BY MICHAEL JAN FRIEDMAN
Fight the Gods
Aztlan
Ghost Hunters
Ghost Hunting
Seeking Spirits
The Vidar Saga
The Hammer and the Horn
The Seekers and the Sword
The Fortress and the Fire
The Ultimates
Tomorrow Men
Movie Adaptations
Batman & Robin
Justice League
In Darkest Night
Wings of War
A League of His Own
Star Trek
All Good Things
Crossover
Death in Winter
My Brother’s Keeper: Republic
My Brother’s Keeper: Constitution
My Brother’s Keeper: Enterprise
Planet X
Relics
Reunion
Shadows on the Sun
Starfleet: Year One
The Valiant
Aliens
Original Sin
After Earth: Ghost Stories: Savior is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
2013 Del Rey eBook Original
Copyright © 2013 by After Earth Enterprises, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization.
Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of The Random House
Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-345-54210-6
www.delreybooks.com
www.afterearth.com/
v3.1
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
First Page
Jon doesn’t know where he is. All he knows is that he’s awake and that there’s a face looming over him. A familiar woman’s face.
How long has it been there? He can’t say. Maybe a long time, maybe not.
A name breaks the surface of his mind. “Doctor Gold,” he says, his voice sounding strange—thin and coarse—in his ears.
Her expression changes, her mouth turning up at the corners and her cheeks bunching under pale green eyes. “Yes,” says Doctor Gold in a voice like music, “it’s me, all right. Do you remember your name?”
“Blackburn. Jon Blackburn.”
“Excellent. How do you feel, Jon?”
It isn’t easy for him to comprehend the question, though it should be. It’s not a difficult question. It’s what people ask one another every day.
“How do I feel?” he echoes.
“Are you uncomfortable?”
“My brain’s wrapped in cotton. Everything seems … I don’t know. Vague.”
Doctor Gold tucks something behind an ear. “Good. That’s how you’re supposed to feel.”
Supposed to …? Why? Jon hasn’t always felt this way, has he? “What’s happened?” he asks.
“You’re in the North Side Medicenter,” says the doctor. “You had a procedure. Do you remember anything about it?”
He doesn’t.
“What kind of procedure? Was I injured?”
“No.” Doctor Gold points to the holographic screen on Jon’s left, a black one with bright gold lines undulating across it. “We did some work on your amygdalae. You remember what those are?”
Jon thinks for a moment. “Parts of the brain.”
“That’s right. And why would we work on those parts?”
Again Jon concentrates. But he can’t come up with anything. Just a flash of something big and pale moving across his field of vision.
The doctor’s expression changes again. Her mouth returns to its original shape, and her eyebrows come together in a knot of flesh above the bridge of her nose.
“It’s all right, Jon. We’ll talk about it later. For now, just get some rest.”
Jon starts to protest, but Doctor Gold holds up a hand, her fingers long and slender.
“No talking,” she insists. “Rest.”
Then she does something at the side of Jon’s bed, and suddenly Jon’s very sleepy. He watches the doctor’s face shiver like a reflection in a wind-struck pool. Then he feels himself dropping into a deep, echoing darkness.
The next time Jon wakes up, he knows where he is and has a better idea of why he’s there. Doctor Gold isn’t present at the moment. But there’s a nurse in the room, a big dark-haired man, walking over to take a look at him.
“It’s all right,” Jon says. “I’m fine.”
“Terrific,” says the nurse, though he looks concerned. “I’ll get your doctor.”
“Go ahead,” Jon says.
The nurse goes as far as the entrance to the room, stands half inside and half out, and calls to someone down the hall. A moment later, he comes back inside.
“It’ll be just a minute,” he says.
“All right,” says Jon.
Funny. He doesn’t feel the vagueness anymore, but he still feels different. Lighter somehow, as if a burden had been lifted from him.
Suddenly the nurse is back in the room. “Sorry. Turns out it’ll be more than a minute. Do you mind waiting?”
Jon finds that he doesn’t mind at all.
He leans back into the pillow and wonders how long it will be. Not that he cares. He just wonders.
Despite what the nurse has said, it doesn’t take long for Doctor Gold to show up. She has long blond hair. She tucks some of it behind her ear as she sits down on the edge of his bed.
“Feeling better?” she asks.
This time he knows how to answer. “The cotton’s gone.”
“That’s good. Do you remember anything more about your procedure?”
“I remember that you operated on my amygdalae.”
“Not me, actually. That was Doctor Nizamani. But yes … your amygdalae …”
“The amygdalae control fear.” He recalls having heard someone say so.
“That’s true.”
“You wanted me to be unafraid.” He recalls that, too.
“You wanted it as well, Jon. That’s why you volunteered for the procedure.”
“I … volunteered?”
Doctor Gold tilts her head to one side. “Do you remember the Ursa, Jon?”
He sees the flash of something big and pale again. As pale as a fish’s belly. “Yes. They kill people. They’re predators.”
“They are. And we’ve been dealing with them for hundreds of years on and off. We get rid of them, and then a new wave appears, each one more difficult to exterminate than the last. Does this sound familiar?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. You also recall that the Ursa in this wave are better hunters than the ones we’ve dealt with in the past. That’s because they have an ability they never had before. They sense our fear.
“Lately we’ve discovered that there are people who can elude the Ursa—people who don’t experience fear under certain circumstances. We call them Ghosts. Unfortunately, there are only a handful of them, and they can’t be everywhere—which is why there were hundreds of lethal Ursa attacks in the last year alone.”
Was that a lot? Jon didn’t know.
“Then we asked ourselves, ‘Why not explore the possibility of creating Ghosts?’ In other words, taking away the ability to experience fear. We experimented with a number of ways to do this, but none of them completely eradicated the fear response. That left us with just one approach: the one we pursued in your case.”
“A procedure.”
“Yes.”
“On my amygdalae
.”
“It was Doctor Nizamani’s idea. He knew that the amygdalae process sensory information and react by instilling in the brain what we know as fear. And he’ll tell you that they do so for good reason. Without fear, our ancestors would never have been spurred to flee from saber-tooth tigers and other predators.
“So what we were talking about was going against nature. That’s something we don’t do around here when we can help it. But the Ursa are taking a terrible toll, Jon. We have to try any approach that has a reasonable chance of success. And we thought if we took away your fear—”
“I could be a Ghost.”
“Yes. And if it worked in your case, it might work in others.”
Jon thinks about that. “Did it work?”
“What do you think?”
He examines his mental state. “I don’t feel any fear. However, I don’t think there’s anything in this room I’d be scared of. Is there?”
“Nothing,” the doctor agrees.
“Then am I undetectable to the Ursa?”
She shrugs. “There’s really only one way to find out. But first you’ve got to recuperate from your surgery.” She starts to leave—to go on to her next patient, Jon imagines.
“Will you continue to visit?” he asks.
Doctor Gold stops long enough to say, “As long as you need me.”
Soon Jon receives a visit from another doctor: the one who performed his surgery. Doctor Nizamani is a small man with a big head and a dark beard flecked with gray. One small spot on the left side of his chin. Doctor Nizamani’s mouth, like Doctor Gold’s, pulls up at the corners. And like Doctor Gold, he asks Jon what he remembers. When Jon responds, Doctor Nizamani makes notes on a personal access tablet.
“Are you experiencing headaches? Other discomfort?”
“No,” Jon says.
“Good.” Doctor Nizamani studies the computer data on the hologram beside Jon’s bed, calling up one screen after the other. Finally, he says, “I want you to walk up and down the hall, get some exercise. Your nurse, Marcus, will accompany you. How’s that sound?”
“Sound?” Jon says. He’s not sure what the doctor is asking. “You mean …?”
Doctor Nizamani pats Jon on the shoulder. “Never mind. Just walk.”
Then the doctor leaves. The nurse with the dark hair approaches Jon.
“Ready to take a walk?” he asks.
Jon says he’s ready. With the nurse’s help, he gets out of bed. His legs are weak, and they shake a little.
But he walks.
Jon and Marcus negotiate the length of the hall four times. Then Marcus helps Jon back into his bed.
“Nice job,” Marcus says, extending his hand.
Jon looks at it, wondering what Marcus expects of him. After a while, Marcus takes his hand back. “That’s okay,” he says.
Jon has no idea what Marcus is talking about.
The next morning, Jon and Marcus walk again. Afterward, the nurse tells Jon he can take his meal in the cafeteria instead of in bed.
The cafeteria contains eight rectangular metal tables. It’s empty except for a couple of other patients sitting at the table nearest the window.
One of them is a tall fair-haired man who is missing an arm. The other is a woman with dark skin and a long black braid. The right side of her face, including one of her eyes, is covered with a bandage.
They’re eating food from blue ceramic trays. Jon sees perhaps fifty such trays stacked by a wall alongside a buffet counter offering perhaps twenty choices of casserole, sandwich, salad, and soup.
Marcus says he’ll be right back. “Enjoy yourself.”
Jon considers the nurse’s choice of words. Enjoy? He scans the buffet. Nothing appeals to him. But he knows he has to eat.
“Hey,” says the fair-haired man, his voice echoing a little as he addresses Jon across the room, “I felt the same way the first time. At least it’s hot.”
Felt? “I don’t—”
“It’s all right,” says the woman with the dark braid. “After you’re here awhile, you get a little crazy. Grab some food and sit down.”
She pats the bench beside her. Jon doesn’t know why.
Following her instructions, he gets a tray and places some food on it, then goes to a table and sits down.
But before he can lift a forkful of casserole to his mouth, the fair-haired man says, “If you want your privacy, we’re fine with that. But we’d prefer it if you’d join us.”
“Come on,” the woman says. “We won’t bite.”
Jon doesn’t understand the reason for the comment. He hadn’t expected her to bite.
“Or,” said the man, “we can join you.”
Jon doesn’t object. A moment later, the man and the woman bring their trays over and sit down.
“Arvo,” the man says. “Arvo Lankinen. Good to meet you.”
“Yada Srasati,” says the woman. She looks at Jon for a moment. “How do you feel?”
“The cotton’s gone,” Jon replies.
“The cotton?” Her skin bunches up over the bridge of her nose the same way Doctor Gold’s did.
“You mean your head is clear?” Arvo asks.
Jon turns to him. “Yes.” He sees his companions exchange glances and doesn’t know why.
“It’s all right,” Yada says. “You’ve been through a lot. It’s going to take time before you’re back on your game.”
“I suppose so,” Jon says.
As they continue to converse, he learns that Arvo and Yada are Rangers. Their injuries are the result of Ursa encounters.
“Listen,” Arvo says. “I want to tell you how much I appreciate what you’re doing. You’re making a sacrifice, I know.”
“But if it works,” Yada adds, “we may be able to get rid of the Ursa once and for all. And if that happens, there’ll be less misery in the world.” She touches her bandage in the vicinity of her eye. “A whole lot less.”
Misery, Jon thinks. He doesn’t know what to say to that, either.
Over the next couple of days, Doctor Nizamani is the only physician who comes to visit. Jon wonders where Doctor Gold is. One morning, after Doctor Nizamani checks Jon’s data screens, he says, “I’m clearing you for light exercise. You know where the gym is, right?”
“Yes,” Jon says.
“You can use any of the machines with the green signs. The yellows and the reds, you’ll work your way up to. Got it?”
“Yes,” Jon says. “Can I go now?”
“Absolutely.”
The gym is down the hall, on the right. Jon knows because he has passed it on his walks.
When he enters the place, he sees Yada there. She’s running on a treadmill, her braid flopping up and down.
Jon’s been eating with her and Arvo whenever he sees them in the cafeteria. To an outsider, it may look as if they were friends. To Jon, they were just three people sharing the same table until their meal had been consumed. Sometimes there are one or two other patients there as well.
Sometimes there’s no one and Jon eats alone.
There’s a female attendant who directs him to an apparatus with a green sign even before he asks, and so he gathers that she already has received instructions from Doctor Nizamani.
When Yada realizes that Jon is in the room, she stops exercising, picks up a towel, and walks over to him. “Jon,” she says, dabbing at the exposed portion of her face, “I missed you this morning at breakfast. Arvo’s been discharged, you know.”
“I wasn’t aware of that,” he says.
“Don’t worry; he’ll be back to visit. I made him promise that.”
Jon doesn’t understand why he would be inclined to worry, or why Yada would ask such a thing of Arvo, or why Arvo would agree to it. But then, he’s finding there are lots of things he doesn’t understand.
As he and Yada speak, a couple of other patients enter the gym. One, a fellow with a shaven head and thickly muscled arms, is ensconced in a mag-lev chair. Another, who moves stiffl
y, is bandaged around his middle.
They’re new to the medicenter, they say, but they know about Jon’s procedure. Like Yada, Arvo, and the other injured Rangers on the ward, they thank Jon for his sacrifice. They express the hope that his courage will help them wipe out the Ursa.
“Bet you can’t wait to get out there,” the man in the mag-lev chair says.
Jon doesn’t know why he would be unable to wait. Anyway, he has no choice in the matter. “My doctors won’t allow me to leave the medicenter until I’m ready.”
The man in the mag-lev chair looks at him for a moment. Then his mouth turns up at the corners, and he says, “Damned doctors!”
The others open their mouths and make a sound Jon doesn’t recognize. Or rather, he recognizes it but can’t put a name to it. It sounds like ha-ha-ha-ha.
Yada seems to notice his lack of comprehension. She makes eye contact with the others. Soon they stop making the sound.
“Jon’s probably got a routine he needs to start,” she says. “Let’s let him get to it.”
“Sure,” says the man in the mag-lev chair. “Can’t hunt Ursa till you’re back in shape, right?”
Jon assumes that the man is right.
Jon’s starting to doze off on his bed, fatigued from his workout in the gym, when Doctor Gold enters his room.
“Hey there,” she says.
Jon sits up. “I didn’t know if you were coming back.”
“You can’t get rid of me that easily.” She checks the data on the hologram beside his bed. “Did you see Doctor Nizamani today?”
“This morning. He cleared me to work out.”
“Excellent.” She continues to check his data. “That means you’re making progress.”
“I have a question.”
Doctor Gold turns to him. “What’s that, Jon?”
He tells her about Yada’s request for information the other day in the cafeteria: “How do you feel?”
“I didn’t know how to answer her,” he says. “I still don’t. Then, just a little while ago, in the gym, someone said something and everyone made a sound. I didn’t know what to make of that, either.”
Doctor Gold tilts her head to the side. “What was it that person said?”
Jon did his best to replicate the remark: “Damn doctors!”
Savior-After Earth Page 1