by Fonda Lee
Donovan imagined himself as a brain-dead vegetable, or a drooling, limping, half-armored ruin of a man. If this goes horribly wrong, just let me die on the operating table, he prayed.
Though it was larger and better equipped, the doctor’s lab reminded Donovan unpleasantly of the basement that he and his erze mates had raided in Denver. Sapience had obviously gone to some effort to help Nakada rebuild. Instruments Donovan couldn’t make sense of sat next to shelves laden with containers of preserved samples. An orderly array of petri dishes was lined up on one counter. Each held a piece of what looked like pale pink tissue overlaid with panotin, floating on top of a film of some sort of nutrient gel that kept the whole thing alive. As Donovan watched, a machine with a small robotic arm lowered a needle into each dish and took some mysterious measurement as each fragment of panotin responded, knitting layers to protect the bit of flesh underneath. It was as morbid as seeing a row of disembodied fingers twitching on the table. Donovan backed off hastily.
“Please don’t touch any of the experiment setups,” Dr. Nakada said sternly.
Donovan turned away and gripped the back of Nakada’s empty chair, his knuckles thickening with armor. He felt a sudden urge to spin around and sweep his arm across the counter, to destroy the equipment and the grisly petri dishes. What was he doing here? This was a terrible idea. His worst one ever. He ought to leave this butcher’s shop right now. No one was stopping him. Go back to the Round, apologize to Jet, rejoin his erze mates. Follow orders and abandon Earth. Survive.
Anya’s hand on his arm nearly made him jump. She eyed him, possibly noticing his slightly wild expression. “Let’s get out of this room,” she said, leading him to the door.
Out in the greenish hallway, Anya spun to face him and spoke in a loud whisper. “You don’t have to do this.” Her voice echoed a little in the empty corridor. “You said the shrooms would save some of the exos. You would be one of them, wouldn’t you?” When Donovan didn’t answer, she stepped close and curled one hand around his forearm, her grip surprisingly strong as she tilted her face up to his. “Why take such a big risk when you don’t have to? Why not save yourself?”
Hearing Anya echo his thoughts as if she’d read his mind and seeing the frustrated look on her face somehow dissipated Donovan’s sense of panic. His pulse came back down. “Would you leave if you could?” he asked.
“Yes,” Anya said. “You do whatever you have to do to look after yourself. You can’t count on anyone else to do it. Sometimes that means you have to leave.” Her fingers tightened urgently on his arm. “I’d even get on a spaceship with shrooms. I’d do it.”
He wasn’t sure how to reply. Anya had had a much harder childhood than he’d had. Donovan didn’t imagine she’d have made it to where she was today if she didn’t have an instinct for survival. She’d attached herself to Kevin, she’d joined Sapience, she’d made herself useful to Saul. Donovan believed her when she said she would leave Earth if it came down to it.
Donovan lowered his eyes. “My mom didn’t save herself even though she could have. She believed there were things worth dying for. My dad was the Prime Liaison for sixteen years; he always knew he might be assassinated. If I take the easy way out, if I save myself, what does that say about me?”
“It would say that you’re smart,” Anya insisted. “Smarter than them. If they were alive, I’m sure they would both want you to live.” She put a hand under his chin and lifted his face back up so she could meet his eyes. Donovan’s heart gave a little stutter of surprise to see her eyes glistening, beseechingly, in the dim fluorescent light. “I want you to live.”
“You’re sounding awfully fatalistic,” Donovan said, smiling weakly and trying to leaven his voice. “Trust me, I want to live too. Don’t you have faith in Dr. Nakada?”
Anya hesitated. “Yeah.” Her tone did not suggest overwhelming optimism.
“There are some things you can’t leave behind. Including who you are. The way I was raised …” Duty. Responsibility. Sacrifice. The greater good. Ideas that had been drilled into him by his father and his erze for as long as he could remember. He unwrapped Anya’s hand from his arm and held on to it tightly. “I might be the only person who has Ghosh’s information and can do anything about it right now. If that’s true, then it means I have to do this.”
Anya blinked hard and lowered her eyes, dropping the crown of her head so it rested gently on Donovan’s chest. He put an arm around her, as much to comfort himself as to reassure her. The grumble of the old building’s ventilation system filled the grudging silence. In a small voice, Anya said, “We should try to get some sleep.”
They found two benches in the hallway. Anya wadded her jacket up into a pillow and curled up onto one of them. Donovan lay down on the other. He was so exhausted that even on the hard, narrow surface, he dropped off quickly.
Some unguessable time later, he was awakened by Anya’s hand on his shoulder. She didn’t draw her touch away even when he opened his eyes and sat up. Donovan reached up and placed his own hand over hers. “What time is it?” he croaked, his voice thick with sleep.
“It’s seven thirty in the morning,” Anya said. “I went over to the SRP house and talked to a few folks so no one gets too suspicious. I told them we came in late after a long drive and were sleeping in the truck because you felt more comfortable there.” Anya glanced over at the door to Nakada’s lab. “The doctor says he’s ready and that if you’re still going to do this, we probably shouldn’t wait. People will leave us alone for a while, but then they’ll start to wonder.”
Donovan nodded. He still felt weary but more clearheaded. As he got up from the bench, he was struck more acutely than ever by how sore he was. The pain in his shoulder was less sharp now, more nagging, but the joint remained swollen and difficult to move. And his stomach would be rumbling if it wasn’t so tightly knotted with anxiety and fear. What he was about to do seemed even more insane now than it had last night.
Dr. Nakada’s lab had been transformed into a makeshift operating room. The table had been covered with a pad and plastic sheeting. A surgical arm was mounted at the head of the table and a nearby mobile cart contained trays of instruments. The scientist was moving about in a decidedly purposeful manner now, alternately reviewing his screen and making mysterious adjustments to equipment. Donovan doubted the doctor had slept at all, but Nakada didn’t seem any the worse for wear; perhaps he was used to working through the night.
Donovan stood in the doorway of the lab and suddenly found it hard to take another step forward. He thought of body parts in jars and corpses with exposed brains, and his mouth went dry. The sense of panic he’d quelled earlier began rising again. There had to be another way. Some solution he’d overlooked that didn’t involve putting his own life at risk.
Whose life, then? Some exo had to be the test case. The Rii were here now. The Mur colonists were leaving now and taking their chosen young exos with them. There wasn’t time to hope that the Prime Liaison or someone in the government would read Ghosh’s files and gather together real doctors who could run proper tests in real hospitals. Donovan’s father had been the one to go behind everyone’s back to obtain this vital information. If he’d intended for it to be used, Donovan couldn’t ask or hope for some other exo to be the first to risk his life.
At that moment, his comm unit vibrated insistently and he nearly jumped. He looked down it. Jet. Donovan’s stomach contorted sharply. He’d forgotten that he was supposed to be with his erze mates right now, receiving evacuation instructions. Donovan’s hand froze just over his transmitter toggle. If he answered his partner’s call, what would he say? How could he explain where he was and what he was doing? Several long seconds of paralyzed indecision passed. The comm unit fell silent and a new message flashed alongside a list of other missed calls. Jet had been trying to reach him for hours. It was a testament to his exhaustion that Donovan had slept so deeply he’d missed his partner’s increasingly frantic attempts.
; WE’RE SUPPOSED TO REPORT TO CENTRAL AT 0800. ERZE ORDERS.
IT’S 0400. WHERE ARE YOU??
I’M SORRY I KICKED YOU OUT. JUST TELL ME WHERE YOU ARE.
DAMMIT ANSWER ME.
When Donovan raised his eyes, he saw that Dr. Nakada and Anya were watching him. “They’ve noticed you’re gone,” Anya said.
Donovan nodded. “I’ve shut off location tracking on my comm. They can still trace me eventually, but it won’t be for a while.”
Dr. Nakada bent over a sink and washed his hands, then turned back to Donovan as he dried them on a clean towel. Donovan hadn’t moved. “Are you still prepared to go through with this?” Nakada asked.
Donovan’s hands and feet had gone quite cold. “Yes,” he said.
Nakada turned to Anya. “An operation like this usually requires assistants. I realize you have no training, but I’ve labeled everything on the trays. If you’d be so kind as to hand me tools when I ask for them?”
Anya nodded and went to wash her hands.
Donovan set his comm unit aside. He removed his holstered sidearm and set it down as well, then shrugged out of his jacket and slung it over Nakada’s chair. Clinging tight to his delicate sense of resolve, he hopped up onto the table. It wasn’t a particularly comfortable surface, but it wasn’t any worse than the bench he’d slept on out in the hallway.
“You have to record everything,” he told Nakada. “Whatever happens, you have to make notes and get them out there.”
The doctor nodded. Donovan lay down and stared up at the bank of ceiling lights. Don’t think. He tried to take a deep breath, but it came out shaky; his armor was up and his heart was racing. This was worse than going into a firefight. At least a soldier-in-erze with a weapon in his hands would have some control over his situation.
Dr. Nakada held a plastic mask up to Donovan’s nose and mouth. “Exocel suppressant,” he explained. “Just breathe normally.”
“Why does this thing smell funny?” Donovan asked.
“It’s been mostly used on primate test subjects. Don’t worry, I’ve completely sterilized it, but the smell doesn’t quite come out.”
An image of grotesquely Hardened monkeys flashed into Donovan’s mind and it was all he could do to not jerk away. He picked out a water stain on the ceiling and focused on it, trying to use the breathing patterns he’d learned in combat training.
Anya’s face appeared over his. She gazed down at him, then bent over and pressed her lips to his brow. Her touch on his skin fortified him and his hands unclenched. “You’re brave,” she whispered. “Crazy, but brave.”
The suppressant worked fast. In less than a minute, his exocel dropped away and he couldn’t feel it anymore. “I’m administering the sedative.” Dr. Nakada’s voice was unexpectedly soothing, as if he were talking his way through a demonstration video. Donovan heard the soft hiss of gas from the tube connected to the face mask. A sense of calm began to settle over him. His muscles relaxed; his limbs grew heavy. The lights above turned fuzzy.
Suddenly, Dr. Nakada and Anya jerked their heads up at some sound in the hallway. Alarm swept across both their faces, and then the door of the laboratory slammed open.
Kevin Warde barged in and stopped. His eyes went wide and his cruel mouth fell agape at the scene before him. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Donovan tore the mask off. Regular air flooded into his lungs and awareness shot back into his brain, but when he tried to roll off the table and lunge for his gun on the desk, his rubbery, unresponsive limbs folded and he collapsed to the floor. Kevin crossed the distance between them in a few strides and kicked Donovan hard in the side with his steel-toed boot.
Donovan felt the impact, but not the pain. He could thank the drugs in his system for that mercy at least, though they had rendered him helpless. He tried to leverage himself forward, to tackle Kevin around the knees, but he felt as if he were moving through molasses. His coordination was gone, his sense of distance distorted. Kevin stepped away from Donovan’s clumsy grab and kicked him again. Donovan’s body curled around the blow. He grabbed Kevin’s leg, pulling across with both hands to slice through the calf, but nothing happened. He still had no use of his exocel. He couldn’t even armor himself, much less form blades.
Kevin kicked him square in the chest. All the breath left Donovan’s body. His grip fell away and he gasped noisily, like a fish suddenly thrown onto the deck of a ship. In the background, he heard noisy commotion and Anya screaming. “Kevin, stop! Stop it!”
As he flopped on the floor, Donovan caught a glimpse of Anya twisting and struggling, her arms pinned to her sides from behind by another man, dark-skinned with pale eyes—Kevin’s friend Javid. In desperation, Donovan grabbed the first thing he could get his hands on: the mask and tube now hanging discarded from Nakada’s surgical setup. His nearly dead weight dragged the whole mobile cart of equipment over. Clattering metal instruments hit the concrete floor in a shower of noise. Kevin stumbled back from the tipping equipment and into the surgical arm; it swung around and barely missed striking Dr. Nakada, who jumped back, cowering against the wall, his shaking hands over his head.
Donovan snatched the nearest thing on the ground—a metal tool that looked like a drill bit—then pushed himself to his feet and lunged at Kevin with all the willpower left at his command. Two seconds faster and six inches over to the left and he would’ve planted the object in Kevin’s throat. Instead, he missed and went staggering forward. Almost casually, Kevin smashed him in the temple with the butt of his pistol.
This time he felt the pain.
The next thing Donovan knew he was being dragged across the floor. He must’ve passed out for several seconds when he hit the ground. The world was oddly muted and blurred and his body seemed disconnected.
“Don’t kill him,” Anya pleaded. “Just leave him and let’s get out of here. I’ll go with you, Kevin. We’ll go wherever you want.”
“Jesus, Anya,” Kevin grunted. “After all the years we’ve known each other, do you take me for an idiot? You think this is about you?” Kevin heaved Donovan another few feet and dropped him. “As if I’d want you back after you’ve been with a shroom pet.” Kevin patted his cargo-vest pockets and took out a pair of handcuffs. He pulled Donovan’s limp arms over his head and locked them around a metal table leg.
“Don’t kill him,” Anya begged again, quietly.
Kevin straightened up. He took off his ball cap, wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve, and jammed it back on. “Eugene,” he said to the cringing Dr. Nakada, “you want to tell me what’s going on?”
Dr. Nakada gulped, looking around his wrecked laboratory. “Kevin,” he said, wringing his hands, “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Javid and I came to move you to a safer spot. I don’t trust the folks here anymore. They’ve been slipping. Lax security, for one thing. We’ve got an army going in Nevada now, with good, smart people—one-hundred-percent True Sapience. But when we arrived, we saw the smashed window and got worried about you, Doc. Real worried.”
“I … well …” Dr. Nakada looked almost apologetic for having caused Kevin any concern.
Donovan felt as if the nerves in his torso and limbs were slowly reconnecting to his brain, but he found he didn’t want this. Pain was interfering conspicuously with his body’s desire that he return to unconsciousness. He couldn’t think clearly beyond knowing that he was, once again, at the mercy of the man he loathed most in the world. His cheek was pressed to the cold ground and there was a wetness under him that he realized from the smell was blood. Without the protection of his exocel, his shoulder wound had opened and was leaking.
“Are you working with the shroom pets now, Doc?” Javid’s voice from the other side of the room, with that unpredictable, manic edge to it that Donovan remembered so well. “Why’s this stripe here? Are you a turncoat for the government?”
“No, no,” Dr. Nakada reassured the two men hastily, sweat beading on his forehead. “It’s nothing like that
.”
“What’s it like, then?” Javid demanded.
Stay with it, Donovan commanded himself. Don’t pass out again. Think. Think, dammit. You’re handcuffed to a table. Kevin has a gun. Javid has Anya. What can you do?
Anya broke in. “The Rii are real, Kevin. I saw a video of them. They’re the ones who dropped the bombs on the cities. They’re kicking the other shrooms off Earth and taking over.”
Kevin shrugged, kicking some scattered surgical tools out of the way. “Shrooms are shrooms. If it takes new ones arriving to finally bring about the war, so be it. All’s the same to me.”
“It’s not the same,” Donovan slurred, managing to crawl to his knees so that he was hugging the table leg. “The Rii don’t care about humans.”
Kevin squatted back down to Donovan’s level. “Shrooms have never cared about humans. Sure, maybe they value their pets. But not humans.”
“Still, no one is explaining what the hell is going on here.” Javid’s voice was becoming menacingly impatient.
“I agreed to test some research he brought to me, that’s all.” Dr. Nakada dabbed nervously at his upper lip with the back of his wrist. “Hardened individuals have a neural reflex that prevents them from armoring in aggression toward zhree. He was … We were … interested in whether the reflex could be eliminated with a surgical procedure.”
Kevin cocked his head for a moment. Then a broad smirk spread across his face. He didn’t take his eyes off Donovan. “You want to fight the shrooms now, zebrahands? Is that it? Just woke up to the fact that your masters have been keeping you shackled all this time, and now you want to join the cause?” Kevin looked over his shoulder and exchanged a look of vicious amusement with Javid. “How about that, Javid? A feral shroom pet. Never seen one before.”
Javid chuckled to satisfy Kevin, but he was staring down at Donovan with pure malice. Donovan recalled all too clearly that Javid had tried to kill him on two occasions before, and now his expression suggested that he believed a third attempt would be the charm. “We ought to put it down,” he said.