“It means I’ll have a new boss,” said Lopera calmly. “Don’t push me too hard, or I might start thinking that’s a good idea.”
For a moment Dionte thought Basante might actually hit Lopera. This was not the kind of reaction he was trained to believe he deserved from villagers. His pride and his Conscience were doubtlessly in conflict, and that could make anyone irrational.
“Enough, Lopera. Please, Basante, cool your temper. We need each other, and these arguments do no one any good.” She pulled Basante back a couple of steps. “Lopera will not let us down.” Because she does not want to risk the involuntary wing. “We have five years’ worth of proof for that.” She watched his face and shoulders relaxing. “Lopera, perhaps you can take us to Eden and show Basante his fears are unfounded.”
“Of course.” Lopera also relaxed visibly and gestured for them to precede her out through the inner door.
Dionte took Basante’s arm and walked with him through the doorway, not giving him a chance to stop and say anything else to Lopera. They could not afford for him to upset Lopera and her people too much.
Not yet.
Light seeped into Teal’s darkness. She became aware of its warmth on her eyelids, turning the blackness first gray and then red. She felt… swollen. Her head felt so heavy she didn’t think she could lift it. Her dry, woolly tongue filled her entire mouth. Her belly was aching and distended, and her breasts felt like a couple sacks of water sagging against her rib cage.
With an effort, she fluttered her eyelids open. Above her, she saw dimness, lit by one pale yellow light that seemed familiar somehow. Scents wormed their way into her brain—dust, damp, stale basil and cinnamon.
She was in the basement under the dunes. She hadn’t moved at all.
The realization gave her the strength to sit up. Pain stabbed through her midriff. She groaned and clutched at her stomach, slamming one hand out behind herself to keep from falling back down. It landed on something soft, and the sensation expanded Teal’s world a little further.
She wasn’t sitting on the floor anymore, but on a pallet, the kind they used in the dorms. A thick white sheet covered her. Clothes lay in a neat pile beside the pillow, with her comptroller sitting right on top. Teal snatched it up to check the time and the date.
Three days. What strength she had vanished from her fingers, and the comptroller dropped into her lap. She’d been down here for three days. Had she only been down here? Or had they taken her somewhere? There were no memories in her head from the time she first saw this place up to now. Panic seized her, bringing on another wave of pain. She clutched the sheet to her chest and doubled over, squeezing her eyes shut against the tears.
It was then she realized her breasts weren’t just swollen, they were too big. Her hips and buttocks too. Everything was the wrong shape.
Have to make you look like you’re nineteen, the man, the tailor, had said. The implications hadn’t quite filtered in then. They’d rebuilt her body.
Teal couldn’t tell if it was that realization or the leftover drugs in her system that made her feel sick.
Shaking, she pushed the sheet back and reached for the clothes. She tried not to look down as she dressed. She really did not want to see what they’d done to her. The things they’d left weren’t her old clothes, which of course would now be too small, but they were close enough, and they were clean. Underwear, bra, loose brown trousers, a soft gray tunic, and gray woolen socks. The boots were her old, creased, familiar pair. Those, at least, still fit just fine, and somehow that made her feel better.
In fact, she felt well enough to realize she was incredibly thirsty, and the pain of hunger added itself to the general pain around her midriff.
“Can I come down?” called someone from the top of the stairs. A man. The tailor.
“Yeah,” Teal tried to say, but all that came out was a hoarse croak. The tailor couldn’t possibly have heard, but he came down the stairs anyway. Teal didn’t have time to be angry before she saw the jug and bowl in his hands. He set them both down in front of her and stepped back. Teal lifted the jug with shaking hands and drank. Water, sweet and clear, poured down her burning throat. She drank until she thought her lungs would burst, forgetting that the man was even there.
Finally she lowered the jug and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Thanks.” She set the jug down and reached for the bowl. It was the very familiar porridge she had hated in the dorms. She didn’t care. Right now it smelled wonderful. She picked up the spoon and started shoveling food into her mouth with a speed that would have had Chena rolling her eyes. Her muscles protested every movement, but she didn’t stop or slow down. The food was all that mattered.