Luna: New Moon

‘I watch over you, remember?’ After Ariel was brought out of her artificial coma her family had buzzed around her. There hadn’t been an hour when one or more hadn’t been at the bedside, holding hands, smiling, there even when she slipped back into the long healing sleeps the medical team had programmed for her. Over the hours, the days, the demands of the company drew them away. The vigils became visits. The media mob at the door flew away, the entourage dissolved. In the end, Marina sat the hours in the ICU. She feared the solitude, that would not be able to escape from the face of the man impaled on the spike but she found the watch peaceful, healing. Time away from people and their wants. She could accommodate what she had done to the man who tried to kill Ariel. In time she might justify it.

‘Well you look like shit,’ Ariel says. ‘And what are you wearing?’

‘Clean stuff. I like it. It’s comfortable. And you can talk.’

Ariel’s laugh is a dry, bitter bark.

‘God yes; be a dear and get me some make-up? I’m not facing the moon like this.’

‘Already ahead of you.’ Marina hooks the zip-case out from under her chair and sets it on the bed. It’s only a Rimmel Luna travel-pack, one upgrade from budget, but Ariel opens it with the impatience and excitement of a New Year present.

‘You are a treasure.’ Ariel’s eyes soften as she regards her face through Beijaflor and surveys the restoration work. Abundant thanks for the cosmetics, not a word for saving your life, Marina thinks. ‘And where is my ever-loving family?’

‘Planning a wedding,’ Marina says. Ariel jerks upright, then collapses back in pain. ‘Are you all right?’ Lipstick rolls from Ariel’s fingers.

‘No I’m not fucking all right. I think I tore something. Where’s the doctor? I want a human. Get me some pain relief.’

‘Easy.’

A nurse arrives at speed and bustles Marina away from the bed. Marina catches glimpses of Ariel’s exasperated face as the bed is reset, the monitors checked, the dosage administered. The cosmetics are repacked and parked on a table out of reach.

‘Give me those,’ Ariel commands when the nurse is gone. She applies foundation, eye shadow and liner; mascara in careful, precise strokes. Ariel’s ritual transformation of her face is a reclaiming of her body, a degree of control in an environment, a body outside her command. Finally, the lips. Ariel turns her head from side to side to catch every angle of her restored face.

‘So: my nephew. Who’s looking after the nikah?’

‘Lucas.’

‘Lucas! The kid’s fucked. Get him over here. Now. Has he signed anything? Gods save us from amateur matchmakers.’

‘The doctors say you’re still very frail.’

‘Then I’ll fire those doctors and hire ones who have a bit of respect. What am I supposed to do, lie here and gaze up at the ceiling and have Beijaflor play me womb-music? It’s my legs don’t work, not my brain. This is therapy. Beijaflor, get Lucas over here.’

External communications have been restricted on medical grounds, Beijaflor says on the common channel. Ariel shrieks in exasperation. The nurse returns and is driven from the room in a fluster by Ariel’s bellow. Marina turns away to hide her delight.

‘Marina, coração, can you get Lucas for me?’

‘Already done, Senhora Corta.’

‘I keep telling you: Ariel.’

The cry wakes Marina. She’s in the corridor, running while Hetty is still informing her of the alarm in Ariel Corta’s room. Ariel has been moved from the ICU to a private room up on the former Corta floor. The level is airy and quiet and secure. Machines walk or flit by, sniff Ariel’s vital signs, drift on. Marina’s momentum carries her into the room and hard into the wall beside the bed. Medical bots reach out from their hatches in the walls to examine her. Superficial bruising, no lasting trauma.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I heard – Hetty alerted me.’

‘Nothing!’

The bed again brings Ariel Corta into a sitting position. Hetty displays diagnostics but Marina can see the fear in Ariel’s wide eyes, the tightness of her breathing, the resentment in the set of her mouth that she should be found like this: unseemly.

‘I’m not going.’

‘Nothing. No. I saw him.’

‘Barosso …’ Marina begins. Ariel holds up a hand.

‘Don’t say it.’ She gives an exasperated sigh, fists clenched. ‘I see him all the time. Every time anything moves; the bots, someone in the corridor, you; it’s him.’

‘It takes time. You’ve had a trauma – a serious trauma, you need to heal the memories …’

‘Do not give me that therapy-speak, healing shit.’