Shit.
Taziri stared at the little girl and the little girl stared back at Taziri under the pale morning sky as a cool breeze whipped across the yard.
Two minutes. I just needed two minutes. Just two minutes!
Taziri half-crouched and half-leaned with her back against the side of the Halcyon and her feet spread out in front of her with her pants around her ankles. The early morning light filled the yard with a dusty yellow glare.
The one time in my entire life that I try to go to the bathroom outside…the one time!
The little girl must have been about eight or nine. She was short and thin, and her dark green dress hid her body in a flutter of loose cloth while a light green scarf clung to her black hair. She stood perfectly still except for her clothes, which flapped back and forth as the wind shifted around them. She had just run around the back of the Halcyon and froze there, staring.
Why? Why are you here? Taziri thought as she pulled up her pants and got her clothes properly arranged.
The back corner of the rail yard where she had hidden her machine and had tried to empty her bladder was a dead end, walled in on two sides by the crumbling window-less brick walls of two ancient storehouses. There was nowhere to go, no reason for anyone to be here. There were no flowers to pick, no lost toys to retrieve, no dog to chase. And yet the girl had come running into sight as though she was chasing something important enough.
Or being chased by something scary enough.
Taziri heard the light patter of running feet somewhere at the edge of the yard near the train station. The girl’s staring eyes grew wider and wilder. Her lip trembled.
Damn it.
Taziri lunged forward to grab the girl’s wrist and yanked her back to the open hatch. She lifted and shoved and threw the girl inside and leapt in behind her, and closed the hatch as quietly as she could. The girl lay on the floor, still staring. Taziri crouched by the hatch, her revolver in hand, waiting.
Five young boys about the same age as the girl ran into view, glanced around the corner of the rail yard, and ran off again. Taziri exhaled and holstered her gun.
She looked at the girl. “Bullies, huh?”
The girl said nothing.
“Do you speak Mazigh? Mah-zee?” She tried speaking slower. It didn’t seem to help. “No, I guess you wouldn’t.” She sat back and straightened out her legs.
The girl scrambled forward, babbling loudly, gesturing wildly, and then she reached for the gun. Taziri grabbed the revolver with one hand to pin it in place and shoved the girl away sharply with her other hand, her left hand. The brace on her left arm jarred against the girl’s chin, and the girl fell to the floor with a gasp and a sob.
Taziri stared. Her sudden terror at the thought of a child playing with a gun became the shock and self-loathing of a parent who had let a child come to harm. Who had harmed a child. It didn’t matter that the girl wasn’t hers. She was someone’s.
“I’m sorry.” Taziri shuffled over to her and touched her arm. “Sorry.”
The girl looked up, once again frozen and frightened.
“Here. Look.” Taziri shrugged off her faded orange flight jacket and rolled up her left sleeve to display the brace. She tapped it with her fingernail. “Metal. You see?”
The tube of the brace completely covered her forearm from elbow to wrist, and steel rods on the brace connected to the padded and fingerless glove on her left hand to help hold her hand in place, since her wrist could no longer do that for her. “I was hurt.” Taziri frowned as she tried to mime a chopping motion on her arm. “Hurt. Fire.” She wiggled her fingers for flames.
The girl tilted her head, more confused now than afraid.
“Fire?” Taziri wiggled her fingers again and pointed to the brace. “Fire on my arm.”
The girl said something, probably in Eranian. It was so quick that Taziri couldn’t tell how many words, or even how many syllables it had been. But then the girl leaned closer, gingerly touching and poking the brace.
“Here. Look.” Taziri laid her arm across her lap and released the little clasps on the side and the brace swung open on its tiny hinges. The top half swung up to reveal the hidden gun compartment and the bottom half swung down to reveal the hidden toolbox. And in between, they saw the shriveled and bandaged remains of Taziri’s arm.
The girl gasped and pulled back.
“Fire.” Taziri wiggled her fingers for flames. “Burn. Arm.”
The girl nodded.
Carefully, Taziri closed the brace and snapped the clasps shut.
The girl wrapped her arms around her knees and stared at the metal walls around her with large dark eyes.
“First time in a train?” Taziri smiled. “Yeah, I know, they’re not much to look at from in here, but out there, when she’s running, well, that’s something to see. And when the whole world is sailing by five thousand feet below you, well, that’s something to see, too.”
The girl pointed at the hatch.
“You want to go? Okay. I guess that’s all right.” Taziri peeked out to make sure there were no lurking boys outside, and then she unlocked the door and swung it open. “Go ahead. And be careful out there, you hear me?”
The girl scampered to the hatch, smiled, and jumped out onto the sun-soaked gravel. Taziri watched her run off. “Be careful,” she said softly.
Taziri sighed and slumped back into her seat and stared around the cabin. “So, just you and me, again.” She reached into her jacket and pulled out one of her smaller wrenches. “Let’s tighten some bolts.”