by Ben Winston
“Yeah, we're aware of it, but unfortunately, he's also the strongest Navigator we have. I'm afraid your request to sanction him would be denied,” the Admiral said, sounding regretful. “No matter how much people would tend to agree with you.”
“I understand, Sir. So far, everyone I've met appears to be American. Is this an American only operation, or Multinational?” Joe asked.
Becky giggled. “I'm Canadian.”
Hawklings smiled at the girl. “Yes she is, I myself am Australian; I’ve been here long enough to lose my accent. To answer your question, yes; this is a multinational effort. It has to be; too many countries would go to war over it. I am happy to say that it is truly a multinational effort. We have Chinese as well as North Koreans and all colors of Muslims. We are working together up here. Even on BC IV, there isn't any discrimination or even segregation. I keep thinking at this rate, all of us old soldiers will be out of a job.”
“I'm glad to hear that, but I have to disagree with you, Sir. Once our off-world presence gets large enough to have more than one leader, we're going to have problems that soldiers will have to fix eventually. That's just basic human nature.”
“You're probably correct, Major. I pray you're not, but you probably are,” the Admiral replied.
While they had been talking and walking, they got into an elevator that went down at least three floors. They got out and had walked some more.
“Here we are, Major. Your home for the next week,” Hawklings said as he touched a plate that opened the door.
“Sir, I'll be staying with him if I may. I also have a physical due,” Becky asked.
The Admiral was about to answer her when another man walked up and spoke in heavily accented English.
“Of course you can stay, young lady. It will be good for him to see a familiar face during this ordeal. We can update your medical record during his initial treatment," the new, energetic man replied.
“Major Joseph Anderson, may I introduce Doctor Haviar Ortegon. He will be your chief doctor while you’re here. I'll try to get down here to see you from time to time as well, son. However, I need to get back to my office soon. Once again, welcome to Darkwater Station.”
“Hola mi amigo. As Senior Admiral Hawklings has said, I am Haviar. I have been reading your file. There is much that needs to be fixed in you,” Dr. Ortegon said, nodding.
“Yes there is, Doctor. I'm afraid I'm going to make you earn both of the Peso's they are paying you this time,” Joe said smiling at the man.
Without missing a beat, the man bobbed his head. “Si! I will have to demand a raise for you, no?”
“Perhaps, maybe another full Peso?” Joe asked while Becky chuckled. While he laughed, the doctor was leading them into a private room that was literally packed from wall to wall with equipment. There was a narrow path up to the bed in the center of the room.
“I mean no offense, Doctor, but what exactly are you going to be doing to me?” Joe asked a little nervously and looking at all the equipment.
“Much. There is much to do. You know that the disorder you have is genetic, no?” he asked.
Joe nodded. “Yes, I do.”
“With most recruits, we only need to inject them with nanobots and then guide them in the repair of the body. However, with you, genetics are the root cause of much of the damage done to you.
“With you, we will also be introducing a retrovirus into your system that will correct the defect and end the disorder. The first step in your treatment will be a re-evaluation of all of your body's functions.
“Then we will create a specific retrovirus that will correct the flaws in your DNA. The virus should take about twenty-four hours. Beyond feeling sick to your stomach and flu like symptoms, that should be all the discomfort you should experience. However, we do have ways to help you through those symptoms without interfering with the virus.
“Then, about twelve hours after the virus is injected, we will activate the nanobots and begin work on your body. You will be unconscious for most of that procedure since it is very painful and we really don't want you to move a lot while the bots are working.
“The final stages will be muscle therapy to strengthen and add more muscle mass to your body. Then we release you into physical therapy so you can get used to the changes in your body. Once you've recovered, you will be released from medical,” he finished. "You have questions, no?”
“Thousands, but beyond the fact that you’re going to be rewriting my DNA, the rest of it would probably be more than I could understand. How do you want me to begin?” Joe replied. "Do you know how long this will take?”
Haviar shrugged. “It will take as long as it takes. Most recruits stay with us for a couple of days. With you it will most likely be a week, possibly two; in order to counter the atrophy in your cardiopulmonary system and to repair the damage to the intestinal tract."
“You can begin by taking your clothes off and lying on the bed. A nurse will be in shortly to set your I.V.” Haviar replied and, seeing Joe had no more questions, left the room.
Becky had to back out of the room in order for him to leave. Then she walked back in and closed the door as Joe began removing his clothes.
“Are you sure you want to stay in here for this? I'm not the best to look at nude,” Joe asked.
“I really don't care. Besides, it won't matter after you get out of here,” she replied.
Joe looked at her curiously. “What do you mean?”
She smiled. “Let's just say I'm not as young as you think I am, and leave it at that.”
“So, you're a Navigator as well. I was going to ask you when they recruited you because you don't look a day over seventeen,” Joe replied.
“I'm not a natural Navigator like you are. I'm considered a trained one. You see, when I was fourteen, I grew an inoperable brain tumor that should have killed me before I turned sixteen. I withdrew from everyone. I was dying and I didn't want to see the pity and all that crap on the faces of my friends. So I became a hermit. I sat in my room and played cards on my computer.
"By the time I was seventeen, I began losing the ability to talk, walk, and all the other stuff that goes with the final stages. Through it all, I played Free Cell. I'd gotten good enough at the game that it triggered an alert and a team was dispatched to recruit me.
“Officially, I died that night. My life on Earth ended and the new one up here began.” she shrugged. “I was pretty weak by the time they got me here, but I agreed to treatment and tada! I'm healthy. I went to the Citadel and learned how to navigate hyperspace, but I’m really not very good at it. I don't have a natural feel for the temporals,” she explained.
“So how old are you?” Joe asked.
“Don't you know it's rude to ask a lady her age?” she asked, grinning teasingly.
“Well, you know my age, I thought it only fair that I know yours. After all, I don't want to expose myself to a minor!” he teased back.
Her smile dimmed a little. “I've been a Navigator for almost twenty years.”
Joe snorted. “Bullshit. You're not even twenty years old!”
“I swear to you, I'm only ten years younger than you are,” Becky said. “This treatment you're going to get stops you from aging. In some cases, exposure to warp space will even reverse our aging. For example; 'Little Hitler' is forty-five and has been a Navigator for twelve. He's a natural like you and has a better grasp of hyperspace than any of us. Which technically makes him senior among us.”
Becky looked over his nude body. “All these scars... Did your disorder give you these?”
Joe grinned and ran his hand over his belly. “Not exactly, the doctors that were trying to help me did. There are more inside, where you can't see them. Although, I doubt those can be so easily fixed.”
“No, those scars can't be removed. Those are there to remind us of what we've survived to get to where we are and who we've become.” She seemed sad. “Joe, I think you should know; part of the reason for my check up
here is to make me fertile again. If you'll have me, I'll be your first lover.”
“I'd like to get to know you a little better before we start planning the wedding. I got the impression that part of our duty wouldn't be optional?” Joe asked.
“Well, it isn't, really. You'll also have other women that will, uh, breed with you. You know, it really sounds like we're just a bunch of cattle," she replied.
“I hate to say it, Sweetheart, but to the powers that be; that's all we are. We are a rare and valuable resource that needs to be reproduced. Although I don't think I'd care for working with Jared's children,” he replied.
She came very close to him, and put her arms around his neck, then leaned in as if to give him a hug. She whispered, “There are other things you need to know about, very important things that we can't talk about outside of the Citadel. Things that our leaders can never know about us. They'd kill all of us if they knew.”
Joe nuzzled her neck as if kissing her. “Like what? Is this why you’re so afraid of Jared?"
“Yes, we've developed some psychic abilities. Mine is empathy, Jared has the ability to control people to a certain extent. A friend of mine at the Citadel is a precog,” She said. “She knew you were coming. You're going to be the strongest Navigator of all of us. She said you have the ability for unlimited travel. Jared is going to try to kill you so he can take over. She also said there will eventually be a war, and the Navigators will be the issue.”
With that, she pulled away from him and he swung his legs up as if nothing had been said between them. “I think we might have a good start on the relationship, Becky.”
The girl smiled. “I hope so, but you should know that I'm not the only one. I'm pretty sure my friend Alana will want to be with you as well. Then of course, there are all the other woman.”
“Holy Crap! How am I supposed to learn anything if I'm busy getting' busy all the time?” Joe asked grinning.
Becky grinned back, signaling a return to her normal, playful, self. She would have replied, but the nurse arrived just then to set the I.V. Becky left the room so the nurse could do her thing.
Joe hated needles and most especially I.V. needles. “Excuse me, nurse, but do you think we could shave the hair off before we do this? You would not believe how badly it hurts around removal time if we don't.”
“Trust me, Sir. It won't hurt at all this time,” she said as she swung a device up beside the bed. It was obviously a cradle for the left arm with covers over the lower arm as well as the bicep.
“Just set your arm in here, and we'll get started,” the nurse said. “You won't feel a thing, promise. Just lie still until I tell you it's safe to move.”
Joe followed her instructions, and she snapped the covers closed and pressed a couple of buttons on the device. It hummed, and his arm felt a little warm, but not uncomfortably so. There was a little bit of an itch, and the machine stopped humming. The nurse watched a monitor above his head and nodded when the humming stopped.
“There you go. Both the main line as well as the peripheral lines are in. Now tell me, you didn't feel that did you?” She asked.
Joe was amazed. A main line was a major thing to put in. Last time he had one done, it took almost an hour, and the whole area had to be as sterile as they could get it. It had also hurt.
“No, I didn't feel anything like that. After you closed the covers, it felt a little warm, then it itched some, and that was it. Nothing like it was the last time I had a main put in.” Joe replied.
“Don't cha just love advanced technology? I'm told that this little gadget will be submitted to the FDA next year. It sterilizes and seals the area under the covers while also administering a nerve block, then uses its own high resolution MRI to guide the lines. The damn thing never misses a vein either!”
“So, when will you be taking the blood samples?” Joe asked.
She winked at him. “Already did. Once the samples are analyzed, the virus will be administered the same way,” she explained pointing to the cuff. “I'll come in to check on you in a bit.”
She left then and Becky returned. She smiled at him shyly. “Alone at last.”
Joe snorted. “Somehow, I doubt that.”
“Is it an off limits subject for me to ask about your wife?” she asked.
“Not at all, what would you like to know?” Joe replied.
“Well, from listening to you talk about her and with what I read in your file, the two of you are abnormally close. How is it you can accept this? Accept me?” she asked.
Joe looked thoughtful for a moment. “We are very close. The only reason I left her was to ensure she stayed alive. I wasn't given much of a choice in the matter. I will always love her and this is going to be very hard to do because of that. However, Laura likes girls almost as much as I do, so we pretty much had an open marriage even though we never really took other lovers all that often. Usually, with other lovers, it’s about the act of sex, and not the emotion of love.
“When we first met, it was mutual physical attraction that brought us together. However, that quickly became secondary as we realized that we actually loved each other for who we were and not what we looked like. You see how I am now. I wasn't always like this. We have both gotten big as we got older. For her, it was a hard thing and I think a good deal of her depression stems from that. I don't think she could ever understand that I loved her for what was inside, not what she looked like.
“Of course, she also stopped looking for female lovers years ago when she felt she was no longer attractive. She's a beautiful person, and that's what truly matters. Unfortunately, the packaging is what most people look at; she was rejected a few times and it broke her heart. So she gave up. But, like I said, I think she would have liked you. I know I like you and I do want to get to know you better. We'll just have to see if it builds into something more. Besides, you might get to meet her someday; who knows what the future holds?”
“You told the retrieval team that if she couldn't come with you, your sanity would suffer. Is that true?” she asked.
“Honestly, I'm not sure. The break with her is still too recent for me to evaluate how It’s going to affect me later. I know if she had died, or if that team had killed her, then there would have been bodies to be cleaned up, mine included. Will I flip out if she's not part of my life? Once this all sinks in, I might. However, don't be too afraid of that happening. You wouldn't be one of the folks I'd kill," Joe said honestly.
She shivered. “I know what your training was; I know what you did for the Agency. It's hard for me to reconcile that man with you. You're not a killer.”
“Becky, you've only seen my public face. The one I show the world so they believe, like you, I'm not a killer. It helps me to be more effective because I can hide in plain sight easier,” he explained. “I am very much a killer. I've even killed a woman I cared a great deal about.”
“Your last mission?” She asked.
Joe nodded. “Yeah, I didn't know she was going to be there and I'm damn sure she didn't know I was going to be there either. I was ordered to take the shot even though she was blocking my target. They told me she had blown her cover and become a double agent. I knew it was total bullshit, but I also knew I had to kill that bastard.
“From over a mile away, I killed her and the man she had brought there for me to kill. I wasn't given a choice. So when I got back, I killed my mission handler, destroyed the computer center and left,” He said. “I kept my head down and tried to live a normal life. However, the ghosts started getting to me and had finally even started giving me nightmares during the day. I knew I was losing my mind and the woman I'd met and fell in love with knew it too.
“It came to a head one night when I was having a bad nightmare. She didn't know what to do, so she tried to leave our bedroom. In my dream I was fighting for my life and trying to get back to the evac point, when I heard someone creeping up behind me.”
Becky looked pale. “You didn't.”
Joe nodded. “I was out of the bed as fast as I could go, I had her pinned to the wall, with my hand drawn back to end her life before I realized where I was. A moment longer, she would have been dead and I would have followed her a few moments later.
“It scared her so badly, that she told me I had to tell her what was going on or she was going to leave me. I probably should have kept my mouth shut and helped her pack, but I couldn't. We talked for the rest of the night and all the next day. Since that night, she has been my rock, my grounding rod keeper of my sanity. She has never once left my side and believe me, she's had reasons a-plenty."
“She sounds like a really nice woman. I wish I could have met her,” Becky said.
Joe smiled and winked. “Be careful what you wish for, little girl.”
Over the following week and a half, Becky, now nick-named 'Becka', proved her commitment to him over and over. She helped him during the therapy and talked to him while the tiny robots did things to his body that it was never designed to do.
Joe thought she had betrayed her abilities to the medical staff one night when Joe was in a lot of pain and no one but her and the night nurse were there. The nurse was sleeping in a room next to Joe's and Becka woke her up to let her know he was in a lot of pain when he shouldn't have been.
However, the event was overlooked because everyone assumed, correctly, that she was simply becoming hyper-sensitive to his condition. Since she had been scheduled to be one of the ladies he was supposed to get pregnant, no one tried to discourage it.
However, the Admiral did take her aside on the day before he was supposed to be released to remind her that she wouldn't be the only one he had to sleep with. Admiral Hawklings actually liked the woman and didn't want to see her get hurt. She just smiled and kissed his cheek as she would her grandfather and said not to worry about it.
