“Don’t fucking move, Navárez.”
She gave herself several breaths and then resumed position.
Three more spikes drove through her skin in quick succession. Her whole arm was on fire. Carr must have figured out how to shift the laser’s frequency in a way to bypass the suit’s defenses. Elated, Kira opened her mouth to say something to him—
Pop.
Kira flinched. She couldn’t help it. Okay, Carr had had his fun. Time to stop. She started to draw her arm back, but the second S-PAC spun around and grabbed her wrist with its manipulator.
“Hey!”
Pop.
Another blackened crater appeared on her forearm. Kira snarled and tugged against the robot. It refused to budge.
“Stop it!” she shouted at the doctor. “That’s enough!”
He glanced at her and then returned to studying something on a monitor below the edge of the mirror-window.
Pop.
A new crater appeared in the same spot as the last one, which was already filling in. The blast drilled even farther into her arm, burning through skin and muscle.
“Stop!” she shouted, but Carr didn’t respond.
Pop.
A third crater overlapping. Panicked, Kira grabbed the S-PAC holding her and yanked, throwing all her weight backwards. It shouldn’t have made any difference—the machines were large and well-built—but the joint behind the S-PAC’s manipulator snapped, and the manipulator broke free with a spray of hydraulic fluid.
Surprised, Kira stared for a moment. Then she pried the manipulator off her wrist, and it fell to the floor with a solid bang.
Carr stood watching with a frozen expression.
“We’re done here,” said Kira.
CHAPTER VI
SHOUTS & ECHOES
1.
Dr. Carr stared down at her with cold disapproval. “Resume position, Navárez.”
Kira gave him the finger and walked over to the wall beneath the mirror-window, where he couldn’t see, and sat. As always, the spotlight followed her.
Again, Carr spoke: “Goddammit, this isn’t a game.”
She lifted her finger over her head. “I’m not working with you if you won’t listen when I say stop.”
“We don’t have time for this, Navárez. Resume position.”
“Want me to break the other S-PAC? Because I will.”
“Last warning. If you don’t—”
“Fuck off.”
Kira could almost hear the doctor fuming in the pause that followed. Then a square of reflected light appeared on the wall opposite her as the mirror-window clouded over.
She released the breath she’d been holding.
Stellar security be damned. The UMC couldn’t do whatever they wanted with her! It was her body, not theirs. And yet—as Carr had shown—she was at their mercy.
Kira rubbed her forearm, still in shock. She hated feeling so helpless.
After a moment, she stood and nudged the crumpled S-PAC with her foot. The xeno must have augmented her strength, same as an exoskeleton or a soldier’s battle armor. It was the only explanation for how she could have torn apart the machine.
As for the burns on her arm, only a faint ache remained to remind her of their existence. It occurred to Kira that the xeno had done everything it could to protect her throughout the tests. Lasers, acids, flames, and more—the parasite had deflected nearly everything Carr had thrown at her.
For the first time, she felt a sense of … not gratitude, but perhaps, appreciation. Whatever the suit might be, and as much as she hated it for causing the deaths of Alan and her other teammates, it was useful. In its own way, it was displaying more care for her than the UMC.
It wasn’t long before the hologram popped into existence. Kira saw the same grey room with the same grey desk, and standing at attention before it, Major Tschetter in her grey uniform. A colorless woman in a colorless room.
Before the major could speak, Kira said, “I want a lawyer.”
“The League hasn’t charged you with a criminal offense. Until such time as it does, you don’t need a lawyer.”
“Maybe not, but I want one anyway.”
The woman stared at her the way Kira imagined she would stare at a fleck of dirt on her otherwise immaculate shoes. She was from Sol, Kira felt sure of it. “Listen to me, Navárez. You’re wasting minutes that might mean the difference in lives. Maybe no one else is infected. Maybe only one other person is infected. Maybe all of us are. The point is, we have no way to tell. So stop stalling and get back to work.”
Kira made a dismissive noise. “You’re not going to figure out anything about the xeno in the next few hours, and you know it.”
Tschetter pressed her palms against the table, fingers stretched wide like talons. “I know nothing of the sort. Now be reasonable and cooperate with Doctor Carr.”
“No.”
The major tapped her fingernails against the desk. Once, twice, three times, and then no more. “Noncompliance with the Stellar Security Act is a crime, Navárez.”
“Yeah? What are you going to do, throw me in jail?”
If possible, Tschetter’s gaze grew even sharper. “You don’t want to go down this path.”
“Uh-huh.” Kira crossed her arms. “I’m a member of the League, and I have corporate citizenship through the Lapsang Trading Corporation. I have certain rights. You want to keep studying the xeno? Great, then I want some form of computer access, and I want to talk with a company rep. Send a flash back to Sixty-One Cygni. Now.”
“We can’t do that, and you know it.”
“Tough. That’s my price. And if I tell Carr to back off, then he backs off. Otherwise, you can all go jump out an airlock for all I care.”
A silence, and then Tschetter’s lips twitched and the hologram vanished.
Kira released her breath in a gust, spun around, and started to pace. Had she gone too far? She didn’t think so. Now it was up to the captain to decide whether to grant her requests.… Henriksen, that was his name. She hoped he was more fair-minded than Tschetter. A captain ought to be.
“How the hell did I end up here?” she muttered.
The ship’s hum was her only answer.
2.
Not five minutes later, the two-way mirror cleared. To Kira’s dismay, Carr was the only person standing in the observation bay. He eyed her with a sour expression.
Kira stared back, defiant.
The doctor pressed a button, and the hated spotlight reappeared. “Alright, Navárez. Enough of this. We—”
Kira turned her back on him. “Go away.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Well I’m not going to help you until I get what I asked for. Simple as that.”
A sound made her turn. The doctor had planted both fists on the console in front of him. “Get back into position, Navárez, or else—”
“Or else what?” She snorted.
Carr’s scowl deepened, his eyes two gleaming dots buried above his fleshy cheeks. “Fine,” he snapped.
The comm clicked off, and the two S-PACs again emerged from their slots in the ceiling. The one she’d damaged had been repaired; its manipulator looked good as new.
Apprehensive, Kira dropped into a crouch as the machines moved toward her, like spider legs extending. She batted at the near one, and it dodged so fast it seemed to teleport. There was no matching the speed of a robot.
The two arms closed in at the same time. One caught her by the jaw with its cold, hard manipulators, while the other robot dove in with a syringe. Kira felt a spot of pressure behind her ear, and then the needle on the syringe snapped.
The S-PAC released her, and Kira scrambled into the center of the cell, panting. The hell? In the mirror-window, the doctor was frowning and staring at something on his overlays.
Kira felt behind her ear. What had been bare skin just hours before was now covered by a thin layer of the suit’s material. Her scalp tingled; the skin along the edges
of her neck and face felt as if it were crawling. The sensation intensified—becoming a cold fire that pricked and stung—as if the xeno were struggling to move. But it didn’t.
Once again the creature had protected her.
Kira looked up at Carr. He was leaning against the equipment in front of him, staring down at her with a heavy frown, his forehead shiny with sweat.
Then he turned and left the mirror-window.
Kira released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Adrenaline was still coursing through her.
A loud thud sounded outside the pressure door.
3.
Kira froze. What now?
Somewhere a bolt snapped open and atmospheric pumps whined. Then a row of lights across the center of the door flashed yellow, and the lock rotated and decoupled from the wall.
Kira swallowed hard. Surely Carr wasn’t going to send someone in there with her!
Metal scraped against metal as the door slid open.
Beyond it was a small decon chamber, still hazy with mist from the chemical spray. In the haze stood two hulking shadows, backlit by blue warning lights mounted on the ceiling.
The shadows moved: loader bots, covered from top to bottom in blast armor, black and massive and scarred from use. No weapons, but between them sat a wheeled exam table with racks of medical equipment mounted underneath the mattress. Shackles hung at each of the four corners of the bed, and straps too: restraints for unruly patients.
Like her.
Kira recoiled. “No!” She glanced at the two-way mirror. “You can’t do this!”
The bots’ heavy feet clanked as they stepped into the cell, pushing the exam table before them. The wheels squealed with protest.
In the periphery of her vision, Kira saw the S-PAC machines approaching from either side, manipulators spread wide.
Her pulse spiked.
“Citizen Navárez,” said the rightmost bot. Its voice was staticky out of the cheap speaker embedded in its torso. “Turn around and put your hands on the wall.”
“No.”
“If you resist, we are authorized to use force. You have five seconds to comply. Turn around and put your hands on the wall.”
“Go jump out an airlock.”
The two bots stopped the exam table in the middle of the room. Then they started toward her while, at the same time, the S-PACs darted in from the sides.
Kira did the only thing she could think of: she dropped into a sitting fetal position, arms wrapped around her legs, forehead buried against her knees. The suit had hardened in response to the scalpel; maybe it could harden again and keep the machines from strapping her to the table. Please, please, please …
At first it seemed her prayer would go unanswered.
Then, as the grippers at the end of the S-PACs touched her sides, her skin stiffened and constricted. Yes! A brief moment of relief as Kira felt herself locking into position, the fibers twining together in places where flesh touched flesh, welding her into a single, solid piece.
The S-PACs snapped against her sides, unable to find purchase against the now slick, shell-like veneer of the suit. Her breath came in short, gasping gulps, stifling hot in the pocket of space between her mouth and legs.
Then the battle bots were upon her. Their giant metal fingers clamped down on her arms, and she felt them lift her off the floor and carry her toward the exam table.
“Let me go!” Kira shouted, not breaking position. The frantic tempo of her pulse outraced her thoughts, filled her ears with a sound like a roaring waterfall.
Cold plastic touched her ass as the bots lowered her onto the exam table.
Curled as she was, none of the shackles could be secured around her wrists or ankles. Nor would any of the straps work. They were meant to be used on a person lying down, not sitting up.
“Citizen Navárez, noncompliance is a criminal offense. Cooperate now, or—”
“No!!!”
The bots pulled on her arms and legs, trying to stretch her out. The suit refused to give. Two hundred–some kilos of powered metal for each machine, and they couldn’t break the fibers that bound her in place.
The S-PACs made a futile attempt to help, their manipulators scrabbling against her neck and back—oil-slick fingers attempting to grasp hold of greased glass.
Kira felt as if she were trapped in a tiny box, the soft walls pressing in on her, suffocating. But she stayed curled up, refusing to budge. It was her only way of fighting back, and she’d sooner pass out than give Carr the satisfaction of victory.
The machines retreated for a moment, and then the four of them began to bustle about her in an organized fashion: removing equipment from the racks underneath the mattress, adjusting a diagnostic scanner to accommodate her fetal position, laying out tools on a tray by her feet … With a sense of anger, Kira realized Carr was going to continue with his tests and there was nothing she could do about it. The S-PACs she might have been able to break, but not the loader bots; they were too big, and if she tried, they’d just lock her to the table and then she’d be even more at their mercy.
So Kira didn’t move, although sometimes the machines repositioned her for their own reasons. She couldn’t see what they were doing, but she could hear, and she could feel. Every few seconds an instrument of some kind touched her back or sides, scraping, pushing, drilling, or otherwise attacking the skin of the suit. Liquids poured across her head and neck, much to her annoyance. Once she heard the clicks of a Geiger counter. Another time she felt a cutting disk make contact with her arm, and her skin grew warm while the strobe-like flash of flying sparks illuminated the dark crannies around her face. And all the while, the scanner arm kept moving around her—whirring, beeping, humming—moving in perfect coordination with the loader bots and the two S-PACs.
Kira yelped as a laser blast drilled into her thigh. No.… More blasts followed, on different parts of her body, and each blast was a burning jab of pain. The smell of burnt flesh and burnt xeno filled the air, acrid and unpleasant.
She bit her tongue to keep from crying out again, but the pain was pervasive and overwhelming. The constant bzzt of the discharging laser accompanied each pulse. Soon just hearing the sound was enough to make her flinch. Sometimes the xeno would protect her and she’d hear a piece of the table or the floor or the walls vaporize. But the S-PACs kept rotating the wavelength of the laser, avoiding the suit’s adaptations.
It was like a tattoo machine from hell.
Then the pulses grew faster as the robots fired in bursts that allowed for continuous cutting, the bzzts forming a single jagged tone that vibrated in her teeth. Kira screamed as the flickering beam carved down her side, attempting to slice away the xeno, force it to retreat. Her blood sputtered and hissed as it evaporated.
Kira refused to break form. But she kept screaming until her throat was raw and slick with blood. She couldn’t help it. The pain was too great.
As the laser burned another track, her pride fled. She no longer cared about appearing weak; escaping the pain had become the sole focus of her existence. She begged Carr to stop, begged and begged and begged, to no effect. He didn’t even respond.
Between the lashings of agony, fragments of memories passed through Kira’s mind … Alan; her father tending his Midnight Constellations; her sister, Isthah, chasing her through the racks in the storage room; Alan laughing; the weight of the ring sliding onto her finger; the loneliness of her first posting; a comet streaking across the face of a nebula. And more she failed to recognize.
How long it went on, Kira didn’t know. She retreated deep into the core of herself and clung to one thought above all else: this too shall pass.
…
The machines stopped.
Kira remained frozen where she was, sobbing and barely conscious. At any moment, she expected the laser to hit her again.
“Stay where you are, Citizen,” said one of the loader bots. “Any attempt to escape will be met with lethal force.” There was a whine of
motors as the S-PACs retreated into the ceiling, and a heavy series of steps as the two loader bots moved away from the exam table. But they didn’t return the way they’d come.
Instead, Kira heard them trundle over to the airlock. It clanked open. Her gut went ice-cold as fear flooded her. What were they doing? Surely they weren’t going to vent the cell? They wouldn’t. They couldn’t …
The loader bots entered the airlock, and to Kira’s relief, the door closed after them, although it did nothing to lessen her confusion.
And then … silence. The airlock didn’t cycle. The intercom didn’t turn on. The only sounds were of her breathing and the fans circulating the atmosphere and the distant rumble of the ship’s engines.
4.
Kira’s sobs slowly ran out. The pain was fading to a dull ache as the suit bandaged and healed her wounds. She stayed curled into a ball, though, half-convinced that Carr was pulling a trick on her.
For a long, empty while she waited, listening to the ambient sounds of the Extenuating Circumstances for any hint she might be attacked again.
In time, she began to relax. The xeno relaxed with her, allowing the different parts of her body to unstick from one another.
Lifting her head, Kira looked around.
Aside from the exam table and a few new scorch marks, the cell appeared the same as before … as if Carr hadn’t just spent the last few hours (or however long it had been) torturing her. Through the airlock window, she could see the loader bots standing one next to the other, locked into hard points along the curving wall. Standing. Waiting. Watching.
She understood now. The UMC didn’t want to allow the bots back into the main area of the ship. Not when they were worried about contamination. But they also didn’t want to leave the bots where she could access them.
Kira shivered. She swung her legs over the side of the table and slid to the floor. Her knees were stiff, and she felt sick and shaky, as if she’d just finished a set of sprints.
No evidence of her injuries remained; the surface of the xeno looked the same as before. Kira pressed her hand against her side, where the laser had cut deepest. A sudden throb of pain caused her to suck in her breath. So she wasn’t entirely healed.
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars Page 9