Death Drop (The D-Evolution)

by Sean Allen

  “He seems to be enthusiastic about his duties.”

  “Ah, yes. He is a rather good assistant. The best one I have, actually. That’s why I brought him with me when our army fell to the Durax and we few survivors escaped. He has certainly proved to be worth the trouble—helped me save many lives.” Doctor Blink briefly looked at Bertie like a proud father, and Otto thought he saw the machine straighten its posture again.

  “Well, Malo,” the doctor said sympathetically, “according to the preliminary information that I received from the colonel, it appears that you’ve done some damage to your left arm. Would you mind taking a seat on Bertie here while I determine the extent of your injuries?”

  Malo nodded and Bertie responded immediately, lowering his flat expanse as he quickly maneuvered behind the Moxen. Malo sat down uneasily and slowly transferred his sizable mass onto the table. Bertie’s superstructure creaked and groaned under the immense weight, and he flexed his mechanical hand open, shaking it vigorously in mock discomfort. Doctor Blink paid no attention as he crossed in front of Malo and approached the left arm now hanging precariously at his flank. Without a word, a set of small steps emerged from the front of Bertie’s chassis just a few inches from the Moxen’s left leg. Doctor Blink bounded up the stairs until his eyes were level with Malo’s elbow.

  “Hmmm,” Doctor Blink said as his face took on an ill looking frown. “Bertie, inter-scanner, please.” If the medical machine truly had problems supporting Malo’s weight, it didn’t show. Bertie’s table stayed flat as it elevated a foot above his treads with a gear-driven zip, clearly revealing a large interior space between his tracks that ran the length of his body. Malo looked nervously down at Blink from his new vantage point, and the doctor gave a reassuring smile as Bertie reached across the flat expanse behind Malo’s back and removed the hand affixed to the opposing arm on the left side. Bertie’s remaining hand slipped under his table into a large, rectangular compartment that had opened inside the channel just beyond the Moxen’s dangling legs, then reemerged with a metal object that looked as if someone had taken a perfect square and removed one of its sides. With a loud clack, Bertie attached the new instrument where his left hand used to be, and a blue haze appeared inside the square and swirled within its borders as if by magic.

  “Malo, if you would be so kind as to hold as still as possible, I’m going to take a look inside your arm. Bertie, send the image to my screen please,” Blink said as he lifted his illuminated tablet in front of his nose once again.

  The blue mist parted and bent around the front edge of Malo’s thick wrist, then melded seamlessly again on the other side as Bertie slid the open end of the square attachment over Malo’s arm, centering it in the glowing field. Bertie slowly moved the apparatus vertically as Dr. Blink looked intently at the tablet grasped in his hands. Every few seconds, and with each minor movement of the device, Dr. Blink let out small noises of curiosity followed closely by exclamations of inspired resolution. “Hmm, that’s interesting. Ah, yes, of course!”

  This exchange grew ever more dramatic and foreboding as the device glided noiselessly up Malo’s arm, inching closer to the worst of the damage.

  Colonel Abalias and Otto were both watching the scene with such rapt interest that neither of them thought to begin the debriefing they were supposed to be performing while the doctor worked on Malo.

  “Ahem,” Dr. Blink said as respectfully as he could, now looking away from his tablet and peering over the top of his half-moon spectacles at the two high-ranking officers. “I’m going to take a moment to look at these images. If you have some questions to ask Malo, I would suggest that you do so now. He may be…preoccupied in a little while.” Dr. Blink gave Malo a look that resembled a half-hearted smile mixed with an extremely painful wince, but Malo didn’t notice. He was in a numb trance, his eyes fixed on the empty floor in front of him.

  “Lieutenant Schunkari?” Colonel Abalias said. “Start from the beginning. Tell us what happened on that ridge.”

  Malo took a deep breath, his large torso expanding as his lungs filled, and Bertie shook his hand in exasperation while adjusting for the movement in Malo’s arm with the inter-scanner.

  “Try not to move please, Malo,” the doctor said firmly.

  “Malo sorry.”

  “It’s quite all right,” he said in a gentler tone. “You can answer the colonel’s questions, but try to be as still as possible, okay?”

  “Malo and Talfus report plateau entrance three—wait for Mewlatai.”

  “Excuse me,” Otto interrupted, “I thought transfers of the Serum were done anonymously by runners through the civilian black market with the cargo disguised as something else.”

  “That’s true, Otto,” said Abalias. “Usually, I’m contacted on a secure channel reserved by this Mewlatai, or at least that’s what he said he is. He gives me a code indicating a batch of Serum is ready and then allows me to select a drop site as a safety measure.”

  “And you picked a plateau entrance to our entire operation as the meeting point?” Otto asked disbelievingly, as though the colonel had just announced that he was a Durax spy.

  Colonel Abalias shot him an acid look, and Otto realized that his comment and his tone would certainly have landed him in the brig if it hadn’t already been dismantled for the evacuation.

  “Sorry, Colonel.”

  “I’m not a damn fool, Major!” Abalias growled and Otto thought he felt the air temperature in the room drop by at least ten degrees. “I had no choice! The Mewlatai contacted me on the correct channel, and he had all the right password encryptions. We’ve done this at least fifty times over and…he said…something else. Something that I couldn’t ignore.” The colonel paused with an introspective look on his perfectly white face as Otto and Malo both looked on curiously. “He told me that the current strain of the Serum was weakening under the increasing mind powers of the Durax. He said he had a new strain that would keep our soldiers immune and allow us to continue the fight.”

  A look of comprehension flashed across Otto’s streamlined face. “That’s why you sent another man onto the ridge—when one would have sufficed: as a test subject for the previous strain. You needed to test the two strains and compare them to each other.” Otto was nodding his head, but he stopped as consternation wrinkled his features. “I still don’t understand why the Serum couldn’t have been delivered in the usual fashion. Why the urgency to meet this Mewlatai on our front door step?”

  “He said that there was a new way to create the latest strain, and to keep it safe, he locked the information in the only place that was still unreachable to even the most powerful of the Durax: his Mewlatai mind. He said he had all the plans and formulas necessary to reproduce the new strain in mass quantity. We could manufacture on site and distribute it to our people without depending on the seedy underbelly of the universe and its slimy network of runners and ringers.

  “He also told me that this would be our last meeting. After passing along the secrets of the new Serum, he would return to the front lines and battle the Durax in the way of a true Mewlatai warrior: with his sword. I needed him to inject Talfus with the original strain as proof that he was who he said he was. If the brain scan checked out, then the Mewlatai would check out too. Getting Malo injected with the new strain would have been a bonus—in case anything went wrong on the ridge, we would have the new strain in Malo, and maybe our biologists could reconstruct the formula. He had all the damn passwords!” He shouted and everyone in the room, including Bertie the medical machine, jumped at his sudden outburst.

  A pang of uncontrollable guilt ran unchecked across his ashen face and the colonel looked down, disgusted with himself. “I was too busy worrying about an attack from outside; I never considered that he could have been a threat. And now my best man is dead and Malo is…” He paused and looked over toward Dr. Blink, who was still staring at his glowing tablet and scratching his chin as he contemplated the image on the screen. “How is he, Doc?”


  “I can save his arm,” said Blink matter-of-factly as he looked into Malo’s big left eye. “Malo, you’ve obliterated your elbow. The tendons and ligaments have literally exploded into thousands of strands of torn fibers, and the joint itself is shattered beyond recognition.”

  “Sounds serious,” Otto said. “Are you sure you can fix it?”

  “Quite sure.”

  Otto looked at Blink doubtfully, but the doctor did not notice; he had already descended the tiny stairs and was rummaging around up to his smocked elbow in yet another one of Bertie’s hidden compartments—this one on the front of the machine’s chassis, opposite the stairs—addressing Malo as if no one else was in the room. “Malo, I’m going to use something I recently developed to save your arm. I call them Haleonex bandages!”

  Otto looked at Abalias skeptically, and the expression on the colonel’s face reflected the same sentiment.

  “I don’t quite understand how a bandage will help Malo’s arm heal, Doctor,” Abalias said, trying very hard not to sound as if he knew the slightest thing about medicine.

  “Haleonex is a regenerative exo-armor that is flexible like a bandage when applied,” the doctor responded excitedly. “Once it’s wrapped around Malo’s arm, it’ll inject millions of nanomachines into the wounded area, where they’ll begin reconstruction of the damaged bones, tendons, ligaments—and anything else that needs to be repaired—on the molecular level.” The doctor’s eyes were wide with exhilaration as he lectured the three on the finer points of advanced medical science while pulling out, from the depths of the compartment, an ordinary-looking roll of dark, cross-hatched medical fabric in a tightly sealed package. “The machines will begin reconstruction on the most damaged areas first while supporting other areas waiting to be repaired.”

  “How can they do that?” Otto asked.

  “By linking their own structures together; thus forming temporary, artificial replacement parts. They will also release amounts of medicine into his bloodstream in order to help with the pain and prevent infection. He’ll have full use of his arm after he walks out of this room, Colonel.”

  Doctor Artemus Blink took the awestruck stares from Otto and the colonel as complimentary and shot them both a quick wink as he held his palms up under Bertie’s right hand. Without a word from Blink, the top digit on Bertie’s index finger flipped back on itself and a hiss of white gas engulfed the doctor’s hands as he turned them over and then rubbed them together under the jet of cool, tingling cleanser.

  Otto noticed his jaw was slightly open and his mind was running wild trying to imagine what other wonderful contrivances the doctors in the Dissension used to keep the soldiers alive and healthy. “What about protection, Doctor?” asked Otto, regaining control of his rampant imagination. “You mentioned it was an exo-armor.”

  “Ah, yes,” replied Blink enthusiastically, the wild look flashing in his eyes again. “Once the bandage is set and the nanomachines have deployed, they release a chemical agent that seals the outer surface of the bandage. Its impact resistance and strength will be comparable to the armor on a Fire Sprite class ship, but it will continue to be as light and flexible as an ordinary bandage. It’s quite an amazing invention!”

  “Sounds like fixing Malo’s arm is going to be easy,” the colonel said, sounding relieved.

  “It sounds easy—because that’s the easy part.” The painful wincing look returned to Doctor Blink’s pointy face.

  This time, Malo read the not-so-subtle insinuation and raised his head to speak. “What hard part?”

  “Well—er—Malo, we have to put your arm back into its natural position and—well—um—you didn’t exactly get this taken care of in a timely fashion, so the swelling will make it much more difficult to set your arm.” If the doctor was trying to hide how painful the procedure would be, he was doing a terrible job. His face twisted into a dreadful grimace as he spoke. “It is going to require a tremendous amount of…force…to put it back where it belongs.”

  The mechanical arm housing the off-set contraption with the manacles moved ominously into place, and Bertie’s right hand closed the top two cuffs around Malo’s bicep with a cold clank. Bertie had to readjust the lower portion of the attachment, as the standard angle was not extreme enough to account for the position of Malo’s contorted limb. Upon closer inspection, Otto and the colonel both noticed that the two off-set sections of the device clasping Malo’s disfigured arm were joined by a series of cogged gears that glistened with a slick coat of fresh lubricant. The cogs had several black tubes snaking between them which then continued up the length of the mechanical arm and disappeared into the side of Bertie’s rectangular body. The lower manacles clattered grimly into place, and Malo grunted in pain as they tightened uncomfortably around his swollen flesh.

  “What about an anesthetic, Doc?” Colonel Abalias asked with more concern than Otto had heard in his voice in over twelve years of service together.

  “I’m afraid that—with the infirmary being dismantled for the evacuation and the amount I would have to give Malo, not to mention the time to take effect—I just don’t have anything that will do the job.” Dr. Blink sighed heavily and gave Malo a regretful look. “He’ll just have to wait until the bandage is in place and the nanomachines start administering the pain medication.

  “Bertie is going to restrain you, Malo, please don’t be alarmed.”

  Bertie’s left arm reached over the top of Malo’s shoulder and across his chest, gripping him tightly under his right arm. Bertie’s other arm wrapped securely around Malo’s waist, pinning him to the flat surface where he sat, anxiety and adrenaline beginning to course through his veins and overpower his senses.

  “I’m going to need full power, Bertie, if you please.”

  A throaty rumble shook from somewhere deep inside the medical machine as Bertie prepared himself for action. Both Otto and Colonel Abalias exchanged uneasy glances as the charging sound emanating from Bertie’s power core escalated to a high-pitched frenzy. Malo was breathing in short, rapid bursts and concentrating on channeling his fear to help quell the intense pain he was certain would overwhelm him at any moment.

  “Now, Bertie!” Doctor Blink yelled over the tumult.

  The black tubes surrounding the shiny cogs on the device shackled to Malo’s arm stiffened instantly as pressurized gas sped through them. The ridges of the slickened gears dug into one another as they strained for a micro-instant against the resistance of swollen tissue and blood. Then there was a palpable, blood-chilling crunch as flesh and bone moved, against its will, back into place. Malo wailed in unbearable agony and everyone but Bertie clasped their hands over their ears.

  Malo’s enormous legs pushed against the ground with torment-charged might, and Bertie strained to keep the Moxen from thrashing against the manacles that held him and damaging his tender arm any further. Dr. Blink’s face registered alarm as Bertie’s treads lifted from the floor.

  “Doctor,” Colonel Abalias shouted over the pandemonium, “put that damn bandage on and get this man some pain killers!”

  “His arm has to be free from the device in order to apply the bandage, and I can’t release him if he’s thrashing around—he’ll offset his arm again and we’ll be right back where we started! We have to deaden the pain or render him unconscious—quick!” The doctor was frantically looking from the colonel to Von Holt, while making certain to stay well out of reach of Malo’s legs, which would whip through the air each time Bertie wrestled the Moxen back to a sitting position.

  Suddenly, the examination room became uncomfortably cold, as if all the heat had been swallowed by a ravenous black hole. Otto and Dr. Blink exchanged perplexed looks as steam rolled from their noses and mouths, and the bitter chill nipped at the tips of their ears and noses. They looked to Abalias for his take on the situation, but he was no longer standing where he had been when the melee began. He was moving purposefully toward Malo with his arm held in front of him, fingers outstretched. His eyes shim
mered an impossible color of blue, and Otto noticed that his usually snow white fingers and arm—all the way up to his elbow—were covered in a layer of ice.

  Malo was still howling a piercing cry; his good arm was flailing recklessly through the air when Abalias placed his icy hand over Malo’s elbow. Malo flinched at the colonel’s frozen grip, momentarily interrupting his yowls. “Malo, calm down. I’ll help with the pain, but you have to get yourself under control, soldier.”

  Malo could feel cold begin to flow through his arm, as if someone had cut him open and was pouring liquid ice into his wound. The cool wave moved out from the colonel’s hand with increasing intensity and pulsed deeper into Malo’s burning flesh. Malo’s tormented cries lessened as the pain retreated in the wake of the advancing cold, and soon he was silent except for the sound of heavy breathing and the occasional snort.

  “Not too much, Colonel!” Dr. Blink said excitedly as he hurried from his position by Major Von Holt and stepped between Abalias and Malo. “We don’t want to irreversibly damage the nerve endings or burn Malo’s skin.”

  Colonel Abalias let go of Malo’s elbow. His eyes softened to their usual shade of blue and the room, almost instantly, increased in temperature. The ice encasing his fingers and arm did not melt; instead, much to Otto and Dr. Blink’s surprise, it slowly absorbed back into his pores, revealing his milky white skin once more.

  Doctor Blink was still considering Colonel Abalias with extreme interest when four metallic clanks broke the silence, and Malo’s arm was freed from its restraints. The doctor turned his gaze from Abalias with one curiously raised eyebrow and set to work quickly applying the Haleonex to Malo’s arm. He started at the wrist and methodically wrapped the bandage so that each layer overlapped the last, forming what looked exactly like tiers of armor plating. The doctor finished wrapping the exo-armor dressing at Malo’s shoulder, for stability, and when he was done, touched his small finger to a rectangular, metallic box at the tail end of the fabric. The box had two tiny lights perched above what looked like a screw head mounted flush with the surface of the object. The moment Dr. Blink touched the device, one of the lights began flashing red and the screw turned itself steadily to the right until it clicked loudly and stopped moving. The red light extinguished and the light next to it illuminated a constant green. “There, that ought to do it,” said Blink proudly, hopping down from the stairs and facing the colonel as the outside of the Haleonex bandage solidified into a shiny, hard surface. “Bertie, you can let go now. You should have a full and pain-free range of motion, Malo. How does it feel?”