Wanted: Intact or Vapourised

Chapter 4

Neego knew two things, and she had kept knowing them for about a week. They ran through her head so many times.

The first thing was this: she wouldn't die here.

She had always thought she would die when her stupid expendable heart gave out in maybe three years time.

Normally she would have another lifetime, but there were no checkups in Lai-Weon. No supplements. She had three years of life left in her mutated body.

She would not spend them in prison. Not anymore. No universe would be granted that satisfaction.

No, she thought. No, I'm going to die for a cause, just like Trenken keeps saying.

I cannot let him know. He'll never get off my back for this.

It was an impossible cause. She preferred it that way.

Her own desperate thirst for some sort of impossible revenge. Against Kilyan-Jel.

In truth, she didn't think it would make her feel better, but it would give her something to do, instead of languishing here in this place.

A project. A goal to work towards: die in the name of revenge.

She supposed it would make more sense if the goal was 'kill in the name of revenge' but that was hardly likely. Dying made more sense. That would not be asking too much. She knew two things. That was the first.

It drove her hard over the weeks. She exercised twice as much and kept her head down much more than usual. And all the while, the second truth ran through her mind.

In many ways, a much more difficult truth to swallow than her own death.

The second truth was this: it's really hard to think of ideas about how to escape. She didn't want to plan it, she just wanted to decide that she would.

It frustrated her. But it could hardly be helped. It was how her brain worked.

She did not consult Trenken for help. She knew that without access to a computer of some kind, he would do little but be encouraging and supportive and generally helpful. Useless.

She did not find Trenken being helpful to be helpful. It only made her self-concious. Besides, she dare not admit that she was becoming driven by something. Not after all the abuse she had given him for being an activist.

His family had been dead for years, she knew. Dead from some regime, their deaths had been cold and apathetic. No burning hate had snuffed their lights.

Kilyan-Jel was the opposite. But Kilyan-Jel had not only killed her family. It had made her a hypocrite. That somehow felt worse.

I won't die here. But thinking of escaping is hard.

The two ideas went around and around her. Push up- I will die for revenge. Let down- escaping prison is hard. Push up- revenge. Push down- whine.

"Hm?" She grunted.

"I said what are you going for?"

Trenken had asked a question. She hadn't paid attention the first two times he asked. And nor this time, it seemed.

"Uh-huh." She replied. Automatically.

"You're going for Uh-huh? I didn't know they changed menus. Sounds exotic."

They were in the food queue. She was losing track of time more often than usual.

He was holding both their trays. She had somehow been absent during the catwalk and elevator ride up, she was so preoccupied with cycling between two unhelpful thoughts.