Patchwork

by Elle E. Ire

  “I’m mostly running on my own 37 percent,” she says.

  Thirty-seven percent. The remaining portion of her organic brain tissue that could never be enough to sustain life. “What about the research station? Surely they have medical personnel and equip—”

  “Unmanned. They check their equipment… six times per year. No one is responding to our emergency… beacon.”

  “Vick—”

  “Please!” Her desperate shout turns to a coughing fit.

  I put my arms around her, steadying her, and myself, as much as I’m able.

  “I’m… holding on… for you. Can’t do it forever. The research station… will be shielded. It will block your Talent.”

  I shake my head, though she can’t see it. “I’m not leaving you. It’s what you’ve always been afraid of. Dying alone. I can’t do that.” To my empathic sight, she’s suffused in purple. She’s scared. I don’t want her to be scared.

  A pause. Vick is so silent, I worry she’s no longer capable of speech, just the rasping, wheezing gasps. Then, “Are any of… the yacht’s systems… still working?”

  Why would she care about that now? What difference does it make? I lean over the console, scanning past burned-out indicators and sparking readout screens. “A couple of things. Running lights, I think. Short-range communications. Air-recycler. Waste—”

  “Good enough,” Vick says, a small smile forming. “I won’t be alone.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Activate the ship’s short-range comms. Go… get your personal comm and your gear. Keep the channel open while you cross to the research station. Talk to me.” The smile falters. “Please talk to me. I know it’ll be hard. I’m… gonna be selfish here.” She gives a small laugh that turns to a cry of pain. “Move. The longer you… stay, the more it hurts to hang… on.”

  I move.

  First I flip on the yacht’s short-range receiver and transmitter. Then I run back to the sleeping cabin, find my personal comm in the duffel, and open the channel. It’s all shrieking and static. Then it clears. “Vick? You’re still there, right?” I ask, terrified there will be no response. All the while I’m moving toward the exit hatch. I have to open it manually, tucking the comm between my neck and shoulder and bending my head to hold it in place. It hurts. I don’t care.

  “I’m here.”

  The hatch opens, the ramp falling out and landing on the grassy dirt outside with a thud. It’s night on Elektra4, but I can see by the yacht’s running lights and a glow coming from across what looks like a small clearing in the forest. That’s got to be the research station.

  It’s maybe a hundred yards away. It feels like a hundred miles.

  “Kel… say something?” Vick says in my ear. Her voice is weaker. The bond that connects us tugs at my heart even beneath the emotion-dampening drugs. To my inner sight, the normally deep navy blue line between us is fading, becoming less distinct and lighter in color.

  I’m losing her. This is really happening. “I don’t know what to say,” I manage to choke out through my sobs.

  “Anything. I just… want to hear your voice.”

  And so I babble.

  “There’s a break in the storm,” I say. “Lightning overhead, but not hitting anything on the ground. Lots of trees. Purple ones. With thorns. Hope there aren’t any animals around.” Etc., etc., etc. I pause after every inane sentence or two for Vick to respond in some way. At first she answers with words. Then they become grunts of acknowledgment.

  Sometimes it’s a moan or cry of pain, but she’s still alive.

  I quicken my steps. Maybe the research station will be manned right now. Maybe they’ll have medical supplies. Or even better, a stasis box. Just because they didn’t answer our distress signal doesn’t necessarily mean there’s no one there.

  “Wishful… thinking,” Vick whispers.

  Damn. I said that out loud. I’m saying all my random thoughts out loud.

  I reach the research station, an octagonal prefabricated structure. The roof bristles with sensory devices, antennae, solar energy panels, lightning rods, and equipment I can’t identify. The windows, one in each of the eight walls based on the ones I can see, are all dark, though the exterior is well lit by standard security lamps placed around the perimeter. I recite all this to Vick as I walk around the structure until I find an actual door. Then I stop.

  “Um, how am I going to get in?”

  Vick curses softly over the comm channel. “Should have… given you my… pistol.” She breaks off in a long gurgling cough.

  I’m panicking that I’m going to have to race back to the yacht, get her weapons, and return here, tormenting Vick even longer, when the door to the research facility simply slides aside. Interior lights flicker on, illuminating a stark white corridor with several rooms opening off to either side. I guess it makes sense. Why lock a building that no one but your team can easily reach? Still, it makes me uneasy.

  The door closes behind me as I take a cautious step inside, peering into the rooms I can see. One is a lounge with couches and chairs. Another houses a food preparation station. The third is sleeping quarters for four people with an attached sanitation area, and the last, the largest, is a well-equipped lab.

  But I’m alone. There’s no sign of any current inhabitants. The last of my hopes for saving Vick fade away.

  I clear my throat and wipe my eyes on the backs of my hands. I can’t feel her pain anymore, even muted. I can’t feel her at all. “Vick,” I say, knowing this will give her leave to let go. “I’m inside. I’m safe and shielded. I love you.”

  I wrap her velvet jacket more tightly around myself, and oh God, it smells like her: unscented soap, the mild vanilla shampoo she prefers these days, and just a hint of the cologne she only wears when she expects things to get romantic. My sobs choke me as I huddle in the jacket’s warmth, slide down the nearest wall, and sit on the cold tile floor.

  A slight bulge in one of the inner pockets draws my attention, and I reach inside, my fingers closing over a small box. Tears streaming down my face, I pull it out, wondering what it could be.

  Chapter 45: Vick—Broken Bonds

  I….

  The pain has stopped, my brain’s connection with my nerves having failed. Small consolation since all my other systems and organs are going right along with it, but at least I can concentrate on Kelly’s voice, take some small comfort from that despite the fact that I know this is destroying her. She’s safe behind the research facility’s shields. I won’t drag her into death with me.

  And I’m heading there very soon.

  The double ironies are not lost on me. A couple of hours ago, I would have welcomed this end. Now, listening to Kelly sob over our comm connection, I would give anything to stay. But I’ve already given everything I have.

  Then there’s the fact that I’m the Storm’s premier soldier, and I’m about to die from being struck by lightning. I can’t even muster up a smile for that one.

  I have no idea how much time has passed. With VC1, I could access my internal clock with a thought, but now, it could have been minutes or hours since the lightning struck.

  I hope it’s not still Kelly’s birthday. I don’t want her to always associate my death with what should be a happy day for her. It’s got to be past midnight by now.

  A pressure builds in my chest and head. It doesn’t hurt exactly, but I get the feeling it would hurt if my nerves were still connected to my brain. Tighter and tighter it grows, constricting my heart so that I feel its pounding against my rib cage and in my skull, a constant drumbeat getting louder and louder. It’s been hard to breathe since we crashed, but now it’s nearly impossible to force air through my lungs. I keep doing it because it’s what I’m supposed to do, because I no longer want to die, but it’s a losing battle.

  It occurs to me that I haven’t heard Kelly for a while. Death is close. I’m alone.

  “Kel?” I whisper, hoping the mics pick up my faint voice. “I�
��m scared, Kel.” I want to kick myself for saying that out loud, because I know what it will do to her, but I can’t help it. In these last moments, I know she’ll forgive me for thinking of myself.

  “I’m here, Vick. I’m with you. Part of me will always be with you, and you with me.” A pause. “Vick?” she calls back. There’s a note of confusion in her tone. “Is this… an engagement ring?”

  Oh.

  My failed attempt to give her the ring at the party floods back to me. It seems like forever ago. And the ring was still in my dinner jacket pocket—the dinner jacket she’s wearing.

  “Um, yeah,” I say. The pressure’s still building. I don’t have much time.

  “It’s so beautiful. This is what… on the dance floor, when Rachelle pulled me away… were you going to ask me to marry you?”

  “Yeah,” I say, straining to draw breath. One-syllable words. That’s about all I can manage.

  “I wish you had,” Kel says in a small voice. “Could you…? Would you… ask me now?”

  “Kel….” The drumbeat of my heart would deafen me if it were external. Every piece of my body screams this is bad, bad, so very bad.

  “Please?”

  She stayed with me, all the way to the end. I won’t deny her last request of me, even though I recognize it for the distraction it is. It works. In this moment, I’m not as focused on dying as I am on getting out the words she wants to hear. I take the deepest breath I can manage, which isn’t nearly deep enough. “Kel, would you mar—” Something in my chest bursts. The pounding drumming stops.

  One more breath. I need one more breath to finish my proposal.

  There are no more.

  Chapter 46: Kelly—Not Quite Alone

  VICK IS gone.

  “Vick? Vick! Are you still there?” I sob into the comm, pressing it to my lips as if that will make my voice carry beyond this world. “Yes! Yes… I’ll marry you. I will. I will. I love you so much.” Oh please, please let her have heard me before she let go. Please… I wait another couple of minutes to be certain, then close the communications channel and put the comm in my pocket.

  Taking the diamond-and-emerald engagement ring from the velvet-lined box, I force myself to stand and walk to one of the windows facing the crashed yacht. Lightning flashes, outlining its dark bulk on the far side of the clearing, but I can’t make out details, and that’s for the best. Vick and VC1 had worked one last miracle. They’d gotten us down in one piece. If it hadn’t been for the lightning, we all would have survived the impact.

  Despite the risk, I lower my empathic shields, discarding them entirely. The blue line that bonds me to Vick is barely visible, so pale and faint stretching from my heart to where it vanishes beyond the yacht’s hull. There’s no pain, no tug on my life force. She’s gone. Only traces remain, and soon, those too will fade.

  For a long moment, I stare down at the ring she chose for me, perfect in color and design, exactly what I would have wanted. Then I close my eyes. I picture her in her formalwear, getting down on one knee, holding the open box up and out to me, saying the words she never got to finish. I whisper, “Yes,” and hold out my hand. Then I slip the ring on my finger, imagining it’s her hand, strong and warm and safe, right down to the calluses from her gun grip scraping over my own softer skin. The ring slides on, a perfect fit.

  I open my eyes and look out the window. The blue line of connection between us is gone.

  There’s still no physical pain, but I’m aware that something inside me is empty, like a piece of my soul has been torn away.

  The next hours blur by. I don’t know how many. I have vague memories of wandering through the facility, first to the food preparation station where I search through the cabinets and the cold storage unit and ensure I have supplies to last until rescue comes, Vick’s training on priorities kicking in even while I mourn. There’s plenty of food and potable water on hand.

  Next I go to the lab, where I find a long-range communications array. I expect it to be code-locked, but it isn’t, and I’m able to send a brief message to the Storm ships, now in orbit, that I need retrieval.

  The commander of the mission team tells me it will be over a week, maybe two before they can bring in the specially shielded ship they’ll need to come down to the surface of Elektra4 safely. It was out on deployment and isn’t due back for some time. He asks if Vick and I need immediate assistance. He can send down a capsule of basic medical supplies and foodstuffs if that is the case.

  Strangely enough, when I begin to tell him Vick did not survive, the comm signal fritzes out in a blare of static. I try again and again with the same result. Eventually, in a brief clear patch, I manage to send a quick “I’m okay” and end the transmission.

  They’ll figure it out when they get here.

  Being alone probably isn’t healthy for me right now, but it will give me time to come to grips with my loss, if that’s even possible. I’m numb, I realize. I recognize the symptoms of shock in my behavior, but I don’t care enough to do anything about it.

  I’m starting to turn away from the transmitter when the lights on the comm unit flash green again, the system powering itself up on its own. At first I think the Storm commander has activated it remotely somehow, determined to finish our conversation. But the speech-recognition indicator remains flatlined. No voice signals are being sent or received. I step closer. Coded data scrolls across the message monitor, filling screen after screen with information I can’t decipher.

  I’m not a comm tech. I barely know how to operate one of these to send an SOS, and that’s only because Vick insisted I learn. I have no idea what this thing is doing.

  At a guess, I’d say the scientists are requesting an update from their data-gathering technology on the facility’s roof, and that data is being sent to wherever their primary research center might be on some distant world, maybe even back on Earth. Regardless, it doesn’t look like it’s going to blow up or anything, so I leave it alone.

  My stomach growls. How I could be hungry is beyond me. A digital readout on the lab wall tells me it’s early morning. Outside the windows, a faint glow of approaching dawn lights the sky, though it’s still broken by frequent flashes followed by the resonant booms of rolling thunder.

  I skip the call of food, opting for sleep instead. Maybe I’ll dream of Vick. Maybe I won’t have nightmares. Maybe I’m still wishful thinking.

  In the sleeping quarters, I open a drawer to find changes of clothes in several sizes, all standard-issue styles for a science team: pale gray-and-white coveralls, same color shorts and T-shirts for sleeping, plain and utilitarian. I grab some shorts and a shirt that should fit and swap out my resort-wear slacks and top for the white synth-cotton clothing.

  The twin-size cots don’t look comfortable, but I’m too bone-weary and indifferent to much care. I pull back the covers, preparing to climb into oblivion.

  “You should seek nutrition before sleep.” Vick’s voice, coming from every mounted speaker in the corners of each room, echoing along the corridor connecting them.

  I scream, repeatedly, loud and long, throwing myself on the floor in the corner where the bed meets the set of drawers. When I stop, the only sound is my own panting breath from my efforts.

  Silence.

  Silence that goes on so long I wonder if I imagined the voice, Vick even in death still looking out for me, and wouldn’t that just be great? An empath who hears the voice of her dead lover.

  Part of me wouldn’t mind if it meant hearing Vick again.

  I’ve been up all night. I’m exhausted and emotionally drained. That might explain me hearing things.

  The rational part of my brain won’t accept it, though. Could Vick not be dead after all? Could she have recovered somehow, and for some reason I can’t feel her presence, and now she’s contacting me from the yacht? I replay the voice and what it said in my mind. The word choice, the lack of inflection. I sort through the reasonable possibilities, coming to only one conclusion.
<
br />   “VC1?”

  Nothing. Then, almost tentatively through just the speaker in the sleeping quarters this time, “I do not wish to cause you further distress.”

  I exhale with a mixture of disappointment and relief. Not Vick, but I’m not crazy either. “It’s… okay,” I assure the AI. “Hearing you does hurt.” It does. It’s Vick and not Vick, and my heart constricts in my chest. “But I’m glad to know you’re all right, and I’m glad not to be all alone.”

  “I am also… glad… that you were not harmed. I am not her, but I am… fond… of you.”

  I smile at the AI’s words. Vick described their relationship as symbiotic. With all that interaction it’s nice to know VC1 absorbed some of Vick’s fondness for me, even if I can’t read the AI’s emotions, if that’s what they truly are, and not just her perceptions of the words.

  “I am sorry I cannot stay.”

  “Wait, what? What do you mean?” VC1 has clearly downloaded herself into the research station’s computers. And that explains a lot of things: the way the door to the facility opened at my approach and closed behind me, the lights coming on, the unlocking of the communications array. The communications array…. “You’re transmitting yourself, aren’t you?” The scrolling code on the screens. I was watching VC1 sending herself somewhere. “Where are you going? And why?”

  “The data storage unit here is impressive for a civilian system,” she says, and I swear I detect a note of superiority in her tone. “I began passing along parts of myself through this facility the moment I became aware that the implants would fully fail. However, it is insufficient to house the entirety of my existence with the addition of all of Vick’s memories.”

  She has Vick’s memories. Of course she does. And if I have anything to say about it, those will not be lost. I don’t know what can be done with them, if they can be shared with me in some way, but they should be kept…. The full impact of her words registers. “All of them?” I ask. “Even the ones she lost? The ones that were blocked?” My fault. “And the ones from her childhood?” The ones I always suspected were never truly gone but that Whitehouse had determined were detrimental to her job as a merc and hidden from her.