“Very grateful,” Smoke said against his will. His mouth moved without him thinking about it. He had learned to get used to it, to simply say things that his mind wasn’t thinking. It kept him out of trouble. Yet he couldn’t help but think that maybe there was a time when there wasn’t a block, when he could think of something and then say it, when he could utter more than one or two word sentences.
“The sooner you pass your field tests, the sooner I’ll be less of a pain in your ass,” Tavigorsky said, clasping his hands behind his back. “I’ve invested a lot in you. And if you fail me, you fail the…federation.”
“Federation,” Smoke said. “I will not fail the federation.”
“No, you won’t,” Tavigorsky said. “Because we created you. You owe your existence to us. And you will honor us and do what we ask you to do. And maybe one day we’ll let you go.”
“I do not want to be let go,” Smoke said. “I exist to serve.”
Tavigorsky clapped.
A scientist hurried into the room.
“What the hell was that?” Tavigorsky asked. “I don’t need him saying things like that.”
“What, sir?” the scientist asked, pushing up her glasses.
“I exist to serve,” Tavigorsky said. “You know what, increase the dosage of the neuron blocker. Maybe I don’t want this thing to speak at all.”
The scientist walked over to the monitoring panel and checked Smoke’s vitals.
“Looks like the pill is working,” she said. She inserted a key into a drawer and pulled out a vial of serum. She hooked the vial up to Smoke’s IV.
“You sure you want to accelerate his dosage this much?” she asked.
“I’m cultivating a cyborg, not a slave,” Tavigorsky said. “And I’m not putting him on the market until he’s calibrated just right. After he adjusts, switch on the ocular and cybernetic implants. We need to get moving on this.”
Tavigorsky stormed out of the room, muttering. He slammed the door.
The scientist sighed and then shook her head at Smoke.
“You’re making our lives a living hell,” she said. “Why can’t you just pass your test already?”
Smoke shivered as cold saline solution entered his arm through his IV.
And then warm happiness spread throughout his body and he smiled, rested his head against his pillow, and he slept. He slowly forgot everything that had just happened, and he was okay with that.
13
Smoke held on to a doctor as he walked slowly down a long, dark hallway. The walls and floor were gray brushed metal, and along the path were doors with tinted windows that hid patients.
Some sort of medical facility.
His legs were heavy. He had to use twice the effort to lift them.
And the stinging in his head. It wouldn't stop.
“You've got to take it easy,” the doctor said. He wore a gray coat and gripped Smoke’s arms tightly. “You just had a major operation. You're gonna have to learn to do everything again.”
Operation?
Smoke hadn't remembered being in surgery. All he remembered was coming to this place, this colony in space next to a ringed planet. He had met Tavigorsky, shaken his hand, and…it all faded after that. There must have been memories between, but everything was a blur.
Now he was here.
What was he here for?
He strained as he lifted his foot again.
Then he looked down and saw it.
Had his feet ever been this large? He didn't have a reference point, though he seemed to have in his mind what a foot should have looked like. His looked at least twice as big. Was he swollen? His head hurt at the thought.
So he kept shuffling down the hallway. A circular drone bot flew above, recording everything.
“You are recovering pretty nicely,” the doctor said. “I'd say you'll be able to run in a day or two. How's your head?”
Smoke put his hand on his head. Part of his hair was missing and he felt smooth skin among a patch of unruly, sweaty hair.
He said nothing.
“Perfectly normal,” the doctor said. “Nothing to worry about at all.”
Smoke kept walking. He didn't feel like speaking. He didn't know if he could speak. His entire body felt as if someone had changed his skin and bones. He just didn't feel himself. He couldn't remember anything and it pained him.
The doctor guided him along and they came to a new stretch in the hallway.
A window.
How long had it been since he'd looked out of a window?
He stopped. Glanced at the blue, ringed planet below. A storm swirled on the surface. The yellow rotating gravity rings of the colony station cut the clouds in half.
Smoke gasped.
He put his fingers to the glass.
Cold.
Very cold.
And then he remembered.
Standing on a platform like this, somewhere like this…
Overlooking a planet. Had it been red, maybe rocky? Or was it cloudy?
Someone had been with him. A woman. Her body was just a silhouette in his mind.
And he had marveled at the sight of the planet, whatever type it was and whatever color it was.
And he had done something…
What did he do?
It pained him to think anymore.
“Ridiculous,” Smoke said in a whisper.
The word surprised him. He hadn't even known to think it. But out it came, escaping in a low breath.
“I'm sorry?” the doctor asked. “What did you say?”
Smoke looked at him and said the word again.
“Ridiculous?”
The doctor frowned. “What is ridiculous, Smoke?”
And then, out of nowhere, Smoke began to laugh, deep from his belly.
“I have no idea.”
He laughed again and said the word.
“Ridiculous! Ha ha ha!”
He didn't know why it was so funny, but he kept the memory in his mind’s eye of the planet and the platform and the person in the shadows with him.
Had someone said it to him?
He couldn't stop laughing.
The whole thing was ridiculous!
When the doctor unscrewed his cybernetic implant and overrode his emotions, the laughter stopped and his face stiffened.
But in his mind, the laughter continued, long, loud, and for hours.
14
Smoke woke up in a rush of oxygen.
He gasped long and loud.
He was in the colony, in the airlock, among soldiers and doctors who had all stopped to stare at him.
He was naked. The burns all over his body looked like a painting gone horribly wrong. He was shockingly human. No implants. Just a man. Pitifully and shamefully naked. The cold floor against his skin made him shiver.
An alarm sounded and lights flashed red. The ringing hurt his ears.
It quickly stopped, and several soldiers inspected the bay doors.
“We’re all clear!” someone shouted. “No damage to the doors!”
Smoke’s vision clouded. Then he realized there was plastic over his eyes.
He was wearing an oxygen mask.
He breathed in rapidly and the mask filtered the air and whooshed.
A face hovered over him. A man. Grizzled and angry. A scientist.
“What the bloody hell is the matter with you?”
Smoke closed his eyes.
He’d failed.
All he'd wanted to do was float out into space, to end his suffering…
The man tapped him on the shoulder.
“Hey!”
Smoke faded back into conscience.
“Kill…me,” he said.
“Not gonna happen, buddy.”
Smoke reached up and grabbed the man by the shirt collar.
“Kill me!”
He heard footsteps.
Boots. Lots of boots. Coming toward him.
Tavigorsky and an entourage of soldiers dressed
in battle armor.
“That was some stunt,” Tavigorsky said. “You want to get us all killed?”
Smoke closed his eyes. Then he felt a rougher tap on his shoulder. When he opened them, Tavigorsky punched him in the jaw.
Smoke’s head hit the floor and the oxygen mask flew off.
“You're not going anywhere,” Tavigorsky said as the soldiers grabbed Smoke. They pulled him up roughly, and Tavigorsky punched him in the stomach.
“There are consequences for your actions,” he said. “We’re all ready for you in the OR.”
Smoke screamed.
“No!”
His voice was weak and frail.
Tavigorsky pointed to a long, dark hallway.
Smoke struggled against the men.
“No!”
“For Christ’s sake, you sound like a damned toddler,” Tavigorsky said. “Give him the serum. Block these stupid emotions.”
And then, as the soldiers dragged him toward the hallway, Tavigorsky jammed a needle into his neck and he remembered no more.
15
“No, God, no!”
Smoke couldn’t believe how he looked in the mirror. In the bathroom of his cell, he screamed at himself.
He didn’t recognize himself.
He was a goddamned beast.
His head—God, his head!
His skin was gone. Burned away. He should have been dead. His face was swirled and ghost-like. He looked like something out of a horror film. His hair fell down in silver tufts across his face. Someone had bleached it. He looked like an albino.
And his eyes. Gray with red pupils. Who had gray eyes with red pupils?
Not him.
Not any real person.
He moaned, brought his hand to his face. His skin was raw and tender to the touch.
He wanted to cry, but no tears came out.
Who was he?
Where had he come from?
All he knew was that he wasn’t himself.
He wasn’t himself.
He wasn’t himself.
His smile wasn’t even the same. He had blocky, white teeth. He never had blocky teeth!
He started to hyperventilate. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t breathe.
He clutched his chest and staggered back and fell onto the toilet, causing a clatter. A roll of toilet paper rolled across the floor.
And then he realized that someone had to have done this to him.
Someone was responsible for this bullshit.
And whoever they were, they were going to pay.
He balled his fists and his fingers dug into his palm. And then he noticed his fingernails and that they were bleached. His arm muscles were swollen and twice their size. If he punched someone, his body might fall apart.
He rolled on the tile floor, moaning. He crawled into his cell. A lone bed in a dark room.
He crawled into the sheets. And he cried. A tearless, pathetic, lonely cry. The cry of a lost animal. The cry of a baby abandoned on a street corner with no one to help it. The cry of a dying man.
He wanted to die.
He couldn’t live like this.
He couldn’t live with no memories, no understanding of why he was here.
He beat against his cell door, a transparent glass wall. But along the hallway, the other cell doors were dark, and no one was there.
He sank back onto his bed and stared at the cell door.
Anger rose within him. He wanted to shake but his body wouldn’t even obey him.
Hatred.
He hated someone that he had never seen before. No one that did this to a man could be human.
He stared and stewed and waited.
HOURS LATER, two scientists stood outside the cell, staring at Smoke.
They spoke to each other with tablets in their hands, observing him.
What were they saying?
Remarking about his vitals?
Talking about him like damned cattle?
He couldn’t even see their faces. He hadn’t realized how dark the hallway was.
And then the door opened and the scientists entered.
Smoke mustered all of his energy and bound into the air, punching one of the scientists in the neck. The man cried out and toppled to the ground. He grabbed the other scientist, banged his head against the cell window. Both men lie unconscious on the ground.
Smoke landed on all fours in the hallway.
A glittering control panel rested on the wall near the door. Smoke pressed a button and the cell door shut on the two men.
He ran down the hallway as fast as he could, panting.
He passed cell after cell.
He stopped at one. A dark visage of skin and bone looked back at home.
Someone just like him.
Burned.
A woman.
She grinned at him and then beat at her cell glass, screaming.
He recoiled and ran.
He came to an elevator. He would have hardly noticed it except for the glowing buttons on the wall.
It was dimly-lit inside the canister-shaped car.
He scanned the panel.
There was an airlock.
He pressed the button.
The car rocketed downward.
When the doors opened, he stepped into a gray airlock full of fighter spaceships. Gray and black with stripes on the sides. There were only a few people gathered on one side, talking.
Through a huge rectangular window, he spotted the blue, ringed planet.
He was in space.
God, he was in space with no way out and nowhere to run.
He would die here.
He started to whimper.
He spotted a set of bay doors on one end of the airlock.
He dashed for them.
The ground was hard on his bare feet and it was a miracle he could keep running.
Someone cried out.
“Hey, stop!”
He ran faster.
He wouldn't let anyone stop him.
“I told you to stop!”
Smoke panted and ran faster and faster. His heart was going to explode in his chest.
“We’ll shoot,” the voice cried. “We’ll blow your brains out.”
Smoke steered for a control panel on the wall. He reached out his hands, screaming.
“Shit, he's going to open the airlock!” the voice cried.
A stampede of footsteps rushed in the opposite direction as Smoke jammed the open button on the airlock.
A computer beeped, a klaxon sounded and then the floor rumbled, knocking him off his feet. He landed on his back, smiling.
Soon it would be over.
He crawled onto his knees.
As the bay doors opened into the stars, into the blue planet spinning below, into the empty void of blackness, Smoke threw himself out.
16
Smoke stood on the edge of a gigantic waterfall. The area was a giant, forest-ringed crescent.
The rocks were brown and gray and hard under his boots.
He was himself again.
Not himself.
A cyborg.
But there was no more pain. No more anger or emotions. Just calmness.
The sky was ethereal, pink and yellow, like a watercolor painting. The stars seemed to drip from the sky like gleaming, glittering wet paint. Beyond the water, the forest shimmered.
The waterfall was more powerful than anything he'd ever seen—white and blue and spilling over the rocks.
He sighed and looked out over the water. Clouds of mist rose from the edge of the waterfall. He could taste the vapor on his tongue.
Had he been here before?
It didn't look familiar.
And then he looked closer at the vapor. Something was flashing within the mist.
Sparks.
Smoke looked closer.
Was it…electricity?
All around the crescent, the water sparked.
He heard laughter and voices.
All mixed in with the rushing water. It almost sounded as if the voices were in the water.
Smoke looked down.
The waterfall poured into nothing.
Where there should have been a pool of water, there was darkness, and stars.
The ground trembled. Smoke stepped back.
And then the earth collapsed underneath him and he fell down, down into the starry darkness.
17
“You’ve always taken things too seriously.”
On a rail car zipping high over the metropolis of Traverse II’s capital, a woman turned her shoulder to him.
He couldn't see her face, but she had long brown hair and a petite frame. Blue tank top and pink skinny jeans. She smelled of light floral perfume. That familiar smell that always reminded him of meadows.
His girl.
They were the only ones in the rail car.
A leather suitcase rested on the floor. His knee rubbed against it.
It was her suitcase.
His eyes went down to his legs.
Trousers. He was wearing trousers.
And a polo shirt.
He was human again.
There was something bristly on his face.
Glancing down slightly, he spotted a trim black beard.
In the rail car window, he saw himself in the mirror. Short black hair with a silver earring in one ear.
He leaned toward the woman, but she pushed him away.
“I guess I don't understand,” he said.
“Gino, you never understood.”
Gino? The name sounded so good, so right. So familiar. Was that his real name?
Gino…
He sighed. He didn't know what to do with his hands so he rested them in his lap and stared ahead.
The rail car weaved through a valley. The sun was setting in the maroon sky, making the house pods sticking out of the mountainside glow like pale fireballs. The mountains cut away, and the car rushed toward a spaceport in the distance, where a box ship waited, ready for takeoff.
“I came back for you,” he said after a moment of silence. “And this is what you give me?”
“I didn't ask you to come,” she said.
Solar Storm (Galaxy Mavericks Book 5) Page 4
