We are Programmed to Receive

[Rasp]

Things, Anthony reflected, could have been easier.

It wasn't that he didn't like a challenge. In his former life he hadn't exactly been a power-house of activity, but he had been far from lazy, and single-handedly running a store presented its own challenges on an almost daily basis.

Nothing quite like getting an impossibly introverted, red, mute, obviously mutant girl into a hotel though.

That was a new one.

Getting her to follow him up onto the boardwalk had been difficult enough despite the tourist flow ebbing away as night settled in. If it hadn't been for the obscuring cloak of darkness, Anthony suspect he would still be stuck on the beach trying to coax her out from her hiding place.

As it was, he was opening the door to a twin room in a hotel that, while not exactly luxurious was also far from a dive. Apparently the credit rating on whatever account Mr. Lensherr had given him access to more than covered the risk of giving a room to a couple of mutants. Anthony suspected the girl on the reception had mutant sympathy leanings anyway.

She'd looked the sort.

Anthony glanced over his shoulder to his silent, wide-eyed charge and gestured with his head into the room.

The little red Jawa had followed him all the way here, just a few more steps and this leg of the journey would be over.

[Penance]

Penance had gone into a mindless state of following the man all the way to the hotel, so much so that she didn't even remember how they got there. She suddenly looked around as if she had just woken up.

The man put his hand towards the room, like how he had motioned for her to come with him on the beach. She had come this far, hadn't she? Could this place be any worse? Or was this a trick? What if he was trying to lock her up again? What if she couldn't remember the trip because he had done something to her? Was this a trick? Was it?

Without warning, Penance tore the jacket from her head, slicing it to ribbons on her fingers and hair. Hissing through her teeth, she pounced at the man!

[Rasp]

Anthony went momentarily wide eyed in shock as the girl leaped toward him and he instinctively threw his arms up in front of his face to protect his face. He had seen exactly how sharp those claws could be and had no illusions at all about how badly injured he would be if she struck him.

With that firmly in mind he threw himself backward into the room and scrambled along the floor to the opposite wall.

It wasn't a luxury room by any stretch of the imagination, but it was comfortable, the twin beds evenly spaced and facing a single television perched on top of a wooden dresser.

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" He cried as he moved, "calm down! I'm not going to hurt you!"

He kept his arms up and hands open in the hope she would understand the message.

If she didn't, things would get messy very quickly.

[Penance]

The man jumped back into the room, throwing up his hands in fear. Penance had never scared someone on purpose before, and the feeling that it created inside her wasn't a pleasant one. She stopped her attack at the doorway and looked inside at the man laying on the floor, staring at her with wide eyes and shock on his face.

Was she wrong? Was this truly kindness and not a trap? Had she betrayed him?

Penance glanced down at the shredded coat he had given her earlier and furrowed her brow. She crouched down and picked up the tattered fabric in her hands, then looked back up at the man.

Slowly, ever so slowly, she placed a foot in the treshhold. Then her other. Then she was creeping across the room towards the man, looking down at the pale brown carpet with sad eyes. She held the destroyed coat out to him and looked away.

[Rasp]

Anthony breathed a sigh of relief and took the mangled coat from her hands with small smile. She was obviously way outside of her normal environment, though he hadn't expected the effect to be quite so dramatic.

She looked very sorry for herself.

"Hey," he said gently, "don't worry about it."

He got to his feet and dropped the remains of the coat into the bottom of the wardrobe. Then he pulled open the curtains and stared out at the city lights. The dazzling splendor of Coney Island blazed a couple of miles away.

"Check it out," he said and pointed, "the view's not half bad."

[Penance]

Penance joined the man at the window, staring out with wide eyes. She had never seen so many lights, so many colors, so much...anything! She looked back and forth between the man and the colors of the city, then noticed the tiny people on the sidewalk. If it were possible, her eyes would have gone even wider.

So many people! So many...cars? She thought she remembered that word. She smushed her face closer to the window, pushing her little nose against the glass. A thin whine emitted as her nose, even as small and round as it was, scratched the glass as she slid from side to side, following the movement on the streets below.

[Rasp]

Anthony grinned at her child-like glee, so very different from the frenzy of mere moments ago and he forced himself to remember what it was like to be tired, lonely and afraid.

He wondered how long she had been living under the boardwalk on Coney Island, where she had come from and how she had got there.

He stepped away from the window and dropped his pack by the bed before throwing himself down onto the soft bed which obligingly bounced him up and down for a second or two.

Then he picked up the television remote and clicked on CNN.

Ah, the joy that was cable.

Something else he had sorely missed.

[Penance]

Penance glanced away from the window as the man plopped down on the bed. She turned her whole body away from the window then, now interested in the bouncy blue thing. She snuck another peek at the city lights, then reached for the bed. Just as she was about to touch it though, a blast of light and sound came from her left.

Penance jumped straight up, glaring at the box that was screaming at her. There were pictures on the box, moving and changing, and all sorts of brilliant colors. Her first instinct was to pierce the angry screaming box with her fingers, ending it's loud and annoying life forever, but she restrained herself. Her arm twitched as her body begged her to kill it, but she had seen how shredding things helped very little in the world outside the Dark Tower.

Instead, she sat on the floor and leaned her head against the side of the bed, so gently that her hair barely cut the comforter at all.

[Rasp]

Anthony noticed the girl twitch as the television blared on and hoped that they were not about to have a repeat of the earlier shred-fest. Happily, no shredding occurred and she instead sat down at the end of the bed, staring at the TV.

Close one.

"See, life outside of Coney Island isn't all bad," he said with a smile.

He turned the volume down several notches, not wanting to risk distressing her further if something particularly loud came on. Like Rambo. Or Rubi Wax.

"Just wait until you try a real bed, trust me, I don't think you'll ever want to go back to the beach."

He noticed how her spiky hair was cutting into the fabric and frowned a little.

"Not sure what we're going to do about that dangerous hair of yours though, I'm pretty sure it isn't going to be good for the mattress. Maybe you should, I don't know ... sleep on your side or something."

He scratched his head.

"Or ... you could sleep on the floor and put the covers over you, even carpet is going to be softer than the beach."

This all hinged on the idea that the girl slept at all, an idea that hadn't even occurred to Anthony.

[Penance]

Penance watched the moving pictures on the box, the colors flickering and changing, and her eyes began to close. The man, behind and above her, talked to her, but she understood little of what he said. His voice, combined with the hypnotic box, soon was combined with the sound of more ripping and then a soft thump.

Penance had fallen asleep, sliding down to the floor and creating new large tears in the bed.

Soon her snores filled the room.

[Rasp]

Anthony kept one eye on the TV and one eye on the girl and smiled as she slowly drifted off to sleep. She had probably had as much adventure in this one day than she'd had before in her entire life.

He hopped down from his bed a switched the television off before dragging the slightly torn duvet from the second bed and covering the sleeping girl.

"Sleep well," he muttered softly.

Then he returned to his own bed and turned out the light.