Grinding his teeth together, he envisioned his sister’s face just a meter away, near the counter, where the datapad lay, and put more weight on his feet. The monitors alarmed of his high heart rate.
“Chak,” he muttered. He couldn’t alert the medical staff.
Gotta slow my heart rate.
Against the pain, against the rapidly approaching deadline of the datapad shutting off, he took a breath and held it, forcing his heart to slow. He’d seen the trick before, when his mother evaded the social service lie-detector tests, holding her breath to slow down her heartrate during the most painful questions about her caretaking competence.
It’ll pass, he told himself, letting the pain wash over and pass through him, until the over-sensitized nerves in his feet calmed to a pulsating throb. Using the siderail, he got himself on his feet, his legs wobbling. Once steadied, he took his first step, then another, his weakened muscles protesting the expenditure.
My heartrate—
Alarms sang.
After grabbing the datapad off the counter, he took a stumbling step and caught himself on the IV pole.
Boots clacked against the tile, heading toward him.
Chak—
He threw himself on the bed. The crash drove fresh spikes through his hips and shoulder, but he held his breath as he wiggled back to the head of the bed, wedging the datapad under his pillow.
“Cadet!” one of the medics barked at him, rounding into his bay, “what are you doing?”
The pump—
Stupid. He shouldn’t have messed with the settings just yet. Can’t let him think I’m with it!
Flopping over on his side, he slurred his words and let his eyes drift shut. “Don’t go, Mom…”
He moaned a few times, then stilled, pretending to fall back asleep.
The medic took a few steps inside.
He’s not buying it.
The thought of being tied down—or worse—chemical restraints—
What if they tell Rogman?
“Sir.”
A young voice called from not too far away.
“What are you doing here, cadet?”
Jahx?
Cam opened an eye, not able to see more than the medic’s blue scrubs, and the back of his head tipped down to speak to the much smaller young boy.
He came back—
“I came to visit my friend.”
Friend. The word didn’t seem right. Reflexively, he curled his toes and flexed his arms against his side.
Someone adjusted the sheet over his lower body. “Your friend is sleeping.”
“That’s okay. I’ll just sit with him.”
Pause. “Don’t you have something better to do, cadet?”
Jahx responded, a quiet assurance in his voice. “I’d like to be here, sir.”
The IV pump chirped once. It’s back on; it must have been on preprogramed minute pause…
Maybe the medic didn’t hear it. Either way, Jahx bought him some time, enough to evade immediate capture.
The medic rounded over to the pump and the vital signs monitors, checked whatever he needed to, and then left. Cam waited until Jahx had pulled up one of the stools on the opposite side of his bed before scooting up on his elbow and re-pausing the pump.
“You’re not surprised,” Cam said after resetting the pump to pause for ninety minutes instead of one.
Hiding his grin, Jahx pulled out his datapad and called up the lessons from their chemistry class. “Not at all.”
Cam raised the head of the bed with the side rail controls and shifted his weight back. The pressure aggravated the sensitized skin on his tailbone and buttocks, but he didn’t show his discomfort, hoping that Jahx wouldn’t pick up on how weakened he’d become.
Not that he’d say anything, Cam thought. No, Jahx was too polite.
“Okay, let’s start with covalent bonding and isomerism,” Jahx said, projecting a holographic image with his datapad.
Cam listened closely, unaware of the time that passed. Without meds, his skin burned, but he cared less and less, drawn into Jahx’s words, by the excitement in his voice, and the knowledge he shared with such ease.
“…So, depending on the number of electrons shared, the bond energy and length vary.”
“I get it,” Cam said as Jahx projected an electron. “When the number of shared electrons increases, the bond length between the atoms is decreased, and the energy increased.”
“Like…?”
“Um, Silicon…” Cam squeezed his eyes shut, trying to remember the others. “Oh! Diamonds, germanium.”
Jahx beamed. “Yep.”
“Let’s go over ionic bonding—and metallic bonding—and—”
Jahx chuckled as he shut off the projection. “Later. I’ve got to get back.”
“No,” Cam said, looking to the door, knowing that a nurse or tech was bound to come back soon anyway. “Stay.”
The black-haired boy blushed. “My sisters are expecting me at dinner.”
“Can’t you be late?”
“You’ve met Jetta,” Jahx said, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah…she is kinda bossy.”
“Kind of?”
Cam couldn’t help but laugh. “Okay, she’s very bossy.”
“She’s just overprotective. My other sister, Jaeia, isn’t as bad, but she’s a worrier.”
“Sounds like they smother you.”
Jahx shrugged. “We watch over each other. We’ve always had to.”
The lilt in the boy’s voice, the way his gaze shifted, his fingers twitched. “What happened… on Fiorah…?”
He didn’t know how to ask it, nor did he even know how to continue as the boy shrunk into himself.
“S-Sorry.”
Jahx shook his head. “Don’t be.”
“I just—God—sorry,” he said, pulling at his sheets, trying to do something with his hands.
“Really, it’s okay.” Jahx rest his right arm on the side rail, blue eyes meeting his for a second before looking down at the floor. “Nobody’s ever asked before.”
Cam picked at the hem of the draw sheet. “Forget it. It’s not my business.”
Jahx stared at him with such intensity that Cam looked away. Is he mad at me? Chak. I shouldn’t have said anything. Why would he tell me anything? I’m not his—
(Friend? But he said—)
“We were adopted,” he started, voice low, trembling, “by a kind man and his wife, Galm and Lohien. But Galm had some kind of debt to his brother, Yahmen, who owns the Fiorahian mines. Yahmen took Lohien away and put the rest of us to labor in those mines.”
Cam held his breath, sensing something far more terrible on the tip of Jahx’s tongue.
“My sisters and I did our best, but it was never good enough. We were starving, stealing food and water, doing desperate things to survive. And Galm—Lohien—our parents, we couldn’t help them, and they couldn’t help us.”
He trailed off, his focus going beyond the room they occupied. “He always came at night. He’d choose one of us to beat and torment the rest with whatever game he’d concoct.”
Violent images of a hulking humanoid barging in on his home ghosted his mind. Without wanting to, he imagined Jahx and his sisters huddled together, and a brittle older man trying to shield them.
“…And sometimes our parents weren’t there. That’s when he was the meanest. He liked to target me, because I was so small and sick, but Jetta would provoke him so he’d come after her,” Jahx said, blue eyes misting. “I couldn’t stand it—any of it—the violence, the cruelty—the way my sisters did everything they could to save me.”
Jahx gripped the siderail, knuckles turning white. “But I couldn’t stop him. I wasn’t strong enough.”
“Stop him?” Cam guffawed. “A full-grown man? What were you, like three years old?”
Something sparked in his blue eyes, a light Cam didn’t expect. “I’m not strong like my sisters. Like you, Cam.”
Cam swallow
ed hard. “Don’t say that.”
Jahx said nothing, his blue eyes steeled to his.
“You don’t know what that means,” he whispered, remembering the feel of the red scarf in his hands, and the snapping of bones.
Tears spilled onto Jahx’s cheeks. With a quick wipe, he dashed them. “Sorry.”
Body throbbing, Cam allowed whatever answer dwelled deep in his bones to surface. “I don’t know what I can offer you, Jahx. I’m the last person that should ever give anyone advice.”
He remembered the bittersweet taste of dried fruit, of the kindness etched in a dimpled smile. “But I do know one thing—you’re good, Jahx. And this place—this galaxy—needs you more than it needs another chakking soldier.”
Jahx sucked in his breath. From the knot in the boy’s forehead, Cam couldn’t tell if he provided relief, or caused more tension.
I shouldn’t have said anything. What the hell do I know?
Then, blue eyes holding back all the words he couldn’t speak, Jahx breathed a sigh of relief and grinned. “Thanks, Cam.”
“Get going,” Cam said, waving him off. “Last thing I want are your sisters pissed at me.”
“Don’t worry, it’s our secret,” Jahx said, gathering his things and standing.
“Our secret?”
Is he ashamed of me?
Jahx seemed to read his worry. “Maybe it’s selfish,” he said, reaching over the siderail, and touching the bedsheet near Cam’s hand, careful not to cause him discomfort. “But I’d like to have one experience—one friend—that’s mine.”
As he turned and walked to the exit, he paused at the door, a lighted smile upon his face. “Thanks again, Cam. See you later.”
Why is he thanking me? Cam said, waving as the boy left. He just tutored me and—
Cam stopped, realizing the tension in his muscles. Jahx trusts me.
He shouldn’t, not after what he vowed.
Not after what I’ve done.
Hearing footsteps coming down the hallway, Cam reached over to the pump and restarted it. Later, he’d access the datapad stashed under his pillow, figure out more of what was happening, what they infused into his body, and the truth about his chances of recovery.
Now, he stared up at the ceiling, his pain growing distant as the medication flowed into his veins, he felt something ache in his heart, a longing he couldn’t name, as he tried to forget the word that could undo all that he’d vowed.
***
“That’s weird,” someone said. Beeps and boops followed. “It says here that the only 250mls were infused over the last few hours. Must be an error.”
A second voice, deeper, responded. “Clear and reset the pump. If it acts up again, we’ll but a remote monitor on it. We can’t take any chances. Hey—has Reppen found that missing datapad?”
“No. She probably left it in the mess hall again…”
Cam stirred, seeing a doctor and nurse exit. Fuzzy from the medication, but aware enough to realize his error, he chided himself. Of course there’s an infusion record. I’ve got to be more careful!
Head spinning and body aching, he inched his way over to the edge of the bed and reached over the siderail for the pump. The keypad shifted and swung side to side, but he took a deep breath and inputted the nurse’s code.
The hell is this stuff? he wondered, stopping the infusion and lying back down. After several minutes, his head cleared and the pains of his body returned in full force.
Not wasting any time, he reached under his pillow and retrieved the stolen datapad. Fiddling with the controls awakened the screen, and a prompt to enter an ID and code. Cam tried to remember the nurse’s ID badge, but even on a good day he didn’t think he could have retained such detail.
Screw it, he thought, ready to chuck it under the bed to make it look like it accidentally got dropped, but his eye caught several icons on the bottom of the screen: a mortar and pestle, a blue cross, and a calendar.
I’ve seen that blue cross before. Looking around the room, he spotted a button jutting out of the wall with a blue cross stamped on its face near the vital signs machines, core zero written in bold letters across the top. An emergency call button, he guessed. Don’t need that now.
The mortar and pestle reminded him of the apothecary shop he’d seen in the old marketplace on Cerka. Biting his lower lip, he tapped on the icon. A simple grey screen with a search bar and alphabetized list of medications popped up.
A drug lookup? He didn’t hesitate, typing in the word he remembered seeing on the pump: Cryoxotin.
He skipped over the words he didn’t know like GABA neurotransmitter, trehalose, nucleating agents, analgesia, amnesia, absorbing everything else he could: for nutritional support, nerve-repair and protection, dose at 3 mg/kg per hour. For induction of cryostasis, bolus dose to 10mg/kg, then maintain at 5mg/kg per hour.
Cryostasis. Freezing people, turning them into popsicles. Old memories stirred. He heard his mother, her venom punctuating her words as she slammed close the empty refrigerator: “Freeze all those chakking leeches. Shoot them out into space; let them die.”
Into space. Cam recalled his sister talking about it with some of her friends. No, that blonde guy. The one that she left with right before her abduction. But the conversation happened weeks before as Cam dug and crawled through trash cans in the break between apartment buildings. His sister and the blonde man rounded into the alley and continued a private conversation, unaware of his presence. “They’re freezing telepaths?”
“Yes, for relocation into deep space.”
“Why?”
“That’s classified, Kara.”
“James, please—”
“Be patient. Help is coming.”
The conversation didn’t make sense to him then, hungry and exhausted, but now, sober enough to realize the deeper implications, he tensed.
Classified? Why would one of her friends say that?
(Why did she care?)
Other thoughts bubbled deep beneath the surface, but he shoved them aside.
Gotta figure the rest of this out.
He tapped on the calendar. Last names and times appeared. This must be the shift assignments. He didn’t see much he could garner from the schedule. Except…
The shift change, a thirty-minute overlap that guaranteed a lull, or potential oversight. And Reppen; she’d be returning in twenty minutes for her regular shift. The words she whispered to him recycled through his mind: “If you know what’s good for you, cadet, get out. Now.”
What does she know?
Cam looked at the infusion pump and the line running into his arm, remembering the doctor using a syringe to draw up medication from the bag. I need to stay awake, but I have to trick the pump.
After stashing the datapad underneath his pillow, he looked around the room. A supply cart with labeled drawers stood near the vital signs machine. Squinting, he made out hypos and syringes on the third drawer down. With a clenched jaw, he swung his legs over and prepared for the worst.
Just three steps.
The same fires came roaring up the soles of his feet as he touched down and hobbled his way over. He rifled through the drawer until he found the biggest syringe.
I need something to pinch the line… Legs aching, he leaned on the supply cart, struggling to catch his breath against the pain driving at his nerves. He opened the first, second and forth drawer. Finally, a silver pair of scissors—
Not scissors—what are these? He grabbed the tool in his hand and tried to open it, but the interlocking teeth at the end wouldn’t budge. Oh, there—
The locking mechanism on the pivoting tool. He disengaged it, and it opened. Like a clamp.
Perfect.
With a grunt, he eased back into bed and repositioned himself on his back. After screwing in the syringe to the port nearest to his arm, he clamped the line right where it attached to the hub.
Is this going to work? He restarted the pump and laid back down, pulling up the sheets over h
is arm and the syringe. The pump whirred and the medication chamber dripped. Without realizing it, he held his breath until the oxygen saturation monitor chirped that his sats dipped below 93%.
Breathe. He took a few gulps, still too anxious to find any relief until he saw the syringe back filling. Now, no discrepancies in drug-dose delivery. And I’ll just dump it in the sink later.
As he lay in bed, pain a rising pulse throughout his body, he regained more of himself, his senses, and thought of what he’d say to nurse Reppen. Intimidation wouldn’t work, especially coming from a sick, scrawny kid with no leverage, and he didn’t have innocent charm like Jahx.
There has to be something.
Footsteps padded down the hall. Closing his eyes, Cam rolled onto his side with the medication line and pulled up the sheet over his shoulder to hide his contraption. What do I have?
A dimpled smile and trusting eyes ghosted his thoughts. (…or take away?)
He scrunched his hands together, into tight fists, making his fingers and palms tingle. Don’t think of that—don’t—
“Cam…” A tentative touch on his shoulder followed. “Wake up.”
Cam didn’t expect to see Iggie, nor the tears in her eyes. “Iggie?”
“You need to get out of here, Cam.”
Propping himself up on his elbow, he tried to make sense of her distress. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
His gaze fell to the blue patient gown she wore, and the red track marks up her arms. Everything about her had changed. He couldn’t reconcile her greater height, or the broadness to her shoulders. But his attention drew to her eyes, wide and sunken into her skull, that no longer held the assured attitude, only fear.
“The monster. The machine man. He’s here. He’s watching you. He’s watching all of us.”
“What?” He watched as she rubbed her forearms and lost focus. “Iggie, what’s going on?”
“Cadet Prys.” A tall figure appeared in the doorway, casting a shadow across his bed. A second figure, also obscured by the light, stood behind them. “You’re not to be in here.”
When she didn’t budge, the tall figure entered. Cam recognized the man as one of the doctors that had been treating him, but didn’t know his name.
“Increase the dosing rate on Ferros to 4mg/kg,” the doctor said, grabbing Iggie by the arm and yanking her up. She cried out, but he half carried her out with urgency, only looking back to scold the nurse still lingering by the doorway. “I want him out!”
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