Off Center (The Lament) (16 page)

They
were bad.

They
needed to die for that, she decided. To be punished so harshly they'd never hurt
her again.

The
men didn't speak at all for a long time. Finally Doc Millis seemed to recover, and
said something very strange.

"That
was a very bad time for you Pran, but the weight of it is less now. In fact, it's
going away, all together. There's no need for you to feel pain, and when you think
of those times, it won't hurt now. Do you understand that? The memories are still
all there, but you won't feel pain from them, ever again."

Zeke
cleared his throat and let his eyebrows come up a bit, but didn't say anything.
The Doctor shrugged at him and let his old and wrinkled face look curious.

"It
could work. I figure there's no harm in trying."

The
other man looked away. "Unless she's a spy? Ask her
that
."

"Course
I'm not a spy. I'm sixteen. Bard. Sing, dance, act, carve things. Love carving.
Painting not too bad. No spying at school,
except in the showers
." She
laughed, because that was a joke. There was no spying there either, as far as she
knew.

Those
words, for some reason, seemed to make the men relax. They were awfully pleased
to find out about her not being a spy. Like she could have been? How would that
work?

"How
would that work?" It came out, since she'd thought it. Doctor Millis patted
her hand.

"What
do you meant, dear?"

"We
don't have spies. Not as a profession. Spy on who? Too young to be one, but you
think I might be? How would it work? Conversion?" She didn't know what that
was, but the Doc rocked back, his eyes going wide suddenly.

Zeke
cleared his throat again.

"I
may have mentioned that. She said that some of us helped to get her place back?
Something about being kicked out of her Bard College?"

She
nodded.

"Art
school. They helped me." Then, for some reason, she stopped speaking, as the
men looked baffled. She was about to explain what she meant, when the old man tilted
his head.

"Who
helped you?"

Pran
didn't think she could even come up with a lie, but she realized that she had been
lying, hadn't she? After all, she
was
a spy. Untrained, but being sent to
the High Council for it. After a fashion. She'd said she wasn't one though, since
that wasn't real. Even if it really was. That was the key then, she could only tell
the truth. It was her truth that had to be spoken, what she
believed
to be,
not fact or reality, that she had to discuss.

"I
don't know. The Guardian High Councilor, Bard Gina. Maybe others. I'm supposed to
help the Guardians, but..." She leaned in and whispered dramatically, knowing
it was the truth. After a fashion. "But... I'm supposed to help you too. Get
Will Butcher away. If you haven't poisoned him to death yet. Go and be a Bard."

If
it didn't make sense, she couldn't tell, though the men both asked for her to clarify
what she said at the same time. Zeke wanted to know who exactly from their side
was supporting her, and Doctor Millis wanted to know how she'd figured out that
Will had been poisoned.

"
Food
poisoning. But no one has it. You said. You're smart, so that's what it is. Cell
was filthy, but no food. No rats. Zeke thought about killing him. Cover this up.
Take him away to keep him from dying." That was her plan after all.

The
new man just stood there, seeming confused.

"Wait,
whose side is she on? She seems to be saying that she's on everyone's side."

Doctor
Millis understood though, but asked her anyway. It was clear in his face and the
soft way he spoke.

"Who
are you with, Pran?"

"You."
It was the literal truth after all. Zeke sighed and nodded his head, seeming to
accept that.

The
Doctor didn't. He was really smart.

"Yes,
but who do you back? The people here, or those on our side."

"Yes."
She nodded happily, glad that he understood enough to ask. It was her truth after
all. She said it without blinking. "I back the winner."

The
man in all black pulled at the silly looking ribbon at his neck, which was a deep
blue today and smoothed the side of his slightly thinning white hair.

"That...
makes a great deal of sense. Thank you Pran. Can we trust you to work with us? Since
we will, without a doubt, be victorious? I can promise you good things if you help
us. No conversion, a chance to do whatever you want with your life. You'll get to
see wonders like you haven't ever even imagined, if you do. That isn't a joke either.
Our computer systems can display worlds to you that don't even exist. It's where
Zeke here and I have lived for hundreds of years, waiting for the world to be right
again. It's healthy now, and we're coming back. If you work with us, we can share
that world, like a family."

That
was a powerful draw for most orphans, and Pran got that, seeing through it and still
agreeing with the man. Doing otherwise would be stupid. That meant she could really
and fully get behind these people, didn't it? If it was that or die, she'd pick
the winning side every time. Or near enough to every time that no one would notice.

Not
until it was too late for them.

"I'm
with you. I'll work out a way to get Will out, Zeke too. You should stay, with me.
Get you into the High Council." It was a plan, if one that she didn't know
could be brought about easily. Oddly, it would be a lot harder, she thought, to
get a wagon for the sick and injured man than to get the old Doctor into the chamber
of power. He was a medical man, after all. Everyone trusted them.

He
took a deep breath, but nodded.

"Excellent.
Remember what I said about those old memories Pran. They don't hurt now. It's like
a weight has been lifted from your shoulders, and you don't even think about them.
Do you understand? You can do that for me, can't you? Forget those things?"

"Oh,
yes." She thought so at least. It was how she got through the day, most of
the time. "I can do that."

"Very
good. Now, I'm going to give you another shot, and then you and Ezekiel here can
go and get that laundry done. Thank you for that, by the way. It's one of my least
favorite chores. Washing by hand... I swear, if we put aside our military buildup
and just made washing machines, the people here would rise up and demand we take
power." The Doctor didn't seem to be kidding either.

The
other man looked at Will Butcher and waved at him, a motion that was almost a flick
of the wrist.

"That
would work, if we weren't running conversions. No one wants to lose their entire
being so that some six hundred year old computer program can steal their body. That's
not mentioning the fact that any of the volunteers that come out
still
have
to live pretty much like these people do. We trashed the planet once and know that
it can happen again."

That
got a laugh at least, from the bed, where Will managed to open his eyes.

"This
world has its charms. We can do better now. Last time people that came well before
us got greedy and lazy. We're the survivors. We can do this."

Pran
nodded, since it felt funny and made the inside of her head tickle a bit.

She
didn't say anything though, as Doctor Millis was busy making up another needle thing
filled with a slightly pale yellow liquid from his cupboard. Then he left her in
her cocoon of pillows and gave her a shot in the shoulder again. She was going to
be sore there, she bet.

After
a few minutes her head cleared, and then she felt very sick, like she was going
to throw up all over the sick room. It was the place for it, but she held her stomach's
contents in, feeling horrible. The first thing she noticed though, was that Doctor
Millis came and stood by her, putting his warm hand against her head.

"How
do you feel dear?" He said this just as the door opened, showing Mara and Clark,
with a slightly worried looking Judge Claire standing behind them.

Mara
moved into the space, looking at her, suspiciously.

"What's
wrong, Pran?" She sounded worried too.

That
got Pran to fake a chuckle at least. She felt bad, but didn't think the Doctor had
killed her. It was just that the cure for that talking medicinal was a lot worse
than the thing itself.

"Ah,
nothing really. I feel a bit sick is all and Doc Millis is over reacting, worried
that I may be coming down with whatever Will here has. It isn't that. Zeke and I
are going to come around in a bit and start getting laundry. Sorry about the delay."
She managed to stand, even as the Doctor pretended to fuss over her.

"Really,
there's no reason that this man can't do the chores alone."

"Except
that he doesn't know where anything is? That,
plus
the fact that I promised.
I've been pushing a bit hard for a while and it's catching up with me a bit, that's
all." It might even be true, she realized. She'd been up for nearly two days,
then slept for six hours, if that. Then she started working again.

Yeah,
she might want to take it a tiny bit easier than that, in the future.

Of
course, being that she could lie again, which she was proving by doing it handily,
she decided to change her mind now, and not help the evil tech people at all. She
really needed to get the others alone for a chat, somehow. First though, there really
was laundry to do, so she staggered a bit, heading to the door, and clutched the
frame, then she turned to Clark and winked. She didn't say anything, but he didn't
let his face move. Claire caught it too, she thought, as she reeled down the hallway,
going to get the wash supplies.

"Come
along Zeke, I need you to prop me up and do all the heavy lifting." The man
jogged after her and then stayed by her shoulder as they moved through the hallway
to the wash room.

Buckets
of warm water had to be carried out, as well as the hanging racks. It took ten trips
to have a basic station set up, and then ten more to get the first baskets of clothing.
She started right in, being careful to wring things out as well as possible when
things were cleaned. It took forever, or at least until dark. Poor Zeke seemed ready
to pull his hair out after carrying most of the clothing back in alone. She was
doing most of the actual work otherwise, so didn't feel too lazy.

Still
sick though. It was enough that she finally had to move off to the edge of the woods
and let it come out. It was the remains of her breakfast, and lunch had been skipped
entirely for her, but amazingly, after the retching and doubling over passed, she
felt a lot better.

She
washed her face with a handful of slushy snow from the ground and got back to work.
The hardened man next to her nodded when she came back to finish the job.

"Tough,
aren't you? You haven't even whined or whinged about being ambushed back there.
It had to be done, but it isn't the way anyone wants to treat their friends."
The words were low and his face a bit softer than it had been during her interrogation.
Almost friendly.

A
friendly would-be conqueror, who was likely in a stolen body. It reminded her of
the cells in Will's basement. There was no one else around, so pitching her voice
low, she simply asked about that, making a guess, but not knowing enough to get
it right.

"Are
the cells in Will's basement for conversions? So he could grab people from the village
and put... I don't know what to call people like you."

Zeke
pulled a double handful of under things from the now cool water in front of him
and started to strangle it, trying to get the water out. They didn't have a roller
that would go outside.

"Downloads.
We used to be people, like you, a long time ago. We were all dying, so to keep us
from losing the world's knowledge base, we put copies of ourselves in a computer.
Actually millions of them. Not everyone, only those that had something unique about
them. In my case an uncommon level of military knowledge. My guess is that Millis
was some kind of researcher. That kind of thing. Now we can just take people and
put one of us in them, and spread that way."

"So
you Downloads can be anyone." It wasn't a question at all. She already knew
the answer. Surprisingly the man shook his head.

"No,
of course not. Men need to be in a male body, same for women, or the hormones won't
match with expectations. The type of body has to be within a certain parameter as
well. Otherwise people tend to lose their shit, fast. I mean, go insane. So there
is a lot of matching involved to get it right. We can't just process people. Then
the procedure itself takes a few days. So whoever it is needs a reason to not be
around for a while. After that, well, in general we can't fake being someone that
we've never even met, so the new person has to leave the area they were taken from
originally. It's a lot slower than it should be."

She
kept working, filing everything away. Nothing seemed all that helpful so far, but
at least the story from both the Doctor and this man seemed to be consistent. If
it was a lie, then it was the one that they'd both practiced. Like a play.