Planet Redemption: Episode One - 6. Satisfaction

Natalia leaned back in her chair. Diana had just sent her an email requesting for more tests to be run on Danni. Tests, tests, and more tests. She heaved out a sigh and set her forehead in the palm of her hands. For two days she'd kept him contained in a single room and for those two days he hadn't fought her or made any attempt to resist. He spoke little, only nodding or shaking his head, saying yes or no. She couldn't help but feel guilty. It was as if all the fight in him was gone.

His wounds had healed completely, not leaving behind so much as a scar. The nanites in his body worked constantly to heal the physical trauma that his body had suffered and then went into a form of stasis. Diana wanted her to study him, study what his body function was. "Do you realize the medical breakthroughs we could discover if he figured out what made him tick?" Diana had said just the previous night. "Imagine what we could do with nanite technology."

Natalia hated the way her eyes brightened when she talked about Danni. She had a terrible feeling about where the situation was going. She doesn't see Danni as a person with feelings, she sees him as a thing.

She stepped out of her office and went into Danni's room. He was laying in bed just staring at the wall. His face was expressionless. Then he looked at her. "Come to run some more tests?"

"I'm afraid so," she replied. She grabbed the clipboard from off the countertop.

"Why don't you just get it over with?" This was the first time he'd shown any hint of emotion within the last two days. There was resignation in his voice, sadness.

"I don't know what you mean."

Now he looked at her directly. His eyes were hard as steel. "You know exactly what I mean. You want to study me. You want to open me up. You want to see what makes me tick because all you see is a freak."

"That's not true," she said and hated herself for lying. "I want to help you. I'm trying to do that to the best of my ability. You just have to be patient. You'll be out of here in a couple of days."

"Bullshit," he said. "I want to see Duke."

"You can't see him right now."

"Why not?"

"I simply can't let you have visitors."

"Has he at least asked about me?" His face had brightened with hope.

Natalia's mouth hung open. I can't do this, she thought. I just can't.

"Will you excuse me for a moment?" she said, setting the clipboard on the edge of his bed. She hurried out of the room. She asked the nurse sitting at the front desk to update her if anything happened with their one and only patient and stepped out into the cold. She got into her snowmobile and drove over to Duke's dormitory. He opened the door on the third knock.

The lower half of his face was covered in stubble. From the way he blinked sleepily at her she could tell he'd just gotten up.

"Sorry to wake you," she said. "Do you have a minute?"

"Cecilia's at work," he mumbled, closing the door behind her. "Want a beer?"

"Please."

They sat in the living room with their beers; Duke too the couch and Natalia took the armchair.

"How is Danni?" he asked, taking a long swig from his beer can.

"I can't say. Physically he's all healed up. It's astounding. There is no scar tissue what so ever. Emotionally I think he's depressed."

"So why are you here?"

"Because I don't know what to fucking do. Diana wants me to keep testing him. I think at one point she's going to want me to dissect him."

He straightened up. "What? She wouldn't."

"Duke, she's not the same Diana that you've always known. She's certainly not the Diana I fell in love with. The power has gone to her head. She has become obsessed with her work. We got into it pretty bad the other night."

"I want to see him. Can I see him?"

Natalia drained the rest of her beer in one gulp. "I think that would be best. For Danni. It might make him feel better."

By the times Duke and Natalia got back to the clinic Diana was already there.

For the last two days she'd been sleeping in her office. She'd taken the air mattress from their apartment and used it to sleep on. For those two days she'd been trying to find the words within herself to form an adequate apology to Natalia. She knew that she was wrong and that Natalia was right. It wasn't as if she hadn't noticed the distance between the two of them that she herself had created. There there was a matter at hand that kept her from filling the trench that she had dug herself in: Danni Aamodt.

When she'd come into the clinic, Laura-Beth the nurse on shift, had told her that Natalia had left for the moment and would be back for long. She didn't say anything else when Diana said that she was going to pay Danni a visit. Now she sat at his bedside wondering what to say to him. She'd come here for some damn reason, but now that she was here her mind was blank. What should she say to this...thing?

All of Danni's wounds, both external and internal, had healed. There wasn't so much as a blemish. Natalia had taken photos of his regeneration and emailed them to Diana. It was confirmed that Mike Mize, the late sheriff of Colony 12, had raped Danni. Natalia had found the sheriff's semen in Danni's body. He'd taken Danni three miles outside of the colony to leave him for dead just as he and Duke had done with Benjamin. But then Danni had ruined all of that by coming back from the dead.

She said the first thing that she could think of. "Are you comfortable?"

On his part, Danni had been staring at the white wall, pretending as if she wasn't there. Over the past two days he hadn't said much. He didn't ask questions on when he could get out, didn't fight, didn't argue. Though he could have easily escaped Danni stayed where he was. His face was expressionless. He was like a docile puppy. Or a robot.

He looked at her, face deadpan. "When can I leave?"

She worked her mouth, trying to think of something to say. "I'm not sure."

"I've been here for two days."

"Yes. I imagine you want to get out of here. I never much liked the clinic either. But to be quite honest we've never had anyone heal from the injuries that you have in such a short amount of time."

"Are you going to dissect me?" he asked.

The question caught Diana off guard. She hadn't expected him to ask it, not so frankly. His voice was even, almost flat. She didn't like being caught off guard like this. She felt like an idiot. Diana had always prided herself on knowing what to say and do. But this strange young boy made her feel like a confused little girl and she secretly resented him for it. Am I going to dissect him? she thought. She'd certainly thought about it. She could make it happen. She was warden, she could make anything happen. Colony 12 was her little frozen kingdom, and the two thousand people that lived within it were her to command. She could have Natalia knock him out with anesthetic and cut him open from head to toe. She supposed that was why she had come here, to decide if that's what she wanted to do. Perhaps talking to Danni would help her decide in the end.

She couldn't say yes or no; she didn't have the courage to give him a direct answer. If Diana was going to be honest with herself she was scared of Danni, as was the rest of the town. Everyone except for Duke. Somehow he had connected with Danni, maybe even come to care for him. Surely enough he had taken Mike out of the colony as Mike had done with Benjamin and Danni, and executed him. He'd taken his vengeance for Benjamin's death, and Danni's rape. The other day he'd been livid with rage, his eyes burning with a rage that Diana had never seen before. Yes, she decided, Duke cared about Danni. He had to if he could shoot Danni in the back of the head. The question was how could she use Danni to her advantage? How could she control him? She had one hand in the pocket of her jacket, fiddling with the badge, turning it end over end as she was doing with her mind.

"What are you?" she asked.

"You already know what I am."

"I know that you're not like anything else I've ever met. You're certainly not like anyone on this planet. Or any other planet for that matter."

"I'm Alexander Aamodt's clone more or less."

"And why did he create you?"

"Because he could." Danni glanced away when he said this. For the first time since she'd stepped into his room his face showed emotion: sadness. Maybe even anger.

Diana repeated the question.

"Because he wanted to create a weapon."

"Why are you here?"

"Because he failed. He didn't want anyone to know about me."

"So cloning on Earth is illegal?"

He shrugged. "I guess. It's always been illegal."

Diana didn't believe that Alexander Aamodt had failed; from what she'd heard and seen she would have said that Alexander had succeeded in creating the perfect weapon. Now that weapon was here, within her clutches to do with what she wanted. If only her own her fucking sense of morality wasn't getting in the way.

"What are your intentions?" she asked.

He looked confused. "My intentions?"

"Do you intend on hurting anyone else?"

"I just want out of here. I just want to be left the fuck alone." Danni's faces showed a flicker of annoyance. He shifted in his bed. He was getting impatient with all of Diana's questions. He liked her less and less.

"Everyone in the colony is afraid of you. They're afraid that you're a monster."

Danni laughed darkly. He laughed for a good while, laugh until tears trailed down his cheek. "Afraid of me?" he said after a moment. "They think I'm the monster? It's you people that are the monster. I didn't rape or kill anybody. I was a prisoner before I arrived on this fucking dead planet. I've been a prisoner my whole life. Let me ask you something, what are your intentions? And don't bullshit me."

Diana pulled out the badge, but kept it enclosed in her fist. "My sheriff is dead. Duke shot him as punishment for what he did to you therefore his debt has been repaid. Duke will be taking his place as sheriff which leaves a spot open. I need a deputy."

She showed him the badge.

"And you want me to be the deputy?" he said, turning it over and over in his hand.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"As I said people are scared of you. That's something that I could use to my advantage. It could help me keep the peace around here, which is what I want more than anything. As you are quickly learning survival and power is the only currency that matters around here. In fact power is survival."

"What if I don't want to be your deputy? What if I say no?"

"Then I have my partner open you up and harvest your organs. It's perfectly up to you."

He looked her directly in the eye. "My father used to read me bedtime stories before I went to bed. It was one of the things that I loved about him. Little Red Riding Hood was my favorite. I was so afraid of the Big Bad Wolf. I used to have nightmares about him eating her. But you're the evil queen from Snow White."

She stood up and gave him a sly grin. "You bet your ass I am. I will put in the order to have Natalia discharge you and send you home. You start your new job tomorrow." She left the room and almost ran directly into Duke and Natalia.

"Oh there you are, Natalia," Diana said warmly. "Considering Danni's remarkable recovery I think it's time that we have him discharged and send him home. Don't you agree?"

Natalia gave him a shaky nod. "I do."

"Good. Duke, I have good news. I have assigned Danni the title of deputy. He will be starting first thing tomorrow. Now if you'll excuse me there is other stuff that I must do."

The processing plant was split into two sections: livestock and greenhouse. Cecilia preferred to work in the greenhouse for obvious reasons: The green house didn't smell like shit. Cow shit, pig shit, chicken shit, you-name-it shit. In the greenhouse she was surrounded by the fragrant scents of various flowers and pollen.

She slowly made her way in between the rows of plants, recording the progress of their growth into the datapad. Water sprinklers hissed above her; ultraviolet lights hummed. It was the perfect place to be able to work and think at the same time. She had plenty to think about. She had too much to think about if she was being honest with herself.

For one Danni had been released from the clinic. She supposed she was happy about that, glad that he was okay. But then she remembered how he'd looked walking into the colony naked, scraps of flesh hanging off of bone, his skin a moldy grey. She would never be able to get those images out of her head or the fear and revulsion that she'd felt. She would never be able to look at him the same way again. Or at Duke that morning. That morning, before she'd left for work, he'd told her about the thing that had him waking up in the middle of the night, screaming. About Benjamin, the young boy that he had raped and murdered. He'd told her why he'd done it.

Up until now Cecilia had always thought that her older brother was one of the few pure souls on this planet. Everyone else's' was charred. They did what they wanted to do, fucked who they wanted to and didn't take responsibility for the things that they did. But not Duke. After their parents had died he'd stepped in, making sure that she was taken care of, protecting her. She'd always looked up to him, always loved him more than he could ever know. She still loved him; she would always love him. There was nothing that could take her love away from him. And yet, just as with Danni, she would not be able to look at her older brother the same again, and it hurt like hell.

"Yo, Ruiz!" Phillips shouted. He was a big man with a big head and tiny neck. "Lunch break! Go now or forever hold your peace!"

"Be there in a minute," she said. She signed off on her notes, tucked the data pad in the pocket of her uniform and headed in the direction of the breakroom.

In order to get to the break room you had to go through the livestock section. The sharp smell of animal shit touched her nose. Cecilia was so lost in thought that she barely noticed it. Several workers were busy spraying out the stalls with water hoses or feeding the animals. She pushed through a double set of doors. She grabbed the apple she had in the fridge and sat down at one of the plastic pull up tables. She bit into the apple and chewed slowly, letting its sweet juices flowing over her tongue. She wasn't really hungry but she needed something to do to distract her from her thoughts.At the next table Bobby Morton and Mary Holbrook were talking conversing rather loudly, seemingly unaware of her presence.

"Did you hear that they let the new guy out of the hospital?" Morton said.

"No fucking way! You mean that thing that came walking through the colony the other day? I heard they were to take it apart. Dissect it."

"I guess not."

"And you know what else I heard?"

"What?"

"Deputy Ruiz fucked him."

"Nuh huh. That was , which is why Ruiz shot him.

"No, Ruiz fucked him before Myze."

Mary Holbrook shuttered. "I couldn't see how anybody could fuck that thing. The warden should have had it put down. Like a dog or something, you know?

Morton nodded enthusiastically. "Totally."

Cecilia said nothing in Duke or Danni's defense. She threw her half eaten apple in the trash can and returned to the greenhouse. Break was over.

Danni sat on the edge of his bed and listened to the howl of the wind outside his window. He was finally starting to get used to it. Around here it was like music to the ears, a constant companion.

Danni's body had healed but his mind had not. For the last two days his mind had been fried. He didn't feel much but numbness. When he thought of all that had happened the night he'd left Duke, he saw everything as if he had been outside of himself, merely an observer. He saw the four men corner and laugh at him; he saw the one with the face covered in rashes press the blade of the razor to his throat; he saw himself murder them, slashing their throats as if it was a natural thing just like breathing was a natural thing. He saw himself standing in the middle of the street with the razor in his hand, covered in blood; he saw Mike coming up from behind him with the shotgun; he saw Mike dragging him into the snowmobile and then out of the snowmobile; he saw Mike rape him; he saw the snow mobile disappearing into the night as Mike left him to die.

Danni didn't cry tears for himself, for all of the shit that he had endured. I don't have anymore tears left to cry, he thought. Since arriving to this fucking planet he'd cried for Alexander, and he'd cried for Juan. He'd cried for the beauty of Earth even though he hadn't seen much of it. Now there was nothing, only a hollow body that had been sucked dry of all emotion. Maybe he would cry later. Maybe he would cry tomorrow or the next day. Right now he was just going through the grieving process, trying to process all that had happened. He wasn't stupid, he knew how psychology worked. He'd read all kinds of books about them, whole text books. There would be tears, oh yes, there would lots of them; and yet Danni couldn't help but get the feeling that the version of himself that had been left to die in the snow and the version that had crawled out of the snow were not the same people. The version that had been left in the snow to die was still out there somewhere, in the snow. The one that had crawled out of the snow was the one that way lying in this bed, right here, right now. It was the only version that remained.

Someone knocked on the door.

"Danni." It was Duke.

Surprise, surprise.

Danni got out of bed and padded over to the door. He opened it and stepped back to let Duke in. Duke was dressed in his parka and winter hat. He held a six pack of some drink in his gloved hand.

"Did I wake you?" Duke asked.

"No," Danni said. He went back over to the bed and sat down. He pointed at the thing that Duke was holding. "What's that?"

"It's beer. I figured you could use some company."

Danni shrugged. "I'd offer you a chair but I don't have any."

"The bed's fine." Duke sat next to him and handed Danni a beer. For a second their shoulders touched it. After several seconds Danni was able to twist the cap off the bottle and took a sip. He made a face as he swallowed it down.

"Still don't like it?" Duke asked. He took a sip from his own beer. It was Benny's brew, bought straight from the pub. Drinking it away from the pub was just as good as drinking it inside the pub itself.

"I figured it's an acquired taste. And it's like you said, people only drink it to get drunk. I guess drinking is like therapy. It makes you feel better."

"It's a form of therapy," Duke agreed. "Most therapists would probably argue you that it's not the healthiest form of therapy, but it depends on the person. How are you feeling?"

"Tired."

"Do you want me to leave?"

Danni gave him a long look. "No, I want you to stay. Will you stay?"

"You know I will."

Danni looked out the window at the setting sun. "I'm surprised you're not scared of me. Everyone else is."

"Why would I be scared?"

"Because I'm different."

Duke sighed. "I'll admit when I first saw you in the bathtub I was scared. More than a little scared to be honest. I didn't recognize you. You looked so...different. It took me a moment, you know? I don't know what you are and I'm not going to ask. I don't really care. I'm surprise you're not scared of me."

"You're sorry for what you did to Benjamin," Danni said. "That's what makes you different from Mike. That what makes you better than him. When you picked me up the day you took me to the pub I could feel your guilt, your sadness. I'm really good at reading people. Sometimes I can read their thoughts, other times their feelings. Sometimes I even have dreams that end up coming true. I'm psychic. I didn't know what you were feeling guilty about but I could still feel it."

"It doesn't change what I did."

"No," Danni said. "But it does make a difference. What did you feel when you killed Mike?"

For a moment Duke was transported to a couple of days ago. He remembered having the gun pressed to Mike's head. At first he didn't think he could do it; he didn't think he could pull the trigger. But then he did pull the trigger. The gun had exploded, bucking in his hand. The sound seemed to fill the air, making his ears ring. He saw Mike's head rock forward violently, saw his brains fall out the front of his head, heard his body hit the snow.

"Relief," he said. "Relief that he couldn't hurt anyone else ever again. What did you feel when you killed those four men?"

Danni remembered the feeling of the blood on his face and said, "Satisfaction."

"The badge means everything," Duke said as he worked the pin into Danni's jacket. "It's how people know that you have power. It's how they know who is in charge. Think of it has the first point. The gun is the second. But that's only for emergencies, when people don't ignore the first sign."

"Right," Danni said, only half listening. He kept glancing off towards the diner where he could hear someone shouting. "What's going on?"

"It's fucking Bud Jackson on another one of his drunk rants, thinking he's going to take up the diner. He does this kind of thing every other month."

"It sounds serious."

"It isn't."

"People in there are scared. I can feel it."

Duke winced. "Shit."

"What?"

"That means he has a gun. Okay, you don't happen to know how to use a gun do you?" I can't believe we're walking into this, Duke thought. I haven't even begun to train him yet. Fucking Diana.

"We'll find out," Danni said, pulling it out of its holster. It was a nine millimeter.

They walked into the diner. Everyone inside was kneeling down on the grounds, heads lowered. Danni counted ten hostages. None of them were faces that he recognized. Rick Jackson stood in the middle of the diner. He had Clara the hostess by the back of the hair, a gun pressed to the back of her head. He was a swarthy middle-aged fellow with a long salt-and-pepper colored beard and wide blue eyes.

"Okay Jackson," Duke said, perfectly calm. "Put the gun down and Clara go."

"Not until I get my goddamned money!" Rick said, throwing a heated glance back at the young man behind the counter.

"The kid's not going to give you the money Jackson. You're going to let the girl go, you're going to put the gun down, and you're going to let these people continue with enjoying their breakfast."

Jackson wasn't listening; he was looking at the Danni. "What the fuck is he doing here? What is he doing pointing a gun at me? Why does he have a budge?"

"The warden decided to make him deputy," Duke replied calmly.

"No way." Bud shook his head. "No fucking way."

"Yes fucking way. Now let Clara go."

"NOT UNTIL I GET MY FUCKING MONEY!"

Danni glanced at Duke. Something was wrong with Jackson. It was hard to tell what was going on inside his head because he was so drunk. But this whole situation scared him. Duke was acting as if this had happened many times before, as if Jackson wasn't serious. But Jackson was serious. Jackson also wasn't right in the head; there was something wrong with his brain and Danni could sense it. Duke didn't know that Jackson planned on killing the girl. Duke didn't know that this was real. Danni could see it all in his head now; it played out like a movie. He could hear the boom as Jackson fired the gun point blank into the back of Clara's head.

Clara was sobbing, tears and mascara trailing down her cheek. Once upon a time Danni would have felt sorry for her. He would have understood her fear, and more importantly, he would have wished that no harm had come to her. Now he felt only the certainty of what he had to do. This is a game, he thought as he raised he gun. The object of the game is to make sure that the girl doesn't die and everyone else comes out alive.

Jackson turned to him. "What the fuck do you think you're doing? I will shoot this girl!"

"Danni, put the gun down," Duke said.

Danni pointed the gun point blank at Jackson's hand. Right before firing he changed the direction of his aim and pulled the trigger once. The bullet exploded from the muzzle of his gun, spinning. He watched the bullet's directory, knowing what it was going to do. He had mapped it all out in his hand, his brain working like a computer. This was what he was meant for, this was what he was meant to be: a weapon. A killing machine. The bullet pinged off the outer hull of a light shade and into the back of Jackson's head.

It was a clean shot.

Jackson dropped to the floor dead.

For a long time everyone was silent. Everyone was looking at Danni, including Duke. He could sense their fear, not their gratitude. Even though he had just saved Clara's life by preventing it from being taken, he would always be the freak. The monster. They would always be afraid of him and there was nothing he could do to change it.

"You didn't have to kill him," Duke said later, after Buddy had cleared out the pub and closed it down for the day. He watched as the coroners zipped Jackson's corpse into a body bag. Diana was hugging a distraught Clara, patting her back. Over Clara's shoulder, Diana was looking directly at Danni.

"Yes I did," Danni said emotionlessly.

"You don't know that. I've known Jackson my whole life. He was born on this planet. He wasn't right in the head, I know, but..."

Danni turned to Duke. There were tears in Duke's eyes, tears of grief. Danni hated himself for being the one to put those tears there, but there was no way around the truth. "You don't get it, do you? There was no talking him out of it. You might have been able to talk him out of it all the other times, but not this time. He was going to shoot her and then who knows what would have happened next? This whole thing was a setup."

Duke looked puzzled. "A setup? Who...?"

"Who do you think?"

Duke glanced in Diana's direction. He shook his head. "She wouldn't..."

"You know that she would," Danni said. "You know what she's capable of. You've always known you just refuse to accept it."

"Why?" Duke said.

"To test me," was Danni's answer. "To see if I would do it."

Danni didn't feel guilty of what he had done. He didn't feel bad for the insane, drunk Phillip Jackson. He didn't hate Diana for talking the man into getting himself into a situation that would only get him killed. He only felt satisfaction.