Purity (Pure and Tainted) (11 page)

K frowned.
“
Baby
batter?
No, never mind,” she said as Boone was opening his mouth to
explain. “Why didn’t you simply take your samples when I was
incapacitated—before I first woke up?”

“It didn’t occur to me then. I was trying too hard to save your
life.” He grinned at her. “You know how long it’s been since I had to do any
kind of emergency surgery? It took me back to my resident days.”

K raised an eyebrow. “And now that you’ve saved my life you plan
on killing me with boredom?”

“Oh right, what to do with you…” Boone’s eyes traveled around the
room looking for inspiration. Suddenly they lit on something and he had an
idea. “Here,” he said, going back to his desk and grabbing a small square box
that fit easily into his palm.

“What’s that?” K looked doubtfully at the cube in his hands.

“My little sister’s old reader.”
Boone pressed a button on one side
and a holographic screen sprang to life from inside the cube. “It’s kind of old
fashioned,” he said apologetically. “It only holds about five thousand books
and most of these are classics from Earth-that-was.” He felt a lump in his
throat and swallowed it. “She…it was what Shayla was getting her degree in.
Old Earth literature.”

“I can see that you feel for your sister,” K said neutrally. “But
do you really expect me to
read
to
pass the time?”

“Sure, why not? You can read what we read and study—that’ll give
you an insight into my culture.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And why would I want that?”

“You have to know your enemy to effectively exploit their
weaknesses, right? Besides, it’s easier on your stomach and your stitches than
lifting more weights.” Boone shook his head. “Still don’t know what I was
thinking letting you do that.”

“I
was thinking that I needed to stay
strong,” K remarked. “I am used to doing a two hour fitness routine daily. I
would not like to lose my physical agility just because I find myself your
prisoner.”

Boone sighed. “I’ll make you a deal—you can work out two hours for
every book you read. That’ll exercise your mind
and
your body.”

She nodded at the holo-screen. “How do you know that I’ll actually
read the books?”

Boone grinned at her. “Besides the fact that you’re too honorable
to
lie
? You can give me a mini book report on each
one. Tell me what it’s about—the plot, the characters and their motivations.
That kind of thing.”

K frowned. “It sounds tedious.”

“Reading?
No way, darlin’.
A good book can really take you out
of yourself—make you explore new worlds and ideas. Haven’t you ever read
anything that did that for you before?”

“I have never read for pleasure, no. Most of my reading was
studying technical manuals and strategy guides.”

Boone made a face. “Okay, now
that’s
tedious. I think maybe you’ll find you like this kind of reading more if
you can just let yourself get into it.” He nodded at the cube still in her
hand. “Get to it. I’m going to do a little research, starting with your
sample.”

“All right,” K said grudgingly. “Can I sit in the swaying chair
while I read?”

He frowned.
“The swaying chair?”

“The one you held me in after I, uh, threw up.”

“Oh, you mean the
rocking
chair.”
Boone laughed. “Sure, darlin’, go ahead. If you need any help with the controls
on the reader just let me know.”

K frowned at the small device. “They appear to be exceedingly
simple. I don’t think I’ll have a problem.”

“Good.” She had turned to go but Boone put his hand on her arm to
stop her.
“One more thing, K.”

“Yes?” She looked up from the reader and met his eyes.

“If—no—
when
you need to
be touched, come tell me. I tend to get wrapped up in my work and I don’t want
you suffering because I’m too absorbed in what I’m doing to notice. Okay?”

For a moment he thought she would refuse him outright but finally,
after a long pause, she nodded. “I’ll…consider it.”

Boone sighed. “I guess that’s the best I’m going to get from you,
huh?”

K just looked at him.

“Okay, then, it’s your choice.” It didn’t make him happy but he
couldn’t
make
her tell him when she
was hurting. He would just have to check on her every hour or so and see how
she was getting along. “Just don’t blame me if you’re in pain,” he told her.

K raised her chin. “I would rather endure pain than shame.”

“There’s no shame in getting what you need to keep from hurting, K,”
Boone said quietly.

“There is when what I
need
is something I was taught to avoid my entire life. Something my own people
would kill me for if they knew.”

“They don’t have to know,” he reminded her.

“It doesn’t matter.
I
know.”

Boone didn’t have an answer for that. K held his gaze for a long
moment of silence and then went to settle herself in the chair with the reader.
He sighed to himself and went back to his desk to study her samples.

For the first time he wondered at the innate cruelty of the
geneticist who had mixed her DNA. How could anyone be so pitiless as to
engineer a being who craved human touch and then allow them to be raised in a
society that completely forbid it?

Chapter Seven

The days fell into a kind of pattern for K. She woke in the
morning with Boone’s arms around her, got dressed as she waited for him to
shower, and then cleaned her teeth with the sonic wand he'd provided since she
had no suit to help her clean them. Then she went with him to the mess hall.
There she would help him make breakfast if it was his turn for kitchen duty or
simply sit and chat with Mom if she was doing the cooking.

She was still trying new foods though she hadn’t wanted to at
first. With some help from Boone she had managed to get the simulator to make a
thick, bland shake that tasted like the nutrition drinks she was used to but it
gave her no energy at all. So, very reluctantly, K allowed herself to be
“gastronomically educated,” as Boone called it. He was careful to make foods
that wouldn’t upset her stomach but K still found the smell of bacon, pancakes,
and eggs nauseating. Especially eggs—which, of course, were all Loki would make
when it was
his
turn to cook.

Aside from the eggs, Loki had nothing to say to her and K said
nothing to him either. She understood why the man hated her though it still
seemed that he was carrying the emotion to the extreme. Still, one couldn’t
expect an Erian to be rational. (She still didn’t think of herself as such
although she
had
accepted that she
had at least some Erian DNA.)

Regarding Loki, K decided it was better to maintain silence than
get into a “pissing match” as Boone called it. She often wondered, though, if the
flamboyant Erian really
did
know
something about her biology that might impact her in the future. If so, he
would probably rather die than tell her and since K would rather die than ask
,
they didn’t talk at all.

After breakfast she and Boone would spend some time in his
quarters because by then, K generally needed to be touched again. Her need to be
contaminated—to feel his skin against hers—continued to irritate her but there
was nothing she could do about it. Since she refused to tell him when the
touch-cravings were coming on, Boone made a point of spending at least fifteen
minutes every hour or so holding her or making some kind of skin-to-skin
contact. At K’s insistence they tried simply holding hands or having his hand
on her arm but it wasn’t enough. Eventually they worked out that if Boone took
off his shirt and she took off hers and sat in his lap with her back to his
chest, they made enough contact to back off her cravings.

During what Boone called their “time-outs” K felt small and
helpless. She who had once been so strong and self-sufficient was now flawed
and weak. She needed Boone’s touch like a drug and if she didn’t get it she
went into withdrawal. It made her despise herself—especially when she found she
was looking forward to sitting in his lap rather than dreading it.

Boone was the enemy—the man who had ruined her life and condemned
her to death—
if
she could ever find
her suit and purge
herself
. But somehow K forgot that
when she was leaning back against him and listening to him murmur something
inconsequential and charming in her ear in that deep, drawling voice of his.
Her new feelings made her angry at herself and then she felt guilty for being
angry and having any emotions at all. It seemed to be an unbreakable cycle and
Boone had started it but somehow she couldn’t hate him like she should.

Possibly the source of her traitorous emotions was the fact that Boone
was the only reason she found the position she was in even remotely bearable.
Despite the fact that the time-outs interrupted his schedule on an almost
hourly basis, he was never impatient or angry with her. Though she sometimes
sensed his frustration when she was being stubborn, he never raised his voice
or lost his temper. Not that she would have cared if he had, K told herself.
Emotions meant nothing to her. Just because she was having more and more of
them didn’t mean she had to give in to what she was feeling. Still, she
couldn’t help the relief that washed over her when Boone cradled her in his
arms and drove away the pain of the touch-cravings or the sadness she felt when
she thought of her lost way of life.

She could never go back to Athena now, never fulfill the plans
that the High Sentinel had made for her. Her squad was gone and so was her
reason for living. So why was her determination to purge herself wavering? K told
herself it wasn’t true—that the minute she found where Boone had hidden her
suit she would kill first him and then herself. But as the days passed it
became harder and harder to picture actually doing it. She never had enough
time away from Boone to search for the skinsuit anyway. They were, as he had
warned, “
joined
at the hip,” and constantly around
each other.

She spent the time-outs in Boone’s lap either reading while Boone
looked over his notes, talking with him, or giving him what he called “book
reports” of the various Old Earth titles she was working her way through.
Despite never having read for enjoyment before, K was a fast reader and she had
the added incentive of getting several hours of exercise for every book she
finished. Consequently, she tended to look for the shorter ones so that she
could be sure of getting a work out between breakfast and lunch and again
between lunch and supper.

Boone hadn’t been able to fix the grav controls in the gym but K didn’t
mind. She worked with lighter weights to compensate for the extra g-forces and
felt that she was getting the best work out of her life. Boone had watched her
anxiously for awhile and then finally accepted that she was all right. The
wound on her inner thigh was healing nicely and according to him, the stitches
would soon melt away on their own, becoming part of the flesh they had helped
knit together. K looked forward to that day. In her mind, the stitches were an
obvious outward reminder of her contamination. If they hadn’t been there she
might have been able to pretend, at least to herself, that everything was
normal. But the straight black ladder marching up the inside of her thigh said
it wasn’t so. Said that nothing in her life was normal and it never would be
again.

Between reading, trying new foods, and working out with Boone, K found
that her days were fuller than she could have ever supposed. At night she and
Boone lay in the darkness and talked. He told her tales of his life on Colossus
and asked questions about her childhood and her everyday life on Athena. K was
reluctant to share, however. Boone was still the enemy and giving him
information, no matter how inconsequential, went against all her training.

The stories he told her only made her realize how completely
different their two peoples were. He had been born to parents, not pulled from
an artificial womb. He had lived with a small family unit that showed emotion
and shared affection freely, not raised by soulless mechanoids in a barracks
with others he could not touch. The differences in their past made K understand
that her way of life was just as strange to him as his was strange to her. But
she sometimes wondered how anyone could have a more outlandish existence than
the one she was currently experiencing.

There was no suit to jab her awake in the morning or drug her to
sleep at night, no squad to lead, no superiors to report to, and no prisoners
to collect and take to the mines. There was nothing day in and day out, but
Boone, the warm prison of his arms, and his soft, drawling voice in her ear.
Sometimes it seemed like a dream but other times K had to face the fact that
this was her new reality—and she wasn’t finding it nearly as horrible or
horrifying as she ought to.

It was on the third or fourth day when she woke up that K smelled
something strange. She briefly remembered smelling it the night before as she
was drifting to sleep in Boone’s arms but it was especially strong when she
opened her eyes.

“What
is
that?” She
shrugged off Boone’s heavy bicep and sat up, turning her head from side to side
and searching for the source of the scent. She felt restless and still
tired—she hadn’t slept well the night before. Her scalp had been itching for
some reason and she hadn’t been able to get comfortable. “What is it?” she said
again.

“What’s what, darlin’?” Boone asked groggily. He wasn’t much of a
“morning person” as he called it and K had to admit that it was nice most
mornings to lie beside him and take her time stretching and yawning before
getting off of the sleeping platform. She had never experienced a leisurely
waking up period before since her suit had always jabbed her awake. Now she
found she rather liked the drowsy drift from sleep to wakefulness. But today the
strange scent wouldn’t let her sleep in.

“That
smell.
”
K looked around, still sniffing.
“Musky…slightly sour.
Very unpleasant.”

“Oh yeah?”
Boone said neutrally, sitting up
in bed. He was suddenly looking much more awake.

“Yes, and I really don’t—
Purity,
it’s coming from
me
.” K lifted
her arm, took another whiff and frowned. “I
stink.”

“Well…” Boone looked like he wanted to laugh but didn’t quite
dare. “I wouldn’t say you stink exactly but you
are
a little ripe. That’s kind of what happens over time if you
don’t take a shower, darlin’.”

“This is because I refused to endure a shower? Is it some kind of
punishment?” K demanded.

Boone held up both his hands in a “don’t shoot” gesture. “Not one
I’m
inflicting on you.”

“My scalp is itchy too.”

“Well, you probably need to wash your hair.” Boone frowned. “
That’s
gonna be a job and a half since
it’s so long. How do you usually manage it?”

K frowned. “I don’t—my
suit
does.”

A look of understanding broke over his face. “Your
suit
cleaned you? All this time, since
you were nine cycles old?”

“Of
course
.
I didn’t even think of it before, it’s been so long. But now that you’ve taken
it away, I suppose I’ll have to endure a shower.” She took a deep breath,
trying to brace herself.
“All right.
Let’s get it over
with.”

Boone shook his head. “Don’t know what kind of showers you guys
have on Athena but I don’t think you’re going to find it’s all that bad. Hang
on, though, while I get some things together.”

He left his quarters and when he returned he was holding four
small, round spheres cupped carefully in his big palm.

“What are those?” K eyed them mistrustfully.

“Hair care stuff—got it from Mom. Loki actually has a better
selection but I wasn’t about to ask him. Here.” He handed her the spheres. “Mom
says use the two blue ones on your hair first—they’re shampoo. Then use the
purple ones to make it soft and shiny.”

K frowned at the small round balls in her hands. “Are they some
kind of nano-bots? How can they accomplish all that?”

Boone laughed as though a shower was no big deal. “No,
darlin’—it’s the liquid inside that does the work. Just pop
them
over your head and then lather, rinse, repeat.”

“What?” K frowned at him—he wasn’t making any sense. Also, fear
she didn’t want to feel was beginning to crawl down her throat.
It’s all right,
she tried to tell
herself.
Surely it can’t be as bad as you
remember. At least you don’t have non-con bracelets on this time. Besides,
Boone endures it every day and he’s no worse for the wear.
Well, that was
true at least. She swallowed hard. “Let’s go.”

“You know where the fresher is.” But Boone came with her anyway. They
crowded into the small room together and he nodded at the dreaded stall. “Just
step in there and the water will come down.”

“Yes, of course,” K heard herself say. She shrugged out of his
shirt—a thin synthi-cotton one that had skinny shoulder straps and left most of
her back bare for maximum skin contact while they slept—and stood naked, trying
to calm herself. She didn’t care if Boone saw her—he saw her all the time and
anyway, there was nothing to see. Her body was still warrior fit, if slightly
more sensitive in some areas than it had been before. K didn’t know the reason
for the increased sensitivity but that wasn’t what was worrying her at the
moment.

Boone nodded at the soap spheres he’d handed her. “Go ahead,
darlin’.”

“Yes, I will. I’m going in right now.” Yet she remained frozen in
place, memories washing over her.

Shower day. The mechanoids come
early. Round black metal spheres floating in mid air, red lights blinking, shock
arms extended to herd you, to force you where they want you to go.

The
huge gray room.
The stinging icy spray comes down
from the ceiling. The water is laced with disinfectants and anti-bac agents
that burn your eyes and throat. The other children in your birthgroup are crying,
begging. Trying to huddle together but the non-con bracelets put a stop to
that, don’t they? No touching allowed—ever. Shrieks and screams and cries, the
burning pain of the steel-bristled scrubbers rubbing your skin raw. Arcing shocks
run through the group like chain lightning, conducted by the freezing water as
the non-cons send out painful proximity warnings…