I.
'I knew you once.' The security guard doesn't even think she's the one speaking when he first hears the words. She is beautiful, the woman in the cage. He's stood guard over her for nine and some months now, but in all that time she's never spoken to him at all. She's never eaten. She's never even blinked. 'You were in my dreams.'
'No I wasn't,' he finds himself saying, rather stupidly. She can't even hear him. She has no ears; that's the first thing the briefing had said about her. She has stitches where her ears should be, and that she never dies. 'Be quiet.'
She's a witch, that's what Marlo had warned him with uncharacteristic sobriety at the start of his stationing at Wrath, between the usual bombastic tales about his latest pull at the bar. The last five guys who had to watch the bitch, she drove them starkers. Don't become another Rex. He was sent away, you know that? The ledgers said it was family affairs, but family affairs don't cause a man to chop his hand off. Family affairs don't cause a man to stick his dick in a radiator. Don't you get it? I know you've always had a case of stupids, but I'm serious now. Make up some excuse. Get the hell out, get transferred. Trust me.
He never did.
'That's what you told her, too,' she whispers, voice wavering in and out, more vibrato than fear. 'But she's dead now, don't you know? Hands clutched around red lipstick, gutter sweat. And rats. So many rats.'
He slams his fist on the bars, and she's silent again, unblinking, spacy, lost. He would have almost thought he imagined it, what she said, if his fingernails weren't carving crescents into the meat of his palm. If he didn't taste the iron in his lip. If he didn't see the dead eyes when she shut his own. Not her eyes, no, someone else's. Someone far away and long gone.
He issues an order to all those who must listen to shut up, but it's just a little too late. There's no reply.
II.
'So,' his boss says over lunch, because it's something that they do now, for whatever reason. His boss is a lonely man, especially now that Dad's dead. Whenever the man looks at him it's like he doesn't see a hiree of a year but rather his old school friend. It's the nose. His dad gave him his nose, and his voice. Little else, but it's enough for some people. 'Almost 10 months. You're a real superstar, know that?'
'Just doing my job,' he replies. His lower lip feels heavy when he says it, and he knows it makes him look like a surly child. If the boss thought that, he did not deign to comment on it.
'Yeah, yeah, sure you are. But look at you,' the boss says, gesturing to all of him. 'Your psych evaluations are perfect. You have a hot girlfriend. You're living the time of your life, if Marlo's gossip is anything to go by.'
'Which it's not.'
'Which it isn't, I digress, but still. You're a strong man,' the boss intones, slurping on his straw. He drinks his wine with a straw, a trait he's always had. The boss has a penchant for wine. Wine in thermoses, wine in jam jars, wine in plastic tupperware and clay mugs, but never in a glass. A glass is too transparent for the man who has known the security guard's family his whole life and said security guard now works for himself. It simply does not work, the boss always says, whenever someone asks. It just doesn't. 'I almost didn't believe it when your father told me, but it's a good thing Mandy stepped in and sung your praises, eh? The prodigal son, back home at last. That's what my Ma called serendipity, growing up. Provenance.'
'You mean providence?'
'Huh?'
'They're two different words.'
'Well they sound the same. This something you learned in that school of yours?'
'No. I read books, sir.'
'Books about P-words?'
'Books about all sorts of things, sir.'
'Well, what did those books tell you about P-words, son?'
'Provenance is where something's from. Providence is —'
'God, you're even a bonified dictionary. Hah!' The boss reaches over, slapping him on the back. 'You should teach her some P-words. Sure she'll appreciate it. If you can get her to even speak to you, that is.'
They sit in silence for a moment. The security guard rearranges his collar, scratching at his throat. He nods, hoping it is enough. The boss's eyes gleam.
'You know everyone else in this job's either quit or been laid off after 2 months tops.' He leans in, all whisper-like. 'I know your dad's not your dad. Christ's sakes he's told me enough about how you're not his real kid, but I don't care about that. You're my employee now. And you're a good hire. Wherever you're from, whatever made you, or whatever power presides over you, let's use all the definitions and words here. They did good. You're a good product.'
'I'm a security guard,' he says, tasting the words. They still don't quite fit to him, but everyone else says they do, so they must be right. 'I'm not a product.'
'Yes! Same thing in my eyes. You're a security guard. But that's not the important part.' The boss leans in, gripping his hands. The boss's watery eyes never waver as he takes another long sip of his cheap wine. 'She's not gotten in your head yet. It's been nearly a year, and you're still you. That's got to count for something. It's got to. If it doesn't, I'll eat my toupee.'
'That would be very difficult to eat.'
'Don't tell anyone I told you I had one. It's a secret. That's how much I trust you.'
'Of course.'
'You're strange, but I like you. I like you. Listen,' the boss leans in even more. fingers straining on the table. His breath reeks of alcohol. 'Listen. I see a promotion in your future. Normally it should have happened sooner, I know, but you were so good at what you were doing it would have been a damn shame to see you get moved to somewhere where you wouldn't thrive, you get me?'
'No.'
'Well that's why I'm your boss. I understand you. You'll do great things someday, after this. You belong here.'
'Yes.'
'Just 2 more months. Then I'll move you up. More paperwork, but it'll be something more in-line with the CV you gave me, so maybe you'll actually like it. Data crap.'
'I… I don't know what to say.'
'Just keep being a trooper, son, and you won't have to say anything. You're good people. For good people, things just fall right into place.'
'I'll keep that in mind.'
They fiddle with their things, getting up out of their chairs as abruptly as they had sat down in them. In the twilit sky, the sun is a bloody eye watching them both. It straddles the horizon, refusing to sink. It almost feels like she is here, whispering.
'One last thing. Has she spoken to you at all?'
'Why do you ask?'
'Has she told you anything?' The boss ignores his question, pressing on with his own. 'Not in writing. In words. Has she spoken anything, in syllables, annunciation, anything at all.'
'No. Nothing. Why?'
The boss smiles, clapping his back. 'Good people. Remember that.'
III.
He stands by a doorway. The sun has long since dipped below the horizon. Oana is there before him when it opens. She pulls him in.
'Work ran late,' she says more than asks, arms crossed over her chest for a moment as she raises an eyebrow expectantly. She is beautiful, beautiful and his, and he's hers. Her eyes almost look like— No. He makes a decision, then and there.
He grunts, fighting at her clothes.
'Will you ever tell me what you do?' She asks, voice breathless.
He grunts again, catching her lips with his mouth. The message is clear. She does not protest, though. She returns the favor.
As always, they don't talk about it after.
IV.
The next time she speaks in front of him she's talking to someone else who isn't there, but someone he can't see either.