by KH LeMoyne
The boy swallowed hard, nodded, and released the instrument.
Onyx brushed the boy’s neck again and rested the tip of the cylinder against the skin. When the child flinched, he stroked again with his fingers and hushed him.
“By the time you count to thirty, it’ll be over.”
A whine split the silence. The boy gripped Analena, but he didn’t move. More like ten seconds later, not thirty, Onyx pulled back and motioned Aaron forward. “If you have a way to disintegrate this, do it. If not, sprinkle it with iron filings, take it past the perimeter, and bury it.”
Aaron gave a quick glance to Analena. At her nod, he spun on his heel and disappeared down a tunnel at the far side of the cave.
“Hena, could you get some water?” Analena asked.
Onyx reached back to the boy’s throat. “Can you tell me your name?”
“Ars.”
A deep furrow formed between Onyx’s brows as he glanced back at Analena. “Try that again, buddy.”
“Gha.”
The boy took a sip of the water from the cup Hena delivered, sputtering out as much as he drank, and finally muttered, “Gar.”
Onyx nodded, “Okay, Gar, you can call me Trace.”
Analena shot him a quick glance.
He ignored her, not taking his gaze from the boy. “I’m going to take off the cover and look at your eyes. Again, not touching, just looking.”
“K.” The boy gripped Analena tight enough she had to bite back a sound. She watched as Onyx—no, Trace—untied the scarf and dropped it on the table. One large, rough hand fisted on the table at the boy’s hip as his jaw tensed, but his voice remained even as he reached for Gar’s face.
“I’m going to move your head from side to side so I can get a better view, okay?”
The boy lifted his chin, not flinching this time as Trace cupped the small face and gently looked at the wreckage she’d found in the detention cell. One eye socket sagged, the flesh depressed and unstructured without the form of an eyeball beneath. The second eye stared ahead unseeing, glassy and gray.
“Going to use another tool, again no touch, Gar. You won’t hear anything. This scans your muscles and nerves. You won’t feel a thing.” He placed the rectangular box of metal and plastic beneath the boy’s fingers. When the child’s hand withdrew, Trace ran the rectangular med scanner over Gar’s face, lingering on the side with the hazy eye. “Your good eye is going to need some drops. I’ll have a look at the other one later.”
Analena scowled. The boy was obviously blind. How could he lead him on?
Trace gave a terse shake of his head. Puzzled, she looked back at Gar.
“The drops won’t hurt, maybe a tiny sting. If you want, I can give you something to numb your face, like they gave you—before. I know that’s probably not a good memory, so you’re choice, bud.”
“They didn’t give me anything.”
Trace swore, and Analena closed her eyes as bile churned from her stomach to her throat. It was the boy’s hand, firm, and warm in hers, that kept her from losing what little control she had. She’d brought enough children from the detention labs. Only recently had the surgeries escalated to higher level of inhuman practices. Absence of anesthesia and pain medication angered her enough to wage war on the Regent council and their guards by herself, but only Gar’s life mattered right now. She couldn’t change the past.
“I don’t need anything,” said Gar.
Trace’s fingers shook visibly, and his skin tone had turned to chalk, though his stroking of the boy’s head remained constant. “This will be quick, I swear.”
He shuffled instruments and found a small clear bulb in a package. Tossing other supplies around, he searched for an elusive piece. At the boy’s shifting, he glanced back and pressed a hand to Gar’s shoulder. “I’m looking for the liquid solution, Gar. It’ll clear up your eye. You’ll be able to see in a few hours.”
Frustrated, he glanced from the sterile bulb in his hand to his duffel on the floor. His reluctance to release his hold on Gar was obvious. And the boy wasn’t letting either of them go.
“Aaron.” Analena motioned to the duffel on the floor. At Trace’s confirming nod, the younger man who’d just returned, crouched to pick up the large bag.
“Toward the bottom. White cloth.” Trace gestured with the bulb. “It’s a soft pack.”
Aaron dug for a minute and pulled out a white cloth bundle, unrolling it until multi-pockets of solid, clear bricks and pouches lay in a line on the table.
“Second one.” Trace pointed and motioned for the packet to be brought closer. Angling over the pouch in Aaron’s hands, he positioned the bulb above an insertion nodule. A small needle elongated from the bulb into the nodule, filling the clear bulb with a viscous solution. Withdrawing the bulb, Trace motioned for Aaron to replace the packet and turned to Gar.
“This will be cold but you can’t jerk. How about you move your hands to my shirt, Gar? If you have a reaction, hold on tight.”
He kept using the boy’s name, creating a link, the effect as soothing to her and the other children as it was on Gar. She met his gaze and shifted the boy’s hands over the fine black weave of Trace’s shirt. The small fingers dug in.
“Going to feel weird. You can blink, but try not to move.”
The boy’s face tilted, and Analena watched Trace brace his palm against the side of Gar’s face, the point of the bulb still in the air. His other hand tilted the chin higher and then drifted along the boy’s skin until his fingers framed above the brow and below the eye. “I’m going to open your lids a bit, for more space for the fluid to work. It’ll leak in from the corner. Ready?”
“Yeah.” The whisper almost broke her heart.
Gar didn’t blink as delicate drops of fluid slid from the needle’s edge and touched his eye.
“Now, slowly blink once. Again. Now close your eye for me.” Trace handed the bulb to Analena and carefully brought Gar’s head to his chest. “Sting?”
“Only a little,” came the soft reply.
“That’ll go away in a minute.”
“I’m not going to see from the other one, am I?”
The weary look on Trace’s face and the quick look of apology he gave Analena said it all.
“Not right now, Gar.”
Chapter 4
“Is there a device available for his missing eye?”
Piper’s voice broke through Trace’s scrutiny of the cavern. Unable to focus on anything but the boy’s injury since his arrival, he chose to check out his surroundings rather than stare at the calm, composed woman beside him. Her sherry eyes, capped with delicate brows, and a full, curving mouth wrestled with his self-control.
No wonder he’d never seen her face in his dreams. The temptation of her body had been hard enough. He’d recognized her from the moment he’d entered the cave and seen her move. Years of dreams had lent him familiarity with the sensuous, sleek muscles and mannerisms. Nothing could mask that body from his memory. And the numerals on her body, he’d wager his life they were there as well.
Now he could add her smooth olive complexion and vibrant eyes to his torment. Unfortunately, her expression reflected her assessment. Her tolerance of him, a mix of wariness and appreciation.
One was prudent, the other unwarranted.
“There’s no device I’m aware of. It doesn’t mean I can’t figure something out,” he said.
“I’d rather not lead him on.” Her gaze shifted to Gar and then settled on the other side of the room with the rest of the children. “They all have issues. Better to let him acclimate than hold out for an impossibility.”
He shook his head. Gar wouldn’t give up on his dreams any sooner than Trace would. He didn’t need communication to witness the boy’s determination. “The options aren’t mutually exclusive. He’ll need to adjust for now, regardless.”
The long black braid down her back swished as she turned back to him. A tilt of her head and the proud set of her jaw pronounce
d her need to defend her cause, the boy’s cause. He held up his hand.
“I’m not trying to stir up trouble for you. I understand you’re in charge. But looking into options won’t affect what you have planned for him.” Better to head to a safer subject. “Do you need me to look at any of the other kids while I’m here?” Trace bent back over his supplies, rolling the packets of antiseptics and drugs safely into their carrier, giving her time to frame an answer and freeing himself from the distant expression on her face.
He didn’t blame her for her suspicions. Messaging didn’t constitute a personal acquaintance or social comfort. And clearance from Aaron didn’t grant him privileges here in her domain. The oddity of him being intimately familiar with her body via his dreams—no, nightmares—didn’t give him an advantage in casual banter either. Hell, it made his attempts at interaction harder.
Yeah, give her space. At all costs, avoid the jarring reality of his dream angel’s conversion to a physical, beautiful woman, complete with emotions and morals to match. And a career choice that offered no forgiveness for his past.
A squeal from across the cave preceded a light tap on his arm. Searching for the origins of what had struck him, he glanced at the children behind him. A smaller boy plucked something from within the leaves covering the wall and held it close to stomach with one hand. He launched two small projectiles at another child and popped a final one in his mouth.
Trace whipped around, looking across the table for the projectile.
A small green fruit, half-an-inch in diameter, gleamed among the black and silver jumble of his tools.
“What the hell are they doing?” Bushy vines covered one full wall of the cavern. He glanced back at a basket of additional produce beneath the vine. Clusters of light green nodules nestled in the foliage, the tendrils wrapped in cords around a second, thicker plant. Fist-sized brown balls hung on the dangling roots.
“Playing. Eating.” She looked over her shoulder, “Stop roughhousing, you two.”
“He started it, Analena.”
Two separate voices chimed in with the same disclaimer, and Trace stared at Analena. No more hiding behind monikers for either of them. He grabbed his scanner and the fruit, choking back a terse reply to her casual sarcasm. Maybe she didn’t know. But the Piper he’d been in contact with wouldn’t make that mistake. “This will kill them.”
“No—”
Ignoring her with a shake of his head, he pulled out two more tools and ran the med scanner over the fruit on the table.
Salmonella bacteria negative.
Not possible. Trace smashed the green berry between his thumb and forefinger and instigated a secondary scan with a fine optic beam from the scanner.
Negative.
He flicked the berry to the side, stalked to the wall of vines, and twisted one of the brown woody balls until it snapped free.
A scan of that proved negative as well. Unconvinced, he shoved the scanner onto his belt and brought out a silver sample analyzer from his pocket.
From the corner of his eye, he noted one of the younger boys backing away and Hena pushing him behind her. Trace frowned at their reaction but didn’t pause. Activating the sampler needle, he plunged it into the food.
“How do they eat this?” he asked.
Not that it mattered. No amount of cooking or preparation would eradicate the hardy and lethal strain of Salmonella bacteria. Even after spending billions of dollars when the outbreak hit to salvage the billions of lives at risk on Earth, nothing had worked. Now, these kids were openly eating potentially contaminated food.
“If I tell you, will you stop acting like a Neanderthal and listen to reason?”
He ignored Analena’s comment and dropped the brown lump to a rock ledge. He searched the faces of the children, half expecting them to drop screaming at his feet. Instead, they looked puzzled, worried even, but relatively healthy.
Impossible. Whole populations had died eating the local food sources. The inevitable migration of spore and seed had contaminated every harvest. The vulnerable DNA-altered grains had led to worldwide contamination, leaving plants poisonous and animals that fed from them susceptible to the fatal strain of bacteria. There had been no uncontaminated land-based food sources for over a hundred fifty years.
Only the fucking immunizations had stopped post-pubescent deaths, a double-edged sword. But by then, too many had perished to maintain pervious lifestyles. Not enough trained personnel existed to run water plants and power plants, much less fill all the other vacant jobs.
Land-based foods were the whole damn reason for the creation of the current kelp and algae meal rations—which were oddly resistant to the specific strain of bacteria. It was disgusting, but at least they were nontoxic. Yet, these kids were eating the berries right off the friggin’ wall.
Grasping a thick section of vine, he pumped the analyzer into the main root system. Negative.
He exhaled in surprise and looked up.
His angel wasn’t impressed. Arms crossed over her chest and her mouth curled with displeasure, she only needed to add the tapping of the toe of her boot to sink him to the subordinate level of one of her charges.
“Don’t give me that look. Do you know how many people died eating the soil-grown vegetation?”
“The exact figures elude me,” she said, one brow raised. “But we aren’t at risk from this food source. I’d never allow these children to be at risk.”
Frowning, he glanced at the green wall and back to her. He didn’t doubt her guardianship, but what the hell was going on? How could this be safe, much less grow underground? A starchy root, no problem, but lush foliage and fruit needed sunlight.
Tucking the analyzer away in a pocket, he glanced back at Hena and the boy, still hiding behind her, and held out his hands in apology.
Whether Analena believed him or not, she moved back to the table and motioned for Hena and Aaron to join her. With a nod, she gestured for him to sit as well.
The other children picked up their previous activities. The tossing of fruit had evidently seen its end.
“You did very well with Gar. Thank you,” said Analena, obviously attempting to stabilize the conversation and migrate away from the food discussion.
Her gratitude and the look of respect in Aaron’s and Hena’s eyes only grated on him. “I did what I was trained to do.”
Aaron frowned. “I didn’t know medics were trained?”
Trace winced at his own mistake. No, medics relied on software procedures and automation in lieu of training. A necessary grassroots evolution because all medical training came from Regent authorized facilities, which were difficult to gain access to and expensive. He’d intended this to be a simple job. Get in, help the kid, and get out. No messing in personal baggage and, definitely, no sharing the nasty details of his past. From the suspicion dawning in Analena’s eyes, it was too late to salvage that error.
“My training was in surgery.”
Aaron’s eyes narrowed, still in the puzzled stage, “But they all work for—”
Sounds behind Trace ceased.
Her expression fierce, Analena lifted her hand to motion the younger kids to stay back. “You did, as well.”
A statement, not a question, and no amount of details would make that suspicion fade from her golden brown eyes. Six years of fragile trust and interaction down the proverbial tube. What had he expected? They were right to fear him.
“You worked for the Regents?” Hena’s voice, filled with disbelief, hissed across the table.
“Yes.” That shocked them enough to bring on healthy anger. Aaron and Hena had obviously expected a denial. Their rigid posture matched the disgusted horror in their eyes.
Well, they’d asked, and he wasn’t lying. It didn’t bring the cleansing satisfaction or the numbing distance he’d hoped.
A movement from his side caught his attention. Gar, not able to see Analena’s command to stay away, stood awkwardly by the table, his fingers wide in front of h
im to detect collision. He’d frozen at Trace’s comment and turned his face to him.
“Gar.” Trace reached a hand to steady him. The boy flinched and backed away.
Analena rose, an arm circling around the boy’s chest, bringing him safely against her.
“You did these things?” The whisper came from Gar. His hand touching his own cheek cut deeper into Trace’s soul than the condemnation in Analena’s eyes. Or maybe they both hurt so much it didn’t make any difference. In penance, Trace answered the question spoken and unspoken.
“I did what they told me to do.” He’d had another choice, one he couldn’t reconcile then and still wouldn’t embrace now. Even knowing the outcome, he wouldn’t risk a different path.
“Why?”
Trace would have ignored the question had it come from anyone else, but from Gar—the boy had suffered too much to dismiss harshly.
“To save my wife and daughter.”
Gar pursed his lips and turned away. Analena rubbed her hand over the boy’s chest. Oddly, her look had changed from seething anger to cold speculation.
“Did it work?” Aaron asked.
“No.” Trace stood and walked back to the exam table to jam his tools back into the duffel. He didn’t need any more of their judgment, and he sure as hell didn’t need their pity. What he’d done, who he was, didn’t concern any of these people.
A muttered curse and the diminishing whispers signaled the others’ retreat, creating as much distance as possible from him.
At a small scraping sound, he turned.
A tiny doll of a girl with ebony skin and equally dark, shiny curls held a stuffed bear and shuffled toward him with a gait that made him cringe. He could guess what had been done to her, yet she didn’t look more than four and too tiny for any monster with a conscience to harm. Then again, the Regents didn’t hire men of conscience.
She grabbed his pants leg and looked up with one arm lifted for him to pick her up. He wanted to ignore her. He wanted to pry her off his leg and leave. Instead, he lifted her to his chest. As she clamped her arms around his neck, her bear poking at his back, he heard the sharp intake of someone’s breath.
