Day 44: Women's Showers (2nd Shift)

[hajike_tobiume]

The sting of the water on Momo's wounds reminded her exactly where each and every burn was. Between that and the clear plastic wrapping the nurse placed around the long cut up her arm to her shoulder, she decided as little time in the actual spray would be wise. Sitting on a stool out of the direct stream, she went about scrubbing the grit and

Comments

[ninelivesonce]

"Not a New Earth," Taura replied, her low voice drum-beating the capital letters just hard enough to make her meaning clear. "Lots of New Londons and there's Nuovo Brazil, but no-one's tried to claim themselves to be New Earth. I meant that I've met a bunch of people from before we -- humanity -- started having other options."

"Some time around when this whole place is supposed to be. Projectile guns and ground cars and primitive medicine." The low-tech look, including the wounds they'd left on Mele's legs, had to be part of the deception. Even if that technology was more of the "magic" she'd seen last night rather than anything she could recognize, whoever was in charge had more resources than they'd shown. Just like letting them overhear the "confusion" on the radio -- all of it was calculated to be disarming. But the evidence was there if you looked, and remembered -- in everything from repaired building damage to Taura's own new body. "Did you know women used to die in childbirth? Frequently enough that they weren't allowed to do whole classes of jobs?"

All of the history books Taura had read had been military history; what she knew of primitive medicine was summed up in casualty charts and tactical advice, and the incidental facts that, when you went back far enough, all the authors were men, as well as their intended audience. "No female soldiers, tacticians, pilots, nothing."

Gender had been no line-item detail in Taura's creation; half of her creche mates had been female, the other half male. The only difference that had mattered was that the females had outlived the males by a few percentage points; and she had outlived the rest of the females by a handful more.

Okay, that she'd lived long enough to have a life and that Miles would have had a very different reaction, down in that horrid basement. But she wouldn't have known that, then. What did Captain Thorne call him -- so hopelessly monosexual? She snorted, a little, imagining his expression. And Bel's. The real Bel, not yesterday's impostor.

[mugenreppa]

"Yep," Mele replied to the death in childbirth question. Women also died when they were slain by a stronger fighter or when armies and bandits raided villages for their own pleasure. Mele had seen that kind of thing only once.

As for women soldiers, Mele shrugged. She didn't have too many feelings about that; too busy swallowing a bae killing people. She probably didn't deserve to say anything on that front, being who she was.

"About ten years ago, I was revived in a more futuristic time than I remember. Where you come from sounds like that-it's the future to me, probably." Mele pulled her hair around over her shoulder. "Sounds fun. Is everything 'new' there?" she asked, carelessly clueless rather than sarcastic.

[ninelivesonce]

Taura was still stuck on hunting for ways that yesterday's visitor had differed from the Bel Thorne she knew -- ways other than believing the Institute's pack of lies about Taura. Its mannerisms matched; that carelessly aggressive posture when Bel meant the dressing-down it was giving, the faint hint of quasi-maternal worry. All of it had been carefully coached; she hadn't seen a single slip. That had been what had convinced her it was an impostor; the real Bel would have found a way to signal her, to get a message through, even if it was just no, it's impossible. It would still have given her hope, since Bel might give up on impossibilities, but Miles didn't.

"New? I don't think so. Everything gets old -- jumpship Necklin rods aren't any different from," she glanced around, hunting for a reference point they were guaranteed to have in common, "floor tiles, when it comes down to it. But you said you were cryo-frozen? For a long time?" I guess you could do that with cryogenics -- take a one-way trip to the future just to play tourist. Not just to wait until you'd hit a medical facility capable of fixing whatever you'd done to yourself. It seemed like a lot of faith to have in the future, though Mele hadn't said she hadn't been injured. Just that she'd been successfully revived at the end of it.

"What was it like, seeing the future?"