He waggled those dark eyebrows of his and said, “Let’s make Pietre a leg.”
*****
As soon as he said it, my mind started whirring. Complicated cogs ticked over as the design stretched and grew in my mind.
“Could you?” Careen squealed, grabbing my head in her hands and squishing my face.
A monkey scampered past, clinging to the very edge of the stone ledge. A flash of yellow fur and a tail. I shuddered. Anything to get me out of here for a while.
“I think I probably can,” I said through squashed lips.
“What are you doing?” I asked, a little scared of the answer.
Joseph looked up at me from the corner of the room. He was crouching down, sweeping up a mess of broken plates. “Nothing. Just dropped some plates.”
“Joseph, don’t do that,” I said, creeping up to him and putting my hand on his shoulder. He tensed for a second, but then he relaxed and put his head to my hipbone.
“I’m just frustrated. How long are we expected to live like this? I miss Desh, and I’m worried about Apella. This just isn’t what I expected. It’s not what I want.”
I picked up the piece of wood I’d been carving. It was pretty close now. Unfortunately, I’d had to spend a lot of time staring at Pietre’s other leg to get it right. I even joked that I could glue some hair to it to make it just right, to which Pietre scowled at me nastily and spat on the floor. “It won’t work,” he’d said.
It would work.
Rash brought me back a pile of leather belts the other day, and now I had to work out how to make a harness.
I placed the wooden leg down and grabbed Joseph’s hand to pull him up. I tugged, but he was so damn heavy. I fell back against the wall. “Geez, it’s like you’re made of lead.”
Joseph stood and moved to where I was, with my back against the wall. He placed his hands on either side of me, blocking me in.
“I’m sorry, about Deshi. I wish there was something I could do,” I whispered. My breath quickened, my chest rising and falling unevenly, like the breaths of a willing, dying animal.
He smiled sadly. “You’re doing it. You and Orry lift me out of my sadness just by being here.”
I reached up on my tiptoes and kissed the corner of his mouth. He moved his head and our lips collided, then opened, then devoured. I hoped he knew… he was doing the exact same thing to me.
*****
My shirt was lifted up to my chin, and half of Joseph’s buttons were undone. But that was where it had to stop. With only a blanket separating us from everyone else, that was as far as I was willing to go. But it was torture. I got the sense that Joseph didn’t care as much as I did about who heard us, but he respected my wishes, drew back, and composed himself.
I pulled my shirt down and heard Joseph audibly groan. I flicked him a grin.
“Man, this is getting difficult,” he said, re-buttoning his shirt. “Maybe we should get another pass to the surface, find that building again…”
I blushed. “Shhh! Someone will hear you.”
He grinned at me from the bed, that beautiful grey tooth seeking me and glowing. He reached out and grabbed my hips, dragging me towards him. I made a pathetic attempt to struggle because really, I was quite happy to be dragged. He lifted up my shirt and kissed my belly button. It frowned back at him. I giggled loudly.
“Shhh! Someone will hear you,” he said mockingly.
I grabbed both his hands and threw them off. “Right. No more. I’m going for a walk.” He started to stand. “Oh no. You stay right here. And clean up that mess,” I said with a wink.
He smiled at me. At least for now. His mind was on lighter things. “Don’t be long,” he called out to me.
I stuck my head back through the entrance and said, “I’ll be as long as I want.” He chuckled as he turned back towards the broken ceramics, kittens with their faces slashed in half.
*****
I stayed on the upper level, walking past several lit entries. The occupants tipped their heads but didn’t offer any other greeting. The line of dwellings ended, and several tunnels presented themselves. I picked one. Two steps in, I walked passed a monkey sitting like an old man, leaning against the slime-covered pillars that rose to the ceiling of the tunnel in dark, tarry arches. It shrieked at me. My foot shot out to the side, and I kicked it before I could stop myself. The kick made a hollow sound against its ribcage that echoed down the piled stone arch. The monkey gave me this chilling, knowing look and smiled at me, its white fangs just begging to sink into my calf. It leaned back on its haunches, readying to attack, when it heard, “Teck, teck, teck.” It looked up, and I swear it grumbled before it scampered away.
I sighed in relief.
“That is no way to treat your hosts,” a carefully accented voice uttered behind me. I jumped.
“Well, shrieking at me and crapping near where I sleep is not the nicest way to treat a guest either,” I replied as I turned to face Salim.
He nodded but didn’t respond. We’d been here for months now, and this was the first time I’d crossed paths with him. I’d seen him talking to Gus, walking gracefully past the others like a surveyor, a conqueror. It was so dark in this corner that all I could really see was his white coat and his teeth when he opened his mouth. Right now, he was smiling at me.
“May I see something?” he asked as he came towards me, coasting over the stones like he was barely touching them.
I squinted as his form moved closer. He was so All Kind apart from that voice. That voice was like fabric tearing and glasses clinking together. It was altogether foreign and totally fascinating. “I guess,” I said as he snatched up my wrist, running a rough thumb over my pulse line. I wanted to pull back, but something told me not to.
A shaft of light ran over my skin from his torch. “Hmm, interesting.” I tugged back, but he gripped me tightly. “You’re a Coder.”
“A what?” I snapped as I withdrew my hand sharply.
“Come with me,” he said excitedly, ignoring my question.
I shrugged and followed his disappearing form down another tunnel as five monkeys fell into line behind him, padding noiselessly like trained soldiers.
*****
I put my hand to the wall, and it came back green and slimy. I shuddered. I really shouldn’t have been following this strange man down a dark tunnel, but something told me he wasn’t a threat.
“Excuse me, but what did you mean by Coder?” I shouted at him.
He was shuffling through the shady cavern, shoulders hunched and focused. My voice seemed to frighten him, and he turned to me, startled.
“Hush. We’re nearly there. Come, come,” he beckoned.
We came to a door, which he opened quickly and without ceremony, ushering me to go in first.
I stepped in and he followed, snapping the door closed, lighting candles and turning on solar lanterns as he went. Each section of wall in this small, grey room was plastered with pictures, scraps of paper, and barcodes. My eyes rolled over each crazed depiction, and I took a step backwards. One of the monkeys hissed at me, and I glared back.
“What is this?” I asked, although I could tell. This was an obsession.
“This is my life’s work,” Salim said absently, patting one of the monkey’s heads a little too hard. I forced myself not to shake my head in pity. This room was the inside of an insane man’s mind. “I’ve been studying the codes. I’m close, so close now.”
I sat down on a metal table and took a deep breath. “Close to what?”
He looked confused for a second, and then he swept his arm around the whole room. I followed his movements, noticing the label of a creamed corn can stuck on the wall next to a bunch of numbers. “The answer,” Salim said exultantly.