Purity (Pure and Tainted) (12 page)

Purity but the memory was still so
real. K
could even hear the flat metallic voices of the mechanoids blaring
above the frightened wailing, echoing over and over in her head.
“Remain motionless during the shower cycle.
Do not attempt to make contact with those to either side of you. Remain
motionless during the…”

“No!” It wasn’t until she saw the strange look on Boone’s face
that K realized she’d spoken aloud.

“Something wrong, darlin’?” he asked carefully.

“Nothing.
Just…thinking.”
Squaring her shoulders, K took a step toward the shower stall. It really wasn’t
so bad—nothing like the huge gray room of her memories. She tried to brace
herself for the icy blast, tried to remember that she was no longer a
frightened child but a fourth level Paladin.
I fear nothing, I feel nothing. I fear nothing, I feel nothing. I fear
nothing, I—

“Stop.”
Boone took her arm the second
before she stepped into the shower. “K…” He turned her to face him. “K, what is
it, darlin’?”

“What is what?” she somehow managed to answer though her throat
was so tight she could hardly breathe.

“
That look
on your face. It’s like you’re
about to step in front of a death squad.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. My emotions do not
control me, even if I can’t help having them. Now if you don’t mind, I need to
do this.”

“Like hell you do,” Boone said roughly. “I don’t know why but this
scares you to death. What are you afraid of?”

K’s lips worked for a moment before she could get the words to
come out.
“Nothing.
I fear nothing, I feel nothing.”

Boone shook his head. “That’s not true and you know it. Come on.”
He started to pull her out of the fresher but K resisted.

“Let me go—I have to do this. I’ve been a coward long enough.”
Boone started to protest again but she shook her head. “Boone, I
am
going to do this. No matter
how…distasteful I find it. If this is the only way to clean myself without my
suit then I
must
do it.”

“All right then.” He nodded decisively. “I’m going with you.”

“There’s barely room in the stall for one and you’re so
big
,” K protested. But inside she could
feel something that had tightened until it nearly choked her beginning to
loosen. If Boone was with her, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Neither of them
wore non-cons. They couldn’t be shocked just for touching so maybe…

“I know it’ll be a tight squeeze but that’s too damn bad. Anything
that scares you this much, you shouldn’t have to face alone.”

“I’m not scared,” K protested but her voice wavered
unconvincingly.

“Sure you
are,
darlin’.” He was already
stripping. “Here, I’ll leave my shorts on like I do when we sleep—that work for
you?”

“If you like.”
K tried to shrug noncommittally
though her heart was pounding.

“I like,” Boone said grimly. “And I’m going first to show you
there’s nothing to be afraid of. Unbraid your hair and follow me when you feel
ready.”

He stepped into the tiny stall, wearing only the thin, brief black
shorts he always wore beneath his flight pants. Immediately the ceiling above
the stall began to stream water. K watched him uncertainly, her fingers busy
with her long braid. He didn’t seem to be in pain and, as yet, no hard
scrubbing arms had emerged from the walls of the stall to scour him raw with
steel bristles. But maybe they were waiting until she entered to activate.

“Come on in, the water’s fine.” Boone’s dark eyelashes were matted
with water, his light-on-white eyes the same color as the ocean she’d seen in
the vid of Earth-that-was so many cycles ago.

“I’m coming.” Bracing herself for an icy blast, K stepped into the
stall and found… “The water’s warm!” She looked up at Boone in disbelief. “It’s
not cold and it doesn’t sting.”

He gave her a disbelieving look.
“Of course not.
Why the hell would I want to take a freezing cold shower?”

“The scrubbers…” She looked around uncertainly. “Where are they?”

“Here and here.” Boone lifted his hands.

“What? Boone, be serious.” K frowned and examined the walls,
looking for the slits where the long, thin metal arms would emerge.

“I
am
serious, darlin’.
If you’re looking for some kind of luxury attachment that gives you a massage
while you shower then I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed. This is a
strictly no-frills operation we’re running here.”

K could scarcely believe it. “You mean…you’re supposed to scrub
yourself?”

“That’s how it’s usually done. Here.” Boone handed her a large,
puffy synthi-sponge that was already beginning to produce
a
sweet
smelling foam. “You want me to do your hair while you do the,
uh…the rest?”

Too overcome with relief to speak any more, K simply nodded.

“Okay.” He pried the soap spheres from her fingers. K had been
clutching them so tightly they had begun to leak their contents onto her palm
but there seemed to be enough left to do what was necessary. Muttering
something about the fact that she had enough hair to clog a black hole, Boone
squeezed the viscous liquid over her head and began to wash.

Despite his grumbling, his touch was gentle and thorough. Soon K found
she was relaxing more and more as he massaged the hair soap into her scalp. She
rubbed her body with the synthi-sponge, almost in a daze. Part of her still
expected to feel the sharp agony of an electrical proximity warning or hear the
frightened wailing of children in pain but the longer nothing happened, the
less that part of her seemed to matter.

Though she never would have believed it could be so, the shower
was actually quite soothing.

“There,” Boone murmured behind her.
“All done.
You ready to get out?”

K turned to face him. She still didn’t feel able to speak so she
just nodded.

Boone studied her face. “You okay? Was it as bad as you thought?”

K shook her head. “No,” she whispered, forcing the words out. “Not
bad at all. It was… nothing like I expected.”

He searched her eyes for a long moment. “Well, that seems to be a
good thing. Come
on,
let’s get out before we use up
the entire water reserve.”

They stepped out of the stall, dripping and Boone wrapped her in
towels. One encircled her chest and the other encased her long black hair. Then
he sent her outside into the sleeping area so he could get out of his soaked
shorts and dry off himself.

When he came out he was wearing just his black flight pants and
rubbing a towel over his spiky brown hair. His broad shoulders were still
beaded with droplets of water and tiny rivulets ran down the muscular planes of
his chest.

The sight made K stare for longer than usual for some
reason—almost as though she was seeing him for the first time. His eyes looked very
blue when his hair was wet. She looked away hastily as he approached and went
back to the task at hand.

She was sitting on the sleeping platform, trying to work a comb
through her hair. For the first time in her life it was giving her trouble—the
long strands snarling around the comb’s teeth in a most irritating manner. K jerked
impatiently and then stifled a yelp when the motion pulled her hair.

“Here.” Without asking, Boone sat down behind her and took the
comb from her hand. “Let me. I used to brush out Shayla’s hair at night when my
mom was too busy working to do it.”

K sat silently, not protesting. Though the shower hadn’t been
nearly as bad as she’d feared, she still felt tired. All used up, somehow. It
was as though the huge buildup of fear and dread had leaked away, leaving her
drained and useless. Purity, but she wished she could stop having all these
emotions. They were so damn
exhausting
.

Boone combed in silence for a moment, doing a much better job than
she had been of untangling the long strands of her hair. Then he spoke. “All
right, darlin’. You wanna tell me what that was all about?”

K stiffened. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do.” He turned her to face him, his eyes serious. “You
were scared to death to take a simple shower and I want to know why. What
happened? What was done to you?”

“Nothing was
done
to
me,” K snapped. “I just…hadn’t had a shower since before I was fitted for my
suit.”

“Bullshit,” Boone said harshly. “Look, K, I know you don’t like to
talk much about life on Athena but I doubt the story behind this is any kind of
state secret. So spill it—
now.
”

She could have refused him again—
should
have refused. But somehow when she opened her mouth, K heard
herself telling him instead. She kept her voice low, her eyes down as she told
every detail.

“In the time before I got my suit I lived with the others in my
birthgroup in a kind of dormitory. Or barracks, I guess, would be a better
word. We were all genetically engineered to be Paladins and we began our
training early. I excelled at nearly all of it but there was one thing that was…”
She shook her head, unable to put it into words.

“Go on,” Boone said in a low voice.

“One day a week we had Shower Day. We all dreaded it even though
we weren’t supposed to feel anything—we couldn’t help ourselves.” She looked up
at Boone briefly and saw that he was listening intently, his eyes narrowed in
concentration.

K looked back down at her hands. “The mechanoids would come early,
blaring
their call to rise. We had to jump out of our
bunks quickly or they would give us a shock to get us going.”

“Hell of a wake-up call,” Boone muttered.

K shrugged. “It was the way things were done. You learned to get
up fast—I didn’t mind that part.”

“God, it gets worse?”

K’s eyes flitted up to his for a moment and she nodded briefly.
“We…the mechanoids would herd us down the corridor and into the shower room. We
had to be careful to walk single file and not touch each other because of our
non-con bracelets.”

Boone stopped her.
“Non-con?”

“Non-contact.
We wore them until we were fitted
for our suits. Any form of contamination would cause them to emit an electrical
charge.”

“This just gets better and better,” Boone growled. “So if you so
much as
touched
another kid…”

“We got shocked, yes,” K finished for him. “It was…the most efficient
way to keep us from contaminating each other. From…touching.”

“They were
that
worried
about you touching each other? They had to make you wear your own personal electric
fence everywhere you went?” Boone looked like he could scarcely believe it.

“Contamination is discouraged almost from birth,” K said. “Pain is
the simplest and most effective way to train.”

“It’s also fucking barbaric.” Boone sounded angry.

K shrugged. “I didn’t really mind the non-cons either. I was used
to them—couldn’t remember a time without them. But the shower room…that was
different. Worse.” She stopped for a moment, unable to go on. Boone lifted her
chin gently so that their eyes met.

“Tell me, K.”

There was an authority in his deep, quiet voice that couldn’t be
denied.

K took a deep breath. “It was big and cold—always very cold.” She
spoke fast, trying to get the words out before they choked her. “Then the water
would come down—so much and so fast it felt like you were going to drown. But
if you opened your mouth to try and breathe it would burn your throat. I think
because it was treated with disinfectant and other chemicals. It stung your
eyes too so you tried to keep them closed. But then the scrubbers would come
out…”

“You were saying something about that in the fresher. What were
you talking about?”

“They came out of the walls. Steel tipped bristles on long, thin
metal arms. You had to hold perfectly still or they might injure you. Several
of the males lost a testicle that way and some others had their eyes damaged
beyond repair.”

“Jesus!” Boone shook his head. “That’s fucking horrible, K!”

“It taught you to follow orders.” She tried to keep her voice
expressionless. “Those who didn’t do as they were told
reaped
the consequences of their behavior. It also weeded out the weak. I told you
there were twenty-six in my birthgroup, right?”

Boone nodded.

“Only twelve of us became Paladins.” K swallowed. “The others—the ones
who were too damaged, who couldn’t obey orders or learn to control their
feelings— they were purged.”

“Jesus wept.” Boone jumped up and began to pace, his broad
shoulders tensed. “No
wonder
you were
afraid to take a shower.
K, that
is the worst, most inhumane
thing I’ve ever heard.
To treat
children
that way.”