by Hanna, K. T.
“Sai?” Aishke’s voice is stronger than the first time she woke, and Sai lifts her head to smile at the younger girl.
“Look at you, talking and whatnot.” She shifts herself in the chair and reaches out a hand, catching Aishke’s and examining the once-again tawny tones.
“It’s that whole voice-box thing.” Aishke’s words cut out a little, like there’s a croak in her throat. She watches Sai with serious eyes. “You seem sad.”
Sai tugs out her ponytail and runs her hands through her uneven hair. “Not sad. Just worried.”
“About me?” Ash asks a little breathlessly.
Sai nods. “About you. About us. About everything.”
“I’m okay, and we can handle this.”
“You don’t even realize the danger we pulled you back from. The danger I might have put you in.” Sai stamps her feet and pushes up to a standing position. Her voice sounds hopeless even to her. “The core isn’t a secret weapon, and I don’t know if I can wean us off it and still give us any hope of winning this war.”
Aishke’s eyes grow larger with every word. Sai shouldn’t take it out on her, but there’s no one else to listen, no one else she has the power to make sit out of the conflict.
“What do you mean it’s not a secret weapon? It won’t happen again, Sai, I swear.” There are tears in her eyes, and Sai wishes it were easier, but this is the only way.
“The core won’t just kill us, Ash. It can take us over. Feed off us.” She grips her friend’s hand. “I had to pull you back. We’re lucky you protected yourself before it dug in. But I don’t have the strength to pull everyone back and still have enough left to fight.”
Sudden comprehension dawns in Aishke’s expression and she snatches her hand back, scowling. “You’re not leaving me behind.”
Sai shakes her head, fighting her own tears of frustration. “I have to. One more lapse from you, in the middle of battle, and I won’t be able to pull you back before you careen off to wherever it is our minds will go.”
“No. You need me.” Aishke pushes herself up in bed, her jaw stubbornly set. “You will push yourself too far, you’ll overdo it. If you have me there, I know you’ll think twice about everything.”
Sai swallows what she was going to say and mulls over the words. “You have a point.”
“Of course I have a point.” Aishke’s gaze intensifies. “I know what I did, and therefore I know how not to do it again. I won’t be pulling back this time. There won’t be a need.”
Sai can already feel her resolve weakening. “I’d really prefer it if you didn’t come…”
Aishke snorts softly, and when she speaks, there’s hardly any croak left to her voice. “No, you wouldn’t.”
She’s right. As much as she can’t afford to lose Aishke like she lost Iria, Sai also can’t afford to go into battle without her support. “Just promise me you won’t get dead.”
For a moment, a streak of sadness crosses Aishke’s face, but she forces a smile. “I promise.”
Sai doesn’t even care that it’s a lie.
Dom watches out of the corner of his eye as Darrien approaches Sai. There’s an uneasy tension to the man’s shoulders.
“Dom?”
He snaps his attention back to Dael. They’re watching him with a soft understanding he isn’t sure where they get it from. “What?”
“I don’t think I have all the vision filters you have.” They sound almost apologetic, and Dom shrugs off his irritation, keeping an ear out for Sai’s conversation while he concentrates on double-checking the abilities of all the other dominos. Several of them seem to be as whole as he is, while others are missing components and, oddly enough, morphing abilities.
He frowns, reaching out to scan Dael’s mind. “You’re right. I’ll make sure to assign you to a sector that won’t require infrared. We’ll leave you with thermal vision instead.”
“Right.” Dael nods but hesitates a moment.
“Back to the drills.” They nod again and rejoin the others. Dom watches them all, lining up to recalibrate their abilities after the tinkering that Mathur had to do and all their self-healing. He wants to tell them that it’s taking too long, but everyone knows they have a time limit.
“You can’t let her come with us. Experience or not, we can’t wait that long.” Darrien’s voice has risen a notch, and Sai stops her drill instruction to turn to face him. Dom listens, trying to appear not to.
“Don’t fight Aishke’s battles for her.” Her voice is calm, collected. “We won’t be waiting.”
“We can’t take her with us half-healed,” he persists, pushing further than Dom knows is wise. He almost feels sorry for the guy.
“Are you willing to bet your life on that?” Sai asks softly. So softly in fact that Dom is fairly certain he’s the only one paying enough attention to hear it. Her students are still running their throw drills amidst a series of soft grunts.
Sai speaks again when Darrien doesn’t answer, her tone sharper. “Are you willing to bet my life on that? The mission? The future of everyone on Alpha, of everyone in the PC?”
Darrien shrugs and looks away. Dom grins at his sudden resignation.
“I thought not.” She sighs. “It’s not that I want her there. For purely selfish reasons, I want her out of harm’s way. But we need her there, just in case.”
Sai turns back to her students, face grim, jaw set. “You’re getting sloppy. Raise that elbow when you aim for the throat, Leanne. You can’t hurt the dummy, but you won’t hurt anyone else either if you don’t learn the technique.”
She pauses and mutters so softly Dom strains to hear it. “You can go back to your drills now, Darrien. I need your division ready, too, thanks.”
Her head moves to glance in Dom’s direction, but he makes sure his eyes are back on his own contingent, even though he’s pretty sure she knows he was listening. Taking Aishke with them is still bugging her, but it’s better for it to bug her now than for her to come up short in the field.
As if on cue, a sliver of darkness tries to weave its way across his vision. He straightens himself and wills it away, closing himself off to intrusion—at least, he hopes he is. It lingers for a few moments, so much that he begins to wonder if it’ll ever go away entirely again.
A flash of the bloodlust lingers under his tongue, a brief jolt of adrenaline that threatens to undo him. He clenches his fists and centers himself. On Alpha, on Bastian, on Sai…
Slowly, the memories recede, the gleeful strength and strange lust for death vanishing almost in a sulk.
Fifty-Four—Lara, as she likes to call herself—is at his elbow. He’s not sure when she got there. Hell, he’s not even sure how long these small episodes last. But they leave him the equivalent of breathless, grasping for time he thinks he’s lost. He hasn’t had many, but he’s glad he told Kayde yesterday because they seem to be becoming a regular thing.
“Are you well?” she asks. Lara hasn’t mastered the human inflections of speech yet. Her voice has a strange underlying hiss they can’t seem to get rid of, and the way her eyes slit sometimes reminds him of a desert snake.
“I was just thinking,” he answers, trying to put her at ease with a smile. Although the expression isn’t as effective on dominos as it is on humans.
She blinks and nods. “I believe I only see in thermal vision. Will this handicap me?”
Dom sighs and shakes his head. Every day seems longer, and they have to squeeze as much out of each of them as possible. He places fingers against Lara’s temples and focuses for a moment. She’s right—thermal, it is. “I’ll send you with James. Since it’s the way you always see, you’re more used to it than the rest of us. You can pick out any human-based ambushes. Remember, Damascus will show up as a slightly colder area.”
She nods and rejoins the others.
Dom leans back, flexing the adrium in his chest as he watches his students and their groups. They’re trying to test their sight reflexes and align all of their sens
es through the different variations available to them. It’s a complex set of exercises, but necessary if they’re to be at peak performance.
His chest is almost back to normal, and his leg healed fully a couple of days ago. Just a couple of sluggish spots still when he ripples through colors. He’ll soon be good as new, with a profound new appreciation for life.
“Will you be at the meeting later?”
Sai stands next to him, her voice low, eyes scanning over the dominos as she frowns slightly.
“You’re getting very stealthy,” he murmurs, watching her for a moment instead. “Of course I will. Kayde is trying to develop a…suppressant? I think that’s what she called it.”
“For the parasite?” Sai raises an eyebrow, and if he focuses on her eyes, he’s sure he can see a million thoughts fluttering through her brain at once. He could intrude and hear them without her ever knowing, but that’s one temptation he knows to resist.
“In a manner of speaking. With my makeup, it’s more of a way to help me set up a barrier that it can’t get through.”
Sai blinks at him. “So a suppressant.”
Dom rolls his eyes. It’s harder to do than humans make it look. “Sure. Are you here for small talk?”
She shakes her head. “Just…checking.” She leaves it there because she doesn’t need to say more. They both know how much they rely on one another, how much they keep each other grounded and balanced. And just how badly things fell apart when it seemed the other might be gone.
Dom nods once curtly. It’s all she needs, and he claps his hands as she walks away. “Team up. Combat drills. Attackers, dull your edges. Defenders, use morphing capabilities to adapt for blows.” He watches them as they move easily into formation and comply. Maybe they have a chance. “Go!”
Maybe.
Kayde is balancing several beakers precariously on each other when Dom walks into her lab. Upon closer inspection, Dom realizes they’re more haphazardly discarded than balanced. He raises an eyebrow at the scientist, and she shrugs, somehow keeping both hands perfectly steady.
“What? I don’t have time to be tidy today.”
“I’m not used to the mess. You’re usually meticulous.” He refrains from making it a jab and instead smiles slightly to try and take the edge off. Before meeting Sai, he never worried about offending people, but she always wants to help everyone. Being nice to people seems the easiest way to do that.
“I have three different options stewing in my cooler. Once they’re ready, I’ll need you to trigger the…parasite and then see if it makes a difference.” She eyes him, her gaze cool but compassionate. “I know it’s not ideal, but we don’t have the luxury for me to run a full series of tests. You’re my guinea pig.”
Dom laughs, but the sound feels uneasy in his throat. “Do we have time for this? Don’t we have the final outfitting and supplies meeting?”
Kayde smiles. “Yes, we do. Right here in this very lab.”
Dom glances around the tiny room dubiously. “We’re all going to fit in here?”
She laughs, her tongue sticking out slightly as she deftly combines two gel-type liquids with another in a tray. “Of course we will,” she says as she pops that one in her cooler, too.
“Do you think this will work on others?” he asks, but he knows they couldn’t be that lucky. Nothing ever goes smoothly; it’s just not natural.
She turns around, and the sadness extends to her whole expression, where shortly before there was just the sheer joy that she got when solving a scientific riddle. “Perhaps. If it works for you and I downgrade the toxicity for human systems, then it could very well work. But they don’t have the adrium levels of innate healing. Right now, Dom, I’m not looking for the perfect solution. I’m seeking a stopgap measure that you can use so we can have you at full strength.”
He knows deep down that she’s right, that regardless of anything else he’s the strongest domino they have, even after the injury. But triggering his dark half comes so easily now. He needs to believe it can’t get the better of him, because if it does, he’s not sure he’ll know who’s an enemy and who isn’t.
Mason enters the room, a slight limp evident, pulling Dom from his spiraling thoughts. The man sits down, and his coat deflates around him so much that it seems draped over a coat hanger. He hasn’t just been tapping into his reserves to assist in shielding communications. After much examination, Sai and Mathur determined the parasite had somehow leeched into him, slowly draining him of energy. While it was good it didn’t take him over, the procedure to remove him from it is far too delicate for him in his current state. Dom doesn’t think he’s the only one worried that Mason won’t make it much longer.
“This one.” Kayde holds a small test vial under his nose.
Dom coughs, brought back to his own reality by the pungent odor in Kayde’s hand. “What did you put in that?”
Kayde winces. “You probably don’t want to know?”
Dom raises an eyebrow because Kayde is probably right. Not that it could turn his stomach, but still… He holds the vial in his hand and seeks the uncertainty, the one place of fear and recrimination that will beckon to his leech. Predictably it comes to the inevitable call. Slimy in its existence, it begins to coax him. He downs the repulsive-smelling vial and waits.
The parasite prods at his mind promising strength and death, carnage and glee.
Nothing happens, and Dom bats it away with his mind, hoping he can keep it up.
“Nothing?” Kayde asks, her eyes shining hopefully.
He shakes his head and her expression falls. Dom decides he kind of likes her, but won’t tell Sai that.
He was so busy concentrating on whether or not the suppressant had an effect, he missed a few new additions. James now stands in the back, muttering quietly to Jeffries. Argyle and Tyrell, two of James’ patrolling lieutenants who’ve come from their stations to help with the final step, stand with them. They’re all scrolling through readers, squashed awkwardly into a corner. Darrien sits next to Mason, holding a jar of something out for him. It’s got an odd, cloudy white look to it, and after extending his sense of smell, Dom realizes it’s liquid oxygen.
Garr walks in the room and leans down to whisper in Mason’s ear before gently nudging Darrien out of the way and taking over the seat. Once Mathur enters, the room is cramped. Dael and Evan file in and slot themselves next to Kayde’s cooler with a nod to Dom.
Sai’s the only one missing, and Dom knows she’s been training. They’ll forgive her for being late.
Garr claps her hands. Her smile is bright, but somehow a little wearier than the last time they gathered. “It’s almost time.”
The words echo with an air of finality in the small room. Sai slips in to stand by Dom, and Garr waits a moment before continuing. “Today is the final checklist day. We need to go over equipment, supplies, combat readiness, transports, and medical preparations.”
Jeffries clears his throat as Kayde wordlessly shoves another vial under Dom’s nose. He finally understands what gag reflex means. This one is worse than the first. He focuses on the trigger again, calls the parasite to him, tempts it to take him over, and gulps down the repulsive tonic.
Kayde said they were designed to absorb into the human tissue, into his mind, and leave a residue in the adrium that would help fend off the dark. The theory makes sense, but after a short while, there’s still no difference and Dom banishes it himself.
This time it’s more difficult. If the thing had claws, Dom would think it was sticking them into him. A sharp pain flares in his head; a flash of anger seeps into him briefly. It’s not stupid. Even this much experimentation is making it wary.
He finally shakes his head, and Kayde clucks her tongue with annoyance.
Dom focuses on Jeffries.
“We’ve modified several of the transports with Dael’s adjustments and will be—hopefully—close on hand with major supplies due to this.”
Garr nods, and Dom realizes he might hav
e waited longer than anticipated to see if that sample took effect.
“Sai and Darrien have been putting the psionically gifted soldiers through the new drills. From what I’ve seen, they’re doing well. We’ve trained on how best to disable a Damascus, but…” Jeffries pauses. “We’re thinking our best bet is taking on the humans in Central.”
“As is the plan. Good to be prepared, though.” Garr pauses and glances at Mathur, who smiles softly.
He looks older again, his skin a little translucent, his hair almost white. “Pulse device is almost done. Almost. I will be cutting it very close.”
She nods at him. “Supplies—other than medical?”
Kayde fiddles with another of her petri dishes before pouring it deftly into a vial and placing it into her cooler.
“Kayde,” Garr gently prods her.
“What?” The scientist finally takes her eyes off her work and glances around. A blush spreads across her cheeks. “Sorry. Supplies are set. I’ve had Joe and Lara portioning them off for me. They’ll be ready in the next thirty-six hours. Individually divided.”
Garr glances at Dom. “And the dominos?”
“We’re in-sync and ready to engage.” The words feel strange to him, alien. Kayde surreptitiously hands him another vial as Garr nods once more.
“Mason will lead with Sai. He’ll patrol with Tyrell through several of the closer PCs.” Her tone is stern.
Sai speaks up anyway. “Is that…” She pauses, confusion written all over her face, as if she’s unsure of how to proceed.
But Garr seems to understand. “He’ll be fine in a couple of days.”
Dom glances at their leader, trying to believe her, but Mason doesn’t look like he’ll be okay—ever.
“If that’s all, we have things we need to do, places we need to be.” She smiles at everyone and helps Mason up. He doesn’t make eye contact with anyone else as he files out of the room.
Kayde pokes him in the shoulder. “Drink it.”
Dom takes a whiff and frowns. “What is this? Rubber water?”
She shrugs. “Pretty much. I figure it likes electricity, so it won’t like water or rubber, right?”