“It’s in the report,” one of them said.
“Tell me…” Dorian said, a threat in her voice.
The green haired one said; “Okay, I’ll tell you again. Your brain has suffered a lot of trauma, we were able to repair most of it, but it would be dangerous to transplant your brain again because of all the damage you did to it with hard drugs, second-rate cybernetics, sonic and other trauma. Your brain has been restored to remarkable condition, but it’ll start falling apart if you try to move it again, I’m sorry. You can go to a Frame Logic facility and they can try to change this body into a man using genetic manipulation and surgery. They’re experts, the outcome will be perfect, just like this outcome, despite your misgivings, is perfect. It would still be healthier to stay in this body as it is for at least a year. We modified your genetics so life will be easier, your head will be clearer, and decisions will be easier to make. You'll see; you were suffering from a number of psychoses that were brought on by trauma but you were already genetically dispositioned to. We've set your memories up so you can deal with the trauma on your own and corrected the genetic problems. If you start changing this body, you could inflict more trauma than you can handle. Please keep it as is for at least a year, you'll learn to enjoy the person you've evolved into.”
“A year? I…” Dorian stared at the green haired nurse, brow furrowed, mouth working. Spin had to admit; Dorian was absolutely pretty. Taller than her, but perfectly proportioned. Her face looked healthy, expressive and alluring. “…I don’t know why,” Dorian said quietly. “But getting cut up and changed again is fucking terrifying.”
“There, your mind is opening up to the idea of being who you are now, including your change into a woman,” the other nurse said. “That’s all that’s happening. The body changed according to a pattern determined by your own mind, so it suits you, guaranteed. Just keep an open mind and you’ll be fine.”
Nigel stood and started to cross the room, Spin and Boro followed several steps behind.
“Here’s the friend who brought you in. You should thank him. People literally kill for the kind of transplant you just survived, and the price is deeply discounted. That upgrade normally costs millions, but you got it for only three hundred fifty thousand. The addiction treatments, imbalance correction and gender reprogramming are worth half a million alone, and we performed all that gratis just because we wanted the best outcome for you. It’s not your fault that we were out of male bodies and you were about to suffer critical damage, so we made it right. I’m sorry if that’s not enough. Have a good life,” he said as both nurses retreated through the yellow doors. The sound of latches sliding closed so the doors were locked securely were loud enough to fill the room.
Dorian turned towards Nigel and looked startled for a moment. Spin wished everyone else waited with them instead of returning to their ship. A bigger crowd to greet Dorian may have been better.
“I’m sorry, man, it was the best they had. They didn’t have any…”
Dorian slapped him suddenly and stared as Nigel staggered for a moment then straightened up. Her near-black eyes watched him, only a little anger showing on his face.
“They said you were out of time,” Nigel explained. “It was that, or you’d be gone, and I’ll pay for this, no problem.”
“He did right by you,” Boro added quietly.
“Listen, it could be worse; you could be in one of those basic, jobber clones, or in a suspension system waiting for medical advancements, or, well, dead,” Nigel offered. “Man, I’m so sorry, but…”
Dorian slapped him again, but from the other direction. It was slower, but a more full-on hit, filling the room with a resounding clap. Spin flinched, watching Nigel stagger in a small circle, holding his cheek. He stood up straight suddenly, taking a step towards Dorian with his chin up. “Okay, get it out of your system,” Nigel said. “As many slaps and punches as you want. I know I have it coming, this isn’t like the practical jokes we played on each other when we were kids, you’ll realize I did it to save your life eventually.”
To Spin’s surprise, Dorian punched Nigel in the mouth, crushing both his lips against his teeth and sending him reeling back. Boro caught him and snickered, surprised. “She got ya.”
“Holy hell!” Nigel said, wiping his mouth and trying to shake the hit off. “Okay, okay.” He steadied himself on his feet again, pointed his chin out and put his hands behind his back, his eyes closed. “I’m going to be your punching bag until we start talking this out.”
Dorian stared at Nigel looking a little surprised and a little annoyed for a long moment. She started breathing heavier then, and a tear ran down her cheek. Her lip quivered, and other tears followed silently.
“Whatever abuse you want to lay on me, I’ll take it,” Nigel said, not opening his eyes or moving at all.
It took a lot of restraint for Spin to watch instead of embrace Dorian as she started to cry in earnest. Then she finally leapt at Nigel, who yelped in shock, expecting the worst. Instead, Dorian wrapped her arms around him, sobbing; “I hate you so much! I’m sorry I hit you! I’m so confused!”
“Welcome back to the human race,” Boro said as he stepped in and embraced them both. Spin joined in moments later.
“I think I’m gonna need help,” Dorian told her through a shower of tears.
“You’ll get plenty if you join my crew, Dorian,” Spin soothed.
“Okay,” she replied. “Maybe a new name too.”
“Dori, maybe?” Nigel asked.
Dorian’s head came up, she stopped crying, then she shook it and resumed sobbing. “I don’t feel like a Dori!”
“Okay, okay, it doesn’t have to be Dori, anything you want,” Nigel retorted, sounding like he was near panic.
Fifteen
The shuttle Gavin and Skylar were escorted to was broad and had two decks for passengers. A quarter of the seating had been converted into some kind of medical bay. For hours they were told to sit still and be silent. Through the crystal-clear strips of transparent hull that ran the length of the passenger cabin they were comfortably seated in, Gavin could see two spiral buildings rising from the ocean.
The skin of them, whether they were metal, some kind of stone or something else, changed colours as the sun moved across the sky – blues, greens and yellow played over darker violet shades – and Gavin had to admit they were beautiful. There was a layer of brown and green scum built up where the waves crashed against the gargantuan buildings, and everything he knew about Issyrian worlds told him that it indicated something wrong. He didn’t know much, though, so when the guards in gold, black and red outfits moved to the main doors of the shuttle, he asked Skylar about it. “There’s something really wrong with this. That scum isn’t normal, and the buildings are empty.”
“I bet there isn’t a single Issyrian left on this hemisphere,” she said. “The water is corrupted, I saw the scan result on the way down. If we drank an ounce of what’s in that ocean, we’d be sick for days. A litre would kill anyone.”
“They wouldn’t do that to their own planet, would they?”
“Never,” Skylar said. “Not even if they knew someone else was about to take over. Not even if they all turned warrior tribe. Issyrians don’t believe in a scorched earth policy. Their whole culture is built around how they live on after death in the water.”
“I remember you reading that to me,” Gavin said. “They share emotions with each other and communicate through the water whenever they can, absorbing microscopic pieces of each other and leaving others behind. It even enriches the water for other life forms, so when an Issyrian dies the others can feel them for years or longer if the ecosystem is healthy.”
“I remember you read me the Prince Dario and Princess Grace story in return, and I couldn’t decide which was more romantic,” Skylar said, taking Gavin’s hand before looking back through the window. “I think someone poisoned the Issyrians here. There were probably a couple billion if the rest of the world looks like
this. I’m sorry we didn’t get to meet them.”
“They’re friendly?”
“They normally greet outsiders with curiosity. Sometimes they even offer good hospitality if they’ve learned to trade with guests, but there are still many who made their colonies and quietly exist without visitors of any kind for centuries. At least, that’s what the Royal Archive said, but our tutors couldn’t answer the question of; ‘how could we know if they don’t have visitors if we haven’t visited them?’”
“You used to frustrate our tutors all the time,” Gavin said.
“So did you.”
“I’m sorry I panicked.” Gavin said, choosing that as his moment to apologize for his behaviour aboard the command ship. “I just never dreamt of anything so savage.”
“I understand,” Skylar said. “I was stunned too. You have to promise me that you won’t let yourself fall to despair like Toby if something were to happen to me.”
“I don’t understand how he took his own life,” Gavin said. “You don’t have to worry. We’ll both be fine, though. I still wonder if we shouldn’t try to escape. This is an odd situation; I can’t understand why we’re both being held here. Most of those suits are just guarding the shuttle.”
“We need a better scanner,” Skylar said. “Or at least to get a good look at some results. My guess is that even the ground is poisoned here. There should be forests of some kind on the land, but when we were coming down I only saw moss and tiny sprouts.”
There was a commotion at the hatch and a woman in a bridge officer uniform matching theirs was brought in on a stretcher. Her side was packed with foam, and judging from the wound, it looked like a whole chunk of her was burned away. Her arm on that side ended above the elbow. It looked like it was burned off as well.
Soldiers in plated, sealed black and red uniforms bore her in, dropping her on a gurney. “Farrah!” Skylar shouted, rushing to her side.
As soon as she said the name, Gavin recognized the dark-haired woman. Gavin tried to hold her back but didn’t stop her in time. Before she could reach the gurney, one of the soldiers backhanded her hard enough to send her back against Gavin, who caught her awkwardly. “Stay clear,” he said.
Four more armoured soldiers carried a wriggling bag into the back of the shuttle. Judging from its shape, Gavin guessed there was a human in there, most likely in good health judging from how he struggled to escape. They dropped it from hip height and marched back out of the shuttle.
“Everyone clear, I’m deploying the Framework Pod,” the soldier with a bit of gold on his helm said as he backed away from Farrah. A transparent enclosure wrapped around her, and beams of light pushed through the foam some medic sprayed into Farrah’s side to stop her bleeding, through the burned flesh, and began to rapidly regenerate or print – Gavin wasn’t sure – new tissue and bone. In as much time as it took him to breathe three times, Farrah was whole again with a new, perfect right arm to replace the one she’d lost.
“Those are all the synthetics we could find,” said the soldier with the gold mark on his helmet as he pressed something on his wrist. “Take off.”
All the hatches on the shuttle closed and the shuttle lifted off from the ground, the sound of rumbling thrusters around them faintly. “Gavin, look,” Skylar said as she pointed through the transparent section of hull behind Farrah, who was starting to wake.
A pair of long, rounded arms extended up from a crude metal base in the distance. “It’s an emitter system,” he guessed. The gold helmet soldier turned to him, and he put his hands up.
“You know what that is?” the commander asked.
“Just a theory,” Gavin said.
“What’s it about to do?” the soldier with the gold mark asked, raising his rifle. “You have a theory, I’ll hear it.”
“It could be extending its arms to reinforce the shield,” Gavin guessed.
“Guess again,” the soldier said.
“Maybe sending power wirelessly to another emitter station.”
“Sounds like he’s seen this before, Commander,” one of the soldiers watching Farrah said.
The Commander lowered his rifle and nodded at Gavin. “Just for my amusement; take one more guess.”
“It could be forming a circle so it could create a Wormhole Gate,” Gavin said, hoping he was wrong. If that was the case, and they were going through it, then the Royal Family would have no idea where they were. The kilometre-wide mothership appeared ahead of them, its stingray shaped hull was pointed towards the extending arms. They joined, forming a circle and the view of the ocean disappeared, replaced with one of outer space. “We suspect these gates were built by Lorander so they could open a wormhole in an atmosphere to outer space while keeping the atmosphere intact. Air stays where it is, but ships and other solid objects can pass through.”
“Congratulations, synthetic; you just became important,” the Commander said. “I’m guessing her specialty is diplomacy?” he turned to Skylar.
“Biological life, military history and a few other topics,” Skylar replied, touching her fat lip gingerly.
“Not bad. Considering your people nearly compromised our base of operations here, I hope you’re both good at your trades. You’re joining the Citadel Division of Sol Defence now.”
“What about Farrah, and whoever’s in the bag?” Gavin asked. Their shuttle docked to the underbelly of the mothership as it moved towards the looming portal with a resounding clack.
“They’re synthetics too, so they’ll find a place with us somewhere, even if they’re as dull as a deck plate and we have to reprogram them,” the Commander replied. “Don’t worry about it, though. If you two are as smart as you seem and join us after we show you what we have to offer, then your minds will remain intact. Theirs too, if they don’t resist. Considering you were just freed from slavery to an obsolete regime, you should find life with Citadel refreshing.”
“Our Prince treated us like family,” Gavin growled. “We wanted for nothing and served with pride.”
“We know,” the Commander laughed. “We’re interrogating him – well, his brain – aboard our ship. We managed to capture the robot ship that was carrying his grey matter. He only had good things to say about his synthetics.”
Gavin started to stand, hearing the fate of his Prince, discovering that he was still alive after a fashion was almost too much, but Skylar elbowed him hard and shook her head.
“Seems you had two masters,” the Commander laughed. “At least now you only have to serve her.”
Gavin tried to shake the insult as he watched the wormhole grow closer and closer until they entered. They left the planet behind, the darkness of space filling the view around the shuttle. Whatever force the Royal Family sent after them would only find danger and the wreckage of their sad day.
Sixteen
To Shamus McFadden, or Shamus Frost as he preferred to be called, secrets were important. They could be traded, they could do a lot of good if revealed at the perfect time, but they could also do incredible damage. As Stephanie hurled a vase that couldn’t decide whether it was orange or yellow, and Shamus ducked, he suppressed a smirk at a thought that he would keep secret for the rest of his life if he knew what was good for him.
Stephanie Vega, the love of his life over any other he’d had the luck to charm, looked beautiful when she was furious. He would take that thought to his grave. Her dark, stormy eyes squinted at him, and he realized that he had let that hidden smirk surface. “What is that about?”
He knew what she was talking about, and he resumed his straight-faced worried look. “What? I was just dodging a lamp.”
“A vase,” Stephanie said. “What were you smiling about.”
“It wasn’t so much a smile as a constipated look of concern,” he retorted, trying to close the distance between them again.
Stephanie pointed at him with a freshly manicured nail. She and Ashley had just returned from their first spa day together in, well, ever. As soon as Frost to
ld her the news, those false nails started looking more like claws that were painted red to hide the blood to come. “It’s just a quick trip. They’re loaning me a ship and a pilot so I can pick my brother and his crewmates up then come right back.”
“Do you really think that’s why I’m angry?” Stephanie asked.
More than anything, Frost wished Ashley would emerge from their spare bedroom. She always had a way of calming Stephanie down, while Frost had a tendency to make these fights last longer. It was questions like that, like the one she just asked, where he had to guess the answer and no matter what he said, it would be wrong. “You’re angry because you’ll miss me?”
Stephanie took a quick step forward as though she was about to physically attack him, making Frost jump, then she turned and screamed in aggravation. “You came home with your mind made up!” she wailed. “It wasn’t a discussion, you didn’t ask me if I wanted to go with you, there was no lead up, you just said…”
“I gave you the news just like you’ve told me to a hundred times; without beating around the bush, and as clear as I can,” Frost said, realizing that interrupting her was not the best idea.
“You said; ‘Looks like my brother’s in trouble, so I’m going to the core to pick him up, it shouldn’t take more than a few days. You’ll barely notice I’m gone.’ And then you started packing!”
“Well, sooner I go, sooner I’m back?” Frost offered.
“Shamus!” she barked. “Can’t you see this is my worst nightmare? Where I come from most of the mothers, even mine, were single! Sure, some were widowed because their husbands were off in the resistance, but half of them, probably more, just ran off when they heard the four-letter word; baby!”
“Do you want me to marry you?” Frost asked sheepishly. He heard Ashley burst into laughter in the next room. “Hey! No peanut gallery! You’re in this or you’re out!” he shouted at the closed, but obviously too thin door, of the spare bedroom.
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