Wait—what thing—what are you…? Cam’s eyes grew heavier and heavier, his mind swirling in and away from the conversation, from himself. No, stay awake—
“Besides, it won’t want this one. Ferros is just a brute; he’s got no talent.”
As the last of the light faded away, the other assistant forced a mirthless laugh. “That doesn’t mean he won’t help end the world.”
***
Cam woke lying flat on his back, attached to the infusion pump, sheets drawn up to his chest. Sitting up, he flung off the sheets before realizing himself back in his medical bay.
Naum, he thought, breathing heavily, don’t drill my—
He touched his sternum with the tips of his fingers, too afraid to apply any real pressure until he sensed nothing more than a mild ache. Lifting up his patient gown, he saw the usual pink, spidery branches of inflammation on his belly, but other marks—neat, three-centimeter lines covered by transparent dermal patches, scored the area around his hip bones and thighs.
He inspected his chest, where a red circle covered by another dermal patch sat in the lower third of his sternum.
What did they do to me?
Cam dropped his gown back down, uncomfortable by the look—the feel—of his own body.
“Knock, knock.” Reppen stood at the doorway, a tray full of food steaming in her hand. “Can I come in?”
Unsure of her intent, he twisted up one of the sheets in his fist and readied for—
—Anything—I’ll do anything—don’t take me away again, I’ll—
“Hey, it’s okay,” she whispered, approaching slowly. She set down the food on the tray table and stood at a distance. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Before he could even think of a response, she walked over to the monitors, but angled her face away so he could see her bring first finger up to her lips and hear her whisper: “Shhh.”
“Huh. There’s some kind of feedback delay. I’d better reboot,” she declared, sounding as if she read the line off a script. He watched as she hit a squiggly-marked button on the primary monitor. It chimed three times, then powered down. “We’ve got three minutes.”
Cam flinched when she tried to touch his shoulder.
“Please—I just want to help you.”
The lilt of her voice, the familial glint in her eye.
Cam didn’t believe her, but something inside him—whatever part of him that survived so far—needed to. Releasing the sheets in his hands, he held his breath until the sting of his sinuses, the prick in the inner corners of his eyes, passed, and he could trust his own voice.
“What is happening to me? Who is Naum? I—” His voice cracked as the thought of Naum, the drill—the terrible dreams of the East Wing, of Rogman and the machine monster, Iggie’s terror—came crashing down all at once. “…I don’t know who my enemy is.”
Reppen’s mouth opened and shut several times until she gave up and plopped down on the work stool near his bed. With a quaver to her words, she tried again. “You’re from Cerka, right?”
He nodded.
“You know who the Sovereign is?”
Cam frowned. “I’m not an idiot.”
“Then you know he’s just another dictator trying to take over the Starways.”
“No, he’s different,” Cam snapped back. “He’s not going to let leeches silently rule over the rest of us for any longer. He’s going to clean up the galaxy, make things fair.”
Reppen sat back in her chair. “Fair? Do you even know what that means?”
“Fair is getting a chance to go to school or having something to eat that isn’t filled with sawdust or dirt,” he said, rage undamming his words. “Fair is my father not losing his job to some ratchakker leech, and my mother not choosing booze over me and my siblings. Fair is my father not blowing himself up to save our infested city!”
Reppen raised her hand to quell his rising voice, but he didn’t—couldn’t—stop.
“Fair is not losing your entire family to a stupid war or watching your sister get taken away. Fair is not—”
(Hurting someone just to survive.)
A sob clenched the last bit of his sentence, and he stopped himself before he lost what little control he still possessed.
With one hand covering her lower lip and chin, Reppen whispered: “I’m sorry, Cam.”
Calming himself, he finished: “You’re right. I don’t know what fair is.”
Reppen reached out and took his hand, even when he tried to shy away. “Listen to me—what they’re doing to you—to all you kids—isn’t fair, either.”
“What do you mean?” he said, still trying to take his hand back, but she held fast.
“Kids aren’t war machines.”
War machines.
MACHINES.
His mind conjured the monster with the burning red eye scurrying down the hallway its mechanical spider-legs, rusted gears grinding, screeching with a carnal hunger.
(Why did she say it like that?)
“And more importantly, these telepaths—without them, my mother would have died in the civil wars on Thamosin. Doctors gave her a terminal diagnosis from all the pollutants she inhaled from the bioweapons. But my relatives took her to Algar, the Prodgy homeworld, where Healers saved her life.”
Cam thought to argue her, but the relief in her eyes, the indefatigable hope upheld by a miracle, stole his anger.
“Fear, hatred, and ignorance are your enemies,” she said, squeezing his hand. “Everything else is a deception.”
Reppen eyed the monitor as red lights flashed and the startup menu scrolled down the screen. “I’ve got to go. Listen, Cam—you’re smarter than they’ve let you believe,” she said, standing up and fiddling with the infusion pump. “Don’t give up hope. In the meantime, I’ll do everything I can to help you, okay?”
The monitor flickered back on. Reppen’s demeanor changed, her expression hardened.
“Rehab is in one hour, cadet. Eat what you can, leave the rest on the tray.”
He said nothing, watching as she made adjustments to the pump, and checked the monitors. When she bent down again to finalize the medication dosing, he whispered: “What’s in the East Wing?”
She didn’t react, her countenance closed off and stern. After locking the pump, she made her way to the door, pausing before she exited.
“Rest up, cadet. Things are only going to get tougher.”
Chapter 16
Reppen never returned. Not after he finished his bowl of fruitsauce and protein shake, and hid the packet of crackers between his sheets, or to check on him before an attendant picked him up for transport.
“Where’s nurse Reppen?” he asked, but the stone-faced attendant grunted and pointed to the hoverchair.
“Mind yourself, cadet.”
Cam paid better attention this time as he rolled down the hallway, noting everything from the scuff marks on the floor to the names and numbers posted on the signs and doorways. The medical ward maze would confuse anyone—
No, he thought. Gotta remember.
Biting his lip, he started a game in his head, associating the numbers of the bays with the Cerkan city shops, overlaying a map he could understand.
Bay 71, Varnee’s Thrift Store. Bay 72, Used Goods. Bay 73, Corner Market.
The attendant turned the corner, bringing him back to another set of double doors with warning symbols on it. With a flash of his keycard, the doors parted, letting them into the separate wing.
Rehab Dept Cam read off the sign hanging over the nurse’s station.
No sign of Naum, or red-suited assistants. Instead, the attendant guided him inside a huge open room with white-paneled walls and floors, reminding him of the training simulations arena. Kids around his age, some dressed in patient gowns, others in their regular academy uniform, interacted with the holographic programs, exercise equipment, or the staff at various stations.
“Over here.” A pale-faced woman dressed in a stark-white suit motioned to
them with one hand while clutching a datapad in the other.
As the attendant directed them to her station, Cam caught sight of red hair and a long, lean stature on the opposite end of the room. Tomia?
He leaned forward, trying to get a better view around the other activity. It looked like her, but she was so much taller, broader—just like Iggie and Jahx. And her left arm looked as if it had suffered some kind of trauma. A lighted, regenerative casing ran from her wrist to her elbow, and the immediate tissue surrounding the casing, including the entirety of her hand, appeared red, almost purple, as if infected.
“Tomia!” he shouted, rising out of the hoverchair.
She turned, baffled, on the border of terrified, until she spotted him. A broad smile countered the disbelief that pinched up her brows. “Cam!”
“Settle down,” the attendant said, clamping a strong hand down on his shoulder.
“Get him on the table.” The pale-faced woman pointed at the therapy table to her left. On an adjacent tray lay several four-centimeter, rectangular objects with flashing red lights.
Cam jerked back, remembering Naum, the drill—
“Calm yourself,” the woman said, showing him one of the devices off the table. The gray housing and tiny script written in a foreign tongue meant nothing to him. “These are motor assist modules, designed to help your muscle control and minimize your pain.”
Cam scoffed. Why would anyone care about my pain?
“Just get him on the table,” she said, snapping her fingers at the assistant.
Without any warning, the assistant hoisted Cam up by the arm, half-flinging him onto the table. Cam stifled a cry but couldn’t help the pain that kept him hunched over on the edge of the table, or the veins that popped out on his forehead as he held his breath and waited for the rain of electric fire to pass.
After the assistant left, the pale woman introduced herself. “I am Jao, your physical therapist. Do as I say, and we won’t have any problems.”
As terrible and strict as she tried to sound, Cam didn’t sense the imminent threat he grafted from Naum, or even the beaked nurse Kull. The wrinkles etched into her brow came equally from scowling and worrying, and the faded lines around her mouth meant that at one time she laughed. Instinct told him she vented her frustrations on her patients but didn’t possess the sadistic streak he’d seen in other staff members.
Jao attached the rectangular devices to his arms, legs, and one that strapped around his chest, and ordered him to walk. Still recovering from the rough handling, he didn’t move as fast as she liked, and incurred a swift slap to the shoulder.
“Come on, we haven’t got all day.”
Cam stumbled-stepped forward, shocked by the hit and unable to compensate for the rapid change in posture. However, after catching himself on the tray table, he noticed something that made his heart sing: My feet—it doesn’t hurt to walk!
And his shoulder—which should have been set afire by such a blow, only stung.
“Walk up and down the room four times,” Jao ordered.
Cam did so, eager to touch each wall and return back. Some of the kids murmured and pointed, stopping their exercises to stare.
Yeah, look at me, he thought.
He wanted everyone—Jao, Tomia, all the cadets, teachers—Rogman—to see his strength return, to know that he wasn’t some waste of a patient rotting in a bed.
When he returned to the cross-armed Jao, he didn’t surprise to her sour expression, or her inability to compliment him on his achievement. “Well?”
“Ma’am?”
“Any unusual sensations?”
He didn’t know how to answer that question. Nothing felt right, not since the training incident. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Jao huffed. “Any delayed responses, numbness?”
Cam rocked back and forth on his heels and wiggled his fingers. “Yeah, my feet and hands are pretty numb.”
Exasperated, she pointed to the table. “Sit while I make adjustments.”
Cam did so, trying to stay quiet as she took off the arm and leg modules and fussed over the settings, going back and forth between her datapad and the devices.
As she fiddled, Cam looked again for Tomia, to see if she witnessed his feat. Where’d you go?
He didn’t see her at the same station he’d see her at before, or anywhere in the open therapy room. But she was right there.
Doubt crept down into his gut, unsettling his stomach. (Wasn’t she?)
The question bothered him enough to elicit a shiver. Maybe he’d imagined seeing her. After all, Jahx just saw her and Iggie—totally fine, without a busted arm—riding on a lift not too long ago—
Wait—how long ago?
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. Time was so hard to keep track of. Maybe I’m just imagining—?
No. I saw her. She’s hurt, just like Iggie.
He touched the tender point on his chest.
I’ve got to get out of here.
“Io’deka,” Jao said in her native tongue. It sounded like a swear, and the glower in her face confirmed his suspicions. “Wait here. I need to make manual adjustments.”
Cam did so, holding himself on the edge of the table by his arms as Jao exited the therapy room and walked around to the nurse’s station. As he waited, he looked for other familiar faces, hoping to find someone—anyone—
“Chak,” he said, his arms giving out. Don’t fall—don’t fall!
Not in front of the other cadets.
Or Rogman.
Despite his will, he pitched forward, catching himself on the tray, but sliding off the table, his legs not ready to catch his weight. Knees buckling, he tensed, anticipating the fall when a gentle arm slipped around his waist.
“I’ve got you.”
“Jetta?”
No, not Jetta. This girl looked identical, except for her eyes. Gray, not green, reminding him of spring clouds bursting with fresh rain.
“Jaeia,” she corrected, as she helped him back to the table.
Red-faced, he looked around, but no one seemed to notice his near-fall. “Sorry, and, you know, thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, brushing back the loose hair that fell in her face.
She watched him as he shifted back farther on the table, putting most of his weight on his bottom this time. It hurt, especially without the modules, but at least he wouldn’t embarrass himself again.
Cam looked around, discomfited by her continued presence. “Uh, why are you here?”
Jaeia showed him her left wrist fitted with a similar regenerative casing he thought he saw on Tomia. “Sprained it in training.”
“Basic or sims?”
“Basic.”
Cam looked her over. She seemed bigger than Jetta, but then again, he hadn’t seen her sister since the incident. Either way, the human-looking Fiorahian didn’t look as wimpy as she did when he first saw them in the mess hall. In fact, from what little he could see outlined by her jacket bespoke of muscle tone, fitness.
“Did you get the kid back that hurt you?”
Jaeia twisted around in her boots. “I’m not really much for physical combat.”
“Look, you’ve got to stand up for yourself,” he said, surprising her with his insistence. “There’s going to come a time when you’re alone, and all you’ve got left is the fight.”
Stunned, she stared at him wide-eyed. “Alone?”
“Yeah, I mean, you do stuff apart from your sibs, right?”
Jaeia looked down at her feet. “Sometimes Jetta and Jahx do stuff without me.”
Cam noted her reaction, and how, with her good hand, she picked at the end of her jacket sleeve, struggling to keep her facial expression neutral. Her slip, her admission, diaphanous and fragile, projected out like a lone beacon in a night sky.
He tested his theory. “I know what you mean. I had twin sisters. I was always ‘the third’ with them.”
She squeezed both of her hands shut.
&n
bsp; “Your name’s Cam, right?” she asked, turning around the conversation.
Cam watched as she eyed the nurse’s station. He resisted the temptation to also look, studying her, why she cared about Jao’s return, or what the therapist would do about their interaction.
“How’d you know?”
She turned her head back to him. “You’ve got a reputation.”
Hearing the negative inflection, he shrugged. “Then you must be pretty brave.”
Her gaze fell to his right arm, to the uneven lumps and scars that carved their way up to his elbow. “My sister respects you.”
Cam shocked to hear that. Jetta seemed like a hard one to win over.
“And my brother.”
His heart skipped, and his stomach fluttered. Embarrassed, he lowered his head to hide his pink cheeks.
“You’re still hurting.”
The way she said it, with such confidence and assertion in her voice, and an intense gaze that would have convinced anyone of anything, shook him down to the bone. He automatically brought one of his arms across his chest, as if to shield himself, to keep back the truth she sought.
“I’m sorry,” she said, softening her voice. She reached out as if to touch his knee but pulled her hand back. “I just… I’m sorry. I just know what it’s like to act tough all the time. Well, at least try. I’m not very good at it. But not everyone here is after you, you know.”
Cam shuddered. Something about her words, the way she said them, how they quietly unpinned his armor, prying underneath and exposing—
“I don’t have friends,” he blurted.
Anyone else would have startled. She didn’t, studying him, absorbing his every reaction.
“I-I just—” He didn’t know how to recuperate, how to smooth out the glaring, awful confession in his exclamation.
“I don’t either.”
Not detecting any sarcasm, any hurtful intention in her voice, he let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
“At least you’ve got your brother and sister,” he said.
“Yes, but it’d be nice to have someone else to talk to.”
“Isn’t Jahx pretty easy to get along with?”
Jaeia focused on something beyond Cam. “Jahx is not always there, even when it seems like he is.”
Blue Sky Tomorrows Page 15
