The Seventh

Three: An Exile's Questions

“The hell do you want?” Alex snarled, shrinking back into her hiding place like a wounded animal.

Two large green eyes obscured by grubby circular glasses blinked in shock. “Oh, n-n-no, I didn’t mean to intrude, i-it’s just I wasn’t expecting – well, there’s usually nobody up here this late, I…”

“What do you mean, ‘usually’?”

The girl’s mouth opened and closed a few times, giving the impression of a fish drowning in air. “I… I always come up here after hours to, well, you know, to find something to, uh, to eat. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

Alex glared at her. “What does it matter to you?”

“No! No, it doesn’t matter!” The girl was waving her palms at Alex now and backing away. “There’ll be plenty to go around, I’m sure!”

Alex stared at her for a moment, then looked away, saying nothing. Her shock at being discovered had put her on the defensive, but this was just another exile that had discovered her. A rather dirty exile, even by their own standards, she reckoned. Homeless too, if she was searching bins for food. She wasn’t anything to fear.

Seeing that no battle was forthcoming, the girl made a visible attempt to relax, awkwardly swinging her arms back and forth. “So, um, you don’t mind if I…?” she began, pointing at the skip.

Alex looked up, shrugged and looked away again. “Not like I own it.”

The girl smiled, leapt towards the skip, began to rummage, then stopped just as quickly. “Your voice… why are you talking like someone from the Citadel?”

Alex shot a fiery glance at her.

“Oh my… oh my God, you’re actually from the Citadel!” she shrieked.

“Keep your bloody voice down!” Alex hissed.

All thought of food apparently vanished for the moment, the girl half-sat, half-collapsed at the entrance to Alex’s hiding place, enraptured. “I’ve never met anyone from the Citadel before! Is it true that you have flying cars now?”

Alex was incredulous. “Excuse me?”

Unperturbed, the girl continued. “Do they have wings, or do they sort of hover? Is it an anti-grav field?”

Alex stared blankly back for a moment, utterly wrong-footed. Was she being made fun of? “There are no cars in the Citadel,” she said finally. “They were barred years ago, before I was even born.”

The girl gasped. “No cars? But – but how do you get around? The Citadel’s huge! All those floors!”

“Monorail.” Good grief, she might actually be serious.

“Wow,” the exile breathed, low and long and fascinated. “Is there one on every level?”

Alex tried not to show her exasperation. “Yes. The Spiral Line runs along the outside edge of each level and travels between them,” she recited in a monotone.

“No way!” the girl beamed, clapping her hands excitedly. “Does this Spiral Line go up and down?”

“Look,” Alex said sharply. “I’m really tired. I’ve been walking on my own two feet for days now and I’m really not in the mood to be talking about bloody transport, of all things.”

“Oh. O-okay.” Disappointed, the girl stood up, dusted down her stained skirt and began her search for something edible in the skip.

Surreptitiously, Alex took the opportunity to examine the exile without being observed herself. The girl appeared to be a couple of years older than her, nineteen or twenty perhaps, although she certainly didn’t act or speak as though she were. Those round-lens glasses gave her the appearance of a baby owl, wide-eyed and in a constant state of wonder at the world. Perhaps she really was just stupid. Her long, unbrushed auburn hair reminded Alex of how long her hair had been until mere hours before, and her attention lingered on the exile’s long tangles in envy. The ever-present anger still smouldered in her chest, waiting for fuel to light it anew, and right now this girl with the red hair looked like gunpowder to her.