by Celeste Raye
She began to walk around the room, circling it, her eyes continually scanning the walls. They were wet with damp mold and slick as well. She drew her fingers back every time she touched the surface of those walls, an expression of disgust settling on her features.
The walls were airtight despite the mold. The door was locked. She had to find a way out, and she had to do it soon. Ben would likely kill her, either because Talon and Marik simply did not have the credits that Ben thought that they had, and could not deliver the ransom, or because he had decided that she could not be loyal.
She would never be loyal to him again. She had done that once. She had been loyal to him out of blindness and obedience. Out of ignorance of his true nature.
Her arms went around her middle, and she whispered, “Oh, Marik. I love you so much. I have to find a way back to you, even if it’s just to tell you with my dying breath that I love you.”
Despair threatened, but she thrust it back. She dug deep within herself, trying to find some reserve of courage and that determination that had surfaced earlier. It was still there, coalescing and hardening into something else. She was not going to die there, not if she could help it.
She needed a weapon.
She began to pace around the room again, her eyes examining the scant furnishings in the hope that something there would make a decent weapon. Despair swamped over her despite her best efforts to hold it back. What would she know about fashioning a weapon? Even if she found something, what would she do with it?
Those thoughts were still running around her head, circling endlessly and nagging at her when she spotted the small stand on which stood a short metal jar.
She went to it and lifted the jar experimentally. It was heavy and seemed to be of good quality. She had no doubt that it held little value as far as credits went, but at that moment, it was the only thing that had any kind of weight to it that she could find. Maybe she could hit him with it when he came back.
The time passed. Jenny had no idea how much. Time seemed to slow down and speed up all at the same time. She continued to pace, but slowly now. She paced merely to keep herself occupied but reminded herself continuously not to overexert herself. She would need her strength.
She sat down again eventually. Her head hurt, and there was a strange shoving sensation coming from somewhere within her brain. That sensation was so odd and the pain that came with it so present that she forgot all about her little metal jug as she curled up on her side with her knees to her chest and her eyes staring at the wall. What was that? Why did it hurt so much?
Her eyes closed and sickness exploded in her stomach. She tried to force her eyes back open, hoping that would dispel the illness that had somehow managed to worm its way into her entire body but it did no good. Her eyes stayed closed.
The memory came floating back in. Marik standing at the side of her bed saying, “I’m sorry, Jenny, but we have to do this.”
Being lifted, carried like a child through the hallways of the ship. The doors of the med-bay opening and closing again. The feel of a cold table on her back. Not being able to move. Marik saying to her, “It is okay. It’s a simple drug and it will wear off soon.”
Faces hovering all around her and staring down at her. Someone asking, “Marik, are you sure? If she is not a natural healer, this might kill her.”
Marik saying, “It’s a chance we have to take. I feel the risk is worth it.”
Her blood ran cold in her veins as she huddled more tightly within herself there at the moment. What had happened? Something had. That shoving sensation was back in the middle of her brain, and she could feel something cracking. Literally cracking. What was it? What was happening? What had happened?
The memory came back in again, drifting through the pain and stirring it to new heights.
Marik saying, “I see the natural healer in you. I don’t know if you can touch heal but I know you can heal. There’s no time to teach you everything you know already. It’s all there. I don’t know how you learned it, but you did. Now you must remember.”
That other voice coming in again, “If you implant her with all of the knowledge, will her brain be able to take it? She’s a human after all. Their brains are so weak.”
Marik saying, “We have no choice.”
Marik.
Had he deceived and hurt her? What had he done to her there on the ship?
She could remember feeling sick for a few days and being very tired. She could remember a headache that came and went and the odd flashing light around the corners of her vision. Was that due to whatever it was that he had done to her?
Again, memory surfaced. Marik saying, “Give me the implant.”
That other voice, still protesting said:
“She can heal enough as it is. If we lose her now even bringing her aboard would be for no reason at all.”
Marik said, “We won’t lose her. I will make sure she lives through this.”
Live through what? What had she lived through?
The pain soared to a level so intense that her teeth grit together to hold back a scream. She could feel her skull opening. Her hand went up into her hair and then under it, moving along her scalp. Her fingers sought out and found the long red ridge of scar that was up there hidden below her hair.
A shout of pure misery and rage tried to break free from her lips, but she kept them snapped shut tightly. She was a prisoner to whatever was happening in her mind. It was a far less danger to her than what might happen if Ben came back and decided that she had gone mad or something else and to just kill her.
The pain was so bad that it cycled through her body, making her limbs spasm and her stomach contract then loosen. All of her muscles began to go rigid and then loosen as well. She had a terrible moment when she was really afraid she would lose control of every bodily function and movement forever but, eventually, her body settled again.
In her mind’s eye, she saw Marik standing above her, a tool in one hand and some strange glowing orb in the other. He said, “I shall have to build a wall around it to protect her from its worst effects. It will seep into her consciousness slowly I hope. If it all comes to her once, it might be too much for her to take.”
The protester spoke again. “You cannot stay with her night and day, Marik.”
Marik replied, “But I would.”
A last final shock of pain so terrific and terrible that it made her entire body arch upward off the pallet that she lay on, her spine forming a curve so taut that she could hear little crackles and pops coming from there.
Her body collapsed. Her feet drummed against the floor and the pallet. Her hands opened and closed.
Words flew through her brain. Operations, performed by people and beings that she had never seen, flowed through her mind. The image of a book rose up. The book was vast, bigger than anything she had ever seen and she could not escape from the sight of it. The cover was red and of some material that she had never seen before.
The book cover flipped open. Illustrations and printed words met her eyes, and she could feel her eyes moving as she read every single word as the pages flipped wildly and swiftly. Sickness came back, but she did not vomit. She was hung fast in some strange corner of her own mind, trapped by the sight of the book of the words and the illustrations within it.
Things she had never heard of. Ways to heal but she had never considered. So many things and all of it soaking into her brain so fast that she could feel herself trying to flee from that knowledge. She tried to shut down and escape it in order to protect herself from it.
The book slammed shut. Everything went black.
Her eyes fluttered open. The dimness was still all around her. She was still in the same room that she had woken to a short time earlier. She stared at the ceiling. There was a new wealth of knowledge in her head, she could feel it in there, crawling into the little cracks and nooks in recesses of her brain, burying itself into her mind forever.
Tears leaked down her face. How coul
d Marik have done that to her? It was not so much that she minded having that knowledge. It was the way that he had given it to her. He had known that she might not be able to survive and she was fairly sure, as she lay there weeping silently, that she barely had.
She knew a great deal of time had passed simply by the way the dimness had increased and the shadows had grown thicker in the corners of the room.
She did not dare try to sit up. Her strength was gone. Her limbs felt loose and weak, like someone had run water into her skin and left her without bones. The sickness came back again, and that time she didn’t bother trying to hold it down. She rolled over and retched onto the floor, grateful suddenly that all that was in her belly was some water that she had had earlier that day. She had been given a protein bar as a ration, but there had been a small and very hungry child in one of the rooms, and she had given the child her food instead of eating it herself.
Everything ached. Her eyes felt gelled in their sockets. Her fingers did not want to work. She still felt boneless and weak even after she’d been sick, and she managed to roll away from that small puddle, but it took a great deal of exertion for her to do so.
Her breath was labored. That prickling, crawling sensation in her brain continued. It repulsed her as much as it fascinated her. It was knowledge, and she knew it but if it were not done yet, then maybe she would not survive after all. She was not sure how much more of that she could take.
Marik had betrayed her. He had done something to her wholly without her permission, and he had done it knowing that it could kill her. She loved him, but he had zero regard for her. That was clear. If he cared for her at all, he would never have done that.
More time passed. The skittering feeling in her brain began to subside. The weakness did not flee her limbs, but she slowly regained some strength in them. The sick feeling went away, thankfully, and she was able to sit up. She could not stand, however. She staggered a few steps and then landed on the floor right on her bottom. She stayed there, unable or unwilling to move again.
She closed her eyes and tried to focus on one thing, but the only thing that would come up in her brain, the only thing that she could think of, was Marik.
Her heart broke. The pain of his betrayal was nearly as great as the pain of the implant that he had placed within her mind.
The implant. Her eyes flew open. Had it broken somehow? In her memories, Marik had said that it would slowly seep its knowledge into her brain and that he would build a wall around it so that she would learn, but not at a high enough rate to kill her.
Had he been both right and wrong? Had it somehow seeped in slowly and then somehow burst, that implant?
She could recall that first day at the hospital, the day she had knelt beside the body of Melinda’s mother. Marik had said to her, “You know what to do. Now do it.”
And she had known. She closed her eyes for a moment, and she had seen how to heal that awful and violent injury.
Her shoulder straightened. Her anger was still great and too high for her to even understand. Anger was not something she had ever felt much in her life. It left her feeling shaken and ill all over again. It was still there though.
No matter what his reasons for doing it, Marik could have killed her with that implant.
She heard a faint and distant clatter and bang. Strength suddenly flooded into her body, riding along a sudden spurt of adrenaline. She managed to stand and to get back to her little metal jug. She hefted it again and stared down at it with a bemused expression on her face. Was she really considering using that as a weapon?
It would have to do. It was the only thing she had.
The door opened. She tucked the metal jug behind her back, clenching it tightly in the fingers of that hand. Ben stood there. He said, “Well. It seems your friends are willing to ransom you. However, they won’t give up the chest until they see you. I knew there was some sort of thing between you and those creatures.”
His face was ugly. Everything about him was ugly. She held onto the metal jug, wondering if she should just go ahead and conk him, on the head with it anyway.
He said, “Don’t stand there, you little bitch. Get moving.”
She tucked the metal jug down into her trousers, making sure her tunic was over it. He asked, “What are you doing?”
She gulped. “I got sick. I’m was just arranging my clothes so that they weren’t so rumpled.”
She let her eyes slide toward the little slick pool of her illness. His eyes went to it too, and a curl of disgust appeared on his lip. He shook his head. “Course you did. I should’ve known.”
He should’ve known? What should he have known? That she’d be sick? He probably thought it was fear. Even better. If he thought she was that afraid, perhaps that would be the greatest weapon that she had against him.
She moved toward the door. Ben followed behind her, and she found herself having to resist the urge to put her hands back behind her and pat at her tunic to make sure that the shape of that little metal jug didn’t show. The fact that she found it comforting was probably stupid, and she knew it. It was one jug against actual weapons. It would probably do her no good at all, but she intended to keep it anyway.
To her surprise, they went up several flights of stairs and then into the front rooms of what must’ve been a grand residence at one time. Ben grabbed her arm then as they passed through the room. At least a hundred Rovers stood or sat about. All of them looked at her with speculation and greed in their faces. Jenny dropped her eyes, not willing to look at them or to have them see her face. She was too afraid that they would see that she was angry and hoping to use her makeshift weapon against Ben.
He hustled her through a series of doors. They stepped outside, and she had to squint. Her head went back, and she looked upward. The sky was there, and so was the sun. She stopped for a moment, her feet stumbling on the steps. Ben snarled, “What are you doing?”
She just stared upward. “The sun. When I arrived, there was so much dust you couldn’t see it. I’ve been in the hospital ever since I got here. I haven’t even had time to go outside. The sky, it’s right there, and I just want to see it.”
Ben actually laughed. “Yes. The sun and the sky they always denied us. Now we can look at it anytime we want while we starve to death.”
He dragged her onward. Her feet went through piles of dust and debris. More Rovers joined them, forming a sort of loose group around them. They marched onward with Ben dragging her every step of the way. She kept her eyes pinned up to that sky. This was the place she had come from, but this was not home. The sky here was not as blue and the sun not as bright and life-giving. These were not the people that she loved and wanted to spend her life with anymore.
What difference did it make where one lived? Above ground or Below? It had once mattered a great deal but those days were gone. The difference now was showing in the actions of those left.
The people who were carrying her forward and the ones who had been busy rebuilding and trying to dispose of the dead, the ones who had been searching through the rubble for lost relatives and who had sat silently alongside their injured and loved family members, those were the humans that she wanted to be with.
She wasn’t even sure Ben and his kind were human. Maybe they had been once, but they had lost something, something that gave them their very humanity, and she didn’t know that they would ever get it back.
Ben gave her a hard little shake. “Move faster!”
She did. She kept her eyes riveted forward now. The sight of the sun in the sky no longer fascinated her. She had seen more beautiful sights in her life after all.
They marched out of the residence and up the street. The Rovers looked decidedly nervous as they went. They had reason to be. At least she was fairly sure they did. They were up against skilled warriors. No matter how vicious they were, their weapons might not be enough to protect them against Marik and Talon. Not to mention Jessica.
They came to a halt. The street w
as dusty but empty. She looked around, seeing nothing but ruined buildings and a deserted street. Smoke hung thick in the air, further along, rising up into the heavens in a dark cloud. The scent of charred flesh came again, and she wrinkled her nose against it.
Sorrow hit. How could she be considering deserting these people? It was clear that they needed help. Not these; not the Rovers. But the ones who were not Rovers, the ones who were desperate to stay on their planet and to make it a better place.
A voice came from somewhere, and she stiffened as she recognized it. Marik’s familiar tone drifted along the currents of the breeze as he called out, “We are here!”
Where? Where was he? She was not the only one gazing about, trying to decide where it was that that voice had come from.
Talon, Marik, Jessica, and the others appeared as if by magic. A few of the Rovers drew back, muttering nervously, and she couldn’t blame them. It was as if they were ghosts and had just risen from some underground crypt or something. She had no idea how they could’ve gotten there that fast or where they had come from. She had a sneaking suspicion that it had something to do with the tunnels that she had run through on the day of her arrival.
Marik carried a chest, and he walked toward them.
He called out, “It was good of you to agree to meet with us and show us the sight of our healer.”
Ben went rigid. He called back, “Open the chest, creature!”
She stiffened at the offense. Marik might not be human, but he was not a creature. He was a sentient being, and one who was gifted with all of the things that Ben himself would never know. Love, compassion, and care.
But was that really true?
The memory of what he had done to her came back, and with it came hurt and rage.
Marik settled the chest onto the dusty street and said, “It’s here, midway. Send her over.”
Ben shook his head. “No. Open the chest, or she dies now.”
Marik looked at her. He asked, “Have you remembered everything?”
