Plutoid Orphans

A short sci-fi story...

Photo by Anderson Rian on Unsplash

Living here, all I know is cold.

If you can call it living in the first place. I don't even know if I'm alive. That is to say, sometimes I think I am, but often I think I am not. Thinking and living do not cohabitate on this frozen, flying rock.

Here's what I do know: I have a body like the people in yellow suits. I stand on two legs, grasp items with my five-fingered hands. But I don't have a mask on like they do, and I don't have a suit on. Naked to the cold corridors and chilled holding rooms, I'm exposed to everything. What I'd give to have a yellow, smooth, second-skin like they do. Then nothing would chill me. 

I suppose I have much in common with our flailing plutoid; our bare skin is raw and soft to the universe. A stray sliver of matter could make impact, pierce, erupt, splinter the body. I bet this rock wishes it had a suit, too. But, with the stars on the omni-horizon and the annual arrival of ships, at least it remembers itself, its purpose. To fly its course around and around the sun. When they put me in the dark is when I forget. I lose all feeling, no matter how hard I wrap my arms around me. No matter if I bite or pinch my gray skin, I fall into an icy stupor.

I suppose I have much in common with our flailing plutoid; our bare skin is raw and soft to the universe. A stray sliver of matter could make impact, pierce, erupt, splinter the body. I bet this rock wishes it had a suit, too.

Even so, I am not alone on this dwarf planet. I have the other orphans in the way I know that they are there. Our lives have been the same since we became aware of what our lives are. We stay in our darkened rooms, separated. We are taken out for poking and prodding by the suits. We eat the nutrients they provide to us through tubes in a wall. We have no language to know what we are, or why our lives are this way but I get the feeling we should be something more. That I want something more. How can I want something when I've never had anything?

…

I can breathe normally again. They are bringing me out for testing. I go to the door as always, hands raised to show them my fealty. When they remove me from my room I gasp at the warmth. I've never been this warm in my life. I see why as I take in a dozen yellow suits, much more than normal, and others that don't wear the yellow, shiny material. They have bare faces, like me, but they have different suits. Blue ones with shiny facets on their fronts. Attached to their waists are hard, heavy-looking objects that look shaped for a hand. I wish I had more words so I could describe everything I saw. These blue suits smile and grin, like they want something, as though they want something from me.

They are all different shapes and sizes and shades. The orphans and I are all the same size and color. These suits have rich skin and straight teeth, speak with an air about them. I hug myself with dark gray arms, the same shade as the hard metal everywhere, but I cannot hide anywhere. I shake from the blasting warmth and the new fear that's come over me. All these suits mean something different is happening, and for all my yearning for something more, I'm afraid of what's about to come.

They push me more roughly than normal and I stumble to my knees in front of the new suits. One wears round, shiny circles over his eyes. They catch the light and hide his eyes.

He says, "My, my, he's ugly. Do they all look like this?"

Another, "The gray skin. It's like armor."

One leans in and I catch his breath, a stench I've never tasted. I sniff in earnest, even though it makes my nose burn. 

The yellow suit that bosses the others around says, "Don't talk too much. This one's bright. Has those watchful eyes." The suit with those shiny circles taps my nose and I flinch away. I've never been touched by bare skin. 

I try to walk at the pace they want me to, but they push and jolt me. The hallway is all warm, full of more and more suits, all with those smiles that don't reach their eyes.

They lay me on the flat surface like normal, strap me in like normal, then tell me to open my mouth. This is abnormal. They place a firm and soft object in my mouth.

"Bite down. It will protect your teeth." 

Protect my teeth? Why do they need protection?

The arm descends from the ceiling, the one that does the poking and prodding, while the yellow suits stand around and make busy. Some hold screens and their fingers fly over them tap-tap-tap. They speak to each other faster than usual, their movements stiff. The blue suits stand behind a clear wall, arms behind their backs. The yellow suits are concerned about the blue suits, which makes me concerned. With me on the table, all heads facing me, I know that their concern has something to do with their prodding today, their testing. As the arm closes the distance, something I'm used to, I notice the long, sharp finger is different. Now it's long, sharp, and very thick, and attached to the thickest part is a large round container that contains liquid gold. A lot of it. 

"Strap his head," a yellow suit commands, and they put a brace on my head and cheeks. I struggle then, my anxiety much higher than theirs. I cry out through the thing in my mouth. I'm more trapped than usual and I can't stand it. They strap me in tighter, adding more bands to my chest and hips. The glinting, sharp finger grows closer and closer until it hovers above the skin on my chest, above the thing that beats inside me. It bites at me. 

A voice crackles, "Proceed."

The arm plunges into my chest with a slow hiss. I nearly bite down through the mouth object. I feel a bloating, expanding feeling in my chest; it burns and cuts inside like I took a breath of sharp fingers, and my vision goes in and out. I'm screaming, my voice cracking from lack of use. I go cross-eyed, I burn inside like the bright light I see from the clear wall sometimes in my room. I twist and writhe and I want to stop thinking or breathing or living.

"It's working," a yellow suit says. 

"Shouldn't we numb the pain?"

The man with the shiny eyes says through the speaker, "Why should we?"

That voice sounds colder than all the frozen moments I'd lived. 

…

The pain does not end, even as the arm retracts and they return me to my room. It grows and spreads through me, from my chest to my toes and head. The feeling dissipates eventually, after dozens of day and night cycles, leaving my body ringing and warm. The warmth is striking, and there's a sound in my head. My head is humming, vibrating. Like when the ships arrive and the floor shakes a bit. What have they done to me? I look at my body and it's changed. Blue lines run over my skin, twisted and curling. They span every inch.

I feel them. The orphans. The suits. Their voices call to me all at once, but not the ones they use on each other. These voices echo inside a small space, like when I get the urge to speak in my cell. When it's not freezing, that is. 

"When I get back to Earth, I'm going to get a big steak."

"These test results are phenomenal. General Mercer will be so pleased."

"That was so hot. I gotta watch it again."

"Those poor things. I have to help them. They're human, after all."

"Fuck this job. Nothing's worth being out here on this rock playing God for the Shivas."

"It is cold in here. It is always cold," says an orphan quietly.

I stay up through my sleep cycle just listening, learning. There are too many new words and ideas, and I don't know what they mean half the time. It's pleasant to finally hear a voice that's not in my head, or the harsh ones telling me what to do and where to go. Their voices show me what they want, what they need. But they don't tell me what I want. How do I find it? How do I hear that voice?

This question makes its orbit in my mind, the answer just out of reach.

…

I have been poked and prodded, beaten and frozen less frequently. Things have almost been... lovely for me. This change in my treatment heralds the return of the blue suits far sooner than normal. Some scientists call them the Goddamned Shiva Fascists, others call them the Federation or death merchants. The buzz among the minds alerts me to their arrival. They bring me to a big room I've never seen before, and it is filled with people.

They put me in a cylindrical, transparent cell with a roof, and fill the giant room with their bodies, their heat, their wants. It's almost overwhelming to be so close to them all, but I have practiced shutting them out. The most important fascist, the one they call General Mercer, the one with glasses and the dead smile, stands in front of me. 

"Its capabilities have been tested thoroughly," says the top scientist.

"Its?"

"No genders or sex among them. Makes them more pliable, docile."

"They're mules," Mercer declares.

"Yes, precisely. As to what you ordered: we've made the skin harder than the armor on your ships. It survives in the vacuum of space. It does not need to eat or drink for hundreds of days. The last time we fed it a normal diet was almost a year ago."

"We have the reports," Mercer replies, coming up to my cylinder. How I wish it was not transparent. "I want to see what it can do."

They cylinder hisses, and I sense discomfort for a moment until my breathing stops. I live in my cell like this every day and it hardly affects me. They replace the oxygen, then cycle through hot flames, beams of searing light, smoke, and more. The fascist looks almost satisfied.

"What of the previous experiment? Show me your progress."

The lead scientist comes up to the glass and knocks. "Tell them what I am thinking of."

I see his many thoughts, taste the sudden terror that quickens his breath. He thinks I can only see the one thing he wants me to see. I see it all. I pick the one thing he doesn't want me to see.

My voice grates the air, "You wish for General Mercer's death."

He gasps, snarls at me, then turns to General Mercer, the top Shiva fascist. 

"Is that true, Director Ishkar?" There is a smile on his face, an unpleasant one.

Ishkar shuffles through many possible words then settles on, "Either the subject is lying or it can see more than what I actively think about. It could be a breakthrough, General. Think of what this means for the program!"

"Yes, a breakthrough," Mercer says. He turns back to the glass, taps it in hopes that I flinch. I do not. He smiles with too-many, too-perfect teeth. I freeze in terror at the murderous intent I perceive, the warning cry lodged in my throat. He turns back to Ishkar, pulls the weapon from his belt, and shoots his stomach. I flinch then. Ishkar grunts clutches at the wound. Bright red blossoms on the neon yellow, leaking out of him like nothing I'd ever seen. 

Mercer nods at the body and tells the wide-eyed scientists, "Clean this up. I want the gene therapy and serums you created here. Shiva's Front is happy to do business with you." A yellow suit runs up, bows, and whispers to Mercer. He turns to me again. 

"Once you complete my order, eliminate these abominations and scrap the base. We don't need anyone finding anything here."

There are many bows, mumbles of agreement. The thoughts, the wants in the room skyrocket and spread. Thoughts of a receptacle for throwing up, wants of a pill to sleep, hopes of final payments to move to one of Saturn's moons. The common thing is fear. It's everywhere among them.

Me? I want nothing more than the cold comfort of my cell, vacuum and all. 

…

There's a hissing noise in my room. My ears pop with air pressure, my skin prickles at the warmth. The thick door slides open and two yellow suits stand in the light. They are thinking of saving me and the other abominations. They have the other four orphans in tow, cowering.

"Come on, get up," they say. 

"Where?"

"We're saving you."

It is dark in the halls during the night cycle, but I see everything clearly. The suits carry tubes of light, direct them every which way. They are afraid. So are the orphans. I clutch at one of their hands, the way I saw it once in memory, and find it cold and tough as my own. We leave the main hallways I've known my whole life, the extent of my whole world a span of walkway between the cell and the test chamber. We go through doors with mag-locks and multi-seals, bulkheads that take a full minute to open. Into a tube lift, down a hallway, then we hide in an office for some time. I glimpse the suits that rarely make themselves seen, the ones covered in hard, angled skin. Death Ops, the one to my right thinks. They hold large weapons, have thoughts only of killing. 

"We have three minutes before surveillance comes back. We're not going to make it."

I say, "I can tell you where they are."

They stare blankly.

"We should go."

…

The airlocks stretch down the dock, green lights blinking for occupied berths. It's clear the suits had no confidence of making it this far, as they flounder and bicker, uncertainty and fear clouding their judgment. 

"Why aren't the airlocks open?"

"When the alarm goes off, the crew get in their ships and lock down."

"What do we do?"

"I don't know."

One of them is losing his motivation, thinks of turning against us. He thinks of it multiple times, imagines running for the security panel down the hall. He thinks of General Mercer and begging for mercy. His body twitches. My gut clenches in reaction. I reject his desire. I deny it.

I step behind him and hit the base of his neck with one of my hard, gray, hands. He crumples. The other scientist gapes, mouth opening and closing like a prized fish I saw in someone's memory. 

I look at my hand, unchanged physically, but now it no longer feels like my own. The alarms blare in tune with the pounding in my head, so sudden and stark. I killed the scientist. Well, he isn't quite dead. I could reach for his final thoughts, but they're not what I need.

My voice shakes with unfamiliar rage, with the sudden force of--what's that word--conviction.

I scream over the alarms, "I want out. I want out! I! Want! Out!" 

The other scientist winces, shakes, takes a step back. The orphans cower behind me, eyes wide with terrible wonder. I briefly pass my sense over them, feel their fear and hope.

I scream in the scientist's face, "We. Want. Out!"  

"Alright! Okay. We're going now. Stay back so the cameras don't see you." She steps into the airlock hall, big enough to fit all of us, and goes to the control panel. She enters a code and it honks at her. 

"This ship is locked down," calls an automated voice. 

She looks at the wide door into the ship, then at our group. She thinks, I have no way out. I'm stuck between a murderous subject and an impenetrable door. Worse than a rock and a hard place. 

A lie forms in her mind. 

She presses the intercom button again, whispers. "Please. Let me in. I just ran from the subjects. They're right behind me. They've already killed my friend! No, now they're down the hall. Please!"

I reach out to the ship and find the pilot that's watching the airlock security camera. The woman is weighing her choices, considering how her superior would deny this request. She makes a snap decision. 

"Hurry," the speaker crackles. 

The airlock slides open, reveals the secure hatch into the ship. A creature with eight curling arms and a thick head is painted on it, divided in half as this entryway slides away. Another door slides open behind it, and another. Soon, there is a long tunnel to freedom waiting. The scientist beckons us with a slight  flick of her head. 

"Run," I tell the other orphans. We must get through or they will shut all of these doors to us, and afterward, there will be only one way off the plutoid, the same way Ishkar went.

"Just don't hurt anyone else," the scientist says as she runs beside me.

…

I have to hurt them. I have to hurt them because I want, and they don't want me to want. I want a life outside cold walls. I want to do what I've seen in their minds.

I have to hurt the man with the gun. I have to hurt the captain. I have to hurt the aide to the chief engineer, who imagined he would save everyone in glory.

The pilot, one of four remaining crew members, is very accommodating. When the hurting is done, he sits heavily in his chair, tears running down his face, and asks, "Where do you want to go?"

The scientist who delivered us opens her mouth to answer but sees that he is not asking her. She looks

expectantly at me, knowing she must come with us. 

And where should we go? In all my cycles of watching lives and memories, where can I hide? Where can the orphans and I be safe? Where is the darkest place in the system? Where do humans go to hide from themselves?

"Take us to Mars."

---

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