Light Unfolding: A Reverse Harem Science Fiction Romance (Wings of Artemis Book 8)

by Rebecca Royce

  I was good at this. But it had been a year, almost. I didn’t want to be rusty.

  I didn’t even know how long it had been since I’d run a line. Maybe school? But, still, I was sure I could do it. Old-fashioned or not there was a reason we learned how to do this.

  “Waverly?” Ari wanted an update.

  “Ready, Doctor.” He didn’t flinch at the use of his title and neither did I. In some circumstances that was what we were. Opening up Canyon’s brain was one of those times.

  Jackson stepped back. “I’m going to wait back here unless you need me.”

  Was he squeamish? This was a lot even if he wasn’t. It was a rare and unusual thing this day and age to crack open a patient’s head. The machines did all of this for us. In some ways, this was going to be a hybrid operation. As I stared at Ari’s serious face, I wondered if he even knew how much.

  Things started out as expected. We sedated Canyon and put him in the machine. He took it very well, going under without fuss. I watched as the machines, directed by Ari, mapped out his neuropathways and pointed out the devices in his eyes. I stared at the size of them. Did they hurt Canyon all the time, or like the ship buzzing, was it something he’d gotten used to?

  I focused on inserting the line to the IV, hoping we wouldn’t have to use it. “I love you, Canyon.” His brain activity did not indicate he could hear me, and yet I still spoke to him. “This will all be over soon.”

  “I’m going to start in the brain and move down.” I didn’t know if Ari was speaking to me directly or just talking aloud.

  I nodded. He’d need the small scanner and the laser. In the past he’d have had to cut away a skin flap, then drilled right through the bone. Now the lasers didn’t cut skin tissue unless directed to. All he would have to do was keep a steady hand.

  Watching Ari as he went to work was a thing of beauty. His hands never shook, and he didn’t even look particularly stressed. He’d charged me with making sure he didn’t have a hallucination as he worked, and I looked for signs; although if pressed, I’d admit I had no idea what those might be. He had them in bed when we were relaxed, walking down the street, reading a book, operating. They just came when they came.

  I blinked. This was actually such a bizarre moment. Just days earlier I’d been on Orion, cleaning other people’s houses as the sands of time ran out on their civilization. Now I was in a black hole, moving through time once again, and who knew what year it would be if we were to step out of the time continuum immediately.

  Canyon’s brain was being rewired on a table.

  Life could move slowly, with little happening, and then boom—everything sped up and changed. Sometimes I swore I could feel the altering moments, as though I stood outside of myself, watching. Minutes turned into hours before I saw the blip on the screen. Ari wasn’t anywhere near done. This might take the whole day and yet it looked like Canyon was trying to wake up.

  “Patient is rousing.”

  Ari shook his head. “Machine is on full blast. Go manual, Waverly.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  I grabbed the drugs, inserting them into the machine and watching as they distributed intravenously. Ari stared at the screen with me. I didn’t know about Ari, but I hardly breathed. It would be very, very bad at this part of the operation for Canyon to wake up. The blip stopped, his brain returned to sleep waves. I let out the breath I held.

  “Well done.” Ari nodded at me before he returned to what he had been doing before the blip.

  Jackson moved from where he’d been by the wall the whole time. “Damn.”

  I met his gaze, and in it I saw all the worry I wasn’t letting myself feel. “That’s why we have the monitors.”

  Ari didn’t look up at all. I stepped away from Canyon and walked to the sink. I poured a glass of water and grabbed a straw. If I’d been thinking, I might have put Ari on an IV too so that he could stay hydrated the whole time. I walked over to him, placing the straw in his mouth and he sipped without looking up. When he’d drunk it all down, I returned it to the counter.

  There were hours left. At some point I was going to remind him to step away, take a break. This was a marathon not a sprint.

  I watched the readings, every breath Canyon took was a great one.

  Six hours later, Ari stood up straight, stretching his back. I’d gotten water down him but he hadn’t stopped, not once, to eat anything, despite my gentle reminders. “Hungry?”

  He shook his head. “No. I couldn’t eat. I have to take the eyes out now.”

  “Like out, out?” Jackson asked from across the room.

  “I am going to have to take them out and then put them back in.” Ari winced. “Breaking up the electronic pathway was nothing. This is going to be the problem. This is where the nanos may sit up and take notice, so to speak.”

  Jackson approached the table. “This is why they were outlawed on our side of the galaxy. Not that anyone is really enforcing laws like that anymore.”

  “Well, that’s complicated, too. We could really use them for some diseases. Evander uses them to do terrible things. I wouldn’t mind having them at my disposal to cure people. Getting them legitimately on the black market? Forget it, the product is just as likely to kill someone as save them.” He shook his head. “That is neither here nor there. All right, I’m going in.”

  Jackson stood on the side of the table. “I’ll do what I can if the tech fights back, so to speak.” He pulled out his own laser. I hated that all of this was going to happen inside Canyon’s organs.

  Ari systematically did what he had to do, and Jackson turned his head to not watch it. I placed a cloth over where Cannon’s eyes should be. I couldn’t say as I’d ever seen this done before. The machines took care of so much for us.

  Almost the second Ari removed the device from his left eye, even detached from his body, his vitals crashed.

  “Damn it.” Ari spoke low. It was the only indication that he was worried at all. “Into the machine.”

  “No,” Jackson shook his head. “It’s the nanos. They see the threat. They’re programmed to shut down the host rather than get taken. Fuck. Okay. You take him away from the eyes and he’s dead. Let’s do this.”

  Ari nodded. “Waverly, keep him alive with the medical scanner. As long as you can.”

  “Right.” I grabbed it and was glad to see my hands were steady, considering I wanted to freak out. I ran the scanner over his body. It wasn’t ideal, and we couldn’t do this for very long.

  “Come on, Canyon.” I spoke to him low. “Hold on for us. We’re almost done. Hold on.”

  The machines beeped in a rhythm that anyone who spent as much times in med bays as I did were used to. It was the good noise, the sound that told me that there was steady life. Canyon’s vitals were good. They had been since Ari reinserted his eyes. What was interesting were the nanos left in his body. They were actually rewriting his brain waves to account for Canyon needing to use his own eyes.

  Or at least that’s what we thought they were doing. The nanos were shutting down, too. They each seemed to have one last thing to do before they dissolved. It was all bizarre technology, and the med machines were recording what happened so, presumably, someone could study them at another time.

  If anyone ever got to do that kind of work again. Fighting wars on two fronts made it hard to do any pure research.

  Jackson snored across the room, his head leaning against the wall. It was a sound I’d gotten used to and had missed. He only did it that loud when he was exhausted. Ari’s eyes were closed. He was on the floor, back to the wall, his head on his knees. Doctors could do that. They could close their eyes and sleep whenever they had to, taking the minutes given to them before they had to wake up and be alert again.

  It might be a long time before I could calm down enough to rest. I’d held Canyon’s life in my hands through a scanner that should never have been used that long. Jackson had worked impossibly fast, but every second might have caused a problem.
He’d gotten the devices out and Ari had repaired the eyes. It had taken maybe twenty minutes.

  Twenty very long minutes.

  I sipped my water. I’d never been a drinker of alcohol, not in any serious way, but I wouldn’t have minded something with a little numbing property right at that second. No, that wasn’t true. I’d never have consumed anything that would make me less sharp.

  We didn’t know if Canyon’s eyes would work. We didn’t know if his brain was damaged. We didn’t know if he’d even wake up. What we didn’t know I could choke on.

  There was nothing to do but wait.

  And wait.

  I sipped my water.

  The alarm sounded before Canyon’s eyes flew open, remarkably fast. Most people had time where their brain waves changed on the monitor before they became conscious again. Not Canyon, which shouldn’t have surprised me. All three of us were around him quickly.

  Canyon rapidly blinked, squinted, squished up his nose. He shook his head. “Am I in the VR machine again?”

  I touched his forehead. His blood pressure was up just a little but not terrible, considering everything. His vitals were steady. “No, this is real.”

  Ari shone a light in Canyon’s eyes, and he winced before he pushed Ari’s hand away. “Stop that.”

  “What can you see?”

  Canyon groaned. “Your ugly face, Ari. I can see that if you wouldn’t blind me. Wait. This is so bizarre.” He tried to sit up, and I stopped him. “I can see. How is that? How can I know what I’m looking at? I don’t understand.”

  His heart rate shot sky high. I put my hand on his cheek. “Try to breathe. Most of what has happened to you today is unprecedented. I’m not sure I can understand it at all. If you can see and you know what you’re seeing, that’s a good thing. We can figure how and why later.”

  I hoped Ari didn’t mind me speaking here. If he did, he didn’t indicate it at all. “She’s right. That’s good news.”

  “It’s the repair the nanos did. It’s the only explanation.” Jackson sighed. “We really need to study this.”

  Canyon shook his head. “I spent years as a lab rat. I don’t need it again. I… Yes, thanks Rohan. I hear you. Yes, all good here. Thanks.”

  He could still hear with his superior hearing. That hadn’t changed. I stared up at the machine. “You’re tired. You’re hiding it, but you are. It’s okay to sleep. You’re still here. Close your eyes. I won’t leave you.”

  “Waverly, you still have your light. I can see all of you, but you’re coated in your light. All of you still have your lights… like… an aura. I can hear the machines, too. I can hear how they’re running. I don’t understand.”

  Ari shook his head. “I don’t yet either. But we will. I promise we will. Glad to have you back, Canyon.”

  He laughed. “I remember seeing Waverly’s beautiful face in the VR machine. Other than that, I have this sense of being asleep, of being not really here. I can’t explain it.”

  Jackson laughed. “You helped us with your eyes. So even out of it, you didn’t let us down. Don’t scare me again, brother.” Jackson pointed at him. “You owe me. I had to look at your eyeballs. I had to touch them. Yeah, you owe me big time.”

  Canyon shook his head. “Do you have markings all over your body?”

  I burst out laughing. I didn’t know why it was funny, but it really was. I laughed so that I wouldn’t cry with relief. Canyon linked his fingers with my own. I was so glad he could do that.

  Rehabbing a Super Soldier proved to be a special kind of problem. Canyon hadn’t woken unscathed. His balance wasn’t one hundred percent correct. His body had to learn to do certain things with sight that he’d done using other senses in the past. Half the time it seemed easier for him to simply close his eyes to accomplish a task. That was fine, except when it wasn’t. He’d always been able to see technology and light signatures before. Navigating the world in the total darkness didn’t work either.

  By day three he was grumpy.

  He sat in his bedroom, staring at the wall, arms crossed, not saying a word. I watched him from the other side of the room. When I’d entered, he’d not acknowledged me. This wasn’t the same as being lost in the machines. This was Canyon being surly. He was hardly my first patient to ever act this way. Healing came with bad moods.

  Right now we were playing who was going to talk first, and I didn’t intend to win. I was just giving him a minute to get used to the idea that I wanted to communicate.

  It was time to talk. “Are you hungry?”

  “No.” He paused. “Thank you.”

  “Thirsty?”

  A muscle ticked in Canyon’s jaw. “No. Not that either.”

  I could have predicted that answer. “Tired?”

  He pulled his knees up slightly, toward his chest. “Perfectly capable of putting myself to bed should I ever be tired.”

  “You know you’re making incredible progress. A lot of the issues of yesterday seem pretty worked out. You’re able to reach out and grab what you want without missing today.”

  He shook his head, a little too forcefully. “But today has its own problem. I walked into a wall.”

  Yes, Rohan had told me that.

  “What is the point of having my eyes if I can’t use them?”

  “Um, you are using them.” I walked toward him. “You’re glaring at the wall pretty well right now.”

  He turned to look at me, giving me a half smile. “I’m not trying to be a pain in the ass. I’m actually telling myself to pull my shit together. What I need is the threat of death and dismemberment at the hands of Evander to make me knock it off. Want to threaten my life, Waverly? It might help.”

  I held up my hands in surrender. “No, not going to do that, Canyon.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Want to throttle me?”

  I shook my head. “Just days ago you couldn’t talk or recognize when I was in the room. Then we almost lost you on the table. I had to keep you alive. I didn’t know if you were going to come through the whole process. No, I don’t want to kill you. I’ve literally been unable to sleep from worrying about you for two nights. I want to snap my fingers and make you better or take your pain for you. Those would be my choices.”

  Canyon held out his hand. “Come here. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I don’t need your sorry. I would like you to go easy on yourself. That would make me immensely happy.”

  Still, I walked over and took his hand. “Weakness was never allowed. Soldiers who didn’t get up and show proficiency, even after being shot, were put down. The way I’ve been? They’d be done with me.”

  I shook my head, breathing him in. “You’re not a soldier for Evander anymore.”

  He went very still. “I suppose you’re right. I… I never stopped thinking of myself that way.” He shook his head. “I am not a soldier. I am… what?”

  I kissed his cheek. “You’re Canyon. And I didn’t say you weren’t a soldier. You are. For us. Just not for Evander. And soldiers get to have some downtime after they almost die. At least on any ship I’m in charge of.”

  Not that I was in charge of this ship. That was funny, how it slipped out of my mouth. I’d never been in charge of a ship in my life. “Never mind. I’m not running the show here. Just… anywhere I am.”

  He snorted. “Of course you are,” Canyon ran a hand through my hair. “You always will. You’re our Waverly. You are the sun, and we are in orbit around you. Besides, Artemis has always been a ship run by women. That’s how it functions best. Long history of it. Even when the men are on it alone, ultimately she is searching for a woman.”

  I blinked, trying to digest what he said. I’d really not asked him about his time spent lost to the machines. He’d acted like he didn’t remember much of it. “Have you been talking to Artemis?”

  Canyon was quiet. “I feel like I have. I’m not sure. But… I know things about her. All the families formed while protected by her hull. All the near death explosi
ons she survived. It’s not a consciousness, just somehow a database which also works as a memory.”

  I’d seen this ship on Orion. Melissa had stepped off it with her guys. She hadn’t been the woman I’d come to know. How would we all change before we got home?

  I turned to Canyon to say that but his eyes were closed. He’d fallen asleep. I sighed. He was going to hate that he’d conked out like that. Super Soldiers didn’t need sleep. Except mine did. And far more of it before he’d be himself again.

  6 Target Practice

  I knew the second Canyon felt better. He’d been washing dishes with his eyes closed and then he opened them slowly. I was on the floor scrubbing. I’d gotten good at this on Orion and the ship was filthy. I had always kept myself alert to the level of cleanliness in med bays, but not noticed the state of things in the rest of my life. I’d be damned if I was going to want to avoid looking down for however many months we had left on this ship because of my fear of what the dirt beneath my feet looked like.

  I was going to get years’ worth of grime taken care of by the time we docked Artemis on The Farm.

  “I’m going to go shoot things.” His statement was so abrupt it took me by surprise. I quit scrubbing.

  “Um, what?” I got off the floor.

  “Target practice. That’s what I’m going to do.”

  Well, at least that wasn’t something he could do with his eyes closed. He was going to have to look to point and shoot. “Is it safe to shoot things on the ship? I would hate for you to blow a hole in the side.”

  He snorted. “I wouldn’t do that. But that being said, I’m not going to use real bullets. We’re going to use pellets.”

  “We?” I was not participating in this. I’d never shot a gun. I wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to use one, particularly not the kind I saw Rohan and Canyon use. They didn’t exactly look, point, and shoot.