by RaeLynn Fry
“That exchange between you and Ethan. It was all so...forced.” She makes a face, then gasps. “You guys didn't break up, did you?”
“What? No!” I snort. “That would be ridiculous.” At least I don’t think we’ve broken up, not officially, anyway.
When I first met Ethan, there was this electric connection. After his arrogance had worn off and I saw him for who he really was, I knew he and I were better Paired than Kavin and I ever could've been. The Corporation had been wrong. I never told him that, and I don’t think I ever will. So it never crossed my mind as a possibility—a divide growing between us. But I’m watching it, every day, separate us more and more, and I don’t know how to stop it. How can someone fix something they didn’t think could break in the first place?
“What I saw didn't exactly convince me of two people who are madly in love.”
Her words anger me. Little things have been angering me more than they should lately. “We can't all be you and Dhevan, Journey. To be honest, maybe you guys should tone it down a bit. It kind of makes me sick to my stomach to be around.”
My best friend slips into the big sister role I’ve seen her play countless times with Kerick and takes what I always tell myself is a calming breath. “I'm starting to notice a pattern with you, Karis Singh.”
“Oh, yeah?” But I'm less combative and feeling slightly guilty, instead.
“You get into these moods when you're upset, anxious, mad, feeling helpless—whatever, and you attack those around you with words you know will punish them. Probably to make them hurt as much as you are.” She takes my hands.
When did she become so in tune with feelings and motivations? She loves delicate fabrics and fancy embroidery. She prefers activities that don't tangle her curls or cause her makeup to smudge.
“Honey, I can only hang around you so much before I reach my limit of that. You need to find another way to get these feelings out.”
I could tell her. Right now. I could tell her everything I’m going through, and she'd understand. I know she would. It would be such a relief not to carry this burden around on my own, to have someone to can help carry it. And I almost do tell her; but I already have someone I can talk to this about; who won't pass judgment or try and talk me out of anything. And he'll keep my secrets no matter what, because he's unconscious.
“I know,” I say with a sigh. “It's just, I feel so useless and that I'm betraying Ajna, sitting here doing nothing.”
“What is it you think you can do?”
I decide to test the waters. “I've been thinking about it, and I might have a plan that would work.”
“No. There is no plan this time, Karis. You need to follow the rules Akin gave you and wait for him. No matter how painful it might be.”
“But—”
She stands up straighter. “I won't listen to any more of this. If you go on your own, the odds of it turning out as lucky as it did last time are slim. This time someone will die.” She brushes her hands off, even though there's nothing on them. “Anyway, if you and Ethan had a fight of some sort, you'd better make up in time for my Pairing.”
I hate the truth of her words. I hate them because they make me look at myself and I don’t like what I see. I hate it, too, because I don’t know if I want to change what I see.
“There are other, more important things in the world than your Pairing.”
“Maybe every other day, but not tomorrow. So adjust accordingly.” I watch my friend as she walks away, her head held higher than I think I’ll ever be able to again.
Ethan
Well, everything about this morning is officially a disaster. My plan with Kerick backfired and that whole encounter with Karis was a nightmare. Why did I have to lash out at her like that? I can only hope she’ll forgive me and that Kerick doesn't go and tell Scowling Dhevan what I was asking him about. I might be able to pass it off as mild curiosity, but it would still put a major dent in my progress with the farmer.
My little episode in the alley has left me slightly light—headed and weak, like all the energy from my body has been sucked out. I pick up my pace, weaving in and out of the crowd towards one of the houses on Eta’s rounds list. It's the home of a young boy, a Candidate in Ajna's group, Kalaen Aboca, who's come down with the sickness. No one his age has ever survived. I see her just ahead.
“There you are,” Eta says to me, not breaking stride as I fall into step next to her.
“Couldn't sleep. Thought I'd go and help Dhevan with the heifers.”
“Any calves?”
“One. A bull.”
“That's nice,” she says, continuing her powered pace through the city streets. Everyone always makes a path for her wherever she goes.
“Actually, Dhevan says it's not. Says they haven't had a heifer born in a while.”
“Nature has a way of correcting and preserving itself. I'm sure everything will turn out fine, come the end of the day.”
For such a short, old woman, she maintains a surprising pace and stride, walking with purpose through the lightening, chilly streets, my long legs working hard to keep up with hers.
“How did your morning appointments go?” I ask.
“Well enough. I had exams and checkups.”
“All went as expected?”
“Except one.”
“Oh?” She says this all with an air of indifference that I'm not sure how I should react. “What happened?”
“I had a young Paired couple I was scheduled to do a wellness check on, but they weren't there.”
“What do you mean? Where were they?”
“Long gone from here. Their apartment was empty, and it looked as if they left in a hurry.”
The news unsettles me. People have been disappearing from Neech in greater numbers with no sign of where they went or why they disappeared. “This is starting to get serious.”
“It was always serious.”
Kalaen and his family live back behind the Market, at the top of an apartment building with more floors than looks safe. If I squint and angle my head just right, I can make the building look like it's standing straight.
Eta shoves her medical bags into my arms and opens the door to the building, not bothering to hold it open for me. I catch the metal frame with my toe and squeeze through. She's already half way up the first flight of stairs by the time I get through the door. I jog to catch up. “Do you think it's Maute?” I ask, repositioning the bags under my arms.
“Only thing it could be. I haven't met a young'un who's survived it, yet.” That's all that’s said as we climb the flights of stairs.
When we walk through the scratched and warped door of the apartment, the smell hits me like a fist. I've never experienced it before, but I know instinctually, it’s death. Eta doesn't flinch and it makes me wonder how many of these visits she's had to make in her career as a Medic.
The apartment is small and dark and stuffy. Kalaen is lying on a couch, his undersized, dark form buried inside a mound of worn blankets. I drop back behind Eta. She goes to the parents, who are sitting at the kitchen table, a few feet from the couch.
“He's not getting any better,” the woman says. Her voice is just above a whisper.
The man reaches out and squeezes his wife’s hand. “Is there anything you can do?” he asks.
“We'll see.” Eta turns back to me and lets out a quick, irritated sigh. “Stop acting like a little boy hiding behind his mother's skirts and bring my bags,” she says, quiet enough that only I hear her words.
I stand up straighter. “I'm not hiding. I was giving you space.” I place the three bags on the table's surface, nodding to both of the parents, but not keeping eye contact. Their little boy is dying, nothing I could do or say would change that cruel reality.
I open the largest of her bags—a worn, large thing made out of a rough material with a green and red garbled pattern. Eta called it a tartan—whatever that is. It takes up about half of the Aboca's small kitchen table and carries every tool of Eta's trade
that she could get her hands on.
Out of habit, I pull out her stethoscope, a small pen light, glasses, and an extra mask. I hand all of these over to her. She hooks the earpieces of the stethoscope around her neck and perches her glasses on the edge of her nose, snapping the extra mask over her mouth.
I pull out her journal and pencil and flip to the page with Kalaen’s name on it. I glance over the simplistic drawing of a human body, taking note of where we had marked the developing symptoms from our last visit only a few days ago. I read over the brief notes written in a medic's hand. I'm proud that I can make sense of these scribbles of consonants.
C/O fever, SOB, open sores, JT pain and swelling, aches, N/V
P 50, BP 90/60, T 102, anuric, no stool samples
IMP Maute, b.i.d birch leaf tea for pain, 2x/day
The family was complaining fever, shortness of breath, open sores, joint pain and swelling, body aches, nausea and vomiting. A couple of days ago, his vitals were dangerously low; his pulse was only 50, his blood pressure 80/50, with a temperature of 102. He wasn't eating and wasn't passing urine or stool. Eta's diagnosis—Maute with a medical recommendation of birch leaf tea twice a day to help with pain.
Looking down at Kalaen, I don't see much change. I write down more notes based on his current visual appearance. His joints are still swollen, his sores still open and oozing. Eta rattles off stats and I write them down: P 45, BP 63/46.
“C&S from the last visit—positive for Maute.”
I scribble down the culture and sensitivity results from her tests. Eta presses her stethoscope to Kalaen's chest, moving it around.
“Bibasilar,” she says in a low voice, and starts to press down on his abdomen. “Swelling in both the right and left lower quadrants.”
I write out Bibasilar (liquid at the base of both lungs), and add swelling in both RLQ & LLQ. I also note what I notice about his eyes—O.U.—cloudy with bleached irises.
I make other new notes, documenting his current condition, even the smell. Eta says no detail is too small to make note of. Especially with Maute.
I get as close as I dare, and take in the new changes. The boils have moved up his neck and seem to have stopped, for now, just past his jaw line. His skin is almost all chalky beige now.
Kalaen coughs, harshly. His face is turned towards me, and I try to jump away, I’m too close and not fast enough. With each forceful exhale Kalaen gives, a small splattering of blood sprays my shirt. He turns his head, still unconscious as I back up. I wipe off my face with the sleeve of my shirt, trying to keep my composure in front of his parents. It seems no one has noticed what happened.
Eta puts a mercury thermometer into Kalaen's mouth. After she's done listening to his pulse and looking at his eyes, she removes the thermometer. She looks at it and starts to wave it in the air. “104.5,” she says to me. I write it down.
“104?” Mrs. Aboca says. “Is that normal?”
“Nothing about this sickness is normal.” Eta disinfects the thermometer before putting it away. “But a fever is our body's way of getting rid of the parasite causing us harm.”
“So this is a good thing?” Mr. Aboca says, squeezing his wife's shoulder.
“Potentially.”
But I can see in the set of her shoulders and the way she says this that it's not the case. Carefully, she turns down the blanket covering the small boy’s chest. The rash and sores are the same as Ajna's, open and leaking, covering his torso. His fingers are swollen and his joints look like they could burst. I can’t imagine the level of pain he must be experiencing. I've seen enough of this stage with Eta to know it won't be long. The Aboca's must know this too, because they don't keep us any longer. They don't ask Eta to do something more. They don't sacrifice any hope. They know the truth.
“I'm going to take some blood and a few other samples before we go. Keep him as comfortable as possible. I'll check back with you tomorrow.”
I hand Eta a syringe. It takes her a few minutes to locate a vein and plump it up enough to make it useful. She takes different containers and fills them with various samples: hair, skin, blood, the liquid from the sores, and labels each before carefully putting everything away.
Before we leave, I stop and turn to Mr. and Mrs. Aboca. “I'm so very sorry.”
Mr. Aboca straightens his shoulders and gives a sad, slow nod. “Thank you,” he says. The door shuts and I hear them break down into quiet sobs through the thin walls.
When Eta and I are back on the first floor, safe from being overheard I ask, “How long do you think it'll be?”
“I expect a visit by tomorrow night with the news that he's passed.”
One good thing about this disease, it doesn't linger. Whoever it claims, it takes them quickly. I guess that's all we can hope for.
७
“Sit at the table and I'll dish you up some food.” Eta and I have a break after seeing the Abocas, so we head back to the house for lunch.
I rest my head in my hands as I massage my scalp with the pads of my fingers. I don't know how the people of Neech live like this, day in and day out. My father's way of oppressing them makes them strong, though, and that is going to be a very costly mistake for him, one day soon. I hope.
Eta sets a bowl of thin soup in front of me. “Tell me what's going on between you and Karis.”
I almost choke on the broth. “What do you mean?” She stares at me. Intently. “Nothing's going on. I mean, everything is going on as normal. We're good. Everything’s good.”
She gives me one of her looks. The kind that tells me what I've just said is of the same quality as the air coming out of the filters in Neech. Which is one of the things I really like about her. She's honest and tells the truth about anything and everything, even if it's not what you want to hear, and even if it's something you didn't ask her opinion about.
“Is that why this is the first time I've heard you mention her in any fair length of time? And it's in relation to work? Only after I asked you about her?”
“We work a lot together, I mean, with the meetings and all. There's no time for much else. She's busy with the Factory and Sai and Journey's Pairing. I'm busy with you and trying to raise a resistance to take down my father. We take what we can get.”
“Seems to me, when two people are in love, they find real time for each other.” She turns her back and busies herself with putting her medical bags away. “You've been spending all your time with either Dhevan or me. Even when we don’t need you. Seems like you don't want to see her. Makes me wonder why.”
I change the subject so I don't have to deal with it. A bad habit I’ve grown accustomed to, but a temporarily effective one. “Why is the Corporation doing this?” The question has been plaguing me, as I know it has been her.
“Kalaen?”
I nod.
“That's what we're trying to find out. That's why my work is so important.”
This isn't the first time I've heard Eta refer to 'her work' or the reference to the mysterious 'we'. She means more than just her job of being a Medic. It has to do with the samples she takes, but she hasn't alluded to what she's doing or indicated she's going to let me in on her little top-secret doings, any time soon. I never realized how many secrets Neech had. Everyone has one to hide, and I’m no exception. Which makes me wonder, what secret is Karis guarding?
I hand over the bag of collected filters she gave me earlier this morning. “I think the missing lumber and steel supplies are somehow a part of this. And I think Dhevan and Kerick are in on it,” I say.
Eta barely raises a brow in interest. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
“What makes you say that?” I fill her in. “And you think it has something to do with what the Corporation was talking about at your birthday party?”
Back in Dahn, Karis had overheard my father talking with one of his advisors about product going missing from the lumber and steel mills. With both Kerick and Dhevan’s evasiveness this morning, it’s
not hard to tag them as being willing participants. But there has to be more to it than just that.
I nod. “It's too much of a coincidence not to think they're related. I tracked Kerick down afterwards and tried to get more info from him, but he clammed up. Said Dhevan told him to be careful of me, that I couldn't be trusted. Can you believe that?” I'm irritated, shocked, and offended all over again that Dhevan would say that about me and that Kerick would believe him. I'm not above saying my pride has been wounded.
Eta smirks. “Dhevan knows how to get under the skin, that's for sure. And it seems that Kerick has picked up on the same skill.”
I snort. “Yeah, something like that. Or it could just be neither of them like me. Though I can't possibly fathom why.” I put down my spoon. “I'm handsome, funny, and can carry a conversation in almost any company. I'm a likable guy, Eta! Everyone in Dahn loves me.” Well, loved. I’m not sure how they feel about me now.
“You're not in Dahn anymore, are you, boy?”
“But I came here to help them! I'm the one who was giving them the newsletters, to give them the hope and courage they needed to stand up against what was wrong.”
“You are first and foremost the President's son, in their eyes.” She pats me on the back of the hand and never lets her smile waver. “Give them time; they’ll see in you what I do.”
“And what do you see in me, Eta?” My optimism and self-esteem has been taking a hit lately. I need at least one person to believe in what I’m trying to do. “A selfish, immature boy playing games he can’t win?”
“I see a caring young man who just wants to help the people he loves.” She stands up. “I’m going to rest before the meeting tonight. I suggest you do the same.”
I'm lucky I get to see a side of Eta others aren't privy to. I cherish it. “You mean you're actually going to come to one?”
“Why do the young have such loose and liberal tongues?” She smacks me playfully on the back of my head. “Give me your shirt, I'll get it washed.”
“Huh?” I look down. I'd completely forgotten the blood spattering. I grab the back of my shirt behind my neck and pull it up over my head. “Thanks.” I hand it over slowly, with a sense of respect for what’s on the material. It may be the last part of Kalaen that I'm ever this close to. Eta must be thinking along the same lines because she pauses when she takes it from me, resting her fingers on mine.