How to Save the World

by Tam MacNeil

  “Is that really Beridze?” she asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “Simone’s ready for him. Rak’s with her.” Sean gives Art a quick look and she shrugs. “Didn’t know what to expect. Mad said he was hurt but she didn’t say how bad. Better safe than sorry about a famous assassin running around in the Annex.”

  It’s totally rational. It’s sensible. If Art did anything other than that, Sean wouldn’t trust her like he does. He nods. Art pushes the elevator button for him and steps aside.

  “Come up and debrief when Simone’s got everything under control.”

  He nods and steps inside and she leans in to push the button, since his arms are full of Alex.

  Alex is most certainly not going to be running around Annex. Sean figures should be exhausted from carrying him so long, but there’s hardly any of Alex left, and what’s left is punched with holes that weep a thin and sticky fluid at the ports. He can’t weigh as much now as he did when he was a teenager, and they missed a lot of meals in those days. And besides, Sean hasn’t even seen him stand on his own feet. Running seems unlikely.

  When the doors sigh open again, Rak is waiting, his arms crossed over his chest. His eyebrows go up at the sight of Sean holding Alex like some kind of sleeping bride.

  “Simone,” Rak calls. She turns from where she’d been sitting, the computer screen glowing gently, open to the Wikipedia page on Alex Beridze. “Package is here.”

  Sean scowls at Rak but he ignores it. He gestures to the nearest bed and Sean sets him down. He and Rak arrange Alex’s limbs like he’s a doll or something. Rak grunts at the sight of the ports, metal rings with the glowing blue wires, the raised, red flesh near them. When Simone comes over she turns Alex’s arm over silently and Sean’s never seen an expression like that on her face before. Something in the neighborhood of lust.

  “Wow,” she whispers. “Ok, first things.” She swabs the inside of his elbows with cotton and begins to thread needles into his veins, slips a little tube under his nose. “Now,” she says, “let’s see what we’ve got.”

  Rak glances at Sean, and Sean doesn’t want to see the expression on his face. He keeps his eyes on Alex. And Alex, his bloodless face is staring at the ceiling, as blank-eyed and unresponsive as if he was dead. It hurts too much to look at for too long, and they’re probably done with him anyway, and Art wanted him to go up and debrief. There’s nothing he can do here. The elevator pings softly and the door sighs open, but Sean’s still watching Alex.

  Alex’s throat convulses as he swallows. Simone finishes slipping the IV into his limp arm, then she pulls up first one eyelid and then another and shines a light into Alex’s eyes.

  Sean ought to go. There’s nothing for him to do here. But Alex’s throat contracts again. His hand tightens up, fisting a handful of the bedclothes under him till his knuckles are paper-white. Sean doesn’t mean to start back toward the bed, his feet just do it. Rak does too, shoulders all bunched up, as if he’s ready for a fight.

  “Hello, Alex?” Simone says very softly, “I know this is frightening, but you’re safe here. I’m Dr. Okembe. I need you to take a couple deep breaths for me. It’ll help you relax.”

  Alex obeys. His hand stays just as white.

  Sean licks his lips. “Can I stay?” he asks softly.

  Simon looks over her shoulder at him. Her eyes flick up and then down him. Assessing him, the way she does. No injuries, not exhausted. He tries to look way better than he feels. She nods. “It might help,” she says quietly. “But it’s probably going to be ugly. You’re sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Ok then.”

  He goes back to the bed, to the clenched fist and spasming throat. He leans over the bed, so that Alex’s blank gaze looks right through him. “I’m gonna stay with you,” he says. “Ok? You’re gonna be ok.”

  Alex’s eyes are blank. He might as well be dead. He stares at the ceiling.

  “Rak,” Simone says quietly, “on the counter over there you’ll find a paper cup with a pill in it. Can you grab it please?”

  Rak nods. He retreats to the cabinets that frame the walls. Sean watches him. “This one?” Rak asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “What that?” Sean asks.

  “Sedative,” Simone answers.

  “Why not just give him a shot?” he asks.

  “It’s not for him, Sean.”

  Rak comes over to Sean with a big paper cup and a little paper cup. He puts the little paper cup in his hand. There’s a single, small, white pill inside. “Take it,” he says.

  “No, it’s ok. I’m-”

  “You know why I’m here,” Rak says, and it’s true, he does. Normally Rak's a paper-pusher, but sometimes he physically enforces the rules. Today he’s here to be the muscle, to make sure Simone gets what she needs. He glances at Simone.

  “Take it,” she says quietly, “It’s only going to get worse when the ports start coming out, and you already look sick. I don’t need you fainting when I’m in the middle of something delicate.”

  Sean takes the little pill. Rak passes him the second cup to wash it down.

  Simone takes her little shears and begins to cut away the material of the suit, and that’s when he understands. Alex’s chest is marked by a constellation of disfigured skin, of craters and lines, scars and burns and patches of skin that don’t match. And now that he looks, there is something not right about his hands. His whole left hand, and two fingers on his right as well.

  “Rebuilt,” Simone says before he can ask the question. With the pad of her thumb she traces the line where Alex’s old skin meets the new, paler stuff. She pauses, runs her fingers over his fingers, feeling for something. “Yeah,” she says softly. “That’s what I figured.”

  “What?”

  “The left hand, all the way into the forearm, and these two fingers on the right,” she says. “They’re prosthetic.”

  She places Alex’s hand down on the blankets and then resumes cutting away the suit. At the jutting corner of his hip bone where something is pressing up against the skin, something perfectly round and not natural.

  “What is that?”

  “Sterile objects for stretching skin. They force the body to produce extra skin so it’s available for grafting.”

  “You’re going to take them out, right?” he asks.

  Simone looks at him, then at Alex. “I might need the skin he’s growing,” she says. “To cover up the ports.”

  She peels away the clothes as she cuts the fabric away. Alex’s thighs are mismatched too. One thigh has those unnatural bulges in it, and is capped with a jagged scar that almost encircles it, the muscle twists like rope under the skin. “Rebuilt,” she says again, more softly this time. “How many times did they rebuild you, I wonder?” She says it like a sigh.

  She finishes cutting away the clothing and puts the scissors on the tray. “I can sure see why the DND started saying no if the pilots were coming back in this condition.” She says. “And all this stuff. I bet you’re running a temperature too.” She reaches up to touch his face with the back of her hand. He blinks hard, the small muscles of his face jumping. A cringe, automatic, and quickly controlled.

  Simone glances at him. She nods at Rak and Rak gets him a chair. “Sit,” he says.

  Sean hadn’t realized his hands were curled into fists. He hadn’t realized he’d been chewing the skin off his lips.

  “Breathe.”

  Sean takes in a deep breath. He wants to take Alex’s hand, but he can’t because Simone is looking close at the ports in his forearms, and frowning at whatever she sees there. Instead he smoothes back Alex’s greasy hair and waits.

  “Alex,” Simone says in that tone she uses when Sean has done something stupid and wound up needing stitches. “I’m going to take these ports out.” He doesn’t respond. She leans a little closer. “They’re starting to get infected and they need to come out.”

  Alex doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Doesn’t make any sort
of noise at all.

  Sean puts his head down on the bed. It feels like someone is standing on his chest. It feels like he’s going to die from it. He can’t wait for the pill to kick in.

  It takes a couple hours to get the ports out, and thanks to what Sean suspects is a generous helping of drugs, Alex’s head lists to one side and his mouth hangs slack and his eyes are hardly open at all. He smoothes back Alex’s hair the whole time, he whispers stupid, pointless endearments and makes promises he knows he can’t keep. When it’s over, Simone dismisses him and he takes himself up to talk to Art, shocked at how weak he feels, and how sick.

  Art’s office at the Annex proper is a spacious thing, gorgeous with carpet and with wood. Its view is of the city they are supposed to protect, the soaring buildings and the golden glass. Art has come out of her exo-suit and is sitting in the wheelchair. She looks up when Sean comes into the office.

  “You've looked better,” she says softly.

  Sean sits down on the couch so hard he almost has to admit to himself that he fell. “Not feeling so hot,” he admits. “Where’s Mad?”

  “Uploading the pictures of the cockpit that she took. She said there were a couple things she wanted me to see.”

  He nods. Silence falls and the elephant in the room reasserts itself. He braces himself to report, pushing away all the emotion that comes up with it. “Simone got all the ports out of Alex,” he says. “She wants to have a look at the interface, see if there’s some way to use that tech.”

  “Ever wanted to pilot one of those things?” Art asks. It was not the question Sean would have expected. He shakes his head.

  “No.”

  “But if we could…” Art leaves it hanging, and Sean thinks he understands. They’re not so different from the exo-suit that she uses when she wants to walk around. At least, they’re theoretically not so different. He can see how Art would look at the colossal suit and think of opportunity.

  “Art,” he says quietly, “He’s a fucking mess. We both know there’s nothing good about the mechs.”

  Art’s mouth twitches down. “Yeah, Mad told me how you found him. Look, this is personal, but Mad said it’s pretty clear you two weren’t just teammates.”

  Sean nods, his neck stiff.

  “I wanted to know if you are ok.”

  He looks up at Art. Be honest. It was the first thing Mad ever taught him. “I dunno,” he answers at last. “Simone gave me something to make me calm. I don't know how I'll be when it wears off. I thought he was dead.”

  “He might be, Sean.” She comes over to him, the chair whirring softly. “You know that, right? It’s his body might function but his mind…”

  “It’s not even his whole body any more.” Sean’s surprised by the harshness of his voice. “His face is a mess. Simone said he’s been rebuilt a bunch of times, both hands have prosthetics, one arm is almost all bioplastic…”

  He stops. He once said something in conversation with Mad that made her put her hand up to her mouth. She told him later that what he’d said had actually made her sick. Until that point he hadn’t understood what had been happening to him for his whole life had been wrong. Maybe being in the mech was better. Maybe the chemicals and the interface took all the bad away. Maybe he should never have said Alex’s name.

  “Art,” he says quietly. “Did I fuck up?”

  Her face softens. “A wise woman once told me you should never hesitate to be kind,” she says, which isn’t an answer, not really, but it’s something. He nods.

  Art sighs. “Look, the shinigami are down and if we believe the news, which I don’t know I do, most of the victims are expected to survive. You did a good job today. Why don’t you go home and get some rest? Maybe get something to eat on the way? We can talk about what we’re going to do with Alex tomorrow.”

  In theory, that’s a great idea. A good meal would probably help settle his stomach, and maybe a drink would settle his nerves. But he doesn’t want to go home. The place will be empty, what with Art and Mad here. All that’s there is the TV, and a mountain of paperwork on his kitchen table, all of it shinigami-related, the specs on the sonic gun. He’s been meaning to look through all of it, but never works up the enthusiasm, and the papers just keep piling up. He sure as shit can’t face it all today.

  “Actually,” he says. It’s still not easy, not even after almost a year of practice, this whole saying ‘no’ thing. “I… actually can I stay? I want to stay.”

  Art gives him a long look. “Even if we can get him on his feet again, he can’t go back to your place with you, you know that right? It’s too dangerous. Even if Cameron doesn’t come looking for him, he’s been through a hell of a lot of shit. He’s going to need to be somewhere he can’t hurt anybody or himself.” That’s Art all over; mind running so far ahead it’s hard to know what to say. Sean’s not even over the initial you’re not dead? shock, there’s no way he can think about the future yet. Fortunately, the future is what Art does. “We’ve got space in the dorms right now, while the trainees are in Japan. We’re going to put him in there. There’s a micro-pod on the north corner, a two-bedroom unit. There’s a balcony, so it’s a little dangerous, but it might work for you. You want it?”

  “Here? In the Annex? Yeah.” He nods at Art. “Thanks. That’d be good.”

  “Go get some things together then. I’ll ask Rak to get somebody to get the place ready.”

  Thirteen

  It’s not real, and Alex knows it’s not real. He’s hallucinated before, after the shinigami have been in his head. Something about them makes it impossible to know the difference between what is real and what is not. It’s never been quite like this before.

  He dreams of Sean, of being taken out of the mech wrong, so that the last port is agony and he’d vomit if he had anything in his stomach to throw up. He dreams of being given water and of Sean again. It must be because it’s so raw still, and all he can think about is how he’ll never see him again, and all he can see is Sean.

  He wonders, as they are cutting the ports out of his arms and his legs, as they turn him onto his belly and he hears the groaning noise of connective tissue coming apart under the knife, and the port making a sick, wet, sucking sound as it comes free of his neck, if perhaps this is what the shinigami meant when it said it would free him. Maybe this madness is a gift. It feels like it might be.

  When he’s bandaged and lying on his side, and the chemical haze is starting to lift, he hears Sean’s voice again. He realizes, sort of belatedly, that he’s not where he used to be. The white floor and walls and ceiling of a med ward have transformed to the soft cream of sunlit walls, the floor appears to be polished concrete. The air smells not of antiseptic or of diesel fumes, but faintly of coffee. And there are noises. He looks toward the noises. Three people talking. There’s a distinct absence of lab coats and buzzing blue-white lights.

  It’s not real. It can’t be real. He’s hallucinating, gone crazy. He will be useless to them now. He will be free. The old one did what it promised to do. He’s so grateful.

  He wakes again because someone is whispering his name. Alex, Alex.

  Only Cameron and Marshall call him by his name. The others call him Pilot.

  Alex the whispered name again. Soft and close. “Hey babe, come on, open your eyes.”

  He’s so grateful. Only Sean ever called him babe and it turns a nightmare to the sweetest of dreams. When he opens his eyes he’s in a small room full of butter-yellow sunlight, and Sean is beside him, and he is lying on a bed so soft it might swallow him. Sean’s hair is almost red in the low light, and his eyes are soft and kind and fixed on him. Sean smiles and exhales and touches Alex’s face.

  He has had vivid dreams and hallucinations before, but never felt touch in those moments. Something cold twists in his stomach and his mind tries to understand. It can’t be Sean, because Sean is dead, and it can’t be a hallucination, because there is a hand on his face, thumb rubbing gently at his jaw. And pain is coming back to
him, lapping at the edges of his awareness. Every part of his body hurts, but something is holding the tide back. He is here, physically here. Wherever here is, whatever here is.

  “What’s going on?” he whispers.

  “It’s ok, you’re safe,” Sean says. “We got you out of the mech and you’re ok.”

  The words are too vast, he can’t understand them all. He can’t respond or even think. He remembers what the old one said. He hadn’t dared to believe it, not like this. He thought death, he thought madness. He never imagined this.

  “Simone gave you some drugs, so you’re gonna feel weird for a bit.”

  He's still stuck on the other words, can’t even begin to think about these. But Sean doesn’t seem to need an answer. He tucks one hand under Alex’s head and moves him just a little, so the pillows prop him a little more upright. “She wants me to make sure you get something to eat every couple hours,” he adds. He seems to be waiting for Alex and Alex doesn’t understand.

  “Can you eat a little?” he asks after a minute. “Maybe just try?”

  He nods. He is hungry. He is always hungry. TPN may provide what he needs but it doesn’t fill the belly and he has dreamed of food before.

  Sean slides on to the bed and it dips under him. He’s got a mug in one hand, holds it up to Alex’s mouth. He is startled by the taste. It’s tomato soup. He drinks it all, and sleeps again.

  He wakes because someone has opened and closed a door and it bumps against a frame, doesn’t slide or boom.

  He lies and listens. He can hear a mechanical hum but it’s soft and distant, and he can hear the rattle of a vent somewhere, but it sounds small and tinny. The enormous, echoing sounds of the tank and the bay and the staging area and the mechs, those are all missing.

  Now he can hear the sigh of traffic somewhere distant, and he can hear the sound of a siren rising and crying and then falling away again. He waits, partly because he’s so tired and partly because he still doesn’t believe it, not really. He waits a good long time and nothing happens and no one comes and no noise over a tannoy and no stink of diesel comes wafting in.