Want (Numbered Book 1)

by Magus Tor

  The door opened. A tall man came in. Unsurprisingly, he went first to Jonathon's bed. Well, he was Elite, after all.

  “Mr. Hansen,” the man said. “I'm Jake Ellis, head of trauma. I'll be taking a look at you today.”

  Aurelia coughed, feeling that she should maybe introduce herself to someone with whom she would probably be working closely.

  Ellis turned, and she caught a sharp light in his eye. Anger? But why? Then he gave her a hard smile. “And you must be Ms. Cole, our new med Worker. I've heard a lot about you.”

  Aurelia was unsure what to say to this, but any answer was unnecessary, as Ellis simply turned back to Jonathon.

  “I'm sure you won't mind, Mr. Hansen, if I take a look at Ms. Cole first? It should only take a moment, and the truth is that we could use her medical skills outside if she's up to working.”

  Jonathon looked at Aurelia and shrugged. “Sure, ladies first,” he said.

  When Ellis came to her bedside, Aurelia got her first good look at him and didn't like what she saw at all. He had flinty grey eyes, and his mouth had a cruel curve to it. She also got the impression that his politeness was fake, put on to impress Jonathon, perhaps, but definitely not natural.

  “Quite a day you've had, Ms. Cole. I'd thought you were sleeping,” Ellis said, reaching for her arm to take her pulse.

  “Call me Aurelia, please,” she said. Best to get off on the right foot, after all. And first impressions could be misleading, she counselled herself, remembering her first run-in with Elza.

  “Thank you, Aurelia. Let's just take a quick look at you.”

  His hands moved deftly over her head, checking for skull damage, and then he placed a hand on her chest, feeling her breath.

  “Hmmm,” he said after a few seconds. “How long has it been since you last slept?”

  Aurelia had no idea. “Er, last night, I mean, last Earth night.”

  Ellis nodded. “Alright, I think the best thing to do is to tranquilise you for now.”

  “What? Why?” said Aurelia, trying to sit up.

  Ellis pushed her back to the bed. “Because there's nothing more ineffective than tired med Workers. A tranquiliser, an hour or so of sleep, and then an antidote should set you up for the rest of the night. You'll really be far more useful when you're not exhausted.”

  He placed his hand on the wall, opening a cupboard, and then handed Aurelia a small white capsule and a glass of water. He was watching carefully but failed to notice as Aurelia tongued the capsule into her cheek and drank down the glass of water. She had a funny feeling about Ellis, and anyway, she hated being drugged, always had. If she needed sleep, she'd get it the natural way.

  Ellis nodded at her. “Good girl. I'll come back in an hour and give you that antidote to wake up.”

  Aurelia snuggled down on the bed, looking as if she were preparing for sleep. As soon as Ellis's back was turned, she spat the capsule out and slipped it into her pocket. She then closed her eyes in case he checked on her again, and she consciously breathed more deeply.

  “So, Mr. Hansen,” she heard Ellis say. “Let's have a look at you now.”

  There were a couple of minutes of silence.

  “Looks like you had a nasty leg wound there, and a knock on the head too, right?”

  “Agreed,” Jonathon said. “Not feeling too bad, though, all things considered.”

  Ellis gave a cold laugh. “Well, I think I should be the judge of that,” he said. “I'm not sure about the healing done on that leg. I think what I'm going to do is give you a quick injection against any infection that might be there. Then you can rest here for a couple of hours before we discharge you.”

  Aurelia heard Jonathon mumble something, but she was too busy thinking to listen closely. An injection? She'd performed the healing, herself, and knew it was perfect. There was no reason at all for Jonathon to be injected with anything. Was Ellis just being overly careful because of Jonathon's status? She wasn't sure. She was sure that Jonathon was doing fine, though, and should probably be discharged to free up the bed.

  Dammit. She was faking sleep and couldn't argue with the head of trauma or do anything else to draw attention to herself. Chances were that Ellis was simply playing things safe. She heard the soft click of a cupboard opening, and she guessed that the trauma head was grabbing a syringe. If so, his back was close to being turned, so she squinted her eyes and chanced a look at what he was doing.

  What she saw made her blood run cold. Ellis was keying a number into a locked vial. And as far as Aurelia knew, there was only one kind of vial that needed to be locked.

  Chapter Seven

  Aurelia heard a click and knew that the vial was open. It took a matter of seconds to fill a syringe, and she had to think fast. With no weapons in the room, she only had one option. As Ellis turned, the filled syringe in his hand, she launched herself off the bed, colliding with him in the middle of the floor.

  “Stop!” she shouted, the only word that she could form.

  Ellis had landed on his front, but his hand still clutched the syringe. Aurelia grabbed his wrist, putting all her weight onto his back, trying to force him to let go.

  “Bitch,” screamed the trauma doctor, struggling beneath her.

  She knew that she had little chance of subduing him for long. Her heart pounding, she looked up at Jonathon, who was half off his bed. He put his weight on the bad leg first and crumpled to the ground, the bone unable to bear him. Shit. Ellis stopped moving, but Aurelia could feel his muscles tensing, getting ready to throw her off.

  She released his wrist, balled up as much power as she could in her hand, and punched hard. Her fist glanced off the side of his temple and seemed to have no effect whatsoever. Aurelia could sense Jonathon moving, and his hand crept into her peripheral vision. But it was too late - Ellis grunted and in one fast movement threw Aurelia off him. She landed hard on her side, her hip bone making a crack as it hit the floor. Ellis was on his knees now, half turned away from her, and with all her might she pushed him so he sprawled back onto the floor, again on his front.

  Once more she launched herself onto his back, and it took her a moment to notice that he wasn't struggling. Looking down at the wrist she was holding, she saw that the syringe was gone. He must have switched hands as he got up. For a moment she felt a fluttering under her fingers, and then it stopped. There was an instant of complete stillness and silence, and she instinctively knew what had happened.

  She had felt that brief pause in the world before. When she was a student, she had been called to the City hospital for her district, and she had known what was going to happen. All students had to give at least one injection under supervision to prove that they were capable of performing the process. Aurelia had dressed carefully; the call had come late in the evening when she was already in bed, and she had felt butterflies in her stomach. But no doubt, no guilt.

  Walking into the hospital room, she had seen her Trainer standing by a bed with a woman on it. All was quiet and calm, the woman in a drugged sleep, her breathing even. Moving closer, Aurelia could see that the woman was younger than she had thought. In her mid-twenties, maybe, only slightly older than Aurelia herself.

  The Trainer had nodded, and Aurelia had drawn back the sheet that covered the woman's naked body. There was nothing visibly wrong, but she had guessed that the Trainer wouldn't give her an easy one. Not her. Not the class superstar. Taking a deep breath, she began to examine the patient by feel. The woman's skin was warm and soft, pulsing with life. Slowly Aurelia began to palpitate the patient's abdomen. Her fingers found the mass after just a few seconds.

  Glancing up, Aurelia had seen her Trainer watching her closely, and he had smiled as she touched the right area. Her instincts had been correct.

  “Pancreas,” Aurelia had said.

  The Trainer had nodded again. He’d taken a vial out of his pocket and keyed in his number. When the vial was open, he handed it to her, and she deftly filled a syringe. Taking the woman's arm, she
turned it to access the inner crease of the elbow, then smoothly and methodically injected her.

  The injection had worked fast, and just as Aurelia had removed the syringe, she’d encountered that strange stillness for the first time. It was as if the entire world had stopped turning just for an instant. Then she had let out her breath, and the moment was gone.

  It wasn't until she was leaving the hospital that she had realised she hadn't even bothered to look at the woman's name.

  Now, Aurelia brought herself to her knees, hushing Jonathon as he began to speak. She reached down and grabbed a handful of Ellis's uniform, twisting him until he was lying on his back. The syringe had punctured his chest, close to the heart. He must have fallen on it when she’d pushed him. Out of habit, she pulled the needle out of his chest and then turned to look at Jonathon.

  “He's dead,” she said, hardly believing it herself.

  Jonathon's eyes clouded. “Dead.” It wasn't a question. It was clear that the trauma doctor was gone; it was a simple restatement of what she had just said.

  “That syringe was meant for you,” said Aurelia softly.

  “I see.”

  She closed her eyes for a second. “What should I do?” she whispered, half to herself.

  Jonathon managed to slide himself closer to her, close enough that he could put a hand on her leg. “Aurelia, I was here; I saw everything. It was an accident, but Gods, the man was trying to kill me!”

  “What if they don't believe me, us?” she said, her eyes still closed as though she could block out the dead man on the floor in front of her. The man she had killed.

  “They will believe me,” he said firmly.

  She was shaking now, her entire body trembling with adrenaline that couldn't be used. “But...” Her voice trailed off.

  “But nothing,” said Jonathon, coming even closer. “There was no way you could have done this deliberately; think, Aurelia.”

  At this, she opened her eyes and stared at him dumbly. Think about what?

  He smiled gently. “Your number hasn't been logged into the system, remember? There was no way for you to open the cupboard and take out the injection. Me neither. Ellis was the only one who could have taken that vial out of that cupboard.”

  With a rush of relief that slowed her heartbeat, Aurelia realised he was right. Without her data in the system, her handprint wouldn't open the door, and she'd told Elza that less than an hour ago. In fact, the cupboard would log anyone whose print had been used to open it, as the vial would log the number used to unlock it.

  “How did he expect to get away with this?” she asked.

  Jonathon shrugged. “Maybe he didn't.”

  There were so many questions buzzing around in her mind that she didn't know which to ask, and Jonathon probably couldn't answer them anyway. Aurelia struggled to understand the situation, that she had killed someone. Then Jonathon's hand tightened on her thigh, and the door gave a small click as it prepared to slide open.

  “So,” began Elsa, but she didn't finish.

  The door slid quietly shut behind her as she stood, taking in the scene before her. Aurelia was about to leap to her own defence, to explain things, but she found that the words just wouldn't come. Elza's eyes moved from the dead doctor on the floor to the vial lock casing lying beside him and the syringe that was still in Aurelia's hand. Then, coolly and calmly, she stepped over the body of Ellis and supported Jonathon's weight as he lumbered to his feet and climbed back onto his bed. After she had done this, she turned and helped Aurelia, whose head was still spinning. Both patients back in bed, Elza nodded in satisfaction and went back to the door, hitting keys on a pad on the wall and sending a locking mechanism shooting across the door itself.

  “Now,” she said, turning back to face them. “Perhaps you should tell me what's going on here?”

  Aurelia looked at Jonathon, who nodded at her. “Go ahead,” he said.

  She told the story as quickly as she could, not embellishing, speaking as clearly and coldly as if she were giving a medical history. At several points Elza asked questions but refrained from giving any judgement or sign that she either believed or disbelieved Aurelia's story.

  “Do you concur with this?” Elza asked Jonathon when Aurelia had finished.

  “Every word,” he responded.

  Elza sighed and relaxed. “That makes things simpler,” she said. “So now you, Mr. Hansen, have been subject to two assassination attempts in one day.”

  “Indeed,” agreed Jonathon, who looked as calm as if having people try to kill him was part of his daily routine. Perhaps it was, mused Aurelia.

  “And you, Aurelia, seem to have killed my head of trauma.” Elza said this without regret, as though she frankly didn't care.

  “But how did he expect to get away with it?” asked Aurelia again. “All the data logs will show that he opened the cupboard.”

  Elza raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I expect that Dr. Ellis was much smarter than that, Aurelia, don't you?”

  Aurelia gave her a confused look.

  “Did you not think it odd that whilst we've known that you were coming for weeks, have arranged accommodation, a mentor, even a uniform in the correct size for you, that your data wasn't logged into the system?” Elza asked her. “In a place that's as organised as a hospital in a city that's as organised as Lunar, that would be more than a small oversight.”

  Aurelia furrowed her brow. “I don't understand.”

  “I didn't either,” Elza said, pulling her rolled-up screen from her pocket. “I knew damn well that I'd given the comp Workers your data to put in the system. So when you said that you couldn't open the doors, I didn't get why. But now I think I do.”

  Elza unrolled her screen and tapped on a few icons.

  “Hmmm. It seems that only one med Worker has accessed the vial cupboard in the last few hours,” she said.

  “Ellis, right?” said Aurelia.

  “No,” said Elza. “You.”

  Aurelia's heart dropped, and her pulse started racing again. “But I didn't...”

  Elza held up a hand to stop her. “I know you didn't,” she said. “You can prove it. Go to the cupboard now and try to open it.”

  Getting off her bed, Aurelia did as she was told. She hovered her hand over the sensor, but the cupboard remained closed. She turned to look at Jonathon and Elza. “So?”

  “So,” said Jonathon, his face still pale, “Ellis switched his data with yours. That way he could use his print to open the doors but the data logs would show that it was you who opened them. Presumably he intended to switch the data back again after he killed me, and then it would look like you'd done the deed.”

  Aurelia got back onto her bed. “But how did he know that we'd be here together, or here at all, for that matter?”

  “Probably he didn't,” Jonathon said. “It was pure chance, and he took advantage of it. If you hadn't been here, he'd have found another way of taking care of the problem. Or else he simply intended you to be the doctor who was blamed for it.”

  Aurelia let all of this sink in. “But he must have had help to change the data,” she said.

  “Nope,” Elza said, rolling her screen up and putting it away. “Ellis was a Switch.”

  The word described a student who had switched his area of training mid-study. Switching was possible only if you showed equal aptitude in two areas, and it was not something that happened often.

  “I just checked his employment record,” continued Elza. “He switched from comp Worker to med Worker in his second year. Switching the data would have been easy enough for him.”

  “What do we do now?” Jonathon said.

  Elza came and sat on the other end of Aurelia's bed. “I'm not sure,” she confessed. “I believe you, and we can prove more or less what happened, but that could take weeks or months. In the meantime, I'd be out two doctors, and you,” she looked at Aurelia, “would be in a holding cell until a judgement was passed.”

  Jonathon looked thoughtful
. “There might be something we could do,” he said after a moment. “But first we need to know what Ellis did with his own name.”

  “What do you mean?” Aurelia asked him.

  “Well, when he paired his data with your name, what did he put under his own name?”

  “On it,” said Elza, who was apparently following Jonathon’s trail of thought better than Aurelia.

  Without really understanding why, Aurelia permitted Elza to take a blood sample and analyse it. After a couple minutes of waiting, Elza came back into the room smiling.

  “All clear,” she said. “No match.”

  Aurelia was starting to get impatient now. “Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?” she demanded, forgetting for the moment that she was speaking to both Jonathon Hansen, political golden boy, and Elza, the head of the hospital.

  Jonathon laughed. “Okay. I needed to know if Ellis simply switched the data, yours and his, in which case we'd be in hot water. Turns out that he didn't; he just used a random data set as a placeholder for his name until he had time to go back and return his own data. That means we have a plan.”

  “We do?” asked Aurelia, still confused.

  Elza nodded. “I think so. At least, if I'm thinking the same thing as Jonathon is, we do.”

  “We replace your data with your own real data,” explained Jonathon. “That means that anyone who takes a sample from Ellis is going to come up with no name to match his data.”

  “There are enough dead coming in from the shuttle attack that one more body won't be noticed,” Elza put in. “Though eventually someone will find him, no one will know who he is, and he'll be someone else's mystery.”

  “And what are you going to say happened to Ellis? I mean, you're missing the head of trauma,” said Aurelia.

  Jonathon shrugged. “This is Lunar, not City 01; people disappear here from time to time. Maybe he was a rebel, maybe he got on the wrong side of an angry young Elite - whatever. They'll do a cursory search, but as long as nothing comes up to say that he's left the Moon, which it won't, then they'll give it up as a lost cause.”