I lift my bum off my seat, open my mouth wide. ‘Uugghh!’
I point inside my mouth, threaten her with the never-before-seen stump of my tongue.
Meirong grabs on to Janeé’s shoulder, holds her spoon up like a shield. Tamba begins to laugh, half delighted, half frightened that the lion might ignore the whip and eat the pretty trainer in lycra.
I sit down, shut my mouth. Janeé begins to gurgle, then a hurricane of laughter blows against her huge hull so she tilts alarmingly. The pendulum tips. Janeé snatches at the table, but she misses. I hear the thump of her shoulder as it hits the rig. Her legs try to cartwheel over her head, but their weight drags them back. Her pointed boots with silver buckles sway next to Meirong’s head. The table, I am glad to say, conceals the territory beneath her dress. Meirong pins Janeé’s knees together – saves her dignity while Tamba and I jump up and lower Janeé’s legs to the rig. Meirong falls forward and lands on Janeé’s hip, sits there like the cook is a tranquil park bench. Meirong begins to laugh in a high musical trill, the sound of a fairy who has drunk too much nectar. Tamba takes her hand and pulls her to her feet, honking with laughter. A strange sound issues from me. It is deep, yet open-hearted, arrestingly masculine. It is me, Malachi, laughing a mature man’s happy laugh, no trace of stones, no grit, no globules of grease caught in it.
I kneel behind Janeé and push with all my might while Meirong and Tamba pull on her hands. Janeé gets her thighs beneath her hips, struggles up. The world is right again.
Janeé sits carefully on the metal bench, holds on tightly this time, smothering her smile. ‘Look what you did, Malachi.’
Meirong nods, sniffing. ‘Yes, your fault, Malachi.’
Tamba wipes his nose, an old snorter’s reflex.
Olivia walks into this aftermath. She stops dead and stares at me, still on my knees. ‘What’s happening?’
I get up and take my place at the table.
Meirong sniffs up a trickle of happy mucous. ‘Uh . . .’ she falters.
Tamba says, ‘Malachi got angry and he kind of . . . roared.’
Olivia’s laugh stops at her big bunny teeth. ‘Roared?’
Meirong nods. ‘And Janeé . . .’ She starts to giggle again.
I suppose it’s a kind of laughing incontinence. Janeé begins to hoot. ‘Whooo . . .’ She pats the bench next to her, invites Olivia to sit. Olivia sits down like the bench might be booby-trapped. Janeé gets up and attempts to serve her some supper but a strange whoop keeps blowing from her.
Tamba tries to sound sensible. ‘You kind of had to be here.’
‘I was getting the antibiotics ready. We’re very close, you know.’ Olivia stares at me, analysing my chemical consistency. ‘Is he okay?’
I nod at Olivia. Fine. But I hold up a finger. Just one thing. I pinch my purple shirt, mime vigorous hand washing. They all watch me for a few moments, completely astonished.
Meirong guesses, threatening to burst with exuberance. ‘Rub a dub dub!’ She tries to lock her laugh away, but it trills from her little body.
‘Don’t start me,’ Janeé warns her. ‘Don’t start me!’
Olivia tells me anxiously, ‘There’s a clean-dry machine through the recreation lounge. Cycle seven is the quickest. There’s a packet of powder next to the plug.’
Olivia’s worry shames everyone into a strangled silence.
Meirong shuffles, clears her throat. ‘I must go.’ She hurries away from the childhood she must have missed in the orphanage.
I sigh. And it all started with a poor girl dying of thirst.
‘Malachi, do you want to come and play Sleeping with the Enemy?’ Tamba asks hopefully.
I hold up my purple hands. Not me.
‘Olivia? When you’ve eaten?’
Olivia takes a small nibble of pineapple. She shakes her head. ‘Not in the mood.’
‘Come on. It’s an old one. You probably cracked it when you were ten.’ Tamba turns to Janeé. ‘Come, Janeé.’
She starts to lumber up. ‘I’d love to.’
I make it out before the two of them are even on their feet. Tramp down the passage to fetch my dirty laundry.
* * *
I carry my clothes back past the canteen, past the laboratory. I sense rather than see I have dropped a sock. I turn back to search for it, a sudden desperation seizing me.
There it is, black and beaten, lying limp. I pick it up.
How did my mother die? Rock. Scissors. Fire?
I stumble up a staircase that must lead to the recreation centre.
* * *
A brown sofa has already closed around Janeé, as if to stop her from toppling again. The War Console controls look tiny in her grip as Tamba explains the weapons, the strategy: ‘We’ve got to infiltrate Syria and get back our VIPs.’
Janeé presses her knees together, breathes hard, her thumbs ready to rescue hostages with a rocket launcher. I hurry through the lounge to the laundry room, employ the same concentration to try and work out the clean-dry machine. Cycle seven, Olivia said. I force the dial. There is an anonymous white powder in a clear plastic sack that stinks of sweet, sweet chemicals. The sound of shooting tears up the sofa behind me. I spin, stare through the door at heads flying, blood hurtling in red orbit around a standing torso. I drop my washing on the floor. Fight not to pee.
‘Use your Blind Eye perk!’ Tamba shouts.
Janeé’s thumbs have the madness of an American General in them. I drop to my knees, shove my clothes into the belly of the clean-dry machine. Scatter some powder on top. Quickly!
Ratatatat. Thump. War comes with its own cartoon sounds. I bang a switch that says, Start. Please, God.
The clean-dry machine clicks, contemplates having mercy on me. A red light flashes, then the sound of the sea gushes in.
‘Aah,’ Janeé exclaims at the catharsis of killing a cybernetic soldier.
I crash out of the recreation room. Tamba and Janeé both turn their heads in time to see me run.
Run.
I run like the
