by Barry Solway
“Mel,” Beats whispered, waving his good arm in the air. “Look.”
Mel followed where he pointed. Just behind him, partially under the next vehicle, was a metal grate.
“Go down,” Beats said.
“I didn’t see that in the other buildings,” Mel said.
“Neither did I. Let’s check it out,” Riley said.
Mel turned to Gorgeous and Jon. “Keep them occupied. We may have a way out.”
She crawled over to the grate with Riley. A ladder led straight down. There was a faint movement of air. Riley grabbed the grate and pulled. It came up easily and swung back on well-oiled hinges.
“It’s not rusty like the rest of the place,” Riley said.
Mel was suddenly sure this is what Anna had expected they would find. She wondered about the schedule Anna had instructed them to keep, but it didn’t matter now. “Get down there, Riley. Check out a path. I’ll get Beats down and the rest of us will follow.”
She turned to Beats as Riley disappeared into the darkness below. “Can you manage the ladder?”
“I don’t have anything better to do, I suppose.”
Mel tried to help, but she was far too small to accomplish anything. Beats dragged himself to the vehicle and pushed it sideways so he could get to the grate. He had to force himself through the tight space but was able to navigate the ladder.
Another explosion sounded from the other side of the building. “Gorgeous, Jon, let’s go!” Mel yelled. Jon lay down to cover fire from his side of the vehicle. Gorgeous disappeared down the grate as Jon crawled towards Mel.
“They’re coming. From both sides,” Jon said as he passed Mel. “Get down here, fast.” He slid in feet first, almost falling into the darkness.
Mel nodded and jumped onto the ladder. She reached up to close the grate, thinking it might delay the soldiers. As the grate swung down, two soldiers rounded the corner of the vehicle. One opened fire and hit Mel’s hand. She cried out, losing her balance on the ladder and falling down.
She landed on Jon, but barely heard his yells and curses through the pain in her hand. “I’ve been shot,” she gasped.
Gorgeous appeared in the dim light from above. “Get away from the opening,” she said, dragging Mel down a tunnel. A dim light glowed ahead. “Where were you shot? How bad is it?
“My hand,” Mel said, through gritted teeth. “I’m okay, I can walk.” Her hand felt like it was on fire. She was afraid she would pass out. The scraping on the grate from above was the only thing that pushed her forward. “Where’s Riley?”
“Up here,” Riley said, as they approached the light. It was a single yellow square implanted in the wall. Another dead end.
Mel examined the end of the tunnel. Her mind raced, jumping from one idea to the next. She cradled her bad hand with her other one, not daring to look at it. “There must be a door.”
“I can’t find it,” Riley said, obvious frustration in his voice. They turned back to see beams of light in the darkness by the ladder. Jon crouched on one knee, apparently ready to start a firefight that Mel knew would end in their deaths.
Riley shrugged helplessly. “Sorry, Mel. This is the end of the line.”
The sob that escaped Mel’s lips mixed with a click as a section of the wall slid backwards, then to the side. Three figures stood on the other side, wearing military-style battle helmets, like the one Mel had stolen from Harkin and worn in her last gauntlet. One of them urgently motioned Mel and the others into the newly revealed hallway. The other two carried a small box between them. They moved past the others into the hallway and pushed Jon aside, then set the box down.
“What the hell,” Jon said.
Mel got a better look at the two figures when they passed her. The armor made it tough to be sure, but she thought they were Latanua. And all three of them were cyborgs. The two with the box were missing one leg each and one of them had a robotic arm. The third one, the one who had waved them into the new hallway, looked to be almost completely robotic. Both his legs and his right arm were cybernetic, along with a good portion of his abdomen.
“This way, quickly,” the man said, motioning them into the tunnel. They filed through, although Mel thought Jon looked disappointed. The new tunnel was narrower and shorter than the last one, and Beats had to crawl on his hands, dragging his leg behind him. Mel didn’t question their luck at this point. She heard the door close as the two cyborgs brought up the rear. A few moments later, a muffled explosion shook the hallway. Rubble rained down from the ceiling behind them, closing the tunnel off.
The first cyborg stopped at another dead end and pressed a button on some device he held in his hand. A portion of the wall opened to reveal an elevator. Bright lights flooded into the hallway, nearly blinding Mel. It was a large freight-style elevator, but still a tight fit with Beats. The two cyborgs who had blown the tunnel picked up a crate in the elevator and talked briefly with the first cyborg in the hallway while the others got in.
Moaning, Mel slumped against Riley. The pain in her hand and blood loss made thinking difficult. Riley ripped a length of cloth off the bottom of his shirt and wrapped it around Mel’s hand. She pressed against him, both for comfort and to keep from falling down. Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, Riley squeezed gently.
“You’re shaking,” he said softly. “It’s alright now, we’re safe. For now.”
She shook her head, her face buried against his chest. “It’s not that. I just realized…” She had to fight to talk through the tears and the catch in her throat. “I just realized we forgot about Sharon.”
“Damn,” Riley whispered. “Yeah. There was nothing we could have done.”
The first cyborg joined them in the elevator while the other two stayed behind. The man pressed a control panel, and the elevator closed. Mel was surprised to feel it descend.
“Sharon?” the cyborg asked, looking down at Mel, her reflection glinting off his visor. The voice was muffled in the helmet, but something about the sound of it was odd. He looked at her bandaged hand. “You’re wounded.”
“I’m used to it. Beats is worse,” she mumbled. “How did you find us?”
“Anna told me you were coming.” The man sighed. “We almost gave up, but I decided to come back. Glad I did.”
“Who are you?” Riley asked.
The helmet swiveled to look at Riley. “It’s good to see you, Riley.” As he reached up to remove his helmet, Mel realized what was odd about his voice. She wasn’t hearing it through her translator in her head. He was speaking English. “It’s good to see all of you.”
Mel’s head swam. Even Beats gasped in disbelief. This was impossible.
The cyborg was Evan.
Chapter 12
Mel had a strange feeling about the makeshift hospital room. After waking up in a similar, yet totally different, kind of room so many times on Kathor’s ship, it had taken on a significance of its own. She had to remind herself that she hadn’t actually died this time. Although the way her hand felt, she was starting to wish she had.
She had begun to assume that alien technology was always amazing. But the equipment here looked battered and old, the light a feeble yellow thing that tended to flicker. The room itself was clean enough. In some ways it felt more real than Kathor’s ship, yet she found it difficult to really settle in and feel comfortable.
Mel almost laughed at that thought. There was no reason for her to feel comfortable about where she was. None at all.
One of the lemur-like creatures, the Chaturee, examined her hand. Evan had named her Sheila and said she was a doctor and a scientist. A bit over three feet tall, she was slender with long silky hair covering most of her body. A ring of golden fur surrounded a black face and wide eyes that made her look slightly surprised. Her eyes flitted constantly around and she moved with quick, precise movements.
“So,” Evan said, still struggling with the conversation they were having. “Anna was actually a robot the entire time?”
“I think she prefers android,” Mel replied.
“Okay. But her body was destroyed. Because you shot her and blew up her power core. And now she’s a super powerful artificial intelligence sitting in a baseball in your pocket?”
“Yep, that pretty much covers it. Maybe more like a softball.”
“She forgot to mention all that when she contacted me.”
Sheila injected a drug directly into Mel’s hand that took away much of the pain, but made her hand feel like it was freezing. Every time Sheila poked at the damaged tissue, she could feel it pulling on the tendons and muscles in her forearm. The effect was starting to make her ill.
“Dr. Sheila?” Mel said. The lemur’s bulging eyes flicked up to Mel’s, then back down, then up again.
“Does it hurt?”
“Not exactly. I can feel it pulling in my forearm, though. But my hand is freezing.”
“Mmm…” Sheila said. The sound the creature made was more of a purr, but Mel heard the ‘mmm’ in her head from the translator. “The pain killers are not designed for your body. We refined it with your friend Evan, but have not had time or resources to perfect it. Evan does not complain about it freezing.”
“Evan was always tougher than he looked,” Mel said with a slight gasp as Sheila tugged on something that Mel felt in her elbow.
Evan smiled. “I have never been remotely as tough as you, Mel. The first batch of local anesthesia they tried almost killed me. I think I had an allergic reaction or something. I broke out in hives and it felt like my legs were on fire. Except I didn’t actually have legs at that point. They had to amputate them when they pulled me out of the tunnels. Anyway, the cold feeling lessens after a bit.”
“Like I said,” Mel replied.
Evan ducked his head slightly. “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to make anything out of it.”
Mel looked at Evan. “Don’t apologize. I want to hear about what happened. Can you tell me?”
“I don’t like to talk about it. I was wondering how you guys even got off the ship,” he said. Evan had always been shy, and Mel had thought of him as being insecure. Listening to him now, she realized that what she took for insecurity was actually kindness. Evan was more worried about her and the others than he was about himself or the experiences that had turned him into a cyborg.
“You first,” Mel said.
Evan smiled. “Okay. There’s not much to say.” He paused and stared into space. “I guess that bomb was stronger than I thought. Sorry about that. And, of course, I didn’t account for the condition the city was in. The buildings and the streets were already crumbling, so the bomb did way more damage than I expected. I didn’t… I didn’t mean for it to kill anyone.”
“One of the other team fell in,” Mel said. “And you. But Gorgeous and I escaped.”
Evan nodded. “Good. I’m glad it helped. They found the body of a Latanua. I guess that’s the guy from the other team. They didn’t find anyone else, but there was so much rubble, there was no way to know for sure.” Evan took a deep breath, obviously dealing with a lot of emotion. “I don’t remember much. I was unconscious for a while. I woke up at one point and my legs had been crushed under this huge rock. I was in this tight space and could barely breathe with all the dust. That’s when they found me. A team from the Viro Kara, scavenging in the tunnels. They had to amputate my legs to get me out. They took me back to their camp, and then flew me here. The whole flight, I would wake up screaming and then pass out again.”
“He would wake up and call for you,” Sheila said, glancing from Mel to Evan quickly, before poking at Mel’s hand again.
Mel raised an eyebrow. “Me?”
Evan’s face flushed a slight shade of red. “I don’t remember that. But I remember dreaming. I would be with someone I knew and hand them something. Like a cup of tea or a book. But the thing would be a bomb and it would explode, and they would die. Sometimes they would catch on fire or melt in front of me. You were in a lot of those dreams. You would be on fire and you would just calmly talk to me while you were burning. About how I needed to stop being so careless.”
Mel looked away. She remembered the accident that had likely caused Evan’s dreams. An accident where Evan set a bomb off that had nearly killed Mel. Actually, it had killed Mel. Only Kathor’s cloning technology had brought her back. Mel remembered that only her and Anna knew that she was a clone. She intended to keep it that way.
“I’m sorry, Evan. That sounds horrible.”
“I guess I’m just punishing myself. I still have those dreams sometimes. It can be hard to sleep. Anyway, I lost the legs right away. But Sheila was excited when she found out I was an alien. A species they had never seen before. Sheila and another scientist here made the cybernetic parts for me. They did the legs and abdomen first. Then my right arm got infected and they had to amputate it too. They have something like antibiotics, but it didn’t work.”
“Nonsense,” Sheila said, finally putting down her tools and looking at Evan. “We did not make the cybernetic parts. They are readily available, standard issue for the Latanua. Fortunately, the size is similar enough that they work with some adjustments. I did have to modify the interface to Evan’s biology. Fascinating to work with a new alien race. The nervous system integration was quite challenging. Very exciting, very exciting.” Sheila’s eyes were growing larger by the second and Mel thought they might pop out of her head. Her hands moved rapidly while she talked. Mel wondered how much of her speech involved the hand movements as well as her voice.
Evan smiled at Sheila. “I’m just a big experiment to Sheila. I saved her from a boring life as a doctor.”
“Ah, Evan, my friend, you are much more than a big experiment!” Sheila said, almost vibrating in her chair. “You are an amazing, exciting adventure! So much fun.” Turning back to Mel, she lowered her voice. “Don’t tell him, because his eyes will grow very large. But I also think Evan is a very interesting person. He is a good friend.”
“I think so, too, Dr. Sheila,” Mel said.
“She just says that to soften me up so she can study me more,” Evan said. Mel noticed him smiling affectionately at Sheila, but there was sadness under the smile.
Sheila patted Evan’s leg. “That might be true. So, about your hand. The bullet was rifled and it didn’t just go through your hand. It hit a bone here.” She pointed with a thin finger at Mel’s mangled palm. Mel averted her gaze. “And then it spun around and destroyed most of the palm. Your fingers don’t work anymore. There is much nerve damage. I have closed off the arteries to stop the bleeding. We have synthesized a plasma blood for Evan that should work with you, given some modifications. I would love to work on your hand. There is so much missing that I would need to take a nuclear pulse sequence graph of your other hand, and maybe Evan’s, for a model. Perhaps I could grow some new tendon and muscle tissue and rebuild the hand.”
“Nuclear what? You mean you can rebuild my hand?”
“A nuclear pulse sequence graph is like an MRI,” Evan said.
“Yes, yes,” Sheila said. “It would be very challenging. Very fun to try.”
Evan caught Mel’s attention, shaking his head slowly. “Sheila. Could Mel and I have a second?”
Sheila turned her head rapidly between Evan and Mel. She didn’t say anything, but the translators told Mel she had a look of disappointment on her face. Mel guessed she already knew what Evan was going to say. And it probably wouldn’t be good news.
“Of course. Take away all my fun.” Sheila covered Mel’s hand with a cloth. “I’ll give you a few minutes to decide, but we need to finish cleaning her hand up so it doesn’t get infected.”
Once Sheila left, Evan sighed and leaned forward. “I know the idea of having her repair your hand sounds tempting, but it’s a bad idea. Sheila means well, but she gets obsessed with her experiments. She spent a week trying to save my arm. Different medications, attempted surgery. It was painful and did as much or more damage than the infection. She knows a
lot and is learning every day, but they don’t really understand our biology. And they have limited resources. It’s not like on Kathor’s ship. She’ll probably spend a month trying to recreate your original hand and you’ll end up with some weird Frankenstein part that doesn’t work or feel right. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth.”
“Yeah. I figured you would say something like that. So, what am I supposed to do?” Mel suspected she already knew the answer.
“It’s not that bad. Way better than having her trying to replace your hand biologically. She’s done a really good job of figuring out how to interface the cybernetic parts. I sometimes forget that half my body is mechanical.”
Tears formed in her eyes. Evan knelt by her bed, placing a hand gently on her forearm. “No offense, but I… I don’t want to become a cyborg, Evan. I’m glad you’re alive. But I…. How much of this do we have to take? Isn’t it enough that I’ve been killed… almost killed three times? That Nick and Sharon and Jeff all died? That I thought you died? Why is this happening to us? Why can’t I stop it?”
“I’m sorry, Mel. But… the Viro Kara, they’re good people. They’re my friends. And they accept me for who I am in a way that maybe people didn’t where I grew up. I’m just saying that, if you look, you can find a silver lining.”
Mel shook her head. Evan had always been steady, even when things were going crazy. That he could see anything positive about having half his body destroyed and replaced by a machine was beyond her.
She looked down at her hand. “If there’s a chance Sheila can fix my hand, then that’s what I want. But if she can’t, if she’s just going to make it worse, then you’re right. What will they have to do to replace it?”
“Amputate it, to start,” Evan said.
Mel sighed. She could feel a wave of emotion trying to engulf her and fought to keep a lid on it. She couldn’t afford to break down. “Let’s do the robotic hand. Maybe Sheila can experiment on the hand after she amputates it. God, I can’t believe I’m saying that.”
Evan squeezed her good hand and stood. “I’ll let Sheila know. You want to get this done sooner rather than later. Otherwise, you could run into the same problem I did with the infection in my arm.”