“I’m registered as human.”
Buzz, buzz.
“Does this damn thing let you get through a thought before it flags it as not truth? I said I was registered as human, not that I was.” Calmer, I added, “Not entirely.”
Beep … beep … beep.
“What race are you then?” the captain asked, sounding curious. Did she really not know?
Did I?
I searched through what memories I regained.
When the Nepherium came out as humanity’s protectors and guides, relationships happened. I came from a line of forbidden love, as it was known.
“I’m what is known as a hybrid. I’m neither human nor Nepherium, but both.”
I held my breath, waiting for the detector to respond. I wasn’t sure if I had remembered right or if I had somehow said something that could incriminate myself. I wasn’t even sure that the black orb wasn’t tampered with before it was placed in my hand, either …
Then, the detector beeped three times.
“Yet, you have more of which blood?”
“Human.”
Beep … beep … beep.
“Sergeant Ehlers, you were ordered to report to Tartarus on October nine, twenty-four fifty-two, where you were to share specific, classified information with the Council. En route, your transporter was taken down. By the time a unit was dispatched to clean up the mess, we discovered it was already taken care of, and your body was missing. Naturally, we speculated what a person would want with the body of a Vanguard. We thought it was to obtain the information stored on your PIC. That was until you unlocked your apartment six days following the accident. It was then we were able to track your whereabouts again.”
“You were unable to track me while I was—”
“No. I’m sure you understand our reason for concern. Considering you were seen with a person of interest and his assistant on several occasions.”
“Alexander Barabbas,” I muttered. A bitter taste entered my mouth.
Because of Alexander, this whole mess started. He was one of the very creatures Nepherium had warned the world about. But I knew the rest of the world remained unaware of Alexander’s big reveal just before the explosion took out his mansion. Evil incarnate.
“Yes. Him,” Captain Morrigan said. “What did he want from you?”
“My memories.”
“You gave them to him?”
“No,” I shouted. In a calmer tone, I added, “I lost them before that. I was told it was due to my head injury. Then Noah told me he took them.”
“Captain Ehlers is in the High Clearance Med Ward, is he not?”
“Yes. He is,” I said just above a whisper. Pain, bittersweet, filled the hollow pit of my chest. A tear fell down my cheek, unchecked and unannounced. I was too lost in that overwhelming emotion to notice if the detector beeped or buzzed. It didn’t matter, and I didn’t care. I knew it was my fault he was there.
The captain stood and pressed her thumb against the back side of the black orb. The vibrations stopped as the link was broken. When she lifted her hand, she pulled the orb from mine and replaced it in her pocket. I listened to her steps as they approached the door.
As she placed her palm on the pad to unlock the door, I said, “Is that what this is about? You think I was involved with Alexander?”
The door opened. She took a step out of the room, standing half in and half out my door. Speaking over her shoulder, she said, “I have lunch in two hours. Be ready then.”
“For what?” I asked.
She cleared the door, allowed it to close, and left me without a response.
TWO
BREATHLESS, I STOOD OUTSIDE the High Clearance Med Ward with Captain Morrigan at my side. The brushed-steel air-lock door reflected a muted version of our forms. Things had to be bad if they put my family behind those doors. The air was regulated down to the utmost minuscule point of pressure. The temperature fixed to a continuous sixty-nine point eight degrees. Everything that had been noted to speed the healing process and evoke a therapeutic environment was sealed away from the rest of the space station.
Captain Morrigan pressed her hand to the scanner next to the entrance. The bright red light above the pad changed to clover green. The seal released with a chemical hiss, leaving a faint smell of ozone and disinfectant lingering in the air. The air-lock door slid into the wall, revealing a small chamber, sealed on the other side by yet another air-lock.
Everything was white except for the chrome-plated hooks the chem-suits hung on. Benches lined the walls with lockers underneath. Some held keys on wrist bands, dangling from the keyholes. Lights from above made the white glow brighter than necessary.
“Are you going in or standing out here all day? I just have an hour.” Captain Morrigan’s voice sank in at a slow rate. Almost as if it was whispered and gained volume as it traveled to me.
I faced her. “Why are you helping me?”
She shifted her eyes behind me, focusing on something just above my shoulder. The silver specks that glittered inside the green were almost swallowed up by large black discs. She seemed very composed for her heightened state of emotion. I couldn’t feel her distress. Of course, I was emotionally charged myself, making my ability to gauge energy much more difficult. Sucking in a deep breath, I let it out slow, feeling some of my muscles release the tension they held.
“I’m Nepherium,” she said. “My people are dying. Our ways are being unraveled with each life lost. Facing extinction tends to make you reassess your list of enemies.”
I pursed my eyebrows, staring hard at her. She was after something. I had a feeling I wouldn’t like it either. “I don’t buy it.”
She shrugged with her arms crossed over her pressed uniform. “I don’t care.”
“You want me to believe this has nothing to do with your feelings for Noah?”
“Quite frankly, Sergeant, I couldn’t care less what you think or believe. Noah is Nepherium. He’s a very important part of our survival. All Nepherium are. So, no, this has nothing to do with my feelings for him. You’re wasting time.”
I still didn’t trust her and couldn’t remember why. It very well could have been because of my own prejudice, but there was something in our history that caused a very big rift. One that had nothing to do with Noah and made it difficult to stand next to her without wanting to claw her face. Judging from the hostility I sensed from her earlier, she felt the same. I shifted my attention to a chem-suit. Sighing, I stepped inside the small corridor. The air-lock immediately sealed behind me.
“Suit up, Sergeant. You’re going in alone.” Captain Morrigan’s voice came over a speaker system hidden in the obscene amount of bright white lighting that filled the room.
“You’re not coming?” I felt a bit like a child forced to go off somewhere on her own.
“You’re short on time, so I’d move it if I were you. Press the green button to the right of the entrance to gain access to the environment. Return in thirty.”
“Thirty?”
“I’m sorry. I wish I could give you more.”
Yeah, I bet you do.
I pulled one of the chem-suits over the loose pants and t-shirt I had on. They looked like scrubs, but the shirt was a long-sleeved robe that zipped from the waist up. It was white and made from a thermal material. Their exact function was lost on me. The last item was a pair of padded boots with silver buckles. I stepped to the door and pressed the green button.
“Stand by for detoxification,” said a strong, female, mechanical voice.
Three dings was all the warning I received before powerful bursts of air showered me. I smelled the germ-killing chemicals in the air, prepping me for the environment. Then a vacuum pulled at the air, sucking all the bad stuff out and making it hard to breathe. My body tugged upward like the feeling of liftoff when the jets push out their full potency. Three additional dings sounded. The vacuum ceased, and the air-lock opened.
I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. My brea
th left my lungs, and I found it difficult to keep my footing.
Taking up the center of the room, claiming my focus, was a large cylindrical tank filled with translucent blue-green water. A hose dangled from the top and covered Noah’s mouth and nose. He floated in the center, his lower half covered by diving pants, held in position by magnetic weights cuffed to his ankles.
I stepped closer to him, guilt punching me in the gut.
I did this to you, didn’t I, Noah? Will you forgive me when you wake? Will you even pull through this?
My fingers touched the glass, searching for the warmth of his skin instead of the coolness of the hydro-chamber. My throat tightened.
“Sergeant Ehlers?” a doctor, judging by his general appearance, said.
“Yes?” I responded with a croak, still keeping my eyes on Noah and fighting the burn of tears.
“Follow me, please.”
“Follow you where?”
“My office, so we can talk in privacy.”
I kept my eyes on Noah as I stepped back from the hydro-chamber, turning to follow the doctor through the wide hall encased in wood grain and soft burgundy carpet that curved around him. Semi-enclosed bunks lined the outer wall. A curtain sealed off some rooms, where I assumed a patient slept. The bunks not sealed off by a curtain were covered by green bedspreads and soft, blue sheets. Potted trees and plants took up some of the empty wall space and, as I followed behind the doctor, songs of tropical birds and the hushed whisper of a distant waterfall played through a speaker system.
The doctor was an inch or two taller than me, with dark blond hair dusted with silver. He walked hunched over a d-file, clicking and sliding through whatever he was researching as we moved down the large hall. I was shocked to find the center held three more hydro-chambers, sealed into a large cylinder, with the only access to them marked by a small black box next to an outline of a door.
Short halls branched off from this one, holding a few sealed rooms. We turned down the third hall and stepped to the door at the end. The doctor scanned his wrist. A few short beeps returned, and the door clicked open, rotating on a hinge. A low electrical hum carried on the air. The doctor didn’t seem fazed by it, as if it had always been there, running in the background. It annoyed me.
The office was set up more like an apartment. A small cot took up the far corner of the room. A bookshelf stood at attention with a desk directly in front of it, both filled the center of the room. Two chairs sat on the other side of the desk.
The doc gestured for me to take a seat as he slid into his high-backed, comfy-looking chair. I damn near fell into mine. The pain in my leg made it known that in no uncertain terms did it like the way I side-stepped to the chair, putting too much weight onto it. I bit my lip and relaxed into the seat.
“Sergeant Ehlers, I’m Doctor Ryan Strickland. Captain Morrigan asked me to answer any questions you have.”
“Why is my husband in that tank?” I asked first. Then, “Where are my mother and Justin? What poison have you found? What treatments have you administered? How long before you expect recovery?”
He nodded with every question and waited for me to finish. Once I took a breath to start asking more, he stopped me by lifting his palm. “I’ll start with that. Then, if we have time, I’ll go into more detail.”
That would have to do for now.
“Your mother and Justin were given near fatal amounts of arsenic.”
“But that hasn’t been around—”
“At least one hundred and fifty years, I know. We figure it was obtained in one of the older, abandoned aquifers or a shutdown mine. Rest assured, our system was able to pick out that metal and start administering the proper treatments. But that’s not all. They were also given two other poisons that affected their ability to clot the way they should and a complex mushroom poison. We’re treating for all conditions.”
“When can I see them?” I inserted, forgetting the list of questions I had already given the poor man.
He paused, lips parting. After looking over my shoulder, he returned his gaze to me and said, “I wish I could tell you. They’re pretty sick. They need their rest to heal. But if I had to give a time frame, one to two weeks more.”
“That’s so long,” I whispered, sinking further into the back of the seat.
“It’s up to them and how fast their bodies metabolize the poisons. With the Brodifocaum poisoning, they have to be careful not to bump into anything. Their levels were so high, a nick could’ve made them bleed out. A bruise could’ve resulted in internal bleeding. They’re very lucky to have received treatment when they did. In fact, I just saw them an hour and a half ago. If they had come here, I doubt they would be doing as well, if they made it at all.”
I paused. “Wh-where are they?”
He pursed his brows. “Sergeant, they’re inside our facilities on Earth. Did no one tell you?”
I shook my head. “If they did, I must have forgotten. My memories are tricky.”
“Right. I’ve read your file. Gaining memories is a very good sign.”
“So, is Noah worse then?”
He sighed and stood, taking a seat on the corner of his desk with his knee hitched up and facing me. My heart sunk lower, feeling as if its beats slowed or as if it was taking cover in an effort to brace for impact.
“We just had him transferred here. We’ve done all we could. Unfortunately, we don’t know what else to do. He wasn’t administered the same poison. In fact, whatever he was given isn’t showing up on our scans. His body doesn’t react well to stress. He gets worse with temperature, sound, and any change in environment. He also can’t breathe on his own.”
I stood, pushing the chair back as a sharp pain shot up my leg. I winced then said, “What does that mean? Give it to me straight, doc. I’m a big girl.”
He bobbed his hands up and down as though trying to calm me then glanced toward the hall again. What the hell was he looking for?
“Now, Sergeant, you want to be careful of the way you step on your leg. You got quite the gash. Stepping wrong can break the skinpatch and reopen the wound.”
“Screw my damn leg. Tell me what is wrong with my husband!”
“We don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“Please, Sergeant. I understand you’re upset. It’s a lot to handle, and if it were my wife, I’d be just as distraught. Remaining calm is important. There are patients that can hear you.”
I shifted my glance to his hands. There wasn’t a ring on his finger, nor evidence of one ever being there. What a damn liar. “What the hell do you know then?”
“It’s not a poison. Whatever is in him is a pathogen unknown or recorded in our data system. It acts as a virus, attacking his cells. Then it does something we’ve never known a virus to do. It repairs the damaged cells.”
“What does that mean?”
“Only time will tell.”
A chime rang from his desk.
“Doctor Strickland, excuse me,” a soft-toned male said.
“Yes?”
“Sergeant Ehlers is ordered to report to Captain Morrigan immediately.”
“Right away.”
The chime rang once more then the doc sighed. “I’m afraid we’ve run out of time.”
“So much for half an hour,” I muttered.
He looked puzzled. “Sergeant, you spent a good fifteen to twenty minutes staring at Captain Ehlers before I got your attention.”
It was my turn to pass on a puzzled look. “Before I leave, promise me just one thing.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Report any changes in his health to me the moment you find out.”
“Consider it done.”
Sure you will.
I walked back, numb of emotion, through the halls and to the hydro-chamber. Coming to stand in front of the cylinder, Noah took up my vision. I touched the glass again and willed him to open his eyes and look at me. But he floated without movement or
so much as a blink. My sight blurred as a gaping hole was punched through my chest.
“I promise to do the right thing when the time comes, Noah. I won’t let you die in vain.”
I pressed my head to the glass, much cooler to my forehead than to my hand. With a sigh, I turned and left the med ward.
THREE
I HALF EXPECTED CAPTAIN Morrigan to have left me by the time I was able to step through the large steel door. As soon as the first door sealed, I fell to my knees and cried. It took me a few more minutes to slip out of the chem-suit. But as soon as I stepped through, my eyes met hers, and I felt her energy. The same pain and helplessness under the fear she carried. The worry for the man she still cared for. I felt her uneasiness with my prodding.
“You’re cutting it close. I have to get you to your room before I’m back on duty.”
“Have you seen him?” I scratched out, ignoring the front she put on.
“Just about every day, if you must know. Don’t expect this to happen often or again. I felt you needed to see him in order to accept the severity of the situation. If you love him as much as you say, then seeing him and how bad things are should help you remain compliant.”
“Really?” I asked, irritated. “You’re using Noah because you still think I’m lying to you?”
She shrugged and turned her back to me. “If it helps to prevent what I believe is going to happen, then yes.”
“What do you think is going to happen?” I asked her backside.
She ignored me. I didn’t push my luck. Instead, I remained silent as we continued to my room, and I tried to work through the clues I realized she gave me. What was happening? Why would her words and behaviors conflict? What was she trying to tell me?
Once we arrived at my room, Captain Morrigan stepped inside and checked the room for anything out of place. Then, without a word, left me to my thoughts and unanswered questions.
I stared at the door after it closed, waiting for it to open again, until my eyes ached to be closed, but the door never budged. I crawled onto my bunk and laid down.
Echoes of Memories (Nepherium Novella Series Book 2) Page 2