The Eurynome Code: The Complete Series: A Space Opera Box Set

by K. Gorman

  “Yes.” It had made them all exhausted—for days, sometimes.

  “That wasn’t a side effect. Your brain does a lot of work in REM sleep. Do you remember, back when you first awakened and began using your power, did you get extra treatments?”

  “Er…”

  She had no idea. She’d been eight.

  “You did,” Takahashi explained. “It’s in your file. I have examined it closely. When a subject manifests, changes proceed faster. More treatments, rapid in succession but set to a lower dosage than the others, are needed to compensate during such an unstable period.”

  “And without them?”

  “They grow unstable. In your case, however, you had already matured past manifestation.”

  “Until now.” She made a mental note to check in on all those new Eurynome project survivors they’d found in Dr. Sasha’s secret lab. More than a few of them had manifested powers. “So, what does this mean for me? That I’m screwed without treatment? That I need to finish tertiary and quaternary phases? Can I even finish them?”

  There was an uncomfortable silence. The glance the two doctors exchanged was too long. Too knowing.

  “Ah,” Takahashi said. “Well.”

  Was that guilt she heard in his voice? She narrowed her eyes.

  “Spit it out.”

  “We managed to replicate a serum similar to the one used in your treatment, based on Program Eosphoros. We took the structure of what Eva—Dr. Evangeline Sasha—was using in her project, compared it with both your files and you and your sister’s bloodwork, as well as bloodwork from the newer Eurynome Project subjects… It’s probably not precisely the same, but…”

  “Are either of you chemists?” she asked.

  “Dr. Tasuhada received a double major in Microchemistry. My specialty is more chemistry of the brain, but—”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She squinted between the two of them, then decided to focus on Takahashi. He seemed more the brains of the operation. “You can replicate my treatment, then? For tertiary and quaternary phases?”

  “Yes,” he said. “And, since you’ve matured so much and already completed part of your tertiary phase, we can likely finish it in a double dose. Of course, we can’t replicate whatever the Corringham’s were doing with the Cradle.”

  “If we find a Cradle, we can cross that bridge when we get to it.” A longer-than-usual glance at the laser-injector’s many long, sharp points made her hope that bridge was not coming soon. “What about the safety aspects?”

  He made a gesture to encompass the Manila’s shiny, casually expensive lab. “The equipment here is much better than what Eurynome had on hand. We are also currently in orbit around the planet with the best medical facilities around.”

  Yeah, okay, it didn’t get anything better than that.

  “Plus, my sister would skewer you both if you let me die.”

  “Yes, there’s that, too,” he admitted.

  “And it would stabilize me? Make me able to control things?”

  “That’s my theory,” he said. “It’s not reviewed and peer-tested—but it wouldn’t make it worse.”

  She had a feeling he was just saying that last bit to make her feel better. There was no way it was reviewed and peer-tested, either.

  “Evangeline completed all her treatments,” Tasuhada said from across the room. “She went through tertiary and quaternary.”

  She squinted at him. What the fuck was this, peer pressure?

  “And she’s fucking insane. So?”

  “She’s fucking powerful.”

  Karin opened her mouth, but didn’t say anything. Yeah, he had a point. The last time she’d fended off Sasha’s Shift Event powers, she’d had a giant machine to amplify and replicate her powers—they couldn’t rely on that. Not if they were going to chase after her, and not if Karin kept getting frozen by freaky hallucinations and warped into separate dimensions. If she wanted to go up against Sasha, toe to toe, she needed to get control of this shit.

  Treatment was something she’d considered before, though not for quite a long time. They were rough—about equivalent to some of the less-evolved cancer cures. She had precisely zero pleasant memories of them.

  An image of sunshine came to her, and she flinched. Not a hallucination, but a very strong memory. Dr. Sasha and her younger self halfway up the hill to the ruins, a medical kit open beside the doctor’s foot, the sharp pinch of a syringe biting into her arm. Switch that up with memories of sessions with Dr. Takahashi, or the jarring whir of hospital beds, restraints, and a frozen cold patch numbing the back of her head.

  Yeah, nothing she wanted to repeat, exactly.

  But, on the other hand, if there was something that she hadn’t quite reached… If this second energy was part of a manifestation…

  Why not try to hurry it along, under a controlled environment? They were on the FSS Manila, and not a metaphorical space-stone’s throw from Nova Earth, which had the best medical facilities in the system.

  “You know what?” she said. “Fuck it. Let’s do it.”

  Chapter Six

  “What the fuck?”

  Karin jerked at her sister’s voice—jolted out of the netlink novel she’d been reading—and twisted around. Nomiki stood by the door, her upper lip curling as she took in Karin, the clinic bed, and the translucent green I.V. dripping into her right arm.

  “That isn’t… is it?” She glanced from Karin to Dr. Takahashi, who had looked up from where he had been typing notes onto his workdesk’s holoscreen, and back again.

  Karin straightened. The netlink screen shrank back into its retainer as she let it slip into her lap. “That thing from earlier—the hallucination—is probably part of another manifestation. You know that I didn’t finish my treatment program. Dr. Takahashi thinks my manifestation was incomplete, and this new deviation is making me unstable.”

  “Well, yeah, no shit, sister—but this?” Nomiki took a few steps into the room, her right hand lifting to make a disgusted gesture at the I.V. draining into Karin’s arm. “This is the reason we left. This was killing us.”

  “I’m on a secure ship, under Dr. Takahashi’s supervision, with some of the best medical gear in the system at our disposal.” She drew in a shaky breath—the treatment was already starting to take effect, leaving her weak—and gave her sister a steady stare. “This is probably the best place to do it.”

  “It’s a military vessel. It’s meant for soldiers, not genetic freaks like us.”

  “I’m sure it can keep me alive.”

  There was a short silence. The doctors—both of whom were still in the room—wisely chose not to fill it. Nomiki, her lip still curled back, stared at Karin. Her sharp eyes bored in, dark and full of anger.

  Then, she made a noise in her throat, as if she were working up to spit, and broke it off. “This is the whole fucking reason we left, Karin.”

  “My program isn’t complete. If—”

  “Who cares? We got away. We left this behind. We were safe.”

  This time, it was Karin’s turn to curl her lip back. She sank back onto the bed with a vicious shrug. “Yeah, well, it’s only a matter of time before Sasha comes back, and I’m the only one who can stand against her powers—especially with this dimensional shit and whatever the fuck that hallucination was about. I’d rather be in control of it, wouldn’t you?”

  “Fucking hells. Fine, whatever.” Nomiki made another gesture, this one more violent, toward the I.V. in Karin’s forearm, then backed up, nearly running into Marc and Soo-jin who were coming in the door. “Do whatever the fuck you want!”

  Marc and Soo-jin split apart as Nomiki charged through them, flattening themselves to each side of the doorframe. Her sister’s boots made loud thumps against the corridor’s pre-fab floor, and she caught a glimpse of her in the window, shoulders back, face set, resolutely avoiding her gaze.

  Then, Nomiki turned the corner at the end of the hall and was gone.

  Karin blew out a breath.
/>   Well, that’s done.

  At the door, Marc and Soo-jin swiveled their raised eyebrows to her. “What was that all about?”

  “I decided to restart my treatment from the lab that was torturing and murdering children in the name of science.” She leaned her head back against the lifted part of the chair bed and closed her eyes. “She took issue.”

  “Ah. I see.” Soo-jin nodded, her face blank as she processed, one hand rising as if to scratch her chin like a venerable wiseman in a video game—but the movement cut off halfway. “Wait, what?”

  Karin closed her eyes as a trickle of dizziness threaded through her veins. She wasn’t sure if that was due to the serum or not—it could be a side effect of simply having the I.V. in her arm, or perhaps a reaction to the apparent stupidity of restarting her treatment as opposed to the treatment itself—but the serum that hung in the bag and dripped through the lines did have the green tint that was almost stereotypical of mad science and horror lab scenes in netdramas.

  “Dr. Takahashi has theorized that the hallucination I experienced is simply another part of my manifestation program kicking in, triggered by the cross-dimensional shit I did a few days ago. The treatment program is supposed to hurry manifestation along. I thought that if I could get ahead of it, I might be able to control it next time.”

  A small silence followed her words. As she thought back, she realized just how stupid it all sounded. When the slip of dizziness passed, and she re-opened her eyes, Marc drew closer.

  He didn’t say anything, but a weight sank onto her left shin as he reached over and gave it a comforting squeeze.

  “Wait a minute.” Soo-jin lifted a finger. “Didn’t your treatment have, like, hallucinogenics in it? Not LSD, but something equally old and fucked up?”

  “Yep.”

  “So, basically…” Soo-jin closed her eyes, her pinky finger rising as if she were conducting the sentence like someone might conduct an orchestra. “You’re over here, dropping hallucinogenics in order to open your mind, and you did this all without us?”

  “I have a drug problem,” she admitted. “I can see why Nomiki is upset.”

  The dizziness came back. She gritted her teeth as it slithered through her abdomen and squirmed like a slick eel, making the room spin around her bed—like she were on some kind of floating carnival ride. Her fist clenched into the blanket they’d given her, and a shiver climbed its way up her spine.

  Okay, so maybe it was the treatment.

  She braced herself through the wave, then shuddered back into the bed.

  Marc’s hand squeezed her shin again. “You okay?”

  “This may not have been the best idea,” she admitted.

  “It’ll pass,” Dr. Takahashi said, speaking for the first time. The holoscreen in front of him flickered with charts and shifting graphs. They’d kept the scanning crown on to track the treatment’s process—something they couldn’t have done back at the compound. “I can see it working from this end.”

  “Is that your brain?” Soo-jin leaned forward, craning her neck to see the bottom of the screen. “Holy shit, it is, isn’t it?”

  “Yep,” she said, her voice dull with mock excitement. “That’s my brain in real-time.”

  “Sweet. Why didn’t you invite us to this party earlier?”

  Technically, I never invited you. Which was short-sighted of her. From their perspective, she’d gone to the clinic to solve her hallucinations and never returned. Of course they’d come looking for her. It’s likely why Nomiki had come looking for her.

  Marc gave her shin another pat, this time a request, and she nudged her legs to the right. The bed dipped as he half-sat on the mattress, angled toward her. He took her closest hand, his skin warm and rough as he massaged it between his. As Soo-jin fussed over the charts on the holoscreen and bickered with Dr. Takahashi, a quiet seemed to fall around them.

  He had this effect, she’d noticed—he carried quietness like a blanket. Not in a creepy manner, but a peaceful one, and in the same way Soo-jin seemed to buzz with energy. Lately, it had grown more pronounced.

  “You need anything?” he asked.

  She groaned. “Not yet, but this will get worse. There’ll be nausea, definitely.”

  Suns, now my boyfriend is going to get involved with my puking. This was a bad idea.

  But he did not seem to be put off. He only nodded and turned her hand over. His thumb massaged her palm.

  Then, a small, reedy voice interrupted the moment from the workbench on the other side of the room.

  “Um, is she going to come back here and kill us?” Dr. Tasuhada gave a guilty flinch as everyone looked to him.

  “It’s a possibility,” Soo-jin said, her voice dry as Novan summer air. She made a tch-ing noise with her tongue, her gaze flicking from the doctor to the contents of his work table. “Sol’s fucking child, they let you on board? Why?”

  “Yep,” Karin said, some of her earlier pessimism sliding back into her tone. “Apparently, Fallon likes his balls.”

  “Well, I don’t.” Her lips curled back, similar to the way Nomiki’s had, but she broke eye contact with him and forced her gaze somewhere else. Finding a chair next to the door, she dragged it over to Karin’s bedside, flipped it around, and sat.

  Karin glanced between her and Marc, who looked like he’d settled in.

  Guess they’re staying awhile.

  That would be a… first for her. She’d never had friends. Not like this. Before, it had been only Nomiki who’d sat by in treatment, and even then, not always. Often, she’d been alone.

  A brief image flashed across her mind—back at the compound, in a room, her and a few others in a quiet room, the I.V.s sliding into their wrists and a few electrocardiograph monitors set to silent next to them. Meeting the eyes of the kid across from her, a boy no older than eight, dark bags under his eyes, the I.V. package looking enormous on his skinny arm. On the back end of it, a mixed set of feelings bubbled up through her chest, stronger than she was used to. The room blurred.

  She blinked past it and narrowed a suspicious gaze on the green serum inside the treatment bag.

  Yeah, okay, it was definitely taking effect.

  “Karin?” Marc prompted, squeezing her hand.

  “It’s fine. Just getting a bit… shaky.”

  She flexed her other hand. Shaky was a good word for it, even if it wasn’t quite accurate, but he seemed to understand. Soo-jin, too, though a few questions propped up one side of her eyebrows.

  “What’s happening above?” Karin continued. “Have we left yet?”

  Usually, on a ship like the Nemina, it was obvious when they started to move. But the Manila was huge, and with a much-more-stable set of gravity generators—necessary when facing battles that might turn and twist the ship’s course several hundred Gs at the drop of a hat. She doubted it’d make much more than a nudge when it set off.

  “Not yet, but soon,” Marc said. “They’re waiting for a few things from Nova, then we’ll be off to the gate.”

  “And, after that, Earth,” she said.

  “Yes, Earth.” Soo-jin flicked the backs of her fingers against Karin’s upper arm. “So you should definitely give us non-Earthlings the low-down on what to expect. I want all the deets. Do we really need to wear rad suits?”

  Karin snorted. She was definitely not the go-to expert on Earth. A specific part of Earth, perhaps, but she and Nomiki’s tenure on the planet had been limited to the scientific compound they’d been raised in, the roads leading away from said scientific compound, and how to stow away on a ship scheduled to leave through one of the gates.

  But at least, the place had educated her. If in an outdated, misleading sense.

  Very little had been covered about gate travel, and even less about current events.

  Marc and Soo-jin knew all that, though. They were just here to distract her. At least until she fell asleep.

  She always did during these treatments. And that was usually when things fel
l to shit. This time, at least, Dr. Takahashi had explained why—her brain needed quite a few build-and-flush cycles as it made changes, and part of the serum acted to speed up that process.

  Which explained some of the batshit dreams and hallucinations she’d had growing up.

  She shifted uncomfortably, a prickle of unease rising like a bubble in the center of her stomach as she remember some of them.

  Hells, this is going to suck.

  But distracting herself would help.

  “Well, that all depends on where we decide to land,” she began. “I wouldn’t, for instance, recommend landing anywhere near northern China.”

  Static buzzed through her chest. She awoke with a jerk, sucking in a gasp of cool air.

  For a second, the world seemed to warble around her, its patterns running together like wet paints thrown against the wall, all different shades of grays and blacks and whites. The sound of rain drummed and clattered in her mind, increasing in volume and tempo. She resisted the second gasp that wanted to escape. Her fingers clutched together in a shaking fist, back arching as the static drew a distinct line across her shoulders. Nausea rolled up from her stomach. Light swam around her, in flux.

  With a roar that made even the buzz deafen in her mind, that second energy in her bones rose up to join it. She hissed as it burst through her skin and reached outward, mingling with the muddled and sliding grayscale of the world.

  Then, with a perceptible snap—like a rubber band against her wrist—everything stabilized.

  She slumped forward, breathing hard.

  “Agh…” The small noise puttered out of her throat. She shuddered, breath spasming with her, and the edge of a tear blurred the corner of her eye. She closed it and touched her forehead to her knee. Shaking, she allowed herself a full minute to recover.