table. "Green gave some to me."
"Orga, you mean? The tall guy who uses hard words when he talks?"
"Yeah, him. He doesn't hit me cause' I'm the only one who likes the books." He got up and took a large tattered volume from the table. "He gave me this deetionary too."
"I see."
For awhile longer they discussed the books Auel received from Orga. Though he looked to be relieved, he was cautious with his words, evident from his constant word corrections and answering her questions with simple head nods and turns.
"What's that?" he asked, pointing at the book Izabel carried.
"Oh, this, right," she said. "I almost forgot about it."
She looked at the cover of the book and flipped through its pages, not reading its words, but breathing the scent it let off as the pages slapped against each other, producing a small wind. Then she shut it and said, "It's for you."
Auel squeaked in delight. "What is it? What is it? Oh- I meant, erm, What is its title?"
"It's called 'The Deed', written by a man named Jossef can Gurg," she said, offering it to Auel. "It may be a little hard to read now, because of some of the hard words. So you'll probably have to use the dictionary and ask Orga for help."
Auel carefully took the book from Izabel and opened it. He pressed the fine white pages on his face, and smelt it, for it was the first book had received which wasn't at least a decade old. Turning a few pages, he read aloud: "And so he swore his lift to service, less by…"
Izabel watched him read, and felt content that he liked her gift. "I'm going back to the bunker now. Training's at eight o'clock tomorrow as usual."
"Wait," Auel said, laying down the book. He rummaged through the pile of stuff in the corner and pulled out a piece of paper, folded it. "Was gonna' give this to you tomorrow, but since you're already here." He gave it to Izabel. "Promise me you'll only open it when you're back home." There was hesitation in his voice.
Izabel nodded, and left the room. She felt relieved that she didn't have to apologize to him. "Good night."
"Good night."
In her room, Izabel opened the letter. All it said was:
Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
I'm sorry, mother. I can't be anymore sorry.
It feels so bad saying sorry, but I know I must.
If this is not enough, I will say some more.
So please forgive me, please, please, please.
Izabel smiled, and she felt hints of tears form at her eyes. A guy thing, she thought. A coward like me will never understand.
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A/N – Another great big thanks to everyone who read and reviewed. Your words have brought me back to this piece, which I have finally found the resolve to complete. Hope you've enjoyed reading!
Note: maskerade my BEST FRIEND was unavailable to read through this chapter before it was posted, so I fear there might be a need for change to it in the next few days. Don't worry though, I don't intend to change the plot, probably will just some adjustments to the grammar and stuff.