FICTION: Cyborg Sleeps Part 17

Continuing the saga of Asira Y. In this part, Bena and Asira regret or resent the conversation they had in part 16.

Bena wondered why she had thought sharing her secret with Asira had been a good idea. After leaving the medical centre, she had finished her work routine for the day and returned to her Temple cell in a mood of hurt bewilderment. She had been sure that the cyborg agent would respond well to her offers of support, but instead Asira had worked hard to push her away. To some extent, of course, she had expected that; she'd been prepared and ready to stick out the initial suspicion and guardedness, and in fact felt as though that part had gone well.

The decision gnawed at her as she settled back into the sparse, if comfortable, living quarters that were normal for working members of the Priesthood. She knew she didn't have to be friends with every damned member of the base, and above all this one, who had made it clear from the first moment they met that there was bad feeling between them. Maybe the Director's interference had been more effective than Bena was willing to admit – or indeed, possibly, than he had intended. The incident with Asira's newly-added cryptoscopy revealing the fact that Bena had stretch marks had shaken Bena a little, she had to admit, and maybe that moment of having secrets unmasked had made her feel vulnerable, and therefore closer, to Asira than she ever would have had the spellcasting been of as different type.

And now she felt as though she had been suckered into revealing her deepest secret, the thing that she had shared with the fewest number of people in the world. The Director surely knew about the pregnancy incident, he probably knew more about what had happened to the baby than Bena herself did, but he couldn't know what Asira now did, he couldn't know the truth of what it had all meant. And now she had opened up to a woman whom she had (stupidly, she felt, despite trying to tell herself otherwise) assumed would understand because of a shared victimhood. And Asira had not understood. Had not accepted the similarity. Had instead blamed Bena for getting into the situation in the first place, for being weak, for being... lesser.

“Why did I do it?” Bena cursed herself as she shuddered by her bed, furious with herself for following an emotional whim that she wasn't even sure any more that she understood herself.

Ten years on, and though it was clear that her career had never really recovered from the pregnancy, Bena had thought that she had put it firmly in the past, come to terms with it and left it behind. And yet some strange soldier woman with goodness knew what technology built into her had by chance managed to break it all down and bring it all back. She had somehow ended up letting herself believe that this distant, detached person had been the right person to tell, with whom to share her story. And now, having been cut down, having felt that cutting, right to her core, she knew that it was not dealt with, she had not come to terms with it – it could still hurt her. And now it seemed like pure madness to have believed that Asira could possibly understand – that the remoteness was anything other than an antisocial attitude brought about by her unimaginably different life. Bena realised that she must have some deep-seated desire to share and be understood, but why had she come to such a foolish conclusion that Asira would be the one to do it with?

***

As she waited for the unfamiliar sensation of "normal" sleep to overtake her, Asira was asking herself much the same things. Why had Bena seen fit to share with her of all people? It wasn't like she was trained in empathy or counselling or any of the things that might be useful to someone who needed to share a story like that. She felt angry that Bena had dumped this issue into her lap, had expected a reaction that she was unable to give, had compared her weakness to Asira's battle. Somehow, Bena's departure seemed to her like a criticism. She refused to admit to herself that she had done wrong, and yet the knowledge that she had perhaps hurt Bena was lying just behind the anger and frustration, and continued to fester there. It was easier to use it to fuel her own resentment than deal with it openly.

Slowly the painkillers she had taken began to take effect and consciousness sagged from her body like a coat slithering from slumped shoulders onto the floor, and Asira no longer had to worry about the question. Her last thought was "Huh, a bed, this is strange…"