Sixty-seven: Origami

(To racap for those who skipped the end of the last chapter - Kiran wanted to do that things which loving couples usually do with each other. Jean refused. Frustrated, Kiran left angrily. Jean was confused about her own emotions.)

~

Dr Eisor grunted with a downturned mouth, "You can start walking on your feet again. Come see me again if they hurt."

"Cheer up," Kiran slapped the doctor on the back. "It's not like she can escape from up here, twenty stories above the ground."

"There's still that overpass we haven't found the door to yet," the doctor grumbled. "I'm telling you, putting her with that agent is a bad idea."

"I can't trust her with any of you," Kiran said, helping me to my feet and pulling me close to him so that he could put his arm around me. "Not after everything you've all threatened me that you'll do to her. I don't want you to do her in. Anyway, won't it make you happier if she wasn't here?"

"Happier if she were made a proper slave or dead," Dr Eisor grumbled and I stepped closer into Kiran's protective arm. "A slave, I can control. Dead, we can bury. A free woman is a risk."

"I've told you. She's not a risk. Even if she escaped, there's no way she could make enough trouble to threaten us. There's nothing she could tell her government that they don't already know anyway. Besides, where we are isn't exactly a secret. We're moving again soon, now that she can walk again."

"Don't say I didn't warn you. At least I'll get to say, 'I told you so'," the doctor said, turning his back to us.

"Fine," Kiran said, sweeping me out the makeshift infirmary.

In Eleanor's office, Mr Raring had been kept confined. He was surrounded by piles of paper.

"Alistair, you've got to be Jean's guardian for me whenever I go out now. My boys are almost ready to mutiny if I don't start doing something. At least you'll both have a bit of company."

"Hello, Kiran. Jean, it's nice to see you on your feet again," Mr Raring said, looking up from a sheet of paper. "Kiran, if you're going out past the Solar Columnade, look out for the Wave Building in the west. I remember our people talking about a pincer ambush there some time back."

"Will do," Kiran grinned, giving me a kiss on the forehead. "Make sure Jean eats slowly at lunch time, won't you? Otherwise she inhales her food, chokes and gives herself a tummy ache."

"All right. Have a safe trip," Mr Raring nodded, clearing a chair for me to sit down upon. "Here, Jean, have a seat."

"Have you really changed sides?" I asked, borrowing his pen and scribbling on a piece of paper. "Can I draw on this?"

"It's in my blood, I'm told. In the genes," Mr Raring shrugged and nodded to my second question, continuing to look through other pieces of paper, while keeping an eye on my scribblings.

"Same here," I said, scribbling on another sheet. "I don't understand what it means though. Your pen's not very good. Is it running out of ink?"

"Maybe," Mr Raring said, reaching for the pen. "Here, let me have a look."

"These pieces of paper weren't too important, were they?" I asked. "I think I may have wrecked them."

"Well," Mr Raring pursed his lips and gave me a look. "Let's just say you should draw on these sheets here and not these ones."

"Oops. Sorry," I said, hands on my mouth. "Will we get into trouble?"

Possibly," Mr Raring said. "So, are you really in love with Kiran?"

"He says he's going to make me his queen," I replied with a shrug. "Apparently it's in my blood."

Mr Raring snorted at my shrug and expression, nodding to himself.

I made origami and decorated the little paper animals with pen drawings. Soldiers glanced in the door at us every now and then.

"That's a turtle? Very cute," Mr Raring stretched his hunched neck out and smiled at my latest creation.

"Who's wasting precious paper?" Whistlor stomped into the room, smelling of gun powder. He put a hand on the back of my neck and I froze mid-fold. I could feel his eyes sweep my little collection of origami animals. "Don't waste the paper," he squeezed the back of my neck and then took a paper bird. "This is mine now," he said, examining it and then putting it in his breast pocket. "Don't the two of you even start thinking up any funny ideas. We've got our eyes on you," he squeezed the back of my neck one more time and then stomped back out.

Later, Dr Eisor came in with our meal and an extra drink for me. One look at the off white, milky fluid and I scrunched my face up.

"You will drink it," he told me. "Extra supplements to help her gain back some weight," he explained to Me Raring. "I don't want a single drop left when I come back." Looking at the origami animals, he smiled and pinched my cheek. "What a darling girl you are," he said, taking a stunted horse that looked more like a donkey. "Thank you."

I scowled at his back and rubbed my cheek.

"At least all your work isn't going to waste," Mr Raring pointed out.

I continued rubbing my cheek. Another and another soldier came in until all my origami animals were gone, leaving my face, neck and shoulders all feeling a bit sore. These Bosky soldiers were all a handsy lot. This time, I glowered at the empty desk in front of me.

"Cheer up," Mr Raring gave a dry chuckle. "Word must be getting around about your talent. I'm sure they'll find us a way to get more paper soon. You'd better finish your food and that drink before Dr Eisor returns."

"Don't like that drink," I said in a very low and quiet voice. "It always makes me sleepy."

Mr Raring's eyes twitched and his face took on a slightly anxious appearance.

"Does Kiran know?"

"I don't know. He thinks I'm just still not feeling too well, but the doctor comes with it like clockwork and I have to drink it. I don't think the doctor really likes me," I said.

"The truth is," said a voice from the door, making me jump, "that I don't really like or trust anyone. Least of all you two," Dr Eisor strode in and glanced at my untouched drink. A baleful glare made me feel like shrinking. "I know. I've eyes like a hawk and ears like a bat. Nothing gets past me, and you, Miss Wallace, will finish that drink now, while I am here, watching you, before you start getting any funny ideas."

Keeping my eyes down, I took a breath and sculled the drink to its last drop. The doctor even added some water to the empty cup, swirled it and made me drink that too.

"Good," he said, patting my cheek and then pinching it harder than he needed to. "Good girl."

Coughing at the awful taste, I rubbed my cheek, keeping my eyes down until the doctor had left. When I looked back onto the desk, I found the doctor had left me with some more scrap paper.

I worked as fast as I could, before I felt the effects of whatever drug the doctor had put in the drink start to take over me.

"Look," I told Mr Raring, my eyelids starting to feel heavy. "Look."

"That was fast," he looked up from his folder and looked at the animals I had lining up on the table.

I shook my head at him, slapping my cheeks to stay awake.

"Look," I told him, hoping he'd see. It was a map. See the map. We could escape. I knew the way out. We just needed to find a way around the guards.

"Jean, are you all right?"

"I'm sleepy," I told him and slumped against the table, messing up my lines of origami animals.