Free Captive Girl by Jennifer Pelland Page B

will
distract her until Marika returns.
    Alice searches the mainframe for a film she
hasn’t seen. So few get made anymore. The economy can barely
support the basic needs of its citizens, and entertainment is a
luxury that is rarely indulged. But all she can find is something
called Love in a Time of Bombardment .
    No. She will not relive the attack. The attack
is not entertainment. It can never be entertainment.
    She tugs at her feeding tube to try to get it
into a more comfortable position, and feels the thick, thumbless
mittens being pulled back over her hands. “no no no no no no no,”
she types, but her unspoken assailant ignores her and ties the
mittens to the walker’s rail.
    They’re so afraid she’ll become another Selene.
This is exactly the wrong way to go about keeping her
sane.
    She bangs her mask hard against the walker’s
padded rail in protest, then thrashes her head from side to side
when her assailant tries to stop her. It’s no use. She is pushed
back against the padded chair of her walker and strapped down. The
seat/body interface tugs uncomfortably between her legs, and she
opens her mouth as far as it will go behind the mask to scream out
her silent fury.
    Over the earpieces, she hears Dr. Qureshi say,
“Alice, you need to keep calm.”
    She struggles to type, struggles to get her
tongue to work properly. “im jst uncomfrtblee.”
    “ Alice, you’re not making any
sense.”
    How can she make sense when she is blind and
deaf and lashed to a walker against her will? How can they possibly
expect her to…
    It doesn’t matter what they expect. All that
matters are her actions. She takes in several deep gulps of air
through her chest tube, trying to calm her trembling muscles, then
types, “My feeding tube was uncomfortable. I was just adjusting it.
You didn’t need to tie me down.”
    “ We need to be safe, Alice. You know
that.”
    “ I’m fine.”
    “ And we need to keep you that
way.”
    “ I want to talk to
Marika.”
    “ Dr. DeVeaux is busy.”
    “ I have a right to be with
her.”
    “ Alice, we’ve been over this. You’re
in no position to—”
    “ I’m nineteen years old. I have
every right to decide who I want to be with.”
    “ You only think you love her. She’s
been your caretaker for the entire length of the program. Of course
you’re attached to her.”
    Marika’s touch was the first one she’d felt
after waking up in the mask and the chair. She’d held Alice while
she screamed voicelessly, sobbed tearlessly, panicking behind the
metal. She was the one who sat patiently with Alice until the
awkward tongue controls became second nature, and she was finally
able to communicate with the world on the other side of the mask.
Her hands were the only ones to soothe away the nightmares, to
knead her ever more atrophied muscles, to massage ointment into the
scar tissue around her implants and mask. They were there when
Alice’s body first started developing curves, when she started
craving a different kind of touch. Marika is the only one that can
make her feel like a woman instead of simply a captive mind
dragging a useless bag of bones behind it.
    Yes, of course she is attached to
her.
    “ Dr. Quershi, this is none of your
business. I’m an adult now, and I choose to be with
her.”
    “ And I’m trying to tell you that
it’s grossly inappropriate for her to exploit your feelings
by—”
    Alice pulls up a loud music file to drown out
the rest of the lecture. Marika will come back. She always does.
And Alice will wait for her, lashed to her chair by her chest and
wrists, as long as it takes.
    *
    When she sleeps, she dreams of Marika, of her
hands roaming all over Alice’s fragile body. Her skin cries out for
more, and Marika grows an octopus’s complement of arms, fondling
Alice with an eightfold touch. Two hands reach for the feeding
tube, give it a twist, and gently pull it out. Two other hands
remove the breather, and still two more lift her from the