by Eliza Green
Jason pulled him back down.
‘Rover is under my command,’ said the old man.
Thomas nodded to Carissa. ‘And hers apparently.’
The Inventor placated him with open hands. ‘Trust me. I wouldn’t have brought the Guardian here if I thought he could hurt us.’
Thomas appeared to settle, but his wide eyes said he was still nervous. ‘Okay, but I don’t have to like it.’
The Inventor turned to Carissa. ‘Go.’
Carissa drew in a long breath and blew through pursed lips. It sounded strong and sharp. But no wolf came. She relaxed her mind and tried again. Nothing. She emptied all thoughts of Quintus from her mind and tried again. Nothing.
She blew out a breath and closed her eyes. She searched for her security files, but they were no longer accessible since she had disabled her link to the city. But Quintus could contact her, so did that mean her NMC had fixed the damage done to it? She shook away that thought. If Quintus planned to hurt her friends, he would not get to talk to her again.
She remembered playing with her orb within the city’s confines. She imagined playing with Rover instead, him hiding and her calling him. Then she whistled.
A thundering noise broke her out of her thoughts.
Her eyes shot open to see a metallic face with a part organic tongue lolling to the side peering through the door. Rover’s eyes were set wide with anticipation. He bounded inside the room, almost knocking Carissa to the floor. She laughed and patted Rover on the nose before commanding him to sit. He did and she looked around her. A shocked Thomas took the recorder from a smiling Inventor, while a chuckling Jason hooked up the new recording to the machine. Rover’s mechanical breathing filled the quiet in the room.
Jason played the command silently to the orb. It twisted on the table, then hovered in the air. He turned it off and it dropped to the table once more.
‘Well done, you two,’ said the Inventor with a clap of his hands. ‘We have our command frequency to control the orbs from the city. And now we can set a new command to control this orb.’
24
Dom
Dom punched the boxing bag until the pain in his left arm receded. Recalling what the medics had done to him in Praesidium came out in flurries of anger during moments of confusion. Kaylie being here confused him the most, but he couldn’t blame her arrival for why he’d singled Warren out in training. If he was being honest, his actions hadn’t been about Anya either, but to claw back a sense of control that continued to elude him in the camp.
He punched the bag harder, imagining the male medic’s face there, the one who’d lied to him about his mother being alive. Never would he be a victim again. Half his life had been spent under his father’s unrelenting control.
Evening approached and emptied the courtyard of soldiers. Sounds from the dining hall drifted through the open door as the rebels sat down to dinner. This was the time he loved most, when it was just him. No distractions, nobody demanding something from him. He just wished thoughts of his time as a prisoner wouldn’t mark these quiet moments.
The second he stopped boxing, the dulled pain intensified suddenly and shot up his left arm into his shoulder. He winced at the constant reminder of what they’d done to him.
A sound at the door alerted him to company. He paused before his next punch.
‘What did that bag ever do to you?’
He turned to see June Shaw standing there. She looked paler than before, but he guessed that’s what happened when you got food poisoning. According to the camp’s lead medic, June was hit with a bad strain of it.
Just her, nobody else.
He wiped a layer of sweat from his brow. ‘Just working out my issues.’
She entered the open-sided space, heading towards the stationary bike. Dressed in casual clothes, she carried a towel under her arm.
‘I was hoping to do some light training this evening.’
He didn’t think she looked well enough to train. ‘How are you feeling? What did you eat exactly?’
June shrugged and tightened her ponytail of fine, blonde hair. She walked over to the bike. ‘I ate and drank the same as everyone else. It must have reacted with something I was given in Praesidium.’
Dom nodded. That made sense. None of them knew exactly what drugs the Copy medics had fed them. ‘Maybe. Keep it light this evening, just in case. We might be heading out tomorrow.’
June’s eyes widened. ‘Really? I heard Anya’s brother was working on something.’
Dom nodded. ‘Thomas and Jacob too. A way to control the orbs that might try to pinpoint our location.’
‘Well, that’s one less problem to worry about.’ She climbed onto the stationary bike and began to pedal. ‘I’ll make sure I’m ready by then.’
‘Just take it easy, Shaw. I know how competitive you can get.’
She blew a raspberry. ‘No more than you, Pavesi.’
She sped up, ignoring her earlier remarks about doing light training.
Dom returned to the bag and hit it again. The action numbed his left arm for a while. But he couldn’t keep hitting the bag just to chase away the pain. The second he stopped, the pain returned to his arm, making it difficult for him to form a fist. He turned his limb one way, then the other. His skin had been fully repaired with no hint of a scar. His arm looked perfectly normal.
June let out a sudden cry. Dom’s gaze shot over to her. She had stopped cycling and was doubled over the bike.
He ran over to her and eased her off the seat. ‘I told you to take it easy.’
June looked up at him, panic in her eyes.
In a whisper, she said, ‘Take me back to the medical bay. Something’s not right.’
She cried out again.
‘Shit, okay.’
He looked around for someone to help, but it was just the two of them.
Despite the pain that made his left arm throb, he lifted June up into his arms and carried her back to the makeshift hospital.
Sweat formed on her brow. ‘I probably could have walked there.’
‘Not on my watch. Besides, I’ll get us there faster.’
He felt June jerk in his arms. His grip tightened, which only intensified his pain. The medical facilities were just a short walk from the courtyard, but with June in his arms and an aching limb, it might as well have been miles away. His muscles strained against her weight as he used his back to open the double doors.
The female military medic looked up in surprise.
With a frown, she said, ‘I just released her.’
‘And now she’s back.’ He carried her over to the nearest bed, his muscles blazing with the worst fire ever. ‘Whatever you did for her, it didn’t work.’
He placed a writhing June down on one of the beds.
The medic stared down at her. ‘I just gave her saline. She was dehydrated. There’s nothing physically wrong with her.’
Dom nodded to June. ‘Clearly there is.’
Another pain shot up his left arm and he winced.
‘What’s wrong with your arm?’
Dom flexed his fingers, which eased the tight feeling a little.
He blinked and said, ‘Nothing. Just look after her.’
A second medic, a young man, rushed over and both medics dragged whatever equipment they had, which wasn’t much, to her side. IV drips, a skin repair tool, plus other simple items formed the basis of this much needed hospital. What he wouldn’t give to have access to the superior equipment in the city.
The female medic inserted a needle into June’s arm and fed her something. Morphine possibly.
But it only caused June to buck and writhe more. ‘No! Something’s wrong. Take it out.’
The medic panicked and yanked out the needle. She rolled up her T-shirt to expose her belly.
Dom jerked back when he saw movement under her skin. ‘What the hell’s that?’
The female medic stared at it in shock. ‘I don’t know.’
She reac
hed out her hand slowly, then touched June’s belly. June turned her head away. The imprint of a small hand against her skin appeared, then disappeared.
‘Is she... pregnant?’
The female medic snatched her hand away. ‘Looks like it.’
That didn’t make sense. ‘But how? She wasn’t paired with anyone.’
The soldier looked at her colleague. ‘Unless they injected her with something.’
Carissa would know. Dom turned to get her, but the pain in his arm blazed, fading to leave his arm numb.
‘Oh shit...’ His limb dangled uselessly by his side. ‘What’s wrong with my arm?’
The male medic steered a shocked Dom over to a spare bed and sat him down. ‘It could be the tech they put in you. Your arm was in bad shape when you arrived. It’s possible your immune system’s rejecting it.’
But that couldn’t be it. Jacob had injected fluid from the Guardian wolf so his body would accept the changes.
‘Well, whatever it’s doing, it can wait.’ He pushed the male medic away. ‘Get Carissa and Jacob. They’ll know what to do for June.’
The medic ran off and returned with the Copy and the man she referred to as the Inventor.
‘Holy god,’ said a shocked Jacob as June cried out in pain again. ‘What happened here?’
Carissa went straight to June’s side. ‘What’s wrong?’
When June wouldn’t answer her, Jacob spoke to the medics. ‘What’s happening, please?’
‘June appears to be pregnant.’ The female medic shook her head, as if it were impossible. ‘And Dom’s left arm is paralysed.’
Jacob gave Dom a glance as if to say he’d deal with him later. To Dom’s relief, he tended to June first. Jacob spoke to the Copy who looked terrified standing by June’s bed. ‘Carissa, what did they do to her?’
The wide-eyed Copy stepped back and hugged her middle. ‘She was to act as an incubator for a foetus. They may have already implanted her by the time we got her out.’
Jacob visually examined her belly. ‘Why is it growing so fast?’
‘They sometimes implant a hormone capsule to continue growth while she’s out of the growth accelerator machine.’
Jacob nodded and looked at both medics. ‘Okay, so we take the foetus out.’
Carissa shook her head. ‘It’s not possible here. The machine you would need to extract the foetus is in the city. If we take it out, we could end up killing it.’
Dom couldn’t believe the Copy was advocating to save the life of an unborn freak over June. ‘But it could kill June, if it’s growing as fast as you say.’
The female medic agreed with him. ‘He’s right. Her body isn’t built for that kind of rapid change.’
The doors opened and Max and Vanessa burst in.
‘What’s going on?’ said Max, striding over to June’s bed.
Jacob explained, ‘June was inseminated before we left the city. The foetus is growing too fast for her body to cope with.’
‘I was afraid of this.’ Vanessa shook her head. ‘We found her on a bed. She had IVs stuck in her arms. Carissa, do something to help her.’
‘What can I do?’ said the Copy.
Dom watched from his bed as they decided June’s fate. As his lifeless arm lay dead by his side, something occurred to him from his time under the knife. ‘The Copies, they don’t age. Could Carissa have something inside her to stop the growth?’
Jacob’s eyes widened. Both Max and Vanessa looked relieved at the suggestion.
Vanessa said to Max, ‘If we can stop it from growing too fast, it will give her body time to adjust.’
‘Adjust?’ said a terrified June. ‘I don’t want to be pregnant. I don’t want this... thing inside me.’
‘Then what?’ said Max, ignoring June’s protestations. ‘She sees out the next nine months with god knows what growing in her belly?’
‘I said I don’t want this,’ June repeated.
Dom reached over and grabbed June’s hand. She shot him an alarmed look.
‘It will be okay. I won’t let anything happen to you.’
Still holding her hand, he spoke to Jacob. ‘Does Carissa have any growth repressors that might work?’
Jacob nodded slowly. ‘The Copies store them in their biogel to keep their bodies and organs at the same size. If I take a biogel sample from her, I could inject it straight into June’s womb. The inert biogel would be harmless to June. To separate out the repressors from the gel would take a lab, plus time and equipment we don’t have.’
June crushed Dom’s good hand.
‘It’s the fastest way,’ he said to reassure her. ‘The alternative is this thing bursts out of your belly.’
June relaxed her grip and nodded at Jacob.
The city’s inventor pursed his lips. ‘Okay, I’ll need to take a sample from you, Carissa.’
Carissa already had her sleeve rolled up. Jacob took a needle from one of the medics while a worried Max and Vanessa looked on.
Dom stared down at his dead limb. This had to work. June was a part of their rebel family—a part of his and Sheila’s family.
Jacob drew clear fluid from Carissa’s arm and wasted no time in injecting it straight into June’s belly. The hand imprint appeared, as if searching for a way out. June gasped as it probed her belly. But then it disappeared and everything went calm. June sighed with relief, but the fear in her eyes remained.
‘That’s it?’ said Dom.
Jacob nodded. ‘It should stop the foetus from developing more, and might even calm it down.’
‘But it’s only a temporary solution?’ said Max.
Jacob nodded. ‘As Carissa said, this baby will need to come out. That will mean returning to the city. This just buys us time.’
Max nodded, then walked over to Dom. He glanced down at his left arm. ‘What happened to you? Why are you in a bed?’
As if June’s problem was all but forgotten, everyone focused on Dom.
‘His arm is paralysed,’ said the male medic. ‘We think his body is rejecting the tech.’
Jacob walked over and sat down beside him. ‘That’s impossible.’
He picked up Dom’s dead arm and rotated it. It felt like it belonged to someone else.
‘I’m going to have to open it up. We may need to consider surgery.’
Dom’s eyes widened. ‘Surgery? No way.’
‘Well, it’s either that or you lose the use of this arm,’ said Jacob, placing it back down on his lap. ‘Your body wasn’t designed to house this much technology.’
Yet, it hadn’t stopped the Collective from operating on him. In fact, he’d been due to have all his organs replaced.
‘My arm feels fine. In fact, I can feel it again.’
He wasn’t lying. A tingle started in his fingers that gave him hope. He moved the tip of one finger.
Jacob stared at it. ‘Well, I never. It must be creating new nerve pathways. It’s possible your nerves weren’t up for the job of controlling the arm so the tech killed them, or switched them off temporarily.’
Encouraged by that suggestion, Dom flexed his hand. ‘I feel the strength returning.’
New feeling shot up his arm. It no longer blazed with a deadly heat. He assumed the worst of it had been due to the Collective’s technology severing his nerves.
He lifted his arm up from the bed and sighed with relief.
But Jacob didn’t look happy. He rubbed his chin and frowned. ‘Still, I’d like to open you up, make sure it hasn’t done any damage.’
No more surgeries.
Jacob picked up a laser scalpel and came at Dom.
Panic swelled in his chest and he shuffled back. ‘No! Keep that thing away from me.’
‘Hold him down,’ said Jacob to the medics.
They grabbed an arm each. Max held his feet.
To Dom, Jacob said, ‘I’m sorry, but I need to take a look. I need to see what this tech is doing to your organic matter.’
The restraints on his bod
y brought it all back. The same panic flared inside him at his new lack of freedom, similar to when he’d been strapped down on the Collective’s operating table.
Dom squeezed his eyes shut and dragged new air through his teeth. ‘I said no!’
He shoved against the restraint. His left arm, held down by the male medic, flew up and knocked the medic back. He hit the ground and stared up at him, stunned.
Dom scooted back on the bed and out of Jacob’s reach. The Inventor paused with the scalpel in his hand, a look of shock on his face.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Dom to the medic on the ground.
Jacob regained his composure. ‘I guess we can rule out an issue with your arm.’ He frowned. ‘Looks like you’ve been infused with Copy super strength.’
25
Dom
In his dorm bed, Dom flexed his arm. It felt strong, no longer riddled with the pain that had almost driven him to cut off his limb. Had his nerves really been rewiring themselves?
The military medic had given him the all clear to leave the medical bay and he’d slept like a brick last night. That morning, however, the thought that Praesidium’s tech had been altering his DNA somehow propelled him out of bed. Maybe he should let Jacob open him up to make sure he wasn’t turning into a machine.
While the medic had given him the all clear to leave, June had not been granted the same permission. He walked back to the medical bay to find her sitting up in bed and eating food. Alex sat beside her on the bed. Her skin had returned to a healthier colour.
‘Morning,’ he said as he approached her.
June and Alex held hands. Alex was clutching hers so tight one might think he was the patient.
‘Hey,’ June replied with a smile. ‘Thanks for helping me last night. I don’t know what I would have done.’
‘You should have come found me,’ Alex growled at her. ‘I wasn’t far.’
June nodded and lowered her eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think.’
Dom stepped closer to the bed. ‘How are you feeling?’
June grazed her belly with the fingers of her free hand. ‘I’d feel better if I didn’t have whatever this is growing inside me. I don’t want it, Dom. I’m too young to do this.’
