Mindline

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  /Oh no. It's all yours./

  "It's a nutrition shake. It's mostly dairy but I got it coffee-flavored. That should help, right?" She grinned at him.

  "I'm sure," he said, accepting it. "Thank you."

  She chortled and padded off, leaving him staring at the cup.

  "Everyone's looking out for you," Vasiht'h said, amused. "But I think she in particular just wants to fatten you up."

  "I think this residency may ruin me for milk forever," Jahir said, and sipped it. He kept from wrinkling his nose with difficulty.

  "Oh, it can't be that bad," Vasiht'h said, laughing.

  Did the mindline permit? It did. Jahir shoved the taste and texture of it to his partner, who covered his mouth.

  "Yes? Not so bad?"

  Vasiht'h stuck out his tongue, licked his teeth. "Consider it incentive to start eating real food more often."

  Jahir sighed and forced as much of it down as he could as they walked to the next room.

  While he would not have called that shift pleasant, having Vasiht'h with him was... more than comforting. Comfortable. Right. As the hours passed, he found that he felt less tired, though his body remained taxed and he still couldn't so much as walk briskly without elevating his heart rate to a point where his head started aching. But it was more than bearable.

  "Have you made headway on your studies?" he asked as they prepared to head to the break room to pass the evening's information to the night shift.

  "More than I expected," Vasiht'h said. "Thank the Goddess. I don't want to think about what my major professor would do to me if I didn't keep up on the schoolwork after getting him to approve my excursion across the sector." He tucked his data tablet back into his saddlebag and straightened—and then frowned and took Jahir's wrist so unexpectedly Jahir stumbled. "Stop. Do you feel that?"

  They both looked toward the patient they were about to leave.

  A hissing spark rising. The nauseated anxious feel of an overstimulated body.

  Jahir reached out to touch the victim's wrist. Behind him he heard Vasiht'h yelling for Evie... but he wanted to be there, with the patient, to savor another of the Alliance's miracles. His fingers grazed flesh, brought him the shooting streams of disconnected thoughts, jangled, tangled, rising in an inchoate mire—

  Somewhere very distant, he heard something hiss, a series of chimes, and then an alarm go off. Beneath his mental fingers, the patient's mind imploded.

  He hit the ground so fast he didn't know he'd been struck until his shoulder smashed against the floor tiles. The link breaking felt like skin ripped off a wound, but it was nothing to what had been falling on him with the force of a planet, inexorable and terrifying. Vasiht'h had two forelegs over his waist and his upper body twisted off him, one arm around his chest. Above them, the Seersa and her team were frantically at work but it was too late.

  He could not even turn his face into Vasiht'h's hold. The nearness of the danger had shocked the will out of him... and Vasiht'h also, if the singing silence in the mindline was any indication.

  After a very long moment, Vasiht'h took first one leg, than the other, off him, but left the arm. He moved it down in response to Jahir's difficulty breathing, and together they remained there, on the ground, lying alongside one another until someone above them called the time of death.

  Less than a minute, Jahir thought. Probably? His sense of time had distorted. He shivered.

  Jiron appeared, crouching alongside them, ignoring the bustle behind them of healers and doctors and assists and morgue attendants. When Jahir could focus on him, the human said, "Don't need a halo-arch this time, looks like."

  He had to swallow to become capable of speech. When had his mouth grown so dry? "No. A near thing, but no. And God and Lady, no more tranquilizers."

  "Not that one, no," Jiron said. "We have more than one. They all work differently."

  Hazy memories of his pharmaceutical class on Seersana ghosted through his mind, but he was too rattled to grasp any of them. "You mean to try them all until one of them works?"

  "What other choice do we have?" Jiron said. "It's the only lead we've got on something that could help. Unless you count Eldritch esper medical students, and as far as we know we've only got one of those in the Alliance."

  "Very probably," Jahir agreed. Beside him, Vasiht'h lifted a head that ached clear into his own. The mindline made him feel raw.

  "I don't think that you should be doing this anymore," Jiron continued. "I'm going to talk to Levine about it. You've given us enough to go on, alet. I was only barely comfortable with you doing this when you first started. Now that it's clear that doing it endangers you every single time you try it..." He shook his head. "I can't condone it."

  Jahir began to protest that he had volunteered, but the words died in his mouth. The reluctance he felt was not Vasiht'h's, but his.

  "No objections?" Jiron's brows lifted. "Good. I expected to fight you about it, but it looks like you have some sense after all."

  Vasiht'h struggled upright, rubbing his head. His lower body was partially curled around Jahir's in a pose that kinked his spine, but neither of them wanted to lose the contact. They were both listing. Toward one another, at least, which made it less likely they would fall down.

  "You should be off shift in a few minutes," Jiron said. "I'll give your rundown to the night shift so you can get home early. Any comments?"

  Jahir had intended to respond, but the words that spilled from him came from seeming nowhere with an urgency that brooked no interference. "Wet. The drug. They call it wet."

  Jiron's pupils dilated visibly, though he didn't move.

  "Tell them," Jahir said.

  On the way home, Vasiht'h muttered, "Now you've done it."

  "Perhaps," he answered, tired. "But surely that will give them enough to have done with all this."

  "I wouldn't count on that."

  Chapter 18

  Vasiht'h woke before Jahir the following day, and not by intention. Their near miss with the sedated patient had left him feeling hung over, a gross injustice since he'd hated the feeling so much the only time he'd over-indulged that he'd spent the rest of his life being careful never to do so again. But he'd rolled onto a side that had put the light from the window right in his eyes, and he'd been unable to shrug off the irritation.

  A cup of tea failed to settle his stomach, though he drank it slowly, measuring each sip and willing it to soothe his frayed nerves. The silence of the apartment felt too complete with Jahir sleeping so deeply. What were they doing here? Paga was right. They were both in the wrong place. He picked up the Goddess effigy, which was no longer quite so crisply folded; Her legs were getting curled from being set on the table with a little too much force, and one of Her wings wouldn't tuck all the way in anymore. "We've got half of it right," he told Her. "We just have to get the other half."

  She didn't answer, of course; She never answered directly. It was, he thought suddenly, because of what Paga had told him, and his own mother, and that he had told Professor Palland: advice, no matter how sage, was rarely well received when it was needed. The Goddess was too wise to give Her children the answers, when answers were too easy to dismiss without the experience that made them seem like good ideas.

  What Vasiht'h really wanted was his own mother. He checked the data tablet for the time on Anseahla, which wasn't too far off from Selnor's, at least at this point; Goddess knew how long that would last with each planet rotating differently and who knew what celestial mechanics applied. He'd never been very good with those things. Should he write her a letter? He was contemplating it when the door chime rang.

  Startled, Vasiht'h looked at the door. Had he heard that? But who would come calling? Who even knew to come calling?

  When the chime sounded again, he stood and said, hesitant, "Come in."

  The door opened for a Hinichi in the plainclothes of an investigator, and at his back, a woman Vasiht'h didn't recognize in a uniform he did, from viseos and newscas
ts and more recently from his wanders through Starbase Veta.

  "Pardon me, alet," the Hinichi said. "We were told this was where we could find Mercy's Eldritch resident?"

  "You're in the right place," Vasiht'h said. "But he's sleeping. We had a rough time yesterday."

  "You've had a rough time for a few days now, if reports are accurate," the Hinichi said. "When do you think he'll be awake? It's important."

  Vasiht'h looked from him to the woman and did not need his classes in clinical assessment of body language to read just how important it was. "If you'll wait here, I can wake him up. He's about due anyway."

  "That would be very helpful, thank you."

  Vasiht'h nodded and let himself into the bedroom. His roommate was sleeping with his back to the room, blanket close around his shoulders and his hair spilled away from his neck. The morning sun left pale lavender shadows beneath the vertebrae visible there, and Vasiht'h thought he was overreacting to how deep those shadows were, and how prominent the bones. Probably. He hated to wake Jahir, but he crept closer and sank into the mindline.

  /Arii?/

  A vague sense of assent, too clear for a dreaming mind.

  Vasiht'h blew out a breath in relief. /It's important./

  Jahir rolled his head back, just enough to look over his shoulder. His eyes were bloodshot, and Vasiht'h suppressed his wince, hoping it didn't echo through the line. "There are people here," he said. "The police... and Fleet."

  The words stung him awake. Jahir tried to sit up and paused to let his spinning head stop moving before he managed. "Here?"

  "I'm afraid so. I didn't want to wake you but...."

  "No," Jahir said. "It's well. Please tell them I'll be out in a few moments."

  "All right."

  Left to himself, Jahir gripped the edge of the bed and waited for the strength to stand. He'd fallen asleep without undoing his braid or setting his ring back on his finger, and it hung loose over his knees, swinging with every labored breath. On impulse, he touched the smooth metal and then set it over his finger; even still on the chain, it slid easily into place. How much flesh had he lost? God and Lady. If the two individuals waiting in his living room would accelerate the ending of this particular episode of his life, he would gladly eschew another hour in bed to help them do so.

  Ten minutes later, he stepped out of the bedroom to find Vasiht'h sitting across from their guests. There were coffee cups and a plate of scones sitting on the coffee table. The male was Celvef, from the hospital; the woman was unfamiliar to him, a light brown Karaka'an feline with darker brown hair wrapped around her head in a neat coronet that would have suited an Eldritch noblewoman. She had eyes the bright green of a sunlight seen through a new leaf, and they lifted to him the moment he appeared, and then both his guests were rising.

  "Please," he said. "It's not necessary. I am Jahir; my roommate said you were seeking me?"

  "Yes," Celvef said. "And thank you for seeing us. This is Commander Parker, a colleague of mine from Terracentrus. She works in Fleet's illegal drug agency."

  "Commander," Jahir said.

  "Sit, please," Vasiht'h muttered.

  Celvef nodded. "Yes, please. I know you have issues with the gravity here. We're not going to take up too much of your time, and we'd like you to be comfortable."

  So he sat and rested his hands on his knees, waiting for the two of them to settle. When they had, the Karaka'an spoke first. "Marron told me you'd heard something new from the latest victim."

  "That's right," he said. "The identity of the illegal drug in question."

  "And you're sure of it," she said, eyes resting on his, forthright and far too grave.

  He tasted it on his mouth with the eagerness with which it had been said by the man who'd died. The anticipation and the dread and the terrible, terrible yearning. "Wet."

  Celvef and Parker exchanged looks.

  "You're absolutely certain," Parker said.

  "He didn't make it up," Vasiht'h said, toying with the handle of his cup. "I don't think either of us could have come up with something like that."

  "I'm certain." Jahir met her eyes. "You know this drug, though the people at Mercy do not."

  "Yes," she said. She exhaled, eyes fluttering closed. "Yes. Hell, yes, and we all hoped it wouldn't ever get this far in."

  Vasiht'h tilted his head, his curiosity peppery, almost painful to feel, too associated with grief and fear for them both. "This sounds like there's a history?"

  "Not a long one, but a bad one," Parker said. She took up her coffee cup, brushing her thumb against its wall. "We only started seeing wet in the past half year on the frontier. It's an exotic; from what we've been able to learn, it's not something that can be synthesized in a lab yet, so it's very expensive. We were hoping between that and the need for materials that aren't as easy to find in-Core, we wouldn't see wet incursion here for at least another few years. But all the money's in the Core, so that was probably naive."

  "It was a reasonable thing to hope for," Celvef said, quiet. "Just not maybe practical."

  "No." Her voice was harder. "So the bad news is one of the most dangerous illegal drugs we know of has made it all the way to the capital, which means it's likely it's spreading elsewhere also. The good news—what little we can offer—is that because it can't be manufactured artificially it has to go through the port somehow to reach the city. Marron called us in to help with that."

  "That is good news!" Vasiht'h said.

  "Yes," Celvef said. "We're hoping with Fleet helping us with the crack-down outside the orbitals, we'll be able to catch this one coming in. But I'm afraid we haven't communicated the worst of it."

  Jahir rested his hands on his knees and tried not to grip them. "Which is?"

  "We say it's one of the most dangerous illegal drugs on the market," Parker said. "There's nothing else to compare to it at all." She put her coffee mug down again without having taken a sip. "Two doses."

  "Two... doses?" Vasiht'h repeated carefully. "To... addiction?"

  "To dying," Parker said, voice clipped. "That's all you get. Sometimes not even that. The first hit can kill you."

  "I beg your pardon?" Jahir said when he could speak.

  "Two doses?" Vasiht'h added, incredulity throwing sparks through the mindline. "Two? Why in the name of the Goddess would anyone take that risk? What could possibly be so good?"

  "They say it feels like being god of the universe," Parker said. "And it excites the people who think they can beat the odds. They're not going to be one of the ones who die from it. The drug effect helps with that: the euphoria they feel, the sense of power, it makes them sure it can't happen to them. So they do it once, and then they do it again, and that's it. We haven't run into anyone so far who's made it to a third dose."

  "But how does that even make sense?" Vasiht'h asked. "How can you make a business out of a product that kills your repeat buyers the first time they come back for more?"

  Celvef cleared his throat. "Wet is very, very expensive."

  Parker added, "We think that might be why they're chancing distribution here, right under our noses: to get it into the most advanced medical systems. Because if you all can find a cure for it..."

  Was it possible to feel so much horror without becoming physically ill? The only thing that kept Jahir upright was Vasiht'h's steadying presence at his side, and his partner's reciprocal shock and rejection.

  "Needless to say, a drug that kills within one or two doses presents a challenge for law enforcement," Celvef said, drawing them back. "Our deadline for investigation gets far tighter if the victims can go from committing the crime to being dead within a day, if they're willing to take more than one dose that close together. So if you 'hear' anything more...."

  "Of course," Jahir said, managing the words past his nausea...managing the promise. Because that's what it was.

  "We aren't expecting miracles," Parker added. "Marron's told me the toll this takes on you and we want to make it clear that we're not
asking you to do anything beyond what you might already be doing. Fleet's good at this, aletsen. Whether you intervene or not, we're going to be done with this episode within a few weeks, particularly now that we know we're dealing with a wet outbreak. Since you're sure, we'll go ahead and post a bulletin to the medical staff in the city so they can keep an eye out for what few signs there are of someone who's used. You're not the only ones working on this. All right?"

  "Yes," Jahir said.

  "Good." She nodded. "And thank you both, aletsen. You gave Marron the clue that got my people involved. That was vital."

  "You're welcome."

  She nodded and rose, and let herself out. Celvef stood and added, "That goes for me too. I needed to know how short my timelines were. Now that I do... well. That will make a big difference. Thank you, aletsen."

  "Any time we might serve," Jahir said.

  "I'll see you out," Vasiht'h added, though in their laughably small apartment that amounted to little more than a formality. Once they were alone, the Glaseah's hindquarters slid down until he was sitting, wings half splayed.

  "I know," Jahir murmured. He leaned back into the chair, resting the back of his head on it; felt more than heard Vasiht'h come closer, sit next to him. The scrape of the plate against the table, though...that he heard, and couldn't believe his roommate had any appetite for the remainder of the delicacies set out for their guests.

  "I don't," Vasiht'h said. "Have an appetite. These are for you."

  "You cannot be serious."

  The plate came to rest on his knees. He opened his eyes and looked down at the pastry in disbelief. "Arii—"

  "Like it or not," Vasiht'h said, subdued, "you're still on Selnor, arii. You've got to eat." He sighed, rubbing his arms. "We did good. We should focus on that."

  "We have done nothing to save those who came to us seeking succor."

  "We can't help people who've willingly chosen to gamble with their lives. Not with odds stacked that hard against them. Maybe if we'd known them before they got involved with this stuff. But you heard the commander. Once they get this far, it's over for them."