Chapter Text
2031
The eve of the revolution
He knew next to nothing about her.
But the things he did know were imprinted on him so deeply they would never leave.
Here in this rattling hell that passed for the world, there was nothing but stink and shit and misery. He knew precisely the depths to which humanity could sink, here, on the spinning edge of existence. He saw people beaten to death, starved to death. He watched plagues lay waste to half the population, saw bad batches of protein blocks wipe out the sick and elderly.
He knew his place. He knew where they need to keep him. At the back. At the bottom. The tail. The foot.
But wasn't life a bitch? Turned out even a shoe like him had some value to those fancy fucks at the front. Maybe their gene pool was stagnant already. Maybe she just prefered his stink to some fat fuck who’d never had to fight for anything in his life.
He had his own code of conduct, hard won. He didn’t fuck girls. He didn’t do anything that could result in more train babies. He understood how others did, how the loneliness and desperation could drive you to search out even the tiniest bit of comfort or contact. But he couldn’t. Not after everything he’d seen. Not after everything he’d done. He couldn’t watch some other poor shit, every bit as retched as himself, give birth in this stinking squalor, knowing that the kid had no life, no hope. He’d seen too many kids die, or be pulled out of count, and taken away, never to be seen again. He knew far worse had happened to others. He’d done far worse to others.
So, he took himself out of that cycle. Walled himself off.
He wanted to hate her. Sometimes he succeeded, but never for long. The hate would sustain him until she crawled into his bunk at night or until the guards pulled him out of line and tossed him in some quiet closet. And then she was there and he would give her anything she wanted so long as he could touch her.
Lucky for him all she ever wanted was his time and his cock. They were pretty much all he had.
She smelled so good, like flowers and soap. She tasted like what he thought might be mint. She felt so soft that he just wanted to sink into her forever.
She wasn’t for him. He understood that the first time he saw her. Her skin was golden and he knew that she saw the sun. She might as well have been a completely different species from him.
He was pretty sure the first time she found him it was a mistake. He still doesn't know how or why she was there. Maybe she was bored. Maybe that was what passed for adventure if you were a kept woman from the front of the train.
She seemed startled to find him. Maybe she was going to chicken out. Maybe she was expecting someone else. But Gilliam had sent him there, to that deserted bunk at the end of the car.
She didn't speak. All she did was touch him and he was lost.
He saw her a lot at first. Had her a lot. She was the first bit of joy in his life for as long as he could remember and he lost himself in her for weeks.
And then she disappeared. A year at least. And he hadn't understood. Not a bit.
Not until he saw her again. Saw the network of stretch marks marring her once perfect skin. She had his kid. That was why she needed him. At least he knew. That was more than he had before.
He tried, then, to talk to her, tried to find out about her life, about the baby. A frown puckered between her brows and she answered him in French, which didn't do him a fucking bit of good. But he always suspected that she understood him. He figured maybe it was his penance. Maybe he didn’t get to know anything about babies after the things he’d done.
He did make sure of one thing, though. He got her name. Anna. And she had his. Curtis.
It took longer the second time. Months instead of weeks. He had more time to learn what pleased her, what would set her on fire. Then she was gone, as abruptly as the first time. And he couldn’t help imagining some fat fuck grunting on top of her while she was heavy with his child.
He never asked Gilliam why he sent him to that bunk. He thinks maybe Gilliam thinks this can even his balance sheet, by bringing more people into this shithole of a world. He knows it will never even out. He can't ever make up for the lives he took.
But if she wants his kids, God damn him, because he'll give them to her. Even with all the blood on his hands.
There are three now, he's pretty sure. Two girls and a boy, admitted in one of her weak moments when she couldn't keep up her pretense of ignorance. A long time ago, he resigned himself to the fact that he would never see them, that they would never know who their father really was. That really hasn’t changed. Even with the coming revolution. He will fight. He will do everything in his power to take the engine. But he’ll probably end up dead.
In his weak moments, he does wonder. What would it be like if he could take the engine? What would happen if he could take all that was his?
He’ll probably never know.