by Tasha Black
He covered his eyes with a hand, and took a breath.
In seconds, the whole world exploded with light so bright it burned red, even through his hand and closed eyes.
The dogs yelped in surprise and pain.
Meanwhile, the force of the blast shook West’s gut and made his ears ring.
Instead of taking inventory, he ducked his head down and ran for the buildings. The beasts wouldn’t be confused for long.
A few of them were hot on his heels immediately. He could hear their harsh panting behind him.
Had they been smart enough to shield themselves?
West pushed harder. He was gaining a lead when his legs stuttered.
He stumbled, but managed to stay on his feet.
He pushed again for speed, but his legs wouldn’t deliver. He didn’t dare push harder for fear he would end up in a glitch again. A glitch that may as well be permanent since these dogs would probably end his life as soon as he fell.
He was going to have to fight.
And if he had to do it, there was no sense in waiting.
He wheeled around and caught one of the dogs in mid leap. It was so large that for a moment, he wasn’t sure he would have any effect on it.
He continued his spin and managed to hurl the dog away.
Another came in fast and low. West punched down before it could dodge, connecting with its head. It collapsed with a whimper at his feet. Almost immediately, it began to…
Melt?
That wasn’t quite right. But West couldn’t get his mind around what he was seeing.
The outline of the creature shifted, seeming to simultaneously deflate in places while stretching in others.
West watched, transfixed, forgetting everything except the sight he was witnessing.
In the span of a few seconds, the dog’s shape was gone, replaced by the naked body of a man.
Reeling, West thought at first that maybe his eye was glitching, sending him corrupted signals. But when he closed his new eye, the old one could just make out the outline of the man in the glow from the buildings.
Impossible.
Maybe his mind was glitching now. Maybe he’d finally pushed himself too far.
Before he could panic, another dog crashed into him. Hard.
West managed to keep his feet, but there were more on the way.
Another one leapt at him, teeth bared.
He shoved it away, but there were two more right behind it.
One clamped down on his leg, the other got ahold of his arm.
He tried to shake them, but more dogs had arrived to join the attack.
West lost his balance and fell forward, catching a face-full of grass and dirt.
He struggled to get up, but every time he managed to get a limb under himself, one of the beasts knocked it away.
Why hadn’t they torn him to shreds already?
It was as though they were toying with him.
Or waiting for reinforcements.
Teeth sunk deep into his back, and he felt the warm blood wetting his clothing. Then the pain slammed into him.
This was the end.
A hitch-pitched yelp sounded above him. Then another, followed by a low, threatening growl.
The weight on West’s back disappeared.
Rough hands hauled him to his feet from behind.
Hands.
At least the new opponent was human.
West remembered what happened to the dog he hit. Maybe one of the dogs in the pack had… transformed somehow.
The hands yanked the balaclava off his head.
West spun, ready to punch his new attacker into—
“West?” the man asked.
West knew the voice, but he wasn’t expecting it.
Dalton.
“I came to rescue you,” West muttered.
Dalton looked him up and down. West could only imagine what he looked like - beat to hell and covered in blood.
“Thanks,” Dalton said, mostly hiding his smile.
West rolled his eyes and looked around for the dogs.
“They’re gone,” Dalton said, answering the question West hadn’t asked. “For now.”
“We’ve got to get out,” West said.
“No can do,” Dalton pointed to a collar around his neck with a weird little box on it. “I get anywhere near that fence, and this thing is going to put me out of commission.”
West reached up and squeezed the mechanism on the collar until it shattered and dropped to the ground at Dalton’s feet.
“Okay then,” Dalton said with a huge smile.
They headed for the fence, just as an alarm klaxon sounded from the compound.
Dalton paused at the fence. “I can boost you up, and then—”
West tore a whole section of the fence away and tossed it behind them.
“Right,” Dalton said.
West glanced back at the buildings. The new eye allowed him to see that troops, both human and canine, were already pouring out of the buildings behind them.
“Can you run?” he asked Dalton.
“Try and keep up,” Dalton laughed.
West smiled.
Then Dalton took off faster than West had ever seen anyone run. He didn’t even seem to be bothered by the darkness.
West followed, managing to maintain a steady speed.
Together, they disappeared into the night.
35
Cordelia yawned in the elevator to Med Pros.
She hadn’t slept a wink.
Taking Jess to Mallory without West’s invitation was tantamount to theft.
Grand theft, not to put too fine a point on it.
And while she had tossed and turned and paced and cried, she had eventually noticed that West didn’t come home at all.
The ding of the elevator broke her reverie, and she patted Jess’s shoulder before pushing her chair out of the elevator.
She hadn’t pushed Jess’s chair in a long time. Jess liked to get around by herself as much as possible. But they were both feeling scared and it felt right. Sort of the way little Jess would take Cordelia’s hand, in the days before the accident, when she felt frightened, or they were in a new situation. Back then, Cord would wrap her fingers around her sister’s and send bravery through her very skin.
Today, she was willing courage to her sister through the metal of the chair.
Mallory was waiting right at the elevator door for them with a big smile. She was holding a huge coffee mug with the chemical model of caffeine on it.
She had changed her look again. The spiky hair was long enough to flop over slightly now, and it was a lavish purple color.
As usual, she wore a T-shirt under her open lab coat, this one with a green ball on it and some writing but no curse words and nothing suggestive, Cordelia noted with relief.
“Ha!” Jess laughed at the mysterious t-shirt, “Alderaan Shot First’!”
“C’mon in,” Mallory winked.
As soon as they were past the entry, Jess looked around for a long moment.
“Wow,” she said, he voice barely above a whisper.
“I know, right? I work here every day, and it still does that to me sometimes. So-oo, you must be Jessica” Mallory extended her hand. “I’m Mallory Pruitt. Glad to hear you’re feeling better.”
“Pardon?” Jess asked.
“I’ve been bugging West about getting you in here ever since we got this place up and running,” Mallory explained. “He told me you weren’t feeling up to it. But you’re clearly feeling better now.”
“Clearly,” Jess said.
“Let me show you around,” Mallory offered.
“Awesome,” Jess replied.
Cord followed behind as Mallory got started on the grand tour.
Why would West say that Jess wasn’t up to coming in? He knew how excited Jess was for this.
And where was he?
She hadn’t heard anything from him since about this time yesterday morning.
Mallory was explaining different pieces of equipment as Jess looked on in wonder. None of it registered with Cordelia, but Jess was tuned in and asking the kind of questions and follow-ups that told Cord her sister had been researching this for a long time.
Finally, they wound up at the scanner.
“And this is where we will start,” Mallory said. “The first thing we need to do is get you in there for a full body scan, just so we can see what we’re working with. We can do that today, if you’d like.”
“Yes!” Jess cried. “I mean, I’d like that very much, Ms. Pruitt—Dr. Pruitt—Ma’am.”
“Just Mallory would be fine with me,” Mallory smiled.
“Thank you, Mallory,” Jess said fervently.
Cordelia fought back tears. It made her heart swell to see Jess so happy, and to imagine the possibilities in front of her.
Mallory sent them to the ladies room to get Jess into her hospital gown.
“Oh my god, oh my god oh my god,” Jess murmured the whole time.
They emerged again to find two of the lab techs waiting.
“Okay, sweetie, let’s get you in,” one of them said with a smile and a big wink. Together, the two of them helped get Jess settled into the massive machine.
Jess just smiled and let them do their thing. At last she was positioned correctly.
“Good to go,” the winky one said to Mallory.
The circular scanner whirred and clicked as the platform Jess lay on moved through it, from head to toe and back again.
“This machine is on the cutting edge of medical diagnostic imaging. We’ll get all the data we need from a single scan. That includes detailed 3D imaging of Jess’s nervous system,” Mallory explained, emphasizing the last bit.
“Does that mean you can reinervate?” Cordelia asked.
“If we can isolate the problem,” Mallory explained, “then yes, we may be able to use Med Pros artificial nerve technology to bypass it. That would be ideal. If the damage turns out to be too comprehensive, we can talk about spinal implants wired into a custom exoskeleton.”
Cord shuddered at the thought of Vince Palma in the exo-suit he’d used to throw West out the window. The exo-suit he’d ended up welded into.
Mallory looked over at her sympathetically.
“The whole scan only takes about 20 minutes,” she said.
“Oh, no it’s not that. How soon will we know what you find?” Cordelia asked.
“I’ll put a team on analyzing the data right away,” Mallory assured her. I’ll be in touch as soon as we’re ready for you to come in for a comprehensive presentation.”
They watched for a while without talking. Cordelia found the whirs and clicks oddly comforting. The machine patiently searched inside her sister, finding answers to questions they might not have known to ask.
If only she could do the same to West’s head. Find out where he was and why he was keeping Jess from the treatment that would open up her future.
At last, the scan was done. Jess dressed again, this time in a reverent kind of silence.
When they emerged from the dressing room, Mallory greeted her again with a smile.
“Star Wars pre-quels, yes or no?” she asked Jess.
“Oh god, no!” Jess exclaimed.
“Good girl! Favorite of the trilogy?” Mallory asked.
“Empire!” Jess announced.
“My kinda’ kid,” Mallory said to Cordelia.
Before Cordelia could think of anything to add, the elevator dinged.
She could hear the voices even before the doors were all the way open.
“This is a bad idea,” Dalton was saying.
“You need to let Mallory take a look at you,” West insisted.
They stepped off the elevator and the whole lab went silent.
West’s clothes were torn and caked with blood.
Dalton’s face was bruised, and his left arm was wrapped in a makeshift bandage, dark stains seeping through the white material.
They looked like they’d been through a war.
West looked past Cordelia at Mallory.
“What is Jess doing here?” he asked coldly. “I don’t remember authorizing this.”
“I… didn’t even know that was a thing that could happen,” Mallory said with a dubious look.
West turned to Cord, his eyes burning with rage.
“I told you I would take care of this,” he said through his teeth. “She shouldn’t be here.”
He was angry, furious really, she could hear it in his voice, restrained yet somehow still reverberating through her body.
But there was something else. It was almost like… fear.
What could he be afraid of?
Dalton put a hand on West’s shoulder.
“Take it easy, man,” he said softly.
“No!” West said, pulling away from his friend. “That’s not how this works.”
He turned back to Cordelia and fixed her with a cold glare.
“I’m revoking your security clearance to this level,” he said. “You’ve obviously gotten a little entitled while I was gone. That’s about to change. I think it’s time everyone here remembers one simple fact. You all work for me.”
People all over the lab were suddenly all very interested in their computer screens and iPads.
“I don’t,” Jess said in a small, shaky voice as she wheeled herself into the open elevator.
West hadn’t looked at Jess, not once since he walked in. And he didn’t now.
He clenched his jaw, like he was holding something back.
What?
“West, what’s wrong?” Cordelia asked, unable to stop herself from reaching out to him.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said fiercely.
“You know what? I don’t work for you either,” Cordelia heard herself say in a voice that sounded stringer than she felt. “Consider this my resignation.”
She stormed into the elevator and pushed the button without looking back at him, willing herself not to cry until she was safe at home in her room.
If her life were a movie, this would be the part where West would rush after her, catch the door, and confess that he couldn’t live without her. They would both apologize between passionate kisses. She waited.
He didn’t move at all.
She heard his voice as the doors swished closed. The heat was gone, his tone was ice cold.
“Fine,” he said. “Say hi to Peter for me.”
The elevator started to move.
Cordelia’s stomach dropped through the floor.
36
West watched as the scalpel cut into Dalton’s back. A line of scarlet oozed from the incision as Mallory dragged the scalpel across two inches of his friend’s flesh.
West tried to focus on matters at hand, instead of dwelling on Cordelia, even though his whole body felt like collapsing into the black hole at his center since the second she stepped in the elevator.
Mallory grabbed a pair of forceps from the tray beside her.
“Sorry,” she whispered, sliding them into the incision and feeling around.
Dalton’s face was a mask of calm.
The scan had revealed a small metallic object in Dalton’s back. Mallory had ushered them quickly into a private room.
She’d insisted on taking care of their wounds first, telling them whatever was inside Dalton wouldn’t matter if they both bled out on the carpet.
It was a fair point.
West was glad her hands remained steady in spite of her obvious distress. As she’d worked, she admonished West again, reminding him that she wasn’t really this kind of doctor. And she muttered to herself that considering recent events, maybe she ought to brush up.
When she was silent at last, West ventured to tell her about last night’s escapades. He described trying to rescue Dalton, and how they had ended up rescuing each other.
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He told her how the soldiers had chased them all night, no matter how fast they ran, or how well they hid. How they had pursued, but never fully attacked once they were off zoo property.
Mallory said nothing in reply, though she did glare at him disapprovingly at intervals.
She was angry that he had taken so many risks. But West knew how loyal she was to Dalton.
The truth was, she was clearly still angry about his blow-up by the elevator.
And she had every right to be.
Once she seemed satisfied that they weren’t going to die, she’d gone to work on finding whatever was inside Dalton.
And now here they were, Dalton’s back open and Mallory’s brow furrowed as she bent over him.
“Oh,” Mallory whispered. It looked like she had captured something with the forceps.
“Shit!” she whispered, as the forceps emerged partially with nothing.
“Sorry,” she said softly to Dalton, stroking his lower back with her other hand reassuringly.
She began to try again, moving very slowly.
“So how were your legs?” she asked West.
Oh god, did she know? It would be almost a relief to talk to her about it.
“What do you mean?” he ventured.
“You jumped over a twelve foot tall fence, and then outran crazy dog creatures for hours. I’d say that qualifies as a healthy dose of stress on them. How did they hold up?” she asked tiredly.
She didn’t know, after all.
He should tell her.
“Fine,” he heard himself say.
“Fine?” she asked.
“Yeah, just fine,” he said tersely. “That’s all.”
“I’ll be sure to note it in the journal,” she said defensively.
“Sorry. It’s been a long night,” he told her.
She didn’t answer, but leaned forward further. Slowly, she pulled something out of Dalton’s back. It looked like a large metal pill.
“There’s your problem,” she said with satisfaction.
Dalton sat up and took the capsule, wiping the blood from it with his fingers.
Mallory moved behind him to close the wound.
It had to be some kind of tracking device.
“No wonder we had such a hard time giving them the slip last night,” Dalton said, shaking his head.
