Cold Hell - 12. Moral Dilemma

Jack Murtagh struggled to heave his ample weight out of the chair. He glared at Danni with his beady brown eyes and pointed a stubby finger at the young man's face. "I dunna no ken what ye do in yer free time and I don't ken if ye're at the sauna getting buggered in both holes, but when you come to work yer shift while I'm here you better be clean and sober. Do you understand?"

Danni nodded, face blank. "Yes."

"Good. And where the bloody hell is yer friend? I ken what's happened to him and it's awful…" Murtagh's tone said he couldn't care otherwise. "...but it's been three weeks."

Danni fought to keep his voice level. "He's at home, resting...as I've said multiple times."

Murtagh leaned forward, enormous belly brushing up against the top of his cluttered desk. His bead eyes narrowed down to slits. "Dunna get smart with me laddy. I'll box your fuckin ears so hard yer head will ring like a bell. Now get yer ass back to work. And the next time you see Calvin, tell him I need him back at work, pronto. If no then he can go sell his ass at the brothel."

Danni told him he would. Muttering under his breath, Murtagh waved a hand at Danni in dismissal. Danni left the cramped office space. Already Murtagh's warning had left his mind. His thoughts were only focused on one problem: how to get his next fix. He wanted to pay Rowe another visit but no longer had enough rations to get what he needed - he only had enough to get himself food for the rest of the week.

He went about the monotonous task of picking freshly laid eggs from the chicken coup. The eggs went in metal bins, which then went on a conveyor belt where they were sprayed by mechs fastened to the ceiling. I could do this in my sleep, Danni thought. Anyone could do this.

It had been three weeks since he'd found Calvin in the midst of being raped by Mikael Manny and three other men, three weeks since Danni had killed them with his own hands. While he had suffered less trauma than Calvin, Danni had not walked away unscathed. He had another scar where Mikael had got him with a knife as well as relapsing into his old drug habits. Since leaving the clinic Danni had not seen Calvin - not because he didn't truly want to see Calvin, but because he felt ashamed. If he hadn't followed me to the brothel then he wouldn't have gotten hurt. And then there was the actual powerless shame of relapsing...again.

Danni's life had become a repeating cycle of working shifts at the processing plant, meeting Rowe at the brothel when he was out of drugs or back to his quarters when he did have them, and then to the sauna.

It had been three days since he'd slept. He simply couldn't sleep, couldn't stop shaking either. The heroin, with a heavenly rush of euphoria, kept the thoughts and feelings of others at bay, and the cocaine gave him a sense of invulnerability. Just me and my own thoughts, Danni thought. No one else's bullshit in my head.

He decided once he was done with his shift he would go see Calvin, and finally meet his older sister Anastasia. He finished picking up the rest of the eggs and moved onto the stalls housing the cows, feeding them grass. At last, after a seamless amount of time, the alarm wailed, signifying the end of the shift.

Danni had finally grown used to Redemption5S77's constant cold. He moved across the packed snow more gracefully. He passed the metal buildings, clustered close together on both sides of him. Planet Redemption's three moons - Lukas, Wuxia, and Mureen - hovered above him like three silvery thirds of a coin. Danni watched the numbers on the side of the buildings marking one building from the other. B1-B23, B23-B46, and so forth. He remembered at one point Calvin saying he lived in B-79, which he was coming up on now.

He was about to turn towards the building when a tall, dark-clad figure stepped in front of him. Danni clenched his fists, prepared for a confrontation, when the man spoke.

"Dinah wants to see you."

Danni's mouth twisted into a frown. The voice was muffled because of the breathing mask he wore around his face, but Danni recognized it as belonging to Everest. For the past three weeks Danni hadn't been able to forget their conversation back at the clinic. Particularly the part where Everest had pretty much threatened to kill him. Since then, but for a few passing glances, Danni hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him.

Danni forced himself to relax. “I’m busy right now.”

“Whatever it is, it can wait.”

Though Everest was as good at hiding his emotions as Danni, Danni thought he detected a brief pulse of anger about him, like a vibration. A small part of Danni took pleasure in knowing he’d gotten under the man’s skin. To twist the knife a little deeper he arched an eyebrow and said, “What are you going to do, drag me there by my hair?”

Everest didn’t answer. He brushed past Danni, heading in the opposite direction. Danni let out a sigh, letting his curiosity get the best of him, and followed. The walk was a silent one in which neither spoke to the other. Everest seemed not to care whether Danni was following him or not.

Sitting at her desk, Dinah smiled when Danni sat down across from her. She appeared to be in high spirits though Danni suspected this was just a show. Dinah was a schemer; there was nothing she did without reason, without an intention. Every move was a means to propel her towards whatever goals drove her. What her interests were Danni could never quite say. It was as if she kept them behind a brick wall, in a place where only she could examine them.

“Good evening. How is life on Planet Redemption these days?”

“Peachy,” said Danni.

“And you’re still working at the processing plant?”

He looked at her through heavy eyelids. “Cut the bullshit. What do you want?”

The corner of her lip twitched. “I’ve been keeping track of your progress at the processing plant and your rations. You’re spending them just as quickly as you make them."

"Yeah, what's your point?"

“A job that pays better could help with your problem - say a job working for me.”

Now it was his turn to smile. “I appreciate the offer. But I like the job I have now. I go in, do my shift, and then I'm done for the day.”

Dinah frowned. It was a good imitation of disappointment but at the moment he couldn’t tell whether or not it was genuine. “It is a shame, Danni. I feel like you are qualified for so much more. You could do this colony a lot of good. Especially since you killed my last squire.”

Danni rose from his seat. “I’m very sorry about that. I didn’t want to kill him, but your squire was a very dangerous man...”

“There’s a lot of dangerous men on this planet.”

“And now there’s one less dangerous man. I’ll be going.”

He pushed in his chair and made for the door. Everest stepped aside to let him pass.

“Well if you should change your mind,” said Dinah, “you know where to find me.”

Danni was glad to get away from the woman. She was crazy as everyone else on this planet. Too much time around her left him with a bad taste in his mouth. She knew how to press his buttons when no one else knew how to. She’d made a good point about his drug habits...a job which paid more would certainly help. But the thought of her as a boss, telling him what to do, made him uneasy. If need be I can find somewhere else. Maybe Rowe will give me a position, he thought.

He pushed these thoughts out of his mind. It was time to pay Calvin a visit.

                        …

Calvin listened to the sound of his mother’s snores. She was reclining back in the threadbare armchair, breath rattling in her throat. Sleep apnea. It was impossible to sleep with her snoring like that - not that he wanted to sleep. To sleep was to dream, and these days his dreams had been nightmares.

Everytime he closed his eyes and slept, he woke up sometime later covered in sweat. He still remembered the stinging cold against his flesh, the burning indescribable pain of someone thrusting into him again and again, unending. Rape was common on Planet Redemption. He had never been under the illusion it would never happen to him (though he had always hoped he would be spared the misfortune), but nothing could prepare him for just how painful the experience had been.

He tried to take comfort in the fact his perpetrators were dead; they would never be able to hurt anyone again. But a chasm had opened up inside Calvin, a chasm that sucked out any hope for the future he might’ve had. All he felt was an aching misery, an exhaustion no amount of sleep could alleviate. The only thing he found himself hoping for was that Danni, his savior, might come and see him - then maybe he would feel better. Then maybe he could feel hopeful and get out of the fuck-all pit he was in. But it had been weeks since the incident and Danni hadn’t shown up.

The entry hatch opened and Anastasia, his older sister, came in. The front of her jacket, patched together with whatever scraps of fabric their mother could get her hands on, was covered with snow. He watched her peel her jacket off and drape it over a chair. Next, off came the breathing mask. Calvin imagined their mother, Minerva, had looked just like Anastasia when she was younger, before the accident at the processing plant, before she put herself into a slumber every day with pain meds. Anastasia had her high cheekbones, her pale brown, almost-amber eyes, and thick lips.

He closed his eyes, pretended to be asleep so he didn’t have to look at her. Everytime he did, he felt a stab of guilt. I’m just laying here, weak and helpless, while my sister works all day to make up for what I’m not doing. And yet it was impossible to get off the couch to do anything else than use the bathroom, to make himself something to eat, to do the simplest things it takes to survive. He was exhausted and angry. Everything hurt all the time - and not just his body but his insides too. The thought of stepping outside the safety of their tiny apartment, into the cold where constant danger roamed, frightened him.

Anastasia sighed. He could hear the exhaustion in that sound. Guilt stabbed him like a cold blade to the heart. Coward, he thought. Coward just like your mother.

He heard his sister pull back the chair and sit down. The chair creaked. He wished sleep would take him so he didn’t have to feel guilty anymore. So he didn’t have to feel scared anymore.

“Calvin?” Anastasia said gently. Like Minerva she never raised her voice. She always spoke calmly. But Calvin also knew, unlike himself, there was a fierce core to her - like molten lava underneath icy steel. “I know you’re awake, playing possum.”

You’ve never seen a possum, he thought. Not a real live one anyway.

“I need you to hear me on this, okay? I can’t do this anymore...working two shifts a day. It’s exhausting. It’s back-breaking. I know what happened to you was terrible, and I’m sorry but I need you to start going back to work.”

“I was just raped multiple times.” He hated the way his voice shook.

“I know.” He hated the sympathy in her voice even more. Damn her. “But it’s been three weeks.”

The anger reared up inside of him, hot and dangerous. He turned to say something ugly to her, something hurtful, but before he could there was a beeping sound at the hatch. Someone was at the door.

Anastasia sighed, rose to her feet. The hatch slid open.

It was Danni.

"I'm a friend of Calvin's," Danni told Anastasia. "We work together at the processing plant."

"Right. Calvin told me what you did for him. I can't thank you enough." Anastasia hugged Danni furiously. She was an inch or two taller than he.

Danni looked baffled, as if the whole hugging thing was new to him. He nodded when she released him, and turned his focus on Calvin. Anastasia pulled a chair into the sitting area before excusing herself into the apartment's only bedroom. The bedroom hatch closed, leaving Calvin and Danni alone - or at least as alone as they could be.

                    …

Calvin seemed to have diminished since the last time Danni had seen him. He was stretched out on the threadbare sofa, with a blanket draped over his lap. There were dark bags around his eyes, an indication he hadn’t been sleeping well. The bandage across his cheek had begun to peel off; Danni could tell it hadn’t been changed since Calvin’s discharge from the clinic.

“Where have you been?”

The hurt and anger was plain in Calvin’s voice, the sharp gleam within his dark eyes only made Danni feel more guilty. The lines around his mouth; Danni couldn’t recall seeing those before. There was a definite change in his friend. How could there not be after what he’s been through?

“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.” Danni tried to think of an excuse, but he couldn’t think of any that didn’t sound lame, so he left it at that.

“You look like shit,” said Calvin. “It’s gotten worse for you, hasn’t it?”

Danni knew he only meant one thing. He nodded.

Calvin’s gaze lingered on the sleeping woman in the armchair. “You and she would get along perfectly. If I wanted to bring myself any lower, I would take painkillers too.”

“What happened to her?”

"There was an accident at work. One of the turbines exploded and she was in line of the blast when it happened. It knocked her across the room and paralyzed her from the waist down. She never got over it, so she drugs herself everyday." Calvin looked at the woman sitting in the armchair with a mixture of love and resentment. Danni understood all too well; his relationship with his father could only be described as dysfunctional. At least Calvin's mother had an understandable reason for being the way she was.

"Murtagh wants to know when you're coming back to work."

Calvin laughed. "I'll just bet. Soon. Within the next couple of days." His face turned more serious. "I want you to show me how to defend myself. The way you defended yourself against Mikael and those men."

Danni studied him through narrowed eyes. "I didn't just defend myself, I killed them. Defending yourself and killing are two completely different things. I could've incapacitated them. I didn't have to kill them."

"Good." Calvin's voice came out as cold and brittle as ice. "I wish I'd been conscious when you did it. They deserved to die. I want you to teach me how to kill."

Danni looked away, haunted. He knew how Calvin was feeling: Helpless, angry. The powerful need to reassert one's own place in the world; and there was no easier way to do so than through violence and bloodshed. It was human nature. I felt the same way you do when I met Juan, he was tempted to tell Calvin. But he swallowed the words, because Juan, Uncle Charlie, everyone he had known on Earth was dead to him. He knew he would never see them again.

And thinking of Juan made his heart ache.

"Killing takes its toll," Danni said. "It's easy. Sometimes too easy. Do you think you could live with yourself afterwards? Do you think you could live with taking a life?"

"Yes," Calvin answered without hesitation. His eyes glittered. "Yes, I think I can."