Elodie wondered if it was a trap, waiting for him to reach through the barrier and seize her hand or her throat and hurt her, but as the seconds passed and Gunner did nothing more than watch her, she closed her hands over one of the rations and tugged up the extra length of her jacket. She twisted to face him dead on and ate the food out of the prying eyes of the others. Satisfaction wasn’t the only thing messing with her head, but shock.
Why is he feeding me?She couldn’t meet his gaze.
When she was done, and after hiding rest of the rations in her pockets, she asked, “What do you want from me?”
He leaned back, and she realized he had been hiding her from view as well. Her chest squeezed and she suddenly wanted to move closer to him. It snapped her back to reality.
That’s exactly what he wants me to do.She jerked back.
“I want you to help me pass the time,” he sighed. “Distract me.”
Elodie hummed and nodded. “I’ll try.” If he was willing to give her food, then she could at least talk to him for a little while. “So what do you want to talk about?”
“What did you do before this?” Gunner asked, waving his hand. The question was innocuous and took her by surprise.
“I was a machiner, like most of the others here. I maintained mining tech at all stages of the process, it’s what I was trained to do and what I’m good at.”
“So you like machines...”
“They make sense, they don’t change, and you don’t need to be anything but what you are around them. Once you learn what you’re doing, what you need to look for, how to maintain it, there’s nothing more you need to know. They’re easy.”
“Yeah they are,” he laughed under his breath and she was unsure why. “So machines... It’s what you’ve done your whole life?”
“Yes.”
“And you like what you’re doing?”
Did she? “Sure.”
“I just don’t see it. How does someone like you get into a field like that? And mining of all things... Can you do a more boring job? Although doing machines doesn’t all have to be boring.”
Elodie narrowed her eyes. “Someone like me?”
“Forgive me. I phrased that wrong. Someone so clearly ill-equipped like you to go into a field like that? You seem more,” he paused but continued before she could interject, “more like the type to go into—I don’t know—something less physically demanding? Like medicine. Or food service...”
She sat back, her body settling against the wall as she debated on how to answer. She slid her hands back into her pockets and curled her fingers. Her dad came to mind, and the long hours of her youth at his side. He was the reason why she did what she did, learning the trade that he worked in because it was easy, and because there’d been nothing better to do. Once her mom died, he signed on for an extended multi-year contract with the government, knowing full well he wasn’t returning to civilization, or to her if she chose to stay behind. Elodie let his choices become her own and not a day had gone by where she wasn’t sure if she regretted it or not.
He dressed her up like a boy, sheared off her long hair, and bought her new clothes. Even as a child she knew what he was doing and never argued or fought against it. Chesnik never offered her another option and she never really tried to pursue it. No one fought him on his choices, not since her mom died, and she became his apprentice, a young boy learning his father’s trade. The persona was easy and involved little effort on her part.
For years it worked, flawlessly, going from one job to the next, moving unnoticed like all worker bees did. Until she got her first period and her body started to change.
“I’ve offended you.” His voice jolted her back to the present.
“I was thinking... I joined because it was my dad’s trade and it was easy.”
He leveled her a hard look that she couldn’t read. “That answers one thing. I really didn’t want to call you an idiot for terrible vocational choices.”
That made her bristle.
“But I’m still confused on why you stayed.”
Because I knew nothing else!Elodie wanted to shout at him. She hated that he voiced her own brewing questions so easily. She gritted her teeth and clenched her hands, feeling the tension rise before letting it go.
“I stayed for my dad,” she said.
“And where is he now? Dead?”
“He’s somewhere on this ship,” her voice wavered. “And now I don’t know if he’s dead.”
