Eko (NINE Series, #1)

by Loren Walker

  * * *

  When Renzo could stay awake for longer periods of time, the assigned physician gave him a rundown of all his injuries, surgical interventions, recovery and rehabilitation needs. As the doctor spoke, Renzo flexed the muscles around his right knee. The knee was there. But when he instinctually tried to harden his calf muscle, he reprimanded himself: Nothing is there, stupid.

  Between Phaira and the physician, Renzo put together the events. He had been hit repeatedly with a blunt object, cracking the skull and impacting the frontal, parietal and temporal lobes. More damage was done to his right leg with the same blunt object. Then his calf and foot were crushed under a ground transport. A pedestrian found Renzo unconscious and barely breathing. Cohen received the first call from the medical center. Then a telegram was sent to Phaira in her post in the South.

  Renzo could barely comprehend any of it. It sounded like a story, like something that had happened to someone else. Why him? Why would be targeted? He lived in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Daro. Even with his position at the university, he had no rana on him. He went to work and came back to the apartment that he shared with Cohen. Once a week, he spoke via satellite to Phaira if she were available. He made simple dinners when his brother got home from his job at the quarry. They lived small, but secure lives, more secure than they could have ever hoped for.

  But Renzo could only remember the hours before the assault. That night, he was hunched over his apprentice desk for hours, working numbers, analyzing patterns and trying to crack open their meaning. As the sun began to set outside, he reached for his REM injector and pressed the tip into the hollow in his wrist. It would give the benefit of a few hours of sleep in ten minutes. When the chemicals wove through his blood, he allowed himself to dream, just for this moment, of something other than numbers.

  Hours later, he was walking to the public shuttle, wondering whether Cohen was home from the quarry, what was in the apartment for food…

  And then, nothing.

  Memory loss was normal. Due to the location of the injury, he could expect to experience notable changes in his attention and concentration, his ability to calculate and recognize patterns. The physicians were hopeful that his short–term memory would recover. Over and over, the doctors cited how lucky he was. Renzo listened, he took it in, he played polite and thanked them for their help. He also deferred their offers to set up rehabilitation therapy appointments, or begin the process to fit him for a prosthetic.

  Phaira or Cohen stayed in the room with him, sleeping on the cramped chair by the bedside, telling him nostalgic stories from their childhood to try and get him to smile. He knew they were relieved that he was alive and mostly intact. But Renzo was gone.

  At least, the person he used to be was gone. He was a poor boy who happened to be brilliant at cracking codes, under the tutelage of some of the top mathematical minds in the country. He was the one who got out, who rose above the pollution and poverty of the neighborhood. His future planned before he left his teenage years.

  And now: nothing.

  Everything that made him special was gone.

  Some of his colleagues showed up at the hospital: bearing flowers, slapping him on the shoulder, with big smiles glazed with anxiety.

  Yes, Renzo thought. Your worst fear in front of you. Thankful that it’s my brain that’s gone, not yours.

  It didn’t surprise him when those visits grew less and less frequent. Curiously, it didn’t upset him much either.

  After a few days, the nurses ignored Renzo’s protests and began to wrap his right thigh in tight bandages, shaping the stump so it would fit into a prosthetic. They sent in a physical therapist to exercise his body, forced him to switch positions to prevent bedsores.

  The law patrol came in with questions and an account of the basic procedure followed: looking over surveillance, searching for eyewitnesses, no weapon found, not yet. They asked him the same questions again and again, clearly impatient with his memory loss.

  During the interview, Renzo’s eyes flitted over to Phaira, who watched from the corner. He couldn’t interpret the look on her face, if it was despondent or destructive. But she never blinked.