by Holly Ice
Chapter 7
My skin burned. I tied my hair up to free my neck and tried not to cringe at how slick I was, or stare at Yara’s gooseflesh. She’d avoided the fever. While half of us moaned, groaned and wavered on our feet, she was fresh from a shower, bouncy, and smiling – smiling!
‘Some fared better than others with side effects,’ Sabine said. ‘I’ll call it an added challenge. Split into groups of three and one pair.’
Space me without a suit. Teams was bad enough. That phrase, ‘split into groups’, was my personal dread with team projects. It summoned the urge to run like nothing else. I battled the constriction in my chest and lost, my breath coming quicker. Split into groups. Like people wouldn’t leave me in a corner and choose teams of twos or fours to avoid working with me. I stared Sabine down, my hands curling into fists.
‘Errai?’
I blinked. ‘Quinn?’
His hand dropped from my arm. Sweat dusted his face, but he wasn’t shaking or groaning with nanite fever. Nope. As cute as ever. Glistening. ‘We’d like to work with you,’ he said.
Siti stood by him. She was as healthy as Yara.
‘Is this a joke?’
‘No.’
I raised an eyebrow at Siti, but she only smiled. Apparently the threat of others watching no longer stopped her wanting to make friends.
‘Why?’
‘Why not?’ Siti asked.
‘You never have before.’
‘You have to give someone a chance sooner or later,’ she said, arms crossed.
Everyone had settled into groups, which left me with little alternative. Would it be so bad? Working alone hadn’t won over Sabine, but together we might, and while I hated to admit it, Siti was right. I needed to give someone a chance. Might as well be them. ‘Okay, I’ll work with you.’
‘All done?’ Sabine asked. ‘Groups will take turns in the simulation room. You’ll wait your turn on deck.’
No one moved. ‘What should we plan for?’ Ratan asked.
‘You’ll see. Out!’
Our group was the last to clear the room. As luck would have it, that put us last in the queue.
‘We’ll know what to beat,’ Siti said, rubbing her hands as if she’d been given a gift.
I hoped being last today wouldn’t bring us a result as bad as my run.
Quinn sat on the floor. ‘Who’s up first, Ashoka’s team?’
‘Yes.’ Siti peered over heads. ‘He’s with an engineer and someone from health.’
A varied discipline mix… ‘Should we have thought about that?’ I asked.
Siti frowned. ‘Our specialisms? Probably.’
‘Food, engineering and security isn’t a bad mix,’ Quinn said.
‘Depends what’s in there,’ Siti said, frowning at the door as if her will would unlock its secrets.
A short scream pierced the air, then a muffled thump. Sabine was in the viewing room, out of sight, but I could already imagine her grin and quick critique. ‘Something physical. And unpredictable.’ That’s what the woman loved, after all.
‘What’s our battle plan?’ Quinn asked.
Siti glanced at the other teams and pursed her lips. ‘I’ll decide once we see the state of Ashoka’s group.’
‘Any idea what these sims can do?’ Quinn asked.
I tapped my comm and went through my saved images. ‘After I found out we’d be based in the simulation room, I looked up everything I could in old Earth files.’ Between cursing Ludis and self-pity. I chased those thoughts away. I had to focus. ‘The most useful article was about a simulation developed for military use. They’re supposed to interact with our system nanites to create lifelike realism.’
Quinn rubbed at an old scar on his wrist. ‘How real?’
I flashed an image of a compound fracture. ‘Enough to hurt.’
Their widened eyes said it all. I slid down the wall beside Quinn, a healthy gap between us. Siti paced in front, but we didn’t have to wait long; the door opened twenty minutes later.
No one emerged at first, which made me think I’d missed a second door, but then Ashoka appeared, lip split and running with blood as he helped drag the health applicant out. Their eyes were shut and their shoulder had a sharp, bony point tenting the skin where it should curve. Dislocated.
Quinn whistled. ‘Military version.’
‘Unconscious,’ Siti said. ‘This’ll be fun.’
Fun? Her hobbies had to have changed drastically since we were friends. Did the committee think Ristar had this in store? Could the nanites even heal us before tomorrow’s training? My knees were still cut up, so they hadn’t kicked in physically yet, beyond the sweating. My clammy neck was more due to nerves than heat now, though.
Sabine peered around the observation door. ‘What are you waiting for?’ She shooed Ratan’s team forward. ‘Get in there!’
Ratan huddled with his team a moment more, whispers swapping back and forth. Then they went through the doors.
They lasted two minutes longer than the previous group. This time, someone from health – Ksenia – dragged Ratan out unconscious. Her arms strained with Ratan’s weight, but she dragged him to the elevator, prodded the button, and went back in for the other team member, who was conscious but hopping. His leg was broken. The bone pushed free of his skin, pale against the torn red tissue, a compound fracture not dissimilar to the image in my files. His face was far too white for all his sweat.
‘Brute force,’ Siti said as the next team went in – Yara’s.
Quinn eyed the broken leg until Ksenia herded her team inside the elevator and up to health. ‘Or a fall.’
Ratan trained hard, too. If he came out unconscious, we were in trouble. Big trouble. ‘Think we’ll get weapons?’ I asked. With those injuries, I dearly wanted more than my hands to defend myself.
Siti stilled as two cries pierced the heavy door. ‘We’ve trained with our fists, but with this many injuries, we should be ready for anything.’
We stared at the door. I checked my comm regularly. Time ticked by slowly. Five minutes, ten minutes… My throat grew dry, my stomach unsettled, but my mind was clear, almost empty, which had to mean panic was near.
My comm vibrated, making me jump. I rolled my eyes at myself and read the message. It was from Ludis. That was progress, right? He wanted to know whether I was suffering side effects from the nanites or if they were isolated to Ashoka. I sent him a quick reply, smiling as I typed.
I feel as hot as an hour-long sex marathon. Around half of us got it, to differing degrees.
His response was quick. Any other changes?
I frowned. The message lacked his usual flair. I had hoped we’d be returning to normal by now… but he planned to watch his video this morning, which made me an ass for making sex jokes.
No. Don’t worry. How did your video go?
An inhuman growl tore through the doors, then deafening silence. I held my breath and waited, waited…
The door slid open, a bloodied hand leaning on the door frame – Yara’s. She staggered out, a deep gash in her thigh. Blood coated her hands up to her wrists. She was smiling nonetheless, and her team walked out behind her, bruised and bloodied, but not broken.
I breathed again. If they made it out whole, we could too.
‘Quick time,’ Siti said.
‘Quickest so far,’ Quinn agreed.
The more I listened to the two of them, the more I felt I could work with them, at least for this task. They were focused and calm. I needed that.
The next two teams came out with more than one broken bone between them, the group of two the most beat up. Both had a black eye, and one’s nose gushed red through their fingers. They held each other upright as they staggered to the elevator.
I checked my comm one last time, but Ludis still hadn’t replied.
‘We’re up.’ Quinn headed for the door. ‘Let’s beat Yara’s time, take the smile off her face.’
If I wanted to keep my limbs, my attention c
ouldn’t be split, so I pushed Ludis out my head.
‘Don’t get overconfident,’ Siti said, slowing him.
I swallowed. Blood stained the padded wall panels and pooled on the floor, toward the centre. Gruesome, but it told us little, tactically. This was the moment of truth. Either we worked together, or we’d be carried out.
‘Doors closing,’ Sabine said over the speakers.
We scurried a step further in, and the sound of the applicants outside was shut out as the metal click of the lock trapped us. ‘Nanite program begun.’ It was a robotic voice, cold and clinical. I shivered. Who added that to a simulation?
I blinked, and blinked again. My vision was blurred, and blurrier. The air cooled with it. Was this the simulation, or a nanite reaction? ‘Is it blurry in here?’
‘It’s like I’m half-asleep but my eyes are wide open,’ Siti said. She took a step to the left and sighed. ‘It’ll be hard to fight like this. Quinn, can you see?’
‘Low visibility.’ He waved a hand through the air, disturbing the whiteness. ‘Not our eyesight. I think it’s fog.’ He grabbed my hand in his left and Siti’s in his right. ‘Keep hold or we may lose each other.’
‘But it’s a box,’ I said.
‘Doesn’t matter. We don’t know what else is in here,’ Siti said.
‘What do you think the growl was from?’ I asked, the inhuman growl from the previous team tearing through my mind. Each blurry mound in the distance gave me shivers. I felt cornered, vulnerable… stalked.
Quinn squinted into the distance. ‘That thing is my bet.’
It was a huge mass, a greyer dark in the distant fog but lumbering closer. An animal, a robot, a weapon? Whatever it was, my skin itched to be light years in the opposite direction.
‘Use the fog as cover and hug the wall,’ Siti hissed. ‘We’ll move around it. Look for anything we can fight with.’
I held on to her words, her calm, but couldn’t enact them. The wall had gone. Instead we backed up against dense trees and bushes and shuffled sideways around the clearing. I studied the mass as we moved. ‘I think it’s injured.’
Siti spotted the limp. ‘I agree. We can use that.’
‘Isn’t that predictable?’
‘Focus on solutions. Do you see anything we can use?’
I scanned the grass and small rocks underfoot, then the thickly set woods which surrounded the circular clearing. No chance of escape, and no real weapons.
Quinn pointed across the clearing. ‘Something glinted.’
The glints materialised into spearheads secured in a rack. So, we didn’t need to sharpen our own sticks. But… it couldn’t be so easy. Spears, against that monster? Unless we got a very lucky shot, we’d be in for as many injuries as Ratan at least. Sabine would want us to think creatively. ‘I don’t think they’re the answer.’
Siti huffed. ‘We can’t defeat this thing with kicks and punches. It’s huge!’
‘The spears are too obvious. Sabine must expect something else from us.’
‘You’re overthinking it,’ Siti said. ‘We need weapons.’
‘How many prods do you think will take down a thing that size? We’d never get away unscathed.’
‘Neither did the others, but they survived.’ Siti took a spear and passed one to each of us. I held it because she did have a point: it was better than fists alone, and it made me feel less vulnerable… but it wasn’t right either.
‘What do you suggest?’ Quinn asked. ‘I doubt it’ll let us circle forever…’
Bushes near the tree trunks had an occasional bloom, and I was sure one had red arils. ‘Do another circuit. It hasn’t seen us yet. We have time.’
‘Why?’ Siti asked. ‘We’ve gone around once. The spears are all we’ve got.’
‘I need a second look at the trees.’
She snorted. ‘Any in particular? Planning to add more green to your room?’
‘Maybe. Look, if I’m wrong, we’ll use the spears.’
The mass sniffed the air and roared. The sound vibrated through my ribcage.
We stilled, and my hands quaked. I watched the creature lumber a step closer, and then away, satisfied we’d stopped, or unable to see us through the fog. Either way, we had to hurry.
Halfway through our next loop, I spotted thin, needle-like leaves and red arils. I hadn’t imagined it. ‘How cold would you say it is?’
Quinn frowned. ‘I’m overheating. Maybe a bit cooler than the deck?’
‘Siti?’ I asked.
‘Definitely colder than the main ship.’
‘If you had to guess a season, which would you go for?’
‘Autumn, or winter?’
‘Good.’ That confirmed it. ‘The plant with the red berries… pick as many as you can, and get some needles as well.’ The plant to its left had yellow berries. I tucked my spear under my arm and picked those, too.
Quinn and Siti filled their hands with arils and then snatched branches to strip.
‘What are these for?’ Siti asked. ‘I don’t think these will fill its belly, not compared to us.’
‘If it’s an animal and we get the leaves and arils inside this thing, we can poison it.’
‘How quick?’
‘They’re toxic. Quick enough.’
‘Are you sure you’re right? These might not be Earth plants.’
I opened my palm to show her the yellow berries. ‘I have these in case I’m wrong.’
‘What are they?’
‘I don’t know, but they’re yellow. Ninety percent plus are poisonous. Even if these aren’t Earth plants, that might still hold true.’
‘Okay, so can we smear berries over the spears?’
‘I don’t think they’d stick well enough.’
‘The fruit is sticky.’ She squished one and tacked it between her fingers.
‘The red flesh isn’t toxic. We need it to ingest the leaves, or the nuts inside the flesh.’
Siti shrugged. ‘I still think spears are a safer bet. We know they work.’
A wispy section in the fog revealed the mass. It was a giant fur-covered mammal, rippling with thick muscle. Its beady black eyes focused on us, and its claws dripped blood. It bounded forward and swiped at our heads. We ducked.
Air whooshed over my forehead as Quinn yanked us sideways. I dropped half the berries in the mad rush across the clearing and stumbled, my hands yanked free of the others. I’d tripped over something small and worryingly giving. Fleshy. Had all the applicants left the room? It was empty when we arrived, right?
Quinn yanked me onward, but I grabbed the fleshy thing’s leg as he pulled me on, and found I dragged something far too light and furry to be human. A dead rabbit, its belly sliced open. At least that explained the bloody claws. ‘Looks like we interrupted dinner?’
‘There’s something else,’ Siti said, gesturing behind us. ‘I saw a smaller creature near that thing’s paws.’
The more I thought about the glimpse we’d had, the more I was sure we were dealing with a bear. ‘A cub?’
‘Maybe. It had the same look to it.’
I bit my lip. The beast was likely female, protecting her young. Most Earth guides said to avoid bears, but the edges of the room were so thick with trees we couldn’t get between them. That left us with an angry, overprotective mother with claws as long as my fingers. Somehow, I didn’t think Sabine wanted us to hide behind a shrub until she grew bored enough to end the simulation.
That’s when I remembered Yara’s bloody wrists. No injury in her group had matched the blood, but I knew what would. I held up the rabbit and tore a fist-sized hole in its clawed belly, stuffed it with all the berries I had, and passed it to Quinn.
‘Fill it with as many arils and leaves as you can.’
He did so, then passed the rabbit to Siti, who stuffed the dead creature and held it by a leg. ‘What now?’
‘Throw the rabbit to the bear and back away with us, into the far corner.’
She threw it, close e
nough to almost hit the bear’s feet. The bear lowered itself to the food but watched as we backed up. The fog had thinned and my heart beat loud in my ears at the thought of trying to dodge this massive creature with no cover.
Thankfully, the bear didn’t follow. We waited, hidden behind a shrub, until it tore into the meat. Minutes passed with only our breathing and the tearing of the rabbit to pass the time, so long I feared we were hiding and waiting for nothing. Then the bear slowly lay down, its cub curled up next to it. Something white or grey was expelled from the larger bear’s mouth, then all went quiet.
The simulation was still running.
‘Should we check it?’ Quinn asked.
Siti gripped her spear and went to the bear’s head. ‘Vomit around the mouth of the mother. The cub is breathing but the mother is still.’ She poked its body with the blunt end of the stick. ‘Dead.’
My vision grew so blurry I couldn’t see anything more than the white blur. Siti called out for us, and then we were back in the simulation room, the door clicking as it unlocked.
Sabine’s voice came over the speakers. ‘Not a strategy I expected from you three.’
Siti opened and closed her hand. The spear had disappeared with the simulation. She rejoined us behind the now non-existent shrub and we left the room, into a crowd of quiet applicants. The badly injured were missing but the rest looked at us in varying stages of shock. Yara, especially, looked pained, her brow furrowed deeply.
‘Not a cut between you,’ she said.
Sabine closed the observation door and took in the room. ‘The first two teams tried using weapons or fists on the bear, which resulted in many injuries and nearly got you killed. Yara’s team scouted the area and improvised, stuffing the rabbit with the extra spearheads.’ She smiled, giving Yara a nod. ‘This was partially effective, but Errai’s team was the only team clever enough to use botanical knowledge to poison the bear and play to its instincts by backing away while the toxins did their work.’ A smile played over her lips. ‘Of course, this may not have worked on a different planet with different plant life, but it was an impressive strategy. You could all learn from the way they assessed the situation.’
‘They hid?’ Yara asked. ‘How is that clever?’
