#thereborn

The Techmarine had been dispatched to fix a disturbance in the air vents of the strike cruiser. It would’ve been a routine fix were it not for him hearing a distinct warning hiss as he removed the grate. He paused for a moment to peer inside of it, narrowing his eyes as he saw a genestealer patiently watching him with an eerie, but not quite predatory look.

Then he recognized the colors of the genestealer, that of the Reborn's tyranid auxiliaries. He continued to remove the grate, which earned him a sharper warning hiss. Sighing, he went off with his servitors and servo skulls to go retrieve one of the Grox they were breeding to keep the tyranids occupied and fed, muttering something about them claiming territory in troublesome places.

As he came back with the Grox, he was remarking to himself that at least they were good pest removal for those decks ordinarily sealed off due to mutant infestations or other issues. Sure, it might be replacing one pest with another, but at least these pests were controllable.

For their part, the genestealers seemed to recognize the scent of the grox and the techmarine's begrudging acceptance of their presence. Both of these lead to a lack of hissing or other warning signs, and the Techmarine was now able to remove the grate without issue. The genestealers started streaming out of the vents to feast on the juicy grox as the techmarine released it, the grox not getting far before it was slashed and impaled by a small number of genestealers. Thankfully this gave the Techmarine enough time and space to fix the ventilation issue without worrying about the Tyranids.

There are places you know and places you know. The late 17th century building hadn’t changed much in it’s appearance, aside from a few festive shades of tropical paint jobs. The crenelated rooftops and windows still remained, as well as the old brick walls. In lifetimes ago, it had served as office building, cigar factory, speakeasy. Today, it was as I remembered it: pulse pounding music pouring out of the jalousie windows three levels above and bathing the street below in a cybergoth cacophony.

The spike haired fellow with the false vampiric pallor at the door pulled his painted red lips back in a fanged smile as I passed him a twenty. His hand lingered in mine when he delivered the change but my gaze was flat and hopefully unencouraging. I took the blood carpeted steps to the second level after paying the cover and receiving my ubiquitous arm band. I ascended with a throng of the young and ridiculously eager in fishnets and electrical tape. Pierced faces, tattoos and taboos swallowed me whole and my throat began to constrict a little. I was having a hard time discerning between the faces in my head and those not between my ears.

Lights, smoke, swinging limbs and prosthetic fangs, the club level was a swirl of sight and sound in variety. Movies played soundlessly against the wall, performing to the power techno pounding through the speakers and into my very bones. The cut glass bar split the area surrounding the collection of bodies swaying and whirling to the beat. The chaos of limbs split to the tall length of sculpted calves and black patent leather. The skirt hugged lines and pinched at the corseted waist, graciously outlining the familiar figure.

I could feel myself smile, the rest of the club fading into a fog. Her hair fell in a braided platinum cable between the peaks of her shoulders. It twisted and purled like a sinuous panther’s tail down her back to lick at the generous swelling behind her. Any number of lewd things crossed my skull then. None of which I will repeat here.

Balanced high on a pair of glittery pink heels, her arse pushed out like a present and ... and … arse? Who the hell says arse?

I made my way towards the enchanting swish of the blonde tail and gleaming roundness. I drew closer and could see her back with more clarity and felt my smile widen.

The stays were still there.

Twelve gleaming steel rings were embedded in her buttercream skin and bifurcated her back in two neat, descending rows. Strung through the rings, in an ornate and twisting Shibari pattern, was a length of gleaming pink ribbon. That memory, I can safely say, belonged to Irinia and Irinia alone. Wound between steel and skin is a place that I knew.

My hand wound in the shining, pale blonde cable and twisted until my fist was pulled painfully against the back of her neck. She was still in the midst of her initial gasp when I tightened my grip further and bent her head backwards towards me. Taller than me to begin with, and perched on those pretty heels, it took some bending to get her eyes on mine. After she stopped squeezing them shut, that is.

The moss green pair in question popped open, livid and blazing, but dilated. The flush that crept into her cheeks had much more to do with pleasure than pain.  

“Fuck you, Irinia” She spat, a mix of anger and regret in her voice, but made no move to fight my hold on her. Not so oddly, no one else made any move towards me, either. Ours was not an unfamiliar spectacle in this establishment.

I smiled, a distinctive purr in my voice. “‘Fuck You’ is not a safe word, Cassandra.”

We were surrounded by movement, but for this moment, the world was frozen. I guess that’s why I didn’t see the bottle until it came whistling at my face, and some other voice from some other time said move.

I uncoiled the cable of hair in my right hand, letting Cassandra spring out of my grip and out of the way as I jerked left, the arm, bottle and assailant filling the space between us. Overbalanced, my enemy sailed forward and I skipped backwards to retract my shoe and deliver a sharp snap of a kick towards his falling head. The melon bounced on the polished wood floor with a thunk more felt than heard as patrons began to scramble back from the scene. Bodies crammed the scene, eyes wide and watching as I fell into a fighter’s stance I’d never known before.

Never had a class in my life, ladies and gentlemen.

I could not imagine what went through Olga's head when I went limp and slid from the chair like a noodle. Something told me to twist just this way. Some voice in the dark that coached an escape much like this sometime before. Somewhere in my head there was music and laughing. My knees buckled and I pooled on the floor in front of the wheelchair just a few paces from my cell door. I twisted as I was told and found my arms unfurling from the sleeves. Rolling onto my back I kicked the chair backwards, wheels shrieking as it slammed into Olga's belly. I was back on my feet by then, whipping the jacket off and slashing it down across her face. I then used the chair for wheeled springboard. I got a thrill from jumping into the seat and use its momentum to help me throw a shoulder into Olga's surprised expression. The impact bounced her backwards off the wall and then to the polished linoleum floor. I threw the chair behind me and sprang onto her chest, pinning her head between my knees and planting my rump on her chest. She made a soft and squishy landing spot. I waited for her to stop coughing before I spoke.

“Thank you for being so very nice to me. I do have to go now, but I will write.” I snatched up Olga's access card and ring of keys, then the race was on. The floor was cold on my bare feet and my legs were none too pleased with my sudden demand for extreme physical activity. I had grown weak in the 'sylum. I'd crossed to the first door before Olga could roll herself, wheezing and coughing, to her side to radio for help. Through one set and into the corridor, racing through bright bands of the morning sun as I passed the securely steel meshed windows there. My feet made a squealy little sound as I skidded to a halt in front of one of these slots. From there I could see a whistling Gary exit the main gates and swing his briefcase down the sidewalk to the parking lot.

I ran a little harder. Olga's key opened the gates into the solarium where I burst in to the maladjusted self mutilators group session. I crashed into one painted cutter and toppled her into a wide load of a food abuser. The two of them ended up ass over elbow in the middle of the circle, causing a beautiful ruckus of laughter. They'll probably abuse themselves for years afterwards. I might have stopped to laugh if I didn't have a lawyer to catch.

Two orderlies moved to stop me. I liked to call them Things. Well, I had to amuse myself somehow. The one on the right found that Olga's keys gave my fist some teeth. The one on my left met my knee with his belly. I didn't have much time to think about why I was suddenly able to dispatch humans in such a violently efficient manner. I was single-mindedly aiming for the door. Thing 1 and Thing 2 fell back for Thing 3 and 12 to join the assault. Thing 12 I remembered fondly. He was the one who they said enjoyed the opportunity offered by those who could not speak up for themselves. I met him only once but he saw my point. Should not have left his pen laying around. Thing 12 came in high, so I went low, letting him roll over my back to catch the ridge of my foot. He smeared his face on the floor. I would have giggled but Thing 4 through 11 poured in the door I'd come through with Olga, red-faced and furious, leading the pack.

I grinned and gave them the finger, then did a table top sprint, upsetting checkers and chess sets and connect fours, in a beeline towards the yet another group session to upset their world with a little chaos. They erupted in screaming tantrums of uncontrollable rage which I could dive behind. I rolled, shoulder to hip, and found my footing in a seamless stride. I paused to look back and grin. That was pretty cool. The solarium was a maelstrom of arms and legs and screaming hysteria long enough for me to swipe Olga's card and make it through the glass doors and onto the veranda. I could see Gary at the edge of the walk, looking both ways before crossing to the street,like a good little boy. The parking lot was on the other side. The glass room behind me rattled with the press of bodies as the Things pushed they all tried to push through the doors at once. I could see Olga pressed like a ham against the glass. I smiled at her piggish face and stepped up onto the railing and dropped a few teen feet to the ground below.

I rolled, like I had been told some eon ago, found my feet again and continued to run. My lungs and legs were burning and the 'sylum jammies weren't the best running attire but the grass felt good under my bare feet. I had a couple of hedges to hurdle before I was padding on concrete and asphalt. I didn't look both ways. Sorry, Mom. The asphalt wasn't as pleasant to run on as the grass. I stepped up the pace. Gary thumbed the keyfob and unlocked the doors of his silver Infiniti. He folded himself neatly inside as I reached the passenger door and let myself in with a slam. Safely behind the tint of his windows, I turned breathlessly towards him and said just one word.

I have loved and been loved many times over. I have loved and lost and loved again over a few hundred lives of the ones that I remember. I have lost more relations to the sword, gun, sea, or plague than you could imagine. Sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters both afar and before my eyes. Their faces swim before my vision every now and again. Fewer since checking myself into the psychiatric clinic and requesting my current accommodations within the State Asylum. They were a blurred sea of masks and expressions, twisted in a rainbow of emotions. What disturbed me most about the faces was the inability of this brain to recall their names, only these strangely disembodied collection of eyes and lips silently mouthing words and making accusations.

For every childhood, I had a mother to lose. Not every childhood was a pleasant one, nor was every mother a joy to behold. I had been born into comfort this lifetime around, even if without affection. The first born daughter of three, I was some how the frailest. My sisters came in rapid succession behind me and quickly out sized me both in manner and proportion. I was content to be a shade among them, watching their bounty win them concessions from whomever they met. Their plump cheeks and ready smiles made them my father's little cherubs. My mother, however, had been wrecked by childbirth both in body and mind. Some days she was gentle and meek, and others she was beautiful and terrible. Given my “frailty”, I often sat at her side, pet or beaten alternately given the sway of her moods. I was her favorite play thing to coddle and abuse. Exhausted as I was with existing, I accepted this with serene patience.

Father was blessedly absent. As some middle managed errand boy for the Russian consulate in New York, he spent long hours in offices and airports, sleeping in first class and landing in new cities most every morning. What he did and where had been very little concern to me until Gary visited today. It was strange enough to be born to Russian parents and raised decidedly American. I had no stomach for the intrigue and violence of Russian-American politics.

I didn't have the stomach for much, honestly. I came into this world gray and requiring emergency resuscitation. I was withdrawn and slight, even as a small child. My sisters were thick and shapely, while I remain reedy and hollow still today. They were always kind to me, however, if a bit patronizing. I was their porcelain doll to be dressed and made and brushed. I was content to leave the decisioning to my sisters, since they were so content to grip the reins. I would watch the three of them shriek and wrestle for power amongst themselves with a bemused grin for hours. Their scuffles of childhood turned into the political posturing of domestic ladyship. Admittedly, one of the few things that gave me pleasure was to instigate tiny battles. Never much – just moving here to there, causing minor strife for my own amusement. Bitchy. I know. Still, they will make great Russian ladies of class for it, even if the feudal court has become the social strata of foreign ambassadors and liaisons.

So now they were missing and Father was dead. Dysfunctional and transient, they were still my family. Olga had returned at the promised time to fill the halls with the maddening squeak-squeak-squeak. She greeted and dismissed Gary with a word and pulled the chair without warning. Three automatic and locking doors shut behind us, magnifying the squeaking until it was an unending squeal to my door. I could not hear myself think. You're lucky you can hear me think over all that racket. I distracted myself with counting. My chin was tucked against my chest and my shoulders drawn up to my ears. I made myself breathe evenly. Four hundred and fifty seven Olga-sized steps from the veranda, through the solarium and to the first door. Two hundred thirty three to the second then another two hundred and seven to my door.

This corridor between the solarium and my hall was lined with small square windows overlaid in steel mesh. Thick strands of sunlight poured into the corridor, zebra striping the hall as Olga took those two hundred thirty three with pitiless time. Four hundred twenty nine steps to my door. Four hundred twenty eight. Four hundred twenty...

“Olga.” The chair stopped mid-squeak. “Please call my doctor, Olga. I would like to speak to him.” Annoyingly enough, she decided to have her moment of stunned silence with me sitting in a direct band of sunlight. I'd have hissed if I were a vampire. Hissed and sizzled and faded into dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the... Hm. The song that had just begun to screw its way virally into my skull was interrupted by the strangeness of Olga's lack of reaction. “Olga?”

“Yes, Irinia. I will call him straight away.” The soft v of her w was stressed more than usual. She should have reached for her radio, but instead I heard the distinct flip of a cell phone. She spoke softly. “Miss Irinia requests to see her doctor.” The reply was outside of my hearing. It almost made me wish I'd spent at least one life as a dog. The phone flipped closed and disappeared into a pocket. I hadn't changed my posture or turned to look at her, so however she wore her face was a mystery to me. “Your doctor is indisposed. He has had a stroke and is home on medical leave. The Director will see you.” The stress in her c's sounded more like k's. Why did I care about that?

Something felt very wrong. Something wasn't adding up, or whatever cliché fits this situation. It left me feeling torn. Fight or flight? The tension had gripped my chest like a fist in a shirt. It grabbed and twisted, slamming me against an imaginary locker. The locker. My head snapped back as Olga began once again to calmly squeak-squeak-squeak down the hall. The torsion in my chest increased with every maddening screech of the wheels. Three hundred sixty two. We were nearing the doors approaching my hall and the count steadily drew me deeper into despair.

My sanctuary oddly looked like a prison now. Amazing how one conversation with one person could change a perspective so drastically. Squeak … squeak … SquEak. The cell door no longer looked sanitary white but was a battered old green, pocked and marred by years of teen vandalism. As Olga drew to a stop I read “Jodie + Eric 4-ever.” The rattling of keys made me blink it back to normal. By now Gary would be checking out his visitors pass at the front desk. Gary being Gary, he would make some congenial remark to make her smile, offer a little idle chit-chat, maybe even a little flirty-flirty. Then he'll toss his coat over his arm, flash his dashing grin and take his briefcase swinging out the door. I wondered if he were whistling, pleased with himself.

My name is Irinia Tostoyavich. At least, it is, this time around. Before this lifetime, my name had been Iliya Anderson … Jennifer Thompson … Benjamin Versannes. My earliest memories are nearly seventeen hundred years old. I do not know how many lifetimes I had lived before then, but I do know that I have lived a thousand since. I have been a mother … a brother … a friend, sister, lover … I have been born and born again and again with new faces and new names, new hereditary ties and new life expectancies. I have spent life after life perfecting my humanity through the collective experiences of nobleman and slave, loved and scorned, the oppressor and the oppressed.

Now, I am just tired.

“Good morning, Irinia. Did you sleep well?” This time around I had been born exquisitely pale. From the washed out blue of my eyes to the corn silk tips of my hair to the delicate porcelain of my toes, I was pale. I wriggled them daintily now, watching the crimson painted tips flash. The morning shift nurse Olga was speaking. It was she who had painted my toenails. They were the only source of color in the entire room. Olga spoke from beyond a solid steel door, locked securely from where she stood. This was not because I was that much of a threat; every door at the State Asylum had three folding and two sliding locks for every padded cell.

Olga entered without waiting for me to answer. I was currently entranced by the crimson flashing at the end of my feet. It reminded me of fire.

Olga flashed me a curious little glance when I sucked in a gasp and hugged myself tighter. The fourteen buckles lining the back of this jacket is a semi-permanent state for me, and I quite liked it. I liked the asylum. Life was simple here and these memory triggers came few and far between. However, occasionally something that would seem unimportant and unassociated would awaken something from long ago with an immediate and paralyzing reaction. The simplicity of the asylum had just erupted into flames and the memory of one in a thousand deaths struck me breathless. Olga continued to watch me warily. Although she was nearing three hundred pounds of thick Swedish woman, Olga had worked with the unpredictable for long enough to never take anything for granted. Even a tiny woman in a strait jacket who has never tended towards violence.

I would not touch her. She has been good to me. I smiled then and wriggled my toes again, this time without the room engulfing me in memory. Olga smiled in return, relaxing a little. “Do you like the color I have chosen this time? When I go to market next, we will see if there are any others as pretty.” Her thick accent was amusing. I wanted her to throw meatballs and chase puppets with foam meat cleavers. She set down the breakfast tray and turned to undo my buckles. I shrank back. I did not want to be unconfined. Olga looked as if she'd swallowed a lemon. “You must eat, Irinia. You already weigh nothing.” Nothing compared to her would still be something. Still, I didn't have the energy for defiance today. I let her unstrap my arms, but not remove the jacket. The unfamiliar ache of movement was distressing.

“Well done, Irinia. You will be out of here in no time at all.” She said this every morning. I pulled my sleeves up to expose my hands. My fingers are skinnier than I remember and I chided myself for allowing myself to waste. Dying would be useless. Dying would mean that I would have to start all over again. I would be reborn an “old soul” in a fresh face and have to fumble through all of the random impulses of childhood and the angsty indecision of youth before I could once again see freedom.

I know you may be thinking that living in an asylum is far from freedom. It is a great freedom, however. In here I have no deadlines or responsibilities, no expectations of me or anyone else. I will not join the fretting feminine population on hamster mills vying for that celebrity body some accident of biology gave to the face on the screen. I will not balance the precarious throes of motherhood versus social reformism or lifelong productivity. Here, I am free from all of the silly shit that addles the mind and binds the soul to a finite form in the infinite transit of time. Here, I don't have to remember.

  Mmm … applesauce with a side of powdered eggs and a shot of pills. The medication was entertaining at least. It made the monotony more colorful. “You have a visitor today.” That was new. I picked my head up from breakfast to look at Olga. She smiled genially at the quizzical expression I wore and patted my shoulder. “We will see him as soon as you are finished.” Olga sat on my bed with a sigh and watched. The bed creaked under her weight and I smiled as my imagination supplied an imploring dialogue for an inanimate object. I preferred the floor, myself. It was less put out by the weight of one hungry soul. Breakfast devoured, Olga made certain I took my medication by mouth examination and rebuckled the sleeves of my jacket. Outside my cell door, a wheelchair was waiting.

The chair's wheels squeaked, bouncing off the pristine white linoleum and bleach scrubbed walls. The noise was maddening. Ha, that's sort of funny when you're living in an asylum. What maddens the mad? Squeaky chairs, evidently. Olga pushed me into a solarium saved for the more social patients. My visitor awaited outside on the veranda. I hoped Olga didn't hear me groan.

“I will leave you to your visitor, Irinia. I will return in fifteen minutes.” She lumbered off before I could answer if I had wanted to. I didn't.

“Hello, Gary.” Seeing Gary was depressing. He was dressed impeccably as always. His fine, steel gray suit was tailor cut and followed his lines attractively. Gary was a finely made man, which saddened me that he chose to affix himself to my plight. He was the sort of lawyer who actually believed he could make things right by traversing the systems set in place by man. Just like man, the system was imperfect and short sighted. Gary was convinced he could see the bends in the trail and could lead the hapless (me) through the legal jungle. Sleeping with Gary was a mistake. I could see the attachment in his eyes and in the tightness of the smile he gave me now.

“You and I both know you don't belong here, Irinia.” I must have been quite a picture: pale and wan, trussed in the highest asylum fashion, and shut away from the rest of the world. He pitied me. I wonder if he knew he looked pathetic, his large brown eyes resembling the proverbial kicked puppy. I chose the asylum over life. I chose it over him. Oh, I played a good game, told the doctors what they wanted to hear – what the textbooks told them to believe. Young and old alike, they came to me, scribbled their notes then left to publish or perish. I was an article in a journal offered to new students of psychoanalysis for continued study. I thought that was hilarious.

“I like it here, Gary. I'm sorry if you don't want to hear that.” The proof of that was written across his face. The hurt was a blinking neon sign on his forehead. I watched him work the words he wanted to say in his mouth, chewing and swallowing them in defeat. Instead, he tried something different.

“Your father is dead, Irinia.” I could not imagine what crossed my face then, but he looked satisfied that I reacted to that. It was obvious that he did not feel the need to stop there. “Your sisters are missing.”

My sisters. My three very well intentioned and positively insufferable sisters were missing. “And mother?”

“Sent me here.” Gary shifted his weight, looking very uncomfortable on that sunny veranda surrounded by the summer bloom of hibiscus and jasmine. The sun made his dark hair shine. He looked beautifully distressed.