Grand Cross

by Merethe Walther

  Doctor T. shrugged. “The bolt that hit her shoulder destroyed things. Shredded muscle, severed nerves beyond repair, shattered bone. There was very little left to fix. Replacing it was much safer and ultimately less painful for her.”

  “Plus, duh, robot arm!” Kita exclaimed with a shaky smile. “And now when I say I can beat you with one arm tied behind my back, you’ll know I’m not bluffing.”

  Aralyn laughed despite herself. “That’s one way to look at it, I guess.”

  The doctor watched her silently, almost as if studying her. “I’ll leave you for a little while and be in to get your mapping started in a bit.”

  Once he’d left the room and the door slid closed behind him, Aralyn turned to Kita. “Okay, where the hell are we? Is this some kind of nightmare? Am I actually dead?”

  Kita shook her head, but the look on her face made it clear that she had already struggled with similar questions. “We’re still on Ganymede. Riordan called Taav in once everything went bananas. They had to load us up on some hover stretchers, and that’s really all I know about the journey. To be honest, I’m still not entirely sure where ‘here’ is, or why they brought us to this place instead of a med center or hospital, but man, it’s been kind of amazing. They work on a lot of stuff here. Not just medicine, but robotics, vehicles, ‘veen drones. It’s kind of cool, actually, despite all, well”―she gestured to her missing arm and Aralyn’s legs―“this.”

  “Does it… does it hurt?” Aralyn asked.

  Kita looked down at the bed. “Not hurt, really, but like, I’ll forget it isn’t there. I’ll go to reach for something and then I’m surprised that I don’t grab it. This morning I woke up and stretched, and I swear I could feel the muscles moving around just like normal.” She fought back some stray tears and forced another smile. “Please don’t be sad, okay? We all messed up.”

  Aralyn nodded. She could tell she wasn’t exactly all there herself, and as the need to get up and pace rose inside of her, she fought down the constant panic at not having a pair of working legs. Instead, she went for the one question she knew would have to be addressed. “Kragg?” she asked, keeping her voice low.

  Kita looked down. “He couldn’t be saved. They…” She cleared her throat. “They incinerated him. I think there’s a box of his ashes for you.”

  Aralyn blinked back more tears. Not only had she not saved him, but she’d never even gotten to say goodbye or have a ceremony for him. A strange, sharp sadness filled her mind when she realized that she didn’t even know if he’d wanted to be incinerated or buried. How much else had she missed out on in his life? How much else would she never get to find out about him?

  Think about that later, she chided herself. You’ve got more pressing problems. Mourn him later.

  “Fucking aerosol-spray,” Aralyn whispered. “I never saw something so diabolical coming… even from her.”

  Kita perked up at that. “Oh! I forgot to tell you, Taav has Ganymede locked down!”

  Aralyn blinked at her. “Locked down?” she asked.

  “Yeah! The entire planet’s grounded. He’s got people in orbit watching for outgoing, too. Bitch is in a barrel right now. She can’t go anywhere without the UDA crawling halfway up her ass and camping themselves there.”

  Aralyn sat forward, nearly fell off of the bed, and righted herself. “You mean Eladia is trapped on Ganymede?”

  Kita nodded, excited. “They’re hunting her down. Taav’s given a no-kill order, so it looks like she’ll be captured alive. It took Riordan and me nearly ten minutes to convince him that she’s the key to figuring out where Proctor is, because he wasn’t even going to step in to deal with her since she wasn’t his target. But if we can take Eladia out, she’s the head of the orachal ring! It’ll collapse―in the very least, crumble somewhat.”

  “Yeah,” Aralyn said, anger surging. “But our deal was for Proctor, not Eladia. Taav seems like a good man, but he’s also a fucking bureaucrat. Eladia’s a win he and his team will take, I’m sure, which is why he’s willing to risk his ass out here. We’re not getting out of this until we get to Proctor. I’d bet everything I have on that.”

  Having Taav’s people ready to pounce had messed with her escape plans, big time. That was probably one of the only things Aralyn could ever say she was grateful to law enforcement for.

  Calling in the big guns had allowed for the UDA to interfere in a way that would actually be helpful for once. But worry niggled at the back of her mind. What if Eladia had someone nearby to help? What if she put out an SOS or had cronies in the UDA who could get her off-planet under the guise of official business?

  The idea of her escaping again, when they were so close to finding her and making her pay was more than Aralyn could bear. She could put aside her personal grievances and pains if it meant finishing this stupid, suicidal mission they’d been sent on; it was the only way to rescue Caden and get some semblance of their lives back. But something about the entire situation was beginning to stink. How was it possible that she’d known where they’d be? Something flickered at the back of Aralyn’s mind, things that Eladia had let slip.

  She’d snuck onto the auction ship once the bidding was already underway. She knew they would be there. She’d known about their plans to get on the ship, to find her on Ganymede―Helios, she’d anticipated them getting there. Shame flashed across Aralyn’s face as she recalled Eladia mentioning her “mental break,” and how she’d anticipated them days earlier. The only reason that she hadn’t known about Taav’s involvement with recovering the ship and how closely his people had been following them was that they hadn’t known about it until after the auction ship.

  Which meant that someone on board had been feeding her information.

  If not from the beginning, then at least from the time that Apollo van Dien had joined their little vagabond group.

  “Fuck,” Aralyn muttered. “Where’s Apollo?”

  Kita frowned. “Haven’t seen him since he ran after Eladia, but then again, I was kind of messed up, so I’m not sure.”

  Aralyn nodded. Apollo had stopped her from killing Eladia. He’d hidden what he wanted from safe house Eurydice. He’d hadn’t killed Eladia numerous times when he’d had a clear shot and a chance. Aralyn’s blood boiled and the heart rate monitor began to beat faster. She wanted to scream but instead blew a breath sharply out of her nose.

  “Wait, do you think he…?” Kita asked, her blue eyes wide in her face. “He wouldn’t, would he? Son of a bitch.”

  “I don’t know,” Aralyn admitted. “None of us knew him. We only had Taav’s word that his information was good. And on the one hand, I suppose it was. But someone was feeding that bitch information about our movements. It was too well-orchestrated.”

  The truth was that Eladia was smart. She was bold, aggressive, and got what she wanted by brute strength or through fear and control. But she’d overplayed her hand on this one. She’d been too confident; let too many things slip because she thought she’d had them, once and for all. Aralyn felt a punch of pain to the gut as she thought of the cold look in Caden’s face as he’d pulled the trigger. There had been nothing there. He was empty. Obedient. Enslaved. She gritted her teeth. Eladia had killed the only real father she’d ever had and taken the only man she’d ever loved, all to get retribution. Well, she was going to find out soon enough what the fuck retribution really was.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Kita asked. “You look like you’re going to murder someone.”

  “I’m fine,” Aralyn said. There were so many things to cry about; so much pain that she hadn’t addressed. For the time being, she would have to be okay. She wasn’t sure if seeing Kragg in her dream had been real or not, but she wanted to believe that it had been. He’d told her himself. She had shit to do; she had to mourn later.

  She wasn’t about to disappoint him again.

  She forced the thoughts from her mind.

  “First things first,” Aralyn began, “let’s figure out where we are
, what’s going on, and then get your arm and my legs back so we can properly finish what we started with Eladia all those months ago.”

  “Robot arm time,” Kita whispered.

  ****

  Once the doctor had returned to get Aralyn’s neuromapping done, he’d pushed in a wheelchair that floated about a foot off of the ground and lifted her up and placed her into it. Despite the fact that he was clearly an older gentleman, there was no tremor in his muscles as he moved her. He seemed to have no trouble at all, really, and lifted her as if she were a child.

  As if sensing Aralyn’s confusion, he smiled and said, “I was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis ten years ago. I developed a series of implants that keep my muscles from atrophying any further, although I haven’t yet found a way to cure the disease altogether. My muscles receive an optimal amount of proper nutrients and oxygen at all times, which means that I can still pretend to be as spry as a man in his thirties―in short bursts, at least.” He chuckled, and something about the sound struck Aralyn as familiar.

  They moved from the strange almost hospital triage into the enormous area just on the other side. The room looked like a large factory floor, and while most of the work was automated by machines along conveyor belts running through the middle of the room, there were human workers in sterile-looking white jumpsuits and paper shoe covers, much like the scientists they’d seen when Taav arrested them on Makemake.

  The overseers carried small, clear tablets in their gloved hands and monitored the items the bots were fabricating. There was an open second story with a metal balcony overlooking the manufacturing floor, and the whole place was clean and simple with white on white walls and floors with the occasional metal cabinet or doorknob shining through. Aralyn took it all in with wonder.

  “There’s no way we can afford this,” she said aloud as they went in.

  “It’s pro bono,” said the doctor with a smile.

  “Oh stars, don’t tell me we have to run something for you as payback, because it is really a bad time right now, and―Kita, where the hell did Taav take us?” Aralyn asked, feeling panic rise up in her chest.

  It wouldn’t be the first time someone had “helped” another person under the guise of friendship and then indentured them for life to pay it off. Despite the echoes of slavery, it was still a legal way to extract your debt on most planets and moons. She raced to think―what were the rules for the Jovian areas?

  “Dunno,” Kita finally answered, arm crossed behind her head as she walked. “Never thought to ask.”

  “No, no, nothing like that. It’s honestly free; no charge. The hospital on Ganymede would have been ill-equipped to deal with this kind of damage,” explained the doctor as he pushed Aralyn forward to a room on the right. “So the officers brought you here instead.”

  Aralyn stared at the machines on the floor. “This is an auto production warehouse. Why would they bring us to a factory? And this is all seriously advanced―why help us?”

  They entered a dimly lit room with accessory lights running the length of the walls and ceiling. In the center was a large bed near a machine that looked like a glazed doughnut on its side. LEDs circulated around it in random disbursements. There was a bank of computers to their left and more of the clear-paneled cabinets to the wall on their right.

  “Because this isn’t just an auto factory. We also create medical prosthetics like the ones in your spine and many other implants that can help people recover from serious injury,” he said as he pushed her over by the large metal bed, then walked in front of her, looking concerned. “And also because I told them to.”

  Aralyn cocked her head at him, uncertain what to say. “What? Why?” The mistrust practically dripped from her voice.

  “Ms. Solari―Aralyn―if I may?” he asked. When she nodded hesitantly, he said, “In response to your first question, Aralyn, the officers brought you to the medical branch of Torgvald Industries, because they knew that I often do experimental elective procedures outside of the range of cuts, sprains, breaks, and the occasional burns the workmen here get.”

  Torgvald? she thought. At the name, her heart began to pound. “Grandpa Ider?” she asked.

  He beamed. “One and the same.” He clasped his hands in front of him, almost as though uncertain whether she would be pleased or not.

  “Whoa,” Kita said, taking a seat in a chair near the door. “No wonder all this for us―for her.”

  “But… how?” Aralyn asked, still looking perplexed. “Father told me”―she looked away, ashamed―“that you wanted nothing to do with me once Mother died.”

  Ider Torgvald scowled, as though fighting to weigh his words against his emotions. “Yes, he would, wouldn’t he? I knew that man was poison from the moment I laid eyes on him, but your mother”―his face softened as he recalled her―“she was in love.”

  He dabbed at his eyes, then went over to one of the cabinets and pulled down a bowl-like piece of plastic strips that looked almost like a hand with outstretched fingers. He turned it on and between the strip-like pieces, holo-field bands moved back and forth. He returned to her side and carefully placed the device on her head.

  “He told me a couple years after the funeral, when I was still in boarding school on Mars,” Aralyn said, unable to hide the upset from her voice. “I―”

  Torgvald patted her shoulder. “We will have some time after, okay?”

  Aralyn nodded as he lifted her from the hover chair and placed her onto the metal bed, a thin pillow below her head the only comfort. Her grandfather pushed a button and the table moved into the ring until her head was level with the flashing lights.

  “This won’t take long,” he assured her.

  “What is this thing?” she asked, looking around as far as she could fit her head. It was almost like being inside a coffin. Sudden discomfort at the thought had her brow breaking out in sweat.

  From around her came her grandfather’s voice, promising her that the neuromap would be done soon. She closed her eyes, fighting the tremors that came from trying to keep still during an incoming panic attack. As promised, however, the mapping took all of ten or fifteen minutes and then she was gliding back into the cool, recycled air being pumped into the exam area. Her grandfather helped her into a sitting position on the table by putting some firm cushions behind her that held her upright.

  “While the results are uplinking to the vertebrae in your back,” said the doctor, “I’ll go ahead and get your friend’s prosthesis ready.”

  Kita grinned, looking like she’d won a prize, but Aralyn caught the slight tremor to her smile and looked downward. “Where are Dror and Rio?” she asked. “Somewhere out there?”

  “We put the boy under observation in a dark room for a while, so he’s on the second floor, away from the noise of the plant. Your friend―Rio? You said?―is in one of the unused worker apartments the next building over,” said Torgvald, reaching down into a crate that had been packaged in a thick layer of foam. “I sent an alert to the room about a minute ago that you all were up and moving around.”

  He pulled a sleek metal arm with delicate-looking digits at the end of it out of the box, looking it over from fingertip to shoulder joint with a deeply critical eye. It was probably the nicest prosthetic Aralyn had ever seen. It looked nothing like the bulky metal prosthetics or the stiff plastic ones she was used to seeing on people; if they could even afford one, that was. Most people opted to use crutches or push chairs, or otherwise go about their life as normal without the costly devices. He held the arm up to Kita and her eyes grew wide as she reached over to touch it.

  “Helios,” she whispered. “This thing looks like it costs more than I’d make in my entire life.” She touched it reverently, studying every curve and angle, reaching down and threading her fingers around the limp end of her new hand. Tears prickled in her eyes. “I can’t accept this.”

  “What? Why not?” Aralyn asked, perplexed.

  “I know that this isn’t easy,” Torg
vald said. “I am sorry I couldn’t have saved your arm. But young lady, you have been incredibly brave. You helped save my granddaughter. This is the least I can do for you. Please. May I?” He held the attaching end of the arm up, which looked shockingly like a bolt protruding from the end.

  Kita was quiet for a long time, and Aralyn wasn’t sure if it was fear or self-reflection. She wished they could go back in time; erase the entire history of bad decisions that led them to this point. And, she thought with a boiling rage behind her eyes, teach Apollo what she did to the people who sold them out.

  Finally, Kita nodded and pulled back the bandages on her left shoulder, revealing what looked like a black metal socket with a flickering blue light inside of it, likely registering that it was “on.” Kita’s gaze flickered to Aralyn, as though she were ashamed of the wound, and Aralyn cursed under her breath. It was bad enough that they’d lost so much; she couldn’t have Kita blaming herself for her mistake. Aralyn gave a low whistle.

  “I wonder how much it’ll help your accuracy to have that thing?” she asked.

  Fighting a smile, Kita said, “I’ll be shooting better than you, soon enough!”

  Torgvald raised the arm and held it just outside of the synthetic shoulder joint. “This is going to feel like a lot of pressure for a minute,” he told her, “and you might have the sensation of it traveling down the nerve endings to your fingertips on the prosthetic, but this is temporary, as the artificial nerves in the arm connect to the ones in the shoulder.”

  Nervously, Kita nodded and braced herself against the counter by the computer station. The doctor pushed the arm into the socket and it gave a definitive click as it attached. Her face scrunched up in agony and she doubled over, clutching the arm to her side and holding back a scream that instead came out like a whimper between her teeth. After about a minute, however, she stood and leaned back, wiping the tears from her face―with her very own robot arm.

  “Oh my stars,” Kita whispered, staring at it in awe, “It’s like having my own arm back… but like… not.” She flexed her hand into a fist and spread it out in front of her, wind-milling it around and wincing as she moved.