by Josh Hayes
“I see,” the nurse said, cocking her head to the side. “Well, it’s very nice to meet you John.” She held out her hand, and John made an effort to grab it as lightly and as quickly as he could.
In an effort to change the subject, John said the first thing that came into his mind, “So, do people spend all day in bed here?”
He immediately regretted it, both because it was a silly thing to ask, and he’d wanted to steer the conversation away from anything remotely sexual, not turn straight into it.
The nurse was about to say something, but paused and frowned. She gave Bella a confused look, obviously expecting the younger woman to explain.
“First time inside a clinic,” Bella said, “He’s never seen an OD before.”
The nurse looked back to John. “How?”
John shook his head, not wanting to go through it all over again. “It’s a long story.”
“It’s true,” Bella said with a shrug. “Do you have time to show him the eyes? We tried to explain it to him, but . . . ”
“You really haven’t ever seen it before have you?” The nurse sounded truly surprised, but she didn’t pry.
“‘Fraid not.”
She checked one of the monitors in front of her and said, “Come on.”
She stood and motioned for them to follow. As John passed the desk, he glanced at the displays. Four side-by-side screens displayed vital signs for what appeared to be every person in a bed. Heart rates, blood pressure, oxygen levels, and even with only having minimal military first aid training, knew the readouts were extremely detailed.
They moved down one of the rows near the center of the room and stopped at the tenth bed. The nurse moved around to the bedside display and checked the readout.
An old man lay on his back, covered by an old, worn blanket. Despite the blanket, it was obvious the man was nothing but skin and bones, with almost no muscle or fat to speak of. Several long strands of white hair sprouted out from his pale scalp, but most had fallen out. Vacant eyes starred uncaring into the darkness above him. Were it not for the man’s vitals displayed on the monitor next to the bed, John would have thought he was dead.
The nurse spoke in hushed tones. “Gerald has been her for almost five years,” the nurse explained in a hushed tone. “He’s finally starting to show improvement.”
“Improvement?” John said, a little too loud. Both Bella and the nurse shushed him. He looked over the man laying in the bed again like he’d missed something. But no, it was still the same shell of a man, who looked like he’d be knocking on death’s door any day now.
He whispered, “No offense, but this man looks like he can go any time now.”
“One cannot judge the health of the man by his outward appearance,” the nurse said, giving him an indignant look. “The mind governs the body. That is where the real damage is. We must fix the mind, cleanse it of all the toxins which have invaded it, and once the mind is repaired, the body will follow.”
“But he’s wasting away here.” John motioned to the man, like they hadn’t been talking about something completely different.
She kept her voice level and matter-of-fact. “Gerald, like everyone else here, is kept on a constant supply of nutrients and supplements, fed intravenously, and on a strict schedule. They are all kept in a semi-comatose state and monitored twenty-four hours a day. I assure you, they are all alive and well.”
Alive maybe, definitely not well.
Just the thought of lying in a bed for untold years, looking at the same ceiling day after day made him cringe. How could these people think this was even a humane way to treat someone? The entire thing seemed medieval. He was surprised there weren’t masked men with gigantic battle-axes walking through the rows, loping off people’s heads, as they were deemed unworthy. This wasn’t a hospital; it was a storage center for vegetables.
“How long do you keep them like this?” John asked.
The nurse ran a hand over Gerald’s forehead, as a mother tenderly caresses her child. “As long as is needed.”
A hand touched John’s arm.
Bella gave him a sympathetic smile and said, “The eye’s John. It’s the eyes that matter.”
He leaned over and looked into Gerald’s empty eyes. His pupils were constricted, surrounded by brightly colored, golden irises. Small particles floated around the iris, like leaves on the surface of a pond, sparkling as they twisted and turned.
“You wanted to know what we were fighting for,” Bella said. “This is it. This is what Dust does to a person. Hell, these are the lucky ones. Most just die, slow and agonizing deaths.”
She gazed at the hundreds of beds around them. “This is where most end up, and most of the ones who make it this far, never leave.”
John didn’t understand. How could people just stand by and watch things like this happen? But then, he knew why. It’s human nature. If something doesn’t directly affect someone, then it doesn’t really exist. It can be ignored and eventually forgotten all together.
People only believe what they want to believe.
“Why keep them hidden away?”
“Because, no one wants to see this,” Bella said, a hint of disgust in her voice. “No one wants to know these places exist. They don’t blend well with their comfortable lives. Well, as comfortable as living under the boot of the Regency can be.”
“Not even to help save these people?”
“You don’t get it, John. To most everyone, these people are already dead. People in the Core, even Midtown, won’t waste their time on these junkies.”
“But you guys care,” John said, “and if you do, there could be more.”
“Maybe,” Bella said, obviously not moved by his thoughts. “But there is another reason we keep this place hidden.”
“Which is?”
“What else? The Regency.”
The nurse interjected, “There used to be hundreds of these clinics back when people still thought they could make a difference, but it was a different time back then. Back before people started disappearing.”
“The Snatchers?” John asked.
The nurse nodded. “The disappearances started slowly enough, but soon they reached three, sometimes five a day. After about a year entire enclaves started to go missing, gone without a trace. One clinic along the outskirts disappeared completely, over a hundred people never heard from again. That’s when everything started going underground. What you see here is one of the last functional clinics on Nevaris.”
The man lying on the bed wheezed as he inhaled a deep breath and made what could only be described as a moan, even though the sound itself was barely audible. He turned his head to look at John. A chill ran down his spine and gooseflesh prickled his arms. The man stared at him, his bright gold-flecked eyes appeared blank and unfocused, and yet, seemed determined to tell him something.
“Come,” the nurse said. “He needs rest.”
As they made their way back to the nurse’s station, an unexpected anger boiled deep inside him. He turned and gazed over the rows and rows of helpless patients and saw Wendy kneeling beside the bed.
“What’s her name?” John asked.
Bella followed his gaze and after a moment said, “Mary.”
“Do you think she’ll ever make it out of here?”
When she didn’t respond right away, John turned expectantly. Bella frowned and reluctantly shook her head.
SIXTEEN
A strong sense of foreboding hung over the skiff as they lifted away from the clinic, and for a time, no one spoke. John again felt an irrational sense of guilt about the whole situation, even though he had no way of knowing anything about this world. As long as he could remember, the story of Neverland and Peter Pan and Captain Hook had been a happy story, filled with fun and excitement. A world where a pinch of fairy dust and happy thoughts allowed you to take flight and soar through the clouds. But in this world, there were no happy thoughts, and the world was anything but fun and exciting.
John leaned closer to Tim and asked in a hushed tone, “How long has she been like that?”
Tim glanced over his shoulder. “Who? Wendy?”
John shook his head, “No, her mother.”
Tim nodded.
“A long time. Their family’s been through a lot, and after Maggs went back, well,” Tim sighed. “We’ve tried talking to her about it, but it’s no use. She refused to talk about it.”
He held a finger to his lips.
“Oh, not to worry,” John said, tapping his temple. “I’m a vault.”
They flew in silence, following the elevated highway as it snaked its way back through the city. John convinced Tim to let him take controls. Focused calm come over him as he took over.
Tim adjusted himself in the seat and said, “Do you have cities like this back on Earth?”
John nodded. “Some two or three times this size. But most are overflowing with people. That’s why it’s so hard for me to get used to so much unused space. Overpopulation is one of the major trends in the Contested Zones.”
Tom lifted an eyebrow. “Contested Zones?”
“Sorry,” John said, “back home almost everything is controlled by global conglomerates, if not by name, by proxy. If it’s not profitable, it’s torn down and made so. On Earth, corporations own whole cities, and everything in those cities is set up to make money.”
“How many cities are there?”
“Hundreds. Hell, probably thousands. I have no idea. They’re spread all over the world. I bet I’ve only seen maybe ten or fifteen of the major ones, and who knows how many smaller ones.”
“That’s amazing.”
John gave him a sidelong glance. “Why do you say that?”
Tim shrugged. “Well, unless you count the farming and fishing villages on the outskirts, Barreen is the only city on Nevaris.”
“You’re kidding?” John said, finding it hard to reconcile the fact that these people had only ever lived in one place, and that, on an entire world, there was only one metropolitan area. He wondered if he’d ever fully understand the mysteries of this world.
“I’m afraid not,” Tim said, then pointed at something ahead of them. “Take us over the river.”
John banked the skiff in the direction Tim indicated, taking them away from the old highway toward a shallow river. The water was surprisingly clear, John saw multi-colored bedrock beneath the surface. They flew over what had once been a bridge; only four pylons remained, sticking out of the swift flowing water like large grey fingers.
Several dark shapes swam around the pylons and through the rubble that had once been the bridge. Though he couldn’t quite make out what they were, John assumed they were whatever passed for fish in this place. A scene from the movie Hook flashed in his mind and he grinned. He was about to ask about mermaids, when something ahead of them caught his eye.
A massive, ornate building sat alone at the end of a large square. Unlike the abandoned high-tech buildings around, it reminded John of an old courthouse or capitol building from Earth. A row of marble pillars lined the front façade, and even from this distance John picked out the enormous double doors behind them. A wide, concrete stairway led to the long square, the decorative rails on either side were topped with broken statues that might have been people at one point in time.
A faded mosaic covered the square floor, however most of the images had been cracked or destroyed over time. A single pedestal rose from the middle of the plaza, bearing two legs broken off just above the ankles. Two booted feet were all the remained, the rest of the body was nowhere to be seen.
Between the destroyed statue and the stairs sat a row of trucks, parked in a staggered formation. Three large transport trucks, with open beds and bench seating running down both sides, rested in a single-file line. The smaller escort trucks flanked them, two on one side, one on the other, each with a turret-mounted gun on the back. Several soldiers milled around. Some leaned against the vehicles while others sat on benches several feet away. One sat in the cab of one of the transports, legs hanging out, smoking. Another group was making their was way down the stairway toward the trucks, and as John studied them, he realized the two in the middle were Dusters, escorted by three armed soliders.
“What’s that?” John asked, pointing.
Tim craned his neck to see, then cursed. “Hey guys, check this out. Up ahead.”
A second later Wendy’s head appeared in the hatch between them. It took her a moment to register what they’d seen, then she too cursed. “It doesn’t look like they’ve seen us yet.”
“What the hell are they doing way the hell out here?” Bella asked.
John turned to find her head poking around Wendy’s, her orange pigtails bouncing with the movement of the skiff.
“Crap, crap, crap,” Tim said, scanning the skyline around them.
“What?” John asked, confused.
Before Tim could answer, Wendy retreated in the back and said, “Get us out of here, Tim.”
He already worked the controls. “Right.”
“What are you doing?” It was Tom’s voice this time.
John thought he almost sounded more confused that he was.
Tom continued from the rear cabin. “What are you talking about, Wendy, we can’t just leave.”
“Yes, we can,” Wendy corrected him, “and we’re going to.”
“And pass up an opportunity like this?” Tom argued. “Every opportunity, that’s what you said. Every hit counts.”
After a moment of hesitation Wendy said, “It’s too risky. We’re already too exposed from the little stunt you guys pulled yesterday. We bug out.”
The finality in her voice signalled the argument was over.
The controls moved against John’s grip as Tim took over. The skiff banked right, and John lost sight of the plaza.
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Tom said. “They wouldn’t give us the same courtesy. Every single one of them we get rid of now, is one less we’ll have to deal with when the real fighting starts.”
“That’s not our mission.”
John gave Tim a questioning look. Tim shook his head. Wendy didn’t seem like the person to make up excuses not to fight, especially weak ones. He wondered if their recent visit to the clinic had affected Wendy somehow.
“I don’t know, I have to agree with Tom on this one,” Carter said. “Look, they aren’t expecting a thing. We can take them by complete surprise, they’ll never know what hit him.”
Tim shrugged. “Might have some good intel down there, too.”
“Damn straight,” Bella said, “not to mention, I could use some more target practice with this thing.”
The click of the rack clips fell on John’s ears, and he knew she had pulled out her tribarrel. He’d seen her fire it twice before, but was eager to see it in action again. John had never been a gun-nut, but felt an overwhelming urge to shoot it and wondered how he’d convince Bella to let him.
“Hey, careful,” said Tom.
“Damn it,” Wendy cursed again.
John turned to Tim again. “Regency?”
Tim nodded. “They’re on a collection sweep. The official line is that the sweeps are meant to ensure the safety of the general public from an undesirable element. Old Town is littered with Duster Enclaves—hundreds of them—and when they get too close to the Core, the Regency will swoop in a clear them out. It’s happened a lot more recently.”
“What do they do with them?”
“Don’t know. No one asks, and they don’t tell.”
“So much for civil rights, eh?”
“Strange thing about the Regency, civil rights aren’t high on their list of priorities, if you haven’t noticed.”
John sniffed and nodded. He understood all too well what powers like that meant t
o the common people, and he cursed himself for having been a part of it.
Wendy appeared between them again. “How many?”
“Sorry?” John asked.
“Soldiers. How many were there?”
John replayed the scene from memory and said, “Twelve, maybe sixteen.”
Wendy shook her head slowly, closed her eyes, and sighed. “For shit’s sake.”
Tim grinned at John, who raised an eyebrow in return.
After a long moment, Wendy said, “All right, let’s make this quick.”
SEVENTEEN
Pan took in a deep breath of cool, crisp air, held it in for a few seconds, then slowly let it out. Clean and fresh. The air invigorated him. He stood in the shadow of the massive starboard sunsail, which had been folded to allow the large transport barge to come alongside the Revenge. His hands rested on the gunwale in front of him as he watched the next tug in line moved toward the expansive cargo deck of the barge and deposited its load in the assigned position.
Two more transfer tugs waited in queue just off the Revenge’s bow, standing by to deliver their cargo to the waiting barge. Pan silently cursed to himself, repeating the same one he’d recited for probably the tenth time. When all was said and done, the barge would ship out filled to just under half its capacity, not even a quarter of the expected haul.
It almost wasn’t worth the effort.
He glanced up as two of the security escorts flew overhead, and watched as they made a wide arc around the Revenge and unarmed transport barge. Four additional skiffs had been transferred from the nearest surface garrison and added to the convoy, along with two frigates. He’d ordered the larger, less maneuverable frigates loaded down with all the firepower they could carry; enough to repel any possible attack. He wasn’t taking any chances.