Pahnyakin Rising (4 page)

Dresden laughed.  “Pick one.”  She motioned to the bird with her index finger.  “One.  Pick
one
.”

“Melon,” the bird chirped.  “Melon.  Peek-a-boo.”

The teenager closed the clear plastic covering over a flat black pad and pressed a green button on the front of the white panel. 

“Watermelon, sliced,” she spoke clearly. 

“Watermelon, sliced,” replied a robotic female voice.  “Please confirm your selection by repeating your desired order.”

“Watermelon, sliced,” repeated Dresden. 

“Please ensure the front panel is in a closed position and do not lift the panel until the replicator beeps two times.”

“Peek-a-boo,” said Pierre, leaning his head closer to the replicator.  “Peek-a-boo.  Melon.  Peek-a-boo.”

“Yes,” sighed the girl.  “Peek-a-boo.”

The food replicator-once only a dream from
Star Trek
-whirred loudly and hundreds of black and white nozzles extended from the interior sides of the 3-D food printer.

Dresden was glad Pierre chose melon as his meal.  Watermelon only took two minutes to replicate.  The girl could tell when the bird was angry with her; he would throw a tantrum until she would order the replicator to produce sunflower seeds, an order that took fifteen minutes to complete. 

The machine beeped and the teenager lifted the panel.  She pulled a thin Tupperware bowl of sliced melon flesh from the replicator pad and walked back to Pierre’s cage. 

“Danke schön,” the bird chirped.

“You’re welcome.”

Dresden guided Pierre inside the wire cage and placed the bowl of melon on his food perch before closing the door.

“I have to take a shower,” she told the bird.  “But later we’ll talk, okay?”

Pierre bobbed his head.  “Talk later.  We’ll talk later.”

-5-

Dresden hated the shower’s design, but it was all she had ever known.  She heard stories of the showers of the past and wondered what it would be like to stand under hot water for 15 minutes just because she could.  There was no possible way it could not be more relaxing than the showers found in most United States homes. 

She threw her dirty clothes on the floor and stepped onto a raised circular platform.  Shivering, she jabbed her index finger at the black button on the panel against the wall to lower a Plexiglas covering that sealed her inside.  She pressed a red button for warm water and waited for the ring of nozzles overhead to descend.  The ring fit perfectly inside the tube shower.  She stood still and closed her eyes as the ring passed over her body from head to—what she thought were eerily long and too thin—toes slowly.  Strong jets of lukewarm water that smelled faintly of chlorine saturated her hair.  Dresden raised her hands to her head and ran her fingers through her new haircut to shed any loose strands of hair.  The ring of pressurized water came to a stop at her feet and began its creeping ascension, this time misting her flawless skin with liquid soap.  For extra protection, Dresden placed her palms flat against her face.  She could smell the rose soap through the gaps between her fingers and she impatiently waited for the ring to move downward once again with water.

There was little time for deep thought in the three-minute shower, and even if she did have time to think, her mind was filled with curse words to describe how cold she was in between the cycles of water covering her body.  Dresden was not relieved to be rinsed two more times, but she was overjoyed when the ring overhead whirred loudly, even if the sound was deafening.  Warm air blew from the nozzles as the ring inched downward.  By the time the ring passed her head the first time, her hair was almost dry.  She ran her fingers through her hair after the ring’s second pass and there was no trace of dampness. 

The Plexiglas covering lifted from the platform and retracted back into the ceiling.  She grabbed her golden robe from the hook to her left and nuzzled the plush fabric against her chest before putting it on and tying the sash tightly around her slender waist.  She glanced in the mirror briefly and felt surprisingly satisfied with her haircut.  It was not as poofy as she imagined it would be.  Though slightly frizzy at the crown and uneven at the ends, it looked as if she had purposely styled her hair to be messy but cute, a look the girls at her school seemed to practice for hours to achieve.  Her look was carefree and wasted none of her time.

By the time she picked her dirty clothes up off the heated emerald green tile floor, she had made the decision to sneak out of the house and ride her bike to the transmitter site.  There was no reasoning behind her choice, other than the nagging curiosity behind a Gaia in town.  It made little sense to her.  Why would a Gaia travel to Easton?  A painful pit in the center of her stomach told her it had something to do with the meetings she suspected were taking place on the Wotomack Bridge.  If she could not extract data from the transmitter to her rubberized bracelet with a microchip embedded in the thick pink band, perhaps she would get lucky and witness the Gaia closer than most people she knew.  She had to follow the feeling.  It was holding her hostage until she did what it told her to do.

Dresden exited the bathroom and entered the first bedroom on the right side of the hall.  She could hear Pierre screeching curse words and she smiled to herself.  Ever since Dresden’s mother attempted to bathe him in the kitchen sink, he hated her.  Angelica tried bribing the macaw with treats and new toys, but Pierre wasn’t letting go of his grudge.  That bird was crazy.  He reacted the same way to strangers, though, so Angelica accepted she ticked off the bird and agreed to keep him around as what she called a ‘guard bird.’  If the bird never came to forgive her, Angelica thought, at least the family would always know if someone was breaking in their home.   

Dresden’s room smelled of cinnamon potpourri and was dimly lit by a doughnut-shaped night light plugged into an outlet located under the gray curtain on the opposite side of the small bedroom.  She tossed her dirty clothes to the wood floor and flipped the light switch as she closed her white wooden door quietly.  Her mother had washed and folded the dirty clothes from the mound that was stacked against the iron footboard of her twin bed before the girl had gone to school that morning.  The small things in life made Dresden smile.  She was overjoyed that her favorite tee shirt was clean again and with no effort on her part.

The girl disrobed and quickly slipped on undergarments.  She pulled the opening of the plain white tee shirt over her head and smoothed the form fitting cotton over her belly and to where the shirt ended at her hips.  Disorganizing the folded clothes with just one movement, Dresden pulled a clean pair of denim leggings from the pile and wriggled into them.  Her stomach crinkled as she bent over to slip on white cotton anklet socks.  She stood at the end of the bed and gazed around the room in search of her boots.  Her mother was always on her case about tidying up her bedroom; when the deadline passed to get the room cleaned, her mother would come in and straighten up, but Dresden could never easily find any of her belongings.  If she peeked her head out the door to ask her mother where the knee-high brown leather boots were hiding, the question would give away that the teenager was planning to go out.  A single question would lead to her mother asking five hundred of her own questions, and it was likely Dresden’s father would become involved-if he managed to get home at a decent hour.  No, it was better for the girl to scour the room on her own. 

Her five-minute search paid off and she felt silly that she found her boots in the very last place she ever put them: the three-tiered shoe shelf at the back of her closet.  She stepped into the brown boots and felt taller, even though the boxed wedged heels on the footwear were but one inch high.  She pulled the zippers from her ankles to just below her bony knees and flexed her legs in a futile attempt to loosen the boots from her legs.  Forget running in the footwear; she would simply avoid the need to.  Dresden completed her ensemble by warming her arms under a long-sleeved navy cable-knit cardigan.  Her tee shirt peeked out from the top of the bulky sweater.

She couldn’t leave the house, not yet.  It wasn’t quite 6:40; she wanted to wait until nine, at least, before she ventured out.  It would give her recording devices time to pick up data, and it would give her a chance to grab some of her mother’s homemade lasagna she smelled in the aroma that floated through the house.  Her mother and father were never up after 8:30, so it also gave her the perfect chance to sneak out the front door.   

Dresden could hear her mother shouting in response to Pierre’s continued verbal badgering, but she decided not to intervene.  She pushed the pile of clothes as far to the foot her bed as they would possibly move without falling over the edge of the mattress.  She sat on top of the olive and cream quilt made by her recently-departed grandmother and reached to her half-moon pine end table for a compact and a tube of liquid eyeliner.  Dresden opened the canary makeup case and held it in her left hand in front of her face.  She held the eyeliner between her thighs and unscrewed the top with her right hand before drawing the oily brush to her closed right eyelid.  The teenager began applying the black makeup in a straight line as closely to her long eyelashes as she could manage.  A near-sneeze caused her hand to jerk and create an upward-slanted line on half an inch outside of her eyelid.  Instead of heading back to the bathroom to scrub at the water-proof makeup, she worked with her mistake to create thick winged liner on each of her eyelids.  She opened her eyes wide, one by one, and applied a slightly-thinner line of black on the u-shaped curve under her eyes.  She turned her head to the left and right as she inspected the makeup.  Satisfied, she closed the silver tube of eyeliner and shoved it in the front half-pocket of her skin-tight leggings.

A yawn unexpectedly escaped from between the teenager’s bare peachy lips.  She looked down at her firm pillow and could not resist lying down and closing her eyes for only a moment.  Her thighs ached from the muscular strength used in holding herself under the bridge and it felt as if right forearm was bruised, though she lifted the sleeve of her sweater and could see no visible blemishing to her skin.  It surprised her that nothing was there; she bruised easily and often as a result from her own clumsiness.  At least twice a week, she would inadvertently bump into a piece of furniture or a doorframe and jokingly think to herself, ‘
Who put that door there?’
  By the time one black and purple bruise would heal, she would have three new marks.  She was thankful she had avoided the fight with Stacy in the locker room.  One punch to the face would probably leave her eye bruised for weeks.  Dresden was certain she was not built for combat.  If ever there was a way to talk through a problem or avoid conflict, she would find it.

The teenager’s head was turned sideways on her eggplant-colored pillow and towards her window as her eyes gently closed.  She knew she should set an alarm to wake her up in a half hour, but once she shut her eyes she could not muster the willpower to get up again.     

-6-

“Crap,” Dresden muttered to herself upon waking up and seeing a blurry green 10:00 glowing from the black alarm clock on her nightstand. 

She yawned and stretched her arms above her head until her elbows tightened and lightly popped.  So much for a short nap.

Undeterred from checking on the data from the transmitter, Dresden slipped a flamingo rubber bracelet over her left wrist and twisted the tight band until the chunky microchip embedded in the jewelry rested on her pulsating vein.  She walked softly to her bedroom door and opened it slowly.  The teenager peeked into the dark hall and listened for any sign that her parents were awake, though she knew the chance they were up was slim.

She crept down the hall and placed her hand on the front door’s locked silver knob.  In the kitchen, Pierre stirred from his blanket-covered cage. 

“Peek-a-boo,” he squawked. 

Dresden ignored the bird and unlocked the door.  Its hinges squeaked and the girl winced and stood frozen with her right knee bent, afraid the noise woke her parents.  When she heard no movement at the back right of the home, she proceeded to the front porch and closed the door behind her.

The late-night, mid-September air was cold and harsh against her cheeks.  She shivered and exhaled.  Her breath fogged in front of her mouth and she walked through the cloud to the aluminum-framed bicycle propped up against the side of the house.  Her father’s sedan was parked at an angle in the driveway, a sure-tell sign he was in a tired rush to get home. 

She wrapped her palms around the black grips on the handlebars and straddled over the seat that was positioned to her pelvic bone.  Pedaling was difficult.  Her legs ached tremendously, but she was determined to make the five-mile journey to the bridge.  She had timed her trek a few days earlier.  It took 23 minutes to ride to the bushes where she and Dodge hid the transmitter.  With sore muscles, she estimated the trip would take a half hour or longer. 

‘
Maybe I should go with Dodge in the morning,’
she momentarily thought to herself as she neared the end of her block.