You never call any more, she accuses me with a pointed finger and a sharp-nosed look. You never write, you never call, and when's the last time you came to see me?
I close my eyes. Heaven help me. I explain again that I have been avoiding her, that her...situation makes me uncomfortable. I glance meaningfully around the bare, bare room, the walls painted a light yellow that seems calculated to be disturbing.
I don't care. I want you to come see me more often. Her voice is rusty with disuse, or maybe it's hoarse from all the screaming she's been doing. I make a mental note to ask the person who is guarding the door which it is when I leave.
And, damn you, i want you to get me out of here.
I make an apologetic noise in the back of my throat and lift my hands towards her in a plea for her understanding. I can't, I tell her. Remember Chicago... Borneo... that place where we went to ground in the Australian outback? Remember those? We were hunted down...or, rather you were hunted down. You were the one with the implanted tracking device.
Her smile is terrible. But they got you, too, now. I can see that look in your eyes. They got you.
Yeah, i admit, they did. But it's not that bad. You just can't run, and I have to admit the perks are worth it.
Her eyes glaze over. Her chest rises, and i think for a moment she's going to scream at me. But she catches herself.
I don't get any of the bennies, she whispers. I hate you.
I knew you would. You ran. I haven't and I'm not going to.
A comfortable slave is still a slave, she hisses.
I look her in the eye. At least I have the freedom to move around. not like you... in this room... in these four walls...
And her eyes go again and I know i've lost her. I rap my signal on the glass of the window and the guard lets me out, just ahead of a rolling scream that seems much too loud to be coming from that very small person in the middle of the room. She is staring at the ceiling and screaming with an impassive look on her face.
You almost got to her, the guard remarks. She generally doesn't stay lucid that long.
Be careful with her, please? I ask the guard gently.
She is important to you, he says.
Was, i reply. I finger the jewelry in my ear self-conciously, tracing the microchipped rings.
Was important to me, once upon a time, I murmur. Then i walk away through the checkpoint and out into the fall morning, away from the building where the only sane person I know is screaming her lungs out in an attempt to finally be heard.
1999