Episode 9 - A Dark, Deep Place. And the Hollow Beyond.

  Chapter 84 - Feeling Human

  Patrick is setup in the trailer Moreau’s leadership team all share for his impromptu salon. The floor has a tarp spread, a few stools arranged between the storage boxes with lesser-used medical supplies. A pile of spare tires and a board placed across them seems to be his worktable, with scissors and combs neatly arranged. There is even a spray bottle of clear liquid and a few towels hanging off the stools.

  Quartermaster Cardoso is on one side of the trailer, tucking the tails of her silver-buttoned overcoat into the back of her pants so she can pull her environmental suit over the top. Patrick is bent in half, sweeping up the hair scraps from the previous client. As he spots me pull my respirator off, he beams. “Conrada! Come to get a clean-up?”

  I dump my mask on a storage hook by the airlock, unclipping the buckles at my wrists to loosen my sleeves and then unzipping the front of my suit. “I’ll take whatever you are offering. I haven’t had a haircut in ages.”

  “I promise I can cut in a straight line, and that I won’t take your ear off. And that’s about it!” grins Patrick.

  Cardoso snorts with amusement from the side, arranging her buttons in a small mirror mounted above what must be her bunk. Strange, ugly little creations made from bent cutlery decorate the tiny shelf under her mirror. The sections of the trailer are separated by hanging curtains. Patrick is set up in the central area after the lock that seems would normally be the living and dining area for the senior crew. Beyond Cardoso's curtained area and further down there are other bunk spaces. “Don’t listen to him. He’ll draw blood before he’s done,” she remarks dryly, pulling a brimmed hat from a hook on the wall and beginning to pull her suit up over her uniform.

  “Only a little,” pouts Patrick, dumping the collected hair scraps into a tub. He has quite the collection already.

  I ignore Patrick. “You going into All-Markets?” I ask the Quartermaster curiously, naming the city-dome we are currently camped outside of. “Buyers?”

  “Always. Then I’m staying the night with my family. Haven’t seen my kids in ages,” she replies, adjusting her bangs underneath her hat.

  “How old are they?” I ask curiously.

  “Four and seven. Two girls,” she replies. “Their father works the dock-yards at All-Markets. They get their schooling and living quarters through his employer.”

  I sit on the central stool Patrick seemed to be fussing about, pulling my environmental suit down over my shoulders and tying the arms around my waist, leaving my upper torso clad only in the grey skin-hugging underlayers everyone out here wears. Cardoso turns and plants her hands on her hips and she eyes Patrick, a fond frown in the corners of her lips. “I expect this place clean when I’m back?”

  Patrick playfully salutes, “Yessir, madam!”

  I untie my bun and let my limp, silver-streaked hair fall past my shoulders. I run my hands through it a few times, loosening the worst of the tangles. It would have bothered me weeks ago, but I’ve gotten too used to being a little grimy now.

  “So what can I help you with?” asks Patrick, and I feel his fingers lift the back of my hair. His touch is suddenly electrifying, sending the hairs on the back of my neck standing as if I’ve been shocked.

  Cardoso mounts her face mask and finishes adjusting her environmental suit as she passes through the airlock with a friendly wave, leaving us alone.

  “Just clean up the bits that are breaking on the ends, and see if you can get some of it out of my eyes,” I request. The gentle strokes of Patrick’s hands through my hair continue, and I shift slightly away from him to suppress my body's instinctive reaction to touch.

  “Can do,” he says simply, and thankfully drops my hair to prepare his supplies. “Can I call you Conrad?”

  I turn to look over my shoulder at him. “Where did you hear that name?”

  “It’s what Rhett calls you? No, then?”

  “Oh, no, it’s fine. I haven’t told anyone out here that I go by that nickname. It’s a little odd to hear suddenly.”

  “Is it… more than a nickname?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like Shion?”

  I continue to watch Patrick suspiciously as he sprays the comb he’s using with a second bottle I guess from the stench is pure alcohol. “Uh, no. It’s just a nickname. I dunno, I just prefer it; it’s not deeper than that. How do you know Shion?”

  “Been thinking of joining Aquila when Rhett heads back,” says Patrick with a shrug. “Head straight, please. Always thought it’d be nice to have an older sister, she seems like a laugh when I’ve run into her before.”

  I chuckle slightly, doing as asked. “She’d probably like you. Can you just… join Aquila like that?”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Oh yeah. I can do whatever I want mostly,” replies Patrick simply, with no explanation. “Forgot how much I missed Rhett after he left. It’s been good to catch up. And he's only gotten easier to look at as he’s aged. Those curls, those eyes! You know what I mean?” I feel his hands in my hair again, combing out sections and then the quiet snips of his scissors. Silver tips fall to the tarp below my feet.

  “You don’t dislike him the way Moreau’s crew does?”

  “Dislike? Nah, me and him go way back. It was a messy business, that job. No one deserved blame. But it was just Rhett and Captain Moreau's younger able-crew, so the outsider took the fall - folks need an enemy when it goes wrong. It’s the problem with these smaller companies. You’re nothing in a big one, but every fella and his symbiont knows who you are and all your baggage in a smaller one.”

  I hum in affirmation, trying not to let my eyes shut as I relax into the gentle sensation of Patrick’s fingers in my hair. “You’ve not always lived out here then?” I ask casually.

  “Nah, I’m a ‘bubbler’ through and through.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  I can hear Patrick’s grin in the reply. “Yeah. I want to grow a moustache when I go back. I was too young when I came out here. No more fucking respirators.”

  I laugh despite myself, Patrick grabbing my head to keep me steady. “Sorry. I can’t imagine you with one.”

  “It’ll be magnificent, too. The fattest fucking moustache you ever saw. I’ll keep snacks in it for between meals.”

  “That why Rhett grows out his stubble when he’s in the dome?” I ask playfully.

  “He does? He never told me. How’s it suit him?” asks Patrick, combing through his work on the back of my head.

  “It barely softens his stiff jaw.”

  “Hah! He’ll crack a tooth one day.” He comes around to my front and adjusts my face-framing. “You want these long still? Or short?”

  “Proper bangs will just grow into my eyes. Leave it long enough I can keep it out of the way,” I say, then I shyly lower my eyes, and he concentrates on my face. “Are you sure you want to join Aquila? You've seen how bruised and battered Rhett and I were when we arrived?”

  “Never said I’d be doing what you do. Aquila intrigues me. It's a hobby of mine, trying to understand what makes people and places tick,” replies Patrick with a comb held between his teeth, and still evasively refusing to answer how exactly he thinks he’ll just ‘join’ Aquila.

  “I'm slightly terrified to say that I might miss the place some days,” I say idly. “Definitely showers, and my own room again.”

  “We never notice the bits that are good ‘til they are gone,” says Patrick wistfully. “Here, I'll clean out the grime that I can so it feels less mank. Sorry, I can't give you a proper wash.”

  “Thanks,” I mutter as he sprays down the back of my head and runs a towel through my hair, vigorously rubbing.

  “It’s an odd color for someone so young.”

  “My hair? I got it from my dad.”

  “It’s natural then?”

  “Yeah. Dad thought it made him look distinguished.” Inadvertently, I feel my voice catch at the memory. I clear my throat, trying to chase away my odd feelings about being alone in the half-light of the trailer, embarrassed and hating myself that a simple haircut is the closest thing to touch I’ve had in… well, too long. It’s natural to enjoy the feeling of another human, I tell myself.

  “It’s cute. Hard to forget,” says Patrick simply, slinging the used towel into a corner with his other dirty laundry. “All done. It’s on the house. Put out a word for more customers. I’m not bored yet.”

  “Ah, I didn’t even think you might want some credits. I don’t have anything, thank you.” I tie my hair up again, feeling odd at how much shorter it feels already.

  “Friend of Rhett is a friend of mine. That, and it’s free for everyone, I don't care to barter and I don’t need whatever spare coin you’ve got rattling around in any old city-monitors if you even had it.”

  I slide off the stool to get to my feet, untangling my sleeves from my waist and beginning to pull my suit up around my shoulders again. “Is Rattakul around? I've got something I want to ask her,” I ask as I tighten my cuffs.

  “The Captain is around, yes. You’ll have to get through her second if you want to meet with her, though. They’ll probably make an exception for you.” Patrick turns his back to me, beginning to clean his tools. Something in his words suddenly seems less carefree.

  I frown, unsure that I know him enough to unpack his tone. “Oh, ta. I’ll go see them. Thank you again.”

  “No worries. I’ll see ya,” he replies, back still to me.

  “Conrada, still alive I see,” snipes Captain Rattakul as her eldest son leads me into her cabin. I unzip my environmental suit but don’t strip like I did for Patrick, opening the front just enough for ventilation.

  “Captain. I wanted to talk… if you’re free?” I ask, glancing at her son who frowns as I do, his matching almond shaped-eyes narrowing. His symbiont is a gorgeous little Falco with dark eye markings that match his sunken sockets. She’d be out flying with the other avians.

  “Good, I have news for you as well. San’ya, go get your sister. I need my maps.”

  “Maps?” I ask, completely distracted from the reason I sought her out. I watch her son leave the room and then turn back, a spark of anticipation slipping into my voice. “We’re going by a platform?”

  “Aye girl. We’re finally going by a platform if Lyall is going to take the job I think he’s taking. It’s time to call in any and all goodwill you’ve scraped up with the Wolf,” says Rattakul, sitting in her throne and leaning her cane against the side of the seat.

  “Is it intact?” I ask, coming to her side to peer out the window with her. The herd of all the herbivore symbionts is gathered, fluorescent plastic visibility ribbons fluttering from their sides. The white haze is thin today; there was some drizzle the past few days. One of the older able-men from Moreau’s crew is patting her symbiont on the nose. She slowly lowers her forehead to meet her symbiont, hand cupped around its long jaw as she pats.

  Rattakul watches the pair, studying them while rubbing her wrinkled jowls with one hand. “It was last time it was mapped. I can’t imagine anything cracking it like the one in Baise. It’s a slog to get to, though. But while we wait for maps… let's talk strategy.”