Cold Hell - 5. Chapter 5

The first few weeks of Danni’s new life were like purgatory and he was the ghost who shrouded himself in silence, only speaking when spoken to. He didn’t leave his quarters unless he was working a shift at the processing plant or getting food. When he went back to his quarters he slept like the dead and ate little. He realized he was going through the typical symptoms of depression.

There were nights when he snapped awake in the dark, listening to the miserable shrieks of the wind outside his window. On these nights the snow was so thick he couldn’t see Planet Redemption’s moons; on the clearer nights he would look up at them and bask in their pale glow or watch the wondrous lights of the aurora borealis that stretched across the bleak horizon.

When sleep wouldn’t once more seize him of its own accord he would exhaust himself with physical exertion, doing push ups and sit ups until his skin was covered with a film of sweat and his hair was dripping. The burning of his ache, a form of self destruction, was delicious. He told himself I will not let this place drive me mad. It was both a mantra and a promise he made to himself.

Work at the processing plant was another coping skill. The shifts lasted eight hours, the same length as a typical shift on Earth. They were exhausting, and at times it seemed they would never end.

The processing plant was the largest building in Colony 12. Inside was a greenhouse where the fruits and vegetables were grown. On Earth the greenhouse had been run by mechs who watered the plants but here the plants were watered by human hands. Fruits ready to be picked were tossed into freshly rinsed plastic containers.

The linen department was separated by a glass wall: this was where the materials for clothing was made, laundered, and mended.

The “breeding department” as it was called was where the animals were farmed: chickens, cows, pigs, and fish. The mammals were kept in metal cubicles, the fish in aquariums. It didn’t take long for Danni to become used to the smell of straw and shit.

Danni had learned each clan specialized in their own production: for Wuxia it was food and clothes; for Mureen it was certain rocks and minerals they found beneath the ice; and for Lukas it was medical supplies and drugs (not all of them medicinal.) Each month the supplies were shipped to the pavilion and meted out throughout the three colonies.

On the days when Danni wasn’t ready to go back to his quarters he would stay and work an extra shift, keeping himself busy with washing out animal stalls or folding clothes.

Most people didn't bother him, perhaps put off by his quiet, distant nature...and then there were the ones who were drawn to him because he was new and mysterious, an "earther" they called him. He was mortified at the number of men who quite blatantly and lewdly flirted with him, even going so far as to grope his ass when he wasn't looking. He’d sent one such man to the clinic with a broken jaw...after that people didn't bother him.

Which was how he’d drawn the attention of Calvin.

Calvin was two years older than Danni and a “lifer” on Planet Redemption. Tall, thin, with dark skin and eyes, Calvin made it quite obvious he was gay. He simply ignored the lewd comments and went about his business. Between Danni and Calvin there was no sexual connection - they just ate lunch together and chatted; or rather Calvin did most of the chatting, usually asking Danni about Earth: What was it like, what was the food like, what was the color of the sky, what were the men on earth like.

On the day marking his second month on Planet Redemption, Danni and Calvin sat at their usual corner table in the break room before returning to finish cleaning the last of the animal stalls. They were both munching on apples Calvin had snuck from the greenhouse.

“You should come with me to the brothel tonight,” said Calvin, his eyes flashing mischievously. One of the things Danni liked about Calvin was his speech; it was much easier to understand.

“We’ve gone through this already,” said Danni. “I have no interest in going to the brothel.”

“Alright, then, the sauna."

“I don’t think so.”

Calvin frowned. “You’re no fun. Look, I know you’re depressed from being on this shithole planet - trust me, I know, I’ve looked up at the same grey sky my whole life - but you can’t just spend the rest of your life slaving away at the processing plant.”

Danni looked away. “I don’t want to go to the brothel or the sauna because I don’t like large crowds. They make me feel...claustrophobic.”

“So you don't want to mingle?”

Danni smirked. “Do I look like the person who would like to mingle?”

Calvin didn't offer him an answer.

Danni gave him a look that might've been apologetic. "Look, I just don't do well in crowds, okay? I get easily overwhelmed."

Calvin looked Danni over. "You don't look like someone who gets overwhelmed. "

"Well guess what? I do. Finish your apple and let's get back to work.

                            …

Natalia read the last words of Danni's memoir and closed the lid to her laptop. She could hear the whisper of the shower through the bathroom door, and wondered if she wasn’t about to make a big mistake.

Dinah came through the bathroom hatch, skin shining, with towels wrapped around her head and waist. She smelled flagrantly of soap and shampoo. Dinah settled on the edge of the bed. She was hunched over slightly so Natalia could see the ridge of her spine pressing up against her smooth skin. For a moment Natalia was torn between the temptation of telling Dinah about Aamodt’s memoir and running her tongue in between Dinah's shoulder blades...and other places. It's been a while, Natalia thought. Too long. She's always working…

Dinah must have caught Natalia watching her because she said, “What?” Her voice sounded half distant, which meant she was only giving Natalia part of her attention. Natalia couldn’t remember when she’d had Dinah’s full attention.

“I was just thinking of how beautiful you are, that’s all.” Natalia hated how soft and feeble her voice sounded. Pathetic. So pathetic.

Dinah gave her a tired smile. “I don't feel it most days...most days I just feel drained. I have a lot on my mind.”

So much so you haven’t noticed I too have a lot on my mind. But being the dutiful wife despite the fact she too was tired from working at the clinic all day - mostly reading through Danni Aamodt’s file - Natalia would do her best to comfort her lover. This was how their relationship had been for the past decade, as cold and dry as the planet they’d lived on their whole lives.

When was the last time we fucked? I can’t even remember.

Well now all Natalia wanted to do was fuck.

She reached over into the bedside table and pulled out the bag of cocaine. She set it between them on the bed and lifted an eyebrow.

At first Dinah’s eyes were wide with surprise, for it had been a while since they’d done dope together, and then they grew dull with sadness and understanding. “Natalia, I wish I could, my love, but I’m too old...”

“Forty-five isn’t that old,” Natalia said defiantly, a side of herself she rarely revealed, even to her partner.

“Compared to thirty-three it is.”

“Bullshit.”

Dinah sighed, put her head in her hands. “Natalia, I’m too tired.”

Natalia wanted to scream in frustration. Who are you, woman? she wanted to demand. Who is this woman I lay next to in bed every night, for it is not the same woman I remember coming into the clinic crying because her father had just died.

For a moment she thought about snorting some herself, just for the hell of it, but what was the point of it? She’d be up for days, out of her mind with crazy thoughts. No, not a good idea, so she put it back in the drawer.

“What’s on your mind?” she asked instead.

“Danni Aamodt.”

“Still?”

“Still.”

“What about him?”

“He put Skot Volsky in the clinic while at the processing plant.”

“I know. I had to reset Volsky’s arm. What of it?”

Dinah shook his head. “I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s just something not right about Danni Aamodt V. I can feel it.”

Natalia bit her lip. To hell with it. What would the harm in telling her be? “I’ve been lookin' through his file while at the clinic - there are a lot of interesting things in there, including the memoir he wrote.”

Dinah’s eyes glimmered with interest. Now I have your interest, Natalia thought. “Memoir? What memoir?”

Natalia showed her lover the flash drive she kept safe in the pockets of her pants at all times. “Just give it a read.”

Dinah took the flash drive and held it up to her face as if it was something she’d never seen before - or as if it held the secrets of the whole universe.

                            …

Danni walked through the streets of Colony Wuxia - or what passed for streets. Wherever he walked a pair or two of curious eyes followed him. He ignored them, keeping his eyes fixed ahead.

He turned left, strolling between buildings that looked exactly alike. The sauna was the next building over. Rectangular shaped, there were two entrances. He watched two men enter; one of them held the tail of the other's jacket. Danni had picked up the meaning of this his first week outside the clinic.

Squire. A squire was someone who became another's property, usually for sexual purposes. In return the squire was sheltered, fed, and protected. No one could touch them without the permission of the master.

Danni waited until the two men had walked out of sight before he followed. He hesitated outside the entrance. The inside was dimly lit. Heat caressed his numbed cheeks. He gathered up his courage and stepped inside.

He followed the couple down a long, dark corridor. Yellow fluorescent lights lined both sides of the wall making it just bright enough for Danni to be able to see where he was going. The corridor smelled pungently of meat and sweat, reminding Danni of his eighteenth birthday, when he'd gone into the city with the false ID Uncle Charlie had given him, and lost his virginity: it was the smell of sweat and body fluids. Of sex.

The men came to a barred window where a stoic faced man slid towels through the bars and handed them keys, and their rations cards back. The taller and broader of the two men, presumably the more dominant one, tucked the card away. He turned his head, looked at Danni, flashed him a smile, and whispered something to his squire. Also leering, the squire whispered something back.

Danni ignored their stares and walked past them. A hand flashed out, snatching a hold of his wrist. “Where you going, pretty boy?” the dominant one asked him. His lips peeled back from gleaming teeth. His breath was putrid.

Fear and bile rose up inside of Danni. These were not good men. His stomach twisted. He clenched his teeth together and fought the urge to spew his lunch all over them. The trick, he knew, was not to show fear. Because if he showed them just how afraid he was, they would smell it and be all over him like starving wolves craving the taste of blood. I’m the wolf, he thought, not them.

Danni moved quickly. He grabbed the man’s wrist and twisted around so the man was down on the ground and he was standing over him, arm stretched out straight. The man’s squire stepped towards him but Danni stopped him in his tracks with a glare. “Touch me and I’ll kill you both with my bare hands.”

The squire must have sensed he was serious. He stepped back. “You better watch your back,” he growled.

Danni released his master and stepped back. He watched the squire help his partner up. They both flashed him deadly looks before continuing down the corridor. You better watch your back, the squire had said, and Danni took it to be good advice. Around every corner was a potential enemy. And while he could certainly hold his own he couldn’t defend himself from every single person in the clan.

He counted to a hundred and eighty and made his way down the hallway. The corridor led down to a large steam room. Coals burned in a tiled pit. The tiles beneath his feet were slick with moisture and, or so he imagined, body fluids. Everywhere he looked men stood clustered together, their bodies slick with sweat, kissing, sucking, and fucking. He watched as a man got fucked at both ends, listened to the sound of flesh slapping against flesh.

Another man sat on a set of stairs with a head bobbing up and down between his legs. His fingers were clenched through his lover’s hair as he rocked backwards and forwards, his head thrust back in ecstasy. For Danni it was like being in a bathhouse back on Earth.

Two archways on both sides led into another large room where the jacuzzi was. It seemed every man in the colony was here to get their rocks off. Several rested in the jacuzzi, reclined against the walls of the basin while others engaged in sexual activities with multiple partners. Everywhere Danni looked there was an orgy. Several faces turned in his direction, eyes bright with interest. A stray hand reached and gave his cock a squeeze. Flashes of voices and light flashed through his head upon contact but it was meaningless due to all of the emotion and sensation in the room.

He dipped his foot in the frothing water of the jacuzzi. The water was pleasantly warm against his skin. The steps felt smooth and rough at the same time against the pad of his foot. Another step down and the water was up to his calf now; and now up to his hips. He floated out to the center of the basin and breathed in the steam.

He found a free spot and leaned back against the wall. After working a long shift at the processing plant it felt good to relax. See, Calvin, he thought with a grin, I can go out and relax.

The peace was short lived. A chill passed through his body, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, as if a cold breeze had passed through the room. No one else felt it, he knew. Only he had the ability to perceive the things around them that everyone else was blind to.

He opened his eyes and watched Mikael step out of the white drifts of steam. He was naked except for the towel wrapped around his waist. Danni pretended to be intrigued by the activity happening around him but he watched Mikael out of the corners of his eyes. Mikael removed his towel from his waist so Danni could see the thick hairs sprouting from his backside. Mikael's eyes found his face. A smile spread across the man's face. He reached a hand down to his penis and touched it. He began to walk around the basin.

Danni moved to get up but the Jacuzzi was crowded with more bodies and Mikael had already waded into the water, blocking his way. Danni leaned back against the smooth wall of the basin and kept his face composed. He didn't want Mikael to see how afraid he made Danni.

The warden rested against the spot next to Danni and said, "Danni, right? How's yer new life going here on Planet Redemption?" New life, Danni thought soundly. They make it sound like it's a wonderful place to retire.

He kept his mouth shut. He wanted Mikael to get the hint he wasn't interested in being friends.

"Not much of a talker, eh?" Mikael chuckled. "Fine by me. I prefer it when people let me do the talking; when they let me take the lead. Been working out I see, not just sitting idly by..."

Danni felt fingers grab the shaft of his penis and squeeze. Involuntarily he felt himself grow hard. Immediately, as if someone had switched on a radio, voices started, drifting through a screen of static; it was impossible to tell what they were saying. A fusillade of dark emotions and images passed through his mind, as quick and rapid as gunfire.

He felt Mikael’s uncontrollable lust, the self-loathing he felt, and the helplessness. At once, without his willing it, Danni knew Mikael had been sold by his parents to both men and women for extra rations, drugs, and bootie. He felt Mikael’s need to hurt things smaller than him, things like Danni, so he could feel more dominant.

Danni could feel it all burning the inside of his skull, as if someone had poured acid on top of his brain. He hadn’t felt such desolation since the night of his eighteenth birthday, when he’d gone into his mother, Olivia’s room. What his mother had felt was depression. What Mikael felt was the inside of a void. He’s a monster, Danni thought. His parents, this planet has made him into a monster. There’s no hope for him. No chance of redemption.

When Mikael was almost fully grown, at the age of seventeen, he’d killed his parents, smothering his mother with a pillow while she slept and then slicing his father's throat open. And of course, beneath Mikael’s violent, invasive brushstrokes of emotion was Danni’s own fear, for he knew what it was Mikael intended to do to him.

The images of all the prostitutes he’d been with, young boys no older than twelve or thirteen, passed through Danni’s mind. Mikael liked boys only, despised women, and he liked to strangle them as he fucked them brutally. Two of them he had killed by strangulation; he’d loaded their bodies into a truck and buried them out in the snow where no one would find them, in the same spot where he'd buried his parents

And he intended to do the same to Danni.

Mikael’s voice cut through it all, husky with arousal. “You’re beautiful, you know that? Too beautiful to be in this cold, harsh place. Like an angel you are. A heaven-sent angel.” Gripping the sides of Danni’s face in his brute hands he clamped his lips over Danni’s mouth, trying to force his tongue inside. Danni’s back was pressed up against the wall so he could feel the stone digging painfully in his back hard enough to draw blood.

He tried to wiggle himself free from Mikael’s vice like grip only to feel the flat of the man's palm strike him hard enough across the face it sent him spinning around in the water. Pulling his head back by the hair, Mikael pushed him down so Danni’s backside was facing up in the air; the other hand held his hip in his face.

Fear and the need to get away from Mikael, not anger, gave Danni the will and strength to fight back. He threw his head back into Mikael’s face as hard as he could. The back of his head hit bone and he heard Mikael grunt, falling back in the water. Hands balled into fists, Danni whirled around, knowing he had only stunned Mikael. The man was taller than him by eight inches at least, and outweighed him by over a hundred pounds.

If Danni was in a more open space where there weren’t so many people, able to use the environment around him, and had a weapon even if it was just a small knife, he could have held his own against Mikael. Instead he would have to use what he saved for emergencies when in close quarters.

He used the opportunity to land another blow to Mikael’s chin; his aim was straight and true, his arm pistoning straight ahead just the way he’d been taught. It was like hitting a brick wall. Mikael stumbled back, clutching at his nose. Blood was spurting from his fingers.

“You broke my nose, you little shit,” he growled and Danni knew he meant it. The man was looking at him through slanted eyes full of murderous intent Before Mikael could come towards him, Danni threw himself at Mikael and grabbed his broad head in both hands. With a mental push of exertion he fired an empathic shockwave from the center of his being into Mikael.

Mikael’s eyes widened in shock and pain. He went rigid, his mouth opening in a silent scream of agony. He fell to his knees, the water rising up to his chest. He looked at Danni with a superstitious dread. “What are you?” he gasped. His voice could barely be heard over the cacophony of moans and grunts. Apparently their fighting was normal fare in this place for no one seemed to have noticed the conflict taking place in the Jacuzzi or they just didn’t care.

Knowing he had gained control of the situation for now, Danni took a threatening step towards Mikael and Mikael took a step back. Who knew how long he would be stunned before he came back to his senses and tried to attack Danni again. Danni pulled himself out of the water. He padded around the basin, beads of water dripping down on the concrete beneath his feet. He moved quickly, not quite running, not quite walking, afraid running would draw more attention to him.

He grabbed his clothes and breathing mask and dressed as he made his way back down the corridor to the outside. He’d been outside less than a minute before the cold turned the moisture clinging to him to ice but he walked quickly and didn’t look back until he was safely inside the confines of his apartment. With no one around to listen to him or see him, Danni let his emotions run rampant, sobbing against the cup of his hands.

He couldn’t stop his body from shaking.