Shifting Isles Box Set (Books 1-3): The Prisoner, S.P.I.R.I.T. Division, and Return to Tanas

by G. R. Lyons

  He walked down the cracked and crumbling steps that fronted the capitol building and hurried to keep up with their guide, feeling unnerved by the idea that the Elders were watching them leave. Zevic led them down poorly paved streets and past squat, unadorned, matching structures, leaving Graeden feeling lost and confused by the very sameness of everything around him.

  After several blocks, they finally stopped at a building that looked like every other one they'd passed. Zevic held the door open and let them inside, the doctors gathering in what barely passed for a plain and sparsely furnished living room.

  “This is where you'll be staying while you're here,” Zevic announced, joining them inside and shutting the door. “If you lose your way, just remember that this building is at the intersection of T Street and 43rd. The hospital is over on Q Street, between 39th and 40th. This is one of the few buildings in Vhais that was designed for more than a single family, so you'll each have a room to yourselves. If you'll follow me.”

  Zevic led them down a long, narrow hallway, barely wide enough to accommodate a man with a suitcase in each hand, and the doctors split off as they each came to a bedroom. Graeden stepped into the last room and dropped his suitcases on the floor, looking around at the narrow bed, the small closet, and the antiquated washroom.

  “Right up your alley, eh, Grae?” Jase joked, peeking into his room. “Nice and plain, just how you like it.”

  “I'm starting to wonder if this was a good idea,” Graeden said quietly, and hurried to follow the others as Zevic returned to the main room.

  “We've arranged to have a woman here to cook and wash for you,” their guide announced.

  “I'm sure we could manage,” Leni said, speaking almost for the first time since they'd arrived.

  “No, no!” Zevic insisted. “A man does not need to debase himself so far as to do household tasks. We have plenty of women available. And that's about all they're good for, anyway.”

  “I can think of a few other things they might be good for,” Jase joked in an aside.

  Zevic gave him a knowing smile. “As for that, we do have a few barren women that we can provide you, but I must warn you, if you have one of them, she can never again be used by anyone else. Disease has become rampant on this Isle in the past several years, I'm afraid. In short, I'd recommend that if you use one, you continue using her for the duration of your stay.”

  “I thought barren women were put to death on this Isle?” Graeden asked, and everyone looked at him with wide eyes. “I mean…that's what I heard, anyway.”

  Zevic nodded and gave a disappointed sigh. “That used to be the case. What good is a woman who can't bear children and help rebuild our population? Unfortunately, our numbers are so drastically reduced that we've had to keep even the barren women for the sake of the workforce. Can you imagine? Women working! It's disgusting, but there's nothing to be done about it until our population is back to an optimum level, and women can go back to staying in the home, where they belong.”

  Graeden saw Jase open his mouth to say something, but apparently he thought better of it because he snapped his mouth shut again and looked around the room.

  “Well.” Zevic clapped his hands together. “Would you like to settle in or shall we go to the hospital now?”

  Jase shrugged. “Not like we had far to travel. Let's go see where we're working.”

  The others nodded agreement, and Zevic led the way out the door. Graeden took up the rear and pulled the door shut, then looked back at it before he ran to catch up.

  “There's no lock on the door,” he said to Zevic.

  “Of course not,” Zevic answered with a laugh. “Locks are illegal.”

  “What?” Jase asked, coming to a stop. “In the gods' names, why?”

  Zevic looked at him as though he were an ignorant child and said, “Because then the officers can't easily conduct their searches for illegal possessions or activities, of course.”

  With that, Zevic turned on his heel and continued down the street, leaving the doctors looking at one another with stunned expressions.

  “Are you coming?” Zevic called over his shoulder.

  Graeden and the others ran to catch up, sharing suspicious looks as they went.

  “What the fuck have we gotten ourselves into?” Jase asked in a whisper, leaning close to Graeden.

  “You're the one who wanted to come here,” Graeden hissed back.

  “I didn't think it was going to be like this, though. I mean, gods! I'd heard it was bad here, but this is ridiculous. An apartment that looks like something out of Agoran's worst slums, no locks on the doors, searched at gunpoint. What's next?”

  “Just keep your eyes and ears open,” Graeden whispered, and they fell silent, following along as Zevic quickly navigated the dreary streets.

  The few men they passed were all dressed in the same uniform grey that Zevic wore, while the women wore skirts and wraps in a dull, natural white, just as Graeden remembered his grandfather telling him in stories of the old man's youth. Graeden gaped at the men shuffling along with bent postures, and the women hurrying along with heads down and fear in their expressions.

  “Gods, nothing has changed,” he whispered to himself, and tore his eyes away.

  They reached the hospital, a dull, single-storey building that sprawled across an entire city block and looked no different from any of the other buildings that surrounded it. Graeden followed the others inside and lurched to a stop.

  The lobby was packed with people: some bleeding, some coughing, some braced on makeshift crutches. One man cradled an arm that was clearly broken while another sweated profusely, shivering where he stood. Across the room, Graeden saw a pregnant woman who looked about to faint, and next to her was a boy with a blood-stained mask over his mouth and nose.

  The crowd squeezed out of the way as Zevic led the visiting doctors through, the sick Tanasians staring at them with wide eyes and hopeless expressions. Graeden gaped back at them, at a loss for words as they left the lobby and followed Zevic down a maze of hallways.

  They passed several rooms, many of them unoccupied, and jumped out of the way when a nurse ran past them.

  “Why are there so many people in the lobby when you have all these rooms available?” Graeden asked as Zevic resumed walking again.

  “They have to be processed first,” Zevic said, looking at Graeden as though it were obvious.

  “So process them! Those people are suffering.”

  “These things take time, Dr. Graeden. We must follow the necessary procedures, make sure the paperwork is filed properly. Unfortunately, we are short-staffed right now, so things are taking a bit longer than usual.”

  Graeden came to a stop and crossed his arms over his chest. “What exactly is it you do here, Zevic?”

  The guide gave him a sickly sweet smile and answered, “I'm a Director of Medical Relations. I work as a go-between for the Elders Council and the hospital administration, making sure policy is upheld and laws are followed.”

  “A director?” Graeden asked. “Meaning, there's more of you?”

  “Oh, of course. There's quite a lot here to keep track of, between work hours and medication legalities, not to mention reviewing reports and patient files, checking for proper surgical procedures. There's a lot to it. And that's just this hospital in this city. Think of all the things we have to monitor across the entire Isle!”

  Graeden felt his fellows' eyes on him as he stared at their bureaucratic guide.

  “It seems to me,” Graeden said, narrowing his eyes, “people would be much better served by actually putting them face-to-face with doctors and not keeping them lined up and waiting behind piles of administrative papers.”

  “But then how would we know if patients are getting proper treatments?” Zevic asked.

  “That's entirely between patient and doctor,” Graeden answered. “The government should have no say in the matter.”

  “But we can't just have doctors prescribing medicati
ons and treatments without approval! And patients making their own health decisions? Are you mad? It's for their own good that we have these systems in place.”

  “Well, your systems are nothing more than a bunch of–”

  “Grae,” Jase murmured, elbowing him in the side. “Let it go, alright?”

  “Let it go? There are people suffering out there and–”

  “Dr. Graeden.” Zevic stepped closer and leveled a look at him, clasping his hands behind his back. “Are we going to have a problem?”

  Graeden stared back at him, narrowing his eyes, holding his place and waiting until Zevic flinched and glanced away.

  “No,” he finally said through a clenched jaw. “No, we're not.”

  Zevic drew himself up and cleared his throat. “Very well. Shall we continue?”

  With that, he spun on his heel and hurried down the hallway, the Agori doctors hurrying to catch up.

  “What has gotten into you?” Jase asked in a whisper.

  “This is going to be a disaster, you realize that?” Graeden whispered back.

  “Well, we're stuck here now, so just go along, would you? There's nothing we can do about the system. Let's just do our work best we can and then get the hells back home, alright?”

  Graeden let out a low growl and clenched his hands into fists, but didn't say anything.

  They came to a large, open room with several beds along one wall and a bank of cabinets along the opposite, with various carts and trays scattered everywhere in between. Only one of the beds was occupied, with a doctor and two nurses hovering around the patient and flipping through a thick stack of pages on a clipboard.

  “This is where you'll be working,” Zevic announced, waving at the room. “We should have some assistants for you by tomorrow.”

  “Assistants?” Jase asked, glancing around at the empty room. “For what?”

  “The law mandates that every attending doctor have at least two nurses on hand to help with procedure,” Zevic explained.

  Graeden glanced pointedly at each of the empty beds and muttered, “I'm sure we can manage.”

  Not hearing his comment, or choosing to ignore it, Zevic went on: “Dr. Keisen here will fill you in on the condition we're trying to treat.” He led them over to the one occupied bed and got the doctor's attention. “Dr. Keisen, these are the doctors from Agoran.”

  “Oh, good!” Dr. Keisen said with relief, his expression brightening as he shook their hands in turn. “You've no idea what a relief it is to have you here. This case has been puzzling us for months!”

  Graeden shared a look with Jase, then turned to Zevic and the doctor. “You brought all of us here for one patient?”

  “Oh, no, no!” Zevic said with a laugh, waving his hands. “This one here is just one of many. We had to send the others back to their jobs because they were more or less able, and society must keep running! This one here was too weak to get out of bed, so we kept him, but the others will be back from time to time for more tests. Trust me, you'll have plenty to do.”

  Graeden bent over the semi-conscious patient and felt for a pulse, then picked up a small flashlight and passed the beam over each eye, checking for pupil dilation. He asked for a stethoscope and fitted it to his ears, frowning at the cheapness of it as he pressed the end to the patient's chest, closing his eyes and listening to the man's lungs and heartbeat.

  “Dr. Graeden, may I ask what you're doing?” Zevic asked.

  “Fundamentals,” he said, straightening up. “If you'll excuse us, I believe we have some work to do?”

  “Oh, but you can't without assistance!” Zevic insisted. “We'll come back tomorrow when there are more nurses available.”

  Graeden set down the stethoscope and crossed his arms over his chest. “Somehow, I think the four of us could manage just fine in helping Dr. Keisen with this one patient. More nurses would just be standing around doing nothing when they could be out there helping all those people who are waiting to be seen. Or will you allow us to help with them, too?”

  “No, we can't have that!” Zevic said, waving his hands. “We must follow procedure.”

  “I've got an idea,” Jase said, stepping forward. “How about Leni, Quinn, and I play nurse to Graeden's doctor, and then we won't need any other help.”

  Zevic flinched and stepped back, making some sort of gesture as he mumbled what sounded like a prayer.

  “Three nurses,” Zevic muttered. “No, no, not three.”

  “Something wrong?” Jase asked, almost laughing.

  Zevic took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, and exhaled heavily. “We'll have the proper amount of nurses for you tomorrow.”

  “Why bother when we could manage just fine?” Jase persisted.

  Zevic blinked at him. “But you're doctors.”

  “Right,” Jase said slowly. “Which means we're more qualified, which means we can substitute for them.”

  “But…you're doctors,” Zevic repeated, looking confused.

  “Hey, how about we come back tomorrow?” Jase asked the others in a falsely cheerful voice as he headed for the door.

  Graeden watched him go, and saw Leni and Quinn shrug and follow him. Zevic still looked puzzled as Graeden shook his head and joined his fellows.

  They made their way out of the hospital, relieved to see Zevic wasn't following them as they reached the street, and checked the street signs as they tried to find their way back to their assigned quarters.

  “Alright, Grae, you win,” Jase said, turning around and walking backwards as he spoke. He stumbled over a crack in the pavement, and Quinn caught him, the whole group pausing as Jase regained his feet. “You're right. This was a bad idea.”

  They turned at the next intersection and moved closer together as they passed a group of men carrying a body on a plank of wood. Graeden started to turn toward them, wanting to see if he could help, but the sight of an officer glaring at him from across the street made him stop.

  “We're being watched,” he murmured to his friends, and glanced over at the officer.

  “Somehow, I get the feeling we're going to be always being watched,” Jase added with a shudder.

  “So I guess that leaves exploring the city out of the question,” Leni said.

  Graeden nodded, glancing around, and saw another officer farther up the street, holding his gun ready as he scanned the pedestrian traffic. The officer narrowed his eyes at them, and the few others they passed gaped at them with wide eyes.

  “What are they staring at?” Jase asked in a whisper.

  “I think it's our clothes,” Graeden answered, just as quietly. “I don't think they've ever seen anything but their uniforms before.”

  “Let alone a man who can stand up straight,” Quinn added, comparing their upright postures to the bent and beaten postures of the locals.

  “Are we there yet?” Leni whined, checking the street signs.

  “Here,” Graeden said, nodding at the signs at the intersection of T Street and 43rd. They went inside, shut the door, and all collapsed into chairs around the rickety dining table.

  “Gods,” Jase breathed, and the others nodded agreement.

  They fell silent, glancing around at the stark, empty space. No one seemed to have anything to say, but Graeden noticed all of them kept glancing furtively at the door, as though expecting someone to barge in at any moment.

  Graeden shoved his chair back and got up.

  “Where ya going, Grae?” Jase asked.

  “I'm going to unpack, and then I'm going to work out until I can't see straight,” he said, heading down the hallway.

  “Work out?” he heard Leni ask with a laugh. “In here?”

  “Got any better ideas?” he called over his shoulder as he ducked into his room.

  Graeden opened his suitcases and arranged his clothes as best he could on the shelves and hangers in the tiny closet, then set out his toiletries in the washroom, thankful at least that he'd have such spaces to himself, even if th
ey were sparse and antiquated. He heard the others go to their rooms to do the same just as he finished, and shoved his suitcases under the bed, eyeing the thin, plain sheets as he changed into shorts and a t-shirt and headed back out to the main living space.

  He shoved the dining table and chairs into a corner of the room and glanced around at the empty space that remained. Taking advantage of having the room to himself, Graeden closed his eyes and meditated his mind clear, then warmed up with a rapid round of jogging in place, jumping jacks, and dynamic stretches before he folded over and stepped back into a plank.

  “What in the gods' names are you doing?” Jase asked with a laugh, he and the others passing through the room and squeezing into the chairs around the table in the corner.

  Graeden glanced up at them, saw a pack of cards in Leni's hand, and shook his head, ignoring them as he pressed out a set of tricep push-ups before lifting up into Downward Dog.

  He heard the cards get shuffled, then Leni chanting, “Some-bo-dy is tied.”

  “What's that?” Jase asked, laughing.

  “I bet Iora's got him doing this girly shit,” Leni clarified.

  Graeden heard Jase chuckle, then Quinn said, “That's a hell of a workout, actually. You should try it sometime.”

  “Yeah, right,” Leni said with a snort while Graeden straightened out into plank, shifted forward, and slowly lifted his feet off the ground, balancing entirely on his hands.

  “Damn,” Leni muttered.

  “Hey, I thought you said you and Iora broke up,” Jase said, raising his voice.

  “We did,” Graeden muttered, and pressed back into Downward Dog again.

  “Are you insane?” Leni asked, dropping his cards just as Graeden came back up to standing. “Hot little thing like that?”

  Graeden shrugged and backed up against a wall, sliding down until his thighs were parallel with the ground. He let his arms hang at his sides and closed his eyes.

  “No, you wanna know who was hot?” Jase asked, and Graeden heard the cards get shuffled again. “That girl he was dating right after med school. What was her name, Grae? The dancer–”