Exposed

by Tana Stone

“Please remove your clothing,” a robotic voice said, making Zayn jump and swivel his head around.

  Mandy sighed. “I spoke too soon.” She tilted her head up and raised her voice. “Thanks, Al, but we don’t need you to examine him yet. I’m giving him a quick scan.”

  “Who are you talking to?” Zayn asked, seeing nobody nearby who looked like an “Al.”

  Mandy smiled. “Al is the nickname Bridget gave this artificial intelligence medical program she met when she was taken by the Kronock.” She fluttered a hand at him. “It’s a long story, but when they blew up the enemy outpost, the Drexian team saved Al and brought him here. He’s actually pretty helpful, even if he’s a bit bossy.”

  “I am not bossy,” Al said, his words halting. “I am efficient.”

  Zayn shivered, the mechanical voice reminding him of the partly-robotic Kronock who’d held him captive. “Is it okay if we skip the AI examination this time?”

  “You hear that, Al?” Mandy asked. “You can power down for now.”

  “As you wish, although I might remind you that I am programmed with the medical knowledge of hundreds of species?”

  Mandy rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you’ve mentioned that before.” She turned back to Zayn. “Now it’s really just us, so what’s the problem?”

  “It’s probably nothing, but I’ve been having shooting pains in my head ever since I got back.”

  “You mean, since you escaped from the Kronock” Even though she said it matter-of-factly, he couldn’t help flinching. He guessed his imprisonment and torture weren’t a secret, especially in the medical bay, and especially for Dorn’s wife.

  He nodded. “I wouldn’t think anything of it, if the pains didn’t coincide with the malfunctions that have happened on the ship.”

  She looked up from where her finger had been tapping on the tablet. “So every time there’s a malfunction your head hurts?”

  “Well, not exactly.” He glanced down at his feet. “My head begins to hurt before the malfunction. It’s almost like my body can predict when they’re going to happen.”

  She bit the edge of her lip. “I don’t think that’s entirely unusual. There are people on Earth who can predict the weather with a bum knee. At least, they say they can.”

  “You don’t think I should be worried?”

  Mandy looked over her shoulder. “Well, I’m not a doctor. To be honest, I’m not even a fully-trained medic. Why don’t I do a scan and see if I can find anything.”

  He hesitated, glancing at the metal arms in the ceiling.

  “Not the AI, I promise. I’ll just use a handheld scanner. If I find anything, we can see what the doctor recommends we do next.” She shrugged. “Chances are it’s nothing and no one but us will ever need to know.”

  Zayn exhaled and gave her a weak smile. “Thanks. Katie said you’d know what to do.”

  Mandy shook her head, but he could tell she was pleased, her cheeks turning pink. “Like I said, I’m new to this, but I really love it. The medical advances you guys have made are incredible. I wish people on Earth could see all of this.”

  She directed him to lie back on the bed while she picked up a shiny, metal device from a nearby counter. “I always thought the things they had on Star Trek to diagnose and heal people were so cool, and then I come up here and find out that you guys have them. Or at least something like them.”

  Zayn focused on breathing in and out, closing his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see the animatronic arms above him that were used for surgeries. Even the beep of the machines throughout the room made him think of the sounds of the mechanically enhanced Kronock, their red eyes flashing and their circuitry whirring. He knew not all of them were augmented, but the ones who’d tortured him had been. He always wondered if they used virtual robots so there would be no chance for compassion.

  “I promise you won’t feel a thing,” Mandy said, then giggled. “Famous last words, right?”

  He didn’t understand Earth humor, but he opened his eyes and tried to laugh along with her. Mandy extended the device and pressed a button as she slowly moved it from his head all the way down to his feet and then back up again. She tapped her tablet and squinted. “That’s odd.”

  Zayn sat up. “What’s odd?” His stomach tightened as she pressed her brows together.

  “I know you were examined when you got here, right?”

  “Of course. I had a full workup. They said I was fine, aside for some breaks and bruises which they fixed.” He glanced down at the scars on his arm. “And of course, the scars.”

  “I’m guessing Al didn’t scan you, since you seemed surprised when he started talking.”

  “No Al,” Zayn said. “Why?”

  “That’s what I thought. He never would have missed something like this.” Mandy gnawed the edge of her lip again. “I’m still surprised a doctor missed it. Unless I’m reading this all wrong.”

  Zayn grabbed her arm and the woman looked up at him, her eyes wide. “Mandy, what is it?”

  “There’s something in your head.” She dropped her voice to whisper. “It looks like there’s something attached to your spine at the base of your brainstem.”

  Zayn touched a hand to the back of his neck, feeling a wave of nausea threaten to bring up every sugary bite of his breakfast. What had the Kronock done to him?

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “What flavor did you say this was again?” Katie asked, as she took another tentative bite of a spongy, lime-colored cake, topped with a thick layer of ivory icing.

  “Watermelon with a coconut-cream-cheese frosting,” Reina said, reading from a tented sign on the table.

  Katie swallowed and tried to smile. “I’ve never had watermelon cake before.”

  A round woman with dark skin, a pale-pink bob and oversized, owl-like glasses sat across from her, smiling and nodding. “I know. Isn’t it fun? Why should wedding cakes be boring, that’s what I say? Why not be adventurous? Mix things up?” She pushed a plate forward. “Try the sweet corn and banana.”

  Reina picked up a small, sample-sized plate with a sliver of neon-yellow cake with a black-dotted icing. “You’re so creative, Sid. Who would have imagined?”

  No one with any common sense, Katie thought. She put down the watermelon cake and took a sip of water to get the odd flavor combination out of her mouth. Instead of picking flowers for her wedding, Serge and Reina had led her to the station’s only wedding cake baker.

  The bakery wasn’t a typical shop, in that it didn’t sell pastries or cakes out of glass cases. It also didn’t smell like a regular bakery, with sugar or yeast hanging thick in the air. The cacophony of scents in this kitchen made Katie’s nose twitch.

  Located behind the pretty promenade shops, the wedding cake bakery had a nondescript door with no awning, and looked more like a commercial kitchen inside. Stainless steel ovens ringed the walls, interspersed with flat surface burners. A mixer large enough for a toddler to stand in was tucked in the corner, and a giant refrigerator with glass doors sat across from them. Several high, metal tables occupied the center of the space. Katie and Reina sat on a pair of hovering barstools, while Sid perched on one across from them. Serge had left them, proclaiming that he never ate cake, and needed to check in with the dress designers.

  Lucky bastard, Katie thought, as she eyed the rows of small, square plates lined up down the table.

  “You don’t happen to have any boring flavors, do you?” Katie asked.

  Sid blinked a few times, her eyes enormous behind the round, black-rimmed glasses. “Would you consider sweet potato and salted caramel boring?”

  “Not really.”

  The woman’s name was Sid, which was short for an alien name so long and convoluted that Katie had merely gaped at her when she’d pronounced it. Sid was a Gatazoid, like Serge, but that was where the similarities ended. While the pint-sized wedding planner was wiry, Sid was as wide as she was tall. She wore a white chef’s jacket that belled out around her legs like a tent, and clo
gs that didn’t give her more than a couple of inches and looked more like Dutch wooden shoes than kitchen clogs. She did sound like Serge when she walked; heavy clomping accompanying her movements, but her voice was fast and chirpy, reminding Katie of a bird.

  “No vanilla or chocolate?” Katie picked up one dark-red cake, hoping it might be red velvet, and tried not to groan when she read the tented card behind it that proclaimed it beet.

  “Don’t tell me you’re one of those humans who likes typical cake flavors?” Sid fluttered a chubby hand in the air. “We do have to design flavors that all the guests will like, you know. Drexians aren’t used to the sweet flavors you Earthlings prefer. They like bold, savory flavors that are more salty and Earthy.”

  That explained the cedar bark cake with black cherry icing.

  “Does your groom like padwump?”

  Katie remembered padwump from the breakfast tray, but could have sworn it was a crispy meat. “Isn’t that like bacon?”

  Sid grinned, her eyes huge and twinkling behind her enormous lenses. “I’ve been told humans love bacon. Put it everything.”

  Katie supposed that was true, but she still didn’t want a bacon wedding cake. Or a padwump one.

  “Zayn loves doughnuts,” Katie said.

  The baker flicked a hand through her cotton-candy-hued hair. “Does he now? That’s intriguing.” She slid off her stool and her clogs clomped to the floor. “I wonder if I could make a cake that tastes like a doughnut.”

  Katie was about to stop the woman and explain that she hadn’t meant for her to bake a doughnut wedding cake, but then she stopped herself. Doughnut flavor was better than the cranberry-oregano concoction sitting in from of her.

  “Just regular doughnut flavor, right?” Katie asked. “Not doughnut and dill pickle?”

  Sid’s laugh was a high, fast twitter. “Of course not.” She stopped laughing. “Although I’ve never baked with pickle before.”

  Katie waved her hands. “Nope. No pickle. Zayn hates pickles.”

  Sid’s face fell. “Too bad. I think you were on to something, dearie.”

  “Now that we have a flavor,” Reina said through a mouthful of cake. “What would you like it to look like?”

  Sid clip-clopped over to a steel shelving unit and pulled down what looked like a black cookie sheet. She set it down between Reina and Katie and swept a finger across the top. The surface immediately illuminated with an image of a cake that appeared to be hanging upside down.

  “That’s interesting,” Katie said.

  Sid shrugged. “It was until I discovered they were doing them on Earth.” She swept her finger to the left and another image appeared, this one of a rainbow-colored cake where the colors appeared to be moving across the surface in a continual swirl.

  Reina clapped her long hands. “That was one of my bride’s. She said it reminded her of rainbows in Ireland. Apparently, they have lots of rain there and lots of rainbows.”

  Katie thought it looked more like an edible hallucination, but she decided not to point that out. “There’s a tribute bride from Ireland here?” she asked instead.

  Reina looked taken aback. “Of course. We have tributes from almost every country on your planet.”

  “I didn’t know,” Katie said, feeling instantly foolish. “I’ve only met women from the US so far.”

  Sid flipped to the next image. A completely round ball of orange cake seemed to hang in mid air.

  “How do you cut a round cake?” Katie asked, tilting her head as she looked at the revolving cake.

  “Very carefully,” the baker said without a hint of humor in her voice.

  “What about stacked cakes,” Katie asked. “You know, one layer on top of the other getting smaller as they go up?”

  Sid tapped her dimpled chin and flipped to a photo of a purple pyramid with a beam of light shooting out of the top.

  Katie nodded. “Was that for a bride from Egypt?”

  “No.” Sid looked confused. “She was from a town called Las Vegas.”

  “Ah,” Katie said as she noticed that the pyramid cake shimmered. “Now I get it.” She sighed as the baker flipped through more images, each one crazier than the one before. “You don’t have anything really boring, do you?”

  Sid looked over her lenses. “You mean the Heartland Collection?”

  Katie looked to Reina. “Do I?”

  “Show her,” Reina said, with a solemn bob of the head.

  Sid pulled the screen back and her fingers danced across the screen before she set it back in front of them. The image was of a plain, ivory cake with six round tiers. The icing designs looked remarkably like the Star Trek insignia, but aside from that, it was simple and elegant and boring.

  Katie slapped the metal table. “Yes! Like that, but without the icing symbols.”

  Sid let out a huff of breath. “I suppose you want it colorless, as well?”

  “You mean white icing?” Katie asked. “That depends, what flavor is your white icing?”

  She did not want her doughnut-flavored cake to be topped with tartar sauce buttercream.

  Before Sid could answer, the doors behind them flew open.

  “There you are,” Mandy said rushing past Serge as he held the door open. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  “Luckily she ran into me while I was leaving the bridal salon,” Serge said, smoothing his suit as he calmly walked toward them.

  “Mandy?” Katie slid off her stool, surprised to see the woman looking so red-faced and disheveled. It looked like she’d run a mile in her clothes.

  “We’re picking cakes,” Reina said, her usually sunny smile slipping as she took in Mandy’s appearance. “Is everything okay?”

  Mandy’s eyes flicked to the Gatazoid baker. “Hi, Sid.” She walked over to Katie and pulled her away by the sleeve, dropping her voice to an insistent whisper. “Whatever you do, don’t get the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Buttercream icing. You will have no problem believing it’s not butter.”

  “You ran all the way here to tell me that?”

  “No,” Mandy shook her head as she took a moment to catch her breath. “I’ve been tearing the station apart to tell you about Zayn.”

  Katie’s stomach tightened. “What about him?”

  Mandy looked over her shoulder at the two aliens and pulled Katie a few steps farther away. “He came to see me in the medical bay.”

  Katie remembered talking to Zayn the night before about the pains in his head. She also remembered a lot of other things, and her face warmed at the memory. “I told him he should come see you. He was worried about some pains he’s been having.”

  Mandy nodded as if she already knew all that. “He should be worried.”

  “What do you mean?” She grabbed the woman by both arms. “Is he okay?”

  “No. I mean, I don’t know.” Mandy bit down on the corner of her lip. “Listen, I could be wrong about all this.” Her eyes darted to the aliens behind them and back to Katie. “I hope I’m wrong.”

  Katie gave her a small shake. “You need to calm down and tell me what the hell you’re talking about. You’re kind of freaking me out here.”

  Mandy let out a long breath. “I’m sorry. Like I told you, Zayn came in about his pains. He seemed nervous, so I told him I’d run some scans on him without bringing in the Drexian doctors or other medics.”

  “Thanks,” Katie said, giving the woman’s arm a light squeeze. “I’m sure that made him feel better.”

  “Yeah, well, that was before I found something odd when I scanned his head.”

  The tightness in Katie’s stomach became a hard knot. “What do you mean by odd? Like a tumor?”

  Mandy gave a curt shake of her head. “I don’t think so, but again, I’m not a fully-trained medic yet, although using the medical scanners they have up here is a bit of a no-brainer.” She took a shaky breath. “I saw something at the base of his brain stem on his spinal cord.”

  “Something like?”

/>   “Like something that doesn’t belong there,” Mandy said. “I don’t know if it’s an implant or what, but it’s not organic. Which doesn’t make any sense, because he got a full check-up when he arrived at the station. They would have seen this.”

  Katie felt the tremor in her hands even as she held onto Mandy. “So what does this mean?”

  “I don’t know, but if the Kronock put it in there, and it has something to do with what’s been going on all over the ship, I don’t think it can be good,” Mandy said. “I told Zayn I wouldn’t tell anyone, but I can’t keep this a secret for long, especially if it means everyone on this station is in danger.”

  Katie swallowed hard, wishing she hadn’t tasted the weird cake samples. Everything had seemed so perfect last night. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she’d let down her defenses and let someone in. She’d trusted him and now he might end up being…what? A spy for the Kronock? An unwitting weapon?

  She gave herself a mental shake. Whatever it was, she knew it wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t lied to her or played her. That was more than she could say for herself. She’d been playing everyone all along. She looked at the worried look in Mandy’s face, and felt guilty about her plan to expose everyone who’d been so nice to her. She pushed that aside.

  Right now, she needed to find Zayn before he tried to be a hero and do something stupid.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Zayn stood on the balcony, breathing in the scent of the grass and focusing on the sound of a flock of small, white birds flapping their wings as they flew by. He’d wandered around the station for a while before finding himself back in the suite, although he barely remembered the walk.

  Thoughts swirled through his mind. Was there really something in his head and, if so, how had the doctor missed it the first time? Was there any chance Mandy was lying to him? He shook his head. No, she’d been as shocked as him. She’d even done the scan three more times, each time the look on her face more grim.

  He slammed a hand against the polished-wood railing. He wanted to destroy every Kronock who’d ever lived for doing this to him. But doing what, exactly? Mandy couldn’t tell him what was in his head, or if it had anything to do with the ship malfunctions. But Zayn knew. The Kronocks were brutal and more strategic than the Drexians had given them credit for. His gut told him this was part of their scheme. He didn’t know how, but they had made him part of their plan to invade and destroy.