Adverse Effects

by Alicia Nordwell

  He stopped again.

  “I don’t know what you mean, Dade,” he said in a calm voice. “I’m a Caeorleian, and an assistant doctor-in-training. I’m not going to hurt you or anything. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

  “But you’re blank. No one is blank.”

  Yaseke gave me the oddest look and cocked his head a little. “I don’t understand. You’re not making any sense.” I could hear frustration creeping into his hum.

  The thought of keeping my disability to myself completely fled my mind. All I could do was reel in shock at the utter lack of any input from Yaseke’s touch.

  “You touched me. I couldn’t feel you.” My throat was so tight, I almost couldn’t get the words out.

  “Are you saying you couldn’t feel my touch on your skin?”

  I shook my head. It was so much more than that. “I could feel your touch—I couldn’t feel you.”

  Yaseke stood rigidly and stared at me. “Maybe I should get Larede to come back. I don’t understand what’s wrong, but you need to sit back down. Do you want me to get him?”

  Why couldn’t I explain this better? I knew the human doctors had files on me on the ship, and the scientist that originally messed with my mind had known almost immediately what happened. It had taken me weeks to muddle it out after I was abandoned in the civilian world, but I had. However, in all the years since that first experiment, I had never tried to explain it to another person.

  “No. I just”—I faltered as I ran a hand through my hair—“I don’t know how to explain.” I gritted my teeth and yanked on my hair as I struggled to put everything into words.

  He took a few steps back, toward the door and away from the bed. “How about we do this? I’ll stay over here, and you’ll go sit back down on the bed. I swear I won’t touch you or not touch you, whatever it was I did.”

  I took a deep breath as I considered his suggestion. My shock was starting to fade, and my heart wasn’t pounding quite so hard. The tingles in my arm were a lot worse standing up with the bio net’s constriction keeping it immobile. Shoving the table, I got it out of the wall. I pushed it in front of me, keeping my eyes on Yaseke.

  He relaxed a little as I eased down on the bed. The flashing light on the tablet attached to the table had stopped as soon as I calmed. I wiped sweat off my forehead.

  “Do you need a drink?” Yaseke asked me.

  My mouth was still so dry. I licked my lips. “Yes, please.”

  There was a pitcher and glass on the chest by the door. Carefully holding the cup by the rim, Yaseke filled it and then came closer, holding it out to me. I took it from him, cupping the bottom so that our fingers didn’t touch.

  The water was cool and felt really good as it passed my dry tongue. I held a bit in my mouth, swirling it around before I swallowed. I kept my eyes on Yaseke the whole time until he stepped back. Had he really been a blank? It didn’t seem possible.

  Everyone felt like something.

  It had been a shock at first, but now that I had time to think, not just react, I wanted to touch him again. I needed to.

  I put the cup down as the tingle in my other hand faded. The bio net disappeared, and I could move again. Pulling my arm back, I flexed my hand. The swelling and pain in my cracked knuckle were gone, but it was a bit stiff.

  Yaseke approached slowly again. “I’m just going to check the scan.” He rolled the table away, tapping the panel. “The new scans look good; the crack has been healed and the swelling reduced. You might notice a little tenderness or a slight stiffness, but it shouldn’t last too long.”

  “I can feel it.” I flexed my fingers out straight, then looked up at Yaseke. His amber eyes stared down at me.

  “Normally I’d check it myself, but—”

  I thrust my hand forward. “Do it.”

  Yaseke yanked his hands back. “You didn’t react well to my touch last time, Dade. I don’t want to hurt you. Larede can check you later, if you prefer.”

  Shaking my head, I kept my arm extended. “You didn’t hurt me. It startled me, that’s all.” Scared the shit out of me was more accurate, but I did have my pride. I didn’t want Yaseke to think I was a coward, or worse yet, avoid me. I liked the small medic. He was strangely insightful—even when I was confusing the crud out of him. I wiggled my hand. “This is getting tiring. Just… check it already.” I looked up at him, nodding toward my hand.

  Moving so slow that it was almost ridiculous, Yaseke slid one palm under my hand, cradling it. He lifted it a bit higher, closer to his face. His palm was smooth against mine, but his fingertips were calloused.

  He used his other hand to lift mine, watching me for a minute as he brought it up. I was barely breathing, but I didn’t move. One by one, he rolled my fingers in, curling them up into my palm. I inhaled a little when he did the knuckle that had been broken, but he massaged it slowly. He straightened and then bent it again, and some of the ache disappeared. His touch was deliberate, slow, and as painless as possible.

  “Okay?” he asked when he made my hand into a fist.

  “Yeah,” I managed to squeeze out.

  Yaseke’s hands were cool, sliding along my warm skin until he enveloped my fist in both his palms. They slowly heated around my hand. But I felt nothing from him. Not a single thing, not even when I tried. I’d never tried before. Every other time I’d tried to shut it off, or turn it down, like it was a communicator. I’d never managed to dull the foreign feelings that coursed through me from the most casual graze of physical contact.

  It was also strangely disturbing, not knowing what Yaseke was feeling as he checked the repairs on my knuckle.

  “I’ll get you an exercise ball for your hand. They’re old-fashioned, but sometimes the simple things are the best remedy,” Yaseke murmured as he finished examining me.

  I didn’t pull away when he looked up at me. “Thank you.”

  He blinked. “It’s what I do. I help people. You don’t need to thank me.”

  I shrugged with one shoulder. “You don’t have to, though. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve been treated by doctors who were your complete opposite?”

  Yaseke let go of my hand but sat down next to me on the bed, far enough away we couldn’t touch without a deliberate move toward each other. He was probably the most thoughtful man I’d ever met, other than Larede.

  “If you really want to thank me, you can tell me what upset you so much earlier. I still don’t understand.” He smoothed down a wrinkle in the pale green silk of his wrap.

  Did I dare? Could I trust him? I’d never be able to keep my secret forever. I gave him a level look, my earlier panic gone. I’d enjoyed the first touch in years that didn’t make me want to climb out of my skin.

  Yaseke seemed to read my mind. “Whatever you tell me won’t go any further. Not without your permission.”

  I wet my lips and then went for it. “When people touch me, I feel… what they feel. Happy, sad, angry, aroused.”

  His lips parted as Yaseke stared at me, his eyes going so wide I could see a thin strip of white around them.

  “It was back when I was in the military. I’d been injured and sent back to Ussmep.” I leaned my head down, spreading my hair and tracing a scar that went from just behind the hairline and then curved down toward my ear. It was a thin raised line that my hair could hide, thankfully.

  “I’d taken a blow by a bladed weapon during an attack by primitives on Kwiel. The doctors who healed me were doing this study, and apparently my brain fit the profile they were looking for. I had the best prognosis to be a success of any participant they’d tested. By the time my treatment for the head injury was done, I lost some of the hearing in my left ear, so they were going to drum me out of the military.”

  The memories were so strong that I couldn’t sit still any longer. I stood up, pulling my robe tighter around me. I went to the window, staring at the small waves lapping at the edge of the silver lake.

  “Ussmep isn’t anything like
Caeorleia. The natural resources are almost gone. They pride themselves on being pure humans there to an extreme level. Almost every other planet in the sector has been alienated from them. This war is their last-ditch effort to find a new planet to live on. But back then, they were just starting the war. They were conducting trials, and if I passed, I’d stay in the military even with my hearing issue.

  “I know their war with you is wrong, I can see that now that I’m here, but all the population knows is what they are told. I thought I was doing my part to save the human race.” I looked over my shoulder at Yaseke.

  He was staring at me raptly.

  “So I volunteered.”

  He shuddered. My voice was harsh with the bitter rage that still filled me, and the hum that accompanied my words must have been painful to feel.

  “What did they do?” he whispered.

  “They injected some chemicals in my brain through small holes drilled in my skull and then sent in wires that attached to the cerebral cortex over my frontal lobes. I was strapped to a chair while they sent electric shocks through the cords.”

  I blinked. Yaseke’s eyes flashed and his mouth tightened into a pale line. His isitziu were so dark on his face they looked almost black. “They hurt you?”

  It had felt like my brain was set on fire, sizzling with each wave. I forced the memory away; I didn’t need to vomit, and thinking about the experiments they performed made me nauseated every time. I nodded curtly.

  “What were they trying to do?”

  “It was supposed to let me mesh minds with anyone I chose. I could hear their thoughts and even influence them.” My voice faded to a whisper. “But it didn’t work.”

  I pushed the window open farther, smelling the sweet scent of the sun-warmed flowers beneath the window. It pushed away the memory of the lab and the sick stench of fear and pain from that man they’d wheeled in.

  I turned to face Yaseke, my arms folded tight over my chest. “Instead I get the emotions of every person touching me. Whatever they feel, I feel as if it was my own. Sometimes I can’t even tell where their emotions end and mine begin.

  “Except”—I cleared my throat, swallowing hard—“except with you. You touched me, and I felt nothing. Nothing but your skin on mine.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Dade felt every emotion as if they were his own? Yaseke shivered. The idea of something like that happening, of foreign emotions being forced upon him and taking away the privacy of his own thoughts and feelings…. He wrapped his arms around his chest against the cold that invaded his soul.

  It would be one thing to feel the emotions and know they were not your own. It was another thing altogether to have those feelings take over and fill you. Dade would have no way of separating….

  Horror filled him. “You were held captive by the same men who held Ryker and Nicklaus. They… they….” He couldn’t say it. He covered his mouth with one hand, smothering the words that would make it real.

  Dade’s dark eyes glittered, and he scowled. The past was over, Yaseke knew that, and he wanted to help Dade by saying something—anything—but that was beyond him. His eyes burned as tears filled them.

  Storming away from the window, Dade rushed toward Yaseke and stopped just in front of him. “Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare cry!”

  Yaseke blinked quickly, trying to keep his tears from falling.

  Dade’s voice was harsh. “They used to put their filthy hands on me, yes. Sadistic bastards, the lot of them. They loved tormenting me, filling me with their sick perversions, making me want it—want them, as long as their skin pressed against mine.”

  Clenching his hands into fists, Dade stood rigid. Yaseke hoped he wouldn’t hit another wall and need to be healed again. He wanted to help, to calm the furious man down, but he didn’t know if it was possible. No wonder he was so hostile. After finding out what Dade had gone through, he couldn’t imagine the depths of hatred and rage that had to fill the tortured man.

  He had to try, though.

  “Calm down,” he said soothingly. “You need to breathe.”

  His words had the opposite effect. “Fuck breathing! With the shit they put me through, I have every right to not be calm. You have no idea what it is like to feel pleasure when someone is strapping you down to a table to have needles injected into you, or sadistic satisfaction when you see someone screaming in agony as they are cut open while they are alive and aware.”

  Yaseke gagged at the mental pictures Dade’s words evoked. Looming over him, Dade was breathing hard and fast, clenching and unclenching his hands. Yaseke braced himself, afraid Dade was going to hit him. He took a step back carefully, his gaze locked with Dade’s. The larger man sneered at him.

  “Going to run away in disgust from the freak now? Or are you afraid I’ll find out just how you really feel about what they did to me?”

  Shaking his head, Yaseke swallowed hard. “You can’t feel me, remember?” He stopped moving backward and actually took a step forward. He reached out a hand. If what Dade said was true, touching Yaseke couldn’t hurt him; it would be safe for Dade. He’d show the furious man he wasn’t disgusted to touch him. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

  Dade jerked away from him. “No. No!” He turned his back on Yaseke. “Get out!”

  Yaseke dropped his hand. He didn’t want to leave. He wanted to help Dade heal, but if his fear was too strong, there was nothing he could do. A tremble shook the powerful body in front of him. Grabbing the cart, he hurried to leave, giving Dade the privacy he needed.

  Before he could go back to his own quarters, Yaseke had to return the equipment to the medical wing and log his notes into Dade’s file. It took longer than he would have liked to do that, and his stomach was growling by the time he was done and ready to head back to his suite.

  “Yaseke!” He turned and sighed when he saw Larede hurrying down the hall toward him. Yaseke had a headache. His mind was racing as he considered options and ideas to help Dade.

  “Did everything go okay?” Larede was slightly out of breath when he caught up to Yaseke. Not wishing to be impolite, Yaseke stopped walking so the doctor could catch his breath.

  “Yes. I healed his hand. The equipment has been cleaned and returned to the medical wing, and I put my notes in Dade’s file. Is there something else?”

  Larede rubbed the back of his neck. “Did you tell him what you really do?”

  Yaseke raised his eyebrows. “That I am a counselor, not a doctor-in-training? No. Most victims who need help wish to find it. From just one meeting with Dade, I could tell that he does not want help.”

  “But—” Larede started to protest.

  “I didn’t say he didn’t need help, just that he doesn’t want it.” It was warm in the hall; the sunlight streamed in through the windows. “Look, I’m hot and more than a little worn out from the time I spent talking to Dade.” That was an understatement. “I need some quiet to think.”

  “He talked to you? I thought you said he didn’t want any help.”

  “He doesn’t. That’s why I didn’t tell him I’m a counselor. To be truthful, what he really needs is someone he can trust. Once he has that, I believe he’ll open up more.”

  Larede pushed his hair back behind his shoulder. “So you’ll become friends with him and get him to talk to you so you can help him? Seral will want reports.”

  Dade had already told him more than Yaseke suspected he’d told anyone else. But he’d done it all without knowing that Seral and Larede had asked Yaseke to observe him and determine his mental state. Plagued by feelings no counselor should feel, Yaseke knew it was already too late to keep their talks professional.

  “No.”

  Larede’s mouth dropped open. “What do you mean, no?”

  Sighing, Yaseke opened his wrap’s fastener and removed it. It was really too hot to wear one, but he hadn’t wanted to make the humans uncomfortable. He started walking, and Larede moved with him. “Dade doesn’t trust easily. He doesn’t trus
t me yet, but I hope he will in time. Keeping tabs on him through me isn’t something I’m willing to do, even if Seral is worried about the security risk he represents. It wouldn’t be right. I’d feel like I was spying on him for the both of you.”

  He stopped in front of his door and turned and sighed at the frown on Larede’s face. “You’ll just have to accept my decision. I can’t treat him.”

  “So you’re just going to ignore someone in need? You’re not a doctor, but how can you do that?” Larede’s hum was harsh, and he scowled at Yaseke. “He needs to let go of the anger festering inside him. Today he punched a wall. What will he do tomorrow?”

  He already had an idea about that. Yaseke smiled. “Tomorrow he’s going to have lunch with me.”

  Larede threw his hands up. “I don’t understand.”

  Yaseke put his hand on the palm reader to open his door. “I said I wouldn’t counsel him. I didn’t say I wouldn’t be his friend.”

  I couldn’t believe I’d told Yaseke my secret. I was just begging for him to expose me. I stared at the closed door that led out into the suite. My guard would be lounging out there, waiting for me to leave so he could follow me, if he wasn’t standing outside the front door. Some felt the need to stay farther away from me than others.

  What would happen if Yaseke went to Seral’s father with the news of my abilities? Would he try to use me as a weapon?

  I couldn’t bear the thought of more people pushing their emotions on me, but I often wondered if I could feel something that wasn’t already inside me. Maybe I was just as sick as those guards had been. Maybe all that pleasure in my pain and suffering hadn’t just come from them.

  That idea had my stomach churning. I raced into my bathroom, barely making it before my stomach did its damnedest to turn inside out. Bracing myself against the counter with one shaking arm, I rinsed out my mouth with water from the sink.

  I looked like shit. My eyes were like dark pits surrounded by pale white skin—reminiscent of a weathered skull. The blue markings on my face startled me still. I’d seen them on my body while I was on the ship, but I’d never seen the ones on my face. The way I looked now was so different from the man I’d seen in the mirror before I’d been so monumentally stupid as to volunteer for a second experiment.