Tethers

by Sara Reinke

  “It’s all right.” He leaned over and hugged her. He canted his face and pressed his lips against her tear-stained cheek. “Please, Kat. Please don’t cry. It’s all right.”

  “He said I was nothing.” Kat’s eyes flooded with new tears, and she gasped, anguished. “He…he said I was nothing, Eric!”

  “He was wrong,” Eric said. He kissed her cheek again, his lips lighting against her skin, then the corner of her mouth. He cradled her face between his hands, leaning down so that his nose brushed hers. “He was an ass, Kat.”

  She and Eric were good friends, but it had never stopped her from always admiring him from a distance. Many a time had she caught herself staring, transfixed, admiring the lines and aesthetics of his body.

  “Oh, my God,” Leia had said to him. “You are that fucking stupid, aren’t you? I should’ve known. I’ve seen the way you watch her, all moon-eyed and goof-ass.”

  Had he really watched her like that, as she’d watched him, as well?

  All of this time, and I never realized. I’ve been in love with you, Eric.

  “I’m so stupid,” Kat whispered.

  “No, you’re not,” Eric said, and he kissed her mouth.

  His lips were soft and warm and welcome against hers. Kat tilted her head up and kissed him back, opening her mouth, bringing her hands up to his face. His tongue glanced off hers, and as she pulled him closer, a low groan, a longing sound escaped his throat.

  The kiss grew deeper still; he lay her back against the bed and pressed himself on top of her. She tangled her fingers in his dark hair, holding him near. They kissed with the sort of desperate passion that comes from having avoided something inevitable for far too long. When at last they parted for breath, he hovered above her, both of them gasping suddenly, windless.

  “Kat…” He touched her face, brushed her hair back from her eyes. She could feel his arousal, hard and hot, straining against the fabric of his flight suit, pressing against her thigh. She trembled, turning her cheek into the basin of his palm, kissing his hand.

  He breathed her name again, his voice anxious and uncertain, but she let him say no more. She caught his face between her hands and kissed him again, shifting her weight, parting her thighs to enfold his hips, to let the hardening length of him press firmly against her. He moaned softly, a wordless plea, as her hand moved between them, fumbling with the zipper-front of his flight suit.

  He made love to her. She was afraid it would hurt him, hurt his leg, and so she eased him back against the bed and straddled him. He arched his back, drawing his hips up to greet her as she lowered herself against him. When they began to move in tandem, as she drew him deeply into her, he reached up to cradle her breasts against his hands and gasped out her name over and over.

  She moved with him, watching the play of light and shadow across his face as he closed his eyes, undulating beneath her. She could see when climax came upon him; from the muscles between his neck and shoulders to the stacked plane of his abdomen, he tensed, hooking his fingers into the soft curves of her hips.

  For the first time in her life, Kat found release at the same time as her lover; it was something she’d been cheated out of by Chris and Alex, neither of whom had ever seemed to consider her pleasure before their own. Kat threw her head back and cried out softly as Eric grasped her hips firmly, delivering himself into her with final, powerful thrusts.

  When it was over, she leaned over him, her hair tumbling past her shoulders. She struggled to reclaim her breath; her arms felt tremulous and weak, and she shivered. She closed her eyes, weary and winded, but opened them as he touched her face, ran his fingers through her hair.

  How long had she wanted that? From the day Eric had come to her aid on the tarmac? She looked down at Eric as he smiled up at her, his features glistening with sweat, his hair tousled and swept about his face. Somehow, even now, the answers to those questions terrified her.

  “I have to go,” she whispered.

  He shook his head as he ran his fingertips lightly, sweetly against her mouth. “What? No.”

  She smiled, tried to make light as she shrugged away from him. She slipped her leg from over his hips and hated the sudden coldness that filled the space his warmth had only just occupied.

  “Kat…” He reached out to stay her. She made it out of the bed, both feet on the floor, but he caught her hand before she could step away and reach for her discarded clothes.

  “Jerica will be waiting for me, Eric,” she said quietly, slipping her fingers away from his. “I have to go.”

  He didn’t say anything. He rolled onto his side and watched her step back into her panties, shrug her way back into her bra. She slipped her flight suit back on, and pulled her hair loose from beneath the collar.

  “I…I’ll see you in the morning,” she whispered, because something needed to be said. She had never felt at a loss for words around Eric, and was somewhat dismayed to discover that now, she had no idea what to offer him. She leaned down and kissed him, a quick and hurried peck on the mouth that left him blinking up at her as she drew away, his large, dark eyes round and wounded.

  “I’ll see you in the morning,” she said again, and then she left him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Eric sat alone in the commissary very early the next morning. The sun had not even crept up over the horizon yet. He hadn’t slept much the night before, not after Kat had left, and he didn’t expect anyone else in the compound to be awake. When he heard soft footsteps in the corridor, he looked up from the cup of coffee he nursed, hoping it was Kat.

  Frank walked in, as haggard as Eric felt and seeming equally surprised to find someone else roused. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” Eric nodded once in greeting. There was a palpable tension in the air between them, left over from the previous night’s disagreement. Eric knew Frank could sense it, too, and that he had to do something to dissolve it. Because I need Frank’s help. “What are you doing up?”

  Frank got a coffee mug down from the cabinet. “I haven’t been able to sleep worth a damn.

  “Me, either,” Eric said. “I keep having nightmares about the crash.”

  Frank nodded. He sipped his black, steaming coffee carefully. “Is Kat all right?”

  “I don’t know.” Eric glanced down into his coffee mug. “She was pretty upset.”

  “Yeah, I could tell,” Frank said.

  Eric studied the doctor for a long moment. He didn’t want to confide in Frank, but didn’t see any way around it. Last night had changed Eric, had forced him to realize that he couldn’t keep quiet any longer. He needed help. He didn’t want to die. I don’t want to lose Kat. I can’t. Not now. Not after last night.

  “Look, Frank, can I trust you to keep a secret?”

  Frank raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  Eric wouldn’t look at him. He touched the pant leg of his flight suit, toying anxiously with the fabric. He didn’t want to say anything, but knew he had no choice. “Promise you won’t mention it to Kat.”

  “No, you know I won’t, of course,” Frank said. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “I think the wreck really fucked up my leg. I think something in it is broken.”

  “Eric, Jesus Christ.” Frank stood, going over to him. “What’s wrong? Maybe there’s something I can do. For Christ’s sake, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I don’t think there’s anything you can do. There aren’t any tools small enough here. I think it’s leaking lubricant solutions. It’s making me sick, making my leg hurt…” He looked down into the murky blackness of his coffee. “This morning, I saw blood in my piss.”

  “Let me take a look at it.” Frank motioned with his hand. “Come with me to the infirmary.”

  “Frank, there’s nothing you can—”

  “You don’t know that, damn it,” Frank said. “Now come on.”

  ***

  “Something’s leaking in there, all right.” Eric had stripped down to his underwear and sa
t on an examination table, while Frank leaned over his injured leg. “You’ve got some pretty extensive edema developing around your ankle and into your calf, and here around your knee, too.” He glanced grimly at Eric. “And if you’re pissing blood, that means it’s already affecting your kidneys. I’m going to draw up some blood work, check your liver enzyme levels, too. That’s my biggest concern right now. Stopping this before you go into liver or renal failure.”

  “Stop it how?” Eric asked.

  Frank pressed his hands gently along Eric’s knee and lower leg. “I don’t know. But I’m going to try. This is real skin, right? Cloned tissue custom-developed for the prosthetic?”

  Eric nodded.

  “It’s fed through a capillary system that ties into your bloodstream,” Frank said. “The upper layers of underlying tissue, too, the muscles. That’s how the lubricants from everything underneath, all of the mechanized parts, are getting into your system.”

  He glanced up at Eric. “They did a beautiful job of this.” He patted Eric’s leg. “Damn near a work of art. I may not have the right mechanical tools to get down in there, but I have scalpels. I can cut it open, try to figure out what’s wrong once I’m inside.”

  He turned to a nearby cabinet and squatted, rifling through the contents. “I think I saw some surgical drains around here yesterday. Maybe I can rig up something with those so we can keep whatever’s leaking out of your bloodstream.”

  Eric felt a glimmer of hope. “You think that will work?”

  “At least until help gets here,” Frank replied. “I’m hoping, anyway.”

  Eric forked his fingers through his hair. “I’ve been so fucking scared,” he admitted shakily. “I thought I was going to die.”

  “In my line of work, that’s only a last resort.” Frank glanced at him and winked. “I think I can set everything up for surgery by lunch time. I’ll find some way to distract Kat, don’t worry. I’m going to give you something for the pain, in the meanwhile.”

  “No.” Eric sat up.

  “We’ve got plenty here,” Frank said. “And there’s no need for you to suffer.”

  “I can’t.” Eric was ashamed to tell Frank about his addiction; humiliated that Frank would discover he’d already been pilfering the compound’s supplies. “I just…after the crash, when I lost my leg…” He looked down at his lap. “I got hooked on morphine. It took me years to get clean. It hasn’t been that long ago, and I…”

  Franklin opened the cabinet where the morphine was stored. If he noticed any missing, he didn’t say anything. “You know what the difference between a junkie and a patient is, Eric?” He took a vial out. “A patient needs the drug. A junkie just wants it.”

  “Frank, I can’t,” Eric said, staring at the bottle of morphine.

  Frank smiled at him. He opened a drawer and pulled out a fresh syringe. “Suffering is for martyrs and third-world countries. And while at the moment, this compound seems pretty damn close to that…” He winked at Eric again. “…it’s not.”

  Frank set the morphine and the needle down. Eric jumped like he’d just placed a live rattlesnake next to him, and the doctor smiled.

  “I’m your friend, Eric. You can trust me. I won’t say anything to Kat. This’ll stay between us. You’re hurting. This can help you. I can help you—if you let me. That’s my job.”

  “All right.” Eric hung his head. He tried to tell himself that Frank was right; he wasn’t going to use morphine because he wanted to. He needed to. For Kat.

  Frank used a blood pressure cuff to cut off the circulation in Eric’s arm. “How does that feel?” he asked, as he drew the needle out.

  The effects were again almost instantaneous. Eric closed his eyes. “It feels great,” he said, and he laughed. “Jesus Christ.”

  “Lay back, relax.” Frank helped Eric lie down. “Ride with it. It’s okay.”

  “Thanks, Frank,” Eric murmured, his voice slurred, his eyelids drooping to half-mast.

  “Like I said,” Frank replied with a smile. “That’s my job.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Frank,” Jerica whispered, tugging patiently on his sleeve.

  Frank opened his eyes and looked at her from an examination table in the compound infirmary. He didn’t look sleepy or surprised at all. He looked at her like he’d been expecting her.

  “Good morning, Jerica,” he said, and he unfolded his legs across the table. He stretched them and yawned simultaneously, like a cat in a warm sunbeam.

  “I have to show you something.” She took a couple of steps back from him.

  “What is it?” He swung his legs around and sat up. He didn’t move with the sluggish, dazed motions of someone who had been snoozing. He moved with a graceful, effortless ease, like a panther that had patiently waited for its prey to creep close enough to pounce at.

  Frank puzzled Jerica. He was always friendly to her. Yesterday, he had deferred to her in connecting the black box from the Daedalus to the compound’s system. He talked to her like she was a grown-up person, kind of like Eric would, except Frank always seemed to have this sly look on his face when he was with her. It was almost like he was waiting for her to slip up, to do something that would prove she wasn’t as smart as everyone said she was.

  She walked around him. She didn’t like the way he was watching her, studying her.

  “Eric.” She shook the pilot’s shoulder. Like Frank, he seemed to have fallen asleep in the infirmary, but unlike Frank, she’d been unable to rouse him.

  Eric groaned. He looked very bad. His face was pale and damp, shining with a light sweat. He wouldn’t wake up.

  “Eric,” Jerica said again, more urgently. She turned to Frank. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Frank smiled at her, a sneaky little I’m-one-up-on-you smile. “He’s just sick, Jerica. There’s something wrong with his leg, and it’s made him sick. I gave him a shot to help him sleep, to help ease his pain.”

  “He’s hurt?” Jerica reached instinctively for Eric’s hand.

  “Not too bad,” Frank told her. He hopped down from the table. “He just thinks it’s worse than it is. It’s in his head.” He tapped his forehead. “You know what I mean?”

  Jerica shook her head warily, suspiciously. She shied closer to Eric.

  “I mean, his leg doesn’t hurt him as much as his mind does. His mind wants morphine, so it tricks him into thinking he needs it, that he can’t go without it.”

  “I heard Mom and Alex talking once,” Jerica said quietly, ashamed and embarrassed that she’d overheard. “Alex said Eric was addicted to morphine.”

  Frank nodded. “He’ll be okay, though, Jerica. As long as we’re here, as long as I keep an eye on him. He can clean up again once the rescue gets here. In the meantime, I think you know as well as I do that he’s suffering. Something is really wrong with his cyborg leg.”

  Jerica was silent for a long moment. She leaned over the examination table and brushed Eric’s hair back from his brow. “He doesn’t want it. It’s not his fault. He didn’t ask for that leg.”

  “I know.” Frank stood next to her, and touched her blonde hair. “Eric’s lucky, though. You know why?”

  She shook her head, watching Eric sleep, listening to the rough, labored sound of his breathing.

  “He wasn’t an expendable commodity,” Frank said. “Otherwise, he’d probably be dead. Let him sleep, Jerica. He’s exhausted. What did you have to show me?”

  She studied him for a minute. He smiled at her, friendly enough. She didn’t really trust him completely. Certainly not like she trusted Eric.

  “Come on.” She led Frank out into the corridor. “I was playing with the probe, making it go through the service ducts and stuff. And I found it.”

  “Found what?”

  She walked ahead of him, running her fingers down the wall as she walked along. Her skin made a soft whispery sound as it went. “You’ll see.”

  They walked along in silence for a moment. Frank didn’t pres
s her to tell him more. Jerica found that odd. Most adults, even Eric or her mother, probably would have needled at her to tell. Frank seemed just the opposite, content to let her lead him to her discovery, to share it with him in her own time and fashion. She wasn’t sure if she was pleased by this or not.

  “What did you mean when you said Eric wasn’t expendable?” she asked, glancing back at Frank.

  “I mean, Eric was a military pilot,” Frank said. “He was a very good, very well paid military pilot. He was an investment of a lot of time and a lot of money. He did a good job and he did what he was told to do.”

  “So?” Jerica watched the floor, her small shadow in front of her. She could see Frank’s shadow to her left.

  “So, the government controls the Stellar Corps. They were Eric’s boss. It was their time and their money that made Eric a good pilot. They weren’t about to let a little something like a crash, or a mangled leg ruin their prized investment.”

  “Eric is not an investment.” Jerica looked at him, frowning slightly. “He’s a person.”

  “Perhaps,” Frank remarked musingly, and he smiled at her. There was something about the way the cold fluorescent light overhead flickered across his eyes, the way it seemed to caper across his grey, nearly silver irises; something that bothered Jerica. She looked away quickly, her long hair whipping across her face in soft tendrils.

  “I mean…” Frank’s shadow elongated, growing closer to hers. “Do you think if you or I, or your mother, maybe, had lost a leg when we crashed here that anyone would have paid for us to have a replacement like Eric’s?”

  She frowned again and turned around to walk a couple steps backwards. She narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do. You know as well as I do Shinkansan wouldn’t pay for that kind of operation. Eric was a soldier. A very good soldier. And the government took care of him because of that. You know what taxes are?”

  Jerica glowered at him again and he laughed. “Right, silly me. We all pay them, people like your mom, Eric and me. That’s where the government gets its money. All of it—including what was spent to fix Eric’s leg. And because he was a good soldier, the government spent our tax money to help him. But they wouldn’t do the same for your mom or me, even though it’s just as much our money as Eric’s. Do you think that’s fair?”