The Wingless Girl Part 2

Well...here's the rest of what I have of chapter one, so far. Again, I'd like reviews...and I really hope I'm not taking this too fast. With that said, go ahead and read! And review.

Rated for a tad bit of language.

The Wingless Girl Part 2

It had taken Ira Dirinel three days to get permission from the superiors to visit the specimen again. Currently, aside from Dr. Irvin's twice-a-day visits, only one scientist a day was permitted to examine the girl. Dirinel was surprised that his visit had been accorded such a high priority by the superiors--most of the scientists were there to run tests on the specimen, not chat with her about her world.

Dirinel had hardly been idle during the three days between his first visit to the girl and the second. Dr. Irvin had placed him and the other neophytes working under him on an exhaustive--and exhausting--regiment of equations and calculations, all geared to finding out how exactly such a large and complex form as an organism could possibly pass between dimensions. They had made zero headway so far. Dirinel's trip to the girl couldn't have come at a better time.

Not to mention that Dr. Irvin continually behaved in a bizarre, almost creepy manner around Dirinel. The young scientist was reasonably certain that Dr. Irvin had never asked any of his other (mostly female) neophytes for dinner together or an evening watching a flyball game. To Dirinel, it almost seemed as though Dr. Irvin was trying to get a date with him...but they worked together. To date would jeopardize their professional relationship, and thus Dirinel had shot down every single one of Irvin's requests so far.

The elevator came to a shaky stop, and Dirinel couldn't help the sigh of relief that escaped him. He hated the cramped elevator...it reminded him of traveling in elevators as a child, the days when his wings had been little more than fluffy stubs. How often he'd wished for his wings to grow already, so he could fly like adults did...

Once more, he found himself musing about how a people without wings would live. They would probably have to use elevators all the time, just like children.

"Doctor," said the technician at the machines. Dirinel inclined his head in her direction and stepped inside the room. He looked around--it was exactly as it had been three days ago, when Dr. Irvin had taken him here, with the machines and wires and the smell of damp earth and the girl, crouched inside her prison, glaring at him with murderous intent in her black eyes.

"Hello," said Dirinel testily, trying not to notice that the girl did not have wings, no wings at all, nothing protruding from her back...once more, he unconsciously brought his own wings closer to him. "How are you?"

The girl laughed--a harsh, short, bitter laugh that echoed around the room, even muffled as the sound was by the containment field. The technician actually jumped in surprise.

"Ah ha ha ha! The first one to ask how I'm doing, I see? So I'm not just a 'specimen' anymore, hmmm? Let me go!" And suddenly, with renewed rage, she was hammering at the containment field again, roaring and cursing.

"Shut up," said Dirinel shortly, watching the specimen with a sort of horrified fascination. He couldn't tear his eyes away--she had no wings--how would it feel, he wondered; he felt sick.

"I'd like to hear about your world," he added. The girl continued to glare at him.

"It's a whole hell better than your dumb world with all you winged freaks," she snarled. "We don't need to fly--we've got better things--freak--"

"Calm down," said Dirinel softly.

"Give me one good reason! One good reason!" howled the girl. "Make me shut up! Make me! You're just like the Leaders, telling us to do stuff, but you ain't got nothing to back you up, nothing at all!"

Dirinel sighed. It appeared that he would make little, if any, actual progress with this girl. Once more he doubted that she came from another universe...perhaps she was insane. That sounded about right--she had been born defected, without wings, and mentally unstable as well. Was this Dr. Irvin's so called "proof" of interdimensional travel? Very poor proof indeed, to just snatch up a wingless mental patient from an institution and plop her in the below levels of the Fortress.

Enough of this, Dirinel thought, turning around to leave. The technician gave him a nervous glance but said nothing. Dirinel reached out to punch the button for the elevator.

"Hey, where you going, huh? You just leaving? Thought you wanted to hear 'bout my world, or did you not?" Dirinel turned around. The girl was glaring at Dirinel, eyes fierce and dark, anger and defiance written in her every feature. He dropped his arms to his sides and faced her again.

"Make it quick. I've been only promised a half-hour, and the elevator trip took almost ten minutes, so I estimate around twenty, maybe fifteen minutes. Well?" Now he was entirely skeptical--he would simply be treated to the ramblings of a crazy, defected girl. He felt a vague, uncomfortable twinge of pity for her--she didn't deserve this, to be dragged from her institution into a prison where people pretended she was from another universe.

The girl, frustratingly enough, did not even speak of her own world. "Your weird winged people world. Everyone here's a scientist or what?"

Dirinel shook his head. "No. You're just at the Fortress, our premier institute for scientists."

"Institution." The girl gave an irritated twitch. Dirinel blinked.

Oh ho, so she was from a mental institution. Well, Dirinel wouldn't be playing by Dr. Irvin's cruel bluff anymore. First thing when he found Dr. Irvin again, he would order Irvin to return that poor girl to the insitution that she'd come from, or even her family. No one, not even a wingless insane girl, deserved to be paraded around naked like a "specimen". Even a senior scientist like Irvin didn't have that right. It must be against the law...

"Institution? So you come from an institution," said Dirinel calmly, convinced now that he was on the road to the truth. He would have sat down in front of the girl to get more comfortable with her, but the floor was made of raw, damp earth.

"Was. I mean, was born there, did live there." The girl was scowling at the technician now, though Dirinel had the suspicion that this was because she just didn't want to look at Dirinel. "Trabel Temple. Everyone pretended like it was a nice place where all the Brothers and Sisters were so kind and taught us and fed us and stuff, but the truth don't lie. It was just a fancy institution. Like where they put crazy folks or prisoners or whatnot. But we weren't crazy, weren't prisoners. We were just orphans, that was our lot of bad luck."

Trabel Temple...Dirinel had never heard of an institution called "Trabel Temple" before, but perhaps it was a minor, privately owned one rather than the huge, state-operated Societies. And Brothers and Sisters? Dirinel wasn't aware of any religiously run institution, but there must be many...

"You lived there with orphans?" he said.

"Yeah, are you dense?" snarled the girl, slamming at the containment field--in vain, of course. "We were all orphan kids. Taught a trade, duh. But you wouldn't know, huh? Would you, in this world. About Temples and shit."

Dirinel winced at her language, and then checked his watch. "If you could kindly compress your explanation to ten minutes, I'm all ears."

"'Compress'"." An ugly scowl crossed the girl's face. "'Coooommme-press'. Big words. Reminds me just of Jak. Big words an' everything, that was him. Totally out of his place. But anyway...Temples. There was a plague, see, lots of years back. Like...ten or twelve or so. It killed lotsa grownups, but not kids. It just didn't kill kids or all, so there were lotsa orphans when the plague was over. So that's when the Temples opened."

Dirinel nodded, waiting patiently for her to go on. Once more, he found himself running his hands along his wings, though the girl's lack of wings was beginning to trouble him a little less now. But still...how did they get around without wings? He very badly wanted to ask her this, but she seemed so intent on her explanation of the Temples that it seemed cruel to interrupt.

"They said they took up us orphans an' taught us trades an' educated us, prepared us for the outer world and crap, but none o' that was real. Oh they taught us trades, all right, if ya wanted to be a farm hand or milkmaid or whatever. We were all right by a farm, all us kids, that was Trabel Farm. And them farmers just took us an' used us as free workers. Slaves. They ain't even got slaves anymore! They freed all the slaves. But no one cares about a buncha orphans! They could use us as slaves. It sure's hell didn't matter to them."

Part of Dirinel--most of him--wanted to leap up to the girl at that instant, and order her to stop, she was saying such things, and they didn't sound like they came from another world, but from this very world, Dirinel's world, his own youth. But another part of him was so horribly fascinated by what the girl was saying...and that part prevented him from moving, even though most of him was cursing that girl, for opening up those hidden, long-suppressed barriers...

"That was the Temples. They took in us plague orphans. Plague rats was their favorite name for us. An' there were them Leaders. I told you Jak you was just like a Leader, big words an' everything. Big words but ain't nothing to back them up! They were nothing but traitors, them Leaders. Older kids. They got paid for being Leaders, for bossing the rest of us around like some slavedriver or something. They didn't care about the rest of us. Hell, why'm I even telling you this?"

Yes, why, why? Keep your secrets to yourself! Dirinel felt mutinous, murderous, even though he knew it was irrational. Irrationality was the bane of every scientist--he must do better to suppress it. It was hard, though, when this girl presumably from another dimension was essentially describing his very own life...

Another irrational thought hit Dirinel that moment: Was she psychic?

Ridiculous, he told himself, and stood there, glaring. She glared back. For a long, long while, though it couldn't have been less than a minute, neither of them spoke, but glared at the other in sullen silence. Not all was silent--the machines hummed incessantly, and the technician was working them with a little more gusto than was necessary, but perhaps she just didn't want to hear.

"I don't want to talk about the Temples, see."

Dirinel jerked--the girl's words had startled him. He couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief--good, because he did not desire much to hear about these "Temples". Replace "Trabel Temple" with Northing City Children's House, and there's no difference...

"But I've gotta," continued the girl, and for the first time she did not sound angry, bitter, defiant. She sounded...not resigned, but confident. Confident and poised, staring up at him with those sharp coal-dark eyes. "I've gotta. That was what Jak always said--don't hide away the stuff you don't want to talk about. It helped make you you, is what Jak said. So...I guess I'll keep talking about the Temples. You wouldn't understand the resta my story, anyway, if I didn't."

"Time's up," said Dirinel hollowly, as his watch beeped.

The girl went on, either not having heard Dirinel or just ignoring him. "Guess I oughtta start from the beginning, huh? Like, haven't told you my name, have I?"

Dirinel blinked at her, surprised by the girl's new tone. It wasn't friendly, exactly, but most of the harshness had left her face, and when she gazed at Dirinel there was none of the corrosive hatred shining in her dark eyes, but merely something that resembled curiosity.

"Name's Dorothy," the girl said, making a motion with her hand as if holding it out for a handshake--but of course there was the containment field in the way. She dropped her hand back to her side. "Dorothy Maxwell."

So now the girl had a name, this wingless girl from an institution--an institution so much like the one in which Dirinel had spent his childhood years. Dorothy Maxwell...he made a mental note to search through institution logs when he had some spare time, just to confirm that she really was a mental patient from his world and not some creature from a parallel dimension. Granted, "Dorothy Maxwell" might not even be her real name...

The girl, Dorothy, tilted her head to the side, her expression expectant--but Dirinel couldn't fathom why. Couldn't, until he realized that she must want him to return the courtesy. Coughing, slightly embarrassed, Dirinel inclined his head to her, and said, "Dr. Ira Dirinel."

A split second later, he realized that he was wearing his nametag and really needn't have bothered with the greeting.

"Ee-ra?" said Dorothy, blinking. "Ah, thought it was 'Eye-ra'. Still sounds girly either way, if ya ask me."

Against his will, Dirinel felt a scarlet heat rise in his cheeks, and it took him several seconds to collect himself. Damn it, she's just some--some mental patient! What does it matter to you if she thinks your name is...girly? Still, he'd always been somewhat sensitive about his unusual name, and this girl saying it so blithely like that...

It brought back memories of his childhood, of the oily-metallic smell of stew and the dingy lunch halls and Robby Nichols behind him, kneeing him in the back, keeping up a buzz of whispered taunts in his ear: "Little girly Ira, sissy boy, what'cha gonna do, gonna cry, gonna tell on me, little girl--"

Dirinel shook his head to clear it, angrily telling himself that he had left behind the Children's House forever and he was now a scientist, a full-fledged PhD, goddammit, working in the Fortress for a princely salary, while Robby Nichols was probably collecting manure on the streets or painting houses or the ilk.

"I dunno who my 'rents are." Dorothy was still speaking, oblivious to Dirinel's trip down memory lane. "Don't matter, though. They died in the Plague, just like the 'rents of all the kids in the Temples. Musta been ten years ago. I been living in Trabel for all my life, 'slong as I can remember. Guess that makes me one o' the lucky ones, though. Lotsa kids, they still remembered their 'rents. It was real hard on them, 'cause they knew something better. Least I didn't know anything better'n the Temples, so I couldn't feel sorry for what I lost."

Dirinel sighed internally, shifting uncomfortably and checking his watch again. He had to get Dorothy to put a stop to her narrative, soon--not just because he didn't want any more reminders of his childhood, but also because he had already gone over his prescribed time with her. He wasn't entirely sure, but felt that his superiors would be angry at him if he dawdled too long down here...well, maybe not Dr. Irvin. But still, Dirinel had only been at the Fortress for three weeks and wanted to make the best impression he could on the superiors who really mattered, not just some department head like Irvin. And that meant following all the limits and restrictions they placed on him.

"Like Natalia--fancy name, we all just called her 'Nat'. Or 'the Gnat', if we were really in a mean mood. She was a little older'n me, fourteen or so. Always weepin' 'bout how much better it was in her mansion with all her servants and poodles and whatnot. A real pain, she was--" Dorothy was still babbling, unconscious of Dirinel's increasing agitation. Dirinel sighed, and decided to cut Dorothy's rambling recollections short.

"Well...I'm sure as fascinating as your life at the...ah...'Temple'...might be," he said, "you do realize that I'm operating within a time limit. And I've just gone overtime."

"What the hell's that mean?" said Dorothy, but she didn't sound as bitter as before; she seemed more irritated than anything.

"It means I have to leave now," said Dirinel.

"Aww, c'mon, don't give me that crap," said Dorothy discontently, her mouth twisting in an unpleasant scowl. "If you're bored just go ahead and say so; what I really hate is when people don't wanna hurt your feelings or whatnot so don't tell you what they really think. Like Jak. He was always doing that, drove me nuts."

As carelessly stated as her words were...Dirinel was perceptive enough to see through the casual pretense into the vulnerability beneath. She might not want to admit it, but Dirinel realized that Dorothy truly had been--hurt. Hurt by what she considered Dirinel's disinterest...

Of course he hadn't intended it that way, but he felt a rising sick sensation in his stomach all the same--a sick sensation accompanied by a strong stab of empathy. She really was, for all her cursing and bitterness, just a little girl, probably not even a teenager yet, a little girl who had to live with the added burdens of winglessness and mental instability. Once more, he found himself pitying her condition...stuck in a containment field, treated like a "specimen", all for the sick satisfaction of Dr. Irvin...

"I meant it," he said, keeping his voice soft, and trying to meet her eyes--hard to do, when she was doing her best to burn a hole through the damp earth ground with the force of her glare. "I wasn't bored--far from it. I would like to hear more--but I'm not lying about the time limit. I've gone overtime. I need to leave now."

For a moment longer, Dorothy kept her gaze on the ground. But only for a moment; she then looked back up, meeting Dirinel's eyes. There was no hurt on her face at all, just the usual impatience and irritation. "All right," she said shortly. "Then go do whatever ya scientists do. Stick more needles in more folks, I guess. Ya winged freaks. With girly names," she added, almost as an afterthought.

Dirinel sighed and slipped his hands into his pockets, casting one last glance at Dorothy--who was now gazing disinterestedly in the technician's direction--and turned around and began to stride back towards the elevator. He gave the technician an acknowledging nod just before he reached the elevator, which she returned, somewhat distractedly, as she was still busy working the machines.

Just after Dirinel punched the button for the elevator, however, Dorothy's voice sounded sharply from behind him:

"Hey--! Ira! Ira!"

Dirinel whipped around so quickly that his neck almost cracked, but he was too startled by the usage of his first name to care. For the longest time, he had been addressed just as "Mr. Dirinel" (mostly by professors) and more recently as "Dr. Dirinel". No one had used his first name in years...so hearing this girl address him so casually by name came as a shock. He took a few deep breaths to steady the violent thudding of his heart, before trusting himself to speak.

"Yes? Quickly, if you must. Also, would you please address me solely as 'Dr. Dirinel', thank you very much."

Again, a scowl twitched across Dorothy's face, but she then shrugged in a resigned way. "Okay, geez, whatever ya want, Doctor D."

Doctor D. Well, it was an improvement, but...not much of one.

"Well?" said Dirinel, somewhat impatiently. Still, he had to leave soon...he wished Dorothy would understand that, but he supposed that her world didn't have so deep an apprecation for punctuality as his did...

No--what was he doing, thinking like this? She didn't come from this other world with its plagues and Temples. She was just a physically deformed, mentally unstable girl from an institution in his world. He mustn't get sucked in by Dr. Irvin's deception...

"Just..." Dorothy seemed to struggle for words for a moment, before swallowing and continuing. "Just...hey, you are gonna come back, aren't ya?"

Dirinel blinked at Dorothy, unsure of how to reply. Once more, he was seeing the vulnerable child beneath all the bitterness and ferocity. After a while, he managed to find his voice, enough to force out, "...if all goes well, hopefully. I--" And then, wildly, out of the top of his head, he added, "I would like to hear more about you. About--about the Temples and such. Your world."

He had no idea what had prompted those words, and the instant they left his mouth he felt heat rush to his face again. What an idiot he was, playing along to this mental patient's unfortunate delusions...

To make things worse, Dorothy didn't reply for an inordinately long time; she just stared back at him, blinking, her dark eyes unreadable. Dirinel began to feel uncomfortable at her wordless scrutiny, his blush intensifying, and he drew his wings closer to himself, as if trying to protect himself from her gaze. A very small part of his mind began to wonder when the elevator would get here...

And then, finally, Dorothy spoke. "Ya know...Doctor D...you really don't seem like such a bad sort. I mean, for this weird winged people world. You ain't so bad. Almost you remind me of Jak, an' I mean that in a good way."

Once more, Dirinel could scrounge up nothing to say in reply. He knew that he'd just been paid a compliment--a compliment he ought to regard highly, as he'd known Dorothy for less than two days (less than two hours, really...), and she seemed by nature the sort who wasn't loose with her compliments. Yet he felt he couldn't fully appreciate her compliment. Because Dorothy had just compared him to somebody Dirinel didn't know, a "Jak", who must have meant a lot to Dorothy but was just a faceless name to Dirinel.

Before Dirinel could spew out some mindless, token, reply, a meaningless thanks or something similar, a loud clattering sound behind him announced the elevator's arrival. It was all Dirinel could do to suppress a sigh of relief, and he paused only to flash Dorothy one last glance--which she didn't return--before stepping inside the tiny box. The door whooshed shut, cutting off the scent of damp earth from the basement chamber, though the tang of sea salt only intensified.

Once inside the elevator, Dirinel collapsed against the wall, folding his wings tightly around his body. His knees shaking, he sunk to the bare floor, burying his face in his hands and wrapping his wings tighter, locking opposite pinions together, struggling to trap warmth around his body. He took several deep, rattling breaths of air so cold it stabbed painfully in his lungs, and no matter how deeply he breathed he couldn't seem to fill his lungs.

And nothing could stop the shivering. On a dull level that was still able to think logically, he knew that he was shivering not because of the cold but because--because of everything had transpired in that tiny chamber lined with machines and reeking of damp earth. The conversation with the girl Dorothy Maxwell, from whom he'd only been trying to get information on the other world she presumably came from...but had instead devolved into this, this unwelcome resurfacing of everything he thought he'd sworn to leave behind when he had first left for university, ten years ago...

Damn it, what the hell were you thinking, becoming a scientist--if you can't even be impartial, what right do you have to be within these walls--you must be impartial, impartial, impartial, you must use your logic, damn it, be dispassionate, don't let anything affect you, who cares if what that girl--what the specimen--said made you think about the Children's House again, who cares, who cares, damn it--

Damn it, Ira Dirinel, what sort of scientist are you?

He shivered violently, and his shoulders shook as a wild sound halfway between a dry sob and a harsh laugh echoed through the elevator.

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Yeah...so please review. In particular, I'm worried about my characterizations of both Dirinel and Dorothy...and whether Dirinel's breakdown was too uncalled for or whatever.

Thanks in advance, all who review!