Trolley Problem III

He glanced at Makis, then back to me. “Why is she…er…why are you staying in her home? You’re not related, are you? And what are you?”

“I’m Koteran, mixed with down south. As for staying here, I was really down on my luck.” I sighed, looking up at him through my lashes. “Makis here was kind enough to let me stay…she saw me in my heyday, when I did a lot of performances, and we got acquainted.”

“Papers?”

I held out the fake ones that Ky’cina had given me, which stated my name as Fu Nao-mi.

“This says you had family in the capital. What happened to them?”

“We were never going to live in the same house, only near each other. And it turned out I couldn’t pay the rent in that area.”

“What happened to your leg?”

I clearly wasn’t Sai-ee. The guard should be going around and investigating the room, but he’d gotten an obsession with me instead. The aura thing was working.

“It was a hunting accident.”

“I thought you people didn’t hunt.”

“Well, I was more like the hunted, sir.” I stretched, letting my bangles glint in the sunlight.

“Your outfit looks like Ek’Sai’s.”

“I’m Koteran, and he’s Koteran, sir. We’ve got the same dress sense.”

“Have you seen him?” The soldier held forward a fuzzy black-and-white photo of Sai-ee.

“Only from a distance.”

He put the photo back in his pocket, looking conflicted on having to leave. “If…you ever want to contact me, I’ve got a mailing address…” He scribbled down his address on a piece of paper and handed it to me.

“I’ll keep it in mind. I’ll write a letter if I see Ek’Sai, in any case.”

“It doesn’t just have to be Ek’Sai. It’s my personal address.”

“Got it.” I smiled winningly at him.

The soldier flushed, looked awkward, and left.

“What are you wearing?” Makis asked me after he was gone.

“Just something new Jayla picked up for me.”

“Good, your clothes had gotten raggedy.”

Why did everyone keep saying that?

“In fact, I’ve been meaning to offer—I have some of my daughter’s old clothes. Would you like to look at them and see if there’s anything you like?”

That sounded great. Sai-ee could handle being in the closet for a little longer while Makis was here, probably, and some new clothes really were a good idea. They’d at least make me less recognizable (to Ky’cina and her people), if nothing else.

Makis went and got three different outfits, which was the amount of clothing the average person living in the capital would have, total. Two were markedly smaller than the others—so she’d grown out of them, then, explaining the volume.

Genatyi had pioneered block printing in this world, covering fabrics with pictures of animals and flowers instead of the geometric styles on Indian fabric from my original world. Their clothes had long sewn sleeves and folded in front, being secured by ties and a belt; pretty much like a yukata. Trying the first one on, I felt like I was getting dressed up for the multicultural festival back in my hometown. I missed running around underfoot at those, meeting stranger kids who liked my outfit and begging my mom for some money to buy gulab jamun off the neighboring stall.

“You look nice in that,” Makis told me.

Her voice sounded odd, a little choked up. I asked cautiously, “...This belongs to your daughter who was in jail, right?”

Makis nodded.

I laced up the two arm bracers that went with the outfit in silence. “Check it out.” With the help of my crutches, I did a slow spin so she could see how it looked.

She wasn’t looking. Her face was buried in her hands.

“H-hey, I don’t need these clothes, you can keep them!”

“No, it’s not that. You just…remind me of her. Keep yourself safe, please.”

I took her hands in mine. “Of course I will.”

I ended up taking a black robe printed with blue flowers, accompanied by cream almost-white bracers and a blue-and purple belt. My hair, which I’d generally kept short, had grown out some in the last few months and now brushed my shoulders, so I tied it up with a ribbon.

After Makis left, I let Sai-ee out of the closet.

“Everyone’s gone?”

“Yep. It worked.”

“You don’t look like anything special, not like me.”

I had dropped the aura some time ago, and told him so.

“Sure, sure. Nice outfit. Can I have mine back?”

I returned it to him.

Throughout the day, he was pretty unyielding. He didn’t speak much, though he asked for lunch around one pm. Mostly, he flopped around the bedroom; which was also what I’d been reduced to doing as I healed.

A flicker of excitement returned to our lives with Jayla’s return that evening.

“Check it out.” I tugged at my collar, smiling at her. “I look nice, right?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“And me?” Sai-ee asked.

“No, in private.”

“Figures.” He flopped back down.

Outside the bedroom door, I whispered, “What’s this about?”

“I gotta ask you something about Sai-ee. If I—If he died, what would happen to all that stuff he’s powering?”

“...I don’t know.”

“You know, it would cripple Ry’keth. And I think—I think you do know what would happen. You know so much stuff, and you’ve never told me why, and I’ve never complained, but—!”

This was a legacy of being way too obvious, huh.

I chose my words carefully. “Jayla, would you kill him?”

“Well—if it was the practical thing, maybe—I wouldn’t want to, but I don’t know if I could deal with the guilt, of knowing I could stop the guns, and the tanks, and the Ry’keth Empire, from killing any more people, and deciding not to.”

I sighed. “There’s no such thing as a single kill button that’ll take down the empire.”

That was true, in a sense. Cutting off the power from Ry’keth technology without a defined strategy would fuck up the quality of life of millions of people while not causing a decisive victory.

In any case, I wasn’t telling the truth.

“If Sai-ee dies, his power sticks around.”

“You promise? You really know?”

“Yes, I do.” I said those words, trying to keep everyone happy, trying to keep everyone alive.