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"I tried to join the guerrillas, but since I wasn't anybody's cousin or sister-in-law I couldn't find out anything about where they were hiding. When the 'strike' speech came", she said, "I didn't get to hear it but saw it on a leaflet... I didn't know what else to do, so I started a fire in a tire pile outside a TMCC garage. Some janitors were executed for it".
"Don't put it like that", Valentine said. "The Kurian Order executed them, not you".
Valentine waited for her mind to leave memories of strung-up bodies and return to Oklahoma. "I did a bunch of other stuff", she continued. "Punctured tires at night. I learned how to cut a hot electrical wire. Stuff where I could do a little damage quietly and then run away".
"A girl after my own heart", Duvalier said.
"I take it she never went through our little ceremony". Valentine looked at the scar on his palm, barely distinguishable from legworm-hook-hardened skin.
"No", Duvalier said, and Jules looked down, hiding under her hair. What did the girl have to be ashamed of? It wasn't her fault the Lifeweavers had disappeared.
For one awful second Valentine wondered if she was a Kurian agent, slowly digging her way into Southern Command. No, Duvalier was a good judge of character. You didn't walk up and apply to be a Cat; the Cats found you.
* * *
After the evening meal Duvalier disappeared. In all the time he'd known her she'd rarely been an initiator of good-byes - like a careful extra in a stage play she liked to make unobtrusive appearances and disappearances.
Probably why she still had blood in her veins after all these years in and out of the Kurian Zone.
Valentine explored Nancy's. It still housed dozens of crippled Quislings, pitiful objects limited to bed and wheelchair. They'd taught him in his Southern Command lectures that the Kurians consumed cripples, even those wounded in defense of their Order, save for a few to be trotted out at rallies and blood drives. Whether the soldiers still lived because of some shell game of Nancy's, or the sudden turnover of territory spared them, or he'd even been given a spoonful or two of medicinal propaganda, he didn't attempt to determine.
He saw Nancy herself, behind a wide nurses' counter, speaking to what looked like doctors. Her face drooped like a bulldog's. Hair that could be mistaken for a hawk's pole-top nest gave her a bit of a madwoman's air, but even the medical men listened to her speak.
As night fell people filtered back into the connected buildings and gathered around the tiny charcoal stoves on the grounds that provided heat for cooking and boiling laundry.
The talkative in the refuge discussed either Tulsa - when it would finally be cleared so people could return to see what was left of their lives - or the possibilities of finding work far from the fighting in Texas or Arkansas.
Then there were the doomsayers: "They'll be back", one man said, shirtless and with Kurian service pins on his suspenders. "No such thing as 'safe.' 'Scorched earth,' the order said, and just because the flame ain't touched you yet, doesn't mean it's not burning".
Even in the facility's new role as improvised refugee squat, Valentine had to admire the cleanliness of the rooms, painted in an institutional color he called "muted lime". The medicine cabinet in the shared bathroom held a couple of tonics for Duvalier's on-again, off-again stomach problems, antiseptic ointments, and a thermometer. The only disappointment was the ashy-tasting toothpaste.
They went to their individual beds with lights out - Nancy's had its own generators, but fuel for them had to be conserved. Valentine hid under a sheet, a little ashamed of the state of his underclothes. Maybe a visit to the swap is in order after all. Jules produced a bottle of Kurian rum and they passed it back and forth. Valentine refused more than two swigs.
"You need to be careful with alcohol in the KZ", Valentine said. "They say a little helps cut lifesign by relaxing you. Whether it's true or no, I'd rather be alert".
"This isn't the Kurian Zone. Not anymore".
Though she asked, he didn't want to talk about the rising in Little Rock. Instead he shifted the conversation to their childhoods. He told her a little about growing up in Minnesota - to an Iowan, nothing but hairy, thick-blooded barbarians lived north of Rochester - and in between swallows she painted a picture of the privileged life of a Ringwinner's daughter.
"I was supposed to go into the church", came the voice from the darkness. If anything, her diction became more precise as she drank. "I was a youth-vanguard leader, of course. Then it was army, church, or industry. Since Ving Junior went army, and Kirbee got her master's
in production, we had that dried-up old prune of an priest sitting me down for improvement, effort, humility, care, and acceptance". Valentine's ears picked up movement in the darkness as she listed the church's virtues. You were supposed to touch forehead, right shoulder, right hip, left hip, and finally left shoulder as you said them. Her words faded as she spoke. "Man in his unnatural state. Spiritual recycle. Can't believe how much of that crap I remember. Didn't even try to learn it, but I can still recite the Truths word for word".
Valentine listened to her breathing until he too drifted away.
He woke, a little, when she got up to use the bathroom. He woke further when she returned and slipped into his bed. She nuzzled his ear.
"Object?" she asked.
Her clean-smelling skin enticed, and her hand knew what it was doing. He felt an erect nipple against his tricep. "Ask a silly question ...", he said.
She tested him with her grip. "Nice answer. Not a bit silly. Drop in.
He recognized another Iowaism, but one Valentine had never heard breathed in his ear, only secondhand from guy talk over beers.
"Not so fast", Valentine said, beginning a series of kisses down her neck. He hadn't touched a woman in over a year. Might as well enjoy the opportunity.
* * *
